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feedback or ignore this and any other story of mine.
Chapter 4: In which there takes place fencing, fighting, mutants, magic, chases, daring rescues and just the faintest hint of True Love (or at least Mad Love, which is the next best thing). Also, Wisdom and Moira completely fail to have the Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship.
To the surprise of all concerned, the gateway emerged in the craggy hills over a days march to the west of Scone. Jack instantly recognised their surroundings, though, and started them moving – not straight to the city, but slightly to the north. Towards evenfall they reached a river, and he led them up it a short distance to where a bridge crossed just below a waterfall.
The bridge was old, made of pine planks laid between a pair of oak beams. It had no handrail, and was constantly showered with spray from the falls, which towered forty feet above it.
'What is this place?' Katherine asked. Tessa shrugged, and Jack ignored the question, and so Rhane, walking just behind him where she could make faces at Buck, was left to reply.
'Alanbridge, in Glen Shee, this place is called. According to legend a man named Alan McPherson held it against an entire war party for half a day, and then climbed the cliff to safety. We are on the edge of the valley of the Tay, just below Blairgowrie. This river is the Shee. We are on McPherson lands.'
'Is that bad?'
'The McPhersons are kin to my mother, and loyal. When we have her with us, their chief – the Cluny – will not give us up were the legions of hell beating at his door, much less a band of renegades from the Emerald Isle.'
'Unless the Frost Queen controls him as well.' They walked on in silence, soon reaching a road. Jack led them parallel to it for several miles, during which time they saw no one, and then moved into the thick pine forests that lined the way to make camp for the night.
'Why this way?' Colin McKay asked the Hawk as they climbed into the hills, a score of his clansmen strung out behind them.
'If you lost him on the road it's because he abandoned it. He has to know there's people hunting him by now; either he's fleeing south as fast as he can travel, in which case we'll do no more good than your riders by following him, or he's circled round to escape detection. That's what I'd do.'
'And why up the Tay? Why not to the east?'
'Because we've got every ferry on the Firth of Tay watched, and if he has any sense he'll have guessed as much, and Fife itself isn't big enough for him to hide in, and if he has any sense he'll know that too.' The tone of his voice suggested that if he had any sense Colin would have worked this out for himself. 'No, he'll have headed west before Loch Leven, and either be circling to get north of Scone for – whatever his purpose is –' The Hawk trailed off, in a moment of uncertainty. After a second he shook it off.
'Or?' Colin prompted.
'Or he'll be running west into the Highlands, and won't be able to head south until he hits Loch Lomond. It's hard country between there and here, and Wisdom was never gifted in finding his way through the wilderness.'
'But this man is an imposter. Who knows what his skills are?'
'He's enough like Wisdom to fool me. If he has struck out west, we'll still be able to catch him.' The Hawk hefted his unstrung longbow ahead of him and used it to help himself vault a small burn. Behind him McKay and his men waded through, the icy water reaching their knees. Once through, the Champion of Scotland hurried to catch up with the archer, who had not slowed.
'We'll need to stop soon, for the night.' The Hawk nodded.
'We'll be at that hut we spotted earlier in about half an hour.' He replied. 'It's just below the shoulder of this hill.'
They were twelve miles from Wisdom and his companions.
Katherine was woken at dawn the next day by the smell of frying mushrooms. The princess and Jack, she saw, were already up and moving. Rhane was curled up beside the fire, looking alert but relaxed, licking the claw-like nails that grew from her fingertips. The previous day Katherine had observed how the wolf-girl covered the ground with an easy, loping stride that carried her along at a far faster rate than she could, presumably, have managed in her normal appearance, but she distinctly remembered her returning to human form before settling down to sleep. Beside her sat the Nomad, carefully tending a sizzling frying pan. Tessa and Wisdom were still asleep, and Buck was up and moving, but only enough to keep herself snuggled in her foster-father's bearskin cloak.
'Morning.' Rhane greeted her, and then yawned, displaying a frightening array of teeth. 'There'll be cold rabbit and mushrooms soon, and then we'll be heading off to Scone.'
'What's the plan when we get there?' She asked.
'Och, I'm sure your man will think of something. Tessa tells me he's good at his job, one of the best. Hadn't you better wake him now?'
Katherine prodded her lover a couple of times. He murmured something profane, and then reached out to grab her in a manner that she would have welcomed were it not for the audience.
'Pete! We are not alone here.' She told him, slapping his hand. He groaned, and opened his eyes. A blushing Rhane brought over a water skin, and both of them drank briefly. Meanwhile Rhane moved to wake up the Sage.
Twenty minutes later they were all awake and breakfasted, and more or less ready to go – although Tessa and Wisdom showed every sign of not being morning people, and Buck, strapped to Jack's back, had gone back to sleep. Jack carefully extinguished their fire and threw the leftovers of their meal out of sight into the bushes. Then he led them out, with Rhane bringing up the rear.
The trip down Glen Shee was made without speaking, for the most part, with only the occasional swear word from Wisdom as he stumbled on the steep, rough hillside to break the silence. Tessa had almost as much trouble with the terrain as her old friend, but their three companions moved over it easily. After nearly three hours Katherine moved up to walk beside the Nomad.
'Why are you doing this?' She asked him. 'It's not that I'm questioning your motives, I'm just interested in knowing what they are.'
'These hills are old.' He told her. 'The People were here first, raiders and herdsmen. They lived on the hillsides, they kept sheep and hunted deer, and they raided the lowlands and took from the Britons. Then came the Romans, with their iron and their law and their – uniformity. By luck the Romans did not bother with the Highlands, and instead built the two walls to keep us from their lands and their towns. They named the walls after their Emperors, Hadrian and his son, Antoninus Pius. After the Romans the Britons tried to hold the walls, but they had not the numbers or the methods of the Romans, and the People raided them once more, but under the Romans the Britons had moved south, and the pickings were slimmer. Then came the Scots. They were farmers, and they set a King above their chieftains, but they were much like the People. That is why the Irish called them the Scotii, the Wanderers. They wandered into this land, into the Highlands and the plains, and they built themselves a kingdom. They built farms in the shadows of the mountains, and kept sheep on the hillsides, and those that were left of the People could live in comfort.' He paused, and glanced at Katherine before continuing. 'The Valley is a special place to the People. It is where they gather, every tenth year, to negotiate disputes and consider laws. Six years ago the Scots sent envoys to the Valley, to attend the gathering.'
'How did they find the valley?' Katherine had to ask.
'They were escorted by the man called Hawk, a friend of mine. Before he would bring them he came to me for advice, and I took him to the Old Man. The Witch-Queen's envoys came to the gathering bringing gifts for our ruler, but we have no ruler. Instead they spoke to a gathering of chieftains, and divided the gifts between them.
'They asked for an alliance between our people and theirs, between Pict and Scot. They asked for an end to the raids, in exchange for a portion of the yearly harvest of the farmers, a portion of what their Queen already took in taxes. They asked for our aid in war, as scouts and as raiders against their enemies. And they asked for our loyalty, that we should consider ourselves subjects of the Witch-Queen, bound and protected by her law.'
'What did you say?' Their path had turned, and they were now climbing the south side of the valley.
'We agreed.' The Nomad smiled. 'The People have no single leader, and so it was I who made my mark upon the treaty. Therefore it is my duty to uphold it, to give the Witch-Queen aid in war and loyalty in peace. At the New Year the Princess Rhane brought the Sage to me, and they asked for my aid, and since then we have been awaiting an opportunity to combat the Frost Queen.'
Katherine was about to ask him more, but was pre-empted by her lover, walking just behind them.
'What are you among the People?' He asked bluntly.
'When the Romans came the Derfel Scoatt gathered the People against them. When the Britons returned they learned to fear the Huntsman. When the Saxons marched northward the Wodwoe was their enemy, and until seven years ago the Scotii had reason to fear the one they called Jack-in-the-Green. There has always been a Nomad, envoy in peace and champion in war. These twelve years past, that has been me.' He stopped as they topped the ridge they had been ascending, apparently unaffected by the difficult climb. Behind them Tessa and Wisdom were breathing hard. Rhane, climbing on all fours despite her humanoid shape, seemed if anything even less winded than the Nomad, who now pointed.
'Scone.' He said, and from the ridge top they could see five miles along the valley of the Tay to where the first city of Scotland sprawled between river and hill, the hall of the Witch-Queen looming on the northernmost, highest edge. The snow that still lay thick on the ground seemed to somehow upset the scale, so that it seemed for a moment as though they were looking at a small model a few yards away.
'We'll need to get to the north of the place.' Wisdom pointed. 'Then we go in at night. Rhane, wolves can follow a man's scent. Can you find the Queen?' The girl nodded. 'Then it'll be you, Katherine and me. Tessa, I assume you can hide us from Frost?'
'Yes. But only if you're within a couple of miles, and I won't be good for much else.' Wisdom was thinking now, his mind circling their goal as he considered all the problems they would face.
'She'll be guarded, of course, but probably nothing the three of us can't handle. Frost will have alarms of some sought, though, and she may be in the Queen's head. We might have to carry her out, and there'll definitely be at least some pursuit. Jack, we'll need horses. I assume we can all stay on one of the bloody things?'
'They don't like me.' Said Rhane. 'I can keep up when I'm the Wolf, though.' He nodded.
'We'll need to be fast. Get her and get out, hide in the hills until dawn and then –' He paused. 'Then they'll be searching for us. Where will the old man be meeting us?'
'Where he left us.' Jack told him. 'I can get horses from Scone, but they won't hide easily.'
'Is there anyone in town?' Wisdom asked.
'No.' Tessa told him.
'We go at night, abandon the horses after a few miles if we can't see any pursuit, and then run into the hills. We should be back in the valley by sundown tomorrow.'
'Assuming they don't catch us.' Put in Katherine.
'It's not much of a plan.' Said Rhane. 'What about the details?'
'We'll make them up as we go along.' Wisdom told her. 'Always the best way.'
Ten miles behind them the Hawk led McKay and his men into the campsite that their prey had used. The fire was cold, and the hollows and scuffmarks left in the snow could have been there since the last snowfall, nearly two weeks previously.
'They spent the night here.' Said the Hawk, crouching beside the ashes. 'The pretender, Katherine, and three others. A woman, a child, a –' He paused, lifting a tuft of red-brown fur and sniffing it. 'A very large dog and a man.' He ran the end of his bow along a furrow in the snow, six feet long and as wide as his wrist. 'The Nomad.' He straightened, and added almost to himself, 'And the child would be Buck.'
'Nomad?' McKay asked him. 'What would the Pict be doing with this man?'
Hawk did not answer, but his expression was troubled.
As night fell Wisdom, Rhane and Katherine left Tessa and Jack with the five horses the big man had liberated and slipped over the wall at the back of the Royal Hall. Moving swiftly and silently past the watchmen, they edged up to the bulk of the building.
'I don't smell her.' Whispered Rhane. The princess appeared more animal than human, her face elongated and snout-like, her ears pricked, and her entire body coated in fur. If she changed much further she would no longer be able to wear her clothes. Wisdom nodded, and then gestured his two companions to follow as he carefully paced along the wall.
It had been a long time since Wisdom had had cause to slip into this place – the last time had been five years previously, before the Witch-Queen had taken in Rhane or married the Cassidy. Then he had had the advantage of going in alone and unexpected. Now he had the advantage of going in with Katherine.
'Here.' He murmured to her, tapping the wall. She looked up, seeing it rising up sixty feet, the lowest windows on the second level. They were behind the citadel, the near-impregnable fortress of Scone. There were only two entrances, and the place had been designed so that a dozen men could hold it against a thousand. The doors would, Wisdom knew, be heavily guarded.
If he were the Frost Queen he would have kept Moira nowhere else.
'In here?' Whispered Rhane. 'We've no way –' And Katherine grabbed her arm with one hand and Wisdom's hand with the other and stepped forwards, pulling them both through the wall[1].
McKay and the Hawk had reached Scone just after sunset, after a hard march that had taken up the remains of the short day. When they arrived the evening meal was in progress, and so they could not reach the Witch-Queen. Instead they moved side-by-side to the back of the hall, before beginning to edge closer to the high table.
They were nearly there when Black Tom Cassidy moved to meet them.
'Well?' He asked. 'You have killed Wisdom?' Neither warrior was fond of the Witch-Queen's aggressive brother-in-law, but when he arrived in Scone he had been named one of her closest advisors, and so they had to respond.
'He circled round.' The Hawk told him.
'We tracked him towards Scone, and lost him on the outskirts.' McKay added. Black Tom stared at them, his eyes going vacant for a moment as he communicated with his mistress.
'You'd better be finding out what his purpose is here, then.'
'How do you propose we do that?' The Hawk asked, his tone harsh.
'Go back and find his trail again.'
'I'm a forester. I can't track a man through paved streets. Besides, if you were sneaking in to the Witch-Queen's stronghold –'
'The Queen.' McKay muttered. The other two men looked at him. 'He was with the Cassidy two days ago. Why else would he come back here? He's going to kill the queen.'
'Call out the guard.' Snarled Black Tom. 'Keep watch on the streets.'
'The Queen –' Began McKay.
'My men will be guarding her.' The Irishman told him, already striding back towards the high table. He made an emphatic gesture, and four Leignsmen moved up to form a phalanx around the Frost Queen.
The archer and the champion exchanged glances, and then hurried out to search for the infiltrators.
There was a girl waiting for Black Tom just inside the citadel. She was slim and pretty, with long red hair, and she bore a surprising resemblance to his brother.
'What's happening, Tom?' She asked. 'Am I to see the Cassidy tonight?'
'No. There's an alarm, Teresa. We may have raiders who've got inside the citadel. Ye'd best go to your room and wait.' Behind him the Irish guards were beginning to arrive.
Five minutes later the Frost Queen swept through the narrow gateway of the citadel, accompanied by Jason, Black Tom, and a dozen bodyguards.
Two levels below ground, Rhane hesitated, sniffing the air.
'Down there.' She pointed down a corridor at right angles to their current route. Wisdom and Katherine followed her down. The short hallway terminated at a tall, narrow, and above all heavy oak door. Rhane pointed straight at it, and Wisdom nodded. He squeezed past her awkwardly, and then reached into his belt pouch for a lockpick. Katherine could have walked the three of them through the door as easily as the stone wall, but she could not have then brought both of them and the cell's occupant out at once, and it had been agreed that they should not split up for any reason.
It took Wisdom less than five minutes to open the door – though he could not help but think that his old friend Gambit would have been through in a tenth of the time. He shoved it inward and stepped over the threshold.
A rough wooden plank, lifted from the pallet that lay against one wall, was swung straight into his jaw before he could react. He went down.
'Mum!' Rhane yelled, and rushed to stand over him. Looking past her Katherine saw a slime, red-haired woman who would have been the spitting image of the Queen who had entertained them two nights previously, except that her hair hung loose and lank and her clothes, while clearly expensive, also looked tough, practical and as if they hadn't been changed for at least a week.
The Witch-Queen blinked at her daughter.
'Rhane?' She seemed nonplussed for a moment, but then reached down to hoist Wisdom to his feet. 'I assume you have a way out planned?' Katherine hurried forward to help support her lover.
'Rhane, lead the way.' She ordered, and the wolf-girl nodded and hurried down the corridor. 'We'll need to go up two floors, then out to meet Jack and Tessa.'
'Then where?' Moira asked.
'West. A few miles above Alanbridge, I think.' The four of them hurried swiftly down the corridor and up two flight of stairs. At the top Katherine found Rhane stopped dead, sniffing the air.
'Someone's coming.' She whispered, pointing along the corridor. Katherine looked down at Wisdom, still unconscious and with a rapidly darkening bruise across his face. When she looked back up Moira at least had the grace to look slightly guilty.
Katherine gestured, and they began to ascend the next flight of stairs. If they were lucky, the searchers would go down first, and they would be able to slip out past them.
As they reached the next floor a cry went up from below.
'The gaoler is unconscious! Check the prisoner!'
The three women crouched together, listening. Behind them a short corridor stretched the length of the citadel, intersecting with another passageway at the centre. Although its walls were curved, the fortress retained the essentially foursquare design popularised by the Romans centuries before. There were only four rooms on this floor, and only one of them was occupied.
Behind Katherine's back, a door was silently opened.
The young woman named Teresa was, although she did not know the details, the daughter of Sean Cassidy. She had been raised by her uncle Tom, who had told her that her father had abandoned her, but despite this she felt a deep desire to be accepted by the man. The day Black Tom had told her that they were travelling to Scone had been one of the happiest of her life, and in the following weeks she had constantly chafed for a chance to meet him. Thanks to the Frost Queen's manipulations, though, she had only seen him and his 'wife' from afar – but it was enough. As she exited her room she recognised the older woman instantly.
Before she could say anything, Rhane caught her scent. Her head snapped round, teeth bared, and Teresa took a step backwards. An instant later Katherine had seized her, pressing her to the wall with a hand over her mouth and a dagger held to her throat.
'If you value your life,' the outlaw's tone was low and deadly, 'don't scream.' Teresa nodded, and the hand was removed from her mouth.
'Majesty?' She whispered. Moira turned to look at her.
'What is it, girl?'
'What's happening?' The Queen frowned.
'Do I know you?'
'Nae. I may be your husband's daughter.' Moira stared at her for a long moment. 'I'd know if I could just meet him, but these past five weeks he would not see me.' Below them shouts could be heard, and feet descending the stairs. A short distance away Wisdom was groaning and beginning to move. Katherine removed her blade from the older woman's throat, and hurried to help her lover to his feet.
'Let's go.' She murmured.
'These past five weeks his mind has not been his own.' Moira told Teresa. 'But come away with us, and there may yet be hope.'
'Uncle Tom –' The girl began, already beginning to follow the Witch-Queen.
'If you truly are Sean's daughter, then Black Tom is the man who killed your mother.'
Wisdom was able to walk by himself by the time they reached the ground floor. As he paused, looking around to check their location, he gently probed his jaw, and winced.
Katherine, crouched beside him, looked at him with concern.
'I'm okay, Kitty.' He reassured her. 'No thanks to that ungrateful harridan.' He glanced up at the descending monarch. 'You'd better take her and the princess out first.' She nodded, and started towards them. 'And Kitty? Be ready for an ambush. It's going too well.' As the young woman took the hands of her first two charges, Black Tom Cassidy appeared around the curve of the spiral stairs.
'True.' He said, and raised the wooden shillelagh[2] he held in his right hand, and unleashed a blast of dark golden energy.
As Black Tom Cassidy yelled out an alarm to the guards behind him, everything seemed to happen at once.
Wisdom leaped backward, narrowly avoiding his first attack. The blast impacted right next to him, the concussion lifting the young Briton off his feet and slamming him into the far wall.
Behind him Katherine grabbed the Queen Moira and the Princess Rhane and jerked them backwards through the wall, to stumble down the short drop between what was floor level within the citadel and actual ground level outside.
And Teresa rushed forwards to confront her uncle.
'Did you do it?' She demanded.
'What?' He snarled, trying to push past her in order to finish off Wisdom. Behind him several of his warriors began to hasten up the stairs; others rushed to the staircase at the opposite corner of the fortress.
'Did you kill my mother?' He stared at her in surprise.
'I don't have time for this.' He snarled, and struck her aside with a blow of his shillelagh before raising it to finish off Wisdom.
Katherine stepped back through the wall five feet away, sword drawn, and took in the situation at a glance. As Teresa fell to the floor the outlaw stepped past the girl and drove her sword forward in a perfect lunge that impaled the Irishman's wrist. Black Tom's hand spasmed open, his own weapon dropping to the floor. A guard burst out of the stairwell beside him, sword drawn, and Wisdom, recovering, unleashed a fistful of blades of pure heat that sliced cleanly through wooden shield, leather armour, and human flesh and bone, dropping him dying to the floor. Two more warriors appeared at the far end of the main corridor, and another started to push past the twitching corpse on the stairs.
Katherine had killed before, in battle with the Saxon Marauders, but they had been armed and trying to kill her. Black Tom was wounded and unarmed, and she therefore hesitated to strike him down despite his attempting to kill her lover. Instead she kicked him in the crotch with clinical precision, and then slammed the sword hilt into the back of his head. He dropped like a sack of bricks. Beside her Wisdom had killed the next man up the stairs, and she took the momentary respite this bought them to grab him by the arm and pull him towards the wall, looking around for Teresa as she did so.
Teresa faced off alone against the two advancing Leignsmen. They moved forward slightly hesitantly; although she was clearly aiding their enemies, she was still the ward of Black Tom, favoured of their mistress.
As they hesitated, Teresa screamed, and the roof fell in.
By the time the Frost Queen and her guards forced their way up past the corpses, the intruders had vanished completely.
Outside the expanded party rode west over the snow. Due to the unexpected addition of Teresa, Katherine and Wisdom shared a horse, and because her animalistic form tended to upset the horses Rhane was running several dozen yards ahead, finding their way. They rode at a fast canter, trying to get the maximum of distance out of their mounts without tiring them.
As they crossed the bridge over the Tay, their horses' hooves rang loud into the night. A quarter of a mile away, on the city wall, Colin McKay and the Hawk heard the noise clearly. In these troubled times, riders in the night could only be dishonest, and their prey were the most likely candidates.
'They have horses.' The Hawks voice was grim.
'To Horse!' His companion yelled to his men, and they rushed towards the royal stables.
In the stables of an inn on the western edge of the city this exchange was overheard by a tall, powerful figure, armoured and masked in red and black. Earlier he had heard a sound echoing from the citadel, a sound that he had heard but twice in his life more than six months before but that he would recognise if he did not hear it again for a millennium. He had instantly risen and headed to prepare his own steed, and now he tightened a final girth and led it out into the street.
'I'll find you, Terry.' He muttered, and the Dead Man rode into the night.
----------------------- [1] Yep, now tell me you didn't see that one coming.
[2] I'd just like to mention that I got the spelling on this right first time, which I think is kind of impressive, on an extremely petty level. While I'm down here, though – did you really think I'd write a story with Sean and Black Tom, but no Teresa? I am NOT putting the Juggernaut in, though. The cast is large enough as it is.
Chapter 4: In which there takes place fencing, fighting, mutants, magic, chases, daring rescues and just the faintest hint of True Love (or at least Mad Love, which is the next best thing). Also, Wisdom and Moira completely fail to have the Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship.
To the surprise of all concerned, the gateway emerged in the craggy hills over a days march to the west of Scone. Jack instantly recognised their surroundings, though, and started them moving – not straight to the city, but slightly to the north. Towards evenfall they reached a river, and he led them up it a short distance to where a bridge crossed just below a waterfall.
The bridge was old, made of pine planks laid between a pair of oak beams. It had no handrail, and was constantly showered with spray from the falls, which towered forty feet above it.
'What is this place?' Katherine asked. Tessa shrugged, and Jack ignored the question, and so Rhane, walking just behind him where she could make faces at Buck, was left to reply.
'Alanbridge, in Glen Shee, this place is called. According to legend a man named Alan McPherson held it against an entire war party for half a day, and then climbed the cliff to safety. We are on the edge of the valley of the Tay, just below Blairgowrie. This river is the Shee. We are on McPherson lands.'
'Is that bad?'
'The McPhersons are kin to my mother, and loyal. When we have her with us, their chief – the Cluny – will not give us up were the legions of hell beating at his door, much less a band of renegades from the Emerald Isle.'
'Unless the Frost Queen controls him as well.' They walked on in silence, soon reaching a road. Jack led them parallel to it for several miles, during which time they saw no one, and then moved into the thick pine forests that lined the way to make camp for the night.
'Why this way?' Colin McKay asked the Hawk as they climbed into the hills, a score of his clansmen strung out behind them.
'If you lost him on the road it's because he abandoned it. He has to know there's people hunting him by now; either he's fleeing south as fast as he can travel, in which case we'll do no more good than your riders by following him, or he's circled round to escape detection. That's what I'd do.'
'And why up the Tay? Why not to the east?'
'Because we've got every ferry on the Firth of Tay watched, and if he has any sense he'll have guessed as much, and Fife itself isn't big enough for him to hide in, and if he has any sense he'll know that too.' The tone of his voice suggested that if he had any sense Colin would have worked this out for himself. 'No, he'll have headed west before Loch Leven, and either be circling to get north of Scone for – whatever his purpose is –' The Hawk trailed off, in a moment of uncertainty. After a second he shook it off.
'Or?' Colin prompted.
'Or he'll be running west into the Highlands, and won't be able to head south until he hits Loch Lomond. It's hard country between there and here, and Wisdom was never gifted in finding his way through the wilderness.'
'But this man is an imposter. Who knows what his skills are?'
'He's enough like Wisdom to fool me. If he has struck out west, we'll still be able to catch him.' The Hawk hefted his unstrung longbow ahead of him and used it to help himself vault a small burn. Behind him McKay and his men waded through, the icy water reaching their knees. Once through, the Champion of Scotland hurried to catch up with the archer, who had not slowed.
'We'll need to stop soon, for the night.' The Hawk nodded.
'We'll be at that hut we spotted earlier in about half an hour.' He replied. 'It's just below the shoulder of this hill.'
They were twelve miles from Wisdom and his companions.
Katherine was woken at dawn the next day by the smell of frying mushrooms. The princess and Jack, she saw, were already up and moving. Rhane was curled up beside the fire, looking alert but relaxed, licking the claw-like nails that grew from her fingertips. The previous day Katherine had observed how the wolf-girl covered the ground with an easy, loping stride that carried her along at a far faster rate than she could, presumably, have managed in her normal appearance, but she distinctly remembered her returning to human form before settling down to sleep. Beside her sat the Nomad, carefully tending a sizzling frying pan. Tessa and Wisdom were still asleep, and Buck was up and moving, but only enough to keep herself snuggled in her foster-father's bearskin cloak.
'Morning.' Rhane greeted her, and then yawned, displaying a frightening array of teeth. 'There'll be cold rabbit and mushrooms soon, and then we'll be heading off to Scone.'
'What's the plan when we get there?' She asked.
'Och, I'm sure your man will think of something. Tessa tells me he's good at his job, one of the best. Hadn't you better wake him now?'
Katherine prodded her lover a couple of times. He murmured something profane, and then reached out to grab her in a manner that she would have welcomed were it not for the audience.
'Pete! We are not alone here.' She told him, slapping his hand. He groaned, and opened his eyes. A blushing Rhane brought over a water skin, and both of them drank briefly. Meanwhile Rhane moved to wake up the Sage.
Twenty minutes later they were all awake and breakfasted, and more or less ready to go – although Tessa and Wisdom showed every sign of not being morning people, and Buck, strapped to Jack's back, had gone back to sleep. Jack carefully extinguished their fire and threw the leftovers of their meal out of sight into the bushes. Then he led them out, with Rhane bringing up the rear.
The trip down Glen Shee was made without speaking, for the most part, with only the occasional swear word from Wisdom as he stumbled on the steep, rough hillside to break the silence. Tessa had almost as much trouble with the terrain as her old friend, but their three companions moved over it easily. After nearly three hours Katherine moved up to walk beside the Nomad.
'Why are you doing this?' She asked him. 'It's not that I'm questioning your motives, I'm just interested in knowing what they are.'
'These hills are old.' He told her. 'The People were here first, raiders and herdsmen. They lived on the hillsides, they kept sheep and hunted deer, and they raided the lowlands and took from the Britons. Then came the Romans, with their iron and their law and their – uniformity. By luck the Romans did not bother with the Highlands, and instead built the two walls to keep us from their lands and their towns. They named the walls after their Emperors, Hadrian and his son, Antoninus Pius. After the Romans the Britons tried to hold the walls, but they had not the numbers or the methods of the Romans, and the People raided them once more, but under the Romans the Britons had moved south, and the pickings were slimmer. Then came the Scots. They were farmers, and they set a King above their chieftains, but they were much like the People. That is why the Irish called them the Scotii, the Wanderers. They wandered into this land, into the Highlands and the plains, and they built themselves a kingdom. They built farms in the shadows of the mountains, and kept sheep on the hillsides, and those that were left of the People could live in comfort.' He paused, and glanced at Katherine before continuing. 'The Valley is a special place to the People. It is where they gather, every tenth year, to negotiate disputes and consider laws. Six years ago the Scots sent envoys to the Valley, to attend the gathering.'
'How did they find the valley?' Katherine had to ask.
'They were escorted by the man called Hawk, a friend of mine. Before he would bring them he came to me for advice, and I took him to the Old Man. The Witch-Queen's envoys came to the gathering bringing gifts for our ruler, but we have no ruler. Instead they spoke to a gathering of chieftains, and divided the gifts between them.
'They asked for an alliance between our people and theirs, between Pict and Scot. They asked for an end to the raids, in exchange for a portion of the yearly harvest of the farmers, a portion of what their Queen already took in taxes. They asked for our aid in war, as scouts and as raiders against their enemies. And they asked for our loyalty, that we should consider ourselves subjects of the Witch-Queen, bound and protected by her law.'
'What did you say?' Their path had turned, and they were now climbing the south side of the valley.
'We agreed.' The Nomad smiled. 'The People have no single leader, and so it was I who made my mark upon the treaty. Therefore it is my duty to uphold it, to give the Witch-Queen aid in war and loyalty in peace. At the New Year the Princess Rhane brought the Sage to me, and they asked for my aid, and since then we have been awaiting an opportunity to combat the Frost Queen.'
Katherine was about to ask him more, but was pre-empted by her lover, walking just behind them.
'What are you among the People?' He asked bluntly.
'When the Romans came the Derfel Scoatt gathered the People against them. When the Britons returned they learned to fear the Huntsman. When the Saxons marched northward the Wodwoe was their enemy, and until seven years ago the Scotii had reason to fear the one they called Jack-in-the-Green. There has always been a Nomad, envoy in peace and champion in war. These twelve years past, that has been me.' He stopped as they topped the ridge they had been ascending, apparently unaffected by the difficult climb. Behind them Tessa and Wisdom were breathing hard. Rhane, climbing on all fours despite her humanoid shape, seemed if anything even less winded than the Nomad, who now pointed.
'Scone.' He said, and from the ridge top they could see five miles along the valley of the Tay to where the first city of Scotland sprawled between river and hill, the hall of the Witch-Queen looming on the northernmost, highest edge. The snow that still lay thick on the ground seemed to somehow upset the scale, so that it seemed for a moment as though they were looking at a small model a few yards away.
'We'll need to get to the north of the place.' Wisdom pointed. 'Then we go in at night. Rhane, wolves can follow a man's scent. Can you find the Queen?' The girl nodded. 'Then it'll be you, Katherine and me. Tessa, I assume you can hide us from Frost?'
'Yes. But only if you're within a couple of miles, and I won't be good for much else.' Wisdom was thinking now, his mind circling their goal as he considered all the problems they would face.
'She'll be guarded, of course, but probably nothing the three of us can't handle. Frost will have alarms of some sought, though, and she may be in the Queen's head. We might have to carry her out, and there'll definitely be at least some pursuit. Jack, we'll need horses. I assume we can all stay on one of the bloody things?'
'They don't like me.' Said Rhane. 'I can keep up when I'm the Wolf, though.' He nodded.
'We'll need to be fast. Get her and get out, hide in the hills until dawn and then –' He paused. 'Then they'll be searching for us. Where will the old man be meeting us?'
'Where he left us.' Jack told him. 'I can get horses from Scone, but they won't hide easily.'
'Is there anyone in town?' Wisdom asked.
'No.' Tessa told him.
'We go at night, abandon the horses after a few miles if we can't see any pursuit, and then run into the hills. We should be back in the valley by sundown tomorrow.'
'Assuming they don't catch us.' Put in Katherine.
'It's not much of a plan.' Said Rhane. 'What about the details?'
'We'll make them up as we go along.' Wisdom told her. 'Always the best way.'
Ten miles behind them the Hawk led McKay and his men into the campsite that their prey had used. The fire was cold, and the hollows and scuffmarks left in the snow could have been there since the last snowfall, nearly two weeks previously.
'They spent the night here.' Said the Hawk, crouching beside the ashes. 'The pretender, Katherine, and three others. A woman, a child, a –' He paused, lifting a tuft of red-brown fur and sniffing it. 'A very large dog and a man.' He ran the end of his bow along a furrow in the snow, six feet long and as wide as his wrist. 'The Nomad.' He straightened, and added almost to himself, 'And the child would be Buck.'
'Nomad?' McKay asked him. 'What would the Pict be doing with this man?'
Hawk did not answer, but his expression was troubled.
As night fell Wisdom, Rhane and Katherine left Tessa and Jack with the five horses the big man had liberated and slipped over the wall at the back of the Royal Hall. Moving swiftly and silently past the watchmen, they edged up to the bulk of the building.
'I don't smell her.' Whispered Rhane. The princess appeared more animal than human, her face elongated and snout-like, her ears pricked, and her entire body coated in fur. If she changed much further she would no longer be able to wear her clothes. Wisdom nodded, and then gestured his two companions to follow as he carefully paced along the wall.
It had been a long time since Wisdom had had cause to slip into this place – the last time had been five years previously, before the Witch-Queen had taken in Rhane or married the Cassidy. Then he had had the advantage of going in alone and unexpected. Now he had the advantage of going in with Katherine.
'Here.' He murmured to her, tapping the wall. She looked up, seeing it rising up sixty feet, the lowest windows on the second level. They were behind the citadel, the near-impregnable fortress of Scone. There were only two entrances, and the place had been designed so that a dozen men could hold it against a thousand. The doors would, Wisdom knew, be heavily guarded.
If he were the Frost Queen he would have kept Moira nowhere else.
'In here?' Whispered Rhane. 'We've no way –' And Katherine grabbed her arm with one hand and Wisdom's hand with the other and stepped forwards, pulling them both through the wall[1].
McKay and the Hawk had reached Scone just after sunset, after a hard march that had taken up the remains of the short day. When they arrived the evening meal was in progress, and so they could not reach the Witch-Queen. Instead they moved side-by-side to the back of the hall, before beginning to edge closer to the high table.
They were nearly there when Black Tom Cassidy moved to meet them.
'Well?' He asked. 'You have killed Wisdom?' Neither warrior was fond of the Witch-Queen's aggressive brother-in-law, but when he arrived in Scone he had been named one of her closest advisors, and so they had to respond.
'He circled round.' The Hawk told him.
'We tracked him towards Scone, and lost him on the outskirts.' McKay added. Black Tom stared at them, his eyes going vacant for a moment as he communicated with his mistress.
'You'd better be finding out what his purpose is here, then.'
'How do you propose we do that?' The Hawk asked, his tone harsh.
'Go back and find his trail again.'
'I'm a forester. I can't track a man through paved streets. Besides, if you were sneaking in to the Witch-Queen's stronghold –'
'The Queen.' McKay muttered. The other two men looked at him. 'He was with the Cassidy two days ago. Why else would he come back here? He's going to kill the queen.'
'Call out the guard.' Snarled Black Tom. 'Keep watch on the streets.'
'The Queen –' Began McKay.
'My men will be guarding her.' The Irishman told him, already striding back towards the high table. He made an emphatic gesture, and four Leignsmen moved up to form a phalanx around the Frost Queen.
The archer and the champion exchanged glances, and then hurried out to search for the infiltrators.
There was a girl waiting for Black Tom just inside the citadel. She was slim and pretty, with long red hair, and she bore a surprising resemblance to his brother.
'What's happening, Tom?' She asked. 'Am I to see the Cassidy tonight?'
'No. There's an alarm, Teresa. We may have raiders who've got inside the citadel. Ye'd best go to your room and wait.' Behind him the Irish guards were beginning to arrive.
Five minutes later the Frost Queen swept through the narrow gateway of the citadel, accompanied by Jason, Black Tom, and a dozen bodyguards.
Two levels below ground, Rhane hesitated, sniffing the air.
'Down there.' She pointed down a corridor at right angles to their current route. Wisdom and Katherine followed her down. The short hallway terminated at a tall, narrow, and above all heavy oak door. Rhane pointed straight at it, and Wisdom nodded. He squeezed past her awkwardly, and then reached into his belt pouch for a lockpick. Katherine could have walked the three of them through the door as easily as the stone wall, but she could not have then brought both of them and the cell's occupant out at once, and it had been agreed that they should not split up for any reason.
It took Wisdom less than five minutes to open the door – though he could not help but think that his old friend Gambit would have been through in a tenth of the time. He shoved it inward and stepped over the threshold.
A rough wooden plank, lifted from the pallet that lay against one wall, was swung straight into his jaw before he could react. He went down.
'Mum!' Rhane yelled, and rushed to stand over him. Looking past her Katherine saw a slime, red-haired woman who would have been the spitting image of the Queen who had entertained them two nights previously, except that her hair hung loose and lank and her clothes, while clearly expensive, also looked tough, practical and as if they hadn't been changed for at least a week.
The Witch-Queen blinked at her daughter.
'Rhane?' She seemed nonplussed for a moment, but then reached down to hoist Wisdom to his feet. 'I assume you have a way out planned?' Katherine hurried forward to help support her lover.
'Rhane, lead the way.' She ordered, and the wolf-girl nodded and hurried down the corridor. 'We'll need to go up two floors, then out to meet Jack and Tessa.'
'Then where?' Moira asked.
'West. A few miles above Alanbridge, I think.' The four of them hurried swiftly down the corridor and up two flight of stairs. At the top Katherine found Rhane stopped dead, sniffing the air.
'Someone's coming.' She whispered, pointing along the corridor. Katherine looked down at Wisdom, still unconscious and with a rapidly darkening bruise across his face. When she looked back up Moira at least had the grace to look slightly guilty.
Katherine gestured, and they began to ascend the next flight of stairs. If they were lucky, the searchers would go down first, and they would be able to slip out past them.
As they reached the next floor a cry went up from below.
'The gaoler is unconscious! Check the prisoner!'
The three women crouched together, listening. Behind them a short corridor stretched the length of the citadel, intersecting with another passageway at the centre. Although its walls were curved, the fortress retained the essentially foursquare design popularised by the Romans centuries before. There were only four rooms on this floor, and only one of them was occupied.
Behind Katherine's back, a door was silently opened.
The young woman named Teresa was, although she did not know the details, the daughter of Sean Cassidy. She had been raised by her uncle Tom, who had told her that her father had abandoned her, but despite this she felt a deep desire to be accepted by the man. The day Black Tom had told her that they were travelling to Scone had been one of the happiest of her life, and in the following weeks she had constantly chafed for a chance to meet him. Thanks to the Frost Queen's manipulations, though, she had only seen him and his 'wife' from afar – but it was enough. As she exited her room she recognised the older woman instantly.
Before she could say anything, Rhane caught her scent. Her head snapped round, teeth bared, and Teresa took a step backwards. An instant later Katherine had seized her, pressing her to the wall with a hand over her mouth and a dagger held to her throat.
'If you value your life,' the outlaw's tone was low and deadly, 'don't scream.' Teresa nodded, and the hand was removed from her mouth.
'Majesty?' She whispered. Moira turned to look at her.
'What is it, girl?'
'What's happening?' The Queen frowned.
'Do I know you?'
'Nae. I may be your husband's daughter.' Moira stared at her for a long moment. 'I'd know if I could just meet him, but these past five weeks he would not see me.' Below them shouts could be heard, and feet descending the stairs. A short distance away Wisdom was groaning and beginning to move. Katherine removed her blade from the older woman's throat, and hurried to help her lover to his feet.
'Let's go.' She murmured.
'These past five weeks his mind has not been his own.' Moira told Teresa. 'But come away with us, and there may yet be hope.'
'Uncle Tom –' The girl began, already beginning to follow the Witch-Queen.
'If you truly are Sean's daughter, then Black Tom is the man who killed your mother.'
Wisdom was able to walk by himself by the time they reached the ground floor. As he paused, looking around to check their location, he gently probed his jaw, and winced.
Katherine, crouched beside him, looked at him with concern.
'I'm okay, Kitty.' He reassured her. 'No thanks to that ungrateful harridan.' He glanced up at the descending monarch. 'You'd better take her and the princess out first.' She nodded, and started towards them. 'And Kitty? Be ready for an ambush. It's going too well.' As the young woman took the hands of her first two charges, Black Tom Cassidy appeared around the curve of the spiral stairs.
'True.' He said, and raised the wooden shillelagh[2] he held in his right hand, and unleashed a blast of dark golden energy.
As Black Tom Cassidy yelled out an alarm to the guards behind him, everything seemed to happen at once.
Wisdom leaped backward, narrowly avoiding his first attack. The blast impacted right next to him, the concussion lifting the young Briton off his feet and slamming him into the far wall.
Behind him Katherine grabbed the Queen Moira and the Princess Rhane and jerked them backwards through the wall, to stumble down the short drop between what was floor level within the citadel and actual ground level outside.
And Teresa rushed forwards to confront her uncle.
'Did you do it?' She demanded.
'What?' He snarled, trying to push past her in order to finish off Wisdom. Behind him several of his warriors began to hasten up the stairs; others rushed to the staircase at the opposite corner of the fortress.
'Did you kill my mother?' He stared at her in surprise.
'I don't have time for this.' He snarled, and struck her aside with a blow of his shillelagh before raising it to finish off Wisdom.
Katherine stepped back through the wall five feet away, sword drawn, and took in the situation at a glance. As Teresa fell to the floor the outlaw stepped past the girl and drove her sword forward in a perfect lunge that impaled the Irishman's wrist. Black Tom's hand spasmed open, his own weapon dropping to the floor. A guard burst out of the stairwell beside him, sword drawn, and Wisdom, recovering, unleashed a fistful of blades of pure heat that sliced cleanly through wooden shield, leather armour, and human flesh and bone, dropping him dying to the floor. Two more warriors appeared at the far end of the main corridor, and another started to push past the twitching corpse on the stairs.
Katherine had killed before, in battle with the Saxon Marauders, but they had been armed and trying to kill her. Black Tom was wounded and unarmed, and she therefore hesitated to strike him down despite his attempting to kill her lover. Instead she kicked him in the crotch with clinical precision, and then slammed the sword hilt into the back of his head. He dropped like a sack of bricks. Beside her Wisdom had killed the next man up the stairs, and she took the momentary respite this bought them to grab him by the arm and pull him towards the wall, looking around for Teresa as she did so.
Teresa faced off alone against the two advancing Leignsmen. They moved forward slightly hesitantly; although she was clearly aiding their enemies, she was still the ward of Black Tom, favoured of their mistress.
As they hesitated, Teresa screamed, and the roof fell in.
By the time the Frost Queen and her guards forced their way up past the corpses, the intruders had vanished completely.
Outside the expanded party rode west over the snow. Due to the unexpected addition of Teresa, Katherine and Wisdom shared a horse, and because her animalistic form tended to upset the horses Rhane was running several dozen yards ahead, finding their way. They rode at a fast canter, trying to get the maximum of distance out of their mounts without tiring them.
As they crossed the bridge over the Tay, their horses' hooves rang loud into the night. A quarter of a mile away, on the city wall, Colin McKay and the Hawk heard the noise clearly. In these troubled times, riders in the night could only be dishonest, and their prey were the most likely candidates.
'They have horses.' The Hawks voice was grim.
'To Horse!' His companion yelled to his men, and they rushed towards the royal stables.
In the stables of an inn on the western edge of the city this exchange was overheard by a tall, powerful figure, armoured and masked in red and black. Earlier he had heard a sound echoing from the citadel, a sound that he had heard but twice in his life more than six months before but that he would recognise if he did not hear it again for a millennium. He had instantly risen and headed to prepare his own steed, and now he tightened a final girth and led it out into the street.
'I'll find you, Terry.' He muttered, and the Dead Man rode into the night.
----------------------- [1] Yep, now tell me you didn't see that one coming.
[2] I'd just like to mention that I got the spelling on this right first time, which I think is kind of impressive, on an extremely petty level. While I'm down here, though – did you really think I'd write a story with Sean and Black Tom, but no Teresa? I am NOT putting the Juggernaut in, though. The cast is large enough as it is.