Chapter 27
Peeking from behind a thick trunk, I can make out some details.
Around the barrow’s entrance is a series of stones, and I imagine there’s more beneath the greenery that grows over the top of the mound as camouflage.
There’s a sloping path that leads down into the maw, but there’s not much more to see from out here.
With a deep breath, I tie Rosie’s reins to a branch, leaving her in the shadows where she’ll be less noticeable.
‘You stay here, Rosie, because if I come running out, we’re both in trouble. ’
Nervously, I check the contents of the satchel again: nothing’s changed; nothing more, nothing less.
After a moment’s consideration, I leave the bow and quiver hanging on the saddle horn because if it comes to a fight in that barrow, my knife will serve me better.
I give the sheath at my waist a pat, then step out of the shadows and into the bright midday clearing.
I move slowly, listening hard. No birdsong here, nor insects, even at this time of the year there’s usually some sort of noise; autumn doesn’t have winter’s crisp clarity, merely a sort of dull echo.
Up closer, I see thick roots weaving in and out of the stone walls which look older than the foliage – is that greenery a late addition?
At the entrance, there’s not a simple forward path inside but rather one that winds to the right and down – it’s dark but somewhere further in, further down, there’s a glow, so I don’t bother with my tinderbox but keep one hand on the damp wall as a guide and support.
A few feet more and I encounter one, two, three curtain walls to block the daylight.
If this isn’t a long-term lair, then it’s somewhere that’s been taken over in recent times; shifted into by some sort of cuckoo, taking over a husk and repurposing it.
I make my way quietly and carefully to the bottom of the slope, and find myself in a large round chamber, niches cut into the wall, torches lit and throwing soft light and dancing shadows in equal measure.
Firelight, not daylight, not sunlight – needed for something other than a nocturnal creature that can see in utter blackness.
This illumination, then, is for a mortal.
A minion. A thrall. Someone who tried to break into my cottage for reasons unknown.
Or perhaps guessable. There are some small tables, rustic chairs, a roll of shroud-cloth like that wrapped around the meat in the red cloak.
Scattered across the stone floor: piles of bones and heaps of fur-covered hide, black as night.
Long heavy skulls, large bones. Not small bones, not children’s.
Wish-hounds? Wish-hounds in the daylight hours, disarticulated, waiting for nightfall, for their master’s call to hunt.
I’m careful as I make my way between them, as if my presence might rouse them.
When they do wake? No doubt they’ll smell my scent, recognise it because they’ve stalked me before.
It adds a little speed to my delicate steps, in the interests of getting back to the cottage before darkness.
On the other side of the chamber is another doorway, another corridor, spiralling downwards.
But additional rooms run off this chamber and I inspect those first, pulling a burning brand from the firepit; most are unlit and empty of anything except more funeral niches, decayed coffins and urns, cobweb-covered grave goods, the occasional skull (human), until I come to the last one.
A round dais is built up in its centre, and four biers radiate around an enormous throne of stone and bone in the middle of the dais itself.
There are two firepits either side of the dais and they’re ablaze; their purpose, I think, is to keep the small bodies on two of the biers warm.
I drop the burning brand into the nearest one.
I hurry over to the still forms: Ari Hadderholm in a filthy yellow tunic and brown trews – no sign of the remains of her red cloak – and Matthias Peppergill, in the blue pyjamas I found him in that day in his garden.
Children who are apparently safe and sound in the village.
A quick check establishes both have pulses, dry skin, no trace of a fever, but are also in a very deep sleep – both of them pinched hard, neither waking; I wonder what their counterparts in the village feel?
I could lay my hands on them and explore their bones, the truth of their flesh, to make sure they’re what they seem, but that would be too cruel – to have them possibly wake screaming.
But Ari…
Ari is not whole. Her left shoulder is gone, though the wound doesn’t bleed, isn’t cauterised; I’m looking at a cross-section of muscle and tissue and bone.
I think of that chunk of flesh wrapped in the cloak, the thing I couldn’t bear to look at too closely when it appeared on my doorstep, not even to establish if it was shoulder or haunch or whatever.
I think about scrying for her, with that scrap of cloak, yet she was here all along – and this barrow, this strange place, was enough to shield her from me…
As I’m reaching out to examine the severing, I feel as much as hear the pounding of hoofbeats from above. Someone charging across the clearing.
I cannot carry them both with me, cannot get both onto Rosie and hold them there while we gallop through the forest, likely pursued.
And if I take Ari, I cannot guarantee that removing her from this location – this locus of whatever power it is – won’t kill her.
And if I take one and not the other… I cannot know what will happen to the one left behind.
It makes sense to leave them here, though the decision is cold and I can feel its chill on my spine.
Both are alive and have been for weeks, months.
They serve a purpose here. And if my reading last night confirmed anything for me, it’s that changeling magic (as opposed to other types of double-goer magic) requires the original to stay alive in order for their copies to continue functioning elsewhere.
Ergo, they are safe here for the time being.
I’ll return with others. I can return with Anselm and Thaddeus Peppergill and Faolan and as many men and women who want to join us.
Any number of other brawny folk will come with me to rescue these children.
If I just can convince them that those in the village are nothing more than fetches, doubles.
I think about the Hadderholms and the Peppergills, so sleep-deprived and pale-looking.
I think about things that steal energy and life away to feed themselves – not blood, not like the Leech Lords rumoured to be gone from the Darklands now – but spirit and thought and essence.
The things in those homes, pretending to be children, have taken up residence for their own reasons, or in the service of something else – something greater. Something worse.
The hoofbeats stop. I pray Rosie keeps her mouth shut, doesn’t decide she needs to greet the new arrival.
What to do?
I fish the tiny blue bottle from my satchel, almost dropping it in my haste.
I shake a few drops of the oil onto my thumb, then draw a circle on each child’s forehead – the oil contains a little of my own blood; hopefully it’ll prove as effective as the wards which also have my red price in them.
I whisper a blessing and a promise to return, then wait by the doorway of the dais room until there’s the distant echo of boots on the stones of the entrance.
I could fight, go on the offensive – but if I die, if I’m overpowered, then these two are lost. And Rhea is left alone in the forest with a child and things clamouring to get in. Hand on my knife, I hold my breath.
The footsteps are coming closer. These are the longest seconds of my life – my recent life – then the incomer paces past, towards where the corridor continues spiralling down into lower chambers.
As soon as they’re dim echoes, I’m up on my tiptoes, moving as quickly as I can, picking my way back through the piles of wish-hounds, and to the path that slopes upward.
I wish I knew how to destroy them, but they’re already dead things, aren’t they? Concentrate, Mehrab.
What might I have found if I’d gone deeper into the barrow? A burial chamber fit for a forest queen or king, where once royal bones and grave goods lay? Long forgotten, long deserted, and found by whatever sleeps there now?
Outside, I spring across the clearing, duck beneath the trees, unhitch Rosie and lead her away so she’s less likely to be heard.
My heart stutters when I see something large and red on the other side of the clearing, between the trees, unclear, and I drag Rosie along.
Only when we’re a quarter of a league away do I dare mount, and urge her back the way we came.
It’s a long time before I stop listening hard for any sound of pursuit.
* * *
By the time the cottage is in sight, or rather the place where the cottage should be in sight, it’s late afternoon.
I can discern the waver in the air, that spot between where the veil is thinnest and easiest to pass.
That’s not all I notice: a lump of trembling and weeping blue fabric is crumpled on the path.
The lump raises its head at the sound of Rosie’s approach.
A tear-streaked face suddenly looks like it’s found hope again.
‘Tieve. Are you all right?’
‘I thought you were gone, Mistress Mehrab! You said I could come to you, but I thought the forest had swallowed you.’ She rises, dashing tears from her eyes and rubbing a fist over her nose. She gestures towards the absence of a cottage. ‘Where is it? Where’s your home?’
It was lucky she didn’t try to push her way closer or the enchantment would have sent her astray, deeper into the woods. ‘What’s happened, Tieve?’
‘Ari found the little charm doll you gave me. It burned her palms and she threw it on the fire. And then… and then a mark appeared on her forehead, a circle, and she really did scream!’ I think of the oil I used on the slumbering children in the barrow; presumably Matthias has one too.
‘She only left me alone because of that – and Ma came home and kicked her out. And her father… Mr Hadderholm’s dead. ’ The child starts crying again.
Poor Anselm. Poor man. So little harm in him, he deserved better.
I look at the sky – it’s heading into the early dark of autumn.
The paths won’t be safe for either of us very soon, and if Ari or whatever’s in her place has found the little protection I gave Tieve, then the girl will likely be in greater danger.
I reach down to Tieve and she doesn’t hesitate to take my hand; I pull her up in front of me.
‘Close your eyes,’ I say, then I hook the hood of her blue woollen cape over her face to make doubly sure.
I aim the horse at the thin space and urge her forward.
In seconds, my home is in front of us: cottage, barn, fields, gardens, pond.
A quick glance behind shows the outside world, the forest, but wavy and uncertain, as if seen underwater.
The barrier remains intact. We can see out, but no one can see in.
I pull her hood back and help Tieve slide to the ground. She looks around in wonderment, distracted only when the front door opens and Rhea appears, the baby swaddled at her chest.
‘Tieve, this is Rhea. Rhea, this is Tieve, she’ll be staying with us a little while.’