The Burning Shadow Read online

  “I did, but Hekabi had been summoned by Kreon, and the guards on the ridge wouldn’t let me past without her. I had to wait. It was horrible, I had no idea what had happened to you.”

  Hylas ran his fingers through Havoc’s fur. “It’s really good to see you, Pirra.”

  “You too.” She pushed her hair behind her ears, then remembered her scar, and turned her head so he couldn’t see.

  “Why do you do that?” he said quietly. “Your scar’s part of who you are.”

  She flushed. “Well I wish it wasn’t. I tried some of that magic mud, but it didn’t work. I even got some powdered sulfur from Merops. That didn’t work either.” Shut up, Pirra. There was so little time, and she was babbling about her stupid scar.

  Under the thorn tree, Hekabi was getting tired of waiting.

  Pirra said, “She wants to talk to you.”

  Hylas was instantly on his guard. “About what?”

  She hesitated. “I told her about the Oracle. She wants—”

  “You told her who I am?”

  “Listen to me, Hylas. She hates the Crows as much as we do. And she’s—she’s after the dagger.”

  Rising to his feet, he went to stand behind the forge; as if he needed to put something between them. “Don’t you remember what I told you on the Mountain?” he said without meeting her eyes. “I don’t care about the dagger anymore.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “Well it’s true.”

  Pirra stood and faced him. Between them the fire hissed and the air shimmered with heat. “Just listen to what she has to say.”

  “No. You listen to me.” He scowled at the embers. “Telamon’s going to help me escape.”

  Pirra caught her breath. “Telamon,” she repeated. “Telamon the Crow. The grandson of Koronos.”

  He flinched. “If he’d wanted to betray me, he’d have done it by now.”

  “And if you’re wrong?”

  “I’m not.”

  “I see,” she said with mounting anger. “And when is Telamon—your friend—going to help you escape?”

  “Tonight. I’m meeting him here at midnight.”

  She felt as if he’d punched her in the chest. If she hadn’t found her way to the smithy, he would have left her behind. “And—you believe him?”

  “Pirra, this is my only chance. I’ve got to take it, I owe it to Issi. Can’t you see?”

  Hekabi left the thorn tree and started toward them.

  “Come with me,” Hylas said suddenly.

  But it seemed to Pirra that she could see the dagger of Koronos between them: keeping them apart. “I can’t,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “How can you ask? How can you turn your back on all this and run away!”

  A flush stole across his cheekbones. “It’s not running away.”

  “Yes it is,” said Hekabi.

  They turned and watched her enter the smithy. Her glance flicked to Havoc—who shot behind a stack of ingots—then back to Hylas.

  He gave her a defiant stare. “What’s it to you?”

  “Everything,” she said sternly. “If you are the one in the Oracle, we can’t defeat them without you.” Putting out her hand, she touched her finger to his brow. “You’ve been close to an immortal. I can feel it, crackling on your skin.”

  “No.” He backed away.

  “He has,” said Pirra. “Last summer in a cave, we were in the presence of the Lady of the Sea. He touched the blue fire.”

  “Yes,” murmured Hekabi, “the burning shadow of a god. I can always tell.”

  “So?” cried Hylas. “What of it?”

  “It means you’re the one,” said the wisewoman. “It means you have a destiny. Your life is not your own.”

  “What’s going on in here?” demanded a voice from the doorway.

  Pirra turned to see a tall angry man with his hands on his hips. With a jolt, she recognized the shipwrecked stranger who’d once captured Hylas.

  “Get out of my smithy!” he barked.

  Before Pirra could say a word, Hylas had grabbed her wrist and dragged her behind the forge. “His name’s Dameas now,” he hissed. “You’ve never heard the name Akastos!”

  She twisted out of his grip. “What? You mean he’s the smith?”

  “He hates the Crows, they took his farm. And he knows about the Oracle. We can trust him—I think.”

  “You think?” she whispered furiously.

  There was no time to explain. Hylas’ head was spinning. First the message from Telamon, then Pirra, and now Akastos, glaring at him.

  “What’s going on, Flea?” Akastos said angrily. “Letting women into my smithy? Don’t you know that’s the worst kind of bad luck?”

  “And Dameas knows all about bad luck,” put in Hekabi. “Don’t you, Dameas? If that’s your name.”

  He turned on her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He towered over her, but she was undaunted. “Something’s after you,” she said. “I can smell it. Spirits of air and darkness.”

  Not a muscle moved in Akastos’ face.

  “I could give you a charm to keep them away—for a little while.”

  His beard jutted. “I don’t take help from a woman who gives medicine to Kreon.”

  “And I don’t take orders from a man who makes weapons for him. Give me the boy and I’ll be on my way.”

  “Why would I give you the boy? He stays with me.”

  “You have no use for him. I do. Give him to me. I’ll be grateful, I might leave you a salve for that hand of yours.” She nodded at his thumb, which was purple and swollen.

  “I don’t need your help,” he said calmly. Taking an awl, he jabbed it into his thumbnail, releasing a spurt of blood. “That’s better,” he said. “Now get out.”

  Suddenly, Pirra pushed past Hylas and went to stand between the seer and the smith. “What are you arguing about?” she cried. “We all want the same thing!”

  “Who’s this?” said Akastos.

  “She’s my friend,” said Hylas, “she—”

  Pirra silenced him with a look. “Hekabi wants to get the Crows off her island,” she told them. “Dameas wants his farm back.”

  Akastos shot Hylas another angry glance.

  “And I,” Pirra went on, “want to stop them invading Keftiu. Only Hylas wants to run away,” she added with such scorn that he felt the heat surging up his throat. “So why are we arguing? We need to steal the dagger. We have a better chance of succeeding if we act together, not apart.”

  “Who are you?” repeated Akastos.

  Pirra didn’t reply. Her color was high, her scar livid on her cheek. She was half his size, but something in her bearing made up for that.

  “She’s right,” said Hekabi. “And I know how we can do it.”

  Akastos folded his arms across his chest. “And you want me to believe that you came up here armed with a plan, even though you had no idea we’d even meet?”

  Hekabi smiled thinly. “I’m a seer, remember?”

  Akastos studied her. “And in return for your plan?”

  “You give me the boy.”

  “No one’s giving me to anyone!” shouted Hylas.

  Akastos glanced from Hekabi to Pirra. Then he opened the pouch at his belt, drew out a buckthorn leaf, and chewed. “I don’t trust you,” he told Hekabi, “and we’ll see about your plan. But get me into the stronghold, and I’ll do the rest.”

  31

  Pirra and Hekabi had gone ahead, and had already reached the steps to the stronghold. Hylas craned his neck at the crows wheeling about it like flakes of black ash.

  He felt sick with dread. Kreon was within those walls, along with his deadly brother and sister, Pharax and Alekto—and the High Chieftain himself. Koronos. The very
name cast a shadow on the heart.

  “Keep up,” muttered Akastos. “And don’t even think about trying to escape. Those overseers will have you down the pit faster than you can crack a whip.” He was wearing his mask, and to prevent the Crows recognizing his voice, he’d given out that he’d scorched his throat in an accident. “That’s why you’re coming,” he’d told Hylas. “You’ll speak for me.”

  “Please don’t make me,” said Hylas for the tenth time. “If I go in there, I’ll never come out.”

  “Yes you will.”

  “Someone will recognize me.”

  “Only Telamon knows what you look like, and you say he won’t betray you.”

  Hylas made to protest, but they were passing a troop of Crow warriors, and Akastos shot him a warning glance.

  Hylas was trapped, and all the signs were bad. The smoke pouring from the Mountain had thickened and turned gray. Even the sunset looked wrong, the sky a sickly yellow streaked with poisonous green. You didn’t need to be a seer to know that this was going to be a disaster.

  “On the first night of the Moon’s dark,” Hekabi had told them, “Koronos will seek to invoke the Angry Ones, drawing them to Thalakrea to subdue the Lady. The rite will be in three parts. First the sacrifice—that’ll be secret—then the feast. Lastly, the reading of the smoke. I’ve made Kreon believe that for the feast, the meat of sacrifice must be burned on a special fire: one kindled here in the forge, and brought by the master smith himself.”

  So. The plan. Akastos and his slave Hylas would take the fire to Koronos, while Hekabi and her slave Pirra would help with the smoke-reading. At a sign from Akastos, Hekabi would pretend to throw a fit, thus distracting the Crows. Then, somehow, Akastos would steal the dagger, and somehow, they would all escape before the Crows discovered it was gone.

  Hylas thought this plan had more holes than a fishing net, but he couldn’t get Akastos to see that. At the last moment, though, the smith seemed to have had second thoughts, because he was bringing two of his mute slaves, bearing a large covered basket. When Hylas asked what was in it, Akastos was evasive. “Let’s just say that if the wisewoman lets us down, I’ll create a distraction of my own.”

  The steps to the stronghold were steep, and Akastos went in front. He wore leather gauntlets, and he carried a pottery bowl with a bronze one inside, which held embers from the forge. Hylas could see the tension in his shoulders. Hekabi had given him a pouch with a charm to disguise him from the Angry Ones; but he didn’t put much faith in it. He was dreading an encounter with the spirits who had pursued him for so long.

  Glancing down, Hylas was alarmed to see that already the mines lay far below. They were crawling with slaves, like an ant’s nest smashed open. Kreon had ordered all tunnels cleared, and even deeper ones dug. There had been tremors. Everyone knew the Mountain was angry. But Kreon believed the Lady of Fire could be placated by force.

  In a low voice, Hylas asked Akastos if he thought the Crows’ rite would succeed in invoking the Angry Ones.

  “It might,” Akastos said grimly. “But if the Crows think they can gain their favor, they’re wrong. No one gains the favor of the Angry Ones.”

  Hylas climbed on with his head down, breathing in the stink of carrion and a sulfurous whiff from the Mountain. He couldn’t see how he was going to get out of this alive. And he was worried about Havoc. He’d left her tethered behind the smithy; if he didn’t return, she would starve. But if, by some amazing stroke of luck, he found his way back to the smithy and met Telamon as planned, how could he carry a struggling lion cub down the cliff?

  A sound above him, and he was startled to see Pirra on the next step. She was holding out a leather cap. “Your hair,” she said. “The charcoal’s wearing off.”

  “Oh. Thanks.”

  Side by side, they mounted the steps in silence. Pirra looked pale and tired. Hylas wondered if she’d slept as badly as he.

  “Are you really going through with this?” she said in a low voice. “Are you really going to run away?”

  He flushed. “Doesn’t look like I’ll get the chance, does it?”

  “I mean, if this works and we . . . If this works.”

  “Then yes,” he said curtly. “I’m really going through with it.”

  Her brow furrowed. “I thought you were better than this.”

  That hurt. “You’d do the same thing if you had a sister,” he muttered.

  “No I wouldn’t.”

  “Oh no? What about that slave of yours—Userref? You said he’s like a brother to you. Well what would you do if he was in danger and you could save him? What would you do, Pirra?”

  She didn’t reply.

  They climbed on in prickly silence. Suddenly Pirra turned and put her hand on his shoulder. “Good-bye, Hylas,” she said in a strangled voice. “I hope you find your sister.”

  “Pirra, don’t be—”

  But she’d gone, running up the steps to join Hekabi.

  Hylas didn’t go after her. He felt churned up and angry. He didn’t know if he was angry with Pirra or himself.

  For a second time, Pirra passed through the gates of Kreon’s stronghold, between the great stone walls twenty cubits thick. For a second time, her breath echoed clammily in the passages.

  She wished Hekabi hadn’t insisted on going ahead of the others. She kept thinking there must be something she could say to bring Hylas around. It wasn’t possible that she’d just said good-bye to him forever.

  A shadowy figure stepped from a doorway and grabbed her arm.

  “Leave her alone,” snapped Hekabi, “she’s with me.”

  “She’ll catch up with you,” retorted Telamon. Barking at the guards to go on without them, he pulled Pirra into a windowless side-chamber lit by a sputtering torch.

  “What do you want?” she spat as she twisted out of his grip.

  “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

  “I’m Hekabi’s slave, remember? And in case you’re thinking of telling them who I am, I wouldn’t. Then we’d have to wed.”

  “I’d rather wed a leper.”

  “Then we agree on something,” she said crisply, although she spoke with more assurance than she felt. Telamon was prowling the chamber. He looked frighteningly strong. She thought of her obsidian knife, which she’d strapped to her thigh, under her tunic. But he’d be on her before she could untie it.

  “Why did he come?” he burst out.

  “Don’t worry,” she said scornfully. “He’ll meet you at the smithy, just like you planned.”

  His jaw dropped. “He told you about that?”

  “He’s my friend. He tells me things.” She paused to let that sink in. “What about you?” she said in a hard voice. “Why are you helping him?”

  A Crow warrior appeared in the doorway. “The High Chieftain is asking for you, my lord.”

  “Get out!” shouted Telamon. But Pirra saw the sweat beading his forehead.

  He’s scared, she thought. Scared of his own kin.

  Despite herself, she felt a flicker of sympathy. She’d been frightened of her mother for as long as she could remember.

  Telamon planted himself before her, clenching and unclenching his fists. She saw the muscles in his arms and shoulders. She stared past him, refusing to be threatened.

  “I need to know what’s happening,” he said. “Look at me, Pirra. Look at me! Why is he really here, in the stronghold? Why tonight?”

  She met his eyes. “Why don’t you ask him?”

  “The smith won’t let me near him. If I insisted, I’d make people suspicious.”

  “There’s nothing I can do about that.”

  With a snarl he punched the wall near her head, making her flinch. He was breathing hard, grinding his fist into the stone.

  “Telamon,” she said as calmly as she could, “let me go. I need
to get back to the wisewoman.”

  For a moment he stared down at her and she stared back, determined to stand her ground.

  “You asked why I’m helping him,” he said quietly. “We were like brothers. He’s the only friend I’ve ever had.”

  Me too, Pirra thought bleakly.

  “If I do nothing, I betray him,” Telamon went on. “If I help him, I betray my kin. But if I can just get him off the island, I’ll be free of him forever. I’ll never have to face this again.”

  “Do you really believe that?” said Pirra.

  He threw her an agonized look. “Why is this happening? I never asked for any of it!”

  “So what?” said Pirra. “I didn’t ask to be bargained off by my mother like a jar of olives—”

  “You’re a girl, that’s what you’re for.”

  Her sympathy for him vanished. “It doesn’t matter why it’s happening,” she said coldly. “What counts is what you do about it. Don’t let him down.”

  He bristled. “Why would I?”

  “Because you’re a Crow.”

  “How dare you call me that! We’re a proud and ancient clan!”

  “And do you worship who they do?” she said. “Do you, Telamon?”

  He swallowed. “No.”

  “Really? At your uncle’s funeral pyre, I saw you smear your face with ash.”

  “That was out of respect for the dead.”

  “Then why are you here now, when they’re going to invoke the Angry Ones?”

  “That’s nothing to do with me, I’m taking no part in it!”

  “But you’re not trying to stop them.”

  “How could I?” In the torchlight he was very handsome, with his strong jaw and his dark, glittering eyes; but Pirra thought there was a softness to his upper lip.

  She said, “I think you became friends with Hylas because he’s strong and you’re weak. I think, Telamon, that you’ll always be weak.”

  He glared at her with sudden hatred. “And I think it’s time we sent you back to Keftiu.”

  “If you did that, we’d have to—”

  “Oh there’ll be no match, I’ll make sure of it. You’ll be returned to your mother for her to punish as she sees fit.” He took her arm in a grip that was painfully strong. “Come with me. There’s someone you should see.”