Willow Read online

  In the turmoil that followed Kael’s departure and the rounding-up of the village councillors, Sorsha dismounted and came up into the building with her lieutenant.

  “Torches!” the lieutenant shouted to his men. “There, and there!”

  “Wait,” Sorsha said.

  She crossed the floor and then back again, her bow tapping her thigh, her footsteps echoing. “There’s something odd. There’s something . . .” She kicked aside the straw and found the trapdoor. “I thought so! Open it!”

  The lieutenant leaped to do her bidding. He flung the door back. Then, sword drawn, he descended into the cellar where Airk’s men crouched. Sorsha came close behind him with her dagger in her hand.

  Airk struck first, looming soundlessly out of the shadows. In two quick blows he had knocked the lieutenant’s feet from under him and slit his throat. He was raising his sword to strike at Sorsha when Madmartigan prevented him, pinning the princess as she started back up the steps.

  “Down here!” she cried.

  The stairway swarmed with Nockmaar troops.

  “Drop your weapons,” Madmartigan snarled, his knife to Sorsha’s throat. “Drop them, or I kill this redheaded witch!”

  “Don’t believe him!” Sorsha said, pointing at Elora, who was howling in Willow’s arms. “Get the baby!”

  But seeing Sorsha captured, seeing themselves surrounded by desperate fugitives with swords drawn, the Nockmaars suddenly lost their fight. They did as Airk told them. Moments later, they were in the cellar with a heavy wagon overturned on the trapdoor, and Airk’s men were upstairs in control of the meeting hall. Madmartigan had dragged Sorsha up with him, his arm across her throat.

  “One word,” he said softly, peering out at the contingent of troopers who were holding back the villagers in the square, unaware of events inside. “One word and I kill you!”

  “You’ll never . . .”

  He clamped a hand over her mouth.

  Beyond the village, they could see Kael’s men scouring the woods, appearing and disappearing among the trees.

  Willow scrambled into the hay in one corner of the building and attended to Elora, changing her and calming her as much as possible, given his own terror. Nothing frightened him more than the Nockmaar troops, and now here they were again, right here on the other side of the barn wall! Soon they’d know something was wrong. Soon they’d come looking for their comrades. So intent was he on them, and on keeping Elora quiet, that he did not notice Airk Thaughbaer approaching until the big man laid a hand on his shoulder.

  “What does Bavmorda want with this child?”

  “She’s Elora Danan,” Willow told him. “She’s the Empress who’ll defeat Nockmaar. We’re her guardians.”

  “We?”

  “Madmartigan and I.”

  “Where are you taking her?”

  “To Tir Asleen,” Willow said, without even thinking.

  “Tir Asleen! Impossible! Nobody’s been there in years. Besides, even if you could find the way, you’d never get past the Nockmaar army. Never.”

  “Airk,” Madmartigan bent down, whispering, his hand still clamped over Sorsha’s mouth. “We should move for those horses. Otherwise those Nockmaars . . .”

  “I know. Listen, what’s going on here, Madmartigan? Since when did you become a crusader? I’ve had half an army slaughtered fighting Bavmorda, and now you and this Peck plan to take her on? You? I don’t believe it.”

  “Well then, come along and see.”

  Airk shook his head. “Look at us. We’ve been in the field for months since Bavmorda tricked us away from Galladoorn. We’re tired, Madmartigan. We’ll go with you as far as those horses. After that . . .”

  “After that what, Airk? Will you keep running?”

  Airk seized Madmartigan’s free arm. “By the gods . . . ! Someday, Madmartigan, one of us will stand on the other’s grave!”

  “Think, Airk! There’s no Galladoorn to defend anymore. You have a force of men. What good will you do with them?”

  Willow had stood up, holding Elora. The child gripped one of Airk’s large fingers with both hands, laughing softly.

  “Think!” Madmartigan said again, nodding. “Ready, Willow?”

  “Ready.”

  “Then we go!” He hauled Sorsha out through the door toward the horses. She managed to twist her face and scream a warning to the lieutenant in the square. He whirled, saw what was happening, and ordered his men forward. They charged. Madmartigan boosted Willow and Elora up into the saddle of a big bay mare and slung Sorsha over the neck of another horse. “Ride!” he shouted to Willow. “Get out!” And he slapped the mare’s rump just as the first troopers reached him. “Closer,” he said, the dagger pressed against Sorsha’s throat, “and she dies.”

  They hesitated long enough for him to swing into the saddle and back the horse through the square until he was clear. Then he wheeled and dashed after Willow, who had already reached the outskirts of the village.

  “Ride! Ride!” Fin Raziel shrieked overhead. “This way!”

  Fleeing at full gallop, aware only of the open road in front of them and of the shouts of Kael’s outriders from the edge of the wood, Madmartigan and Willow would never know what happened behind, in the village.

  The lieutenant ordered his men in pursuit, and some reached their horses. Some actually mounted them. But none rode out. Their way was blocked by people, the same people whose village they had been preparing to burn, whose Prefect Kael had just beheaded. Their Prefect had spoken their sentiments exactly: they had had enough Nockmaar oppression. More than enough. It was going to end—not later, when they might be better organized, or might have better leadership or weapons. It was going to end then. Right then. They had only the crude implements of the field—picks and hoes, sickles, scythes and shovels—but they knew those tools well.

  Still, determined though they were, these farmers and craftsmen would have been no match for a charge of Nockmaar cavalry and, seeing that, the lieutenant laughed. “Mount up!” he commanded. “Line abreast!” He was still laughing as he wheeled to face these bumpkins with their tools.

  But they were no longer alone. A rank of staunch soldiers had appeared in front of them—Airk Thaughbaer’s men. Some were sorely hurt. All were tired. But they were an army still. An army of men who had also had too much of Nockmaar. An army that needed horses.

  Airk signaled them forward. Behind him, his ensign unfurled his standard.

  The Nockmaar lieutenant’s laughter died with him.

  X I

  TIR ASLEEN

  “Ancient path!” Raziel cried. “This way!” She led them east away from the village, away from the encampment near the crossroads above.

  “But that’s the way to Nockmaar!” Madmartigan shouted.

  “Ride!” screeched the bird. “Trust Raziel!”

  They rode. Willow wrapped his arm around the pommel of the saddle and held on to it and to Elora for all he was worth while the great warhorse surged under him. He was terrified lest the child be thrown off and crushed on the rocks or under the hooves of Madmartigan’s horse, coming hard behind. Madmartigan held Sorsha on the saddle in front of him. She laughed when she saw the direction they were taking, and Kael in hot pursuit less than half a league behind. “Straight to Nockmaar! There’s no other way!”

  But there was another way, known only to Fin Raziel. It led up into the snow of the mountains, and through the ice caves of the elves. Many years had passed since she had visited those caves, and so cunningly had the elves concealed their entrance that now, after a cold and anxious ride, Raziel had trouble finding it. She flapped back and forth across a precipice of sheer ice, muttering and squawking.

  The clatter of iron-shod hooves echoed up the canyon behind them.

  “Hurry!” Madmartigan said. “Another minute and they’ll be here!”

  Suddenly Raziel disappeared into the ice, only to emerge a second later. “Here!” she hissed, and vanished again. The tip of a black wing b
eckoned.

  Urging his horse close, Willow saw a narrow opening, so tall that its top was lost in frozen mist, and so positioned that the mirror-walls of ice utterly obscured it. In they went, leaving Kael and their pursuers behind.

  A tunnel led into the last domain of the northern elves, before they had finally been annihilated by the mountain trolls. It was a still, vast network of ice caves. Dim light filtered down from apertures high in the cliffs, and the scene glowed with the muted radiance of a winter evening. Workshops and equipment stood ready for use, just as they had been left, for these elves of the mountains had been armorers and metal workers, the best in all the kingdoms. Now, their forges were cold. Narrow ladders stretched up to their dwellings, high in the ice walls. Chains and ropes hung from winches and scaffolds, glimmering like crystal snakes.

  Nothing lived in that frozen place. At last, the trolls had found it and invaded it, and the horrible remnants of the final battle lay where they had fallen. Corpses sprawled everywhere—elves slaughtered even as they were stripping off their leather aprons and reaching for their swords. The bodies of women and children hunched where they had been dropped. Raziel uttered plaintive cries as she drifted above this carnage. But in spite of the surprise the elves had acquitted themselves well, for there were many troll corpses too, their gruesome fingers splayed, their faces frozen forever in the grimaces of death.

  They moved slowly, letting the horses pick their way. Behind, Kael’s roars of rage echoed as he galloped back and forth, unable to find the entrance. Ahead, the caverns opened one into another, in what seemed an unending maze. Fin Raziel, however, remembered the way from long ago. She soared on, a black shadow in the eerie light, occasionally hovering to point a change of direction with her wingtip, and at last she led them out again, through another magically hidden opening, onto a black slope.

  She fluttered her wings for silence. “Nockmaar Valley!” she hissed.

  There before them, the volcano growled and grumbled. Sour smoke drifted down from it, and as Willow looked a plume of hot ash shot up and reached toward them. He felt sharp dread, as if some troll like those whose corpses lay in the caves had sunk talons into his belly. He knew how Vohnkar must have felt, perhaps at this very place.

  Acrid and sulphurous, the smoke moved sluggishly, clearing enough for Willow to glimpse parts of the castle. It looked as if it had torn itself out of the ground through sheer, malignant will. Guttering flambeaux burned on the ramparts. Massive corner towers loomed with their loopholes and sluggish banners. Bavmorda’s black tower rose in the center like a dragon’s head, watchful in all directions.

  “Oh Elora,” Willow said, holding the child close. “What an awful place! I hope I never see it again. I hope you never have to come here again. Ever!”

  To his surprise, the child was not whimpering. She was gazing at Nockmaar through solemn and unblinking eyes.

  “Wait!” Fin Raziel hovered, holding them back, watching the drifting smoke and mist. “Bavmorda will feel us. She’ll know we’re close. If we’re not careful, she’ll see us, too.”

  “See us!” Madmartigan exclaimed. “But the place is two leagues distant!”

  “She has ways,” Raziel croaked. “Ways other than human eyes.”

  Sorsha suddenly lunged, making a try for freedom, but Madmartigan gripped her tight. “Fool!” Sorsha hissed. “She’s right. The bird’s right. The dogs are already on their way. Soon they’ll be here!”

  “This way,” Raziel beckoned. “Now!”

  Smoke had hidden the castle again, and they hurried across a half-league of open space and into cover before it cleared and left them visible to watchers in the black tower.

  “Ride on! Straight ahead.” Raziel circled back to make sure that there were no Death Dogs on their trail. When she returned she drifted down beside Willow as he rode. “The next passage will be hard, Willow.”

  “What is it?”

  “The labyrinth. The maze that Bavmorda created long ago around Tir Asleen. No one has been through it since that day. I have never been through it. We shall have to pick our way carefully, and there may come a time when you shall have to use your sorcery.”

  “I—I’d rather try to transform you again, Raziel. I’d rather let you . . .”

  “No, no. We have no time now for that. I shall try to lead you through the passages, but if we encounter an obstacle, be ready to work a charm.”

  Willow swallowed hard. “I—I’ll try.”

  The way grew tortuous. The canyons became craggier, steeper, narrower. Snakelike they twisted back upon each other, and only by peering far ahead was Fin Raziel, hovering high, able to guide the little party through them.

  Sorsha complained bitterly all the way. “You’re holding me too tight!” she said, after striking her head on an outcrop. “Let me duck, at least.”

  Madmartigan laughed. “Oh no. I’m not letting you get away, Princess.”

  “Why? Because I’m your sun? Your moon? Your starlit sky?”

  “Did I really talk such drivel?”

  “Yes. You said you loved me, too.”

  “Unbelievable! I remember nothing of that!”

  “So you lied.”

  “No. I mean yes. I mean, I wasn’t myself last night.”

  Sorsha laughed sarcastically. “Enchanted, I suppose. You were helpless against my spell!”

  “Yes. Sort of.”

  “And then what happened?”

  “It . . . went away.”

  “Went away? ‘I dwell in darkness without you,’ and it went away?” She elbowed Madmartigan hard in the stomach and twisted against the arm clamping her tight. “You’re a jackass!”

  “Not anymore.” Madmartigan laughed. “I told you, I’m fine now! My normal self! Handsome, intelligent, and the best swordsman in the world!”

  The canyons had become much tighter, like narrow, twining passageways. The horses stumbled often. But from her vantage point high above, Raziel insisted they were on the right track. “A barrier!” she called down. “A wall of thorns ahead, and the way broadens beyond it. Get ready, Willow!”

  “Can you at least tell me what’s happening?” Sorsha asked. “Am I a hostage? Are you going to trade me for something you really want?”

  “I told you. We’re taking you to Tir Asleen. To see your father.”

  “And I told you: you’ll never get past my mother’s barrier. Kael will hack you up for dog meat!” She rode a little way in silence. “Besides, I don’t even remember my father.”

  “He’s a great king. When Tir Asleen is set free . . .”

  “Kael!” Raziel warned, pointing back down the canyon they were wending their way through. Madmartigan twisted around. In the same instant his horse stumbled and Sorsha slammed her elbow into his stomach again, this time hard enough to tip him off balance and break free. The next moment she was running back down the canyon toward the hoofbeats they could all now hear, coming fast. Madmartigan leaped out of the saddle and after her, despite Raziel’s frenzied warnings. He caught her just as she was crossing a muddy stream. He tackled her and they splashed down together, Sorsha kicking and punching viciously, Madmartigan gradually overwhelming her. At last he dragged her out of the water and pinned her to the ground.

  “Leave her!” Raziel fluttered down. “Hurry!”

  Madmartigan hesitated, then ran for his horse. When he looked back, Sorsha was on her feet, looking after them in silence.

  In minutes they reached the wall of thorns Raziel had seen from farther down the canyon. It seemed an impenetrable barrier. Massive, spikey vines rose thickly intertwined as far as they could see.

  Madmartigan cursed. “Impossible! No one can get through there! You’ve brought us all this way to . . .”

  Raziel swooped down. “Quick! Light three fires three paces apart!”

  Madmartigan did that, hurriedly using flint and steel from the saddlebag to chip sparks into a tinder of dried leaves and grass. Three frail flames wavered at the bottom of the wall.


  “Now Willow! The Fourth Chant of Unity! Join the flames!”

  “Tuatha lum . . .”

  “Use the wand!”

  “Oh yes!” He dug into his cloak and found it, holding it out with both hands. “Tuatha luminockt tuatha!” It burned and trembled in his palms, but the fires grew only a little.

  “Too slow! Both of you!”

  Madmartigan whirled around. He had drawn his sword, ready to fight the Nockmaars, who were almost upon them. “What, me? Charms?”

  “Yes! Say it!”

  “Tuatha luminockt tuatha,” Willow chanted again, pointing the wand.

  Madmartigan imitated him. “Tuatha . . . loom . . . What is it?”

  Already the combined charm had begun to work. Flames stretched up from the fires like reaching arms.

  “Together!”

  “Tuatha luminockt tuatha!”

  Now the flames leaped and the wall blazed, opening a smoking arch. They urged their frightened horses through. As soon as they were inside, the whole wall blazed, and moments later, when Sorsha, Kael, and the Nockmaar troops arrived, they faced an inferno. Their horses reared away from it.

  “There must be another way!” Sorsha shouted above the roar of the flames.

  Kael cursed. “None! Unless we go back and around, a full day’s ride. No, they’ve escaped us, Princess, but not for long. We’ll trap them in the castle and kill them like rats! Besides, we need time for our reinforcements to come up from Nockmaar.” He waved his men back. “Dismount! Water your horses!”

  Beyond the fire, Willow crouched low over his mount’s neck, drawing a blanket across Elora’s face to shield her from the whirling smoke. He could hear Madmartigan coming close behind and Raziel calling encouragement from ahead, but he could see neither of them. Choking in the smoke, he gripped the pommel and gave the horse its head.

  “We’ll soon be there, Elora. You’ll be safe there, at Tir Asleen. The good king will protect you. Maybe someday, when it’s safe again, we’ll all come to see you, Mims and Ranon and Kiaya and I. Meegosh too. And Vohnkar.”

  The child stared up at him, apparently oblivious to the swirling smoke. Looking at her, Willow felt again the strange sensation he had had often since Elora came into his care—that time itself had ended. He felt that he might go on living forever, perhaps not in the form of Willow Ufgood, but part of all that had been and would ever be. He felt as if he were expanding infinitely, growing larger than any Daikini, larger than Bavmorda.