Inkdeath (Inkworld 3)

Resa threw up there and then beside the dead men.

"I don’t like this." The Strong Man examined the blood-soaked leaves. "Looks almost as if the men who killed them watched the Night-Mare eat him. . . as if they’d brought it with them, like the Prince brings his bear!" He looked around, but nothing stirred.

Only the ravens perched in the trees, waiting.

The Strong Man drew Gecko’s cloak over his dead face. "I’m going to follow the trail and find out where the killers came from."

"You don’t need to." Resa bent over one of the dead robbers and raised his left hand.

The thumb was missing. "Your little brother told me the Adderhead has a new bodyguard, a man known as Thumbling. They say he used to be one of the torturers in the Castle of Night until his master promoted him. Doria says he’s notorious for cutting a thumb off every man he kills. He makes little pipes out of the thumb bones to mock the Piper with them. . . and it seems he has a very large collection." Resa began trembling, even though she no longer had to fear Snapper. "She’ll never be able to protect him," she whispered. "Violante can’t protect Mo. They’ll kill him!"

The Strong Man helped her to her feet and awkwardly put his arms around her.

"What do we do now?" he asked. "Go back?"

But Resa shook her head. ‘The killers had a Night-Mare with them. A Night-Mare.

She looked around.

"The Magpie," she said. "Where’s the Magpie? Call her!"

"I told you, she doesn’t sound like a real bird," said the Strong Man, but all the same he imitated a magpie’s cry. There was no reply, but just as the Strong Man was about to try again Resa saw the dead woman.

Mortola was lying a little way from the others, with an arrow in her breast. Resa had often imagined what it would feel like to see the woman she had served for so long lying dead at last. She had so often wanted to kill Mortola herself, but now she felt nothing at all. A few black feathers lay beside the corpse in the snow, and the fingernails of Mortola’s left hand were still like a bird’s claws. Resa bent down and took the bag from Mortola’s belt. There were some tiny black seeds in it, the same as the seeds still sticking to Mortola’s pale lips.

"Who’s that?" The Strong Man stared at the old woman in disbelief.

"The woman who used to mix poisons for Capricorn. You must have heard of her.

She was his mother."

The Strong Man nodded and involuntarily took a step back.

Resa tied Mortola’s bag to her own belt. "When I was one of her maids . . ." (she couldn’t help smiling at the surprise in the Strong Man’s eyes) . . . .. when I was still one of her maids, it was said that Mortola had discovered a plant with seeds that could change your shape. Little Death, the other maids called it, and they whispered that it made you crazy if you used it too often. They showed me the plant it can be used as a deadly poison, too, but I always thought its other quality was just a fairy tale. Obviously, I was wrong." Resa picked up one of the magpie feathers and laid it on Mortola’s pierced breast. "And they also said that Mortola had given up using Little Death after a fox had nearly killed her in her bird-shape. But as soon as I saw the magpie in the cave I felt sure it was her."

She rose to her feet.

The Strong Man pointed to the bag at her belt. "Sounds to me like you’d better leave those seeds here."

"Should I?" replied Resa. "Yes, maybe you’re right. Come on, let’s go. It will soon be dark."

CHAPTER 53

HUMAN NESTS

Meggie’s feet were so cold that she could hardly feel her toes, in spite of her boots.

They were still the pair she had brought from the other world. Only on their endless march over the last few days had they all realized what good shelter the cave had offered from the coming winter and how flimsy their clothes were. The rain was even worse than the cold. It dripped off the trees and turned the ground to mud that froze when evening came. One little girl had already sprained her ankle, and Elinor was carrying her. Everyone who could was carrying one of the smaller children, though there weren’t enough adults to go around. Snapper had taken his men with him, and Resa and the Strong Man had gone, too.

The Black Prince carried three children at once, two in his arms and one on his back, although he was still hardly eating anything, and Roxane kept making him stop to rest. Meggie pressed her face into the hair of the little boy who was clinging around her neck. Beppe. He reminded her of Fenoglio’s grandson. Beppe didn’t weigh much

— the children hadn’t had enough to eat for days — but after all the hours that Meggie had spent trudging through the mud with the little boy in her arms he seemed as heavy as an adult. "Meggie, sing me one of those songs!" he kept saying, and she sang in a soft voice that was reedy with weariness. Songs about the Bluejay, of course. By now she sometimes forgot that she was also singing about her father.

When she closed her eyes now and then in sheer exhaustion she saw the castle Farid had shown her in the fire, a growth of dark stone reflected on a misty lake. She’d tried desperately to catch a sight of Mo somewhere among the walls, but she couldn’t see him.

She was alone. She was even more alone now that Resa had gone. In spite of Elinor, in spite of Fenoglio, in spite of all the children, and definitely in spite of Farid. But out of this feeling of being abandoned, which only Doria could sometimes dispel, something else had grown: a sense that she must protect those who, like herself, were on their own, without father or mother, seeking shelter in a world that was as strange to them as to Meggie, although these children had never known any other.

Fenoglio himself, who was leading them, had only written about this world without knowing it, yet now they had nothing but his words to guide them.

He was walking at the front with the Black Prince. Despina clung to his back, though she was older than some of the children who had to walk. Her brother was up ahead with the older boys.

They were running about among the trees as though they didn’t feel tired at all. The Black Prince kept calling them back, telling them to do as the older girls did and carry the little ones. Farid and Doria were so far in advance of the rest of the party that Meggie hadn’t seen them for nearly an hour. They were looking for the tree that Fenoglio had described to the Black Prince so persuasively that the Prince had decided they should set off at once. And indeed, what other hope did they have?

"How much farther?" Meggie heard Despina ask, not for the first time.

"Not very far now, not very far," replied Fenoglio, but did he really know?

Meggie had heard him telling the Black Prince about the human nests. "They look like huge fairies’ nests, but people lived in them, Prince! Many people. They built the nests when giants started coming for their children, and they chose such a tall tree that even the largest giants couldn’t reach up to it."

"Which goes to show," he had whispered to Meggie, "that it’s sensible not to make your giants too big when you’re writing a story about them!"

"Human nests?" she had whispered back. "Have you only just thought that up?"

"Don’t be ridiculous! What makes you think that?" Fenoglio sounded offended.