Witchsign. Den Patrick

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ hands fussing with a cloth, struggling for a serious expression if Kjellrunn had to guess, though she hadn’t missed the shock in his eyes as she’d entered.

      ‘Kjellrunn Vartiainen,’ was all he said, and still no one spoke. Håkon the butcher stood behind the tavern owner and two dozen faces all gawped, mouths open, like fish caught up in nets and just as stuck.

      ‘I’m looking for my brother,’ she said, though the silence of the room made her words sound frail and weak.

      ‘He’s not welcome here,’ said Bjørner. ‘And neither are you, Kjellrunn.’

      ‘Has anyone seen him?’ She turned to the room, trying to make eye contact with any one of them, but they all turned to their drinks or cast guilty glances at their boots. ‘Has anyone seen Steiner?’ she said, and now her voice was loud, too loud in the strangling quiet of the tavern.

      ‘Best you head home now, girl,’ said Håkon, rubbing one hand over his huge beard.

      Kjellrunn looked around desperately. ‘Someone must have seen him.’

      ‘You need to go now,’ repeated Bjørner. He stood a little taller now with Håkon beside him.

      Kjellrunn glared at them, then held up four fingers. ‘Go to Hel, all of you can go to Hel for all I care.’ The door slammed after her and she stalked down the street trailing curses.

      Marek and Verner were waiting for her when she returned. They had built up the fire and swept out the ashes, but made a bad job of it as men are wont to do. A lantern had been lit and the room had a cosy glow to it after the bright light and stark truth of the tavern.

      He’s not welcome here, and neither are you, Kjellrunn. Had Bjørner meant the tavern, or all of Cinderfell?

      ‘You didn’t find him then,’ said Verner. He looked strange, with his beard fringed in milk. A steaming mug sat before him and another before Marek.

      ‘Why are you drinking hot milk like old women?’ she replied. ‘I would have thought you’d be well into the mead by now.’

      ‘Mind your mouth,’ growled Marek. ‘No good comes of getting drunk at a time like this. It’s a cold night is all. Perhaps if you keep a civil tongue in your head you can have some too.’

      Kjellrunn dragged a chair out and slumped into it, crossed her arms on the table and rested her head on her forearms.

      ‘Where did you go?’ asked Verner softly.

      ‘To Bjørner’s, of course,’ replied Kjellrunn, not looking up. ‘Where else?’

      ‘Not much of a welcome there, I suspect,’ said Verner.

      ‘There won’t be much of a welcome anywhere after this,’ said Marek. ‘We’ll be lucky not to be run out of town.’

      ‘Why is the witchsign regarded as a bad thing?’ asked Kjellrunn. ‘I’m hardly a great danger, am I? A girl of sixteen who can predict the weather.’

      ‘You’ve heard the tales, Kjell,’ said Verner. ‘You’ve been asking me for stories of dragons and the arcane for as long as I can recall.’

      ‘But surely that’s all they are. Stories. The dragons have been dead for nearly a hundred years—’

      ‘Seventy-five,’ said Marek, pouring hot milk from the pan into a mug.

      ‘Longer than living memory,’ replied Kjellrunn, determined to make her point.

      ‘There are those who remember the war, Kjell,’ said Marek. ‘And those whose fathers fought in it passed their memories to their sons.’

      ‘But the witchsign as something dangerous?’ Kjellrunn frowned. ‘That’s just old tales, embellished by time.’

      ‘Embellished,’ said Verner, and grinned. ‘She even speaks like her mother.’

      ‘She certainly doesn’t get her vocabulary from me,’ said Marek. Kjellrunn slipped her chilled fingers around the mug and felt the warmth.

      ‘The Empire blames the emergence of the arcane on the dragons,’ said Marek. ‘And for that they will not rest until all trace of it is scoured from the world.’

      ‘Even if it means murdering children?’ asked Kjellrunn, her thoughts straying to Steiner, though he could hardly be mistaken for a child these days.

      ‘Even if it means murdering children,’ replied Marek. ‘There is nothing they will not do to keep the arcane out of the hands of commoners and serfs.’

      Kjellrunn drank and drank deep, but there was a bitter note to the milk that caused her to hesitate. Marek and Verner continued to sup and stare at the fire, as if the answers to Steiner’s predicament might be found there.

      ‘Drink up now,’ said Marek, and she did. The stairs to the loft seemed many, and harder to climb than ever before. How had she become so tired? It had been a long day, true enough, but she fell into bed still dressed, too exhausted to rise again. She shucked off her boots, and curled into a ball.

      ‘Where are you, Steiner?’ she whispered to the darkness, but no answer came.

       CHAPTER SIX

       Steiner

       Cinderfell holds especial importance, lying as it does on the North-western coast of Nordvlast. It is the last stop before taking ship to Vladibogdan, and the last town that many of the taken children will ever see. The people of Cinderfell have watched us take scores of children year after year. I fear that if there is some uprising then it must surely occur in Cinderfell, or close by. We must be watchful.

      – From the field notes of Hierarch Khigir, Vigilant of the Imperial Synod.

      Steiner had not meant to be late. It seemed as if all the people of Cinderfell had crowded around the lonely stone pier to witness his leaving. He descended the rutted track leading to the coastal road, not bothering to call in at home. He had no wish to speak with those who had cast him to the fate awaiting him on the island. The crimson frigate lay at anchor and rowing boats headed back and forth, ferrying cargoes of children with witchsign from all across the Empire and Scorched Republics. The sky resembled a vast quarry, inverted, the clouds all arrayed in shades of brutal grey, jagged and dangerous.

      ‘There he is!’ shouted a voice from the back of the crowd. Heads turned and the crowd parted. Steiner’s head was a dull throb of pain and his guts fared no better. Pieces of straw clung to his tunic, evidence that he’d spent the night in a stable. Better that people not know which one.

      ‘Took your sweet time,’ said a gruff voice.

      ‘They’ve almost got all the children aboard,’ chided another.

      ‘Thought you’d try to run,’ said another voice.

      ‘Don’t mind me,’ СКАЧАТЬ