The Prince of Lies (Night's Masque, #3)(125)

“We cannot leave it on him for long,” Sandy said, echoing her thoughts.

“I know. But surely it’s the wise thing to do, until we get further from the guisers.”

Hoofbeats sounded on the road. Coby whirled, but it was only Mal. Only? She grinned in relief, and it was all she could do not to ride back to meet him.

As Mal drew nearer he slowed his mount to a trot and reined it in by Coby’s side.

“You’re hurt,” she said, rummaging in her pocket for a handkerchief.

“Just scratches.” He wiped his bloody forehead with the back of his cuff and dismounted. “Sandy, what was that?”

His brother shrugged. “We saw nothing. One moment we were riding along, the next our horses reared and bolted as if hrrith were after them.”

“The beasts weren’t far wrong. Shawe’s lads were using tunnels from the dreamlands, but they seemed able to bring things through. Wind and leaves. And crows.”

“They came for me,” Kit said.

“It’s all right, sweetheart,” Coby told him. “Your father fought them off, and with your spirit-guard on, their magics cannot–”

“No, they’ll come again, they’ll find me. I know it.”

“How? How did they find us last time?”

Kit raised his hand to his earlobe. “This. Master Shawe told us it’s a finding charm.”

“Then we must take it out.”

Coby felt around the back of the earring for a catch, but there was nothing, just a rough spot in the metal. She shot Mal a worried look.

“I think it’s welded shut. I’ll need my tools to break it–”

“No time,” Mal said, glancing back down the road and drawing his dagger.

Coby recalled the boy Martin with his mutilated ear.

“No, you can’t!”

“I have to. Now hold him still.”

“What’s the matter, Mamma?”

“It’s going to be all right, lambkin, but you’re going to have to be brave.”

“Is Daddy going to cut off my ear?”

“No!” She hugged him closer. “Just a little cut. Now be still, and it’ll soon be all over.”

She closed her own eyes as Mal steadied Kit’s head against her shoulder with one hand. The blade flashed and Kit cried out.

“Hush,” she murmured, blinking back her own tears as the boy sobbed into her chest.

“Let me take it,” Ned said, holding out his hand. “A diversion–”

“Don’t be a fool.” Mal said. “They’d destroy you, and for what? A few miles’ gain?”

He drew back his arm and threw the earring far out into the field.

“Come on,” he said, kicking his horse into a trot, “let’s get as far away from that damned thing as we can, before they try again.”

Coby followed suit, clutching the trembling Kit tight, and praying they had freed him from the guisers’ snares. A mile or so further on, Mal drew his mount to a halt at a milestone marked Cambridge iii Newmarket xvii. The quarter moon was riding high, illuminating the open landscape and revealing a second road leading south from the milestone.

“Shawe may be expecting us to return to Cambridge,” he said, “so we shall confound him by skirting the town.”

“We have to stop soon,” Coby said. “Kit needs to rest.”

“We can be in Saffron Walden by dawn if we press on. We’ll rest there a while, and make our plans.”





CHAPTER XXXIV



The night passed without any further sign of the strange dreamwalkers, and by dawn the rescuers were within sight of the town of Saffron Walden, nestled in the gently rolling hills where Cambridgeshire met Essex. Mal looked around at his companions’ grey faces, and wondered what he was going to say if anyone enquired as to their business. They looked as disreputable a bunch of vagabonds as ever were arrested by a zealous parish constable.

“There’s an inn, just up ahead,” Coby said, evidently having the same thought. “Perhaps we should stop there, rather than draw attention to ourselves by going into the town.”

“Agreed.”

Smoke was rising from the inn’s chimney and a maidservant stood in the doorway, sweeping dried mud and gravel back into the high road. She gave a sullen curtsey when Mal hailed her, but at the sight of his silver she let them in and went off to fetch breakfast.

They gathered in the corner of the taproom by the fireplace, with Kit curled up on one end of the settle, his head in Coby’s lap.

“We can’t outrun the guisers forever, you know,” she said, idly stroking Kit’s hair. “We have to leave England now, unless you have some idea of how to fight them.”

“I’ve been giving it some thought,” Mal said. “I went into this believing there was only a handful of them, but now we know Shawe has been recruiting others, that makes the task far more difficult.”

“How many others?” Ned asked.

“I asked Kit on the road,” Coby said, “and he thought there were about two dozen boys, in addition to Shawe and his lieutenant.”

“They’re only boys, though.”

“Yes, but you didn’t see what they can do,” Mal said. “This wasn’t just dream magic and illusions, it was… I don’t know what it was, but anyone who can conjure stuff out of thin air cannot be underestimated as an opponent. Imagine if they came to London and started loosing devourers onto the streets.”