Darkburn Book 4: The Haunt of Ternss by Tayin Machrie - HTML preview

Chapter 39

Aliya knew something was wrong as soon as she saw the thing fly overhead.

It woke her up. She was just having a little nap, like baby Doval did, when in the middle of her dozing there was a whippy sound of tearing cloth and a horrible smell. She opened her eyes and saw a strange thing flying over the open roof of the broken house. From her fireplace where she lay curled against Flodda, it was just a shadow, black and flapping heavily against the cloudy sky. Then it flapped on past the walls and she couldn’t see it any more.

She sat up in the fireplace. “Flodda! Flodda!” she cried out in alarm.

“Mmm? What is it?”

Flodda had been dozing too. Aliya shook her. She felt a horrible trembly feeling in her stomach like when she was going to be sick, or when she had found one of the ducks had died. Something was terribly wrong. “Flodda!”

Veron came running in. She could see his eyes glinting and the knife that he carried glinted too.

“Get up,” he said fiercely. “Darkburn.”

Aliya jumped up and looked for her shoes. No sooner had she pulled them on than Veron grabbed her and thrust her at Camburé who was just coming out of the twiggy inner house. Camburé held a long stick; no, it was a sword. Had she had a sword all along, hidden in the cart?

“Take her to the outer sheds,” Veron commanded. “Anywhere with a roof. This one can fly.”

“What? Darkburns can’t fly,” said Camburé.

“This one can.”

“Stonemen?”

“Not yet. Take Olbeth and Doval.” Veron sped outside.

Olbeth appeared from the twiggy house, with Doval in her arms, asleep and lolling. Olbeth had a swordbelt and a scabbard strapped around her waist. What was a darkburn? Why was it flying over the house?

She was about to ask Olbeth when there was the tearing noise again. It got louder and the black shape came flapping low over the broken roof, like a huge lump of coal with wings. It was not really like a bird at all, because it was far too big, and its wings were raggedy and made that horrid whumping rasp. It smelt horrid too. It made her feel sick again and she had to crouch down.

Flodda gave a wail and Camburé said Stars Above and pulled Aliya sharply over to the doorway, just as the flappy not-a-bird plunged down upon the twiggy house.

There was a crash and crackle. The twigs burst into flames. It was so sudden that it took her by surprise. Usually when the servants laid a fire it took a long time to get it going. But this fire was all at once and very hot. She stood gawping at it for a second before Camburé pulled her sharply through the door and out into the yard.

Some of the hunters stood there, holding bows. Just as she heard the flapping sound again they all drew the bows up at the air. She heard the whick whick of arrows being shot.

She had sometimes watched Lord Hapligan play at archery, with lots of jokes and laughing. There was no laughing now. She wanted to turn round and see if they had shot the flappy not-a-bird but there was no chance because Camburé was still pulling her, too hard.

Camburé pulled her all the way across the yard and down a track. The track was stony and made Aliya stumble. Olbeth and Flodda were running along behind her: baby Doval was going ababab in Olbeth’s arms. He sounded wide awake now.

Then Camburé pulled her into a big shed where it was dark inside. As soon as everyone was in, Camburé shut the door. It smelt like a cowshed although there did not seem to be any cows, because Aliya could hear no husky snorts, only the women panting and Doval still going ababababab.

“It’s all right, Doval,” Aliya said, “we’re safe now.” Because this place had a roof which kept all the light out so it would keep the flapping not-a-bird out too.

They stood there in the dark and panted and listened to the noises going on outside: loud crackings and then thudding feet and somewhere a whistle. She thought that must be Edrik, because he could whistle really well and the hunters sometimes whistled to each other instead of talking. There was no shouting so she hoped that the flapping smelly thing had gone away.

But then there was a huge bang! upon the roof which made her jump, and then a second bang! and bits began to fall on top of her. They were soft bits and when she picked one off her head it was only moss, but then there was another bang! and crunching noises and another bit fell on her head and this time it was hard. It hurt.

“Ow,” she said, but she didn’t scream even though lots of bits of roof had started falling down all over everyone. It got hotter and hotter and there was that awful smell again, worse than cowmuck, worse even than the dead rat Aliya had once found, and she thought she might be going to be sick.

But she said to herself sternly, no I’m not, I hate being sick; and then realised she could see, because light through the newly-opened roof lit up the cowshed stalls, all empty. She wondered if everyone could hide inside those stalls but then she heard the raspy whumpy flapping coming close again and Camburé was pulling open the shed door for them to run outside.

“Split up,” said Camburé to Olbeth. “I’ll take Aliya. You go north.”

Aliya tried to say that she didn’t want to go with Camburé, she wanted to stay with Olbeth and Flodda and the baby. But the words didn’t come out and anyway there was no time, because Olbeth ran outside with Doval straight away.

Flodda looked at Aliya sadly for a second and put out a hand to touch her hair.

“My little duckling,” she said, and then she turned and ran out after Olbeth. There was a loud clatter behind Aliya and when she looked round a whole lot of roof was falling down into the shed with thuds and smashes.

And then, to her shock, the flying thing fell in as well, with a clatter of its wings.

Down it came, black and smoking, amongst the blazing rafters. Its wings were trying to lift it out again, but they looked too torn, no more than rags, and she thought it had a strange head for a flying thing but it was too hot to look at for more than an instant, it hurt her eyes and her head and made her sick and then Camburé was dragging her out of the door and she could hear the thing crashing and thumping around inside the shed behind her. It was trapped.

Camburé pulled her over to the path and Veron came running towards them with two of the hunters.

“The woods?” said Camburé.

“Not safe,” replied Veron. “Woods burn.”

“Where, then?”

“I don’t know this place well enough. Find Bruilde. Ask her.”

“Stonemen?”

“Not yet. First they’ll let the darkburn do its work,” said Veron grimly. And then to Aliya’s alarm he strode past them pulling some long chains from his belt and went into the shed that was still full of the flying thing banging and flapping around. So maybe that was the thing they called a darkburn.

“How will he,” she began to ask, and then there was a crash from inside the shed and she had to run because Camburé was pulling her fast towards the farmhouse. She didn’t want to go and when they got there she felt like saying I told you so, because the farmhouse was on fire inside with orange flames jumping up as big as trees inside the broken walls.

So they didn’t go in. They ran all the way around it. Aliya’s arm was hurting where Camburé gripped her. She wanted to stop being pulled but Camburé would not stop pulling. Camburé was calling Bruilde! Bruilde! and nobody was answering.

“Where in stars’ name is she?” said Camburé in a cross voice, and she pulled Aliya away from the burning house, hurting her arm some more, and dragged her down a track. It was a windy path between tall prickly bushes that reached out and snagged Aliya’s skirts. She recognised this path. It was the way to the woods.

“Where are we going?” she asked. She wanted to remind Camburé about the woods not being safe. But she could hardly talk for panting.

Camburé didn’t answer. But at last she stopped and looked around and let go of Aliya’s arm and while Aliya was rubbing it there was that creaky whippy flapping noise, and there was the not-a-bird again, the darkburn, a black raggedy splotch on the grey-blue sky, so it had somehow got out of the shed. It was trailing a chain and Aliya wondered what had happened to Veron. She thought maybe she wanted to cry, only crying might make the flappy thing notice her.

As the thing flew closer Camburé pushed her down behind some prickly bushes. The scratches really hurt. But she did not cry or even make a sound because the flappy thing was almost overhead. She kept very still. The not-a-bird kept whumping past from one side to the other but after a while the noise got less and less and when she looked up the thing was out of sight again.

Camburé stood up. Aliya wanted to ask her what would happen now but she found she couldn’t speak at all. Her mouth wouldn’t do it. And Camburé was looking down the path with her sword drawn and now Aliya could hear no flapping but instead new thudding crashing sounds, like running feet. She wondered if they were Veron and his hunters but the hunters were always quiet and these weren’t quiet.

Camburé lifted Aliya right up out of the bushes by the armpits and put her roughly down upon the path.

“Run on,” said Camburé. “Run on. I’ll hold them off as long as I can.”

Aliya wanted to say, Run where? Who? But her mouth still wouldn’t do it and Camburé said “Go!” and so Aliya went.

She set off running the only way she could, which was down the track away from the thudding feet. On either side were prickly bushes so she had to follow the path although she knew this was the way further into the woods and she didn’t want to go there, the woods weren’t safe, Veron said so. Her legs felt wobbly and she wanted to stop and hide but everywhere was too thick and prickly and if the footsteps caught up with her what would happen?

The path was so narrow and over-grown that she could only just see her way along it. Lots of twigs were scratching her and once she nearly fell over but she didn’t, and she could hear men shouting behind her so maybe the hunters had come to help after all except that the shouts still didn’t sound nice, they sounded horrible and she was feeling sick again and everything hurt and she wanted to stop running.

So she stopped on the path and panted. After a few pants her head seemed to clear.

She remembered that this was the path to the big lookout tree. There might be men up in that tree still looking out. Maybe they could pull her up into the tree or she could climb the knotted rope and hide there and be safe. High up above everything and all the shouting. She wanted all the shouts to go away. She wanted Mama.

But Mama was not here and Flodda was not here and Olbeth was not here and so she set off running again, hurtling along the path as fast as she could although the bushes grabbed her arms and legs and tried to trip her over. She wouldn’t let the shouts and footbeats catch her.

And at last, at the end of the path, the big lookout tree was waiting. There was a wide empty space around it, with no bushes, just its tall grey trunk going up and up. The knotted rope was dangling down. She ran up and put her hands on the rope but she knew she couldn’t climb it. She was too tired and it would only swing her round and round.

“Hallo?” she said, or tried to say, up the tree. “Are you up there?”

It was only a whisper. And now the shouts behind were getting louder. She looked for somewhere to hide but there was nowhere except prickly bushes that would not let her in, or behind the lookout tree itself. Maybe she could run round it to hide. It was big enough although it was the first place anyone would look.

But before she could do even that, the footbeats pounded with a huge loud judder and the shouts were right behind her, and when she turned to look there were men there, lots of them crowded on the path behind each other. They were holding axes. They slowed down and walked towards her.

“Got you,” said a big man at the front. He had smears of something all across his face and lots of stones around his head and he moved his axe from one hand to the other. She looked at the others behind him in case some of them were hunters come to help but they were all men with smeary faces. She held tight to the rope and wished somebody would pull her up into the tree but no-one did.

In spite of that she looked up at the tree and said Help! but she could not see or hear anyone in the branches.

Instead she heard a whippy, creaky flapping sound above her head. She smelled that awful smell again. She felt so sick that she wanted to lie down and curl up in a ball like a hedgehog, blind and sleepy.

But she did not do that. She hung on helplessly to the rope and watched the great big flappy darkburn thing wheel round the lookout tree and then come down into the clearing, lower and lower. The men were standing still because they were watching it too but they weren’t frightened. Instead they were waving and shouting at it and grinning. She thought one of them shouted “Here’s your dinner” and she felt so sick she let go of the rope and nearly fell down. Instead she leaned against the tree which held her up, although her legs were very tired, so tired they would not do anything at all.

The not-a-bird kept coming down with lots of noisy whapping like curtains in the wind. It was very big, much bigger than a horse, as big as a monster, and the men all backed away from it but they were laughing so they still weren’t afraid. Aliya thought they only backed away because it smelt so horrid and it was so hot.

She was too hot now and she didn’t like it and she wanted to run away. But there was nowhere to run except around the tree and her legs couldn’t do it. She thought of Mama – Mama would not run around a tree and hide. Mama would stand up straight and fold her arms and tell the thing to go away. And it would obey her. Because everybody did what Mama said.

So as the thing landed on the ground with a deep thud, Aliya leaned against the tree and folded her hot arms which did not want to fold and said, “My Mama says you have to go away.” Her voice sounded thin and wobbly and not like her voice at all.

The flappy thing stood on its four stumpy legs and slowly closed up its wings. Black bits fell off them. They were not feathers. It was not a bird at all because its head was like a dog’s, only burnt, and its legs were strong and thick, with big sharp claws, although they were burnt black too. The bushes closest to it began to smoke and little flicks of flame were darting here and there amongst the prickly branches.

The thing did not take any notice of the flames. It stood in front of her and seemed to be looking at her even though it had no eyes. She was its dinner.

“That’s not fair,” she said. “I’m only five.” Her voice wobbled worse than before and the smell made her feel terrible and she was scared that she was going to cry so she stamped her foot to hide it. She was much too hot and the woods were all going to burn down around her even if the thing did not eat her up for dinner.

But then with a creak and a noise of tearing, the thing opened up its raggedy wings again. She thought that it would pounce on her straight away but it did not.

Instead it leapt up in the air. Its wings were shredded and it flapped wildly as if it wasn’t very good at flying. As it rose she could see the men behind it, and they were laughing and one was pointing at her. So she knew the flappy thing was going to pounce on her after all and eat her up. She wanted to run around the tree but she felt too weak and ill.

The thing flew up a bit more, with noisy whumps, and the men with axes were all shouting things like Go on! Get her! at it, loud and happy. But then the flappy thing turned round and lurched away from her. And it fell down towards the group of men and the shouting changed.

At first Aliya thought it was an accident because the thing was so bad at flying. Then she saw one big black claw reach out and pin a man against the ground. There was a horrible noise and the man burst into flames and then a bush beside him burst into flames with a loud crackle and hiss.

Aliya’s legs suddenly decided to work. They ran around the tree with her, and then a minute later they stopped working again and she was sitting down on the far side.

It was cold and gloomy now that she couldn’t see the fires. She rolled into a little ball like a hedgehog and tried to pretend she was a hedgehog sleeping underneath the look-out tree but it was too hard. She could hear horrible noises, screaming and crashing and it seemed a long time until the screaming stopped and she could hear only the crackle of fire. She smelt a lot of smoke. It was a rough angry smell.

The smoke made her eyes water and that made her want to cry again and she thought she ought to run away. But there was nowhere to run on this side of the tree because it was all a bushy tangle. The only way to run was back down the path past the flappy thing and the men. Although she found it very hard to move at all she uncurled herself and crawled slowly around the tree and put her head out to look.

She could see no men at all. There was the flappy darkburn, like a huge raggedy shadow standing in the path and drooping with its torn wings hanging down. There were lots of bonfires on the ground and in the bushes.

As she crouched on hands and knees and stared at the flappy thing it raised its black dog’s head and stared right back at her although she still couldn’t see its eyes. It knew she was there. Why hadn’t it eaten her up? Was it because she had threatened it with Mama?

But it didn’t know who Mama was, she thought. I didn’t say Mama’s name. I said, It’s not fair. I’m only five.

Maybe it didn’t want to eat up someone who was only five. Maybe it had a five year old black flappy monster somewhere, sitting in a nest. Except the nest would burn.

“You’re setting all the woods on fire,” she said, because orange flames were leaping from the bushes and smoke was swelling into round clouds and she couldn’t even see the path properly. Where could she go? Where was everyone else? Where was baby Doval? “There’s a baby,” she said urgently. “Don’t hurt the baby. Please.”

The flappy thing just stood there staring at her with its eyes that weren’t there, black against the golden fires behind it and around it. Still it did not move.

But it hurt Aliya to look at it and her throat was very sore and she was far too hot, so hot that she had to crawl back round behind the tree again.

It was cooler and darker than ever behind the tree and when she looked up she realised that the lookout tree was not on fire. Nor were any of the woods on this other side of it. She didn’t know why, but it meant she could escape this way – if only she could find a path.

But there was no path between the trees, nothing but thick bushes and long brambles sewing all the trees together. She crawled over to the bushes and in the smoky flicker of the fires she could see that actually there were small gaps in there, low down: holes through the prickly stems where maybe rabbits or fangols or wild piglets had tunnelled their way through.

None of them looked big enough for her but there was nowhere else to go. So she crawled into the biggest gap and although stems tore her clothes and scraped her hands and pulled her braids and scratched her face, she kept on crawling. She wasn’t a hedgehog any more, she was a rabbit, no no, she was a pig because pigs were brave and good at digging.

She kept burrowing and pushing through the twigs and prickles and she didn’t care if they prickled her, because they were nothing but bushes and she was a wild pig. But sometimes they made her cry anyway because they hurt. When she came to a tiny thin stream in the middle of the prickly bushes it was a surprise but she drank from it, with her mouth right down in the water like a piglet. It was a messy way of drinking and the water was cold but it tasted like proper water and she managed to drink quite a lot.

Then she lay and rested with her head half in the stream. But she couldn’t stay there because it was too wet and now that she’d stopped crawling she thought that she heard shouts and whippy flappy noises somewhere. She didn’t want to hear them so she started burrowing again. Even when the stems above her parted she didn’t try to stand up or to look around. She just kept crawling until she only heard the crack and snap of twigs as she pushed through them, and her own breathing. It was snorty because her nose was running but that was all right because she was a pig.

So she crawled and burrowed and tunnelled and although she sometimes came up against a tree trunk and had to go round it she still didn’t try to stand up and walk. She felt safer crawling.

But suddenly she couldn’t crawl any more so she lay down with her head on one side and put her hand under her cheek. Her arms were bleedy with long stripes and her sleeves were all torn. Flodda would be cross.

Mama would not be cross but she would be upset. She would hug Aliya tight and Aliya would say ouch but would let herself be hugged. When Mama hugged her she knew that she was safe. Nothing could reach her or hurt her then.

She wished that Mama would come hurrying through the woods to find her. But she didn’t think that anyone could find her now, she was so well hidden.

And thinking of Mama made her want to cry again so she stopped thinking and lay on her side and looked at the twiggy stems sticking up through the messy prickly tangle. It was starting to get a bit dark and beyond the stems the sky was shining blue, not smoky, and she could see the moon like a bright button caught on the spiky branches. When she put out her hand to unfasten it she pricked her fingers.

If the moon was bright then maybe it was bedtime. But instead of a bed she had earth and pine needles and dead leaves underneath her. It was still light enough to see some pale pink flowers in little groups along the spiny stems. They had yellow dotty middles. There was a tiny fly on one and she wished she was a fly so that she could fly away and nobody would notice her.

She felt very hot and sore and itchy but there was no stream to drink from. The smoke had made her mouth dry and her eyes hurt and she thought she ought to crawl again and look for some more water but she was too tired, so tired. And it was quiet here.

So Aliya lay beneath the bushes and looked at the bright moon and the little pale pink flowers for a bit longer, and then she closed her eyes.