Runemarks

“What d’you mean, what I am?”

The Whisperer glowed brighter than ever, and now Maddy could see sparks of runelight trapped like fireflies within the volcanic glass. They danced, beguiling, and Maddy’s head began to feel pleasantly befuddled, as if she had drunk warm spiced ale. It was a charm, she told herself, and she shook aside the pleasant feeling and pronged yr with her fingers at the Whisperer, which continued to glow-in smugness, she thought-as if it had made some rather clever point.

“Stop that,” she said.

“Merely a demonstration,” said the Whisperer. “I speak as I must and cannot be silent. That rune of yours is strong, you know. I predicted such runes before Ragnarok. I imagine that’s why One-Eye sent you. Didn’t want to risk his own skin.”

For a moment Maddy said nothing. She was cautious of the Whisperer, and yet it confirmed some of what Loki had said. Loki, of course, was not to be trusted, but the Oracle…

Could an oracle lie? she wondered.

“He means to start a war,” it said. “A second Tribulation, to wipe out the Order once and for all. Thousands will die at a single word.”

“Is this a prophecy?” Maddy said.

“I speak as I must and cannot be silent.”

“What does that mean?”

“I speak as I must-”

“All right, all right. What else do you see?” Now Maddy’s heart was beating fast; behind the Whisperer’s rocky face, lights and colors danced and spun.

“I see an army poised for battle. I see a general standing alone. I see a traitor at the gate. I see a sacrifice.”

“Couldn’t you be a little less vague?”

“I speak as I must and cannot be silent. The dead will awake from the halls of Hel. And the Nameless shall rise and Nine Worlds be lost, unless the Seven Sleepers wake and the Thunderer be freed from Netherworld…”

“Go on!” said Maddy.

But the Whisperer’s colors had suddenly dimmed, and it almost looked like a rock again. And now Maddy was conscious of something nearby: a furtive movement in the shadows, a tiny crunch of pebbles on the floor. She spoke a sharp cantrip-

Nyd byth nearu

– locked her hands together to form the runeshape Naudr, then reached into the gloom and dragged out a diminutive figure, furry-eared and golden-eyed and covered in mail from head to foot.

“You again!” she said incredulously.

Sugar’s curiosity had finally got the better of him.

6

“Kill it,” said the Whisperer.

Maddy was looking down at the dazed goblin. “Spying, were you?”

“Kill it,” repeated the Whisperer. “Don’t let it get away.”

“I won’t,” said Maddy. “Will you stop asking me to kill people? I know this goblin,” she went on. “He’s the one who guided me.”

The Whisperer made a sound of exasperation. “What does it matter? Do you want it to report us?”

Sugar was squinting cautiously at Maddy. “Report what?” he said. “I don’t know nowt, and I don’t want to know. In fact,” he went on in sudden inspiration, “I think I’ve lost me memory-can’t recall a thing, kennet. So there’s no call for you to be worrit about what I’ve heard-you can be on yer way and I’ll just lie here quietly-”

“Oh, please,” said the Whisperer. “It heard everything.”

Sugar assumed an expression of hurt astonishment.

“I know,” said Maddy.

“Well, then? We have no choice. The minute it gets the chance, it will report to its master. Why don’t you just kill it, there’s a good girl, and-”

“Be quiet,” said Maddy. “I’m not killing anyone.”

“Spoken like a lady, miss,” said Sugar with relief. “You don’t want to listen to that narsty thing. You just get on back nice and safe to the Horse’s Eye. No need to be staying here any longer than you have to, kennet?”

“Shut up, Sugar. You’re going to lead us back to World Above.”

“What?” snapped the Whisperer.

“Well, obviously we can’t leave him here, and we need to find a safe way out of the Hill. So I thought-”

“Were you listening to anything I just said?”

“Well…,” said Maddy.

“I happen to have just made a major prophecy,” said the Whisperer. “Have you any idea how privileged you are? Four hundred years in that blasted fire pit, with Dogstar at me every day, and I never gave him so much as a syllable.”

“But aren’t you supposed to be telling One-Eye all this?”

The Whisperer made a sound very like a snort. “Look what happened last time,” it said. “The idiot got himself killed.”

It was just then that they heard the sound. A distant pounding directly overhead, too regular to be accidental, which sent shock waves through the hollow Hill that made the rock walls tremble.

Boom-boom-boom.

Boom-boom-boom.

“What’s that?” said Maddy.

“Trouble,” said the Whisperer.

To Maddy it sounded like cannon fire; to Sugar, like the Tunnel Folk at work. Some kind of mining or digging, perhaps, and now they could hear the sound of falling grit as it filtered down onto the stairway from the ceiling far above.

“What is it, Sugar?”

Sugar gave one of his whole-body shrugs. “Sounds to me like the Horse’s Eye,” he said. “P’raps it’s your lot at it again. Bin a lot of bloody noise among the Folk recently.”

Maddy wondered how long she had spent underground. A day? Two days? “But we have to get out. Can’t we bypass Red Horse Hill?”

“You can, miss, but it’s a long way round, nearly as far as the Sleepers, and-”

“Good. It’ll be safe, then.”

Safe? thought Sugar. Safe? The idea of safety and Sleepers in the same sentence-even in the same paragraph-made him want to whimper. But there was no denying the hammering sound, and now his sharp ears could make out other sounds too: the sounds of heavy horses, wheels, and the occasional clap of metal against metal…

“Uh-oh,” said Sugar.

“What?”

“I think they’re tryin’ to get inside.” His voice was incredulous; in five hundred years of siege (as he saw it) the Folk had never managed to do so much as crack open the front door to World Below, and here they were actually pounding their way into the rock.

“The Captain’s not goin’ to like this,” he said. “He’s not going to bloody like this at all.”

7

In a corner of Little Bear Wood, Loki’s head was still aching. Wildfire was his name and wildfire his temper, and in World Below he had given it rein, cursing in his many tongues and breaking a number of small, valuable objects that just happened to be lying around.

He had blundered; that he knew. He had misjudged Maddy not once, which was forgivable, but twice, which was not; he had been careless and complacent; he had been tricked-and by a girl!-and worst of all, of course, he had let her get away with the Whisperer.

The Whisperer. That thrice-damned bauble. It was his pursuit of the Oracle, and not his fear of the Folk on the Hill, that had brought him out of his stronghold, though now that he was here, watching the Hill from a suitable tree, he was unsettled to see the numbers of people gathered around the Horse’s Eye.

There was the constable; the mayor in his official hat; several hundred men and women, armed with pitchforks and hoes (How rustic, thought Loki); a clutch of assorted brats; some ox-drawn digging machines; and the parson, of course, very smart in his ceremonial robes, with his prentice beside him, riding a white horse and reading aloud from the Book of Tribulation.

All this in itself was not so unusual. Every once in a while there was unrest among the Folk, often after a bad harvest, a cattle plague, or a bout of the cholera. The Faerie tended to get the blame for anything that went wrong, and over the years their legend had built, so that now most of the villagers believed-as Nat Parson did- that the Hill was the abode of demons.

Loki had never discouraged this. On the whole, it was fear that kept people away, and when they did march against him (every twenty years or so), waving flags