Jack Whyte - The Singing Sword

The journey back took the whole of the day. The weather was beautiful and I made excellent time on the road, but I was still almost seven miles from the Colony as darkness fell, forcing me to reduce my speed. I usually prefer to camp out rather than attempt to travel at night, but this night was mild and the sky was cloudless and moonlit and I was on my home ground, so I decided to keep going. I stayed on the main road south for another three miles and kept up a good pace to the point where the road came closest to the Colony. There I struck out overland, much more slowly, but travelling as the crow flies rather than taking the longer, more circuitous route offered by the track from the highway to the villa.

The only sounds I heard for the next hour were the squeaking of the cart's springs and axle and the muffled thud of my horses' hooves as I threaded my way between clumps and thickets, managing to find solid, grassy passage. When I saw the moon's reflection shining from the waters of the Dragon's Pool, I knew I was home, and my head was full of pleasant thoughts of hot bath water and hotter food when I heard an unearthly, wailing cry from the bulrushes that fringed the water. My blood froze like a child's who has heard too many stories of ghosts and monstrous apparitions, and the fine hairs on the back of my neck stirred with horror. I have never been a superstitious man, but there have been occasions in my life when I might have been converted, and this was one of them. The night that had been so clear and brightly lit by the moon a moment since was suddenly dark and filled with menace.

Even tonight, as I write these words long miles and years from the sight of it, I know the Dragon's Pool is still deep and dark, bordered by sedge and reeds and scrubby willows, its surface probably concealed by a curtain of mist. Tales told around the fires on dark, wintry nights still speak of ancient slaughters and chaos and the souls of drowned and murdered people dragging themselves from the deep waters in the darkness there to bewail their lost lives on earth.

My heart told my doubting mind that I had indeed heard such a sound. My horses had heard it, too, and that appalled me; they stopped in their tracks and one of them whickered softly, and their ears twitched around as they sought to locate the source of the strange noise. I sat motionless, willing my heart to slow down and behave normally, telling myself I was far too old to be frightened by noises in the night, however strange they might be. But it came again, and this time, even as my heart leaped in fear, I recognized the sound as being natural and human: a woman's voice, or a child's. My fear died, and yet I hesitated to call out, unwilling to break the silence, waiting for the sound to be repeated again.

It came again, and broke the tension that held me. I saw only the mist upon the water and the sedge, but I had heard clearly enough to know that the voice had come from close to the water's edge. I stood up and looked, but I could see only that the fog hung thickly enough over the lake and its shoreline to obscure my vision, so before going anywhere I moved to the back of my wagon and took out my tinder-box and the deep clay pot of oil-soaked rags bound tightly around dry sticks I carried for making torches or fires. Within minutes I had ignited some dried moss and blown it into flame, into which I dipped the edge of the oily cloth wrapped around one of the torches. Only then did I move away from the cart, holding the flaring light above my head as I approached the waterside. The full moon at my back threw my shadow grotesquely ahead of me as I walked. There was no noise now, except for the flaring of the burning torch. I called out, "Who's there? Where are you?" and heard nothing. No sound at all. I moved closer to the water, cautiously, beginning to think again that I might have given in to folly, since any human in distress would have responded to the approach of help. But there was nothing. With mounting uneasiness, I transferred the torch to my left hand and drew my sword, taking some satisfaction in the slithering sound it made scraping from its sheath.

I called out several more times, standing still each time and listening for a response that did not come, and at length my feet sank into the mud by the water's edge and I could go no further. The reeds surrounded me in a tall, dense sea reaching higher than my waist. If there was any living soul ahead of me, he or she must be afloat and so beyond my help. I turned around and saw my horses and cart where I had left them, and I began to make my way back. My shadow lay behind me now, and I had not walked six paces when I saw something I had missed on my way in. There was a trail through the reeds where someone, or something, had dragged itself along, moving from my left to my right. In the clear moonlight I could see quite clearly now where the path of my own entry crossed over the broken and flattened reeds. I swallowed a mouthful of gummy saliva, flexed my fingers around the hilt of my sword and followed the path to my right for a few paces. Then, appalled, I saw the light of my torch reflected in a gleaming eye and I dropped into a fighting crouch, sweeping my sword up in a hissing arc and bringing my torch in a flickering, roaring swing down and around in front of me at the same time. What I saw in that instant stunned me and I hung there, suspended, gaping at the spectacle of a small, naked and incredibly dirty and blood-stained child, a boy, whose single, staring eye was filled with terror and the certainty of death.

In a moment I was on my knees beside him, trying to sheathe my sword and jam the base of my torch firmly into the mud at the same time. The boy shrank from me, a terrified moaning emerging from his mangled mouth as he tried to escape, digging his right heel uselessly into the slick mud, pushing himself frantically backward to hide again in the rushes. I grasped at his leg to hold him and instantly identified the splintered, bloody end of a broken thigh-bone against my fingers. His entire body jerked in agony, his breath exploding in a solid grunt of pain, and he fell back, unconscious.

I snatched up my torch again and held it by him, looking intently at what the light now disclosed. The boy could have been no more than seven or eight years old and had been brutalized, savagely beaten to the point where he should have been dead. Shaken by that realization, I bent to his tiny body and listened for a heartbeat, but all I could hear was the flickering of the flames of my torch. I felt for a pulse and found one, faint but steady, beneath the point of his jaw. But the child was cold, chilled and naked. Cursing aloud, I got up and made my way as quickly as I could to the cart, where I unpacked my new cloak and then led the horses back down to the edge of the reeds. I wrapped the still-unconscious child in the cloak, doubling the length of it up from his feet, and then I threw my torch out into the waters of the lake and carried him to the cart, where I emptied the long tool box, dumping its contents on the ground, and then lined the bottom of it thickly with all the clothes I had. He was a very small bundle and fitted perfectly into the box. I climbed up onto the driver's seat and headed for home again, moving as quickly as I could without jarring the box or its occupant any more than I had to.

It took me an hour to complete the journey. I ran into the house, carrying the boy and shouting at the top of my voice for assistance. The family had just finished dining and the servants had entered to clear away the debris from the dining room, which was still brightly lit by a roaring log fire and dozens of lamps and candles. I placed my pathetic burden directly on the table, sweeping whatever was there into a shambles on the floor and unwrapping the folds of the cloak in which I had swathed him. Only then, in the brightly lit triclinium, did I really see how badly used the child had been. He was coated from head to foot in thick, slimy mud mixed with his own blood. His left leg had been broken in two places that I could see, and his right arm was twisted out of alignment. A large flap of skin and flesh had been ripped on his left breast and his little ribs were plainly visible in the wound. His mouth had been smashed; his teeth had punctured his lips and his lower lip had been torn almost in half. His scalp was deeply lacerated and dried blood had scabbed in his hair.