Part 45 (1/2)

fiercely he urged Thane to mount and cantered out into the lake, swimming as fast as he could through the ice-cold water.

The sky above the lake darkened as Ogion led his Queen over the last tumbled ridges of the ice field. On either side two swans supported her tired wings, easing her down on to the water. Ousious crashed, ungracefully, in a spray of white foam and lay floating, head down and wings outstretched.

Ogion landed beside her and pulled at her head, pecking at the close downy feathers to keep it above the water.

Stumble had reached the place where Ousious lay and

Thane reached out and pulled the drowning swan up out of the cold water then laid her across the high pommel of the saddle. Gently he took her head and tucked it inside his s.h.i.+rt, folded her wings and wrapped his cloak around her cold s.h.i.+vering body. Stumble slowly turned and swam back to the bank, flanked on either side by the whispering swans.

Jumping quickly out of the wet saddle Thane opened his cloak and laid Ousious on the beach. Turning her over he saw the broken spear blade protruding out of her chest. 'Krulshards'

black metal!' he muttered between clenched teeth, loosing the dagger from his belt and drawing it out.

Standing up he faced Ogion and the close-packed beach of swans that encircled him. 'Ogion, your Queen will die if I do not try to pull the Nightmare's blade out of her chest.'

Ogion stepped forward hissing and touched the dagger with his beak. Thane smiled and dropped on to his knees, spreading his ragged travel-worn cloak across Ousious s.h.i.+vering body. 'Fetch me kindling sticks and fire-wood. I must clean the blade of my dagger of any trace of Nightbeast blood with fire before it touches the Queen of Swans. Go quickly for time is our enemy.'

Thane searched out his spark and dried it in the palm of his hand while the swans built a pile of kindling sticks on the!

beach. Kneeling again he held Ousious' head in his hand'

and whispered to her, 'The blade will be white, fire-hot ant as pure as the day Durondel hammered it on his anvil.'

Ousious opened her eyes.

'We will follow Elionbel together,' Thane whispered, 'when you are strong and healed from this terrible wound.'

Ousious closed her eyes and hissed quietly, her orange beak quivering in his hand. Turning his head, Thane threw the spark, lighting the pile of kindling and waited until the base of the fire had burned into a bed of white-hot ash.

Picking up the dagger he thrust it hilt deep into the ashes and watched the almost invisible smears of foul Nightbeast blood bubble and hiss as they burned away.

'Merion, give me your skill!' Thane whispered, trying to remember what he had seen the Healer do to remove the broken spear blades from the injured warriors of Underfall.

Gripping the jagged protruding splinter of black steel he pulled hard. Ousious screamed, arching her back away from the ground. Easing his hand from the broken blade he sat and thought, forming a picture of the dark fortress at Underfall and the small stone cell where Merion mended the Nightmare wounds. Clearly he saw him hurrying and singing as he opened the edges of a wound with a long curved blade and easily removed the slivers of steel or broken arrow-heads.

Something glittered in his hands - thread, gold and silver.

Deftly, the Healer would sew the jagged tears together, sometimes pouring new blood into the wound. 'Now I know,'

he whispered, closing his hand on the hilt of his dagger, but

he had forgotten the fire and screamed as the hot metal burned his skin.

'Nevian, give me courage!' he shouted, clenching his burned fingers around the hot metal hilt and cueing two deep incisions into the swan's chest beside the broken splinter.

Warm blood gushed up, cooling the blade and flooding across his burning knuckles. With his other hand he grabbed the splinter and wrenched it free. Ousious lay limp and still on the ground, her chest feathers matted and sticky, and the edges of

the wound slipped in Thane's fingers as he tried to stop the bleeding. He knew she would die if he could not give her new

207.

blood and close the edges of the wound. In despair he turned the dagger and with one stroke gashed his wrist, crying out and biting his tongue as the blade cut through the skin.

'Live, Queen of Swans,' he cried, forcing his bleeding wrist against Ousious' chest, plunging it deep into the gaping wound.

Stumble neighed and pushed hard against his ann, rubbing his coa.r.s.e mane on Thane's cheek. Thane turned his head crossly to send Stumble away, but a shaft of winter sunlight broke through the clouds at that moment and touched the little horse's neck, s.h.i.+ning on the mane.