Free The Caller by Juliet Marillier Page A

they canna prevail – there’s nae human army can beat the Enforcers. Ye ca’ the Good Folk tae help your rebels. They come to ye and join the fight; they use what magic they can. The king uses the magical abilities o’ his canny followers. Folk start tae fall. Folk start tae die. Humankind and Good Folk alike. And there ye are, the Caller, wi’ everyone waitin’ for ye tae act. But what ye see before ye isna a neat strategic plan. It’s a field o’ folk hackin’ and maimin’, a field of shouts and shrieks and sufferin’. What will ye dae?’
    By now I was cold with misgiving. ‘I must learn to see order in chaos,’ I said, thinking that might be impossible. ‘To see clearly . . .’ A sudden memory came to me. In the subterranean well where the Master of Shadows had tested my strength, I had heard the White Lady’s voice. ‘I must see with the clarity of air,’ I said, repeating her words.
    ‘Guid. Easy tae say, no’ sae easy tae put intae practice, o’ course. But mebbe there’s time enow. New ways o’ seein’, ye’ll work on. New ways o’ hearin’. And shapin’ the call tae the circumstances. Ye willna hae time, in this battle, tae look at ane fighter here and another ower there, and call tae each whatever will help him win. ’Tisna possible. The gift o’ callin’, ’tis a powerfu’ weapon, but nae the sharpest or most precise. We hae much work ahead o’ us, Neryn. When ye gae back tae the house o’ the wise women, ask the lassie if there’s a drum that survived burnin’. If there is, bring it wi’ ye in the mornin’.’
    ‘A drum?’
    ‘The magic o’ air isna only seein’ clear. There’s hearin’ the way a bird hears, or a dragonfly, or ane o’ my wee bein’s here. There’s understandin’ the moods o’ air, frae the gentle breeze stirrin’ the reeds tae the roarin’ gale that snaps an ancient oak like a twig. Air’s slow and quiet, and it’s quick and hard. Ane day it carries the lark on her flight; the next, it topples the tree wi’ her nest o’ wee ones in it. The drum will speak to ye o’ air, if ye open your ears tae its voice.’

    Our lives fell into a pattern. Silva and I spent the nights in the stillroom, with Whisper on watch in a tree outside. In the mornings we fed the animals, then made our way to the Beehives, where Whisper and Silva waited until I was safely down among the cairns before returning to the ruined house.
    All day, Silva tended the garden, planting, weeding, harvesting. She let the chickens out to roam. She cooked and stored food. We could only pray the smoke from her fire did not attract attention; with the winter weather setting in, we could not manage without it.
    Before dusk each day, the two of them returned to the Beehives to fetch me. Sometimes they came early, and I assisted Silva with a ritual while Whisper stayed on the rise with his head turned away. Silva taught me how to help her, and I carried offerings, chanted responses and paced formal paths with increasing confidence, honoured that I could be part of something so sacred and so old.
    We learned from Silva that Winterfort lay only a few days’ walk north from the Beehives. The border with Glenfalloch was further south. No messenger came from Tali – unsurprising, since it was winter and she did not know where we were – and I had no way to send word to her or to get in touch with the southern rebel group. Whisper was our protector and must stay with us. I could not ask the wee folk of the Beehives. It was inconceivable that a being so tiny and frail could endure a long flight out in the cold.
    It was a perishing season. As the days and nights passed, and Silva kept us alive with her little fires, her vegetable broths, her flat bread and onions, I knew we owed her a debt that might never be repaid. For the Lady could not save us from hunger and cold. She could not protect us from the intrusions of ordinary folk, should they choose to ride over here and investigate who was