Read Online The Dark Horse by Marcus Sedgwick - Free Book Online Page A

have been here except to talk and to learn. And I have learned much, you see. If only I had my box, my special box, then I’d have something to do. Then I could keep your fathers busy, and all the rest of you, too. Oh, how you would dance to my tune!”
    “But there’s nothing in the box!” cried Sif. I had been about to say the same thing, and then I remembered that we weren’t supposed to have even heard of the thing, let alone know where it was.
    “Oh,” said Sif, realizing what she had done.
    “Oh,” said Ragnald. “Oh. Yes. I know you have the box.”
    Sif nodded dumbly. I watched silently.
    “And you are wrong,” Ragnald continued. “There is
magic
in the box.” He took a pendant from around his neck—it was shiny and gold and had a design of a horse’s head on it. He rubbed it between his fingers as he spoke. I remember moonlight flashing off its shiny surface and flickering across my eyes. I turned my face and saw the same pale light play across Sif’s face, too.
    “Tell me something, wise ones,” said Ragnald slowly. “Have you seen this marvelous box of mine? I know Horn says you haven’t, but perhaps he is mistaken?”
    I felt confused, as though there were something I had to do but couldn’t remember what. I looked to Sif for help, but she was staring straight at Ragnald.
    “If only I knew where my box was,” Ragnald went on steadily. “If only—then I could show you something unbelievable.”
    He stopped.
    Sif turned her head to me, as if in a dream. There was no expression on her face. I said nothing, I remember, because I felt nothing.
    “Yes,” said Sif softly. “I know where it is. Come with me and show us your magic.”
    And Ragnald said, “Good.”
    That was how it started. Ragnald had shoved the boulder from the top of the hill. Unstoppable.

36

    The darkness and smell of the kennel would have made Mouse feel truly at rest at any other time. The bitch, Moss, breathed gently next to her; Mouse felt her own breathing settle into rhythm with that of the dog. On another occasion she would quickly have settled into comfortable sleep, happy to lie there all night. But not now, because something was eating at her. She wanted to know where Sigurd was. No, the feeling was stronger than that. She had to find him.
    Through Moss she heard all the minute sounds of the Storn that were beyond human hearing. She could hear the clank of beer mugs in the great broch. She listened harder and could hear someone snoring in his broch, and farther than that, Gudrun talking in her sleep in her hut.
    Mouse listened on, directing her thoughts around the village, and then she heard something that made her blood run cold. From somewhere very close to Horn’s broch she heard a voice she could not place.
    “A single word from either of you and I’ll slit your throats.”
    Mouse scrambled out of the kennel and ran.

37

    We stood in the dark for a long time, just outside Horn’s broch. In all that time it never entered my head to think we were doing something strange, so strange that it had to be crazy.
    We could sense Horn inside, brooding. He must have left the great broch and come straight back. We wondered whether he would ever come out.
    Eventually, after a long wait during which neither Ragnald nor Sif nor I said anything, someone, I do not to this day know who, approached the broch in the shadows.
    The figure knocked on the lintel and went in. There were some words spoken, and then they left together, heading for the great broch.
    We crept inside.
    Only then did Ragnald speak.
    “Where’s the box?” he whispered at Sif.
    She hesitated. She seemed half asleep.
    “You want to see the magic, don’t you?” Ragnald whispered again. “Where is it?”
    “Oh,” said Sif. “Yes.”
    She rummaged under some furs that lay against a wall. She pulled the box out from the furs.
    “Here,” she said.
    It looked even more beautiful than I remembered.
    “What sort of magic will it do, Ragnald?” I