After a while Alya looked back again. The wings were circling no longer, above those remote white walls; but he guessed that they would not have given up. He was heart-weary now, but the fire crackled along his limbs, undiminished, and that was as well. They must be far behind him now, but sooner or later they would overtake him.
That was not his only constraint. How long those straps would hold the girl, words or no words, he could not tell; and it had been a whole night and day since he left her. Any mortal woman he would never have abandoned in such a plight for so long, whatever the need; so he hoped, anyhow. But this one would come to no harm. He was less sure about himself.
So he rode a fast tailwind above the bare lands, skimming the high cloud-peaks, and his pursuers were still lost even to his keen sight. The swanhame’s owner, whose pulse still beat within it, could not have flown faster; yet still he envied the wind itself its speed.
At last the sunset turned the river to a polished steel ribbon, and showed him the distant green of the canebrakes, and the bluffs at the bend. For all his urgency, he felt a deep pang for what he must now give up. He sank down swiftly, riding the lesser breeze until he hovered almost, then glided slowly in to the channel beside the sandspit. There beneath the rushes she lay still, the strange golden-haired one, shaped in the image of a race far from his own. Could this be what the folk beyond the waters looked like? Very strange, if so; but they must be just as human, and no doubt facing perils of their own. Would he ever see them? And what would they make of him and his kind?
The water was bitter out of the sun, and he landed awkwardly, sinking, struggling to throw the fell from his shoulders. At first it would not come. He could hardly remember what it was like to have human limbs. Then it gave, almost painfully now, and he sank again, cramped and struggling. But the water was shallow enough; he found footing and stood, coughing. When he drew the mask off his face, the leather lining seemed to flay his cheeks, and he was thankful he had little beard as yet. He waded to the shallows, shaking out the cloak, and pulled his dry clothes off her as she lay. She seemed less sleek than he had left her, bedraggled, exhausted, her eyes red-rimmed now and deeply shadowed, as if she, not he, had flown for all those hours.
Merely looking at her, he felt the pain and the indignity behind that terrible gaze. A flood of remorse overcame him. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, idiotically. ‘I had to. But I’ve come back. I had to,’ he repeated, and sat down beside her, drained.
‘You are very fair,’ he said, suddenly. ‘You’re my enemy, I suppose, but I bear you no ill-will in yourself. I had to do what I’ve done, for a cause that’s life itself to me. Do you understand that, I wonder? I’ve seen you and your sisters at play. I’ve touched your pride and your wrath. But do you love at all, who are so well made for it? Do any of you have hearts?’
He sighed, and began to dress. ‘I’m talking nonsense. Your sisters will be here soon. They’ll find you and release you.’
He stopped. He read something else in that gaze. ‘You don’t want them to find you, do you? Not like this.’ He chuckled, a little crazily. ‘Powers, I can understand that – Powers? What am I saying? Release you myself? Sorry, what kind of idiot do you take me for?’
Her gaze said nothing, nothing at all. She was as opaque as the river. She was not going to plead, or beg. Impatiently he snatched out the gag, and hurled it away, half expecting a deafening scream, or long white teeth to meet in his finger. Instead she coughed a little, spat inelegantly, and looked at him once again. The look was cold, considering; but it had no added power of its own. The voice was startling, low, quiet, but so forceful it made his neck hairs bristle.
‘You know more than most of your kind. But we are beings beyond your understanding. We have some regard for bravery. You are braver than most, or more foolish. Was your cause really worth throwing your life away for, so casually? Release me, or leave me, it matters little. I will be free soon, and then I will kill you, and you will serve me till I weary of your shadow. Whereas you cannot kill me, at all.’
‘I can cut you to pieces,’ said Alya brutally, ‘very slowly. I can burn this fine cloak of yours. None of that will kill you, but it will cause you great pain, and weaken you for a long time.’ She said nothing, and he sighed. ‘Or I could hide the swanhame far away, in the dark. That would be wisdom, maybe. But I will leave it on the bank, not far off.’
He rolled her over, a little roughly, and tugged the straps free. The heavy leather looked stretched. She doubled up in cramps. He snatched up the cloak and his gear, and splashed out frantically through the reeds to the shore. He dropped the cloak hastily in a nook of the bank, and then he ran for dear life through the canes, as silently as he could. Even as he threw himself beneath the trunk of a toppled willow, he saw her rise and stretch painfully, silhouetted against the still-glowing sky, the thongs dangling from her wrists. They fell free, unheeded, as she came limping through the reeds, in exactly the direction he had taken. His hair bristled as she drew nearer; and then she walked straight to the cloak, though she could not see it, and snatched it up. She glanced around, this way and that. He stilled his very breathing. She would kill him; and then he would serve her? Then?
She stood for what seemed like an age, while the dusk deepened. Then suddenly she was no longer there, and a black swan’s silhouette soared high into the last of the light.
Alya stayed where he was. It wheeled once, not especially near him, not in the direction of the farm, and sped away, straight and unvarying, towards the distant north. He waited a long time after it disappeared from view; but the time was not wasted, as he searched what glimpses he had had of her mind.
It was dawn when he rode back to the farmhouse, shivering with hunger and unspeakably weary, his limbs cramping with agonies even the fires could not burn away. As he flung the door wide the others sprang up, and ran to catch him as he all but fell down the steps. But he looked up at them with eyes wide and urgent.
‘I’ve seen her! Get that door shut, stay out of sight! I tried to break up my tracks, but they have such senses … She didn’t do anything! But the others … Vansha, she’s alive, I’ve seen her!’
Vansha’s face stiffened. ‘Where? Not … beyond the Wall?’
‘No! In the flesh! In … In the Ice! Right in the middle of …’ He yawned violently, and shivered. ‘Give me some of whatever’s cooked, in the name of all the Powers, cold or not! The Nightingale and Tseshya, they were right! And I know where. Vansha, you should have seen her, she’s …’ Gobbling with his fingers, he gestured wildly, flicking dabs of thick gruel about the place.
Vansha, much recovered, hunkered down by his side. ‘Saw her? Well, I’m … Is, is she all right? How did she look?’
‘Beautiful! Well. Well clad. A slave or servant or something. There seemed to be a lot of them about. But that was her! And I know the way now, all the way! Get ready, everyone! We’re riding out! No, not now, fools! Soon as it’s safe!’
‘It’s not that long till nightfall!’
Alya seized his arm. ‘D’you want to rescue her or not?’ He wavered, shook his head, leaned on one arm, and then subsided on to the mat. ‘Soon’s safe … soon.’ He rolled over, and fell instantly asleep.
Asquan prodded his buttock with a toe, not too gently, but he only stirred and snuffled. ‘Ah,’ said Asquan. ‘True love.’
‘You should try it some time,’ grunted Kalkan. ‘Or is that too novel?’
Asquan put on a sad face. ‘Oh, I have, I have. Believe me. Each time truer than the last. And found it like any scarce commodity – a little sweeter, a lot more expensive.’
‘So that’s your way of weighing it, my lord?’ sneered Vansha. ‘By what it costs?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Asquan, with a withered smile, still contemplating Alya as he slept. ‘But I wasn’t talking about money. Not entirely.’
Alya sat bolt upright. The shadows that clustered around his dreams slithered back, just to the edge of awareness, no further. A sharp biting b
reath caressed his cheek; and a long lance of sun stabbed straight at his eyes, through the gap in a shutter. ‘How long have I slept?’ he demanded of the air. ‘We should be on our way …’
‘No, we should not,’ said Vansha with sleepy irritability. ‘You’ve slept since yesterday afternoon, and it’s only early morning now!’
‘You don’t understand!’ fumed Alya. ‘There’s little enough time, now! They must be riding already!’
‘Who must?’ demanded Kalkan, sitting up just as sharply, with his spear beside him. ‘More bloody raiders?’
Alya shivered. ‘No. Not exactly. Servants of the Ice. They were there on the river, like great insects skating about on the surface … The woman! Is she still alive? Has she told you anything?’
‘Many things!’ yawned Asquan irritably. ‘Some true, perhaps. Much that is rubbish, or sheer superstition. Is it essential that we go through them all now?’
‘Maybe! Far in the north …’
Asquan scratched himself irritably. ‘Far means more than three days’ walk, to her. About where human habitation ends is what she meant by that – but you don’t credit that tale, do you?’
‘I’ve cause to! At the least it’s worth looking into. The Ice—’ He shivered in the cold air. ‘You’ve never seen anything like it! But it’s well guarded; and I believe I know something about some of the guards. Terrible things; but they may give us our door in. And perhaps out, also. If we can only seize the hour, then we may have a chance. But it will be perilous. That’s why I want to leave, now!’
‘Will an hour make that much difference?’ demanded Vansha, wincing as his wounds pulled. ‘I thought not. Eat, then. What good will we do her if we reach her too weak to help?’
The sense in that held Alya back just long enough. While the others were still licking out their bowls and rinsing their mouths, he was already saddling his rebellious horse, and impatiently scanning what he could see of the sky. But it was clear and bright, and although there were many arrowheads of birds, they none of them came near, or wheeled as if searching. So at last, when the others were making ready, he returned to the house.
The women were still there in the shadows, gathered around the elder one on her mat, but silent as ever. She looked up at him with fever-sunken eyes, but said nothing. ‘You mentioned the ghost-ride!’ he said; and the woman whimpered slightly, and tried to turn her head away.
‘Tell me!’ he said sharply. ‘It will make up for some of what you deserve.’
‘I know little!’ she said sullenly, at last. ‘What is to tell? Those who survive the service of the Ice may sometimes be released, to ride home to their own lands. But so, sometimes, do those who do not. Them, they cannot stop and find rest. He who once ruled the Ice now only guards its approaches. Him they must serve. Ask no more!’
Alya nodded. ‘I do not need to. We are leaving now. We have taken some of your food, but left enough for many months yet. It was bought with dead men’s armour, I don’t doubt.’ Rysha, standing in the door, made as if to say something, but stopped dead at the look he gave her. ‘When we pass this way again, we will see how you fare; and we will do you no more harm, if you offer us none.’
He turned on his heel, and went out. ‘When you pass?’ shouted one of the girls, at his back. ‘Some chance, the way you’re heading!’
‘You’ll know all about the ghost-ride, soon enough!’ jeered another, emboldened now.
Alya paid them no heed; but Rysha looked down on them, from the steps. ‘I’d be leery of mocking ghosts!’ she said shortly. ‘You’ve enough of your own to worry about. And believe me, that’s no joke.’ She followed Alya out.
‘The bitches were right, though!’ sniffed Tseshya painfully, as they helped him on to his horse. ‘When we pass this way again? We’ll be treading another road soon enough!’
Kalkan laughed. ‘Which you’d have done soon enough in King Volmur’s shit-pit, my good scribbler! You can always stay here with the ladies, you know!’
‘Aye!’ grinned Darzhan. ‘They might even acquire a taste for you!’
Tseshya glared. ‘I’ll take my chances, thank you!’
‘Right!’ chuckled Kalkan. ‘After all, who’s freer than the dead?’
Alya turned sharply. ‘Don’t be so sure, my lord!’
Kalkan shrugged. ‘At least we’d be free of these accursed canes! You say they end soon?’
‘We’ll be free of them by tomorrow.’
‘Then I’ll breathe freely again. And open hills after that? Fine; at least we’ll be able to see any enemies coming. I’ve been afraid we’d run into some band of raiders around any corner, without warning!’
‘There shouldn’t be any danger of that!’ said Alya. ‘There are none within reach. I saw many, but they were all bound northward.’
‘All?’ demanded Asquan. ‘None headed south, at all?’
‘No,’ said Alya slowly. ‘Not now you mention it, no …’
‘Won’t ask how you know,’ muttered Kalkan gruffly. ‘But you’re sure?’
‘Yes. It’s something to think about. It’s not raiders we’ll have to watch out for, in the open. It’ll be birds – yes, birds! Swans. Black swans. Or something else large.’
‘Swans,’ repeated Chiansha. ‘Like the ones I saw, uh?’
‘The ones we all saw,’ said Asquan. ‘I think we should know—’
‘Not now!’ said Alya fiercely; and with that they had to leave it. But Alya remained nervous all that day, most of all when they came near to the river fork in late afternoon, and had to cross by the ford to which the road led them, deep and uncertain.
‘Mind how you cross!’ growled Kalkan. ‘These deep slow streams, they drown twice as many as faster ones!’
‘Wise words!’ agreed Asquan crisply. ‘And be wary of what lies on the far side also. One man should go first, with a rope – and a spear!’
‘Fazdshan!’ ordered Kalkan. ‘You’re the biggest—’
‘But I’m the strongest,’ said Alya; and there was no gainsaying that. But as he felt his way across with the spearbutt, skidding on slimy stones and tangling his legs in weed, he spent so much time scanning the river and the sky that Asquan hissed after him impatiently, ‘The far side, my lord! What better place for brigands to lurk, or worse!’
He was right, of course. Alya clambered out carefully, and looked around as he made the rope fast to a beech tree that rose among the thinning cane. ‘It’s all right!’ he called back, wringing out his breeches. ‘But hurry!’
They came splashing across on horseback now, with Asquan bringing up the rear, winding in the line. He dismounted as he reached the bank, to untie it from the tree; and as he did so, he froze. ‘All right, you said, my lord?’
They gathered round, staring down at the single clear footprint in the waterlogged soil. ‘Only a little oozing,’ said Kalkan. ‘Not long made. But what in Hella’s tits is it?’
‘A bear?’ suggested Rysha.
‘No kind I’d know!’ said Vansha. The other hunters muttered agreement.
‘It’s got claws, of a sort,’ said Alya. ‘But short, and blunt … and the size!’
‘More like those great apes in the southern forests!’ said Asquan. ‘You would not have seen them, of course. But, yes, bigger … And it stood upright.’
‘It stood here!’ said Vansha sharply. ‘For some time. As if …’
‘As if it was watching?’ They all looked around, as one, peering out among the thinning canes, into the undergrowth and trees that briefly reasserted themselves here.
‘In the early hours, I think!’ said Asquan. ‘Fortunate that we did not decide to press on, as you wished, my Lord Alya!’
Alya gulped, and nodded. ‘There might have been others around!’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Maybe they picked up my scent, last night … I think we should press on now. Be clear before dark.’
‘Nobody’s arguing!’ grunted Chiansha, and clambered back into his saddle.
Vansha rode up alongside A
lya as they moved off, spears at rest as before. ‘It sounds as if you were right.’
‘About what?’
‘About spying out our way. Being too risky. I shouldn’t have pressed you.’
‘But it was worth it!’ Alya seized his arm. ‘Vansha, you should have seen her! So fair – even in that place, among—’
Vansha loosened his grip, wincing. ‘Indeed I should!’ Alya caught the edge to his tone, and remembered Vansha’s forlorn hopes of being a Seer. ‘But at what price? If we’ve called the Powers know what down upon us …’
‘I doubt it. The print may be something else. They would have come themselves. And sooner, I think. The Choosers!’ he added softly, answering Vansha’s unspoken question. ‘But don’t tell the others. Not till we must!’
‘The Choosers,’ said Vansha between his teeth. ‘So that’s who you’ve been a-roving with! The name that Ekwesh bastard threatened us with. A name I’ve heard before. Things my father hinted at.’
‘Mine, too, I think. I’d say they’re true.’
Vansha whistled softly. ‘So! Are they as fair as folk say?’
‘Every bit. Like breeds of women you can’t imagine, yet always young and beautiful. And deadly. Either way, to stop your heart.’
Vansha crooked an eyebrow. ‘Strange. You’d think they’d want to seem fearsome.’
Alya nodded. ‘I remember my father saying that that’s how the Ice sees itself – how the Powers who rule it imagine themselves. As victims, not oppressors. As defenders of a great beauty, that living things disfigure. They despise ugliness; so that whatever form they borrow, they make as fair as they can. I read something of that, in among her thoughts.’
‘In her thoughts!’ Vansha looked bleak. ‘And what else? No, don’t tell me. Not unless I need to know.’
‘Not yet, anyhow,’ said Alya, and glanced around the canes once more, just as all the others were doing. They had had enough shocks for now.
Shadow of the Seer Page 33
