Shadow of the Seer

by Michael Scott Rohan

  ‘We’re doing our best!’ hissed Vansha. ‘So did Asquan and Fazdshan, and they’re worn out now! We don’t all have the Inmost Flame to stoke our sinews!’

  Alya seized the oar. ‘Don’t you understand, you fools? We must keep within the mists! When they’re this thin, we’re too far behind! And there are other watchers. If we can see, we can also be seen – can’t we?’ He gave the oar a massive heave. ‘Never mind! As you say, you did your best! But now I have to catch up!’

  So he did, all that long day labouring at the scull, with the mists blowing ever thicker around them, until the splash of paddles ahead sounded alarmingly loud. They waved at him to slow down; but Vansha and Asquan had to shake the oar in his hands before he would pay heed. Nor would he rest, even then. He was pale and grim, but he denied he was tired, and he took the food they gave him as he rowed on into the night, his bleary eyes forever fixed on the mists ahead.

  Nevertheless, at last his head also drooped a little, though his arms did not slow at the scull. His eyes closed, for a second as it seemed; and then he started awake. An icy breath passed across his cheek, as from ghostly lips, and he had barely a moment to hiss a warning to the others before the faint gleam grew stronger, and the growing breeze rolled back the grey veils overhead.

  They revealed first a sky still dark, and heavy with menacing clouds; but touched with a faint hint of dawn. But even that dismal light kindled a glitter among the thinning heights of the mist, a bitter gleam that drew every eye and struck fear into it. That light seemed to fill the way ahead, as if the mist was solidifying around them. And indeed, the mists tumbled and cascaded down its surface, like sea-waves that broke impotently off granite rocks, rolling back to fill the river basin. But this was not granite, it seemed, but glass, clouded yet shimmering faintly blue and green even in this gloom with captive light.

  Across the tortured earth they stretched, between the horizons, the ends of sight and sky; and he knew well how much further. But his long flight had not shown him everything. Among the upper airs he had missed their truest and most terrible aspect, a glistening blade that slashed earth and air asunder, and held the scar apart. Straight ahead they rose with infinite, forbidding grandeur, blue-white and translucent as jewels, the walls of a vast battlement older than any other, fortress and fastness, mighty, unconquerable, the mountainous ramparts of the Ice.

  In Alya’s weary eyes they loomed taller and more terrible than their black counterpart. Yet, white or black, these walls also he must overcome, to have any hope of making his life his own once again. The stronghold of his ultimate enemy had become the cradle of his last slender hope.

  There was nothing smooth or solid about them. On the contrary; they were deeply riven, fragmented, cracked, worn and eaten away with the rigours of unimaginable time. At their feet whole cliff-faces lay shattered; shards greater than whole palaces stood half detached and poised to crash down in ruins upon those that had fallen before, like those fragments of the Great Ice it was said could fall from the heights beyond the air, from the abyss of the stars.

  Ravines an army could enter opened in many places, stairs a giant could climb, caves like the burrowings of monstrous worms from which half-frozen streams tricked down in icicles the height of foothills. Craggy crenellations tore at the rainclouds that hung above them. Yet behind all those flaws and breaches there was no vulnerability, no defended heart. There was nothing but the immense realm of the glaciers themselves, stretching deep beyond sight to the further half of the world, forever replenished from its heart by the waters it drew down and captured, as snow.

  That sight held them in silent awe, every one. But at its centre was something that brought home the deadly reality of their situation. Just such a crevice clove the wall before them, a vast triangular gap in the cliffs base. Though it reached barely a third of the way to the summit, it could have swallowed the highest towers of human make. The boiling cauldron of the mist hid its base, but left little doubt this was the river’s source and outflow. And still less doubt that it was into that slash of blackness the shadow-boats were headed.

  The mists, driven down from the clifftops, still filled the river basin; and Alya strained at the oar to stay among the thickest banks, to wring all the concealment he could from them. There was something horribly watchful about those heights, as if keen-eyed sentries patrolled them. And the shadow-boats were near enough to hear. A minute more in hiding might make all the difference.

  But he was weary; and the mists were unpredictable, banking and thinning at random. Suddenly, very close, a shadow took form among the whiteness, a figure at its stern. It stood just as Alya stood, leaning on the great scull; and it gave him a horrible fantasy that the thinning mist might show him familiar faces in the other boat, blank and dead, and upon its face, his own. He hissed a warning, but there was no need. His followers already sat like their counterparts, hooded heads bowed with oppression and despair.

  Easily, careful not to seem too eager, he sculled past the other, keeping as clear as he could from the sound of their paddles. But the mists betrayed him. The same dank breeze blew once more, bearing scents of bare stone and hard earth, edged with dark frost. It flicked a chilly rain-speck against his forehead, and another. Drizzle thinned the haze around them, and outlined the silhouettes of the other boats.

  ‘There are more!’ exclaimed Kalkan hoarsely. ‘More than the three we followed! Sentinels!’

  ‘Paddle!’ snapped Alya, and bent hard to the scull, steering for where the mist still rolled thickest, seeking to plunge into the murk once more. The hull creaked as the paddles hurled it forward, its blunt bow planing over the rain-pocked river. Whiteness parted before them, then rolled and boiled around them once again; and it seemed as if they were safely hidden. Then they saw within it the shadow-shape of yet another boat, driving in on where they had been, and about to pass them very close. Somehow they had been seen.

  Rysha waved her hand suddenly, pointing at it. Puzzled, Alya glanced down at his; and a splash of spreading blue landed on his knuckles, blurring the characters there. The rain was washing the ink from his forehead and face, and now his hands also.

  A thin stabbing chill swept over them all. The horses tossed their heads and whinnied in dismay. They heard no word spoken, but water boomed and gurgled against another hull, and the shadow swung sharply about. Kalkan sprang up, making the flat boat sway and ship water over its low gunwale. Asquan hissed in fury and rose to balance him. ‘Keep paddling!’ growled Kalkan, but Asquan ignored him. Kalkan hefted his heavy spear, Asquan drew his sword. Alya drove the boat on, wondering what would fly out of the mist, a challenge or simply an arrow in the back.

  There was a voice suddenly, with guttural words he couldn’t understand. A harsh plain voice, yet something in it made his heart leap and labour.

  ‘Don’t answer!’ hissed Asquan softly. Alya realised he must be right. The creatures in that boat could not see them clearly, not yet. They might still give it the slip. The drizzle grew stronger. Something chill stung his cheek, and again; then his ear. Something hard, among the rain, and now there was more. A sudden gust thrashed his shoulders; hailstones, small but fast, and growing larger. The mists sank before them, a slanting, steely curtain. They hammered on the boat’s timbers, stinging, blinding. The others could do nothing to protect the horses, who shrilled and tossed their heads. That was enough. Like a blade through mail, steering straight down upon them, came the shadow-boat.

  Now there was no challenge, and the characters, what remained upon their skin, could help them little. They could see and be seen clearly enough now, by the other crew. Among its paddlers crouched other shapes, picked out in the grey light by the sullen sheen of helm and spearpoint. Alya gave one last immense thrust, feeling the scull bend dangerously under his hands, turning his boat unexpectedly towards the other. Then he heaved the scull from its socket.

  Kalkan had had the same idea. His spear was already levelled, braced in both hands, and as the shadow-boa
t slid alongside he swung it. A broad spearblade stabbed past him and thudded into the timbers, but his longer lance scythed across the gap and struck. The shadows in the other boat were struck sprawling across their gunwales, with a reassuringly solid crash and splash. The boat rocked with the reaction, and the other shadows ducked.

  ‘You can be hit hard enough!’ hissed Alya. He saw the armoured men spring up, and swung the scull in both hands. He glimpsed faces hard and scarred like any Ekwesh, and felt a ridiculous reassurance; surely these were living men, at least. Then he met their eyes.

  The scull swept right across their deck. Living, dead, or neither, they were hurled down on one another, over the thwarts, upon the paddlers, into the black water, leaving the boat a tangle of thrashing limbs. But it was a completely silent tangle, without a scream or a curse; and out of it figures sprang up at once, stabbed out and leaped. One landed on the gunwale above Vansha, and Asquan hewed the legs from him. Another fell right in the bottom of the boat, and Rysha yelled in fright and clubbed him down with the butt of her paddle. The dark helmsman loomed up. He too had raised his oar like a quarter-staff; but Alya was ready. His lunge drove the other’s scull back in against him, and hurled him overside.

  Then they were past, with the horses still rearing and plunging in fright, the planking booming alarmingly. Fazdshan ran to calm the beasts – and Rysha squealed again as the warrior she had felled sprang up, spear still in hand, and struck. The creature flew up, kicking on the end of Kalkan’s spear; but Fazdshan sagged, clawing at his shoulder, blood spurting through his fingers. The creature was hurled overside; and the dark boat, unsteered, slid away into the mist.

  With unsteady hands Alya locked the scull again and pulled furiously. He looked back to where the dark boat had disappeared, but it might never have been. He felt a moment of mad relief. Its mere presence was somehow deeply shocking.

  Rysha was supporting Fazdshan, while Tseshya struggled to staunch his wound with his neckcloth; but then the mist swirled. The scholar screamed, jerked violently and fell back, snatching at the arrow in his hip. Another thudded into his mailshirt and broke, but he doubled up in pain. Vansha dragged him down out of sight. Kalkan dropped as other arrows hissed over the boat. Asquan cursed as one hit him a glancing blow on the side. Then two of the horses screamed, and one dropped dead where it stood; the other fell kicking and writhing, while its fellows threshed and whinnied.

  Alya winced, but he had to leave them to the others. Another gust of hail stung his eyes, and shielding them stopped him seeing what lay ahead, till the last moment – the other boat, riding still in the water, full in their way. He swung the scull sharply, but he was not practised enough to backwater fast. The boat glided obstinately down against the bow of the sentinel craft, and arrows hissed down among the hail.

  Alya skipped sharply as they split the stained timbers around him. Vansha, in the bows, wrenched one loose, drew his own bow and sent it winging back. It struck into the breast of one of the shadows gathering along the gunwales ahead, and the thing fell back; but others pressed into place, massing as if to leap. Fear wreathed about them like smoke.

  Kalkan growled with rage, and swung up his spear butt-first. Alya wanted to shout; they would shoot the old man down at once. But Kalkan took two short steps forward. His spear slammed down on the deck timbers, and with a wild roar the old lord vaulted on it, right over the gunwale, right on to the approaching bow; and even as he landed the spear was swinging over and down. The nearest of the massing shadows was clubbed down, the stabbing spearblades were scythed apart, and Kalkan stabbed and swung among them.

  ‘Follow me, lads!’ he bellowed. ‘Let’s scour this dung-barge good and proper!’

  Darzhan was already poised to follow, Chiansha came leaping down from the bow, and Vansha threw down his bow and drew his sword, ready to follow. Fazdshan also sprang up, sword in hand, as if unaware of the clotted rag dangling from the torn neck of his mailshirt. Darzhan vaulted, Chiansha after him, but Fazdshan, with his long legs, simply pushed Vansha aside and leaped. A gust of hail caught him as he landed, and he skidded to his knees on the platform; but even as he fell he was thrusting out, catching one of the shadows on his sword, slashing another across the thigh and into the river.

  Vansha sprang up to follow, but the gap between the boats was too wide now, and he could only watch in astonishment as Kalkan and his men cut a swathe through their foes. Shadows they might be, but they fought like living men. And could be cut down like them also; or tipped into the river, to be whirled away by the strong slow current. In moments Kalkan was at the stern, crossing spears with the shadow-steersman, with Darzhan guarding his back, and Fazdshan stabbing frantically at anything that still moved. Alya was struggling to pull their boat around, and managed at last to bring it alongside.

  ‘Come back!’ Vansha roared at Kalkan. ‘We’ve got to get clear!’

  Even in his battle-fury Kalkan heard, and with one last sweep of his spear he whirled and came staggering back down the listing boat, pushing the others before him. They reached the bow, and Kalkan was squaring off to leap when one of the mangled things they had left in their passage reared up and hewed with a broken pike. Kalkan bellowed and staggered. Darzhan caught him, Chiansha pinned the flailing thing to the timbers and Fazdshan hacked it in half.

  Darzhan more or less threw Kalkan into Vansha’s arms, then jumped back himself, sprawling across the gunwale. Chiansha followed, landed on top of him and narrowly missed transfixing Vansha with his spear. Seeing this, Fazdshan turned to the stern. Alya reached out to catch him. But a hand clamped on the hem of the warrior’s mailshirt, and he fell sprawling on his injured shoulder. Bodies, unable to stand, slithered up like serpents and swarmed across him as he screamed. Broken blades and haftless spears rose and fell like threshing flails. Blood poured across the platform and dripped off the edge.

  Then they were past, with Kalkan groaning and cursing in the bow.

  Even as they cleared it, though, Alya saw movement at the edge of sight. He swung the scull, barely in time. Timbers crashed and splintered, and the impact almost threw him from the stern. Their boat swung wildly in the water, rammed by the first boat, which had come up behind them again. But more by luck than skill, Alya had suddenly offered them the craft’s solid stern instead of its low flank. Half-rotten timbers splintered under his feet, but the other’s entire bow had given way. The shadow-boat sagged down and subsided slowly, as if dissolving back into the black waters. Its stern rose, sliding its shadowy crew in a heap, and it rolled over and vanished.

  There were shouts ahead, then, and it was not Alya but Vansha, with a hefty paddle-stroke, who turned the boat aside from another impact, barely in time. Kalkan, the side of his mail stained red, hefted his spear to strike at the other boat; but he made no move. There on the other bow stood Fazdshan, mangled and bloody, but straight and intent. And as Kalkan hesitated, staring, the warrior lunged out, without a sound, and struck his spear right through Kalkan’s body, mail and all.

  Vansha’s sword smashed the spearshaft, and the old lord slumped over with a crash. The impact toppled Fazdshan, or his likeness, into the water between the two hulls. They met and ground in a shower of splinters. An arm was flung up, momentarily, to clutch their gunwale; but it flew up as the hulls parted, and sank back into the river. Then there was a rush of hard boots on timbers, and a dark wave of shadows broke over them.

  Alya upended the scull and brought it smashing down among them, breaking the rush; then swung it around and fended off the other boat, as Kalkan had sought to. It tipped violently, shipped water, and many still aboard it were spilled into the river. But their own boat was rocking with the struggling mass of bodies, falling to this side and that.

  The remaining horses neighed and plunged in frantic terror of what ran by them, breaking their tackle or the timbers that tethered them, and sprang for the black water. There was no time to stop them. Asquan was almost dancing across the thwarts, his sword slashing left and rig
ht with a terrible craftsman’s precision. Vansha, standing astride Kalkan, the dead encircled like dogs, and he hewed at them violently. Chiansha and Darzhan stood back to back, the one grunting stolidly with each spear-stroke, the other wide-eyed and raving, laying about him with his broken spear in one hand and a paddle in the other. But though bodies slumped around them, it was not enough to drive them back, and Rysha and the wounded Tseshya were flailing away desperately at the ones that slipped by.

  Alya glanced around. No other boats were in sight now; and the horses were gone, to what end he could guess. He shipped the scull, drew his own sword and sprang down into the boat, awash with bodies.

  They did not cry out; they did not bleed; and their eyes were no emptier as they lay than those who still fought. Mindful of Fazdshan’s fate, he hewed them as he passed, and kicked some overside. He reached Tseshya, and the shades around him sprang away; but that only showed him the spreading pool of blood in which the scholar struggled. To Alya they seemed like swarming vermin, and he lashed out in furious loathing, his skin crawling even as he struck. The flocking shadows fought back with grim intensity, but they awoke no fire in him now, only cold disgust and even a kind of pity, remembering the lonely shade at the door. Yet his arm rose and fell with its full force, and his ancient sword brooked no contest. From elder and better days that edge and temper came, and wherever its great weight struck, it severed, and sent broken shapes flying this way and that, into the river.