The Sah'niir

by Kim Wedlock

  'You could have turned away, abandoned the matter, continued in banishment. But you didn't. You're a hero in practice and in heart.'

  Rathen stiffened. It wasn't heroism, it was necessity. Nothing more. Because, according to everyone else too frightened to take the matter on themselves, he was the only one who could do it. He didn't seek fame for it, he never had. He didn't care what people thought of him or of his skills, he just wanted to live in peace.

  ...So why did Owan's words bother him so much?

  Rathen loosened his fingers, suddenly aware of nails digging into his palms, and straightened belligerently in the face of it. They were that certain that he could save them all? 'Let's see how well-placed that confidence really is.'

  Tentatively, an idea formed, and he bent down to scoop a handful of snow. It wasn't as powdery as it looked, almost snapping apart from the rest of the sheet, and was squeezed easily into a rough ball that held the impression of his fingers. With a deep, steadying breath, rooting his consciousness to the banks of that raging river, he raised his empty hand and reached into the magic.

  Right away, he felt the cold of the snow spread further over his palm. He watched as its surface began to smoothenand shine, and steam rose silently from beneath. But the searing pain he'd been waiting for ignited suddenly beneath his flesh, and surged up from his bicep and into his shoulder.

  He withdrew in panic and dropped the snow as though it was on fire. Water ran across his temples, melted flakes or sweat, he couldn't tell, and his breath released in one ragged shudder.

  His hands dropped helplessly to his sides. He couldn't do this.

  "Still?"

  Rathen spun in shock to find Anthis standing a few paces behind him. The splinter of worry piercing his green eyes only made his defeat sting deeper.

  He sighed and looked away. "I'll manage."

  "I hope so."

  "You didn't need to say that."

  "I know, but I also couldn't not." Anthis moved up beside him, holding the blanket bundled in his arms closer to himself, and followed his thoughtful stare out along the steep-sided ravine. The pair stood in silence for a full minute before the gathering suspense forced Rathen to look around at him, and the indecisive draw to his lips made it clear that the young man had something he wished to say, and that Rathen probably wouldn't like it. The timid smile confirmed it, and he looked away to make his guesses. They turned out to be wrong.

  "Aria..."

  Rathen felt his heart sink.

  "She can't be around for this. She came with us to the Order, and we managed to get away with it, but this...we're luring--"

  "I know."

  Anthis quietened obediently at his fully expected glacial tone, but he had not expected him to soften so quickly. He regarded the mage regretfully as he slumped in torment.

  "I know. You're right." A smile flickered at his surprise. "Garon's already given me this speech three times over."

  "Yes, of course he has... What did you say to him?"

  "I told him she wasn't going anywhere." Anthis baulked at that. "But," Rathen continued, much to his relief, "in truth, I never had any intention of bringing her into that kind of danger. I've been reckless with her as it is, but this...this is too much." Anthis had only seen the lines around his eyes so deep once before: when he'd sent his adopted daughter away at Ronar Cove. But the sorrow this time was far more pronounced, haunted no doubt by her ordeal in his absence.

  But Salus's hands would be more perilous than a chance attack by bandits, and though it visibly hurt him, it was clear that he was well aware of it.

  Anthis clapped him firmly on the shoulder and did his best to smile. "She'll be all right this time."

  Rathen said nothing. He barely managed to nod. Anthis decided it best to drop the matter. He'd got what he'd needed for his own peace of mind. No one wanted Aria to get hurt. So he forced a lightness into his tone as he turned towards his original intent, but he found even that to be a struggle. "Did you see which way Eyila went?"

  "Eyila? Why?" He looked down at the blanket the young man was carrying, holding it so close to himself that it seemed he was trying to give it warmth rather than take it, but his first assumptions were shattered when he recalled by chance how quickly her feet had trampled through the frost.

  His sharp eyes flicked keenly down the slope and through the depths of the trees. They'd ridden through there earlier, along the riverside. The wind had been channelled into a consistent and biting stream.

  Dreadful realisation warmed him against the cold, and he set off at a run with Anthis immediately behind him. "How long?" He called back to him, and cursed as Anthis replied with almost an hour. She'd departed just short of a flee, and he'd been too confused to notice she hadn't taken a blanket with her.

  They split up at the river; Anthis headed north, Rathen south. There had been nowhere that stood out along the route they'd taken that evening, so she may have followed the river along until she'd found somewhere suitable. Rathen cursed over and over to himself as he hunted, staring up into every bough of every tree, around every boulder, even, fearfully, into the water itself as it ran black against the ice beneath overhangs.

  When he finally heard Anthis's voice echo through the still air, he ran so fast he almost fell into the water himself.

  It didn't take him long to find the historian waving frantically from an overhanging rock, and he dashed with him down and behind it, where relief fused with fright to create a powerful rage. "Oh, you stupid girl!"

  The bronze body was impossible to mistake, even as it lay as still as stone in the dark among the rocks. Her eyes were closed, her hair dishevelled, one arm sprawled and her hand limp in the flowing black water. Anthis snatched it out immediately and felt for a pulse. "Unconscious. She can't have been here for long..."

  Rathen was already tilting her head back and lifting her chin, then turned his cheek to her mouth and looked down the line of her chest. A fraction of alarm faded from his eyes. "She's breathing."

  His attention turned immediately to her injuries. Countless cuts covered her left side, and though little blood marked the snow, a thick stream of it glistened across the side of her face and matted her white hair. He looked up at the rock. She must have been sat upon it before falling off to the left, landing face-first into the ragged, crumbled rocks. The cold had gotten to her, and to make matters worse, she was barely clothed. But it was still impossible to tell if her skin had paled beyond the diminishing of its strange, metallic sheen.

  He muttered chastisement again, then began looking close into her eyes and for discharge from her ears. "Why did she leave?"

  "I don't know," Anthis replied, desperate to help but unwilling to risk getting in the way, and opted for rubbing her frozen hand instead. "We were reading, she started to seem a little down towards the end, then we finished and--"

  "The book. What was it?"

  "Old Gruel." He watched as Rathen's eyes closed beneath a sudden and tightly knotted frown. Understanding dawned within just a moment of racking his thoughts before he was drowned in shame. "The children thought they'd lost their family for good..."

  "Until they escaped Old Gruel and were reunited in the end." He finished examining her wounds. "Get the blanket ready." Carefully, he lifted her sodden body from the rocks and Anthis was quick to wrap her, then he kicked away as many rocks as he could and lowered her onto her side. Anthis began to object when Rathen took her icy hand and contorted the fingers of his other. He turned him a stern, resigned look. "It's this, or she loses them."

  Anthis watched his expression twist in pain, his fingers unravelling in shock before stubbornly repeating the sequence. After five attempts, he released her and threw snow into his reddened face. Anthis took her hand to tuck it into the blankets. It was warm.

  Exhausted, Rathen looked slowly about at the surroundings. There was nothing remotely resembling shelter. They'd made camp at the only possible spot, a ways back up the slope. "There's nothing for it," the mage
panted, staggering to his feet, "we have to carry her to the fire. Keep her as still as you can."

  They made it only half way up the slope before two figures came thundering down towards them, swords drawn and alarm in their eyes. "What's happened?!"

  "Adolescence."

  "She went to meditate, then passed out from the cold," Anthis replied instead, and flinched under the expected heat of Petra's sudden outrage.

  "Meditate? Anthis, she was with you - why would you let her go off in this?!"

  "Leave it be, Petra, it's not his fault," Rathen sighed, "she wouldn't have been stopped by anyone."

  "She would have been stopped by him."

  "Leave it, I said. It's not helping."

  "She's not tried to meditate since the frost set in." Garon looked dubiously across to the historian as they hurried carefully on up the slope. His head already hung in shame. "What brought this on?"

  "Old Gruel." His voice was small and bitter with self-reproach. "She finished the book. I think the ending hit her too close to...home..." He looked up at the judgemental silence. Rathen's disappointment hadn't changed, though whether at him or at her, he couldn't tell, and the others stared down at Eyila's still body with grave understanding. Anthis's guilt tripled when Petra eventually spoke.

  "So, did she try to kill herself?"

  It grew even further when no one rushed to deny it.

  "There are easier ways to go about it," Garon said at last, but Anthis shook his head with desperately seized conviction.

  "No. No, she meditates to feel closer to her people. Maybe she just needed it more than usual tonight, and underestimated the cold. She's not used to this."

  But again, no one rejected the possibility. Beyond Petra's muttered declaration of 'I knew something was going to happen,' they continued back to the camp in silence.

  The following morning began with a clamour. No one had slept well, Anthis least of all, but what few hours they had stolen were rudely broken by a raised and blistering voice. Peering out from their tents, they found Eyila sat at the middle of the camp beside the breakfast she'd made them as thanks or apology, while Rathen paced and yelled heatedly in front of her. And whatever gentle sympathy she'd expected from her ordeal, she was not granted, as not one of them moved to calm the mage. Though they winced at his brutal truths, they were all in silent agreement.

  The fireside seemed to have been enough to bring her back around, and her injuries were negligible. She'd been lucky. And Rathen made damned certain that she knew it.

  And so, that morning, she rode along in the middle of the group in silence, tightly wrapped and harbouring a familiar, Aria-esque contrition that plunged her into a well of shame and self-pity. Whenever she dragged her eyes up from her reins, Anthis was looking back at her, but the disappointment in his eyes clawed at her gut and each of them quickly turned away from the other.

  Rathen rode at the lead beneath a roiling and onerous cloud, edged by the enduring traces of last night's panic that just wouldn't unlatch. Increasing copses of trees marked an end to the blanketed pastures, and the village of Ramstead stood close by to the south. In such poor humour, he met the discovery of spells with only a grunt of surprise. The Order was quick.

  He led them along a branching route that curved away from the village, and before long the copses turned to thickets and a woodland loomed ahead. The road narrowed, snow piled lower, and small, wooden cones stood in clusters between the trees. Aria stared at them curiously for some time before finally turning to her father.

  "Apiaries."

  She blinked at him.

  "Bee houses. Honey farms." He looked at the icicles that hung from the lowest edges. 'Though I doubt any survived...'

  They rode on until a small house appeared among the trees, the home most likely of said honey farmer, but were given no time to branch off around it before an old man shuffled out of the door, wrapped in full winter wools of rich red hues. Rather than raise suspicion by avoiding him, they continued forwards guardedly.

  He gave them only a glance as he fumbled to unlock the cellar door, and they nodded innocuously in return. Then froze in their saddles at the sound of his rough-hewn voice.

  "Some friendly advice," their wide eyes flicked quickly towards him, "turn y' horses about. The woods aren't fit for travel."

  "Much obliged," Garon called back to him as their route drew them nearer, recovering the quickest, if he'd needed to at all, and settling himself easily into a far more common air. His face seemed to change and soften with it. "Much obliged indeed - but we can handle the snow."

  "Snow and ice can be prepared for, and y' do look prepared - but what lurks in there, y' can't."

  "Oh? What's the problem?"

  With the strength of a man who had taken well to a life of labour, he heaved the cellar doors open, breaking their seal of ice, then turned and approached them while dusting off his hands. He was, they saw, wearing two thick hats. Aria stifled a laugh. "Time was people'd heed locals' knowledge, not question it. But, times change. Monsters, 'tis. The wilds come t' life. All to do with that magic, I have no doubt."

  "Magic - yes, who knows what the Order is up to?"

  But the old man was shaking his head. "No, I don't suspect 'twas the Order. It's something else. These beasts, they were always there, but they kept t' themselves. Now they've grown in number, and they're aggressive, wandering out of the deeper woods and closer t' the village. They've all but shut down the mines, driven the miners out and killed the rest. I tell people t' keep away, but they won't listen. Something's upset them, and they've reacted, I think."

  "'Reacted' how?"

  He gestured around at the snow. "Strange weather, this. What's stranger still is that this forest doesn't seem too troubled by it. In fact, it's thriving and growing, spreading like a buxom young--" his eyes flicked quickly towards Aria and Petra, and he tugged at one of his woollen hats. "My apologies, young ladies. It's fertile, and those monsters are responsible. Wild magic, I'm sure, and they're taking it back for themselves. The roads are blocked - there's no way through, so wherever y' planned t' go, you'll have t' go around."

  "We'll take our chances," Rathen stated bluntly, then encouraged his horse forwards. The old man simply shook his head and trudged back towards his cellar.

  "Of course y' will. Well, no one's going t' send in a search party, so I wish y' the best of luck in there. Vastal knows I warned you. I'll sleep easily enough for that."

  Once he'd vanished beneath his cottage, Aria looked around at her father with distinct disapproval. "That was rude."

  He sighed beneath her admonishment, but said nothing until Garon rode up beside him and swiftly cut off his protest. "No. We go through. It's cover. Especially if the forest is 'fertile'. It could stave off some of the cold."

  "And we'll be killed by wildlings in the process."

  "I don't think we will."

  Garon grunted cynically. "You're putting too much trust in Hlífrún."

  Again he fell silent and they rode onwards into the woods.

  The old man's words were quickly proven true. Though still white and bitterly cold, the snow within the confines of the trees was thinner, and crystalline casings of frost were nowhere to be seen. It was as though the heat of life itself was opposing it. There were flickers among the black trunks, too; Petra was the first to distinguish the eyes. But whatever these hidden wildlings were, they showed no signs of aggression. They remained within the shadows of the trees and watched them pass in sedate silence.

  Beneath the reach of wild magic, travel was hard; sprawling roots formed walls that blocked the main roads almost deliberately, while wildlife trails were tight and overgrown, negotiable by beast but a hazard for any on their backs. For hours they were tripped, lashed, turned about and hunted, and the experience as a whole was far too familiar. By evening their horses were waning, and an accident was long overdue.

  Riding through a dusk-darkened holloway, the quiet was shattered by a squeal of panic and a
human yelp. Each of them snapped around in a startled instant, but the hoof had already broken deep through the tangled brush, and with a thick, hopeless crack, both Petra and her mount dropped heavily from the edge of the road, vanishing through the overgrowth. Along the cramped trail, no one could manoeuvre quickly enough to do a thing to stop it.

  Garon dismounted immediately and raced clumsily for the ragged hole, throwing himself down it without a thought. Rathen shouted a futile protest as he rushed to stare down after them. The drop was sheer, eighteen feet or more, and carpeted by thick brambles. They'd been travelling obliviously across the edge of an escarpment. That set no small alarm through his blood.

  Below, the horse was hauling itself to its feet with a wild look in its eyes, but Petra had already grasped the reins to keep it from bolting before she'd found her own, the both of them littered with fine scratches. Garon was untouched as he helped her up with some urgency.

  "Everyone all right?" Rathen called down while the others gathered frantically beside him.

  "Fine," Petra grumbled, steadying and dusting herself down while Garon took a respectful step back and looked over the surroundings.

  "It doesn't look like we can get back up from here," he said after a moment.

  "We'll come down to you."

  "No - you stay there. We'll find another way around."

  "No," Rathen replied just as peremptorily. "We should stick together." He looked along the holloway, then down into the overgrown vale below, and soon spotted a slope at just the right gradient to descend, albeit ungracefully. Ignoring Garon's continued objections, he led the others along.

  "He's right, you know," Petra told him as he made his quiet remarks. She returned his flat look with a soft smile, then led her horse out of the thorns and towards the unseemly slope the others were gathering at the top of, speaking lightly to soothe it. At her next sharp yelp and halting tug on the reins, however, it startled again. She hushed it quickly, in part to calm herself.