by D Murray
Harvind nodded, and pointed over to a tall bank of snow. “We can dig in there, wait for it to ease.”
Kalfinar nodded and they worked their way over to the large bank of deep snow. They had been traveling for two days. Two days of hellish wind, sharp and cutting with cold and whipping ice. Valus and Harvind worked as one, consolidating their knowledge and leading the party across two mountain ranges. They passed over the first in fair weather for the most part, resting in a cave near the base and setting a fire deep inside to warm them. They ate supplies provided by the Maracost, and slept. With each range cleared, the valleys seemed to rise in height, with stony ground giving way to snow. They found themselves now at a height where snow was all about them, broken only by the occasional outcrop of black rock.
Harvind set his ten Maracost fighters to work digging at the snow bank. “We can dig a hollow in here and get some rest.”
Kalfinar set himself to work, scooping it out behind the Maracost as they worked.
Half an hour later they had closed over most of the hollow with a snow wall, and they rested out of the wind. They passed about dried seabird meat, and huddled deep into their sealskin clothing.
Sleep did not come easily. The first night had been still, with little wind. In the freezing calm of the night, baneful cries could be heard in the valley, unsettling the troops. The Maracost men made signs of blessing over their chests.
Valus had spoken of the ghosts in Hagra; the spirits once serving gods, left to wander without purpose the great barren wilderness.
Kalfinar rubbed at the amulet about his neck. It had grown warmer the farther into Hagra they advanced. There were certainly spirits here. He closed his eyes, and pulled his sealskin coat tighter about him. He thought of Evelyne, and she drew him into a shallow sleep.
Twenty-Nine
In The Gully
They did not linger on the mountainside after the narrow escape from the avalanche. Culver and Halpern took turns clearing a path through the snow, while the other walked beside her, allowing her to lean heavily on her left side. Tusk hobbled along in front, turning every few steps to look at Ruah.
It had taken another hour of careful walking to make it off the saddle and to traverse the snow line alongside the cliff face towards the passage through the gully. In that hour, the sky had grown sullen and dark. Black and blue clouds rolled in quick and cruel, following their direction of travel. The wind had picked up, and now a chill whipped about them as they rested beneath the great rock face.
Ruah pulled her travelling cloak tight under her chin and buried her face in her forearms. Tusk’s head lay beneath them and the big dog sighed wearily. “I hear you, boy. I’m tired too.”
“Ruah,” Culver’s voice was gentle as he hunkered down in front of her.
She looked up, unfolding her arms.
“We need to get moving. There’s a storm coming, and I think we’ll have a better chance at shelter if we head into the gully.”
Ruah nodded and forced a weak smile to her lips. Shit, even smiling hurts like a bastard. “I can manage.” Her voice had that feeble, weedy sound to it. The one that always made her angry.
Culver smiled at her and nodded, looking down at Tusk. His eyes flicked back up to hers. “You know something,” he said to her, “I think you're about the bravest person I’ve ever known.”
“Don’t fucking talk down at me,” Ruah snapped, more out of instinct than any true offence. “Shit.” She shook her head and avoided Culver’s eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m not used to getting compliments.”
Culver puffed his cheeks and blew out a breath in a whistle. “No shit.”
She looked up at him with an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry. Thank you.”
“Alright,” Culver said. “I know you’re in pain. I’ll massage your leg when we get some shelter. If I see any angelwort, I’ll pick it up. It can be boiled in water to make a pain relief tonic. It grows in wet montane gullies. This is further north than I know, but I’ll keep a watch for it.” He stretched out his hand to her.
She grabbed his wrist and was hauled to her feet.
Halpern looked back at her with a smile. Her pack was strapped onto the back of his own, ready for the walk into the gully.
The wind had chased them through the first two hundred feet of the slowly descending gully, its gusts chilled from their passage over the snow-covered mountains. The wind buffeted at their backs, pushing them onward over slippery rocks, and stinging their backs with icy hail it had picked up along the course of its travel. Although still early afternoon, there was little light, and the warmth of the morning sun was now a distant memory.
The gully sat in a deep, narrow fracture between the rock of the mountain. Snow had drifted in patches, but for the most part, the gully was clear. Ruah stepped away from a patch of snow and avoided the slick stone before her. She aimed her foot down onto the soft bloom of red moss that sprung every few feet between the flatter rocks and along the upper side of the gully. To her left the gully fell away into a fast-flowing stream, flush with morning snowmelt. Drab grey ferns sprung from small, jutting shelves in the dark stone wall, glistening with trickling water. Twisted limbs of opportunistic trees sprung out from rock and mosses alike. Ruah looked at them as she passed between the steep, wet walls of the rock that hosted the gully, and she fancied them as some spirit life source, imprisoned within a tomb of cold mountain stone, with their branches stretching from the stone marking their tortured efforts to free themselves. Perhaps in the summer, their souls spring free and bloom in the sun. If there’s ever any sun in this cursed place. The sound of wood snapping drew Ruah’s attention.
Culver snapped branches from the sides of the rock face as he went, drying them on the corner of his travelling cloak and then shoving them into his pack as he went. Occasionally he veered off their path and edged down towards the rushing stream of snowmelt to inspect some vegetation on the slick rocks. At one point he smiled up to Ruah and pulled free his glinting knife, before scraping some of the plant from the rock.
“It’s angelwort,” he said with a grin all dewy from the spray off the snowmelt and wind-borne ice. “This’ll ease the pain. I can’t believe we found it here, this far north.”
They pressed on, and the wind and snow billowed into the gully at their backs with such intensity it nearly betrayed them each to the ground. Ruah leaned her weight increasingly on the steep rock face on the right-hand side of the gully. The cold wind snaked under the hem of her travelling cloak and swirled about her body with the icy caress of some winter spectre. She shivered, and stumbled onward. Looking up ahead, she made out Halpern at the front. He appeared to be limping. Lightning flashed overhead, drawing her attention. The boom of thunder followed. Tusk stiffened in front of her, muscles bunching. The dog yelped at the next appearance of the lightning, and in the flash, Ruah saw tremors of fear undulate along Tusk’s body.
“Easy, boy,” Ruah said, trying to soothe the frightened animal. “Easy.”
As the thunder worsened overhead, the wind picked up yet further. The snow gave way to a furious assault of hail slamming into them on the back of the wind as it whipped through the gully with renewed vigour.
“We need to find shelter!” Culver roared, his voice barely audible over the howl of the wind as it ransacked its way through the narrow passage.
“Tusk!” Ruah shouted as the dog bolted at another crack of lightning. “Tusk!” Ruah cried out as he shot off in a limping run beyond Halpern.
“He’ll seek shelter,” Culver roared, “I’ll follow. Get out of the wind. I’ll come back.” He set off at a run after the dog, and within a moment was lost around a twist in the passage of rock.
Ruah hobbled on towards Halpern, and the two of them found a large square boulder with enough space on its leeward side to avoid the worst of the wind.
“Fuck me, it’s cold,” Halpern said, his teeth chattering.
“Is your leg hurting?” Ruah asked him, her own voice shaking with chill.<
br />
He turned his head to her. “Why you asking?”
“I can see you favouring your other leg. If anyone knows when someone has a bad leg, I think it’d be me. Don’t you?”
Halpern turned from her and peered into the darkness of the gully ahead. “Aye, you would. Just a sore muscle’s all.” He grunted a humourless laugh. “Sure you know as well as anyone I’m not used to all this work we’ve been doing.”
“There is that.” She nudged his shoulder with her own playfully, and then leaned her head against his.
“I hope he can find Tusk,” Ruah said in a small voice, pinched with fear.
“He’ll find him,” Halpern reassured her. “How’s your leg?” Halpern asked, his head leaning against the top of Ruah’s.
“Sore as anything I’ve ever felt before.” She was tired and couldn’t dress it up as something sweeter. It was hell.
“I’m sorry,” Halpern said in a quiet voice.
“Not your fault.”
“No,” he said, “I’m sorry I was always so cruel to you.”
“Enough of that shit.” Thank you. The warm feeling in her belly started again, and she put her right arm about him.
“Didn’t know how much you suffered. And all I did was go and make it worse for you.”
Ruah felt a small warm line draw from her eye, and realised she was crying. The tear quickly met the cold wetness of a snowflake, and was gone again.
“I know I’ve said it before. But I want you to know, I am sorry.”
“Shut up.”
Culver’s shadowy form appeared back around the corner of the gully. “I found him. Sure as shit, he found a cave and fled into it. It’s perfect.” He approached and hunkered down out of the stinging wind. “Bit of a squeeze to get in, but we’ll be safe there. Let’s go.” He stood up, and turned around to look back in the direction he had come from.
Halpern disengaged Ruah’s arm and stood, offering her his hand.
As he pulled her to her feet, Ruah saw a wetness to his eyes. It was not snowmelt, or sweat. Tears. Without thinking she stretched up on her right foot, her hands holding on to the shoulder straps of his bags, and she kissed him on his bearding cheek. His eyes blinked away the tears as she stepped down, and away after Culver. Thank you, you kind, stupid boy.
Culver leaned over and turned the lemmings over the small fire. The smell of the cooking meat brought saliva to Ruah’s lips, more so than the acrid stink of their fur burning off from the initial flames. Tusk crept forward towards the fire, nose sniffing the air and tongue lolling. Ruah’s reassuring touch had calmed the dog once they made their way into the cave from the storm. With the fire burning, and after a long massage about her leg and lower back from Culver, Ruah felt warmth enter her limbs. The heat, and fresh blood-flow to her twisted muscles, served to diminish the flaring of pain in her ruined leg.
They had spread their cloaks and gloves wide in front of the fire, their packs propping the cloth up to face the heat. Steam rose from them as they dried out, casting an eerie mist about the cave as it mingled with the smoke, before being drawn through the cave entrance and down the gully by the wind.
Culver filled a small metal cup with water he had collected from the stream in the gully. He nudged the cup into the embers at the outside of the fire and waited for it to heat. After a few moments he pulled a square of thin leather from his coat pocket and unfolded it.
Ruah watched in the amber light of the fire as Culver’s dirty and scarred hands worked. He opened the folded leather and emptied the contents into the palm of his hand. Along the palm she noticed there was a long and raw scar.
“Looks sore,” she said.
Culver looked up before pinching half of the angelwort from his hand and into the cup of water. He poured the rest of the angelwort into the leather, and folded it up again before placing it back into his pocket. His eyes flicked up to hers, and then back down at his open palm. “A friend of mine gave me this. Hurts little, if I’m honest. Not nearly as much as the reason why he gave it to me.”
“You’re not from Solansia, are you?” Halpern asked, his fingers brushing Ruah’s as he petted the back of the big dog.
Tusk huffed out a contented sigh and shut his eyes.
Culver smiled, though his eyes were sad, and checked the lemmings. “These are ready.” He pulled the sharpened branches from the ground one at a time and handed them to Ruah and Halpern. “Even one for you, ugly mutt.”
Tusk jumped to his feet and snatched the cooked lemming from the stick.
Culver tossed the stick onto the fire and sat back to eat. He blew on the hot meat. “No, I’m not.” He took a bite and chewed it, his eyes on Ruah, then Halpern. “It matters not whether I was of the Free Provinces.” He looked at Ruah. “It matters not that you were an outcast, and it matters not that you were a bit of a cunt,” he said, smiling at Halpern. Culver bit another morsel from the lemming and chewed, crunching down on the tiny leg bone. “What matters is that we are better, if even by just a little ways. And that we work to make things better still.” He bit another mouthful, and then dipped his forefinger into the cup of water. He grunted. “Warm enough.” He stirred it about with his forefinger, and brought the cup to his lips, taking a quick sip. He made a gagging noise, smiled, and handed it to Ruah. “That’s about right.”
“You’ve really sold it to me,” she said in a flat tone, her eyes filled with a hostile humour.
He grinned and bit the last chunk from his lemming. “Don’t fret it. Sure, it tastes like shit, but it will help.”
She eyed the brownish tea, and blew the floating flakes of angelwort from the surface before taking the cup to her lips and swallowing the tea in three long gulps. “Fucking hells, Culver.” Ruah retched, her hand coming quick to cover her mouth. “Urgh! Tastes like shit.”
“Yes, it does.” He laughed, and tossed another handful of branches onto the fire. “I’ll keep watch. You two try and get some sleep. Cloaks will be dry.” He grabbed them and handed them to Ruah around the fire.
She handed Halpern his cloak and then wrapped her own around her before lying down, facing his back. Tusk nuzzled into the small of her back, the big dog’s warmth adding to that of the small fire. Ruah opened her eyes and looked at Halpern’s broad back all wrapped up in his cloak. She pulled her left arm from her cloak and put it around him. She felt his big hand close over hers, and then he rolled over, his arms folding around her in a warm embrace. She let the weight of her head rest on his chest, and she smiled to herself. The worm was squirming in her stomach again. Squirming other places, too. She felt a warmth spread through her body, and felt like she was falling. Her head jolted a little as she drifted. Then she fell into sleep.
Ruah snapped awake to the sound of shouting. She and Halpern scrambled up, his arms tangled in her cloak, and Tusk growling and barking. She saw a figure bend down and grab Halpern by the foot before dragging him out of the cave.
Ruah searched about for a weapon, but the bags had been taken. Slept too long. Too deep.
Tusk snarled at the intruder, and snapped his jaws as the man approached.
He was wearing furs of grey and black spots. Tusk leapt for him, jaws snapping before he kicked the dog in the head, sending him to the cave wall with a yelp.
The man grabbed Ruah by her feet, causing a flare of pain to shoot up her left leg and into her back, starting a spasm that coiled about her spine. He pulled, and dragged her out of the cave mouth and into the calm golden light of the evening. Her eyes squinted as they adjusted. Culver knelt with his hands tied behind his back. Halpern’s hands were being tied as he lay on his belly on the slick stones of the gully. Tusk came growling to the cave mouth.
The man in the furs spoke, pointing at the dog.
“No!” Ruah snapped. “He’s my dog.”
The man laughed. He had mismatched eyes. One was green and the other flared red and yellow like fire. “Why do you keep such an ugly dog?”
“Who are you?” Culver inter
rupted.
“I ask the questions.”
Ruah looked at the faces of the others who stood with the man with mismatched eyes. Their skin was a hue of grey, even slightly blue, and they had bright white hair. To a one, their eyes blazed. Fear swamped her. Night Reapers. She swallowed her fear, and readied herself to fight.
“Why are you in these lands?” Odd-eyes asked.
“Fucking Night Reapers. You took our people. Those you didn’t kill anyway.” Ruah spat. “We’ve come to get them back.”
The man did not mock as he had done before. His eyes narrowed as if in thought. “You’ll come with us.” He said something in his guttural tongue, and they were hauled to their feet.
“My dog,” Ruah said, looking back at Tusk as she was moved down the gully.
“Your dog can come too,” Odd-eyes said. “But know this: if the dog bites, we’ll bite back.”
Ruah looked over her shoulder at Tusk, and called to him. The big dog followed on, slow and wary. Ruah smelt the woodsmoke being drawn from the cave by the wind and blowing down the gully to the foot of the mountain below. How could we have been so fucking foolish?
Thirty
Eve
Subath eyed the Cannan major as she sat uncomfortably in a chair in Subath’s study. Merkham had joined them, along with Lucius, Thaskil, and several other senior officers.
Leilah winced as she pulled her seat in to the table, and then crossed her hands on the dark wooden surface before her.
“So, perhaps you want to share with the rest of the command what you spilled out to me as you were bleeding all over my nice new saddle.”
Leilah nodded at the old warrior, and turned to look at the rest of the faces around the table. “As you are aware, I met with the chief marshal and the governor to relay to them a demand of the Father of the People that Kalfinar, the son of the late governor, be handed over for the murder of the Daughter of the People.”
