A Time of Dread

by John Gwynne

  ‘That your hound?’ Olin asked, keeping one eye on the snapping, snarling creature.

  ‘It is,’ the woman said as she reached them. She was of an age with Drem, as far as he could tell, hair as yellow as the sun, tied and pinned tight to her head, blue eyes creased with worry as she reached a hand out to the old man.

  He snatched his arm away and tutted at her.

  ‘I’d be grateful if you’d call him off.’ Olin nodded at the hound.

  ‘Maybe I will, and maybe I won’t,’ the old man said. ‘Who are you? And what business do you have to come creeping about my home?’

  ‘We’re not creeping!’ Drem said, annoyed at the unjust and inaccurate accusation.

  The spear-point levelled at Drem’s chest.

  ‘That’s our hold,’ Olin said, stepping between Drem and the old man and pointing to their home.

  ‘No one lives there,’ the old man snapped. ‘Been empty since we came here.’

  ‘It’s been empty for a little over six moons,’ Olin said, ‘and like as not it is cold and damp inside and needs a hearth-fire lit. It’s our home, though, built by our own hands. Didn’t have neighbours when we left, but looks like we’ve more than a few now.’

  The woman looked at their packhorses, the skins and furs tied in big bundles.

  ‘Calder the smith said that trappers built that place, Grandfather,’ she said to the old man. ‘He said they’d be back for winter, as well.’

  ‘He did?’

  ‘He did,’ she said.

  ‘Huh, then why didn’t you say so?’ he snapped at Drem and his da.

  ‘We just did,’ said Drem.

  The old man lowered his spear-point, a little begrudgingly, Drem thought.

  ‘Your name is Olin, is it not?’ the woman said.

  Olin frowned at that, but eventually nodded into the growing silence. ‘Aye, it is.’

  ‘Well met and welcome home,’ the girl said. ‘I’m Fritha, and my grandfather is Hask.’

  ‘Well met,’ Olin said. ‘And this is my son, Drem.’

  ‘It’ll be good to have some neighbours out here,’ Fritha said, ‘so close to the forest and mountains.’

  Drem looked where she was pointing, at woodland just behind his own hold, and hills beyond.

  ‘They’re not mountains,’ Drem corrected, not liking it when things were said wrong. His da gave him a flat stare.

  ‘Well, whatever they are, we’re happy to meet you,’ Fritha said. ‘Isn’t that right, Grandad?’

  ‘What? Yes, I suppose we are,’ Hask muttered. ‘Can never be too careful,’ he added with a shake of his spear.

  ‘True enough,’ Olin said.

  The hound was still growling and barring the way. Olin looked pointedly at it.

  ‘We’ve been sleeping on root and rock for six moons; it would be nice to light a fire and see our beds.’

  ‘Of course,’ Fritha said.

  ‘Surl, enough,’ Hask snapped and the hound slunk over to his heel with one last snapping growl and then it was silent.

  Olin bade them farewell and led Drem and the line of ponies on.

  ‘You can be very diplomatic when you put your mind to it,’ Drem said to his da as they drew near the gates to their hold.

  ‘Don’t have to use a sharp edge to deal with every situation,’ Olin replied. ‘More often than not a kind or polite word will fix a disagreement.’ He looked a long moment at Drem. ‘And you don’t have to correct every inaccuracy you hear in a conversation.’

  ‘I just don’t like it when people get things wrong.’ It was more than that – a compulsion far beyond habit or annoyance. Drem felt that he had to do it, a pressure would grow within him until he voiced his corrections. He knew his da didn’t like him doing it, had often spoken to him about it.

  ‘I know that, son, but other people, they can take it wrong, think you’re criticizing, being rude. Some people don’t react well if they think you’re disrespecting them.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘I know, you don’t mean any harm, but just think before you speak, eh? And hold your tongue if that’s at all possible. Even if you don’t understand why it’s important. Do it for your old da.’

  Drem winced, knowing that it would pain him, but he nodded. ‘I’ll try,’ he conceded.

  Olin smiled and patted Drem’s shoulder.

  It was good to be home. Olin unloaded the packhorses in the yard, all except the rock they’d dug out of the elk pit. He led the horse with the rock still upon its back around the rear of the barn, telling Drem to carry on until he returned. So Drem did: fires were lit, cobwebs and rats were swept and evicted from rooms, the horses rubbed down and put out to paddock, and a stew was set to simmering in a pot over the hearth. As he was seeing to these routine tasks Drem thought on his da and the lump of black rock they’d dug up.

  I wish we’d never found it, and bringing it home with us! If it is what Da thinks it is, then a war that consumed the world began over something very similar.

  That was not a comforting thought, and Drem resolved to talk to his da about it. He was carrying their pelts into the barn when his da joined him, hands and boots sticky with mud. Drem gave his da an enquiring look but received no response, so he carried on moving the pelts, his da washing down in a rain barrel and then silently helping. Once all the skins were under cover Drem began sorting through their tools in preparation for tanning.

  I hate tanning skins, he thought, wrinkling his nose as he got a whiff of lime milk. It felt as if it singed off all the hairs up his nose.

  ‘We’ll start the tanning on the morrow,’ Olin said. ‘Just prepare for it now, then we’ll go and put some hot food in our bellies.’

  Watching his da rest a hand upon the pile of skins, bow his head and pinch the top of his nose, Drem thought he looked more troubled than he had ever seen him.

  Because of that stone we’ve found? I’m troubled, too.

  ‘Da, should we have brought that stone here? It’s—’

  ‘It’s better with me than anywhere else,’ Olin said, cutting him off.

  ‘But we could have left it there, buried it again.’

  ‘I could not live with the knowledge of it out there,’ Olin said, ‘just waiting to be found. At least with me, I know it cannot be put to any great evil.’

  Evil!

  ‘But—’

  ‘Enough,’ Olin snapped. ‘Let it lie, Drem, I’ll not be changing my mind.’

  Drem sucked in a deep breath, weighing up the worth of continuing.

  Once he makes up his mind, there’s rarely any changing it. For now.

  Drem loved his da, but more and more of late, he was feeling frustrated at how his da treated him, avoiding questions, treating him like a bairn.

  Twenty-one summers old. I’m a man.

  His da rolled his injured arm, the one Drem had stitched.

  ‘How is it?’ Drem asked him.

  ‘Itching,’ Olin said, then shrugged. ‘A good sign. Your ankle?’

  ‘Throbbing. I’ll live.’

  ‘Aye, well, let’s get this finished, stable the ponies and we can look forward to some hot food, a cup of mead and a bowl of hot water to soak our feet in, and we can compare injuries.’

  Drem liked the sound of that and the thought of it put some fire in his limbs. It made the job of finding and dusting off the buckets and barrels of quicklime, salt and oak bark less of a chore.

  Drem’s belly was rumbling by the time they finished bringing the ponies in from the paddock and settling them in the stables. As tempting as it was, they’d learned the hard way last year that you didn’t leave animals outside through the night. The north had predators that liked the taste of horse.

  The clouds were low and bloated, the sun just a faint glow on the horizon when they left the stables and made their way across the small yard to their cabin.

  The sound of approaching hooves broke their companionable silence, growing steadily louder. They paused on the cabin steps, Drem notici
ng his da loosening his knife in its sheath and taking a step closer to the wood axe that was leaning against a timber post.

  It was Ulf, the tanner. He trotted into the yard on a bay pony that looked too small for him, raised a hand in greeting and dismounted stiffly, approaching them with his halting gait.

  ‘Thought you were back,’ Ulf said with a grin, pointing at the smoke rising from the chimney.

  Ulf was a few summers younger than Drem’s da, but looked older. Mostly grey with a few streaks of black still in his hair, fat-bellied and fingers stained with the chemicals of his trade. He was one of the few people for whom Olin had more than a passing time, and last winter they had spent many an evening round a fire in each other’s company.

  Maybe it is because he was like us, once. Before his injury.

  Ulf had been a trapper, like them, liked to boast that he had helped sink the first posts in Kergard’s walls over a score of years ago and used to trap along the Bonefells every spring and summer. After his injury – a tale involving a wolven that became larger and more fearsome with every telling – Ulf had retired from trapping and become the town tanner, buying skins and pelts from those who still hunted this far north and turning them into tooled leather. He was a skilful man; Drem’s da said he’d never had a pair of finer-fitting boots than the ones Ulf had made. When Drem and Olin had come to Kergard five year ago Olin had struck up a friendship with the tanner, who had helped them build their cabin and surrounding homestead.

  Now, though, Drem could see a tension in his da at the appearance of the tanner, his eyes flickering beyond the barn, just for a moment.

  He’s worrying about that lump of rock.

  ‘A good season’s hunting?’ Ulf asked.

  ‘Aye, good enough,’ Olin said.

  ‘I was hoping to buy or trade your skins,’ Ulf said.

  Please, thought Drem. He hated the tanning process far more than the cold nights and hard rock and root of the hunting.

  ‘We were just talking about starting the tanning on the morrow,’ Olin said, tugging on his short beard.

  ‘I’ll give you a good price and save you the hard work, and the smell . . .’

  ‘We’re not afraid of some hard work, are we, lad?’ Olin said.

  ‘No, Da.’

  But the smell. Please . . .

  Olin saw Drem’s look.

  ‘Well, it’s something we’d not be against discussing, I suppose, is it, Drem?’

  ‘No, no, it’s not,’ Drem said, trying not to let his hope spill all over his face.

  ‘We’ll come into town on the morrow, talk on it some more,’ Olin said.

  ‘Well, I’d like to talk on it now, if it’s all the same to you. Don’t like to go to bed with unfinished business, gives me gut-ache and then I can’t sleep. But it’s hard with the smell of that food cooking,’ Ulf said, smacking his lips and raising his head to take a big sniff. ‘Distracting, it is.’

  Olin frowned, his eyes flicking beyond the barn again, but then his face cracked in a smile. ‘Best we do something about that hole in your belly, then,’ and with that they all entered the cabin.

  ‘Kergard’s bigger than when we left,’ Olin said, dipping some black bread into his bowl.

  Ulf had produced a loaf from a saddlebag strapped to his horse. ‘Never go anywhere without a loaf of bread – makes every meal better,’ Ulf had pronounced, and Drem had to admit it had certainly made his bowl of stew much better as he ripped off a large chunk and soaked up the last of the thick gravy glistening with fat and onion juice at the bottom of his bowl.

  ‘Aye, it is, sure enough,’ Ulf said as he sat back and quaffed his mead, emptying the cup without taking a breath, then belched as long and loud as Drem had ever heard. His da filled Ulf’s cup and sipped some of his own. Night had fallen long since, a strong wind outside making timbers creak and sending the flames of the fire flickering and coiling as darkness pressed in upon them, making shadows dance and writhe on the walls.

  ‘Close to four hundred new souls living around the crater, I’d wager,’ Ulf said. ‘All of them arriving since you wandered off in the spring towards the Bonefells. Not that I’m complaining: they’ll all be after fur-lined boots and cloaks once they have a taste of winter up here.’

  ‘Any trappers like us?’ Drem asked.

  ‘Aye, a few. Not like you two, though,’ Ulf said. ‘Six moons living wild in the Bonefells, now that’s what I call commitment to the job. Most of the others have been back at least a moon, those that are coming back.’

  ‘Not everyone’s returned, then?’

  ‘No, Vidar and Sten are still out there, though they’re almost as insane as you two, so there’s still hope they’ve survived the Wild another season. Old Bodil isn’t back, either, which isn’t so good. Don’t expect to see him, now. He’s wintered eight years in Kergard, and he’s always back before the end of Reaper’s Moon.’ Ulf squinted at Olin through one eye, a sure sign that the mead was having some effect. ‘Didn’t see him on your travels?’

  ‘No. Not him nor any other soul,’ Olin replied.

  Hope he’s all right, Drem thought. He liked Old Bodil, though most called him cantankerous and ill-tempered. Drem thought most of that was just straight talking, without any dressing.

  ‘Ah, well. He’ll not be the first trapper to end his days up in those mountains, or the last. Maybe he ran into the kin of the wolven that ended my trapping days. Course, I doubt they’d ever be as fierce a beast as I had the bad fortune to come across, roaming up in the high places.’

  They probably are, wolven don’t become less fierce, thought Drem, gritting his teeth so that he didn’t blurt the words out. He was trying to take his da’s advice and not unwittingly insult Ulf; not that he saw any insult in correcting a mistake, but he’d learned to take his da’s advice on such subjects, no matter how much it bothered him. And it did bother him. Listening to someone make a mistake and not correct it was like listening to nails scraping across slate and not asking them to stop.

  ‘Big as draigs, they were, those wolven.’ Ulf rubbed a hand along his thigh, leg out straight before him, eyes distant.

  ‘There’s more than wolven to watch out for up in those hills,’ Olin said. ‘We came across a giant bear. White as snow, it was.’

  Ulf grunted and sat up with interest. ‘A white bear pelt; now that would fetch a rare price. Why didn’t you bring it home?’

  ‘We were too busy trying not to let it eat us.’ Olin smiled ruefully.

  Drem nodded his head vigorously.

  Ulf raised an eyebrow.

  ‘It was big,’ Olin said, ‘bigger than any I’ve seen before, even those with a giant on their backs.’

  ‘Pffft.’ Ulf spat with a smile. ‘Animals grow in the telling, I’ve learned.’ Nevertheless, Drem saw him give Olin an appraising look.

  Ha, you’re a fine one to say that! Drem thought, almost grinding his jaws together to stop himself from saying anything. Instead his hand reached up into his woollen shirt and he pulled out the bear claw tied around his neck, dangling it for Ulf to see.

  Ulf whistled and held his hands up. ‘Fair enough,’ he said, eyes wide. ‘The beast on the end of that must’ve been a rare sight.’

  ‘We didn’t stand still to admire it,’ Olin said.

  ‘No, spent more time running, and swimming,’ Drem added.

  ‘And near soiling our breeches,’ Olin put in.

  Ulf spat a mouthful of his mead onto the fire, which hissed, flames leaping.

  ‘Ah, I miss those days.’ He laughed wistfully.

  ‘And even then we didn’t get away free of harm,’ Drem added, pointing to his ankle and his da’s arm.

  ‘Good job Drem can stitch a wound,’ Olin said.

  ‘Like that, eh?’ Ulf nodded knowingly. ‘Man-eater, then. I’ve come across them before. I wonder . . .’ Ulf gazed at the fire, falling silent.

  ‘Wonder what?’ Drem prompted.

  ‘Not just trappers lost to the Wild. Townsfolk hav
e been going missing, too. Lads out hunting, mostly. Some near the lake.’ He shrugged. ‘And a bairn or two. First I thought it was southerners not having enough respect for a northern winter. Too many, though. Then I thought a wolven pack may have come south early. Thought I heard howling, the other night, off to the north-east. Might have been the wind. But maybe it’s your white bear. Once they get a taste of man-flesh . . .’ He looked to the flat dark of a shuttered window, and suddenly Drem was imagining the white bear padding through their yard.

  ‘That was just a wild animal protecting its kill,’ Olin said with a wave of his hand, though he looked troubled by what Ulf had said. He looked hard at Ulf. ‘Tell me, these new arrivals at Kergard. Has this ever happened before? So many coming north in just one season?’

  ‘Not since I’ve been here,’ Ulf said, ‘and that’s over a score of years. Most I remember is a dozen in one year. Usually it’s people like yourselves, coming up in twos, threes, fours. Sometimes a family.’

  Olin nodded thoughtfully. ‘Why so many, do you think?’

  ‘Two reasons, far as I can tell,’ Ulf said. ‘They’ve found iron ore, lots of it, close to the northern rim of the lake. A mine’s sprung up, all sorts coming north to work it.’

  That would explain the lights we saw the other night, Drem thought, sharing a look with his da.

  ‘And then there’s the other reason,’ Ulf continued, looking about the room, hunching closer to Olin as if there were spies in the shadows. Drem did the same. ‘There’s trouble in the south,’ the old tanner said. ‘Hard to get the truth of it, a rumour here, another there. A lot of unrest, I’m hearing, people not happy.’

  ‘Not happy with what?’ Drem asked.

  ‘The Ben-Elim,’ Ulf said. ‘There’s another side to their so-called peace, and to living in their Land of the Faithful.’ He took a large sip from his cup. ‘I saw it all those years ago, but apparently it’s getting worse.’