A Fire in the North

by David Bilsborough

  Then the world smote him with its reality, as he plunged into the freezing black mud of a bog.

  Seconds, maybe minutes, passed, till Gapp finally hauled himself from the sucking ooze. Half-concussed, he was dimly aware that he could see clearly again. The darkness had gone, but not because of any torchlight. It was real light, twilight, the light of the sun’s last rays. And coming up behind him was Shlepp, with Methuselech on the other steed. Finan pushed himself off the ground and joined them, and there they all stood, together again, staring about in bewilderment.

  ‘All right, Methuselech?’ Gapp queried, although what he really meant was, Any ideas about what just happened?!

  In the sudden silence, though, none of them had the faintest clue. In fact now that everything seemed so normal again, they were not even sure it had happened.

  ‘I . . . suppose we’d better be on our way again, then,’ said Methuselech. ‘It really will be dark soon.’

  ‘S’pose so,’ Gapp agreed. They checked the saddlebags for spillages and wiped themselves down, saying nothing, feeling somewhat odd and still bemused by the surreal quality of their situation.

  ‘Uh, before we go any further,’ Methuselech suggested, ‘I think your dog has something to tell you . . .’

  Gapp looked sharply over at Shlepp. He stood motionless, hackles still raised, staring towards a nearby outcrop of rock. At first Gapp could make out nothing there. The hound appeared to be growling at a bare patch of stone, like a cat staring at ghosts above the mantelpiece. But as he squinted, his skin suddenly began to crawl with a fresh sheen of ice, for he could now make out two vague shapes leaning up against the rock face.

  Two people stood looking back at them with expressions that were wholly inscrutable. Two normal humans, or as close to normal as one could get in this land. In Fron-Wudu, with its fungal growths and eerie hooting echoes, they would probably fit in perfectly; back in Nordwas, however, they would definitely swivel a few heads.

  ‘Horse and Hattock!’ Gapp breathed. ‘Get me out of here! Who are these twisted aberrations?’

  Each stood well over six and a half feet tall, as gaunt and wan as a withered silver birch, and wore a simple one-piece hessian outer garment, shapeless and drab. One held a sodden clump of earth in one hand and a bundle of twigs in the other, which he was chewing at idly as he regarded Gapp and his group. The other had what appeared to be a spinal column around her neck, and from a pocket protruded what must surely have been a human femur, with a few holes bored regularly along its length like a flute. Their unusually dome-like heads were almost bald save for the occasional wisp of ginger hair. Their tiny sand-caked eyes displayed painfully enlarged nictitating membranes.

  At first, like the travellers, they made no move, just continued to stare in the same way that the devil-boy had just minutes earlier. But then they slowly approached. There did not appear to be any immediate hostility in their demeanour, but neither was there any suggestion of warmth. With those dead eyes, the set of their hard, slitted mouths and the cheekbones jutting from their faces like the karst towers did from the forest floor all around, they exuded that stony inhumanity that Gapp had witnessed in the refugees from Hawdan Valley years before. There, the winter had been so harsh that the inhabitants had been reduced to eating their own . . . Gapp shuddered at the memory.

  ‘These people are from Wrythe?’ he asked doubtfully. Clearly they were not the fierce, noble warriors of legend.

  ‘Back then they had big red beards, wore bushy musk-ox pelts, and were almost as strong as the bears they hunted,’ Methuselech recalled, staring in disbelief at the two ‘tomb dwellers’ before him. ‘So the old stories tell us.’

  The Oghain of yore were well documented as having skin as fair as the walrus ivory they loved so much as adornment. These two, however, had the same complexion as a nightwatchman in a graveyard – maybe even one of his charges. With skin semi-transparent and blue-veined, one might suppose they now preferred hunting jellyfish to walruses. The only real colour either of them had to their flesh was the odd bright red, angry-looking scab upon neck or face. These were the most revolting things Gapp had ever seen growing on a human being. Even the nine-eyed carbuncle that had opened the back of his brother Ottar’s neck a year or so back had been less of a visual and olfactory offence, and that had been so bad that for several weeks Ottar’s head had been forced forward onto his chest. Gapp recalled with distaste that it had leaked so much during the night that when Ottar got up in the morning his pillow would rise with him. While he slept a constant line of ants wound over the blanket to feed from it, and it had smelt so badly that his mother had been forced to burn dead dogs just to mask the stench.

  Methuselech gave the boy a knowing smile and said, ‘Welcome to Wrythe.’

  Gapp’s arrival in Wrythe would stay with him for the rest of his life, however long that might be. Their terrifying experience just prior to this encounter with the two Oghain had snapped the boy fully out of his torpor; what blood Methuselech had left to him now surged powerfully through his veins, and he felt distinctly charged, his senses fully alive.

  Following their creepy guides, they proceeded through the forest until they eventually reached the first signs of habitation. Still within the woods, Wrythe had the air of a place not quite real, or as Gapp reflected, ‘not part of our world’. It was an experience not dissimilar to entering another dimension, a twilit realm that did not welcome outsiders.

  At first they were led between more karst towers and steep knolls. He noticed the latter contained caves here and there, some closed off with wooden gates or doors, while others were unbarred and open to view. Several had lamps or fires glowing within, but sputtering and vapid affairs that served only to emphasize the drear aspect of this cheerless place. Troglodyte figures could be seen huddled in the dank fetor within, each one as pale, insipid and ill-favoured as their guides. As the wayfarers progressed through this network of defiles and gullies, they became increasingly aware of hissing noises above them and to either side. Glancing up, they saw unfriendly eyes glaring down at them, and could see other shapes flitting about in the darkness, gibbering sickly.

  A wider space opened up around them, barely visible in the last vestiges of twilight’s gleam. Here they heard other voices, surprisingly cheerful voices, and high-pitched laughter.

  Gapp shuddered on recognizing it as the laughter of children. But it was not like before, for this time they were real children, Ogginda playing a youthful game at the day’s ending. Through the gloom and freezing fog only dim images could be made out, but as the newcomers drew closer they could see that they were now walking through a cemetery. The Ogginda – skinny little kids in rags, too preoccupied with their game to notice the arrivals – were darting from headstone to headstone like wraiths.

  As they passed by, Gapp watched a group of them off to one side. They appeared to be playing with something on the ground and were giggling feverishly. Drawing level with them, it could be seen that they were doing something . . . Gapp was not sure, but it sounded very painful.

  A little grey shape suddenly darted out from this group and bit Methuselech savagely on the leg. This was instantly followed by the dull thud of the mercenary’s boot against the child’s head, and its startled cry was cut off as it smacked against a headstone.

  Gapp’s head spun round in amazement, but Methuselech did not slow his progress.

  ‘Aren’t you going to check if—’

  ‘Better not stop,’ Methuselech warned. ‘Must keep up with our guides.’

  Gapp looked ahead and realized that indeed neither guide had paused, though the female had turned her head to watch the exchange and was now smiling feebly.

  ‘It’s fortunate we met up with these two,’ Methuselech explained, leaning down from the saddle to wipe his boot. ‘I doubt we’d have got this far into town without their help. These people are not at all as I remember the stories about them.’

  Soon, thoroughfares began to appear in the form o
f single-track lanes, deeply rutted. They were mist-laden and empty save for the occasional standing figure that materialized before them, gaunt, shapeless, unmoving. It was so, so quiet that Gapp flinched at the occasional sound of the Paranduzes’ hooves crunching the frozen puddles in the ruts.

  Then finally the first houses came into sight, dilapidated cabins overgrown with creeping ivy. From their windows came no light, but but claw-like fingers could be seen pulling aside net curtains of cobweb, and waxy faces glared at the travellers as they passed.

  Gapp felt the same trepidation he had experienced when Yulfric had led him through the deepest, darkest tracts of the forest, felt the same menace as that from the hooting primates on either side. But although the lustreless stare of a hundred dullard eyes watched their every movement, there was no attempt as yet to close in on them, hinder their passage or divert them.

  More hovels. More people. Unblinking, unspeaking, unmoving. The outsiders kept close behind their two guides, protected by whatever sanctuary they afforded, following them dutifully to wherever they were taking them. Gapp kept one hand upon the hefty bronze machete given to him by Ted the Vetter blacksmith, while with the other he grasped Finan’s antlers, feeling reassurance in their solidity under their velvet coating.

  It was now completely dark: night had fallen in full. The bleary glow of disembodied torches began to appear, and with them more people. As they continued through the streets of Wrythe, Gapp noticed something about the inhabitants’ faces. Though each looked strange, in the way one would expect in any close, isolated inbred community, here they fell into two distinctive categories – like clans.

  There were the ‘doll-faces’, of which their guides were fully paid up members. Doll-face. That was what Gapp had been called by a girl he had once been after, referring to the misshapen wax monstrosities she used to stick pins into.

  Then, more disturbingly, there were the ones he dubbed ‘wire-face’. At one point the party was heading towards a large stone building Gapp assumed to be their destination. He dismounted and was just about to step up to the door when there was a sudden moan of alarm from the crowd of onlookers, and his way was barred by two guards. ‘Oh . . . my . . . God!’ he exclaimed, and found that he had remounted his steed in about three tenths of a second.

  Whereas most Oghain seemed to move around by dragging their feet, the movements of these two were considerably more purposeful. They stalked rather than walked, both wearing long leather aprons stiffened by a stinking fish oil of sorts and by deep-soaked, dried blood. Their bare arms were knotted with muscles that looked as hard as iron, and in their shovel-like hands each held a cheese-wire-like garrotte.

  But it was their faces that had caused Gapp to remount with such celerity. Jarring in their subhumanity, they looked like the result of some demonic crossbreeding experiment gone hideously awry. Angry little eyes ringed with baggy red flesh smouldered in a face of glistening skin bound tightly within a criss-cross of rusty wires. These contorted the face underneath and bit deeply; in places the skin had begun to grow over the wires, as tree bark will do, given time.

  Gapp’s mind reeled in shock and his stomach lurched in nausea. The further they headed north, the more the world seemed to become like hell, and here in Wrythe they had found hell’s very portals.

  ‘They look like the Face-Eaters of Fram Island,’ Gapp muttered, recalling a darker episode of Wyda-Aescaland’s recent past.

  ‘Face-Eaters?’

  ‘The Peladanes managed to capture a group of them once,’ Gapp explained. ‘Warlord Artibulus would keep them on hooks and only bring them in chains out to frighten our enemies.’

  ‘I’d say that’s the idea here too. We’re clearly not wanted in yonder building. Come, let’s follow our guides; there are rather too many people gathering now for my liking.’

  So they continued through the town, keeping close together, not letting the shuffling horde of followers get too close.

  Methuselech looked about thoughtfully. ‘Wrythe, eh?’ he murmured to himself. ‘Neighbourhood’s certainly gone downhill since I was last here . . .’

  Since they had encountered the pair of locals, not one word had passed between the two groups. Now Methuselech decided to break the silence. He leant over towards their guides and spoke a few words to the Ogha – the male – in that same droning tongue Gapp had heard him use with the Hauger two nights ago. The Ogha turned to reply in the same language.

  Methuselech frowned. ‘I think he’s saying they’re taking us to an inn.’

  ‘An inn?’ Gapp exclaimed. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘My knowledge of their language comes from the ancient manuscripts,’ he explained, ‘so it’s difficult to know exactly what he told me. But I think I’m right.’

  Gapp was not so sure. ‘Surprised these people even know what an inn is.’

  ‘Actually, the place sounds quite hospitable: wood-panelling, clean sheets, venison on the spit and a huge samovar of piping hot mulled wine.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Of course not, you bloody idiot! Probably just an old yurt or a cellar – somewhere they can secure us properly.’

  ‘Oh Frigg, they’re going to kill us, aren’t they? Eat our faces and suck the marrow from our bones! They could do anything they want to us out here.’

  Soon, however, they did arrive at the ‘inn’. As Methuselech had guessed, it was little more than a yurt. Between two tall stone buildings lay a gap piled with frozen, frost-covered refuse crawling with rats, eyed by a few half-dead dogs too weak to chase them. Just beyond that lay what was to be their quarters: a small circular hut roofed with a conical canopy of sealskin that stank even worse than the refuse. Its dry-stone wall rose only about three feet high, and as they picked their way through the discarded bones and rasping dogs, the travellers could see that the hut was partly below ground level. A short flight of steps descended to the door, and once the two guides had shovelled away the refuse that obstructed it, Methuselech, Gapp and Shlepp were led inside, while Hwald and Finan stayed on guard atop the flight of steps.

  The Ogha eventually succeeded in lighting a lamp, then, without a single word, simply left them. The Oga hitched up her robe provocatively, then she too walked out.

  ‘A frayed and ragged people inhabiting the frayed and ragged edge of the world,’ Methuselech tutted, ‘and gradually coming further undone, thread by thread.’

  Gapp shivered violently. He was not sure which was worse: the locals or the place they were in. He looked about at their abode for the night, and grimaced. Freezing cold, utterly drab and stinking, it seemed more like a public latrine than an inn. The light from the only lamp was dim, the sealskin roof kept fluttering in the wind and there was not a single stick of furniture. He supposed he should feel grateful they had a roof over their heads for once, but he did not. Icy water covered much of the floor and dripped down the walls, and the only area free of it was a low dais of flagstones positioned at the far end.

  ‘I think I’d rather be sleeping out in the woods,’ he muttered, and began to unpack.

  Gapp got little sleep that night. It was dank and wholly unpleasant inside the hut, and throughout the night he was plagued by biting insects that dropped from the roof and by the murmurings of the Oghain hovering outside, who just would not go away. Soon after their arrival a soft clawing was heard at the door and, on opening it, they had been presented with a few bales of dried rushes to use as bedding. Other than that they had not been disturbed.

  Not long after, the Paranduzes came in and joined them, vying for the scant dry space available. Both Hwald and Finan preferred to sleep outdoors, but on this occasion even they chose to make an exception. When Gapp eyed them questioningly, they merely nodded towards the door and shook their heads. Nervousness was evident in their constantly shifting eyes.

  Gapp decided to check it out. He pulled open the door a crack and peered outside. Though it was still foggy, by the light of a brazier set up a few yards away he could see a throng
of faces staring back at him. Grey-skinned and red-eyed, not one of them moved, and not a word passed between them. Gapp slammed the door shut and fastened it, then swiftly retreated again to the rear of the hut.

  ‘Shlepp!’ he hissed to the forest hound. ‘Come here, boy.’

  Gapp was only just keeping himself together. Weeks of hardship in the wilds; a twelve-day forced ride with a man who had now become a complete stranger to him; sickness added to disorientation and exhaustion. And now this dark village of the damned with its fungoid denizens.

  But among the multitude of fears and worries currently crowding his mind, there was one nagging question that would not be stilled.

  ‘Methuselech,’ he whispered, ‘do you really think we’ll be able to find a silver sword in this primitive place?’

  His companion, wrapped up in his own soiled cocoon, replied, ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Well, I mean, just look at them,’ Gapp said, gesticulating towards the door and the shambling throng that lurked beyond it. ‘Silversmithing’s a rarity even back home in Nordwas, and these lot look as if they’ve forgotten even how the wheel works.’

  But if Gapp had had any doubts earlier, the response Methuselech now gave redoubled them. ‘What are you talking about? Why do you need a silver sword?’

  ‘You . . . What?! . . . A silver sword . . . to do the job . . . You said so yourself that the folk of Wrythe are renowned silversmiths. How else are we going to . . . you know, do it?’

  But Methuselech simply snorted scornfully, ‘Don’t you concern yourself, boy. I’ll worry about that.’

  Gapp, still confused, drew his bedroll tightly about him. But first he made sure Shlepp was between him and the stranger on the far side of the dais. As if the dog sensed his fear, it glared hatefully at their companion.

  Maybe I’d be safer out there with the freaks, Gapp wondered.

  THREE