A Fire in the North

by David Bilsborough

  But beneath his jest he felt as though he should be shuddering. Watching them at work, lumbering about like zombies freshly disturbed from the grave, he again experienced that sense of ragnarok. His earlier vision of dragons screaming through the stormclouds was now enhanced by images of glaciers rolling over the lands, damned souls wailing in despair, the Dead rising from their graves to walk the earth upon the Last Day.

  No, shuddering was too gentle a word. Kuthy felt himself squirm. Squirm in a place deep within his soul, a place he normally kept locked away from his everyday thoughts. On previous visits to Wrythe he had merely laughed in scorn at the Oghain, contemptuous of their half-lives up here in the land of the Dead. But today things were troubling him greatly, and those recurrent ragnarok thoughts would not let go of him. Kuthy was neither a spiritual nor a compassionate man, but here in this place, the last town in the world, where the very air was steeped in the inevitability of the end of all life, he was unexpectedly moved to an altogether different mood.

  Such lives! he reflected as the dome-headed graveyard people tramped their way through the perpetual fog. Such terrible lives!

  Then, out of the blue and with a suddenness that jolted him, he thought of Appa, the mad old priest Appa who stank permanently of ewe butter and rapped his ring against his amulet with the untiring obsessiveness of the asylum dweller. Someone of his inner strength and beliefs, his missionary zeal, what if he were to settle here? Could he not do something for these people, with his patient teaching, his care? But Appa was now on Melhus – a place so much worse than here. He was probably dead already. Deader even than an Oghain.

  If only I could see how they’re getting on over there . . .

  They were led on through Wrythe, past the dark avenue of rowan trees on the north side of town. Here, where the road led down to the small dock situated a few miles away, the Oghain with their heavy containers were particularly numerous, all carrying their burdens down to the sea. All so careful not to spill whatever comprised their precious cargo. Watching their progress with interest, Kuthy and his companions continued on until they reached the Keep, which resembled a giant gravestone looming blackly against a sky contorted with sunset-reddened stormclouds. Kuthy again had that brief foreboding feeling of the end of the world. Here, as it ever had been, was the source of Wrythe’s ‘warping’.

  ‘Oh look!’ his diminutive companion suddenly chirped. ‘They’ve taken down all the hanged people.’ He sounded almost disappointed, as if he felt they had lent the place a certain atmosphere.

  On past the trees, bereft now of their macabre decorations, they went and, as they had done on previous visits, passed through the rotten mouth of the Keep’s main door to stand waiting politely in the chamber beyond.

  Within minutes an enraged bellow sounded from the battlements above and, three to four seconds later, the wire-face who had gone to announce their presence came tumbling head-over-heels back down the steps. Whereupon the three guests were summarily shown out.

  ‘Somehow doubt we’ll get any business done here this time,’ Kuthy said in irritation. ‘The Maj Head seems hacked off about something.’

  ‘We’re certainly not wanted here at the moment,’ Elfswith agreed, as they were led back downhill to a lodging where they could be watched. ‘But I didn’t come all this way for nothing. I say we just lie low for a while, wait till things calm down. He’s a nice old bloke really – he’s bound to be in a better mood by tomorrow.’

  Kuthy, his heart still troubled, scowled. ‘I say we clear out as fast as we can. We can always come back in a few days’ time when it’s cooled down a bit. In the meantime, how about a quick flight over Melhus? We could see how our boys are getting on.’

  Elfswith looked at his old friend with horror. ‘You going soft in the head? Who gives a damn about them? Besides, you’re in no shape for that. I could do it. You couldn’t. Not just like that. Your’re already frozen half-solid. I say, while we’re here, let’s make good use of the place. How does a nice hot bath sound to you?’

  The bathhouse was warm, pleasant and calm – in short, everything that the town outside was not – and, exactly as Gapp had just over twenty-four hours earlier, Kuthy and Elfswith almost cried out in rapture as the heat enveloped their bodies and jets of sulphurous water pummelled their skin. The two bathers sank into the water’s hedonistic embrace up to their necks. For long minutes they simply sat and enjoyed the luxury, breathing in the potent fumes and staring up at the contorted rock of the cave roof above them.

  The state of the town concerned them little for the present, and they had little need for caution. Their clothes and weapons were stashed right behind them on the ledge, while Ceawlin was on guard over near the cave entrance. Ever watchful, she did not share her companions’ serenity in this place, and stalked about in the water eyeing it suspiciously like a giant wading bird. Lazily the two men let their minds drift. After a while, even Kuthy’s headgear extended one of its tendrils to test the water, then slipped off his head and sculled off on its own. ‘All we need now,’ Kuthy sighed luxuriously as the opiate vapours curled up his nose and further permeated his softening brain, ‘is a little gentle background music.’

  ‘Your wish is my command,’ Elfswith purred, absently reached behind his head and groped for his baggy overcoat. His tiny hand disappeared into a breast pocket and resurfaced with a long, brightly shining trombone. He put it to his lips, rolled his eyes up into his head, then blasted out a few bars of the most hellish clamour Kuthy had ever heard, filling the cave with an ear-splitting din. Ceawlin leapt back in fright and tumbled over in the water in a melee of flailing wings and spume. Kuthy’s headgear retreated beneath the surface, and even the few Oghain outside wailed in terror, dropped their mysterious burdens on the frozen earth and loped off into the dark safety of the trees.

  Later, when they were finally ready to move, Kuthy and Elfswith returned to discussing Wrythe. That their business here would have to be put off, maybe even forgotten completely, was obvious. Between languid scrubbings and the occasional fanfare-like scale progression from Elfswith’s trombone that would cause Ceawlin’s ears to flatten, the two adventurers debated the subject at length but without reaching any satisfactory conclusion.

  Suddenly, Yggr strode in. He did not bother to greet them, not even in his customarily icy way, but just marched along the ledge, his shadow, cast by one of the wall torches, lengthening menacingly towards them. In spite of themselves, both travellers’ hearts skipped a beat. Even Ceawlin hesitated momentarily before wading over to join her companions. As he approached, the hollow crunch of his boots upon the gritty stone sounded like the tramp of some war god upon the skulls of the fallen.

  ‘Can I help you?’ Elfswith enquired politely. ‘We are having a bath here, you know.’

  Yggr’s dead-oyster eyes were dark and unfathomable. For just a second he stared at Kuthy – now hatless – seeing for the first time his terrible secret. Then without preamble, he growled, ‘You don’t know anything about any other foreigners snooping round these parts recently, I suppose?’

  Kuthy thought his voice sounded like the belch of a giant toad, sick from eating too much quicksand. ‘How recently?’ Kuthy replied cagily.

  Yggr’s blue-nailed fingers clenched into massive fists. ‘Recently,’ he reiterated stonily.

  ‘Oh, “recently”,’ Elfswith cut in, rather too glibly for Kuthy’s comfort. On his own, this big guy was probably a match for him – maybe even for Elfswith – but even above the sulphur he could smell a lot of wire-faces close by.

  ‘We met a few humans further off to the east,’ Kuthy replied, not wanting to reveal too much but reluctant to lie, especially to those eyes.

  ‘Heading where?’

  ‘Really couldn’t say. They were up in the mountains. Probably lost.’

  ‘Did they look like Peladanes? Or possibly two men, one robed like a desert man, the other small and skinny, both riding antler-heads?’

  Replying truthfully to
the second question, Kuthy said, ‘Absolutely not.’ He had not got a clue or a care about these last two, but his thoughts were flying out to Wintus’s group upon the ice; looking up into Yggr’s eyes, he was so grateful not to be in their place. The Majestic Head had no mercy for any caught near Melhus.

  Yggr continued to stare into his eyes. They stared back. Then abruptly he turned. ‘Thank you for your help,’ he said. ‘And make sure you do not leave your quarters tonight – for any reason. In the morning . . . well, in the morning we’ll be gone. You can do whatever you like then.’

  Just as he was about to leave he stopped and stared down at Elfswith, a hint of puzzlement on his impassive features. He had noticed the band of spots blemishing Elfswith’s skin, the very same ones that Bolldhe had noticed the day they first encountered him in the Giant Mountains. Now, with his entire torso exposed, they could be seen to continue all the way down the little man’s chest.

  Elfswith stared back. ‘Birthmark,’ he offered weakly.

  Yggr frowned. On a face such as his that was hardly necessary, but he frowned nonetheless. And then he was gone.

  The heavy reverberation of his footsteps receded through the limestone vaults, then abandoned the karst tower to an empty silence that those left inside were reluctant to fill.

  A droplet of water plopped into the pool, and the two bathers breathed once more, resting their heads back against the ledge and staring contemplatively into space. Kuthy’s hat slithered back up to its customary resting place.

  ‘How the heavenly hell does the Maj know about Fatty Peladane and his friends?’ Elfswith murmured, keeping his voice low in case spies lurked in the vicinity. ‘I know Yggr’s scouts roam far and wide, but surely not as far as the Giant Mountains?’

  ‘Perhaps his spies are monitoring the ice bridge these days,’ Kuthy suggested. Elfswith stared at him and frowned. ‘Like you said,’ Kuthy continued, ‘something’s up.’

  Elfswith pursed his lips. ‘Possible,’ he replied, ‘since he guards Melhus against intruders—’

  ‘The whole of Wrythe guards Melhus against intruders,’ Kuthy corrected. ‘That’s all this town exists for, if you ask me. Probably been the case ever since the days of the Fasces and . . .’

  He trailed off as his mind travelled back to that time half a millennium ago, and he started to recall every single piece of information he had ever learnt about then, and all the years since. Eventually he concluded, ‘I wonder whose side Yggr is on.’

  ‘Makes no difference to us.’ Elfswith shrugged. ‘We’re on neither.’

  ‘True, but this is all getting a bit . . .’ Kuthy paused, thinking once again of those fiery stormclouds ‘. . . interesting,’ he finished lamely. ‘A lot of people headed to the Maw these days.’

  ‘Yes, including two men riding antler-heads,’ Elfswith added. ‘What was his description of them? “One robed like a desert man, the other small and skinny”.’ He looked hard into his companion’s eyes.

  Kuthy finished Elfswith’s thought for him: ‘How many desert men come this far north? What did Wintus call that mercenary friend of his? Methuselech?’

  ‘Something like that. And a small, skinny one – Fatty’s esquire? But didn’t they die early on in their journey?’

  ‘Way back,’ Kuthy agreed, ‘but their bodies were never actually seen . . .’

  They pondered long and hard, about the Peladane’s group mainly but also about Yggr, the greatest mystery of these lands, the self-appointed guardian of Melhus, now loading up his boats.

  ‘Maybe we ought to make this our business,’ Kuthy suggested.

  Elfswith eyed him, and absently blew on his trombone.

  The following morning they awoke to find the town strangely quiet. Not the customary quiet of the graveyard but a kind of hollow quiet and a resonating echo as of something just departed. Indeed, that same oppression that had always been the very essence of Wrythe seemed now to have magically lifted.

  Elfswith peered out between the mouldy shutters of their lodging upon the morning. There was a mist-clogged lane outside with the odd doll-face wandering about. It all looked much the same as it ever did. But, as he continued to watch, it occurred to Elfswith that even the mist somehow felt cleaner upon this fresh morning.

  He also noticed how the wanderings of the locals appeared to have become distinctly aimless. They had always moved about slowly, vacantly, like somnambulists, but nevertheless with some purpose. But this morning they appeared bewildered, bereft of direction, abandoned, as if the strings to their puppet-master had been cut. Also, sometime during the night their wire-face guards had disappeared.

  ‘Kuthy!’ Elfswith yelled over his shoulder. ‘I do believe the Maj has genuinely done a bunk.’

  It was true. As the three explored the town later, it became clear that every single wire-face had gone; the aimless citizens had been left to their own devices. And even up at the Keep there was no sign either of Yggr or his foul little Ogginda devils. They had all simply gone, quitting the town as if they intended never to return.

  They searched the Keep thoroughly but found it as empty and derelict as if abandoned hundreds of years ago. There was nothing there at all. All those secrets Kuthy and Elfswith had hoped to discover were just gone.

  It was an old doll-face who eventually explained. After being slapped repeatedly across her lumpen visage, she appeared to regain some kind of clarity, albeit troubled. She told them how the Majestic Head had set sail for Melhus ‘with the sleeping ones’, taking his brood and the wire-faces with him. The only wire-faces he had not taken were those in the search party he had sent off yesterday.

  ‘Search party?’ Elfswith asked.

  Indeed. It seemed that as soon as the two foreigners – the desert man and the pale boy – had escaped on antler-heads, Lord Yggr had sent after them a large pack of hand-picked hunters under the command of the wire-face champion Rind-Head, all freshly fed upon raw sea slug and eelpout.

  ‘This desert man,’ Kuthy pressed her, ‘his name wasn’t Methuselech was it?’

  No. His name was Mauglad. Mauglad Yrkeshta.

  After a short stunned silence, Kuthy and Elfswith stared at each other, beamed in recognition and cried, ‘BINGO!’ They then slapped the doll-face once more, leapt straight onto Ceawlin’s back and took to the air again.

  After snuffling around like a badger for several minutes, the leader of the wire-face pack lifted his snout from the patch of freshly disturbed earth and slowly turned his head to face towards the north-east.

  Yes, he confirmed, they had definitely gone that way. They had taken the direction all intruders eventually took.

  Towards Melhus.

  He licked some soil from his nose and tasted it. Antler-head, no doubt about that; their scent was unmistakable. Filthy little tricksters! They had sent him off on a wild detour south, trying to deceive him into believing that they were escaping the region altogether. But they had reckoned without the tracking skills of Rind-Head. And now the hunt was on in earnest.

  Had they known how swiftly Rind-Head and his pack could travel and just how hard on their tail they were already, Gapp and his companions would never have paused to spend the night with the Uldachtna nomads.

  Their flight had started as a terrified and desperate attempt to get away from Wrythe, and a day and a half later it was equally chaotic, constantly slowed by uncertainties and conflicting opinions – not to mention hunger, disorientation and exhaustion. In short, it was still very much a panic-stricken rout, and one likely destined for a very bloody conclusion.

  They had begun with a nightmare shuffle through the awakening streets of Wrythe, both men hooded and cloaked in the monk-like raiment of the locals and clumsily trying to mimic their ponderous, shambling gait while at the same time desperate to escape as fast as possible. After the siren-like alarm call the Children had raised with their screeching it had been all the fugitives could do to not simply bolt. The Ogginda’s growling and keening seemed all around them, down ev
ery lane and behind every fence, their pursuers searching, sniffing, closing in with every second. Gapp and Methuselech had expected at any moment to hear scratchy little voices at their side, see something small but terrible step out into the street before them or feel the heavy clamp of big hands upon their shoulders followed by the steely bite of a garrotte around the neck.

  It had been horrible. It was only the presence of Shlepp that had delivered them from the heart of darkness in that most terrible hour. For all the while the forest hound had never left them, staying close but keeping always in the shadows, out of sight of the enemy. While the two fugitives were forced to keep their heads bowed and their eyes firmly on the ground, by barely heard whines and whimpers Shlepp had guided them through the tightening net of pursuers, and finally, almost beyond belief, back under the relative cover of the forest.

  Then had followed a flight of reckless insanity through the ripping thorns and sucking bogs of the woodlands extending east of Wrythe. It had been a headlong dash into the unknown, with the terror of Yggr and his fiends driving them faster than they would have believed possible. For mile after mile they had lunged after Shlepp without any clue where he was taking them. Eventually, after many hours, Gapp had collapsed with gasps of exhaustion and tears of relief when he heard the gallop of hefty hooves and those droning Parandus voices approaching fast from their right.

  Hwald and Finan had proved themselves admirably. The false trail had been successfully laid, and their pursuers would be heading south for some time yet. With luck that would distract them long enough for the fugitives to put a good distance between them and the horrors that stalked them.

  From then on, they had continued east, throughout the day and as fast as the debilitated Paranduzes could manage. Even when the last cold rays of a weak sun had winked out completely, they carried on, not stopping once during the night but stumbling through a bad dream of confusion and fear that seemed to have no end. Both men’s cold-weather gear had been taken from them, and the Oghain robes they had stolen to replace them were wholly inadequate against the terrible chill of the night.