“What are we going to eat?” asked Nell. The words were thick and strange in her mouth.
“There’s nothing to eat. Keep walking.”
Soon they were so thirsty they ate fistfuls of snow until their throats ached with the cold. They were not walking anymore so much as shuffling forwards slowly and trying not to fall over.
It was late on this second day that Nell began to hallucinate. She was sure that she saw her house in Holburg perched at an odd angle on the next hill. Her words were too garbled for Charlie to understand but she tried to pull him towards it, while he dragged her back on course, sticking close to the edge of the mountains. Her ears roared with strange sounds that seemed to have no source and she saw her house on every hill now. The sky was crisp and bright with blue light. She knew it could not be real and she cried bitterly. Her tears froze on her face. Her face was made of ice. She felt herself made of ice, moving slowly towards her house where her family would be waiting. Her father would be on the sofa, watching TV. Her brothers would be sprawled around the house being noisy and irritating. There would be food, and Holburg just outside, the warm sea. She would thaw in the sea.
When a snowstorm came blasting from the north, swallowing them in a swirling whiteness, she could not hold herself upright against the wind and the cold any longer. She fell down and this time Charlie did not pick her up. He let himself fall next to her and watched the storm through frozen eyelashes. It was not fair, he thought dully. It was not fair that Nell should die so young because of him. The thought appalled him so deeply that he sat up, shook her shoulder. She murmured but did not stir. Her normally honey-coloured skin had turned white as the snow.
“Please, Nell,” he mumbled, then heard crunching snow through the gale, and looked up. He squinted at a blurry, dark shape making towards them through the driving snow. It was several dark shapes in fact, slowly coming clearer through the haze of sleet: hounds as big as horses, with shaggy grey coats. They were harnessed to something huge, baying as they came towards the two fallen humans.
Something leaped from the structure behind the hounds. Something on powerful legs, something clothed in dank furs, something bearded and fiery-eyed with a long sword in its hand. The being came striding towards them on heavy boots, stood over them. The huge iron sword swung up. Charlie watched all this happening as if it were not happening to him, as if he were witnessing a story he had heard long ago. Something came back to him, another language from another life.
“Greetings to the Verr Mon Noorden,” he called out in that old language, as the huge sword fell towards them. “I am Bryn-Arr.”
The sword halted mid-swing.
Chapter
~17~
When Nell became aware of her surroundings again, she thought at first that she had fallen asleep in the Confortare train’s dining car. But the movement was all wrong and the powerful smell filling her nostrils was not food. Also, she could not move. This frightened her and she opened her eyes. What she saw first was just a dark mass shifting right overhead. She managed with great difficulty to sit up. She was half-buried under several layers of heavy animal hides, and this was the smell that had infiltrated her feverish dreams. Her face, hands and feet were wrapped in bandages. She lifted her mummified hands to her face, finding gaps only for her eyes, mouth and nostrils.
“Charlie?” she said thickly. There was no answer. She had been wrapped up, piled into some kind of vehicle with a great many furs and, she saw now, some boxes, and she was being transported somewhere very quickly. The last thing she remembered was walking through the snow with Charlie. No, that was not right. She searched her memory, using her teeth to pull at the bandages on her hands. She remembered being lifted, a great many gruff voices, fire, and something else…drinking something thick and warm. That was all. Once her hands were free, she pulled the bandages from her face and feet as well. The inside of the bandages was damp and sticky, her face and her hands slick with the same smelly substance. She crawled on top of the furs and felt her way along the edge of the large shifting crate. The domed covering was made of animal hide too. She pushed against the walls gingerly, but she was afraid to push too hard lest she fall out. She began to feel the cold again, so she crawled back under the furs to wait. They had not been captured by Faeries, anyway, and this seemed an unlikely modus operandi for the Thanatosi. Alarming though it was to find oneself bandaged and trapped, there was no doubt that the situation had improved. She had not frozen to death, after all. With this reassuring thought, she fell asleep again.
She woke to a sudden light and a blast of cold air. The hide wall had been pulled aside and a face was staring in at her. It was a huge face, scarred and hairy, with black, cat-like slits for pupils in its large yellow eyes. It opened its jaw to reveal long, wolfish teeth, and made some gruff sounds that must have been speaking. Then it reached under the furs and hauled her out by the arm. Its hairy hand had metallic claws instead of fingernails, and a ferocious grip. The thing strode through the snow, dragging her behind as she scrambled to find her footing. She saw that there were twenty or more covered sleds harnessed to huge, shaggy hounds. The mountains hung almost directly overhead, vicious and white.
Animal hide had been laid in a broad circle around a bonfire. Some of the creatures sat cross-legged on the hide, some sat in wicker chairs covered in furs. Those in the chairs bore more weapons than the others and wore necklaces of bone and teeth. When Nell saw Charlie wrapped in furs and sitting in one of the wicker chairs, her heart contracted with relief. He looked very small among these beasts. The one dragging her let go of her arm suddenly and wandered off.
“You’ve got stuff all over your face,” said Charlie.
She wiped at her face and saw that her hands were covered in something dark and slimy. She wiped her hands on her Faery dress; they left big black marks.
“Yuck,” she said.
“Cures frostbite,” he said. “Good stuff, aye.”
Nell could only think about the cold. She sat next to Charlie’s chair and pulled one of the smelly furs around her. The shaggy fellows around the fire grinned at her with their ferocious teeth.
“These are the Verr mon Noorden,” Charlie explained. “Warriors of the Northern Foothills, aye. I had to persuade them not to skin you and eat you, lah, so I said you were my favourite wife. And I said you were a witch who’d been robbed of her powers. I thought it would be easier than explaining…you know, the truth.”
“Your favourite wife?” Nell said disdainfully. A clay bowl full of stew was placed roughly before her. There were no utensils to eat with.
“Can I use my hands?” she asked, trying to wipe them clean again on her dress.
“That’s how it’s done, aye,” said Charlie. She tucked in, devouring every scrap in the bowl in under a minute. While she ate, she heard and thought nothing, but when she was done she realized that Charlie was talking to one of the Verr Mon Noorden in their own strange, guttural language. His conversation partner wore a necklace of fangs and his clothes were adorned with bone carvings. He laughed and clapped Charlie on the shoulder, nearly knocking him off his chair.
“So, lah, you know them?” asked Nell.
“There’s this legendary figure among the Verr mon Noorden,” said Charlie. “A warrior named Bryn-Arr. He’s appeared throughout the tribe’s history and helped them to win battles and hunt the Yrgtha, monsters you find in the foothills and the mountains, aye. One was spotted this morning, actually, so a hunting party has gone after it while we wait here. The Verr mon Noorden fought the Giants in the Middle Days and won with Bryn-Arr’s help, even though the Giants outsized and outnumbered them. They’re really amazing warriors.”
“What does this have to do with us, Charlie?” Nell asked impatiently.
“Lah, I’m Bryn-Arr. Whenever I’d had enough of the worlds or felt like I needed to get away from everything, I’d become this massive warrior hero, aye, and I’d come and spend some time with them. Every Chief knows a few secrets to
help him identify Bryn-Arr. Of course, I dinnay look like him anymore, but I know the secret words and I could tell them all the stories of my feats and things I’ve done. Luckily, they believe me. I can still remember their language, lah, but with a human throat and voice-box I cannay make all the sounds correctly. They understand me, though.”
“But how did you explain the way you look?”
“The truth, aye. More or less. I said that I was once able to take many shapes, and Bryn-Arr was one of them. They dinnay know about Shades or anything like that. But I said I’d been cursed and the only shape left to me was this weak one. I explained that the Thanatosi are after me and that we need to get to Lil. They’re going to take us across the mountains. We’ll have to go the rest of the way ourselves. They willnay leave the north.”
“Lah, even though you cannay change, your Shade-self is still very useful, Charlie,” said Nell. “I didnay think we were going to make it to Lil.” Then something struck her like a thunderbolt. She scrabbled in her empty pockets. “Charlie! Where’s my folder?”
He looked puzzled. “What folder?”
“With my notes! The test is in less than two weeks!”
“I dinnay know. We must have dropped it.”
“Oh no! No no no! I’ve got to go back for it!” Nell leaped to her feet. Charlie half-rose, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her back down, which wasn’t difficult in her weakened state.
“Nell, we’ve already been travelling with them more than a day. I cannay ask them to turn around to look for your notes.”
“We have to! Charlie! Everything I need for the test is in that folder! I have to get it back!”
“You cannay be serious,” said Charlie. “The Thanatosi are after me, we’re in the middle of the icy northern regions of Tian Xia, and you want to turn around and go look for some notes that you dropped somewhere in the last several hundred miles. We’d never find them, lah.”
He was right, of course. She thought she must have dropped them when their morrapus started to go down, and they could not go back to the witches’ forest. The Verr mon Noorden around the fire rose up shouting. A group was staggering towards them, hounds pulling a carcass as big as a house. It was a shaggy white beast, like a bear but much larger.
“Praps I can still ace the test without my notes,” said Nell, her heart sinking. “I mean, either I know the stuff or I dinnay by now, lah.”
Charlie nodded absently. The Verr mon Noorden drew fierce-looking knives and set about skinning the monster and cutting the meat into great strips. It was very efficient work, finished in less than an hour. Both the hide and the meat were tied over the tops of the larger sleds to dry out and freeze. The bones were cleaned and put in one of the covered sleds, the organs stashed in barrels. One of the Verr mon Noorden pulled out the monster’s teeth with a large metal contraption clearly designed for that purpose. Soon, those working on the poor slaughtered beast were covered in its thick black blood, as was the snow all around it. One of them came towards Nell and Charlie, proffering two bowls. Nell took the bowl and then almost dropped it. Inside it, staring up at her, was a giant bloody eyeball the size of her own head.
“It’s a delicacy,” Charlie said anxiously. “You’d better eat it, aye.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said, turning her head aside. The stench of it nearly overwhelmed her.
“Seriously. Nell, they’ll be prize upset if you refuse.”
Already a number of the Verr mon Noorden were eyeing her suspiciously and had begun to mutter.
“The whole thing?” she murmured.
“As much as you can.”
Charlie dug his fingers into the eyeball in his own bowl, pulling out a handful of eye-jelly and popping it in his mouth. He nearly gagged.
“It tastes quite good when you’re one of them,” he managed to say. “By the Ancients, this is nay going to be easy.”
Nell took a deep breath. She had a strong stomach and she considered herself a pretty good actress. Here was the ultimate test of both. She dove her hand into the eye and felt it squish and roll beneath her fingers. She pulled her fingers out, dripping, and sucked the goo off them, swallowing rapidly and trying not to taste it.
“Speed is key,” she told Charlie.
The two of them gobbled down the eyeballs as fast as they could. About halfway through Nell thought she might faint. Her stomach roiled rebelliously but she shut her mind and continued as quickly as she could. The Verr mon Noorden seemed satisfied when she handed back the more or less empty bowl and croaked her thanks. Charlie was green in the face and gave her a miserable look. He was not yet done.
“You’re almost there,” she encouraged him, and crept behind one of the sleds to throw up. She hastily covered the mess up with snow.
~~~
Soon they were off again, racing through the mountains. The hounds tirelessly pulled the sleds along routes known only to them and these strange, large warriors. The snowy peaks were lost in cloud overhead and all around them was white. They sped down and laboured up long snowy slopes, pausing to build fires and eat. At night they slept in the covered sleds with heat-giving lamps burning Yrgtha fat, warm under the heavy furs. On the second day, Nell woke early, helped prepare some stew, and then joined Charlie at the front of a half-covered sled. She was wearing a clumsily stitched hat of Yrgtha fur and was wrapped in a cloak that trailed in the snow. Charlie laughed when he saw her.
“You fit right in, lah,” he said. “I think you might have a bit of the Shade temperament yourself.”
The hounds needed no direction. They knew the terrain well. The air stung Nell’s face as the hounds began to run and the sled skimmed along the ground between the fearsome icy peaks.
“I was part of the anti-fur club at school,” Nell said to Charlie. “I wrote all these letters to newspapers about how wearing fur should be illegal. I’ve been thinking about becoming a vegetarian. And now look at me, eating eyeballs and dressed in Yrgtha skin!”
“Context is everything,” said Charlie. “You cannay make choices like that out here, unless you want to freeze or starve.”
“Neither, thanks. Lah, but I’m nay sure I wouldnay end up choosing starvation over a diet of eyeballs. That was horrific.”
“I dinnay even want to think about it,” said Charlie feelingly.
Nell laughed, and without really thinking she slipped her arm through his and leaned against him. She saw his surprised expression from the corner of her eye and felt suddenly embarrassed, but decided not to move. It was more comfortable and stable than trying to hold herself upright on the fast-moving sled.
So they sat leaning into each other cozily, Yrgtha fur pulled up over their hands, chatting occasionally and watching the mountains wheel by for close to an hour. Charlie glanced at Nell a few times as if he wanted to say something but stopped himself. Her nose and cheeks were bright pink from the cold and her eyes shone. The wind whipped her hair around her face. Charlie reached over and brushed a tangle out of her eyes. She blinked at him. He didn’t know what to say then, so he said what was on his mind: “What you said when we were in the Realm of the Faeries…” he began. “Just before we were caught, you said…do you remember what you said?”
He could see that she did. Her cheeks paled a little and she looked down at her hands. “Let’s nay talk about it,” she said. “It’s all in the past, lah.”
“I think we should talk about it,” said Charlie.
She shook her head, hiding her face from him with her hair. “I know what you’re going to say, Charlie. It doesnay matter. You dinnay need to say it.”
“Of course I do.” He put one arm firmly around her shoulders and with his other hand he pushed the hair out of her face and tilted her head up towards him so that she was looking right in his eyes. He held her chin gently between his fingers and thumb so she could not turn her face away again. “You brought Ander to Tian Xia to save my life, Nell. I havenay forgotten that. It’s a funny feeling, to owe somebody your
life. It’s hard to know what to say to a person. And you risked your life for me again, aye, going to the Realm of the Faeries. It almost ended in both of us being killed. I’m grateful for all of it, lah. More than I could possibly say.”
“You’d have done the same, aye,” said Nell. It was a bit dizzying looking into his face, just inches from hers, while the snowy mountains whizzed past them and the wind howled around them.
“I would,” he said. “No question. I would. But Ander dying was nay your fault. Nary a bit. There was nothing you could have done.”
Her eyes filled up with tears that fell and quickly froze on her cheeks.
“He was there because of me,” she said, so quietly he could barely hear her over the wind. “He wanted to leave as soon as you got out of the Cave, aye, but I insisted on this big adventure. I thought we could help somehow, but we didnay do a bit of good. Eliza took care of everything and all I did was get Ander killed.”
“He was a grown man, Nell,” said Charlie. “You may think you have some kind of power over people, but he didnay have to agree to anything you said, or take on Nia that way. Life is a precarious thing for a human. People die all the time. It’s sad and it’s terrible but that’s the way of things. He was a brave man, he made his own choices, and he got killed in a dangerous situation. Nay your fault.”
“His mother moved in with my parents,” Nell said, and then she couldn’t speak anymore. Tears kept pouring down her face. Charlie tried to wipe them away.
“Do you want to know why I didnay come see you when we got back to Di Shang?” he said.
Bone, Fog, Ash & Star Page 20
