Mo sighed, ‘I can’t go on.’
He yanked hard on the thong that tethered him to her hands, causing her to totter and fall. She could tell from his face that it was all he could do to resist the temptation of kicking her. It wasn’t kindness on his part that stopped him but his own exhaustion from the bleeding stump of his arm. Leaning over her, he cursed her softly. ‘Any more whining from you and I’ll throw you into the river.’
Mo trembled, climbing back onto her feet.
‘What in a rat’s pelt are you?’ He peered down at her now, where she sat hunched up on the riverbank. ‘When I kick you, I encounter no weight, nothing solid.’ He shook the dizziness out of his head in an attempt to figure her out. ‘Stop that – do you think I can’t see that your mouth is jabbering. Who in a witch’s teat are you talking to? What tricks are you up to?’
‘I’m thinking of riddles.’
‘Pah! Get going!’ He yanked her back to her feet by her hair, then shoved her ahead of him with his foot. ‘Save those pitiful eyes for looking for a boat. There must be a raft or a canoe hereabouts. Fish gutters work these waters. Sooner or later my luck will turn.’
He forced the pace for several more miles before the weariness of blood loss made him stop again. Using a dagger he had stolen from the Storm Wolves, he cut off several long strips from her sealskin coat, tying them into a longer thong and shackling her ankles with it. It was a clumsy business, using just one hand and his teeth, and it took him a long time to satisfy himself that she was secure, after which he slumped down on the bank and stared at her, as if trying to figure out what to do with her.
‘How tempting,’ he whispered in her ear, ‘merely to plunge my knife into your soft young belly! Make life a lot easier for old Snakoil Kawkaw. I could start again somewhere far from here.’
‘But then,’ Mo countered, ‘you wouldn’t be able to sell me in Isscan.’
‘Don’t tempt me, brat. Here I must rest – get some sleep. If you so much as fart out of turn, I will dangle your head down into the water. You think the pit was bad, but there are hungry mouths aplenty in this river.’
In her mind, as she called for her, Mo heard the comforting voice of Granny Dew.
Hush, now! I am here.
‘He terrifies me. He’s just like the thin man. He wants to kill me. I can sense it in him.’
No, little one. This man is bad, but not like the other. The other was evil for evil’s sake, but this one is driven by his own selfish reasons. You are only valuable to him while whole and healthy. He will not harm you unless he becomes angry or mindlessly desperate.
Before falling asleep Kawkaw had added a new thong and tethered her shackled ankles to him, binding her so close that there was no possibility for Mo of sleeping in comfort, even if the cold would allow it. Her clothes were still soaked from her immersion in the river; she shivered and her teeth chattered with the cold. When she moved even a fraction, the thong pulled on his hand, around which he had looped it three or four times. If she even tried to move he would surely waken. So the best she could hope for was to doze, half-awake.
‘I can’t bear it. He will sleep again for a few hours and then we’ll have to walk again, all through the night.’
Then do something to prevent it.
‘What can I do? The leather is twisted around his hand. He will wake immediately if I try to escape. He’ll do what he said. He’ll dangle me over the river for … for horrible things to come and eat me.’
He preys on your mind, child. He’s a cunning one, and experienced in the ways of tormenting. Yet still there is a wish granted that might enable you to help yourself.
Cautiously Mo sat up. It had stopped snowing and the bright ball of the moon peered between blankets of cloud like a lamp through net curtains. A bank of mist rose from the river, heavy and still. Trembling with fear, she inched her body around so she was kneeling on the cold damp earth within a few yards of the riverbank. She peered at Kawkaw under the moonlight. He looked sick as well as wounded, with a filthy rag wrapped around the stump of his right arm. A thick sealskin cape was pulled tightly around him, and his hair was standing up in wild tufts, so he looked half-bear, half-man. Mo wept while she thought again about Granny Dew’s advice. Do something to prevent it … What could she do? Why couldn’t she just ask Granny Dew to untie her and let her escape?
She stared at the loops, where they curled in and out of his paw-like fist, as if wishing them to unravel. But, of course, they didn’t.
Still there is a wish granted …
But what – what could she do? Then into her mind came an idea. She still weighed no more than her eyebrows. Perhaps she could use her weightlessness to help her uncurl the leather thong from around that hand without the sleeping Kawkaw noticing?
Little by little she brought her face to within inches of his hand. She took hold of the thong, very close to his hand, and began untwisting the first loop as carefully as if she were brushing a baby’s face in sleep. The first loop undone, she rested a moment to allow her heartbeat to slow down. Maybe just one more loop and it would become easier. But fear made her hand jerk and pull on the thong. His eyes sprang open. He was instantly wide awake.
‘Scheming vermin! You think you can better old Snakoil Kawkaw? Well I warned you what I would do to you if you tried to escape. And now at least I’ll have my sport even if I miss the ransom you would fetch in Isscan.’
With his fist pulling her this way and that, he found the dagger and waved it in front of her eyes. She could smell his foul breath as he snarled in her face. Then, with a twirl, the blade was under her chin and pressed against her neck as he forced her over to the water’s edge. Here, struggling one-handedly, he kicked her down onto the sloping bank, and then, bathed in sweat from his exertions, he used his feet to shove her further, until he could dangle her, head down, over the shallows.
‘No – please!’
Ignoring her squirming, he shoved her far enough out so that her head entered the freezing water, and then toyed with her, lifting her in and out, so she was coughing and choking for breath.
‘Come gather round, hungry mouths. Come nibble this titbit!’
Suddenly there was a loud hissing sound from nearby. With a twist of her neck, Mo managed to raise her head clear of the water. She saw Kawkaw’s narrow face above her, squinting out into the river. She heard him curse with fright. Twisting back to look at the river, she saw something monstrous rising out of the swirling mist – a serpent so huge its gaping jaws could have swallowed her whole. Its glowing eyes, faceted like a fly’s, were focused on Mo, where she dangled upside down between bank and water. Its forked tongue, blue as slate, probed the air as the great head descended to inspect her plight.
Kawkaw had fallen onto his back with terror. Now he struggled to free his hand from the thong tethering him to Mo, biting at it with his teeth while using his heels in the snow to make a slithering retreat. Mo felt the tether snap. She slithered further down the bank until she was half-immersed in the shallow water.
‘My offering,’ he wheedled. ‘It is yours. I – I make it freely in your honour, Great One.’
‘Offering accepted, mmmm! Though so little flesh we perceive on these bonesss.’
With a shriek, Kawkaw attempted to flee. Mo, with her feet now freed, scrambled to climb back up the bank. She found herself ignored as a huge coil struck out of the river, cutting off Kawkaw’s escape amid a deluge of water that almost dragged Mo back into the river. The coil closed around him, as high in its diameter as his shoulders were off the ground, and it began to drag him closer to the lip of the bank, so he too could be inspected.
Kawkaw shrieked, ‘What demon from the shades are you?’
‘No demon are we. Has the memory of the fish robbers become so poor that you have forgotten the true name of this river? Fair Shikarr are we, queen of the river that once bore our name. A hundred years have we slumbered only to find ourselves aroused by you. Now awake, we find ourselves hungry to excess
.’
‘River serpents feed on fish!’
‘Fish flesh is tasssty, but cold. Man flesh isss warm, and a nice warm meal isss the delicacy we covet.’
Mo shook her fist at the great head above her. ‘You cannot eat us.’
‘We cannot?’ The head swung, the terrible eyes coming to focus again on the girl.
‘Granny Dew won’t let you.’
The head rose high into the air then descended with lightning speed, hesitating only when the great fangs, longer than scimitars, gaped around Mo. The huge, forked tongue gathered her scent only inches from her face.
‘Well now – what have we here? Though terror of Shikarr we read in its eyes, yet such obstinacy do we read in its spirit. Few would dare to challenge Shikarr in our hunger. Many indeed have died merely at the sight of us. Perhaps, little one, we should do you the honour of becoming the first bite of my meal – a tasssty morsel before the main feast?’
‘I’m not worth the trouble of eating, your highness,’ Mo said firmly. ‘I will show you if you put out your tongue and lift me to the bank.’
‘Oh – it sports with usss!’
Mo’s voice chattered with fear but still she played the game with the serpent. ‘But first only weigh me before you think of tasting me.’
The blue-black forked tongue, its individual forks as thick as Mo’s thighs, flicked delicately down through the water and they lifted her clear, until her whole shivering figure stood dripping within the great coil on the bank.
‘Why, you weigh no more than a fish scale.’
‘I am not worth a bite.’
‘Oh my – this game becomesss interesssting!’
The serpent’s head swept from side to side, as if suddenly wary. Her eyes, like glowing braziers, searched the surrounding shadows before returning to focus on Mo. ‘You like to play gamesss?’
‘I love to play riddles.’
The serpent’s voice dropped to a sigh. ‘What sorcery isss this? Could it be the reason Shikarr was woken from our century-long slumber? If so, Shikarr must surely share in the mystery. But, wait – patience is called for! Could it be that the bait isss a trap?’
‘I’m not a trap.’
‘Hmmmm?’ The hissing voice had become so loud it blew like a wind through the surrounding foliage. The head yawned close again, falling back ready to swoop. The great eyes closed, as if savouring the moment. ‘Oh, deliciousss morsel, we are willing to take the risssk!’
Mo’s hand closed on the bog-oak figurine still laced around her neck.
Abruptly, from the shadows behind her, a staff struck the earth and a thunderous shockwave rolled out under her feet, sending eddies out into the deep waters of the river. The serpent whirled, her eyes searching the shadows where a small triangular figure stood, as if in protection, behind the girl. The small size of the figure belied a will as adamantine as the mountains. A new voice, carried on all senses, erupted into all consciousness.
‘Shikkkaaarrr the perfidious!’
The serpent reared back, her eyes glaring, the blue-black tongue probing the air about the triangular shadow.
‘Isss not perfidy the fate you bequeathed to serpents such as we? We are woken from our slumbers, and sacrifice is offered, be it no more than the miserable flesh of a bear-man – and an insolent urchin!’
The triangular figure lifted its staff and made a gesture, like a summons, to the cold night air. In less than a moment, a lightning bolt struck the river only yards from the serpent, singeing its flesh and choking its nostrils with the stink of ozone.
‘Isss the urchin too much to ask for? Oh, let us settle for the bear-thing then. T’isss a poor joint of meat, sickly and incomplete – though warm and tasssty.’
The triangle increased in density until it became the absence of light. An earthquake trembled through rock and water.
The serpent shrieked. But still her monstrous jaws slavered above the man and the girl. ‘Shikarr wantsss! Shikarr mussst feed!’
The triangle expanded until it became a great pyramid high above the ground and, like the forward-leaning shadow of a mountain at sunset, it encompassed Mo, the serpent and the quivering Snakoil Kawkaw.
‘Eons have you ruled, Shikarr, Queen of the River, but immortality is not your true legacy. Even you cannot escape death, if it should be decided that your time has come.’
In the water surrounding the serpent a seething life gathered, composed of many hungry mouths and flashing teeth. In moments the water, from bank to bank, seethed, and the gnawing and snipping of teeth and claws were louder than the wind. The serpent squealed.
‘Enough! Enough! Oh, Mother of All – you can be ssso cruel. Shikarr will not harm the urchin child. But leave usss a small mouthful. Give us the bear-man.’
The pyramidal shadow diminished in size. Its voice fell to a whisper on the wind, but it was a more threatening whisper than the thunder and lightning. ‘Shikarr will feed on neither child nor man. Instead your purpose is to ferry them, safe from danger, to the city of stone.’
‘But—’
‘Hssst! I will brook neither confrontation nor delay!’
The fury of snapping jaws increased. The serpent shrieked and, suddenly, Mo and the bewildered Snakoil Kawkaw found themselves enclosed within the enormous coils, lifted high from bank to river, and from there borne swiftly into the centre stream. A stinking cloud of serpent breath hid their presence there, as with immense undulations of her great body, Shikarr bore her unwanted burden downstream.
A Baited Trap
Alan lay back against the keel of the canoe in a distracted mood. He could smell the river, a very different aroma from the Suir back in friendly Clonmel: this smelled stranger, more bitter, the quintessence of dark magic in an alien and frightening world. Snow gusted around him in the darkness. He was still dosed with healwell to treat his damaged joints, and his weakness through blood loss was being gradually restored with strange-smelling potions administered by the Aides woman, Layheas.
Nobody spoke a word.
He thought about Mo, the fact that she was still missing, and he thought about Kate. He missed his friends. He had to pray that they were safe, that soon they would all be together again, as he listened to the soft and steady rhythm of the rag-quieted oars wielded by Ainé and her companions, their canoe the lead of many carrying the fighting band of Shee southwards towards Isscan through the inky-black current.
During those long hours of silence, Alan also thought about the young Shee who had died to save him. He saw again the great funeral pyre, with its orange flame, as it had engulfed Valéra and her dead companions, their heads positioned so that they faced northwest, across the great landmass of continental Monisle towards their ancestral home in the Guhttan mountains. In this same canoe, Muîrne cradled the sleeping crescent of Valéra’s sister-child, so startlingly reminiscent of her mother, with the first wispy tresses of golden-blonde hair and the first twinkling of babyish curiosity in the same lambent amber eyes.
So hope had been born out of despair.
At daybreak, once they had pulled in the canoes and rested, he had a little more time for a whispered conversation with Milish. He learnt that only noviciates among the Shee carried their daughters in the womb. The mature warriors had long ago given birth. Their daughter-sisters were safe from their enemies, back in the heavily defended mountains of their homeland, where they were in turn schooled in their warrior history and trained in arms. All the other Shee who had died in the recent battle had been full warriors, so that, in a sense, they had not died at all. It was a thought Alan would need time to get used to, even as he listened to Milish’s explanations.
He presumed that Ainé also had a daughter-sister, though in the Kyra’s brooding silence he also sensed a tragic family secret, one he knew better than to enquire into. In his heart he felt a growing apprehension about his role in this world as, with his new companions, he lay down to get some sleep in the daylight hours. Even his dreams were pervaded by foreboding so that h
e woke frequently, afraid of shadows.
Then on the third night of travel, the southern sky became increasingly aglow – the reflection of the night lamps of Isscan.
A few hours before dawn, as they pulled the canoes under the canopies of some riverside trees, Milish told him the history of the city states of Monisle, and that of Isscan in particular, this great inland port and market centre from the days when it was a proud regional capital renowned for its trading wealth and ancient traditions. But a shake of her head and the lowering of her eyes suggested that things had changed since the coming of the Death Legion. As they whispered together, Ainé and Muîrne were rigging a cover of pine branches over an already shadowed hollow, so that they could sleep a few hours before entering the city.
Alan felt guilty about the fact that he was concealing from Milish the real focus of his thoughts and hopes. He never mentioned the fireside chat with Kemtuk, or the shaman’s belief that a great mage lived here in Isscan: a mage more ancient than any other and whose art could probe the labyrinths of the mind. The shaman had called him the Mage of Dreams.
When, a few hours later, Milish, Alan and Layheas emerged from their hiding place disguised as a merchant woman with her two servants, the Ambassador led them towards the city with a jaunty step. Alan did his best to look the part with a worn and tattered seal cape, lagging tiredly in the wake of his mistress. For many a mile they walked through farm lanes surrounded by winter pasture. They encountered few people at this early hour, and those they saw ignored them, little interested in strangers. But one farmer, a bald-headed man with a pale, round face, leaned on a field wall and watched them pass, his expression surly and suspicious.
Milish wished him good morning in a guttural language new to Alan, without even a momentary pause in her step. Once past the man, however, she fell back abreast of Alan to murmur, ‘A farmer with the face of a townsman – if I am not mistaken, we have encountered the first spy of the Death Legion.’
During their rest by the riverside, Milish had explained a little more about the occupying army, and why they had not plundered and destroyed Isscan as they had so many other towns and cities. Having witnessed the brutality of the Storm Wolves, Alan guessed that it could only mean that the city was useful to them. Now he understood that the Storm Wolves were only a minority of the main army of Death Legion, a force of occupation that, in Milish’s reckoning, numbered millions. An army that size must need its belly fed. And Isscan, as the great trading centre and confluence of river, forest and farms, provided an important source of grain, fuel and fish.
The Snowmelt River Page 29