The Lady of the Snowmist (War of the Gods on Earth Book 3)

by Andrew J Offutt

  Thus Jarik told Jilain a bit of himself and of Oak, and they learned much of each other, Jilain and Jarik. Each wanted to know all there was to know about the other; each wanted to share information. He held back only a little, though there were things he did not get around to telling her.

  “So much horror in a sleepy fishers’ wark called Blackiron,” she murmured. “How long ago was that day, that awful day?”

  “A month,” Jarik said (though what he said was “a cycle of the moon ago”).

  “Oh.” She had thought it a matter of years. She was shocked that it had been so short a time in the past.

  Jilain pressed to him and wondered how it was that a person could endure and withstand and survive so much as he had all in a month, for his time on her island of women had been far from pleasant. He had had no respite, none!

  Jilain had never heard of war. Jilain had never seen combat among more people than two at once. The Guardians had no enemies. They had no god that walked and talked and did deeds.

  He did not respond to the pressing against his leather-coated body of hers, although he was not stiff. The bossed coat she wore was far from comfortable to a woman accustomed to nothing save weapons belt and quiver, a feather in her hair and~-only at times — the tail of a squirrel depending before her loins. She would not complain however; she had heard his travails, and would not mention trivial discomforts.

  Surrounded by the sound of snores and of the sea, they fell asleep with their hands touching, only touching. And the weavers were weaving, weaving.

  Chapter Five

  “The Lady of the Snowmist is pure evil, Jarik: reddest, ineffable evil. She is dedicated to ridding this world of men as we know them, to be replaced by … something else.”

  — The Iron Lords

  “Poor Jarik! You are but a rusty hoe in the hands of a stout farmer! A tool, Jarik. The Iron Lords could not suffer you to live … less than an ant beneath their world-stamping feet!” — The Lady of the Snowmist

  “It is impossible that contrary attributes should belong at the same time to the same subject.”

  — Aristotle

  In the morning she rose at once under a pink-and-gold sky, and with her left hand she stroked her right shoulder.

  “Thank you, spirit,” she said softly. After that strange little rite she began to stretch the way a cat might stretch, in long, lithe, sinuous, slow movements. And she stood on tiptoe, seeming to reach for the sky with both up-straining hands. Men saw, and watched, and felt their throats go dry.

  Jarik rose from his hard bed, and she watched how he gathered his coat of chain. It was only a dark small wad of jingly links now. She saw how carefully he slid his hands through the sleeves, all the way through, so as not to tear them on metal links. Then, ducking his head, he lifted the one-piece warcoat of many links over his head and straightened slowly. Clinking, glinting dark, it slithered down over his padded undercoat, which was of dark old leather, and most unhandsome.

  Over the chaincoat he strapped his belt and thonged it, so that his dagger swung at his right hip and the sheathed Black Sword hung all down his left leg. Its plain hilt was wrapped with a supple strip of red leather that was thin and long and long. In this wise the hilt was disguised, for no sword was so plain and somber.

  Unhelmeted and his wheaten hair stirring in the salty sea-breeze, tangy in the dawn-light, he turned to her.

  “One would ask about your stroking your shoulder and giving thanks to a … spirit?” he said.

  She did not smile at his use of her word “one” in place of the pronoun; she had not noticed the difference. She did look at him all wide-eyed. “Why, one but thanked and stroked the spirit of sleep.”

  Jarik nodded. “Y … es,” he said slowly, not making fun and trying not to appear stupid. “I do not know the rite. What spirit?”

  “Why — everybody knows of the sleep-spirit!” That slipped forth, and for an instant she stared into the cerulean brilliance of his eyes and saw the flash of anger or irritation there. “Uh — your people do not?”

  “I have no people,” he said, a bit tight of lip. “Those of Lokusta and Akkharia do not, no. So there is a spirit of sleep. And why do you thank him of a morning?”

  She explained with care, not wanting to seem superior or impatient or to make him feel lessened. She did not care to see that flash of the eyes again. “It is hard to believe that everyone does not know it. Every night we die. We lie down, and all consciousness leaves us. Body and brain are as if dead — they die. But the god sends to each of us a spirit of sleep. It lives here on our shoulder, watchful lest we lose consciousness or pass into sleep. When we do, it breathes for us. That way we awake. One is appreciative of such service! So, each day one thanks the sleep-spirit for doing the work of breathing for us while we slept and could not do for ourselves. Your peop — you and those you have lived among do not thank the spirit, then. Well, one supposes that it does not matter. The spirit would continue to breat’e for us each nikht, for that is its function.”

  “But — we do breathe when we sleep! Everyone does!”

  “Since the sleep spirit is there to do that for us,” Jilain told him with natural patience, “yes, of course. Everyone seems to breat’e for herself while she sleeps. One can even see the chests of sleepers amove.” She shrugged, satisfied that her point was obvious, and proven.

  “But I mean we — ”

  Jarik broke off. He realized that there was no way he could prove to her that there was no sleep spirit. There was no way she could prove to him that such helpful and conveniently invisible creatures did exist. It occurred to him that the point did not matter, then. She believed what she believed, and he what he believed. In both cases, what they believed was mostly what they had been taught. Such things were not worth discussing, other than as curiosities, for comparison and understanding of another. Otherwise … it did not matter.

  Thus Jilain affected Jarik as she did in other ways, for from her he was learning and was to learn more even than tolerance and respect for logic — and even illogic, when it did not matter.

  “I see,” he said at last. “I think I had better go alone.”

  She smiled at that use of her phrase. “This one too.”

  *

  Seadancer split the sea with sure-footed instinct and grace, under a bright sun crowding a sky the color of Jarik’s eyes. He asked Jilain about her bow, and she waxed enthusiastic. She fetched it at once. Men watched her as they always watched her. Jarik and, strangely, Delath watched them. She returned to him with bright eyes and the bow. She was proud of it, loved it, and was manifestly anxious to tell him of it. Others listened.

  No one else aboard had seen such a bow so constructed and so curved. Lokustans were not archers. The bow was for hunting and occasionally for ambush. It was made of a suitable strip of wood, suitably cured, and a slim strip of gut. Arrows were employed only in very major combats, and the dwellers in the warks of Lokusta had little science of archery or of bow-making.

  Jilain displayed hers with pride. It was a sleekly re-flexed composite work of art and skill, several inches shorter than she and a foot shorter than Jarik. Its core, backed and strengthened by well-chosen sinews, was bellied with good horn the color of cream mottled with black and bearing a resemblance to marble.

  Jilain let him know that the underlying wood was used only after having been seasoned for six or seven winters! This would have seemed ridiculous to Jarik, to whom patience was an alien trait. Yet he had seen these superlative bows in action. It occurred to him that since a woman obviously could not be a warrior, Jilain would have no problem; she would be a maker of fine, fine bows, and much in demand. This he thought while she showed how the bow’s ears and handle had been stiffened with plaques of bone; bone that had been chosen with care, cured, polished, lacquered, and polished again.

  Jarik was shaking his head. “No one could have such patience. How much time to make such a bow?”

  Jilain ran her fingers over it,
caressing. She was a superb hunter, not truly seasoned as a warrior though a marvelous one, and it was obvious that the bow was her dear friend as a man’s short-hafted war-ax was to him — and the sword, for those few who had them, for their making too was a high skill and art. Smooth fingertips ran lovingly over smooth shining bone.

  “After the curing,” she said, “eight days. Thirteen for Jilacla here, because two others were discarded unfinished.” Her smile was one almost of embarrassment. “One is very particular.”

  “Jilacla,” he repeated after her. “You name your bows, then. What does it mean?”

  She shrugged. “You know that. ‘Jilain’s friend.’ It is! One spent thray moonths adjusting this beautiful friend to our — to Guardians’ standards, and to her own.”

  “Three months!”

  The voice came bland and dry: “I assume that Guardians’ swords are not named, as they are not made on Kerosyr.”

  Jilain looked up at Delath. “True. You are rikht. The soords of the Guardians came from men who have landed on Kerosyr.”

  “And died. And is such attention lavished on the arrows of Kerosyr?”

  “Hardly,” she said, “but Guardians do take care in their making, Delat’.”

  “Good, then,” he said, and his voice continued dry and bland. “We have twoscore and three Guardian arrows aboard. A few have blood on them, true, and some J — Oak ruined, cutting them out of good men; but they should be serviceable.”

  Jarik rose in a jerk. His whole stance was such that had he been a dog his ears would have been back and his hackles abristle. Beside him Jilain too arose, and her hand clamped his wrist.

  “Good, Delat’,” she said, gazing coolly into his eyes. “Peradventure this one can find use for them, against game, or our common enemies. You forget though that this one knew about those arrows; one struck her helmet guard hard enough to knock her down. But for the helm, one would be beyond Oak’s skills, in death. Certainly that arrow was meant for this one, who joined you against her own.”

  Delath stared into her face for long moments. “Joined … me?”

  Jarik said, “Delath … ” and Jilain interrupted the tone of menace:

  “Joined with you men, yes. With Jarik. And Oak. Are you their enemy, Delat’? Do you wish to be this one’s enemy, Delat’? Why?”

  Both men were astonished and close to being appalled. Delath had given challenge, and Jarik had risen to meet it. Had Jilain said nothing they would have exchanged words unto the drawing of sharp metal. Yet she had spoken. Her open face, her tone, and the words were akin to the hurling of water on fighting dogs. Confrontations and challenges were one thing; direct statements and this sort of challenge, a simple agreement and simple straightforward questions, were quite another. Men did not know how to cope with such. It was not their way. Delath looked from Jilain to Jarik, and Delath turned and moved elsewhere on that ship that provided so little space for putting distance between people at odds.

  “He is determined to be my enemy,” Jarik said, staring after the other man.

  “It would not be sensible to fikht another only because she wants to,” Jilain said. “He, one means. This business of sailing asea is difficult. Tempers are short and women — men, men men — are bored. A combat mikht well grow into a melee.”

  Jarik stared at her for a long while. “Hail, warrior,” he murmured. “I am your brother.”

  “And this one your sister, Jarik Blacksword. Oh — is it acceptable that this one be your sister rather than brother?”

  He smiled. “Yes!”

  They talked for hours then, and both of them learned, while being surprised by much they heard each of the other. Seadancer slipped lightly over the wave-chopped water, hardly dancing. From time to time the dove of Her flew out before them, a guide to aid the correction of course. Once Kirrensark and the helmsman had acted, the bird returned to hover and alight. Jilain and Jarik talked, and others looked often at them. They admired much the bareness of Jilain’s legs, so pronounced below the short skirt of Shranshule’s armor coat. It had covered him to a point just short of mid-thigh, and was only a little longer on her. Still, men of Lokusta were not accustomed to the sight of any portion of bared female leg, in public. At least the mailcoat spared them the distracting sight of the rest of her, and the flash of ruby tipping her breast, bonded there to flash there forever, a nurtureless gemstone nipple.

  Above them, the dove fluttered and flew out again. Jilain and Jarik, strangers on this ship and two parts of three becoming one, did not notice. They were intensely busy with and unto themselves.

  Flapping, finding wind currents, the dove flew ahead. Kirrensark gestured and grunted a few words; he at the helm was already making his adjustments to his steering oar, which he tied anew. Beads of windspray danced all asparkle on the air.

  First there was a dot, and then the big bird appeared. It was blue-black and larger than a dove. First one man saw it, then another, and their shouts attracted the gaze of every eye skyward.

  The bird shone. It gleamed in the sunlit air as though metallically. Even as high as it flew, a racing black missile, its large size was evident. It soared as the gull had soared, that led them to Kerosyr. It did not flap its refulgent wings of jet. Like an arrow arced high into the sky, the metal-shining bird soared, and seemed to glide, and gleamed in a bright flash as it changed course in the splitting of an instant. It swooped above the dove of Her, and it dived, dived.

  Those on Seadancer watched it fall, like a hurled stone. They cried out. To no avail. High in the sky well ahead of the ship, the large blue-black bird struck the smaller, silver-grey one.

  White feathers flew and fluttered like the spinners from maple trees once they tired of summer. The dove flapped, flopped. It seemed to slide sidewise, flapping in a way that could be seen was desperate. And it dropped, with a last flutter. It fell like a dropped stone, not a thrown one, and hit the water with a small splash.

  The sea swallowed it and became a ripply mirror once more.

  Kirrensark’s voice broke the silence of shock then, sharply: “String bows!”

  Jilain lurched away from Jarik while men snatched at bows and flexed them to hook the other end of their gut-strings.

  Glinting, flashing as if deliberately in triumph, the blue-black bird of prey flew in bright sunlight. Directly over the ship it dared course. Strings twanged nasally and arrows leaped skyward, singing. Only one struck that fell bird; a spirally striped shaft raced up true. With a ringing sound, it caromed off its airborne target. Yet before it had fallen to the sea an identical arrow struck the bird; a shaft launched from that same bow that was named Jilacla.

  This one, too, incredibly rebounded from the body of the black hawk, again with the unexpected clanging sound that was eerie.

  The bird banked, wheeled, sped away — in the same direction in which the dove had been leading them. Unflapping.

  “The Iron Lords,” Jarik Blacksword murmured while he stared at a bird that had taken no note of two arrow impacts. “That was an iron bird.” And he added, “Of destruction.”

  Chapter Six

  We have forgot what we have been,

  And what we are we little know.

  — Thomas W. Parsons

  The sun was white bordered with jonquil and gold, in a clear sky the color of an infant’s eyes. Seadancer plowed on across the water with no need of oars or the dove that had led her. Still, she no longer scudded so swiftly, nor did the spirits of those aboard her. The breeze that had so long been a constant fact of life had less power, and even faltered now and again. It was impossible for the wark-men not to make a mental connection of this with the destroyed bird that had represented Her. Amber-wearing men were nervous, even morose. Their voices were subdued. The symbol of the god on the earth — their god, their protector — had led them, and had been destroyed in an instant! There had been no resistance, no fight; hawk attacked and slew dove without carrying it off to eat it. Were other gods so powerful? Could the dove have r
epresented Her in a way beyond being her agent and her guide for these her people?

  Again they were aware of intimations of mortality — but for a god?

  Jarik of the Black Sword was silent and wrapped in a thoughtful dolor like a cloak of charred coal. He was surly as well, and men quickly learned to leave him be. So did the one woman among them, with less willingness and far more concern for him. The others had little concern for his mental state and well-being, which he felt — without total accuracy — to have been the tale of his life.

  Jarik Blacksword was wondering at the power of the Iron Lords, and of the Lady of the Snowmist. Her colors were beauty and theirs were somber. Her bird was beauty and softness and theirs was power and predation. The dove was easy prey for the hawk.

  Others murmured and muttered, casting fearful glances aloft even while they tried not to look fearful, tried to talk themselves out of being fearful. All were a part of the pretense and none challenged another.

  There came no more dove or gull and there came no more the hawk. There came no further incident of any sort. Far from land, the men of Kirrensark-wark thought of home and their families. They talked in low voices. They glanced from time to time at the somber man who wore the bracers of Her; the Bands of Snowmist. In addition to binding him to Her, were those seamless silvery bracers not also supposed to warn him of impending danger?

  Yes.

  Then why had they failed? Was not that fell hawk a clear enough source of danger?