Shannivar

by Deborah J. Ross

  Shannivar frowned. At every turn, it seemed, some man was lecturing her on risk. She set aside the thought as unworthy. Surely a daughter or son was a blessing to clan and family, even if she would not be able to fight for a time. She wondered what Saramark had done when her children were infants, if she strapped them to her back or carried them in front of her on her saddle while she went about her heroic deeds. Or did she stay in camp until they were old enough to be left with their aunties?

  “The chance of pregnancy was small,” she said, “and it was mine to take. The herbs sometimes fail, and there are differences from one variety to another. But when you say risk, do you mean this news is displeasing to you?”

  “No!” The eagerness of his denial surprised her, as did the unrestrained delight with which he embraced her. “That is, if it does not displease you.”

  This time, she did not have to force a laugh. “A babe is a treasure of the clan.”

  “I thought you would not wish to set aside your present life—riding to battle, hunting—and this journey. My only sadness is of being parted from you.”

  “Who said anything about being parted? Do you think that the moment a woman becomes pregnant she is helpless? That her skill with a bow, her knowledge, her courage, all fly out of her like a flock of startled ptarmigans?”

  She went on in this fashion for a time, growing more vehement, until she realized that Zevaron had made an honest mistake in assuming she would now abandon the quest. He was not blind; he was ignorant of what a woman on a horse, pregnant or not, could accomplish. He had lived in stone houses, and then at sea, among men. She told him how Kendira had ridden out to make the jort lattices, how her kinswomen often did the work of managing the encampment, putting up and taking down jorts, cooking and weaving, beating felts, and harvesting wild barley, until the very day the babe was delivered. While a mother nursed her own infants, the raising of the children was shared by the women and men of the clan. If a woman died in labor, her sisters and cousins, aunts and grandmothers, took over. “We women are constrained from hunting or going into battle not by childbearing itself but by the customs of marriage,” she explained. Although we should not be. “It does not often happen that unmarried women bear children and continue with their lives as warriors and hunters. Most women marry first, and then they set aside their bows.”

  “And you do not wish to marry?”

  “I am determined to live my life as I choose,” she replied with heat, and then realized he might have been asking if she wished to marry him. She touched his face in the near dark. “And I choose to defend my people, to take the man I love into my jort, to follow where Tabilit has called me. She brought us together, surely you realize that, and she has blessed us with this child. But she has also put a fire in my heart. She has set me on this path, and I do not—I cannot—believe she intends me to give up now.”

  He was silent for a moment, and she added, “Would you turn back, so close to the northern mountains?”

  “The danger is for myself alone. You are carrying a child, and therefore placing two lives at risk. How can I allow that, especially when it is mine?”

  “The venture is not yours to allow or forbid. And if you think you can go on without me, you are an even greater fool, Zevaron Outlander.”

  He sighed and turned on his back. “I am a fool, this is true. A fool for thinking I could argue with a woman of the Azkhantian steppe.”

  “Oh yes,” she said, snuggling against his shoulder, “a very great fool. But so have we all been, from time to time.”

  “Seriously, Shannivar, we may be going into dangers neither of us have faced before—”

  She lifted her head. “You’re not going to start again, are you? I thought we’d settled that argument.”

  “—and face enemies that are not mortal flesh and bone.”

  “Of course. If you tell me you are more prepared and better defended than I am, I will not believe such nonsense. You, who defied the taboo, placed your hand on the stone-drake, and had to undergo purification not once but twice!”

  He rolled on to his side, facing her. “You, who followed me!”

  “Just so. Anywhere you go, I will go, too. Someone has to rescue you!”

  For a moment, he did not answer. She hoped he had the sense to realize when he was defeated. With another sigh, he lay back. She did not press herself against him, although the air between them was rapidly cooling.

  “A child, my child . . .” he said. The words came as a whisper, as a prayer. “I wish my mother had lived to hear of it.”

  * * *

  For days, they rode north, a caravan of riders and laden reindeer. Chinzhukog and his cousin acted as guides, pack animal handlers, and quartermasters. They knew the way from wintering-place to summering-place, felt it in their blood as inexorably as the turn of the seasons, even when there was no more than a thread of trail across the rock. As they rode, the two northern men chanted stories of great deeds, of kinship with the animals they hunted, of the brief joys of springtime and the enduring struggle of winter. Shannivar sang ballads of her own people, Saramark’s Lament and songs in praise of horses.

  They made their way over stark, weather-gnawed hills. Winds swept the sky clear, revealing a blue so deep, it was almost black. Despite the brightness of the sun, Shannivar could not see this as a good omen.

  At last, they arrived at the dharlak. It was far more of a permanent place than that of Shannivar’s clan. The summering-place of the Golden Eagle was no more than a lake, good pastures, and a few crumbling stone structures. This encampment had been set up in the lee of a fractured cliff. Flat stones had been stacked and mortared to form livestock pens, the walls high enough to keep out the worst of the wind. Beside them, round-sided buildings held fodder for beasts as well as human necessities—blankets, dried fruit and bha wrapped in oiled leather packets, and bows and axes similarly preserved. The well itself was weathered, as if it had grown out of the bedrock itself, but it yielded plenty of water.

  Shannivar set up her jort in the most sheltered of the spaces, as the men turned the horses and reindeer into the pens. The day had been milder than many on the trail, and Shannivar saw how pleasant this place might be in summer, sheltered by the mountain from the heat. Now it was deserted and bleak.

  They slept badly that night, between the eerie lamentation of the wind and a faint but growing feeling of dread that hovered at the edges of Shannivar’s dreams. The Snow Bear men went about their chores, preparing the morning meal and tending to the animals.

  The next day, they continued on. Wind scoured the barren rock and tore at the manes of the horses. It burned exposed cheeks and penetrated layers of felt and wool. Shannivar pulled her peaked cap low over her forehead and wrapped the collar of her jacket around her neck. She showed Zevaron how to do the same. The tundra horses seemed unaffected by the cold, but Eriu and Radu plodded on with lowered heads.

  The further north they went, the more withdrawn Zevaron became. He went about the daily tasks of setting up camp as if in a trance. As if, Shannivar thought, his thoughts and heart were speeding ahead, leaving his body to go about its routine work. When she spoke to him, he answered her, and from time to time, the light in his eyes would return, and she would know he truly saw her. When they lay together, he would touch her belly and enlarged breasts with tenderness. With each passing day, however, those times became fewer and briefer. She tried to hold at bay the fear that she was losing him to his heritage, to the thing beyond the shattered mountains, the rubble of the white star.

  A range of tall peaks came into view. At times, the route was no more than a whisper of a trail; at others, it widened into a gap between sheer-sided hills.

  Shannivar had been riding with her head down, more concerned with the terrain before her than the larger landscape. When she lifted her eyes to the pass, she saw a line of dusty purple mountains beyond it. Across the
ir lower slopes, the darker hues of green delineated the tree line. The mountain tops shimmered white and gray before disappearing into the low clouds.

  “Look there! To the east!” Zevaron shifted forward in his saddle.

  At first, Shannivar could see nothing beyond the desolate grandeur of the heights. She nudged Eriu forward, craning for a better line of sight through the gap.

  Extending eastward, the immense rocky peaks fell away into a tumble of jagged shards. Her first thought was that some god, perhaps Onjhol himself, had shattered the bones of the earth and strewn them every which way. Here and there, slivers remained, upright spears of stone. Dense mists pooled in the gaps, mists that curled upward, but not like steam from sulfuric vents.

  She came even with Zevaron and halted Eriu with a shift in her weight. The black pricked his ears, head up, muscles tense. His breath quivered through his body. He, too, felt something. Not awe at the magnitude of the destruction, for animals could not appreciate such a thing. No, there was something more.

  Suddenly the air grew very still and quiet. Radu had also halted. Zevaron sat on her back as a man transfixed. The whiteness of the sky seemed to have infected his eyes, and his features were set, intent. For a terrible moment, she knew that if she spoke to him, he would not hear her, and if she touched him, he would be as ice.

  In the space between one heartbeat and the next, the world shifted. Winds brushed Shannivar’s cheeks. Eriu pawed the snow-crusted dirt. In the distance, a hawk sounded the skree! of its hunting cry.

  Chinzhukog, pale and grim, adjusted his position in his saddle. His little tundra horse hung its head, feet braced, back hunched, and tail clamped to its rump. At the rear of their little party, his cousin wrestled to keep the snorting, wild-eyed reindeer from bolting.

  Shannivar studied the swirling mists. “What lies beyond that?”

  “This is as far as any of my people have come,” Chinzhukog replied. “I think the place where the white star fell is close.”

  She reflected for a moment. “It would be wise to set up camp here. The reindeer cannot go much farther. If you and your cousin will tend to them and the jorts, Zevaron and I will explore while the light is still good.”

  “There was a place a little way back. We will do as you ask. Do not go too far.”

  She nodded gravely. “Zevaron, let’s go.”

  Zevaron tapped his heels against Radu’s sides, but the usually obedient mare threw up her head. She took one tentative step forward, then settled on her hindquarters. Her muscles stood out through her newly shaggy coat. She snorted white vapor from her flaring nostrils.

  Zevaron kicked her again, hard enough that she flinched. She lifted one forefoot, then the other, but her hind hooves remained rooted to the ground. Her ears flattened against her neck. He cursed in Denariyan. “What’s wrong with her?”

  Shannivar reined in closer. The dun mare was trembling visibly. “She’s too frightened to move.”

  “I thought Azkhantian horses were fearless,” Zevaron said, but he ceased battering the mare’s sides.

  “There, Radu, sweet girl.” Shannivar reached out to stroke the mare’s neck.

  At first, Radu did not respond. Fear hardened her body. Shannivar continued her soothing words and gentle, rhythmic touch. The expression of terror faded slowly from the mare’s eyes.

  “Let me go first,” Shannivar said. “Eriu will not fail me, and Radu will follow wherever he leads.”

  Be my wings . . .

  Eriu moved forward, one careful step at a time, proud and wary in the manner of a stallion when a wolf approaches. He arched his neck and lifted each foot high; she could feel the coiled strength in his back. One ear remained cocked back toward her in trust. Radu followed, as Shannivar had predicted.

  They entered the region of shattered rock. The mist closed in behind them, shutting out the pass. It crept along the ground, flowed sluggishly along fissures, and gathered around the bases of the upward-jutting splinters. Some of these fractured strata were slender, chipped into irregular shapes that surely could not withstand the erosive powers of wind and temperature. A few looked ready to shatter at the slightest touch. Others were as massive as the promontory of the enarees. Their heights disappeared into the hovering mist, and over them hung a stillness, a slow, inexorable waiting.

  Step by step, Shannivar and Zevaron made their way through the forest of shards. The ground was occasionally covered in snow, and there were no traces of animal life. The horses remained tense. Their hoofbeats echoed strangely. Shannivar would not have believed that such a place existed, not even in the legends chanted by enarees. The contours of the stones suggested the bent spines or folded limbs of misshapen creatures. When she peered at them, the semblance vanished, as if it had been no more than a trick of light and perspective.

  How long they travelled on in this careful, halting manner, she could not tell. The haze across the sky diffused light so thoroughly that it might have been any hour of the day. The air grew warmer, or perhaps that was an illusion created by the mist. The eerie, unnatural quiet swallowed up their words.

  Shannivar dared not look over her shoulder, for fear of seeing the same impossible maze of spires and pinnacles, the same unsettling shapes, the same broken ground underfoot, the same mist, as in front of her. As long as they kept going, she could pretend they were not lost. Would Eriu’s animal senses be keen enough to guide them back? Or would they be forced to wait here until the mist cleared, if it ever did?

  Eriu tossed his head, flicking out a spray of condensation from his mane. When Shannivar stroked his neck, he halted, as if her touch were a command. His head shot up, and his sides heaved as he sucked in air. In front of her, the mist thinned.

  A gigantic wall of white on white emerged. She squinted, trying to gauge its size and distance. It shimmered and crackled like a colorless Veil or sun-touched clouds before a storm. Its base could have encompassed a dozen jorts, and its smooth, tapering sides disappeared overhead. Shannivar couldn’t decide whether it was rooted in the stony rubble or was a mighty spear thrust down from the shrouded sky. The back of her neck prickled.

  Zevaron, silent since they came down over the pass, muttered something in his own language.

  “What—?” her voice came in a whisper, as if the coruscating brightness had stolen her breath. “What is it?”

  “I do not know,” he replied in the same hushed tones, “but I believe this is all that remains of the white star.”

  She saw then that the wall was not solid. From one moment to the next, eddies of light on its surface turned transparent enough to reveal an interior. Shadows like flickering visual echoes moved and disappeared in an instant. They captured her attention, holding her like a marmot in a snare. Her eyes refused to move, even to blink. Then, as if with a careless disdain, the flickers stopped and she was released. Her muscles felt like paste. She clenched her jaw to keep a rush of nausea at bay. Tabilit had entrusted her with this quest. She would not be sick. She would not be weak.

  “What do we do now? What does your . . .” Shannivar searched for a word for the ancient magical device he carried within his breast, “your guide tell you?” At least her voice did not tremble.

  The horses had halted. Eriu stood firm, but Radu was clearly near the end of her courage. Zevaron slipped from her back, landing lightly on his feet. He gathered the reins and handed them to Shannivar. Without a word of explanation, he started toward the wall.

  Onjhol’s bloody balls! The next moment, she jumped to the ground beside him, grabbed his arm, and wrestled him back. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  He stilled her protest by taking both her hands in his. “Shannivar, I want you to stay here, to give me something to come back to. My anchor, my lifeline.” Seeing she did not understand, he added, “My safe harbor.”

  None of these references made sense to her, although she understood p
erfectly well that he meant to leave her behind. “I need no man’s protection!” she retorted, both frightened at the fatalistic tone of his voice and angry that the argument had been brought up again. “Whatever danger lies ahead, I will face it with you! I am a warrior of the steppe, a daughter of the Golden Eagle. In my veins flows the blood of Saramark! Do you think I am afraid?”

  The light in his eyes shifted, fierce and abyssal. “You do not understand. I do not doubt your courage or your prowess, beloved. Or your determination to see this hunt through to the end.” He shook his head. “What I mean is that all my life, everything I am and everything I have was given over to someone else. When I was a small boy, my duty was to be a strong right arm to my brother, he who was to be te-ravot after our father. But he died, the Gelon slaughtered them both, and then all I had—the only purpose of my life—was keeping my mother safe.”

  “And the Gelon took her, too.”

  “I had given up hope, or almost, and then lost it again. Why was my own life preserved, if not to save hers?”

  Zevaron hated Gelon more than anyone she’d ever met, but what had his mother’s death to do with the uncanny happenings here in the north of the steppe or wanting Shannivar to stay behind?

  I saw Gelon burning, he’d said.

  “Do you mean to avenge her?” she asked, for it seemed that he must choose between his desire to strike back and the spirit quest that had led him here. By the leap of tension around his eyes, she saw that he had not—perhaps could not—give that up.

  “Gelon will pay for her pain and her death,” he said in a voice that rang quietly like a sword slipping from its sheath. His shoulders lifted and fell. “Gelon and the evil that now rules there. I used to think the enemy was human, with human ambition. Cinath is a man like any other, after all.”

  “A man who commands many warriors,” she added.