It all went smoothly, the forming up of the sleds and the defensive ring around them. Even Xavian was fully prepared to defend the group from the big, white-blue feathered birds. He had taken a protected station amid the sleds, but he kept his eyes intently on the beasts. He went through some strange motions and didn’t hesitate to crawl up to the top of the pile of supplies as the winged feeders grew closer.
Skog quickly assembled a long, three-section pike that threaded end into end somehow. It was tipped with a blade shaped like a man’s foot but made of shiny, well-sharpened steel. The shaft was twice as long as Chelda was tall—almost three times as tall as Skog. The Skmoes produced small but powerful-looking bows, but were busy keeping all four of the haulkattens as still as possible.
The frost-wings circled high over them, then one dove down and made a lower pass. When it was close, Xavian loosed his blast, possibly a bit too early, but the comet-like streak of crackling crimson energy scared the creatures badly enough that they bolted away toward the ridge with uncanny speed. After a few moments, they were nothing but specks in the sky.
“Glad that’s over,” Smythe breathed out heavily.
“I’d agree with you, if they hadn’t just flown to where we are headed,” Endell pointed out the grim truth of it.
Chapter Six
Gather in and gather close,
don’t misunderstand.
In the end we’ll wage a war
to keep our sacred land.
-- Balladamned (a Zythian song)
The place they chose for base camp was partially blocked from the brutal wind by its natural shape. Calling it a cavern would be a stretch, Darbon decided. It was more of a depression pushed into the side of a rock face that was on the side of a ridge jutting out directly into the wind. Its greatest feature was that the wind blew past its opening, not directly at it. There was also a bit of an overhang, so that even though it was shallow, it still provided a modicum of protection from above. It wouldn’t be an easy task to turn it into a camp, but they wasted no time getting about the work.
Following Chelda’s lead, Darbon and Smythe made snow blocks. They helped place them so that the windblown snow would build up against them. This, she explained, would force the wind to ramp up the eventual drift and blow over the entrance to the shelter.
She explained that, by morning, the wind would be diverted so that it wouldn’t swirl into the camp area at all. She said they could then stretch tarp awnings from the wall on ropes. This would extend the overhead protection out from that which the rock face naturally provided and also keep the ever-vigilant eyes of the flying predators from being able to lock onto their casual movements from above.
The only real downfall to the setup was the fact that they had to leave the protection of the camp to look out across the open tundra. Vanx and the others agreed that it was a small price to pay for the relative comfort the shelter afforded them.
Brody and Skog unloaded the supplies and stacked the cords of expensive firewood into waist-high walls that formed a pen for the haulkattens. The animals could have casually leapt over it, but none of them had any inclination to do so. The pungent fishmeal was stacked nearby, but under oilcloths so that the moisture couldn’t get at it.
The shelter retained some of the fire’s warmth, and the savory scent of the stew the Skmoes were concocting soon filled it with a mouthwatering aroma.
Darbon was moving about the shelter without his woolen shroud, and neither he nor Smythe were chattering or complaining now. It was as if they’d forgotten just how cold they’d been only hours before.
Xavian came out of his tent looking tired and worn. He stopped to give Sir Poopsalot a scratch behind the ears when the dog greeted him, then found the others at the fire. The Skmoes gave him a wary look but otherwise went about the business of cooking. They were clearly leery of his magic. Chelda told them that in the Skmoe clans, only the shamans possessed the subtle sort of arcane power that gave insight into the near future, or clarified meanings out of events from the past. Both brothers could read seal’s teeth and otter bones, and they both had worked with magi of Xavian’s ilk, but neither had seen the sort of display of destructive power that Xavian had shown today, and neither tried to hide their nervousness.
Smythe, too, had been visibly moved by Xavian’s crimson blast, but he wasn’t moved toward fear. He was in open-jawed awe of the wizard. After they chose their location to build the base camp and helped Chelda build the wind wall, Smythe turned himself into a sort of personal attendant to the mage. Xavian seemed annoyed by this.
“It’s a blowin’ yah,” Chelda said as she came in from beyond the camp’s entrance. Her body briefly diverted the powerful wind, sending a swath of frigid air swirling invisibly across the area. The torches flickered from their makeshift sconces on the walls, and the fire under the Skmoes’ kettle wavered. In unison, both Darbon and Smythe shivered as the bitter air flowed past them.
“The wall is building up nicely,” the big woman continued, as she shed her heavy, gray-furred cloak and unbound her coat. “By morn’ it’ll be a full drift and we could maybe get those tarps up.”
“Aye.” Vanx nodded from one of the unsplit logs they’d turned into a fireside seat. “While you and the boys do that, I think Endell and the twins should take one sled, while me, Brody, and Xavian take another. We can scout more ground that way and maybe pick up on some shrew spoor or spot a tunnel.”
“Not a bad plan,” Endell said. “But we—”
“Don’t expect me to be homemaking for the lot of you filthy scrubs,” Chelda interrupted indignantly. “I didn’t sign on to play Mother Dwelinga. I came to kill a fargin saber shrew.”
Inda, or maybe it was Anda, gave an approving grunt and grinned at her. His teeth, Darbon noted for the first time, were only a few shades lighter than his almond-colored skin, and one of the top front ones was missing.
He made a note to pay more attention the next time either of them spoke. Maybe he could find a sure way to tell them apart.
“I’ll stay behind and help the chatterboxes tarp us in,” Brody offered. “I need to ready my great-bow. It’s not likely you’ll slide up on a shrew on the first scouting trek anyway. Chelda, you can go in my stead.”
Chelda was blushing, as if she were a little embarrassed by her outburst, but she didn’t speak. She took a seat on one of the unsplit logs Skog had set around the fire bowl and appeared happy to now be going out tomorrow instead of Brody.
“As I was saying,” Endell went on, “it’s a good idea to scout out there. There are worse things than saber shrews or frost-wings roaming the tundra, and we don’t want to be making too cozy if a polera or an atterex is claiming these parts as home now. But otherwise, we need to be looking for a herd of leapers. Where there be leapers, there be shrews, and I’ve a plan to bait the shrew right where we want it to be.”
“So, we’re really going leaper hunting tomorrow?” Chelda asked, with a scrunched up face.
“That’s up to our esteemed employers what we do, lass,” said Endell. “They’re the ones footin’ the bill, but don’t be all down about it. We use my plan, and it works, you and everyone else here will have our hands full of angry shrew soon enough.”
“No magic the shrew,” one of the Skmoes said flatly and pointed at Xavian.
“What is he saying?” Xavian asked through a light yawn.
Darbon chuckled. Whichever twin had just spoken had all of his front teeth. Now all Darbon had to do was figure out which one it was.
“I think he wants to make sure you don’t blast away half of the shrew, or char its hide with your spells, when we face it.”
The brother missing his front tooth slapped the other brother on the chest and nodded at Darbon. “Ya. Ya.”
“They have a point,” Chelda said. “They’re getting paid in skin, and I’m getting paid in teeth. It won’t do to have its head scorched to ash, or chunks blasted out of its hide.”
“Naught to worry about,” Xavian smiled, clea
rly pleased with the respect his spell casting had garnered him. “I intend to charm its mind, to befuddle and bewilder the great creature when we face it.” He held up his hands in an open-armed shrug. “Nothing more than that for the precious shrew.”
“Good,” Chelda nodded.
“Ya,” the twins grunted with satisfaction and went back to their stew.
“My grandfather and some of the other Great Vale hunters killed a saber shrew once,” Chelda told them. “The fargin thing took out four of the twelve men and left my Great Uncle Kolsh missing a leg.”
“That’s a wonderful story, Chel,” Darbon said. “Why didn’t you tell it at the table back in Orendyn? It might have had some bearing on my decisions.”
“I might have, but I didn’t want to get you scared off of the hunt.” She grinned at him. “I was just getting to the good part.”
*
As Chelda went on to tell them how her ancestors wounded the shrew with arrows and spears then became its prey as it went on the attack, Vanx contemplated the strange sensation he was still feeling in his guts. Something Chelda had said struck a chord in him, and he wanted to know. He had to puzzle it out.
The feeling hadn’t disappeared in the night, as he’d hoped. In fact, it had grown stronger. It was changing now. No longer was it a feeling of distant dread, like a nightmare half-forgotten in the waking moments; the feeling was now a need, or maybe a longing.
He decided to accept the fact that it was real and not some residue of bad stew or a budding illness. This in itself was a great step, for now that he mulled it over, the sensation began to fuel his thoughts. A tangible idea was trying to form in his mind. And when it did, it did so with perfect clarity. Some ancestral place was calling him. The irony was, he was already out here trying to kill a saber shrew so that he could stay warm on the journey that the calling was demanding of him. This made him wonder if the sensation had been twisting his mind in this direction all along.
Skully had told him that his father was the most remarkable sailor, uncanny in his ability to weather storms and violent seas. He was able to squeeze profit out of failure and loyalty out of scoundrels. Some said Nepton himself gave the mighty captain preference and deferred his wrath around the legendary Foamfollower.
The rumor was that Captain Saint Elm was witch born. Skully couldn’t say where the story originated, but he told it as if he knew it was the truth of the gods.
The tale went that a monk, a real high priest of Arbor, who was doing missionary work among the Bitterpeaks folk, had been ensnared by the Hoar Witch. As the story goes, she’d charmed him and then kept him prisoner in a palace of ice she built above a valley full of fairies in the deep mountains. The priest eventually got her with child, and a half-priest, half-witch boy was born. The Hoar Witch, not wanting to be worried with the rearing of such a mannish child, named the boy Saint Elm, after his father’s particular patronage, and left him in a bundle with a small pouch of coins on the steps of a temple in Orendyn.
Up until now, Vanx had dismissed the story, even though he’d heard it from another group of men once in a distant Parydonian tavern often frequented by seamen. He’d always assumed that the witchy part of the story had come about because of his mother. She was a full-blood Zythian, complete with metallic golden hair and luminous amber eyes. Every sailor Vanx had ever heard speaking of her called her the “Ship Witch.”
When the Foamfollower sank on its first voyage without her aboard, she became a legendary figure. Superstitious traditions evolved and spread across the realm, just because of her. Some say she sank the ship because the captain had chosen his vessel over her, but Vanx knew otherwise.
Captain Saint Elm chose to honor his crew and his god, Nepton, by going down with the ship. He could have survived. There was room on one of the longboats some of the crew managed to get into the water, but he chose to respect his calling and go down with the Foamfollower, even though he was leaving a pregnant wife behind on the Isle of Zyth.
Vanx’s mother had told him his father had chosen to die with honor so that his son could be born with honor, but Vanx knew that she had no idea of what really happened that night at sea. She couldn’t have.
Now it was seeming to Vanx that a lot of this fantastical lore might be true, that his father might have been witch born. After all, here he was following an undeniable urge to venture toward something powerful and hauntingly familiar, something that had firmly taken hold of him.
“The Hoar Witch is still out there in the deep of the mountains,” Skully had told him, “and she always will be. Hell, boy, if you’re Saint Elm’s grandson, like you say, then she’s your blood kin.”
Chapter Seven
The wizard saw the king and the king spoke grim,
“It’s me, mighty wizard I need your help again.”
“I’ll aid you,” said the wizard, “But there will be a price.
Your foe is strong, the war’s gone wrong, victory for one life.”
-- The Weary Wizard
Later that night, in the privacy of their shared tent, Vanx told Darbon what was going on with him.
“I think she, or more likely the place, is calling out to me. The truth is, the second journey I was hinting to you about was for us to travel up into the peaks to seek out the supposed ice palace Skully told me about. That’s why I wasn’t sure you’d want to go. I’ve been damn curious about it since the old sea dog told me that part of the legend.”
“Truthfully,” Darbon said, a bit hesitantly, the scars on his face showing white against his red, chapped cheeks, “I regret coming this far out into this gods-forgotten place. I never dreamed that I could be so cold that I ached from it.”
Vanx laughed lightly. Just then, Sir Poopsalot forcefully nosed his way into the tent’s flap. He strolled up to Darbon, gave him a big lick on the face, and then greeted Vanx in a similar fashion.
“He smells like haulkat.” Darbon sneezed.
“It could be worse.” Vanx thought back to the rank smell of dragon shit, and even worse, those rotting ogre corpses outside Dyntalla.
“So what are you going to do?” Darbon finally asked. “Go on and find the ice palace?”
“I may, but after I finish our current business. Chelda’s ancestors are from Great Vale. It’s somewhere up in the Bitterpeaks. I was thinking of hiring her for a guide, but after we’ve killed our saber shrew, of course.”
“If you don’t let her help kill one, she might try to kill us,” Darbon joked.
“She might.” Vanx laughed with him.
He was pleased to see that Darbon was no longer in his grieving slump. It was plain on the boy’s face that he couldn’t wait to get back to Salma. At least this hunt had accomplished that much.
“Do you think it’s true?” asked Darbon.
“What’s that?”
“That your father was born from the Hoar Witch. That, if she is alive and real, she is your grandmother?”
“I don’t know, Dar.” Vanx rolled onto his back and put his hands behind his head. “Like I said, I’ve got a strong feeling that sooner, more likely than later, I’m going to go find out.”
“If you need me to go with you, Vanx, you know I will.”
“I know you would go, Dar.” Vanx nodded to himself. I know you would.
The silence that followed those words lasted until they were both soundly asleep.
*
The scouting expedition, at least Vanx, Chelda and Xavian’s side of it, was a failure as far as finding any signs of snow leapers or shrews, but they did find something of interest.
About midday, with a powerful wind coming off the distant mountains, they spotted the dark splotch of a mound pushing up through the snow. First it looked like a boulder, but as the haulkatten laboriously pulled them headlong into the gritty torrent, the blurry site began to take on a bit more clarity.
It was no rock, Vanx decided. His exceptional vision was hindered by the icy wind, so it wasn’t until they were nearly atop the
thing that he realized it was a half-devoured animal carcass.
It was buried in a drift that looked to have been covering the gory sight before some subtle shift of the wind had caused it to be scoured away instead of piled upon.
The red meat and pinkish white layers of fat that clung to the big, wagon-sized ribcage still held their vivid color. Even the partially eaten pile of purple-gray organs and coils of silvery-blue intestine remained as they had been when the beast first froze.
Vanx followed Chelda as she high-stepped through the snow over to the leeward side of the carcass. She pulled down her face protection, gave Vanx an excited smile, and then went about investigating the remains more intently. After a few moments, she seemed to have figured out what the creature was, and when she looked up at Vanx, he found her normally peachy complexion had paled to a shade not much darker than the snow around them.
Immediately, Vanx was alarmed. He had no idea what this pile of fur, bones and guts had once been, but if there was something about the scene that pulled the blood from Chelda’s face, he was sure he should be worried.
Xavian had stayed in the sled, still bundled tightly and gripping the haulkatten’s guide ropes with heavily gloved fingers. Vanx glanced at him and could tell that the mage was aware of their concern. He didn’t move from his perch on the sled bench, though.
“There’s no way it should have been down this far out of the mountains,” Chelda was saying. “And hauling goods, no less. It’s impossible.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a shagmar, and shagmar do not get domesticated,” she snapped. She was using her hands to dig out a leather strap. “Shagmar don’t get saddled and ridden like those dullard haulkats. They are the fiercest of the bear family. They are the biggest, and hardest to kill. They—they—th—”
Vanx saw what stopped her. It was the bottom of a boot. After a few more healthy swipes with her hand, Chelda recoiled. There was a frozen, fur-clad leg extending out from under the shagmar carcass.
Saint Elm's Deep (The Legend of Vanx Malic) Page 4
