Glumly they plodded around that side of the slope, searching for another track, but there was nothing anyone could find. Olvar, though, stared uneasily at the opposite bank. ‘Might be something there, see?’
Kunrad stared. ‘A slip, you mean? But that must happen all the time in muck like that. Besides, you’re not trying to tell me they went up there?’
They stared at each other a moment. Then they jumped. It was only a harsh bird-caw, but in that bleak place it echoed from wall to wall, harshly alive and urgent. Looking up, they watched black wings wheel above the valley an instant; then, as the call was answered from somewhere above, they vanished into the grey clouds. Kunrad saw with a sudden chill that these had been growing thicker even in the short time they searched. They were almost solid now, and the sun dwindled to a pale smoky disc, fluttering and fading like a blown candle. He could believe the birds were the fabled messengers of Raven, who had stolen the sun. Even as he looked, a wash of darker cloud came rushing up over the mountain crests and the towering wall of ice, and suddenly the very air seemed to turn grey.
‘Enough!’ he called out, though the words stuck like sharp bones in his throat. ‘High time we turned for home!’
‘High time and beyond!’ shivered Gille, springing into his saddle. ‘Come on, Olvar, you oaf, d’you want to lie the night here with an ice-block for your pillow and an Ice-witch for your bedmate?’
‘There’s still light enough,’ said Haldin angrily. ‘I mean, we’ve chased the bastards this far – and what’s happened to Master Bold-Counsel? I never thought you the superstitious sort!’
‘You think I like running away?’ demanded Kunrad irritably. ‘You don’t have to believe in bogles and witches and spooks to feel there’s something less than canny up there! I’ll not have others face it on my account or anyone’s!’
‘He’s right,’ said Kennas flatly. ‘To horse, my masters. We’ll have to skirt the lake as is, to be away ere night.’
Then the rain came in earnest, a first great wave of it drumming down across their shoulders, and with it wafts of tiny stinging hailstones, spattering into the lake. Without a word the weary men clambered into the saddle, pulling their hoods down low; and, turning their faces from their first sight of the great Enemy, they set their horses to the east and south. Around the green lakelet they rode, still in silence, while the wind-driven rain whipped up its waters, as if to taunt them. Old Haldin took it hardest; Kunrad, riding beside him, saw his knuckles clench again and again on the shaft of the great axe, and understood why. Haldin had been as daunted as the rest of them by the Ice, perhaps more so; but like many men of little imagination and strong pride, he was afraid to admit his fear, most of all to himself. He had grown more and more eager in the chase, as if thirsting for revenge on those who had brought him to it; and now they had beaten him, they and the fear together.
Saying anything, though, would only worsen his shame. Kunrad decided he might give vent to his own feelings, when he could. That would make Haldin try to cheer him up, and lessen his own bitterness. As they passed the end of the lakelet, fording a sluggish outflow, the rain began to slacken, but the twilight was already deepening in around them, till all they saw were indistinct shadows and silhouettes against a grey sky, and the horses picked their way with difficulty.
Without warning Haldin’s hand clamped down on Kunrad’s arm, painfully. The older man half rose in his stirrups, and flung back his dripping hood. Kennas started to say something, but was silenced by Haldin’s angry hiss. ‘Up ahead there! Don’t you hear something?’
‘Sounds like …’ Olvar hesitated. ‘That’s horses!’
‘Just a few, by Hella!’ hissed the captain. ‘A ways ahead! And heading … aye, for the bloody passmouth! They must’ve been lurking in some fold of the slope all this time, to slink past us!’
‘They’ve done it, too!’ snapped Gille, as angry as the rest.
‘By Ilmarinen’s hot coulter, they haven’t!’ growled Haldin.
‘We can’t ride hard in this murk!’ protested Kennas. ‘Over these bloody stones—’
‘We can too, down the streambed!’ was the older smith’s furious response. ‘Smoother there! Ride, if you’re not afraid!’
He was away, spurring his weary horse, and Kunrad after him, his own blood suddenly roaring in his ears as the stream thrashed and spattered beneath him. For the sake of the others, he had sought to forget his driving rage; but he had only stifled it, and it erupted now with force redoubled. He plucked the sword, the cheap decent sword, from the saddle-scabbard; it felt like a feather in his hand. Ahead he saw the glint of Haldin’s axe, swinging in the dark, a fearful weapon the master-smith, by all accounts, knew how to use. Even over the noise of their own charge Kunrad could still hear the horses ahead, trotting now but no more; the others couldn’t have found a stream yet, or thought of it. The stones would not be slimy in this poisoned water, where not even that last lichen grew. They would overtake the sothrans fast, perhaps any moment, coming between them and the mouth of the pass; but it was growing truly dark now, and there could be a fearful game of hide-and-seek among the boulders.
But then, to his left, he heard a startled whinny, and a sudden triumphant roar of challenge from Haldin. At least the smith still had the sense to make sure whom he attacked. There was no answering voice, but a clash of metal. Kennas caught up with Kunrad and swept past him, out of the streambed and on to the gravel, lance lowering at the darkness ahead. Haldin shouted again; and this time he was answered.
Yet it was no voice, that answer, though it had shape and form of a kind. It was the high wailing shriek of a beast; but loud, dreadfully loud in that echoing bowl of a place, and heavy with jarring discords that stabbed the ears like steel spikes and froze even heated blood. It sparked sheer terror like struck iron, and Kunrad’s horse reared and thrashed, almost spilling him from the saddle. But more terrible yet was the cry that vibrated beneath it, for that throat at least was human, and the agony of it plain. It was Haldin’s; and when the other cry ended abruptly, it lasted a brief instant longer, before choking to nothing. Its echoes were lost in another, heavier noise, a thudding crash among scattering stones.
Horrified, ears ringing, Kunrad shouted Haldin’s name, then ducked barely in time as something glinted in the darkness before his eyes. It sang by over his head, and he struck out at where he thought the swordwielder must be. Nothing; and the force of his blow almost toppled him from the saddle. Frantically he grabbed the pommel, tried to pull himself back up, and was horrified to see another, larger horse loom up, and the glint of its rider’s breastplate. Nobody in their party wore one; this was an enemy, and his sword gleamed against it as it swung. Kunrad struck at it, frantically, and his sheer strength stopped the blow. Desperately he swung up, parried the horseman’s next cut, and locked blades with him as their horses wheeled, hearing the other’s furious breathing and half-mouthed curses. Furiously his enemy tried to disengage and thrust in one movement, but Kunrad had been taught the counter. Almost automatically his blade lifted, gave and whirled, sliding the other’s sword past him and leaving his body undefended. It was so instinctive that Kunrad hesitated to complete the killing stroke; but nonetheless his sword ran under the other’s armpit. A grind, a jar; a mouth a hands-breadth away yelled in utter incredulous agony. Horrified, he jerked his hand back, and the yell foundered in an inhuman gargling sound, a violent drowning cough. The shadow before him vanished, there was another dull crash, and the other horse bolted. Darkness reigned absolute.
Kunrad quietened his horse, hearing the heavy panting of others nearby, and further off the captain, swearing fearfully. Hoofbeats drummed now, near the pass-mouth, far and fading, hard to locate for ears still riven by that first awful howl, and minds still shaken. Then the moon rose.
Over the mountain wall its rim lifted, through the clouds that thinned once again as the rain died. And as its first rays struck the snowcaps of the peaks, they sprang to life, blossoming from faint grey
shadows to white tongues of frozen flame, sparkling and shimmering to blind the few-faint stars. Down the steep slopes the light cascaded, like an avalanche into the dismal valley; and at its head the Ice itself awoke in answer, a sweeping mantle of bitter white about the shoulders of the mountain. But not there alone. Around the distant peaks to the north and east the same majestic light arose, turning their craggy flanks to silver; and up against the grey clouds beyond, mirrored in stark beauty from the vast plains that stretched in silent dominion, unbroken, unchallenged, to the farther face of the world.
Even the pale pools glimmered in homage. Cloud shadows raced across the stones, and suddenly they could see the whole valley almost as clearly as by day. Close by Kunrad were Gille and Olvar, hefting their borrowed swords. Further ahead, trotting back from an evidently fruitless pursuit, was Kennas. Beneath Kunrad’s feet a man sprawled, contorted around his right side, twitching slightly; a shining pool spreading beneath him. But some fifty yards further on lay a fallen horse, and beyond it a shapeless huddle. Kunrad swore, and with lead in his heart he spurred his horse across and sprang down.
Haldin lay there, still clutching the haft of his shattered axe; and there was no blood. Yet the moonlight glistened on his upturned eyes, already cloudy; they did not stir, and his mouth gaped below his bristling moustache.
Kunrad touched the Mastersmith’s neck to seek a pulse, and recoiled at the chill of it. Behind him Gille squealed with sudden pain.
‘What in Hella’s name?’ demanded Kunrad.
‘It burns! With cold, I mean – the axe-shards! Covered in ice!’
Startled, Kunrad picked up the broken axe-head. His fingertips stuck, and he barely pulled them away without leaving skin. Fearfully he touched Haldin’s dead face. It was hard, cold to the touch; the skin hardly moved over what felt like chill metal beneath. The captain, striding to Kunrad’s side, reached out in fascinated horror, and touched the older smith’s moustache. It snapped and crackled with a thin coating of ice. Even as they watched his eyes turned wholly opaque, and Kunrad could not shut them. The biting chill extended halfway back across the skull, down below the eyelids. The entire front of his head, and the brain behind it, seemed to have been frozen in one terrible instant.
‘Frozen deep enough to shatter iron,’ said Kunrad hollowly. ‘Colder by far than … that could ever get.’ He nodded up-valley.
‘No man could do that – could they?’ demanded Kennas.
‘No. Not even any smith I’ve ever heard of. Vayde himself, maybe, who tethered demons in his creations. None other. This was … something. Some thing, from this place.’
‘And they led us on to it, to cover their own filthy getaway,’ spat Kennas in disgust. He glanced around anxiously, but the valley floor was clear for a mile around. ‘Probably lured it out of its lair with that in mind. Like leading someone across the path of a bear-dog pack.’
‘Worked, didn’t it?’ said Olvar sombrely. ‘If he’d been a bit less headstrong … But he wasn’t afraid of anything, old Haldin.’
‘They didn’t all get away, anyhow!’ said Gille. ‘Master Kunrad’s taught this one a thing or two.’
‘Pity he won’t be telling us anything,’ grunted the guard, bending over the still form. ‘Learned him a lasting lesson, Master. Skewered him fair and pretty.’
Kunrad felt suddenly unsteady on his feet, and leaned against his horse, forehead down on the saddle. ‘Wish I hadn’t had to. Though when I heard Haldin – Powers, why did I ever embark on this accursed chase?’
‘’Cause you had to,’ said the captain quietly. ‘And so did he. Charging off like that, eh? Not your fault, my lad. You’ve done well enough. But we’d best be riding out now, and speedily. His nag’s dead, poor brute, like himself.’
‘I’ll take him over mine,’ said Kunrad. ‘But the other?’
Gille and Olvar were already searching the man’s body, Gille with squeamish shudders. ‘A few gold coins – those sothran ones,’ reported Olvar. ‘Little else of interest, and his sword’s bent. We’ve stuck him under his cloak and a few big stones, and that’s as much as he deserves. Leave him to the Ice beasts, if they care to dig. Let’s ride.’
‘Aye, the clouds close in again,’ said the captain. ‘I’ll not spend a moment more than needful here in the dark.’
There was an instant, silent accord on that. Within minutes the little party was trotting for the pass, with Haldin’s body slung over Kunrad’s mount. He was a widower, and without children living, so no kinsfolk were left bereft. But Kunrad knew that the whole town would mourn him; and some, at least, would blame Kunrad for having led him into danger. As they reached the lip of the pass he glared back a silent curse at the terrible light between the peaks, remembering the dream it had invaded. A warning, maybe; and yet, though there was menace in it, it did not feel like a foreboding.
A sudden cry broke into his gloomy thoughts. He looked to Gille; but it was Olvar, of all people, who had squealed. He was pointing to Haldin’s body, tied behind his saddle. The hood of his cloak had fallen back, and now the face bobbed blankly up at the moon. Already it was thawing a little; the locked jaw had fallen closed, the eyelids sagged free. But it was not that Olvar pointed at. Across the features from chin to hairline, picked out in dark points where the violent freezing had broken blood vessels beneath the skin, was the shadow-outline of a huge, long-fingered but disturbingly human hand.
Their welcome back in town was much as he had feared. The guards had come home that morning, to be roundly scorned for leaving the smiths. When they themselves rode in, just as the gates were closing at sunset, the townspeople flocked to give them a hero’s welcome. When they saw Haldin’s body, though, all rejoicing ceased, and a gloom sank over the town. It was not long, either, before the first reproaches began to fly, and they were not all from people he could ignore. Kennas defended Kunrad, making it clear that Haldin’s action was his own; but the guards who had fled now felt themselves justified, and said so. Metrye, whom he had known since his childhood, was coldly wrathful, and the Guildmaster, though more understanding, was sorely stricken by a death he saw as needless. The mastersmiths were kinder, understanding better what had driven Kunrad to such extremes. Many offered him lodging until his own house was repaired. But he preferred to go back to it, charred, gap-roofed and smoke-stinking as it was, and fall into his own rough bed. Gille and Olvar, wearied to silence, went back with him. Their weariness was in some part a mercy; they slept, and did not dream, nor did those awful voices return to haunt them. But nonetheless something must have turned over in Kunrad’s mind; for when he awoke next morning, it was made up.
He sat and thought, as he sent the apprentices out to buy breakfast, and counted the little money left to him. They ate in near silence, the prentices sensing that he was coming to some decision; and when they were done he went to see the Guildmaster. He was already receiving the heads of guild and elders, but they summoned Kunrad in at once, the prentices trailing after.
‘Ah, Mastersmith! Your name’s been on our lips all morning!’ The Guildmaster’s tone was friendly, but it made Kunrad feel deeply uneasy.
‘Yes, lad!’ said Kolfe genially. ‘You’ve been having yourself a hard time, no doubt about it. You’ll have to rebuild your house, and no doubt your fortunes a wee bit. Well, the guild’ll see you right on that, never fret! But it came to us, see, that since poor old Haldin’s gone, you might find it good and profitable to step into his shoes as Town Smith, like as is – eh?’
‘Oh, not for ever, maybe!’ chimed in Tarkil. ‘We know you’ve your fine armour to be working on – but just till you’ve the means to do yourself proud again, as you should.’
‘But I don’t have my armour, masters,’ said Kunrad. ‘I thank you, but that’s the foremost problem. What are we to do about pursuing the thief – for my property, and justice, and the town’s good name?’
Some looked at him, some would not. No smith spoke, and it was left to the head of the Bakers’ Guild. ‘Lad, w
hat more can we do? That chase has cost us a heap of trouble, and one good man. Like it or not, the sothran bastard’s beyond our reach now.’
‘He can’t be that far!’ snapped Kunrad. ‘One day’s ride, maybe two. Barely out of our region, weeks of journeying before he’s out of the North. He could still be overtaken and stopped – or you could send messengers!’
‘Lad, lad, we’re doing that,’ sighed the Guildmaster. ‘As many as we can manage, and some letters with folk going back from the fair. But what’s a letter, or a messenger even, against the man himself? Him with his followers and his gold and his winning ways, in a far town that doesn’t know us save as a name and maybe a trade rival? We’ve even hinted he’s some kind of intelligencer for the South, and that may help, with times as they are. But nearer the Southland he’ll be known by name, maybe, and his word carry more weight still. And once he’s over that border, you may kiss him goodbye.’
‘You could send a force!’ said Kunrad angrily. ‘Drag the bastard back, followers or no!’
‘And at what cost?’ demanded the baker. ‘Master-smith, think! We could pay you your losses twice over and still spend far less. I’m angry too, and I’ll not see any man suffer that the Guilds can help. But can the town afford to send a huge riding so far from home for so long, and leave the town half defended?’
‘You would if this stupid war comes about,’ said Kunrad bitterly.
‘Maybe, maybe!’ muttered the Guildmaster. ‘Though that’s different. Men will volunteer, they won’t have to be bribed – not so much, anyway. Lad, I’m all for justice – but when you’re as old as I am, you’ll know that it has its limits. You’re angry now, and about poor old Haldin too, and small wonder. But don’t let it eat you up! Where did it get Haldin, now?’
Galdred nodded. ‘Vengeance is a fruit that rots in the mouth. Better settle down and be glad you’re well friended here. That’s worth all the vengeance in the world.’
The Castle of the Winds Page 6
