Above the Snowline

by Steph Swainston

  A young woman stood by the banging door of her ransacked cabin, looking in their direction, blonde hair streaming in the wind. Shivering visibly, she clasped a blanket around her and clutched a broom as if it were a mace.

  Snipe joined me, his features screwed even more tightly together with fury. ‘Send someone out. The savages will rape her!’

  Maybe. Who knows what they’ll do? Their instinct to chase is strong. I nodded, then looked beyond his shoulder to the captain. ‘Crake, split the men into five squads. Send one out to that lady; give two to me. One man in each squad to act as a spotter for the others. Pick targets; shoot in concert. Stop gaping and move as fast as they do!’

  Two sets of five archers joined me at the parapet and searched the ground now etched with footprints. Another raider dashed from the trees, crouched in the cover of a drift. The spotter yelled, the archers drew, and waited. The settler had retreated inside her house and the black sheepdog was limping in a circle, emitting a ghastly whine and dropping blood on the snow. Like a dart the Rhydanne broke cover and dashed towards it. Ten arrowheads tracked him with confidence and the arrows whirred away. He threw up his arms and fell face down in the snow. The archers reloaded, satisfied, but the savage raised himself on one elbow and one knee and began crawling towards the forest, with three flights pinned in his shoulders.

  My archers drew and loosed again, and again. They had the range now, and poured flight after flight into the savage as he writhed and twisted. He crawled on, shuddering as they hit and eventually lay still, with one arm extended and fingers clawed into the snow. Hardy breed, I thought. Takes a lot to kill them.

  We waited, and the wind blew between my groups and those of the captain, who had shot briefly before falling silent. At length I called to him, ‘Do you see any more?’

  ‘We saw a pair, but we missed them.’

  ‘We got one. Only one.’

  ‘Congratulations, my lord.’

  The two settlers who had been running towards the gatehouse, were inside the bailey. I crossed to the far parapet and looked down to see them puffing clouds of breath as they stared about. My reeve emerged from his house with some rugs, which he wrapped around the poor couple and ushered them inside.

  The captain joined me. ‘I think it’s over—’

  ‘Keep watching!’ I snapped. I didn’t appreciate his surly, independent expression; it was defiant, almost a sneer.

  ‘It’s your responsibility to keep us safe … my lord,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Of course I will. But only if you follow orders!’

  ‘Because the villagers don’t feel safe, and after this I reckon they’ll mutter to me even more.’

  Was he daring to threaten me? With a feeling of sinking hopelessness I realised this raid would be the settlers’ major concern. I gritted my teeth. I don’t want any more setbacks. I don’t want any more wasted time. I swore I would be seated on the throne this time next week - but the Rhydanne flit in like hail on the wind and disturb the people toiling to build my force.

  The captain waited. ‘What are my orders?’

  ‘Shoot every one of those degenerate creatures that sets a foot outside the forest! I want watchers up here all day and night. I want you to move every villager into the bailey - there should be cabins enough for them there, but if not they can sleep in the hall until they build more. There’s no need for them to be outside the walls in winter. Send archers to accompany every hunting party to leave the gates and guard the prospectors in the woods …’

  ‘My lord?’ he said with curiosity because my voice had trailed off. A black dot crossing in front of Capercaillie’s rock face had turned and was careening towards us at extraordinary speed. Jant’s here. All my foreboding crystallised at once: where the bloody hell has he been?

  ‘Snipe? Snipe!’

  ‘My lord?’

  ‘Our unwanted guest.’ I nodded at the dot, which was rapidly increasing in size. ‘Ready yourself.’

  Jant suddenly folded his wings in and dropped like a stone out of sight behind the parapet. I rushed to it, looked over and saw him fall below the level of the treetops. He opened his wings at the last minute, jolted with the drag, swished out in a forward arc and sped low over the ground. He flared his great wings like fans, landed neatly next to the Rhydanne’s corpse and knelt beside it. The arrows in its back projected like spines. I was surprised to see him carefully turn the body onto its side.

  ‘What’s he doing?’ asked Snipe.

  ‘I don’t know. Come on.’ Together we descended the staircase, went through the undercroft, out of the gate and strode through the shin-deep snow, the wind flapping our coats behind us. We passed the dead dog, its head twisted at a revolting angle, and as we approached, Jant looked up.

  I had never been subject to such a baleful glare in all my life. The wind blew his hair in tangled fronds across his face and his eyes were red-rimmed. He was paler even than usual and his real age lay like vicious ice below the surface. He looked distraught, then realised we had observed it and his expression tightened into fury. Snipe slowed to a dawdle behind me. We were close enough now to tell the body was that of a female.

  He had snapped the arrows from the woman’s shoulders and laid her on her back with her arms by her sides. He had closed her eyes and pushed her wet, bright scarf and necklaces away from her mouth and pointed chin. The splintered ends of the arrow shafts projected from her shoulders, sunk over half their length in her body. Orange flights also surrounded us, growing at the same steep angle from the snow like crocus buds.

  Jant spoke haltingly, ‘This is Miagail. At first, I thought it was her - I mean, it could have been Dellin.’

  ‘She was one of the raiders.’

  ‘I saw that. I saw everything!’

  He had arranged her as if for burial, which piqued me. Uncivilised Rhydanne don’t bury their dead. They don’t even respect the bodies of loved ones but simply heave them over the nearest precipice.

  ‘You murdered her …’ he said with a dry tongue, swallowed and began again: ‘You tried to shoot the others.’

  ‘They were robbing us! See what we’ve lost?’ I pointed to the goat tracks, the dead dog and belongings in the snow. ‘My people demand safety.’

  ‘They weren’t in danger! Yes, the hunters took food, but no lives. They could have chased down those silly trappers a hundred times over.’

  ‘Up here those animals are our lives! Are we to grow crops in ice? Trade with the roads buried under snow? They will starve us!’

  ‘You had no right to kill Miagail!’

  ‘Miagail?’ I looked at the body but felt nothing other than disinterest.

  ‘She was called Miagail! A solitary huntress! She had a name, you know!’ He stroked back the locks blowing across her face.

  ‘I’m surprised the death of one savage affects you so much, Comet. Haven’t you witnessed the deaths of thousands of mortals? Did you know her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And another thing I find odd. You went to the Hound to tell the Rhydanne not to attack us, but this is the worst yet! We’ve never been assaulted by more than a pair before.’

  ‘They’re driven by hunger.’

  ‘So you keep saying. You could have stopped it. I expected you at breakfast.’

  ‘I lost Dellin,’ he said, with a most uncharacteristic flutter in his voice. ‘She was gone when I woke up.’

  ‘Well, she’s probably joined them.’

  He hesitated. ‘She isn’t in her cave. I told her not to come here.’

  Yes, it is to be expected, I thought; they don’t have the staying power. She will have melted away like the others, and we’ll next see her appear on one of these random raids.

  Jant glanced at the furthest cabin, where some guards were standing on the threshold, giving the surprised occupant notice to move. An excellent chance, I thought, to get him and the Castle off my back. If I take Rachiswater swiftly and neatly - and I must, to have a chance of winning against my brot
her - the Castle will fall in behind me to preserve the peace and I will be incontestably king. In the meantime I must free myself to proceed with my plans.

  ‘All right,’ I conceded. ‘I’ll try to restrain my people and allow the Rhydanne to roam unharmed. You see I’m moving the villagers and livestock within the walls and I’ll also put out meat.’

  ‘They’ll take that as an insult. Rhydanne want to hunt.’

  ‘It’s a start. But only if they cease these raids.’

  He nodded and stood up swiftly. ‘I’ll return to the Hound and inform them. But first I’m going to visit your archers and order them, from the Emperor, not to shoot at Rhydanne again.’ With a whisk, he took off, and landed a few seconds later by the patrol.

  ‘Much good may it do you,’ I said loudly. I began the uncomfortable trudge back to the gatehouse. A bristle-backed avalanche hound had set upon the dead sheepdog and was noisily tearing flesh from the wound on its neck. As Snipe and I walked past I kicked the hound away, grasped the dead dog’s raised hind paw and its stiff pads crunched together in my palm. I began to drag it after us.

  ‘My lord, why did you say you’d “restrain” us?’ Snipe demanded.

  ‘To put Jant off the scent.’

  ‘And those terms! After the ’danne did this, are you really going to feed them?’

  I waved my arm so the dog’s carcass inscribed an Sshaped track. ‘Scraps, Snipe. Scraps.’

  JANT

  That night I sat in the Hound, infuriated by a day of reasoning with Raven. I couldn’t tell him I had stolen the letter. Not yet, anyway. I picked at a bowl of Ouzel’s stew and hardly touched a mug of beer. I was trying to overhear Dellin in the back room. A group of ten or twelve Rhydanne had gathered around her and more were dropping in every minute. The last, a willowy huntress who couldn’t have been more than ten years old, had brought the news of the death of Miagail. Dellin’s shocked response convinced me she had nothing to do with the raid. She stood with her spear pointing downwards, twisting its point and boring a neat hole in the rug as she urged them to listen.

  She was impatient and, thinking my negotiations overly slow, had grown disdainful. When I tried to join them she took the other Rhydanne into their cubby holes or out into the snow, leaving me standing alone. When I retired to my table, their huddle reformed. I hesitated to interrupt again, in case I drove them away to continue their powwow in the deepest part of the forest. Dellin had asked the Castle’s help but now she was bloody well intent on proceeding without me.

  I rested my head in my hands and stared down at my congealing plate without seeing it. I was listening hard, trying to catch a few stray words. Nothing in all my years as an Eszai had prepared me for a situation where my title and all the authority of the Castle was simply irrelevant. The Rhydanne gave nothing to the Empire and took nothing from it. I had no hold on them. I peered at Dellin through my fingers. Truly she made all other women look lumpen and clumsy. She runs on instinct, trusts her senses, but her mind and will were as strong as a governor’s. Her voice waxed and waned as she paced up and down. Her bangles jangled and her tooth necklaces clacked together. She hopped her bottom up onto one of the ledges, jumped down, constantly moving. She stirred her spear eloquently with one long hand, as if it was part of her. Her eyes flashed when she turned to talk to Feocullan. I became alert. Feocullan was an accomplished hunter and I couldn’t tell if she liked him or not. He raised his hand to signify agreement and leaned back into the shadows. I began watching her again.

  ‘ …can’t even find rats,’ one of them said.

  ‘Yes, we are hungry,’ said Dellin, ‘But if we all attack separately we fail. Look what happened to Miagail. We must all attack together, as if the featherbacks are a herd of deer.’

  As far as I could tell, the Rhydanne were listening more seriously than last night. Miagail’s death had brought the danger home to them. How was I to stop them getting killed? Dellin had no idea of the Awians’ power, pride and hunger for profits even after today.

  Ouzel approached with her hand wound in a tea towel, holding the lug of a heavy pan. ‘You haven’t touched your stew at all.’

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  Nevertheless she heaped more dumplings on top of the already-cold remains, set the pan down, drew out the chair next to me, threw herself onto it and crossed one leg over the other. Her trousers rode up, showing her mountaineering shins. ‘The guards are coming,’ she said.

  ‘What …?’ I was watching Dellin’s hair. She has such long hair, but when hunting she binds her ponytail with an ochre-dyed scarf and pins the sides back with combs. The combs are carved from bone—

  ‘Jant,’ said Ouzel. ‘You haven’t heard a word I’ve said.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘The guards are coming. Can’t you hear them?’

  A distant noise I had, in fact, heard in the background without really registering it was growing in volume and resolved into male voices reciting in marching rhythm. It struck a familiar chord in this unfamiliar place; it was one of the ‘one, two, sound-off’ rhymes fyrdsmen invent when on the march. They often describe Eszai or captains in altogether uncomplimentary terms, but these men’s voices, louder now, had a triumphant ring. Their footsteps crunched an accompaniment as they climbed the icy steps:The foot folk

  put the ’danne to the poke

  by way

  never heard I say

  of readier boys

  to get the joke

  and make some noise

  damn the ’danne all

  may they rot where they fall

  hey, boys!

  This is the last thing I need, I thought. Ouzel looked at me questioningly but at that moment the door barged open and six archers, heavily bundled up in hats, greatcoats and gaiters, spilled into the room. They stood by the door, laughing and chaffing each other, unslinging their bow bags, unbuttoning their coats, unwinding their scarves, stamping their feet and leaving little geometrical blocks of impacted snow from their boot treads on the damp rug. The first unwound the tail of his indigo liripipe hat from his head till it turned from a turban to a woolly tube, lifted it off, leaving his blond hair standing up in sweaty spikes, and I saw it was Snipe. He beckoned to the others, ‘Come in, come in.’ They flocked in with a clatter of scabbards and a flap of coat skirts and occupied the table next to mine, where they peeled off their mittens and regarded me speculatively.

  ‘Sh!’ I said, trying to listen to Dellin, but Snipe clapped his hands exultantly. ‘Beers all round! And some of your never-ending stew, my lovely.’

  Ouzel brandished her wooden spoon and disappeared behind the bar. ‘The face that lunched a thousand chips!’ Snipe added as soon as her back was turned. The men laughed - though rather cautiously since she was as big as they were. She brought jugs of beer, holding four together at a time, and supplied them all with mugs and food. She returned to sit beside me and approvingly watched them tuck in. After a few nervous glances at me they realised my attention was elsewhere and relaxed into their business, trying to put themselves on the outside of as much food and drink as they could. When they fell relatively quiet I could hear Dellin again.

  ‘If we raid them over and over they will eventually tire and give up,’ she declared. ‘Not raids like the one you stupidly carried out today, but proper hunts. Featherbacks flounder in the snow. On a night like tonight they would freeze solid! They have already withdrawn inside their great pueblo, so Feocullan tells me, and every Awian who ventures out is armed to the teeth. See those who just came in over there? Raven sends them to check on us. He fears us, and well he might, for in the forests and on the cliffs his people are more helpless than fawns and we are pumas. We can drive them like deer and beat every last one out of cover. We will push them out of our land, into their fortress and down the slope. Then I will say to them, “You are free to return to your own country.”’

  Ouzel looked at me questioningly. ‘Did you hear that?’

  ‘Every word.’
r />   ‘She doesn’t understand that Carniss Manor is here permanently. ’

  ‘None of them do,’ I said. ‘Dellin has as much chance of driving the settlers from Carniss as she has of hitting the moon with an arrow.’

  ‘The moon with an arrow!’ A voice guffawed from the next table. ‘That’s good, Comet. Good and true. We’re rooted here now and no bloody talon-hands are going to shift us. Did you hear that, lads? Comet said the cat-eyes have as much chance of disturbing us as they have of hitting the moon with an arrow. Which, seeing as they can’t shoot, is no chance at all. We’re not shaken by a single raid, are we?’

  In a chorus of uproarious denial, they banged their beer mugs on the table and roundly damned every Rhydanne.

  I said, ‘If you respected them it would be a start.’

  ‘Respect them? Why?’ Snipe asked innocently, then began laughing again. ‘Do we respect the tabby cats our wives keep as pets? Because you know, Comet, they can’t organise themselves any more than cats do. Today was proof. Eh, lads? Today was a fine score: Carniss one, Rhydanne nil.’

  They all laughed. ‘And open a tally for our beer, Ouzel, darling,’ he leered, though at a look from Ouzel he had to glance at his mates for support. ‘It’s expensive. Three times the price of Rachis beer, by god.’

  ‘This house brew is the only beer for thirty kilometres,’ she said. ‘If you want cheaper, ski down to Eyrie.’

  Snipe pulled an aghast expression. ‘With planks on my feet like a Rhydanne? Do you want me to burrow in the snow like them as well?’ He turned to the other five, who were enjoying the warmth of the fire on their wind-ruddy faces, occasionally still blowing into their fists to ease their defrosting fingers. Melting snow dripped from the hems and sleeves of the greatcoats hung over the backs of their chairs. I was surprised to note their bows were first-class quality. They looked very much like a fyrd squad - they would all have done service - and although Tarmigan would never allow Raven to have actual Select Fyrd, Raven had found the means to kit out some of his ragtag collection of cottars, criminals and entrepreneurs almost to the same standard.