Above the Snowline

by Steph Swainston

  ‘Oh, I forgot your due, Glede,’ Snipe added. ‘Have some beer for that excellent shot today. As much as you can drink, on our lord. Yours is the shot that felled her, I’m sure. Other arrows hit her, but yours was the first to bring her down. Hey, Ouzel! Fetch some more!’

  Ouzel removed one of their empty jugs, refilled it, and slashed a fifth mark across a tally of four she had chalked on her blackboard. The woodsman who had shot Miagail eagerly drained his mug. Snipe, satisfied, dug his hands into his damp hair again and pulled them up, raising his hair into a single curious tuft. He looked like an onion on top of a potato. He grinned, showing yellow teeth against wind-tanned skin. His skin had an oily sheen, probably from all that cheese, and a pimple stood proud on the muscles of his brawny neck.

  I caught a snatch of Dellin’s conversation: ‘Feocullan, you will man the snowbank with your partner.’

  Feocullan has a partner, I thought, and for some reason I felt more relaxed.

  ‘Prepare the branches tonight,’ she continued. ‘And the means to light them. Do you have any dummies?’

  ‘Yes, Dellin.’

  ‘Then you are in charge of them. Airgead, I want—’

  Snipe’s voice drowned her out. He had followed my gaze and was watching Dellin with extreme distaste. ‘Feline rank smell in here, isn’t there?’

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ I said.

  Ouzel said to him, ‘This is their pub too. In their opinion you’re the stranger and you smell like prey.’

  He ducked his head, giving himself a double chin. ‘I don’t know what they think, if they think, and I don’t care. They’re imbeciles. If they mess with us, the only land we’ll give them in Carniss is two metres each, like the one we buried today.’

  ‘Hear, hear,’ said Glede, holding up his mug in a toast.

  ‘If we hadn’t roused them, they’d stay in their backward state for ever. Playing like children, always shirking hard graft.’

  ‘Please be quiet,’ I said. ‘All of you.’

  Snipe took a long drink and I hoped for a second he was going to shut up, but he continued in a lower voice, ‘I grant you they may be able to run, but they can’t outrun arrows. I grant you, they land on their feet mostly, but not always. That one today landed on her belly.’

  ‘That’s the attitude that causes the raids,’ Ouzel upbraided him.

  ‘Huh. I think we should leave some offal outside as bait, go up on the parapet and have fine sport. There are fewer ’danne than we have arrows; we’ll keep score until they’re all dead or fled to their holes.’

  ‘Stop looking for a quarrel!’ I snapped.

  ‘Huh - if they seek a quarrel they can have one,’ he mumbled.

  ‘A crossbow quarrel!’

  I glanced at Dellin, glad that she couldn’t follow the Awian but at the same time wishing she knew, so she could defend herself. My glance grew to a gaze: she was crouching and arranging two lines of small stones on the rug, and the other hunters watched intently. They looked for all the world like Eszai poring over a map table in the Sun Pavilion, drawing up their plans of war. I gradually became aware that Ouzel was watching me nervously.

  Snipe was staring into his beer. ‘It’s strange, really,’ he murmured. ‘That one we shot today - when crows pecked her eyes out she looked quite human.’

  ‘Do you have a problem with my eyes?’

  He looked up, then broke away from my stare. ‘Ah, Comet. I was thinking of someone … My poor wife … No, of course I didn’t mean … It’s obvious that you -’ he gestured at my wings ‘- that you aren’t one of them …’

  The other archers, oblivious to our exchange, guffawed at some half-witted joke. I looked away from them in disgust, trying to eavesdrop on Dellin again. Snipe gulped beer. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Glede, red-faced with drink, nudge him in the ribs. ‘Hey, Snipe. Ever thought what it’d be like to fuck one of them? One of those skinny little ’danne women?’

  ‘Huh! Man, woman: they all look the same to me.’

  Another voice: ‘Glede, you probably had a go at that one today before we threw her in the hole, you dirty bastard! Dropped one in her hole before we dropped her in the hole!’

  I turned, slammed the table with my hand. ‘Enough!’

  ‘Why?’ said Snipe. He nodded and grinned at Dellin. ‘Are you looking to have one or something?’

  ‘Right!’ I jumped up, darted to him and grabbed his throat. His bristly skin was clammy. Head tilted back, he looked down the length of his nose. I released him, sideswiped with my other hand and whacked him across the jaw. His head whipped sideways. I drove my fist into his solar plexus and he doubled up.

  I clenched both hands into his sweater and dragged him away from the table. Out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of Ouzel’s aghast expression and the archers stumbling to their feet. Snipe straightened up. His hand went to the knife in his belt and a centimetre of blade gleamed. He swung out the knife but I dodged it - in leisurely style but I doubt he saw me move.

  Revelling in my speed, I gave him no chance. I punched again, felt it connect with his eye socket, punched the other hand into his nose, felt it crack and give, then an uppercut under his chin and his head flicked back.

  ‘Stop it!’ yelled Ouzel. She strode in and tried to grab my arm, but I was too fast. Snipe, half-blinded, lashed out with the hand not clutching his knife. I pivoted forward and whacked him in the mouth with my full weight. He staggered back, over the chair and onto the table. He turned onto his side, supporting himself with both hands on the table, and spat out a tooth. His mouth open, saliva mixed with blood drooled out. Behind him, Glede was fumbling to string his bow. He caught my look and stopped.

  Fury shone in Snipe’s eyes and his split lips tightened. He pushed himself off the table and dashed at me, knife outstretched. Great, I thought; give me an excuse. I slipped aside, let the blade pass, seized his wrist and twisted his arm up behind his back. His fingers uncurled and the knife tumbled to the floor.

  ‘Leave him!’ Ouzel shouted.

  The mist was clearing and a vision crossed my mind of the Emperor, furious, rising from the sunburst throne. My grip relaxed. Snipe tore himself away, flung himself on the ground and got up, knife in hand.

  He came at me again. I looked around and saw their ice axes and ropes piled by the door. I ran to them, snatched up the nearest axe and whacked him full strength across the stomach with its long shaft. He dropped to hands and knees. I booted him at the top of the leg - the pressure point dimple where it joined his backside. He yelled and collapsed onto his side, breathing feebly. Now you know how it feels to be kicked by a Rhydanne, I thought, altering my grip on the shaft. It’s like being kicked by a racehorse.

  Even now he was reaching out for his knife. I raised the axe above his neck.

  ‘No!’ Ouzel grabbed the shaft. ‘Leave him!’

  I lowered it and gently touched my boot toe to the nape of his neck and the base of his spine. ‘If you pick up that knife it’ll be the end of you.’

  He curled up limply, dribbling blood from his spongy nose and mouth. His friends surrounded him and Ouzel knelt down in their midst. She took the tea towel from the table and folded it under his head. ‘Why did you do that, Jant? Why?’

  ‘Why did he have to make out I fancied Dellin?’

  ‘He was only joking! Oh, I see … Bloody hell.’

  My white-hot fury had subsided but she sparked a throbbing anger. ‘I’m sick of this prejudice! I’m immortal, not Rhydanne, not Awian! But I can’t make them listen to each other!’

  ‘For an immortal, you’re a dirty fighter,’ she said.

  ‘There’s no such thing as a fair fight where I come from.’

  ‘Hacilith?’

  ‘Darkling.’

  She lifted Snipe onto a chair with his friends’ help and his head drooped like a beaten boxer’s. She dabbed his bleeding mouth and I paced up and down, tapping the axe against my palm. I was still angry but I felt the tiniest butterfly stir its win
g in my stomach. What have I done? Shit … if the Emperor hears of this, he’ll …

  A scream behind me brought me to my senses. Ouzel had just set Snipe’s nose straight. The Rhydanne beyond the fireplace pealed with laughter.

  He shouldered Ouzel aside and stood up roughly, holding a wad of lint against his damaged mouth and nose. His friends clustered around him and helped him put on his hat and coat. They gathered their gear and hurried out, with Snipe leaning on the shoulder of the most sober.

  I closed my hand over cold metal and realised what I was holding. They hadn’t asked for the axe back. I rotated the shaft and examined its sharp pick opposing a narrow, serrated chisel, with a spike at the foot of the shaft. Metal loops at both ends held a long canvas strap. What a useful weapon, I thought. I’ll have this. I slung the strap over my shoulder and looked round.

  Dellin was gazing at me … straight at me, with pleasure and appreciation glittering in her eyes. The Rhydanne around her seemed admiring, too. She smiled and skipped towards me. She pressed a beaker of vodka into my hands and gently guided me over to sit beside her in a corner, on some bear furs rucked and folded over a soft pile of cushions. ‘Well done!’ she said warmly. ‘That was worthy of a hunter!’

  ‘I am a hunter.’

  ‘And so swift! Snipe didn’t even land a blow!’

  ‘You’re the swiftest I’ve seen,’ said Feocullan, and I felt incredibly grateful to him for a second. I said, ‘Listen, Dellin, when I was young I rounded up red deer hinds on the mountainside, thinking they were escaped goats which had somehow lost their horns. That’s how fleet of foot I am.’

  She smiled at me. Now maybe I would learn their plans, I thought, but they wanted to hear from me instead. They treated me like a hero. They brought me cup after cup of spirit while I sat beside Dellin, acutely aware of her movements and turning her words over and over until they embossed my mind. I didn’t want to miss anything she said and I began to unsettle myself, wondering if any of her remarks were about me.

  She was flawless, strong and wild. I hadn’t noticed her beauty before, and I suppose that was because I was used to elegant women, superficially elegant women. Dellin was so much harsher than they, but her poise was a type of elegance all her own. She’s like a sculpture come to life, I thought, light-headedly. I wanted to hunt the Rhydanne way with her. I wanted her to teach me. The wind on my face, setting my own strength and skill against the power and grace of the deer. Her skin smelt of pebbles; her hair of woodsmoke and gales. No doubt from sleeplessness and the vodka I began to feel light, as if I was floating. But a great energy surged through me. The little annoyances - the uncomfortable draughts and terrible vodka paled into insignificance. I had tapped an immense, calm, golden energy and I could go on for ever. I wish I had this energy while flying. Why now? Whether it was adrenalin from the punch-up, or because the Rhydanne had really, at long last, welcomed me as one of their own, I didn’t know, but I was certain of one thing: I didn’t want the night to end.

  RAVEN

  Next morning I woke long before the servant entered to light the fire. I rose promptly, for there is no point in lying abed with the same unpleasant thoughts about my brother circling in my mind time and again. As I dressed I planned how I would consolidate my grasp on the kingdom. I would love to set my brother’s corpse on the throne, dressed in his most regal finery, and taunt him: ‘You weren’t the only one born to the throne. Why did you presume to hold it without sharing it with flesh of your flesh, blood of your blood?’ Then, when I have satisfied my humour, I will cut off the hand that caused my scar and throw his body in the Rachis River.

  I opened the curtains, unbolted the shutters and pushed them wide, breaking the film of ice that had formed over them. The drab blue sky around Capercaillie, by now a familiar backdrop, was just beginning to leak dawn, but the air seemed more still and silent than usual. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and looked up at the pine skirts of the mountain. Darker strands seemed to reach from the sky to the ground - a phenomenon of the clouds, perhaps? No … palls of smoke rising into the air. They rose calmly and sedately from several places in the forest, as if they were the last smoulderings of much larger fires, and each column reached to a third of the height of Capercaillie before its smoke levelled out into gauzy cloud.

  Seven, eight, nine columns. One ascending from a hollow where the pines were still night-black, several by the trail where it crooked to meet the stream gorge, and one further away over the tree-covered shoulder of the mountain. One at every site where my prospectors had thrown up cabins or commenced quarrying. But why light such fierce blazes in the middle of the night? While I wondered, a lone horse walked out from the trees onto the snow, its saddle empty and its bridle dangling. Then I realised, and a horror like the cold stole into me as I watched the smoke from my people’s razed homes climb and disperse. The Rhydanne had retaliated.

  OUZEL

  After an uneasy night, the drama between Jant and Snipe had so worried me, I went into the bar to coax the candles alight. It was completely empty. Usually at least a few sleeping Rhydanne litter the floor, but this morning there were no bodies to step over - everyone had gone. No, not everyone; Jant was sitting on the cushions, half-lit in a shadowy corner, in exactly the same place as last night. He had wound a striped kilim around his shoulders, but although the temperature outside last night must have dropped to minus forty, the chill in the bar didn’t seem to bother him.

  I circled the room, then stubbed out my taper, bent down and stirred the fire into life. Jant didn’t greet me. In fact, he hadn’t moved, head in hands and his wings half-open, resting on the floor.

  ‘Good morning!’ I enthused.

  He removed one hand from his face and regarded me blearily. Dark shadows ringed his eyes, and they were bloodshot too, as if Snipe had given him a shiner rather than the other way round. In the gloom he was spectral white, and his hair all black tangles. Slumped in this manner, it struck me he looked much like my son in one of his welters of thinking too much. Nonsense, I told myself; letting superficial appearances fool you. He’s far too old to succumb to angst. But he did seem to be suffering some type of anguish. Maybe he felt guilty at having overstepped his authority. Perhaps he was regretting having beaten Snipe - if he had spent all week calculating how to alienate Raven and the whole bloody colony he couldn’t have done any better.

  ‘I’ve porridge for breakfast,’ I said. ‘If you’re in a rush, toast and sausage will be quicker.’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t want to eat.’

  ‘But you must eat! I’ll make you some porridge.’

  He sighed rather dramatically, but an Eszai is an Eszai so I left him to his Empire-scale contemplation and went to pack faggots in the oven. I warmed a bowl of goat’s milk, stirred in oats and set it before him. He didn’t register it for a time, but I pressed a spoon into his hand and he idly began to pick flakes of ash out of the porridge with it. He sat head bowed and high-shouldered, like a vulture with no appetite, which alarmed me. You need good food to fortify you against the cold. I’ve never seen a Rhydanne anything less than voracious, and quite rightly so. Their lives are so demanding, they must keep their energy up.

  ‘Dellin and the others have gone,’ he said.

  They certainly had. They had plotted and supped late into the night and Dellin had fallen asleep with Jant beside her. However, I think she had only been pretending because when he was deep in slumber she got up and roused the rest. They lit torches in the fireplace to light their way and dashed out. They left a tense atmosphere behind. I’m finally troubled about what might happen to Macan and myself. That girl hates Awians. She hates too powerfully for a Rhydanne, all in all.

  ‘They might return tonight, ha ha.’

  He pressed his lips together: he didn’t seem so sure. ‘I thought I’d won her over, but she’d gone when I woke up. I expected to run with her today but, damn it, she’s going ahead with her plans and I’m not even part of them.’

&nb
sp; ‘Rhydanne are thoughtless,’ I said. ‘They come and go their own way.’

  He traced a double S-shape in the air. ‘She let me lie close behind her, right here on the floor. Our bodies fit together well … I even put my arm round her, and she didn’t mind. We might have been hunting partners, but today she’s gone! Does she have more caprice than the worst tart in Galt or was she just using me for warmth?’

  ‘She probably didn’t intend to hurt you.’

  He sprang to his feet and strode to the fireplace, whirled round to face me. ‘I’m not hurt! Don’t be ridiculous!’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Her, hurt me? An Eszai? I’ve hardly any time for this. I must go and see Raven.’

  ‘My mistake,’ I said. ‘I’m glad you’re here to do business with Raven, because - ha ha - if by any chance you were harbouring feelings for Dellin, she would hurt you every single day. She can’t help it.’

  He returned to the porridge and thankfully began eating with a healthier appetite. As he leant forward a pendant on a surprisingly sheer gold chain swung from his unfastened collar. It was a garnet double-sided seal on a finely wrought swivel, and I caught a glimpse of the Castle’s sun engraved on one side. I wouldn’t hazard to set a price on it.

  ‘Where do you think she’s gone?’ he asked, too nonchalantly.

  ‘I haven’t the faintest idea. I never know where they go. But, Jant, will you be staying here for long?’

  ‘Until I’ve prevented Raven carrying out his schemes.’

  ‘Good, because I feel safer with an immortal under my roof.’

  ‘Have the Rhydanne threatened you?’

  ‘Not directly, but the atmosphere couldn’t be worse. I haven’t traded so much as a snowflake since Dellin made her speech. And after last night I don’t think Snipe’s men will come here again.’