Above the Snowline

by Steph Swainston

  JANT

  I flew for hours trying to find Dellin - I mean, trying to find any Rhydanne, or the troops Raven had sent after them. But the forest thickly cloaked the slopes, rising over its buttresses, descending into its gullies, and I couldn’t see down between the pines. Pines grew solidly on every centimetre of land that wasn’t vertical and bristled on the tops of the cliffs. They covered the cliff’s slopes and ledges on all sides, surrounding rock faces which showed as black granite scars. Where the forest petered out, a fresh snowfall enlarged every hummock, disguised the crevasses, and smoothed away every sign of Awian or Rhydanne footprint or ski trail.

  Where was she? I flew so low that my wingtips touched the treetops, but I couldn’t hear her howls. I landed several times to rest my wings and listen, but it was nearly impossible to find clearings and just as difficult to take off again. Flying was no use, but if I borrowed skis from Ouzel it would be just as frustrating and even more disorientating criss-crossing among the shadowy trunks.

  Snowflakes drifted down with endless patience - a patience I did not share in any way. I tore the sky in two looking for Dellin. I no longer cared whether I lived or died.

  Then in the distance I heard a whistle. A Rhydanne whistle. I strained to catch it, but the swoosh and batter of my wings kept interrupting it. Up-slope slightly; in that direction nothing but blackness, the trees merged into the bulk of Klannich. I glided, straining to hear over the roaring airflow. Then … voices … and drumming!

  The forest suddenly plunged away under me. I had flown over a cliff concealed by the trees. I gasped, checked I was still flying straight, and looked down into the black depths that had opened up below me. Way down below was a blossom of yellow light no larger than a mountain flower. I leant and turned - the forest soared up around me, then above me - and I spiralled down in front of the rock face.

  The yellow light was a campfire in a large clearing at the foot of the cliff. It cast a halo on the snow and flickered on the dappled brown surfaces of some rectangles around it. I now heard Rhydanne voices and laughter, loud raillery, the occasional whistle, and the drumming.

  I landed with a crunch and walked towards it, tentatively feeling each step in the half-light. The snow squeaked under my soles and the Rhydanne around the fire fell silent. Now I could hear another sound as well, like pebbles being struck together. ‘Chack! Chack! Chink!’

  The glow of the bonfire illuminated the ring of tents around it, casting their tapering shadows long over the snow. The ends of the tents facing me merged blackly with the night, but the flames reached high above their ridges, dancing so the orange glow lapped back and forth, sending sparks in a stream to the sky. The smell of smoke and a wonderful aroma of roast meat enticed me. Dellin must be here. I stepped over a windbreak and made my way between the buff-coloured tents. About twenty Rhydanne lounged around the fire, warming their soles or sitting with their legs covered with pelts. Their eyes reflected the fire as they stared at me, but the ‘Chack! Chack!’ continued for a second. On the other side of the fire - Dellin. She had a doe-skin kerchief over her nose and mouth. She glanced up, saw me, and pulled it down to reveal a broad grin. She removed a piece of hide from her lap, bounded around the fire and took my hand.

  ‘He’s on our side,’ she said to the group. ‘He’s our friend!’

  As one they whooped and whistled. I belonged here! I felt a remarkable rightness that I hadn’t felt since first entering the Castle. I felt I was home.

  Dellin tugged my wing, inviting me to sit down beside her on a chamois skin. Its small, pointed hooves reflected the bonfire light; its hair was like soft, beige moss. She pressed a cup of whisky into my hand and arranged a fur over my legs. ‘Have a drink and warm up. Did you hear our drums?’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘We’ve been calling Rhydanne in since sundown. We’ve had a successful hunt!’

  Indeed, a huge haunch of meat was spitted over the fire, dripping fat into a tray lying among the flames. Every so often a huntress would lean forward, baste it, and give the spit a turn. Dellin forked a slab of meat from a pile of carved chunks on a hearthstone, plopped it into a piece of leg armour which made quite a good plate, and passed it to me. I drew my knife and cut the wobbly, pale fat from its edge.

  She was so beautiful, and I was sitting beside her! She had rubbed red ochre powder in her hair and it hung in hard, red twists. Her parka was unbuttoned down as far as her breasts. Its toggles were tubes of eagle’s bone and she had threaded porcupine-spine beads on its lacings. All my anxieties of the last hours melted away. Now I was here the journey seemed inconsequential.

  The firelight fell vividly on the stretched leather of the tents around us and the beautiful, rolling grey folds of the fur I wrapped round me like a shawl. Dellin picked up her apron, raised the kerchief over her nose and resumed her flint knapping. She raised a pebble, dinted at the end from previous use, struck the core she held in her other hand, ‘Chack!’ and peeled off a blade. It was as long and straight as my knife. She placed it gently on a neat stack, turned the core, deciding where to hit next, and struck off another identical blade. She laid it down carefully.

  I picked it up and examined it reverently, as if the clear stone could melt into black water and slide between my fingers.

  ‘Careful,’ said Dellin. ‘Flint is fragile.’

  The kerchief muffled her voice, and as I looked up I cut myself. A line of blood appeared on my fingertip but the blade was so sharp it didn’t even hurt.

  Dellin laughed. ‘Did you just draw blood?’

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘It’s sharper than steel. But don’t worry, it’s cleaner too. A cut from black flint will heal a week earlier than a cut from steel.’ She struck off another blade, her hands moving with deceptive lightness.

  ‘Are you making knives?’

  ‘These are to be spear points. But I start by making a knife, then I shape it. We’ve stopped using Awian metal but flint points do break easily.’

  ‘Have you all stopped trading with Awians?’

  ‘Yes! Everyone in Carnich has agreed that we’ll stop being cheated. We’re in control of our lives again - we’re returning to our own ways. But not just the hunters of Carnich, look, there are many more. Raven’s people drove their porters out of the keep and they’ve joined us. Now they’re living like Rhydanne again! I called in hunters from Chir Klannich for the chase, and even a pair from Stravaig came to see what was happening. They hunted with us, so they can eat with us. We have food for everyone!’

  Her originality impressed me again - no other Rhydanne would conceive such a plan and no other would have the force of character needed to put it into operation. She actually had them working together!

  ‘They’re following you even though you’re a Shira!’

  She waved the taboo aside. ‘That doesn’t matter any more.’

  ‘They’ve made you their leader.’

  ‘Leader? No …’ Her face clouded. ‘That’s an Awian word. These are all top hunters, Jant, my equals. They see the wisdom in my suggestions and accord with them, that’s all.’

  I turned the blade over, wondering at her craftsmanship.

  Waste flakes were gathering around her legs; she tipped some off her apron and used it to brush them into a pile. She said, ‘I learnt to knap when I was an over-winterer. When I was younger and looking for a partner, I stayed on the summit of Klannich all year round. That’s how I met Laochan. There’s no steel traded on Chir Klannich, of course, so Laochan showed me how to make our own knives. He was a great craftsman with flint and red chert; he used to say that because it breaks predictably, it is more reliable than people. Now I understand what he means …’

  I hoped she wasn’t referring to me. ‘You’ll always find me reliable. ’

  ‘Will I?’ She lowered the corrugated core and looked at me strangely, and I felt embarrassed at being found out ingratiating myself. She struck off a few more blades, though each was successively smaller, and dropp
ed the exhausted core. She rummaged in her rucksack for another flake the size of my hand and began to trim it into a new core.

  I pretended to take her skill for granted, because astonishment would just mark me as a foreigner. She had picked flint from Klannich summit and carried it in flakes. Just as the mountain and forest gives her free food, flint is also free. It’s her knowledge of what to do with it that’s valuable.

  I watched as I munched the excellent boar. It was as salty and fatty as pork but much firmer, with the texture and grain almost of beef. Dellin refilled my cup, took one of her blades and shaved more meat off the roast, the flesh parting as easily as mine had.

  The fire had been built on a platform of pine boles, and green branches were the main fuel, so tarry they crackled and spat. The Rhydanne were supplementing them with fresh bones piled like logs. The bones burned with a yellow flame; grease melted out of each one and spread along it, a translucent, oily liquid as if they were candles.

  I looked around at the company, who were chatting merrily, telling hunting stories and exchanging directions. All the Rhydanne from the Frozen Hound were here, even Rubha. Her two babies peered over the low windbreak, licking meat grease from their fingers. There was blind Lainnir, holding the end of a chunk of boar in his teeth and sawing his knife across it. He seemed to know I was watching, because he nodded slowly as he sucked the cut meat into his mouth and chewed it. His front teeth were worn from chewing leather to soften it; most of the older Rhydanne made clothes that way and they all used their mouths to hold tools temporarily, each like a seamstress with pins between her lips.

  Behind Lainnir, his tent was covered in black charcoal hand-prints, an impromptu pattern by someone with dirty hands and a sense of humour. All the tents were taut, pegged straight into the snow without need of guy lines and weighted around their edges with ice blocks. Each had been rolled out from a hunter’s knapsack, with spears as tent poles and their shafts projecting. Each flint spear point high above faintly reflected the fire. This group could certainly teach lowland soldiers a thing or two about camp craft, I thought, chewing the tasty crackling.

  The children ran about, brandishing their toy spears and giggling. Rubha had given them cups of beech-leaf liqueur. They hid in a tent and ambushed two young hunters, who came into the circle of firelight carrying another haunch on a spit between them. Dellin retouched a blade along its length to prevent flakes breaking off it and showed me how to use it as a knife.

  All the Rhydanne - there were twenty, all told - worked as they talked. They knew it was vital to keep their gear in good condition, so they were all engaged in different activities. Many were sewing their jackets or boots. Some were repairing their spears, fitting new points to the original shaft and binding it round with the same string. They affixed long, curved blades along the shaft itself, the better to make the spear spin in flight and cut through hide.

  The huntress sitting on my other side was piercing and threading teeth. Another Rhydanne was carving a beautiful spear thrower from a length of bone. He put down his flint gouge and rubbed the notch where the spear would rest with a rawhide strip coated in grit to polish the bone smooth. Usually when in camp they would be making bangles - the quantity signifying how efficient a hunter is to enjoy so much leisure time. But Dellin’s followers had given up wearing them, an innovation as unprecedented as the Castle abandoning its sun-in-splendour. Dellin was incredible - the control she had over her followers! ‘There’s not a glimmer of silver to be seen,’ I said.

  ‘Hah! Silver’s meaningless now it’s tainted by trade with Raven. He sold so many bangles that even the humblest goatherd has a whole armful. You know what silver bangles mean now? Fraternity with the Awians. We want none of it!’

  ‘You’ll be giving up drinking next.’

  She looked at me, surprised. ‘What are you talking about? Drinking is Rhydanne! We’ve always made our own! Here, try this vodka. I distilled it myself, in my cave. It’s better than Raven’s. We’re all returning to making alcohol, not buying it. See here, we are making our own bindings and our own belts and packs.’ They had planted their axes upright as anchors for weaving the bright straps they used to bind trousers and sleeves.

  Dellin tested the new haunch and proclaimed, ‘It’s cooked!’ Everyone raised a shout and she carved off the first chunks. She passed them round without wasting the tiniest morsel and the ravenous Rhydanne ate their fill with gusto. I feasted just as heartily; flying gives me an appetite. ‘Usually the Daras take the best cuts of meat,’ I said.

  ‘I’ve changed that too.’ She laughed. ‘Every hunter must accept we’re all equal, or they can’t join our feast. No more Daras hogging the hearth and gobbling the fat; no more Shiras pushed to the cold outskirts. Here Daras and Shiras can lie together without squabbling. Here, Jant, have some of this sweet stew. It’s made from black lichen and maple syrup. Eat well in a time of plenty …’

  Hunting pairs lay peacefully draped over each others’ bodies. The children now dozed, one in Rubha’s big amaut hood, the other tucked under the hem of her parka. Above us the stars spun slowly round, some frost-white, some pinkish and some ice-blue; their paths crossed the sky.

  When Dellin had finished she addressed the huntress beside her: ‘Do you have the green amanita?’

  ‘Yes. I brought it from the beech woods.’ She opened a pouch of dried fungi. Dellin nodded, took it and secreted it under the folds of her blanket. I was once apprenticed for six years in a chemist’s shop, I know well that green amanita are the most lethal fungi in the world. ‘What are you doing with that?’

  ‘I’m going to poison the featherbacks. I found a way into the keep last night. I climbed a wall, went through a window and into a long room with a stone floor, where women were roasting game.’

  ‘The kitchen.’

  She shrugged. ‘They had pots of every kind of food, including dried mushrooms. I will replace them with these and our problems will be over.’

  ‘No! You’ll only make things worse! You’d kill some innocent cook. Raven would blame you immediately and persecute you even more.’

  She continued regardless, ‘They melt the blocks of ice we’ve seen them cutting from the glacier and pour the water into a gigantic stone box.’

  ‘A cistern.’

  ‘Yes, if you say so. I can easily drop an old carcass into it.’

  ‘No!’ I reached under the pelt and grabbed the bag of fungi. ‘Don’t poison Raven’s men! Trust me; I’ll bring him round to seeing sense. I’ll throw these away.’ I stood up and my feet crunched her flint chips.

  She took hold of my leg and I felt her nails through the leather. ‘Don’t go out there. Stay here with me …’ There was a silky seductiveness in her voice I had never heard before. She smiled sincerely and ran her fingers over my thigh as I sat down. ‘Stay with me,’ she repeated. ‘I want you to. You’re one of us.’

  ‘Yes … I am. I know.’ Was it strange that I thought so or strange that it had taken me so long to realise?

  ‘Tell me about Scree plateau. The highest pueblo in Darkling.’

  ‘Our capital.’

  She considered this. Rhydanne don’t think of Scree in the same way as the flatlanders do; it isn’t a centre but a place to stay. She asked, ‘Did you go to the pueblo itself?’

  ‘Oh yes, all the time. Passing hunters always visited. It has a trading post, a storeroom and the biggest distillery in Darkling. If you run west from there you can find a place where hot water bubbles out of the rock.’

  ‘I’d like to see it.’

  ‘Well, I’ll show you. We can run up the Turbary Track together. The whole altiplano can be ours; we can hunt the guanaco every day. The lowlanders wouldn’t disturb us; no featherback ever climbed six kilometres into the sky!’

  Dellin pondered. ‘If I visit Scree, then by the time I return the featherbacks would have destroyed Carnich. I must get rid of them first.’

  ‘You’re much stronger than they are,’ I told her dreamil
y, ‘so you’ll win. When I joined the Circle the Castle’s Doctor was so surprised at seeing one of us that she carried out all kinds of tests on me. She said that we have bigger lungs to breathe this air. We have more blood than lowlanders do, and blood of a brighter red colour, and to pump it we have bigger hearts. We can chew gristle and cartilage, and digest it, but Awians would simply waste it. We can climb with our nails; we can see in the snow glare. Have you seen Awians using ice screws to climb and wearing snow goggles? We can see faster than them as well. To them the legs of a running hare are just a blur, but we see them crossing and stretching. We see individual drops flying from a waterfall, but lowlanders would see nothing but mist. And they can’t survive outside on a night like this.’

  She listened with a hesitant smile but her eyes betrayed confusion. She seemed to get the gist but Rayne’s Morenzian terminology meant nothing to her, and I struggled to repeat it in Scree.

  I wanted Dellin to tell me everything about herself. I wanted to become familiar with all her acquaintances, all the places she knew. But she was reluctant to talk about herself, which was actually refreshing since lowlanders never do anything else. For example, she had raised two daughters, but all she would say about them was, ‘Children grow up and run away.’

  She turned to the twenty satiated Rhydanne. ‘Tomorrow we will attack the keep itself.’ They blinked drunkenly at her. ‘I have been watching the gatehouse and I noticed that when the guard reaches the end of the wall he turns his back. I can climb in and open the gate. Feocullan, you—’

  Feocullan said, ‘Dellin, you are a very angry woman.’

  ‘We must not give Raven time to catch his breath.’

  ‘Why bother, now we have enough food?’

  ‘Yes,’ said a lazing huntress. ‘I’m going back to Sgriodan.’

  ‘We’re returning to Stravaig,’ said another, ‘taking our meat with us.’

  Others raised their voices dozy with drink. ‘I’ll return to Chir!’