by neetha Napew
The Black Man was gone.
I used my right arm to lower my left hand to my side as gently as I could. My shoulder screamed when my left arm dangled its full weight, but I gritted my teeth and ignored it. I picked up the lantern and held it aloft and shouted. I saw nothing of the Black Man, only blowing snow. I trudged on, following his trail. It ended in a wind-scoured ridge of rock. But in the next valley, not far below me, I saw the dimly lit tents of our camp and I immediately abandoned all thoughts of the Black Man. Below were friends, warmth, and possible rescue for the Fool. I staggered through the snow toward the tents, calling out Chade’s name. At my second shout, Longwick roared a challenge up at me.
“It’s me, it’s Fitz. No, I mean, it’s Tom, it’s me!” I doubt that he deciphered anything I said. I was hoarse from shouting and competing with the wind. I well recall my deep relief when I saw the other men stumbling from their tents and lanterns being kindled and held aloft. I staggered and slid down the hill toward them as they fanned out to meet me. I recognized Chade’s silhouette and then the Prince’s. There was no squat Thick amongst them, and I felt a sob build in my chest. Then I was finally within hearing of the line of men, breathlessly calling, “It’s me, it’s Tom, let me through, let me in, I’m so cold. Where is Thick, did you find Thick?”
From their midst a broad-shouldered man stepped forth, past Longwick, who tried vainly to motion him back. He ran three strides toward me, and I took a deep, unbelieving breath of his scent just before he enfolded me in a bear hug. Despite the pain to my shoulder, I didn’t struggle. I dropped my head on his shoulder, and let him support me, feeling safer than I had in years. Suddenly, it seemed as if everything would be all right, as if everything could be mended. Heart of the Pack was here and he had never let us come to harm.
Over my bent head, Burrich spoke to Chade angrily. “Just look at him! I always knew I never should have trusted him to you. Never!”
In the chaos that had erupted, I stood still on my icy feet, ignoring the shouted questions around me. Burrich spoke by my ear. “Easy, lad. I’m here to take you home, both of you, you and my Swift. You should have come home years ago. What were you thinking? Whatever were you thinking?”
“I have to kill the dragon,” I told him. “As soon as possible. If I kill the dragon, she’ll let the Fool live. I have to cut off Icefyre’s head, Burrich. I must.”
“If you must, then you will,” he said comfortingly. “But not right this moment.” Then, to Swift, “Stop gawking, boy. Fetch dry clothes and make food and hot tea for him. Quickly.”
I gratefully surrendered myself to the steady hands I had always trusted. He steered me through the cluster of staring men to the Prince’s tent, where my heart nearly broke with relief at the sight of Thick sitting up sleepily on his pallet. He looked none the worse for wear, and even seemed glad to see me until he was told he’d have to move his bed for the night to make room for me. He went off with Longwick in charge of him, but not graciously. Thick had Skilled to Chade and the Prince as soon as we’d vanished in the crevice and Chade had immediately sent Longwick and Cockle to fetch him back. He’d spent a miserable night sitting on the sled in the cold, with only his Skill-contact to sustain him. When his rescuers had reached him the next day, they’d found no sign of Lord Golden and me except for the sunken snow that had filled the crevasse.
I sat down, dazed with cold and exhaustion, on Chade’s bedding. Burrich spoke to me as he built up the little fire in the pot. His deep voice and the rhythm of his speech were familiar comforts from my childhood. For a time I heard his voice without paying attention to the words, and then I realized he was reporting to me just as I had once reported to him. Once he had decided he must fetch Swift and me home, he had come as quickly as he could, and he was sorry, so sorry, that he had taken so long to find us. The Queen herself had helped him hire a boat to Aslevjal, but no man of the crew would willingly set foot on the island. When he had landed, he had tried to persuade Chade’s guards to guide him to us, but they had righteously refused to leave their tent on the beach and the supplies they guarded. And so he had come on by himself, following Peottre’s pennanted poles. He had reached Thick’s sled at almost the same time as Cockle and Longwick. Only their shouts of warning had prevented him from plunging into the same abyss that had claimed the Fool and me. Once he had found a safe crossing point, he had come back to the camp with Cockle and Longwick, bearing the news of the loss of Tom Badgerlock and Lord Golden. Chade had brought him to the privacy of the Prince’s tent, and quietly told him that those names also belonged to the Fool and me. Burrich had journeyed all the way to Aslevjal, only to hear yet again of my death. His voice was impassive as he related this to me, as if his own pain at hearing such words were of no consequence. “I am glad to see they were wrong. Again.” His hands were busy chafing my hands and feet back to painful life.
“Thank you,” I said quietly when I could flex my hands again. There was too much to say to Burrich, and no privacy to say it in. So I looked at Chade and asked my most burning question. “How close are we to killing the dragon?”
Chade came to sit beside me on his bed. “We are closer than when you vanished, but not close enough,” he said bitterly. “We were divided when you left. Now it’s worse. We’ve been betrayed, Fitz. By a man we had all come to trust. Web sent his gull to Bingtown, bearing a message that tells the Traders everything, and bids them send Tintaglia to keep us from killing Icefyre.”
I shifted my gaze to Dutiful and stared in disbelief. “You let him do this?”
Dutiful sat on the end of his pallet, his dark eyes large in his face as he watched us. There were new lines in my prince’s face, and his eyes were swollen as if he had wept freely in recent days. I scarce could bear to look at him.
“He did not ask my permission,” Dutiful said painfully. “He said no man needs permission to do what is right.” He sighed. “Indeed, much has happened in the few days you were gone. In your absence, we continued to dig down into the ice. We reached a point where we could see a huge shadowy body below us. Realizing we had dug down to the torso of the creature, we began to tunnel out from the side of our pit, following the line of his back toward his head. It has been cramped work, but less difficult than excavating the entire area. We believe that what we can see below us now is the dragon’s neck and part of his head. But the closer we came to him, the stronger grew the feeling of the Wit coterie that this is a creature which is not ours for the killing; that he harbors both life and intellect, although none of us can reliably sense him. My Old Bloods still dig alongside us each day, but I fear that they will side with the Hetgurd if I attempt to kill Icefyre.” He looked away from me, as if shamed that his trust had been betrayed. “Tonight, just before you came into camp, Web admitted to me that he had sent Risk. The contention was hot,” he said quietly.
My hope for a swift end to the dragon waned. It required every bit of discipline I had ever been taught to recount my misadventure in detail and in order. Irrational shame burned me as I spoke of how I had walked away from Hest and Riddle. When I told them of the Fool’s fate, and of his words about the Narcheska’s mother and sister, Dutiful swayed where he sat. “At last, it all comes clear. Too late.”
I knew he was right and despair claimed me anew. Even if I knew the way back, even if I could persuade them to muster our entire force and march on the Pale Woman’s stronghold, we were too few. She could kill or Forge him in moments, and doubtless would. Nor could I hope to kill the dragon quickly and win his release. Clear the ice, and we must still get past the Hetgurd, our own Old Bloods, and perhaps Tintaglia.
The Pale Woman’s promise that he would not die was a thinly disguised threat. The Fool would be Forged. To me would fall the task of taking what remained of his life. I could not contemplate it.
“If we went by stealth to the pit, could we kill Icefyre? In secret? Tonight?” It was the only plan I could think of.
“Impossible,” the Prince said. His face and
his voice were gray. “The ice between him and us is too thick. There are days of pick-and-shovel work ahead of us before we reach his flesh. And before then, I fear Tintaglia will be here.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “My quest has failed. I put my trust in the wrong place.”
I looked at Chade. “How much time do we have?” How much time does the Fool have?
He shook his head. “How fast can a gull fly? How swiftly will the Bingtown Traders react to Web’s message? How fast can a dragon fly? No one knows those things. But I think the Prince is right. We have lost.”
I gritted my teeth. “There is more than one way to move ice,” I said and looked at Chade meaningfully. The old man’s eyes lit. But before he could reply, Swift’s voice was lifted outside the tent.
“Sir! I’ve brought Tom Badgerlock’s pack, and food will follow. May I come in?”
Dutiful nodded at Burrich, and he moved to beckon his son inside.
The boy came in. His bow to his prince was stiffly formal and he did not look at his father or me. It pained me to see how the division between the Prince and his Wit coterie tore the boy. At Burrich’s command Swift dug through my pack to pull out dry clothing for me. The lad did not seem well disposed toward his father, but he obeyed him. Burrich saw me observing them, and after the boy had left, he said quietly, “Swift was not exactly glad to see me when I got here. I didn’t give him the thrashing he merited, but he’s had the length of my tongue several times. He’s not said much in reply, for he knew he deserved it. Here. Take off that wet robe.”
As I struggled to pull up my leggings, Burrich suddenly leaned into the light, peering at me with his clouded eyes. “What’s the matter with you? What’s wrong with your arm?”
“It’s pulled out of the socket,” I choked out. My throat had closed up at the sight of his eyes. I wondered how much he could see anymore. How had he come to find us here, walking with clouded eyes across the snow?
He closed his eyes and shook his head. Then, “Come here,” he said tersely. He turned me, and sat me down on the floor at his feet. His fingers walked my shoulder, and the pain they woke was oddly reassuring. He knew what he was doing. I knew it would hurt, but that he would also mend me. I could sense that from his fingers, just as I had when I was a boy, just as I had felt when he restored me after Galen had nearly killed me.
“We’ve brought the food. May we come in?”
The voice outside the tent was Web’s. The Prince nodded curtly, his mouth a flat line, and again Burrich lifted the door flap. As Web entered, he greeted me with “It’s good to see you alive, Tom Badgerlock.” I nodded gravely, not trusting myself to find words. He met my eyes and accepted my hostility. The Prince looked aside from the man, his hurt plain in every line of his body. Chade glowered at him. Web’s expression remained as kindly and calm as ever.
The small kettle he carried smelled like good beef rather than the fish I’d been expecting. Swift was behind him with a pot of tea. They crowded into the tent to set their burdens down within my reach.
Burrich continued to investigate my shoulder as if they were not there. He ignored Web, but the Witmaster watched Burrich intently. When Burrich spoke, it was to Dutiful. “Prince Dutiful, my lord. You could be of great help to me right now, if you would. I’ll need someone to hold him firmly round the chest and brace him while I do what must be done. If you would sit there, and lock your arms around him . . . Higher. Like so.”
The Prince came to Burrich’s request and sat behind me. When Burrich had arranged the Prince’s grip around me to his liking, he spoke to me. “This is going to take a sharp tug. Don’t look at me while I do it. Look straight ahead, and be as loose as you can. Don’t tighten in fear for the pain to come or I’ll only have to jerk it harder the second time. Steady. Hold him firm, my lord. Trust me, now, lad. Trust me.” As he spoke calmingly, he’d been slowly lifting my arm. I listened to his words, letting them drown out the pain, his touch filling me with calm and trust. “Be easy, be easy, and . . . Now!”
I roared with the sudden shock, and in the next instant, Burrich was on his knee on the floor beside me, his big callused hands holding my arm firmly to my shoulder. It tingled and it hurt, but it hurt the right way, and I leaned against him, weak with the relief of it. Even as I panted, I noticed how he held his game leg out at an angle, the knee scarce bending. I thought of what it had cost him to come all this way, near blind and half-lame, and I felt humbled.
He spoke quietly into my ear as he embraced me. “You’re a man grown, all these many years, but when I see you hurt, I swear, you are eight years old and I’m thinking, ‘I promised his father I’d look after his son. I promised.’ ”
“You did,” I assured him. “You have.”
Web spoke quietly, his voice deep. “I stand amazed. That is a bit of Old Blood magic I thought was lost to us. I saw that kind of healing done on animals a few times when I was a lad, before old Bendry died in the Red Ship War. But I’ve never seen it used that way on a man, nor so smoothly. Who taught you? Where have you been all these years?”
“I don’t use Beast Magic,” Burrich said emphatically.
“I know what I just saw,” Web replied implacably. “Call it by any dirty name you like. You’re a master of it, in a way that is near lost to us. Who taught you, and why have not you passed on the teaching?”
“No one taught me anything. Get out. And stay away from Swift.” There was dark threat in Burrich’s words, and almost fear.
Web remained calm. “I’ll leave, for I think Fitz needs quiet, and a time for private speech with you. But I’ll not let your son walk in ignorance. He gets his magic from you. You should have taught him your skills with it.”
“My father has the Wit?” Swift looked shocked to his core.
“It all makes sense now,” Web said quietly. He leaned toward Burrich, looking at him in a way that went beyond the touch of eyes. “The Stablemaster. And a master in the Wit, as well. How many creatures can speak to you? Dogs? Horses? What else? Where did you come from, why have you hidden yourself?”
“Get out!” Burrich flared.
“How could you?” Swift demanded, suddenly in tears. “How could you make me feel so dirty and low, when it came from you, when you had it, too? I’ll never forgive you. Never!”
“I don’t need your forgiveness,” Burrich said flatly. “Only your obedience, and I’ll take that if I have to. Now both of you, out. I’ve work to do and you’re in my way.”
The boy set down the teapot blindly and stumbled from the tent. I could hear the sobs that wracked him as he ran off into the night.
Web rose more slowly, setting the kettle of soup down carefully. “I’ll go, man. Now isn’t our time. But our time to talk is going to come, and you’ll hear me out, even if we must come to blows first.” Then he turned to me. “Good night, Fitz. I’m glad you’re not dead. I mourn that Lord Golden did not return with you.”
“You know who he is?” The words were torn from Burrich.
“Yes. I do. And by him, I know who you are. And I know who used the Wit to pull him back from death and raise him from the grave. And so do you.” Web left on those words, letting the tent flap fall behind him.
Burrich stared after him, then blinked his clouded eyes. “That man is a danger to my son,” he observed tightly. “Itmay come to blows between us.” Then, he seemed to dismiss that concern. Turning his head toward Chade and Dutiful, he said, “I need a strip of cloth or a leather strap or something to bind his arm to his shoulder for the night, until the swelling goes down and it holds firm on its own. What do we have?” Dutiful held up the robe the Pale Woman had given me. Burrich nodded in approval and Dutiful began cutting a strip off the bottom of it.
“Thank you.” And then, to me, “You can eat with your right hand while I’m doing this. The hot food will warm you. Just try not to move too much.”
Dutiful gave Burrich the strip of fabric and began dishing the soup from the kettle to a bowl and pouring tea for me as if
he were my page. He spoke as he did so, and yet I do not think the words were addressed to anyone. “There is nothing more I can do here. I try to think what I am to do, but nothing comes to me.” A time of quiet followed his words. I ate and Burrich worked on my shoulder. When he had finished strapping my arm to my body, he sat back on the pallet, his game leg stretched out awkwardly before him. Chade looked as if he had aged a decade. He had been pondering the Prince’s words, for he said slowly, “There are several paths you can take, my prince. We could simply leave tomorrow. That tempts me, I’ll admit, if only for the prospect of abandoning all those who deceived and betrayed us. But it would be a petty vengeance, and in the end would win us nothing. Another choice is that we could fall in with Web’s plan, and do all we can to free the dragon, abandoning our hopes of an alliance with the Out Islands, and hoping instead to win the goodwill of Tintaglia and the Bingtown Traders.”
“Deserting the Fool,” I added quietly.
“And Riddle and Hest. Abandoning Elliania’s mother and sister, and breaking the word that I gave. Breaking my word, before not just my own dukes, but before the Outislanders as well.” He crossed his arms on his chest, looking ill. “A fine king I shall make.”
“Abandoning the Fool cannot be helped,” Chade said. He spoke the words as gently as he could and yet they stabbed me. “Leaving behind Elliania’s relatives and breaking your word can be forgiven, for they used deception to win your promise. As in so many things, much will depend on how it is presented.”
Dutiful sounded subdued. “Deception. What would we have done? Elliania’s mother and her little sister. No wonder there is so much sorrow in her eyes. And that is why our betrothal ceremony at her mothershouse was so odd, and why her mother has been absent through all our negotiations. I thought Forging was an evil in the past. I never thought it would reach out and touch my life today.”
