Talus and the Frozen King

by Graham Edwards

  Lightning flooded the night sky, turning it entirely white.

  A voice beside Bran's ear said:

  'Have you noticed how low the boat sits in the water?'

  It was Talus: casual, eternally bare-headed and quite unaffected by the catastrophic weather.

  'Grab the rope!' Bran yelled. 'Make a fish-loop! Hurry!'

  While Bran battled to stop the boat pulling him out to sea, Talus took up the loose end of the rope and circled the rock with it. For the brief moment he was hidden, Bran had the delirious sensation his friend had passed not just out of sight but out of the world altogether.

  Talus reappeared from behind the rock, his teeth bared in a rictus grin. He looped the end of the rope over the place where Bran was gripping it and made a knot.

  'There!' he said, dusting his hands. 'You can let go now.'

  Bran did so, at the same time dropping to his knees and allowing the rope to snap tight in the air. An instant later and would have taken off his head. The rope creaked as the full weight of the stricken boat—not to mention the might of the northern ocean—tried to wrench it loose. Bran held his breath and waited.

  The rope held. Bran and Talus watched together as the boat wallowed. The oarsmen laboured, forcing the boat backwards against the current. At the same time, the rope held the boat like a stone in a slingshot, swinging it on a long, curving trajectory towards the only part of the beach that was clear and open.

  'You have a keen eye for how shapes fit together,' said Talus. He was breathless. 'The boulder makes a ... a joint, like the joint in your arm. The rope holds the boat as it turns around that joint. The oarsmen pull backwards but the boat moves sideways.' His fingers turned his words into an airborne diagram. Bran could sense him struggling to express the thoughts in his head. 'I just did what needed to be done,' said Bran.

  Still illuminated by the fire at its prow, the boat completed its arc and slammed into the shore. A pair of waves smacked its stern in rapid succession, driving it home. Three men leaped out carrying ropes and dragged the boat further up the shingle. They tied the ropes to half-buried boulders that looked heavy enough to keep Mir himself from swimming away.

  Bran watched the activity with an equal balance of exhaustion and elation. It was late, he was tired. He'd been all the way to the land of the dead and back again. No sooner had he returned than he'd found himself saving lives that would otherwise have been lost. The quick and the dead, and no border between.

  He thought again of Talus's giant with the feathered coat.

  'This is a night of life,' he said. For a change, the bard said nothing.

  While the boatmen finished securing their vessel, Talus bent close to Bran.

  'Did you find it?' he said.

  Bran took out the bonespike from the cairn. 'Here. What you wanted.'

  Talus whisked the bonespike out of sight. Bran didn't see where it went; the bard's hands were fast, and there was no telling how many pouches and pockets he was hiding under those motley robes. He was glad to be rid of it.

  'Now!' Talus exclaimed. 'Let us greet these visitors!'

  Talus set off towards the beached boat. Bran lumbered after him, petulant because Talus hadn't congratulated him on finding the murder weapon, cross with himself for being so dependent on the bard's approval.

  More men were spilling out of the boat and on to the shingle. At the same time, the people of Creyak were making their way down the path from the village. Bran wasn't surprised to see they were led by Tharn.

  Last to disembark from the boat was an old man. His hair and beard were united in a single cloud of white fuzz inside which his face glowed a shade of red so vivid it could be only partly attributed to the firelight. Like the faces of his companions, there was something wrong with it.

  The old man landed well, with both feet planted wide. He strode up the shingle with his long arms outstretched. As he approached, Bran saw that what he'd thought a deformity was in fact a network of scars criss-crossing the old man's weathered face. The scars took the form of raised nodules, darkened with indelible dye. They swarmed over his cheekbones, crowded the line of his jaw. Each of the men from the boat bore similar marks, though coloured differently, and arrayed in wildly varying patterns.

  When the old man reached Talus, he embraced him.

  'You are both brave men!' he cried. He crushed Bran with an equally boisterous hug. Bran was only slightly vexed that the old man had chosen to thank Talus first.

  By now Tharn had joined them.

  'Farrum,' he said. He started to drop to one knee, then seemed to think better of it.

  Stiffening his back, he stood tall and proud, defying the gale that was throwing snow and spindrift into his face. 'I welcome you to Creyak.'

  The tone of his voice suggested the newcomer—Farrum—was about as welcome as a wolf in a child's crib.

  Farrum hitched his thumbs into the narrow belt of grey leather cinched around his waist.

  Whale-teeth hung jostling from the belt. The wind turned his hair and beard into a dancing white froth. Sea water dripped from his scarred face.

  'I hope I'm always welcome here, boy.' Farrum grinned, revealing crooked teeth that looked too big for his mouth. 'These two men of your father's served me well tonight.'

  'They are not my father's men.' Tharn's voice hitched and he looked away.

  'We are wanderers,' said Talus. 'Creyak is our refuge against the storm. My friend heard your shouts. We helped as we could.'

  Farrum clapped Talus on the shoulder. 'You did well!' The wind slapped snow into his mouth.

  He spat it out. 'Now, where is the king? I would eat and drink and take company with my old friend, Hashath!'

  His ice-blue eyes were bright as they scanned the crowd. The whale-teeth rattled on his belt.

  'You arrive at a time of sorrow, men of Sleeth,' Mishina said, materialising out of the snow.

  'Ill-omened events have befallen our people.'

  'Stop babbling and tell me what's wrong.' Farrum's face had turned redder than ever, and his smile had vanished. The snow hissed in the sputtering fire that overlooked them all.

  'My father is dead,' said Tharn.

  Farrum's mouth compressed to a thin line. He grunted once, then again. He appraised the scarred faces of his men, who stood in a line nearby, swaying in the storm, then looked back at Tharn.

  'Do you speak the truth? How did he die? Perhaps he fell in the hunt? Or did he drown in the ocean? Or did he die laughing, plunged deep in the loins of a woman?'

  'None of these things,' Tharn replied.

  'Hashath was murdered,' said Talus.

  Farrum's expression turned to one of puzzlement. Nobody spoke.

  'Someone killed him last night,' Bran elaborated through chattering teeth. There were tensions here he couldn't fathom and he was keen to break through them. Keen as well to get under cover. The storm was getting worse and the chill was seeping into his bones.

  Farrum lowered his chin to his breast, held it there a moment, then raised it again. He was as tall as Tharn, but leaner. His great age seemed to hang around him, an invisible aura.

  'I knew that Mir had sent me here for a purpose,' he said. 'I will share in your grief, and do all I can to celebrate the passing of my great friend and ally.'

  'My father was not your friend,' said Tharn, and Bran understood at least a little of what was going on.

  Farrum held the young man's gaze with his old eyes. 'What will you do then? Will you send me on my way? My boat will go no further tonight but I have legs to walk, and so do my men.'

  'You are a king, as was my father,' said Tharn. 'It would be an insult to turn you away.'

  Farrum said nothing. The wind had carried their words out among the people who were watching: the crowd of villagers from Creyak; four of Tharn's five brothers; the eleven men who'd come on the boat with Farrum, all of whom carried long knives at their belts. There was more than just tension here. Bran suddenly understood that he and Talus were standing i
n the middle of a potential battlefield.

  'The words I greeted you with remain true,' said Tharn. 'I bid you welcome. You are tired, and so are your men. Having heard our news, you are now sad, as are we. Tonight you will take shelter in Creyak. Tomorrow we will hear why you have come.'

  The broken grin flashed back on to Farrum's face. He closed his ancient hands over Tharn's youthful ones.

  'Well said, young man! Now, for Mir's sake let's get ourselves out of this cursed storm!'

  Farrum beckoned his men forward. At the same instant, a young boy burst through the throng of villagers. He wore a massive wrap of grey fur that made him look like an animated dust-ball.

  'Tharn!' he was shouting. 'Tharn! Come quick! He's crushed!'

  Tharn did what he'd almost done upon first seeing Farrum: he dropped to one knee.

  'What are you saying, boy?'

  'He's crushed!'

  'Who? Who is crushed?'

  'Your brother, Gantor! You've got to come! He's bleeding! I think he's dying!'

  With Tharn at their head, the villagers hurried back towards Creyak. Forgetting his exhaustion, Bran followed. 'Tonight has seen not one interesting development,' said Talus, jogging at his shoulder, 'but two. It is lucky we are here.'

  Here they were indeed, and Bran had missed the perfect opportunity to leave the island unnoticed. To his surprise, he found it didn't matter. A king had been killed and now someone else was hurt—badly by the sound of it. And what of these newcomers, these men of Sleeth?

  There was a lot more going on in Creyak than they'd first realised.

  And, like Talus, he wanted to know what it was all about.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The boy led them straight to the house Bran and Talus had been given to shelter in. Bran felt his stomach clench. What had happened here while they'd been absent?

  But it wasn't the house that interested the boy: it was the rock-filled pit beside it—which Bran now realised was nothing more than an excavation made in preparation for another of Gantor's house-building projects. Amid the strew of rubble and shattered whalebone, three giant stones had fallen in a heap together. The ropes that had held them back lay tangled on top.

  Beneath the stones was Gantor.

  The big man lay on his back, staring straight up. The pit was only partially roofed, but the snow had by now stopped falling and the same wind that had ushered in the storm clouds was now driving them away. One by one, the stars were coming out.

  Gantor's chest was barely moving. A laboured, sawing sound came from his throat. With all that weight on top of him, it was a wonder he could breathe at all. Blood had run from his mouth and ears and pooled under his head. Red bubbles popped at his lips and nostrils.

  Tharn scrambled down into the pit, closely followed by his brothers. The two youngsters - Arak and Sigathon—let out identical cries of anguish. They each took one of Gantor's arms and tried to drag their brother clear. It was no use. Tharn snapped out a command and the two youths stopped pulling. Beyond the fallen whalebones, Fethan prowled, his face dark with unreadable emotion.

  Bran started forward, eager to help. But Talus held him back.

  'We will wait,' said the bard.

  Bran was astonished. 'What? But you're always first to get involved when people are hurt ...'

  Talus looked affronted. 'Are you suggesting I enjoy seeing scenes such as this?'

  '... although you're even more interested when people are dead.'

  'Death is interesting. Now be quiet. And be patient.' Talus folded his arms across his narrow chest and pursed his lips. His cloak flapped in fluid silence, reminding Bran of an owl in flight.

  Down in the pit, Tharn had set his shoulder to the stones. He braced himself and heaved.

  The stones didn't so much as move. Meanwhile, Cabarrath had knelt down and was whispering to his stricken brother. Bran was actually glad that he hadn't gone charging in: this was a private moment, and he was sorry the brothers were having to play out their grief in front of a watching crowd.

  Someone muscled past Bran, knocking him into Talus's arms. It was the old man Farrum, barging into the pit. Three of his boatmen followed him. Without ceremony, they joined Tharn and pressed their collective weight against the fallen stones. Nearby, Mishina was chanting under his breath.

  'They will kill him,' Talus observed.

  'He's dead anyway,' said Bran.

  'It seems that death is a constant visitor here.'

  'Here and everywhere.'

  With a dull grinding sound, the men finally succeeded in rocking the stones aside. At last Gantor lay revealed.

  The big man's chest was caved in; his legs were crushed to pulp. As the stones lurched to its new resting place, a spasm ran through the wreck of his body. Blood gushed from a dozen places. A thin wheeze came from his mouth. Bran guessed he was trying to scream. But his flattened lungs were no longer up to the job.

  'Be still, Gantor,' said Cabarrath. He slipped his arm under his brother's head. Blood soaked into his furs, turning them dark. He didn't seem to notice.

  Gantor's wheezing turned into a drawn-out croak. It sounded as if it was coming from very far away.

  'You ...' he whispered. In the silence after the storm, Bran heard it clearly, and guessed everyone listening heard it too. 'You ...'

  Then his body relaxed for the last time.

  Cabarrath's shoulders started to heave. At the same time he drew back, glancing anxiously around. There was no knowing what Gantor had been trying to say—nor even if he'd known it was Cabarrath he was saying it to. But his last words had sounded like an accusation all the same.

  Arak let out a sob and rushed into the embrace of the glowering Fethan, leaving Sigathon to stare at his brother's body with blank eyes. Tharn looked on, his face like stone, shivering with the cold, or with anger, or with both.

  Farrum waved his boatmen away. He placed his hand on Tharn's shoulder. Tharn tolerated the contact. Mishina continued to chant. The sky continued to clear.

  Cabarrath retreated to the far side of the pit, where the shadows were thick. Sobs wracked his body. Nobody went near him.

  Talus's eyes were scanning the fallen stones, the weeping men, the scattered whalebones.

  Bran knew he was memorising everything he saw, marking it for future review.

  'We should leave them to it,' Bran said. 'It's late. We should rest.'

  'Not the best place to lay down our heads.' Talus nodded towards the house that was their temporary accommodation, and which overlooked the pit. He was right. There would be no peace here tonight.

  'Well,' said Bran, gazing at the house, 'I suppose we could always ...' But he had no ideas left.

  When he looked round, the bard had gone.

  He found Talus at the end of the passage.

  'Talus, why do you always ...?' Bran broke off when he saw his friend was talking to the red-haired woman who earlier had not only served them their food, but also provided the information that had lifted suspicion for the king's death from their shoulders.

  'Hello,' said Lethriel. Her eyes were wide like a rabbit's and bright with tears. 'I was just saying to your friend ... I must talk to you. That's why I waved to you through the crowd.'

  'I didn't see you wave.'

  'There are many things you do not see, Bran,' said Talus. He turned back to Lethriel. 'You are talking to us now. What do you wish to say?'

  'I mean alone. I don't know if I should ... there are things I must tell. But I don't know who to tell them to. I don't know who to trust.'

  'You can trust us,' said Bran.

  She measured him with a stern look. When he'd first seen Lethriel in the king's house, Bran had thought she looked like Keyli. Only now did he realise just how much that was true.

  'Can I?' Lethriel said.

  'Can you what?' Bran was finding it unaccountably hard to breathe.

  'You have already decided the answer to that question,' said Talus. 'Otherwise you would not have been so eager to attr
act my attention. We are wasting time. Where can we go that is private?'

  'I ... I have a house. I live there alone. I suppose we could go there, but I'm afraid people will ...'

  '... talk? That is likely, and I see you do not want that. Where, then?'

  Lethriel thought for a moment. 'There is a place.'

  She took them through dark corridors to the eastern outskirts of the village, on the opposite side of the island to the beach where Farrum's boat had grounded. The houses here were smaller and cruder than those built by Gantor. Many were in ruins.

  Soon the abandoned buildings were indistinguishable from the rocky terrain surrounding them. The path narrowed to a rough trail. A steep scramble took them up over crags and bluffs.

  'Where are we going?' said Bran. But Lethriel didn't reply. Eventually the ground levelled out. They'd reached the top of the cliffs. To the east, the mainland was clearly visible across a narrow strait, a slab of black against the starry sky. To the west, there was only the open ocean.

  Rising from the snow-covered ground was a great circle of massive timber posts. The space it encompassed was big enough to contain the entire population of the village. But it was overgrown with ragged sedge and stunted gorse and Bran guessed it was many years since it had been used.

  Each of the encircling posts stood twice as high as a man. Once they must have stood tall and straight, but countless years of erosion had turned them into tortured relics of their former selves. Some coiled like snakes; others bent like old men sore in the bone; many were pierced with holes through which the wind whistled, making the whole clifftop sing with a low, eerie moan.

  Bran ran his fingers over the nearest post. It looked like a woman writhing in pain. The wood was embossed with intricate carvings: spirals and hatched lines and deep indented dots. In some places, the patterns were etched deep; in others, the weather had worn them almost to nothing 'What is this place?' he said.