Queen of Fire

by Anthony Ryan

  “Once the ice made all men brothers,” Wise Bear said that night. They had repaired five huts, enough to shelter the whole company from the storm already howling outside, the surviving horses herded into a single hut with what scant fodder remained. The shaman sat beside the fire in the centre of the hut, the smoke rising to a small hole in the roof as he carved a new symbol into his bone-staff.

  “The Long Night longer then, years not months,” he went on, eyes fixed on the knifepoint etching into the bone. “No tribes, just one people, made so by the Long Night. When gone, one people became three, brothers no more.”

  He paused to blow powdered bone from the staff, revealing an irregular pattern of dots, each connected with a line. “What does it mean?” Cara asked, leaning forward. She was still alarmingly thin but had regained a great deal of strength during their time on the berg, though Vaelin doubted she could have endured long enough to shield them from the latest storm.

  Wise Bear frowned, seeking the right words. “A story now told,” he said finally, his gaze roaming over the Gifted. “Story of journey and joining. When storm passes we make new story, of learning and fighting.”

  Wise Bear led them on a south-easterly course three days later, the islands growing in size and number with every passing mile, some even featuring a few trees or bushes the farther south they went. However, there was little for the horses to feed on and, with the fodder now exhausted, soon only Scar was left, plodding in Vaelin’s wake with his head sagging ever lower.

  When darkness fell Wise Bear would gather the Gifted, trying to impart some of his knowledge, though his agitation, their ignorance, and his still-rudimentary grasp of Realm Tongue, made it a frustrating task. “Speak!” he commanded Dahrena, raising her hand and placing the palm on his forehead.

  “Speak what?” she asked in bemusement.

  “Not with mouth,” he snapped, jabbing a finger to her temple. “Speak one word, here.”

  Dahrena closed her eyes in concentration, pressing her hand harder against the old man’s forehead but he only grunted in consternation. “Call power,” he said. “Not all. Just small power.”

  Dahrena sighed and tried again, stiffening a little, her face losing expression and taking on a familiar, pale cast.

  “Tower!” Wise Bear said with a satisfied cackle, adding, “Stop now. Not use too much.”

  Dahrena removed her hand from his forehead, flexing her fingers, a look of confused awe on her face. “I didn’t know … Can all Gifted do this?”

  “All with power, yes. Gifts change, power not change. All one thing. Come.” He gathered the other Gifted and led them to his war-cats, all waiting placidly nearby. He pointed at the largest of the cats, like the others still fairly ragged of fur but noticeably better fed than when they had first been captured by his gift. “Speak,” he told Dahrena. “Give order.”

  Dahrena approached the beast with obvious trepidation, for all the cat’s apparent calm she had seen the carnage meted out by Snowdance who usually appeared no more threatening than an overgrown kitten. She stopped a pace or two from the cat and tentatively reached out to touch her hand to its great head, closing her eyes to summon her gift once more. The cat blinked then lowered itself to the ice and rolled on its back, paws raised. Dahrena gave a delighted laugh and knelt to run her hands over the cat’s furry belly.

  “All try.” Wise Bear jabbed his staff at the other Gifted and waved it at the cats. “Choose, give names. Yours now.”

  Cara moved forward with obvious enthusiasm, as did Kiral, whilst Lorkan and Marken were much more cautious. “What if they bite?” Lorkan asked the shaman, taking a short step towards one of the two remaining cats.

  “You die,” Wise Bear replied. “Don’t let them.”

  Vaelin’s gaze abruptly shifted to Kiral as she rose from the side of the cat she had chosen, the smallest of the group with a mangled left ear. Her smile faded as she stood and stared towards the east with a sudden and fierce intensity.

  “Danger?” Vaelin asked, going to her side.

  “A new song.” She winced a little, shaking her head in confusion. “Very old, very strange.”

  Wise Bear said something in his own language as he came to join them, his expression wary rather than fearful as he added, “Wolf People.”

  He led them to another island at first light, the largest they had yet seen, with wide patches of bare rock and a small cluster of trees and bushes on its eastern flank. Vaelin set Scar to feed on what sparse leaves the bushes could offer, the warhorse snorting in appreciation as he began his first meal in days. “Should’ve named you ‘strength,’ shouldn’t I?” Vaelin asked, brushing the frost from his coat. “Sorry for all you’ve suffered, old fellow.”

  Scar gave another snort and kept chewing.

  He found Wise Bear waiting where the island’s shore met the ice. Nearby Iron Claw sat gnawing on a horse’s thigh-bone. “We go, others stay,” the shaman said. “Wolf People not hate like Cat People, but won’t like too many on their ice.”

  “Where do we find them?”

  Wise Bear’s laugh was soft as he turned and started walking, Iron Claw rising to lumber alongside with the bone still clamped between his jaws. “They find us.”

  They trekked east until the sky had darkened to black and the green fire once again danced in the sky. Wise Bear rested on a stunted plinth-shaped mound of ice, regarding the sky and singing his song to his ancestors.

  “What do you tell them?” Vaelin asked when he fell silent.

  “Bear People still live. I still live, but not long to wait now.”

  “Are you so eager to join them? To be with your wife once more?”

  “She with me now, watching.” Wise Bear gave him a sidelong glance. “You think this … a story. Your word … the word for not real story.”

  “A lie.”

  “Yes. Lie. No word for lie in Bear People tongue.”

  “A lie is still a lie, even if you don’t have a word for it. But no, I don’t think it a lie. I believe your people, and mine, crafted legends to better understand a world that often makes little sense. And a legend becomes its own truth in time.”

  “Legend is what?”

  “An old story, told many times and changed with the telling. A story so old none can say if it ever truly happened.”

  “You had power, when we met. Song like Fox Girl, but stronger. That a legend?”

  “No, all very true. But like a legend, it had an ending.”

  “No.” Wise Bear lifted his staff to point at the swirling lights in the sky. “Nothing truly ends. There stories live forever.”

  He looked over his shoulder as Iron Claw gave a low growl, rising to sniff the air.

  “Many come.” The shaman sighed, getting to his feet. “War party. Keep hands empty.”

  The spear-hawks came first, seven of the great birds descending from the clouds to circle them, occasionally swooping low enough to make Vaelin duck. He had heard enough stories from Dahrena to appreciate the birds’ deadly power but was still surprised by their size, judging each to have a wingspan of at least seven feet, their beaks as long as spear-points and, he noticed, steel barbs glittering on their talons.

  “One shaman controls all these?” he asked Wise Bear.

  “If strong enough. They see and he sees.” The shaman’s gaze settled on the eastern horizon, a disconcerting note of foreboding colouring his tone. “Few strong enough to bind so many.”

  The black dots appeared on the horizon moments later, at first only a dozen or so but soon growing in number until Vaelin counted over fifty. The dots resolved into loping figures as they came closer, moving with effortless speed and grace over the ice. On nearing, their tight group split apart and formed a near-perfect circle with Wise Bear and Vaelin at the centre. They sat regarding them both with placid indifference, all uniformly white of fur and larger than any wolf Vaelin had seen, save one.

  More dots soon appeared on the horizon, moving with less grace but almost equal
speed. The sight was so unfamiliar Vaelin was initially unsure what he was seeing, teams of wolves all tethered in a line dragging something behind. As they came closer he realised the wolves were towing sleds, each carrying three men, all armed with spears and flat bows similar to those carried by the Seordah. The wolves towing the sleds were smaller in stature than those surrounding them, and markedly less placid, snarling and nipping at each other as the sleds came to a halt. Vaelin quickly counted heads as the men on the sleds dismounted; over a hundred, less than their own company, but this was their ice and they had wolves and hawks.

  The sled-borne warriors spread out to form a second circle outside that fashioned by the wolves, two figures striding forward to approach Vaelin and Wise Bear. One was of similar proportions to the other ice people Vaelin had met, little over five feet tall and stocky of build. But the second figure stood at least as tall as Vaelin, broad at the shoulder but with a rangy, athletic look.

  “You know them?” Vaelin asked Wise Bear.

  The shaman shook his head, his expression now more tense even than when they had confronted No Eyes. “Trade with Wolf People sometimes,” he said. “Not live with them.”

  The two figures halted a short distance away, reaching up to pull away the fur that covered their faces. The shorter of the two was revealed as a woman of middling years with the high cheekbones and broad features common to the ice people. She regarded Wise Bear with an expression of obvious recognition, even respect, though her bearing was no less tense. Vaelin noted she carried a bone of her own, shorter than Wise Bear’s but similarly adorned with etchings. The tall figure at her side removed his fur mask to uncover the face of a young man a few years shy of Vaelin’s age, the features holding no vestige of any ice-folk heritage. Vaelin’s unease deepened as he took note of the man’s colouring: pale skin, eyes and hair dark to the point of blackness, like many Volarians he had seen.

  The woman said something in her own language, addressing Wise Bear who replied with a nod and a few words of his own. “Shaman greets shaman,” he explained. “It is … custom.”

  The woman’s gaze turned to Vaelin, her eyes tracking him from head to foot before she nodded at the young man. He greeted Vaelin with a cautious smile, conveying a sense of youthful discomfort at an important gathering. “My mother asks your name,” he said in Realm Tongue, the vowels clipped and heavily accented but still easily understood.

  “Your mother?” Vaelin’s gaze switched between the two of them as he raised an eyebrow.

  “Yes,” the young man replied. “Many Wings, shamaness to the Wolf People of the Tree Isles. I am her son, named Long Knife by consent of the people.”

  “Really?” Vaelin stared at him and let the silence string out, noting how the young man held his arms loose at his sides. He wore no weapon but Vaelin was certain he had at least one knife under his furs and knew well how to use it. He also noted a sudden alertness in the surrounding wolves, their heads rising as if in answer to an unheard call.

  “Your … mother is not the only shaman here,” Vaelin said. “She commands the hawks and you the wolves.”

  The young man gritted his teeth and forced a smile. “Yes. And we ask your name.”

  “I’ll hear yours first, Volarian. Your true name. I’ve been obliged to kill far too many of your countrymen to give trust so easily.”

  The wolves rose from their haunches as one, a snarl sounding from every throat as the young man bridled, stating in implacable tones, “I am not Volarian.”

  Many Wings spoke again, a terse few words but evidently enough to make the young man suppress his anger, the wolves relaxing once more as he took a calming breath. “My birth name is Astorek Anvir,” he said. “And I ask your name.”

  “Vaelin Al Sorna, Tower Lord of the Northern Reaches by the Queen’s Word.”

  Many Wings waved her bone at him, uttering a guttural exclamation, her face suddenly drawn in irritation. “Mother says you have another name,” Astorek Anvir related.

  “I am called Avenshura by the Eorhil,” Vaelin said. “And Beral Shak Ur by the Seordah.”

  “We do not know these words,” Astorek said. “Explain their meaning.”

  “Avenshura is the bright star that appears in the morning sky. Beral Shak Ur is the Shadow of the Raven.”

  Astorek and Many Wings exchanged a glance, faces suddenly grave. They said nothing but from the way Wise Bear straightened Vaelin divined they were communicating by other means.

  “Gather your people,” Astorek said after a moment. “You will follow us.”

  “To what purpose?” Vaelin asked.

  “Follow and find out.” The Volarian turned and started back to his sled, the wolves rising as one to fall in on either side as their master cast a final word over his shoulder, “Or stay here and perish when the Long Night falls.”

  The island stretched away on either side for several miles, liberally covered with trees, a steep-sided mountain of snow-speckled granite rising from its centre. “Wolf Home,” Wise Bear called it in rough translation of its unpronounceable true name. “I not see this for many year.”

  The journey had taken four days hard trekking across the ice, which became noticeably thinner the farther south they travelled. It was unnerving to see through it when the sun rose high, light playing on the bubbles visible beneath a barrier no more than a few feet thick. “It melts in summer,” Astorek explained. “And the islands become isolated, reachable only by boat. Though we have plenty of those.”

  He had been an affable guide so far, unwilling to take offence at the instinctive suspicion of the Sentar or the open hostility of the Realm folk. “Offering trust to such as him does not seem wise, my lord,” Orven advised, his dark expression a mirror of his soldiers as he regarded the Volarian. Like all the men from the Realm he had been forced to abandon a daily grooming regimen and was now of somewhat wild appearance, the unkempt beard and long hair rendering him nearly unrecognisable. “We know to our cost how well they use their spies.”

  “He’s no spy,” Kiral said, the only one in their company besides Wise Bear to display no enmity towards the young shaman. “My song tells of no deceit.”

  “These people trust him,” Vaelin pointed out as Orven plainly found scant reassurance in the huntress’s words. “And Wise Bear trusts them. Besides, we have little choice.”

  A large gathering of Wolf People waited on a spit of land on the island’s west-facing coast, several hundred men, women and children staring in open curiosity at the newcomers. Clustered among them were several wolf packs each numbering ten or more with a single shaman at their centre, whilst a great flock of spear-hawks circled above. Many Wings raised her bone-staff to order a halt as a man came forward to greet them, a little taller than her with a broader build than most ice people. From the closeness of the embrace he shared with Many Wings and Astorek, Vaelin deduced he was witnessing a family reunion.

  “My father bids you welcome,” Astorek related. “He leads here. In your tongue his name means Whale Killer.”

  “I thank him for his hospitality,” Vaelin replied, noting that, in contrast to Many Wings, the shaman was required to translate his words aloud to the Wolf People chieftain.

  Whale Killer favoured Vaelin with much the same scrutiny shown by his wife, though with a more friendly countenance. “He says it is strange when an old tale takes form,” Astorek translated.

  Vaelin began to ask for clarification but Whale Killer had already moved on, approaching Wise Bear with arms wide. They embraced, exchanging greetings in the tongue of the ice people from which, despite all the weeks hearing it, Vaelin still failed to discern any meaning.

  “We thought the Bear People wiped out,” Astorek explained. “My father is glad to see we were wrong.”

  “They warred with the Volarians,” Vaelin said. “Driven across the ice to find refuge in our lands. Not so with your people, I see.”

  Astorek’s face grew sombre and Vaelin noted Kiral’s sympathetic wince, making him
wonder what tune she heard from her song. “We had war,” the Volarian said. “It was ugly, but short.”

  The settlement lay a mile along the coast. Instead of clearing the forest the Wolf People made their home amongst the trees. They were mostly pine mixed with birch, tall and strong enough to support the walkways constructed between them, their branches liberally adorned with ropes and ladders. The larger dwellings were all at ground level, wooden conical structures, part covered in moss and seeming to flow around the trees as if they had grown in their shade like great mushrooms. They were led to the largest structure, an impressive circular building constructed around the tallest tree, its trunk sprouting from the centre of the wooden floor and ascending through the multi-beamed roof. The interior featured numerous low tables but no chairs, the Wolf People habitually sitting on piles of fur they carried from dwelling to dwelling as the need arose. Many had already begun to fill the space by the time Vaelin and the others were led in, Astorek ushering them to a set of tables arranged around the central tree.

  “This is your council chamber?” Vaelin asked, sitting on one of the fur bundles with Dahrena at his side. “The place where decisions are made,” he elaborated in response to the young Volarian’s baffled look.

  “Decisions.” Astorek sighed a faint laugh, glancing over to where the man he called father was taking his seat, gesturing for Wise Bear to join him. “All decisions were taken long ago. And not by us.”

  Alturk slumped down opposite before Vaelin could ask anything further, muttering, “My people would have fed us by now. Or killed us.” The Sentar war chief had lost weight on the march, as had they all, but whilst the others had mostly recovered in recent days, the depredations of the ice seemed to linger in him. Lonak men did not grow beards and his face had a skull-like leanness, his once-bald head now sprouting a disordered jumble of black hair and his arms lacking the same thickness of muscle. The depth of sorrow Vaelin had seen in him back in the mountains also hadn’t lifted and he wondered if Alturk was deliberately holding to it, allowing the sadness to reduce him, perhaps even hoping the ice could do what battle could not.