In Arand’s slow brain hatred still burned. He knew, as they had all known, that in a fight he was no match for the Friesgaltian. Maitran would have bled him, cutting and opening till he lay down and gasped his life out on the ice. They had saved him, the night before, but he had lost his honour. Now the rage took him, guiding his hands till they seemed possessed of a life of their own. They swung the tiller, viciously; Chaser swerved, heading in toward the wreck. Maitran shouted as the yacht crisped toward him; at the last moment it seemed he realized she would not turn. He tried to run; a foot slipped and he went down on the ice. A thud, a bright spattering across the bows of Chaser and she was past the wreck, yawing as she dragged the body from one sharp ski. Fifty yards on it twirled clear. She limped to a halt, sails fluttering. From her runner led a faint and wavering trail; her deck was marked with the pink blood of the Friesgaltan.
They gathered round the thing on the ice, Stromberg and the Dobhabnians stunned. Arand pale and mumbling. There was no life; the great wound in the head, the oozing of blood and brain-matter, showed there was nothing to be done. They made the sign of the Ice Mother, silently; turned away, anxious to leave the sight, left the body for her servants, the birds.
They were cheered later that day by the gleam of Skalter’s sail far to the south; but the camp was still a sombre affair. They moored apart, sat brooding each over his own fire. To Stromberg it seemed all his past life now counted for nothing; they were governed by the Rule of the Ice, the code that let men kill or be killed with equal indifference. He remembered his years of friendship with Lipsill, a friendship that seemed now to be ended. After what he had seen that morning he would not dare trust even Mard again. At night he tried, unavailingly to summon the image of Coranda’s warm body; pray though he might, the succubus would not visit him. Instead he fell into a fitful sleep, dreamed he saw the very caverns of the Fire Giants deep under the ice. But there were no gleaming gods and demons; only machines, black and vast, that hummed and sang of power. The vision disturbed him; he cut his arm, in the dull dawn light, left blood to appease the Mother. It seemed even she turned her back on him; the morning was grey and cold, comfortless. He drank to restore circulation to his limbs, tidied his ship, left sullenly in the wake of Lipsill as he led them on again across the Plain.
As they moved, the character of the land round them once more changed. The warm ponds were more numerous; over them now hung frequent banks of fog. Often Snow Princess slushed her way through water, runners raising glittering swathes to either side. At breakfast the Djobhabnians had seemed remote, standing apart and muttering; now their identical craft began to edge away, widening the gap between them and the rest till they were hull down, grey shadows on the ice. By early evening they were out of sight.
The four boats raced steadily through a curling sea of vapour. Long leads of clear water opened threatening to either side; they tacked and swerved, missing disaster time and again by the width of a runner. Stromberg lay to the right of the line, next to him the Fyorsgeppian. Then Lipsill; beyond Ice Ghost was the blighted vessel of Arand, half-seen now through the moving mist. None of the boats would give way, none fall back; Karl clung to the tiller, feeling the fast throb of the runners transmitted through the bone shaft, full of a hollow sense of impending doom.
As dusk fell a long runnel of open water showed ahead. He altered course, following it where it stretched diagonally across his bows. A movement to his left made him turn. Bloodbringer had fallen back; her dark hull no longer blocked his vision, Mard still held course; and still Chaser ran abreast of him, drawing nearer and nearer the edge of the break. Stromberg at last understood Lipsill’s purpose; he yelled, saw Arand turn despairingly. It was too late; behind him, a length away, jutted the Fyorsgeppian’s iron ram. Boxed, the yacht spun on her heel in a last attempt to leap the obstacle. A grating of runners and spars, a frozen moment as she poised above the gulf, then she struck the water with a thunderous splash. She sank almost instantly, hull split by the concussion; for a moment her bilge showed rounded and pale then she was gone. In her place was a disturbed swirl, a bobbing of debris. Arand surfaced once, weaving a desperate arm, before he too vanished.
The sun sank over the rim of the ice, flung shadows of the boats miles long like the predatory shapes of birds.
In the brief twilight they came up with Easy Girl. Skalter hung in her rigging, leisurely reeving a halliard, waving and jeering at them as they passed.
All three vessels turned, Stromberg and Lipsill tightly, Hansan in a wider circle that took him skimming across the Plain to halt, sails flapping, a hundred yards away. Grapples went down; they lashed and furled stoically, dropped to the ice and walked over to the Keltshillian.
He greeted them cheerfully, swinging down from the high mast of the boat. ‘Well, you keen sailors; where are our friends?’
‘Fraskall and Ulsenn turned back,’ said Lipsill shortly. ‘Maitran and Arand are dead. Maitran at Arand’s hands, Arand in an icebreak.’ He stared at Stromberg challengingly. ‘It was the Mother’s will, Karl. She could have buoyed him to the land. She did not choose to.’
Stromberg didn’t answer.
‘Well,’ said Skalter easily, ‘the Mother was ever firm with her followers. Let it be so.’ He made the sign of benediction, carelessly, circling with his hands, drawing with one palm the flat emptiness of the ice. He ran his fingers through his wild blond hair and laughed. ‘Tonight you will share my fire, Abersgaltians; and you too, Hansan of Fyorsgep. Tomorrow, who can tell? We reach the Mother’s court perhaps, and sail in fairyland.’
They grouped round the fire, quietly, each occupied with his own thoughts, Skalter methodically honed the barbs of a harpoon, turning the weapon, testing the cutting edges against his thumb, his scarred face intent in the red light. He looked up finally, half frowning, half quizzical; his earrings swung and glinted as he moved his head. ‘It seems to me,’ he said, ‘the Mother makes her choice known, in her special way. Arand and Maitran were both fools of a type, certainly unfitted for the bed of the Lady we serve, and the Djobhabnians fainthearted. Now we are four; who among us, one wonders, will win the bright prize?’
Stromberg made a noise, half smothered by his glove; Skalter regarded him keenly.
‘You spoke, Abersgaltian?’
‘He feels,’ said Lipsill gruffly. ‘we murdered Arand. After he in his turn killed Maitran.’
The Keltshillian laughed, high and wild. ‘Since when,’ he said, ‘did pity figure in the scheme of things? Pity, or blame? Friends, we are bound to the Ice Eternal; to the cold that will increase and conquer, lay us all in our bones. Is not human effort vain, all life doomed to cease? I tell you, Coranda’s blood, that mighty prize, and all her secret sweetness, this is a flake of snow in an eternal wind. I am the Mother’s servant; through me she speaks. We’ll have no more talk of guilt and softness, it turns my stomach to hear it.’ The harpoon darted, sudden and savage, stood quivering between them in the ice. ‘The ice is real,’ shouted Skalter, rising. ‘Ice, and blood. All else is delusion, toys for weak men and fools.’
He stamped away, earrings jangling, into the dark. The others separated soon afterward to their boats; and Stromberg for one lay tossing and uneasy till dawn shot pearly streamers above the Plain and the birds called, winging to the south.
On its southern rim the Great Plateau sloped gently. The yachts travelled fast, creaming over untold depths of translucent ice, runners hissing, sails filling in the breeze that still blew from nearly astern. There would be weary days of tacking ahead for those that returned. If any returned; Stromberg found himself increasingly beginning to doubt. It seemed a madness had gripped them all, drawing them deeper and deeper into the uncharted land. The place of warm ponds was left behind; ahead, under the pale sun, shadows grew against the sky. There were mountains, topped with fire as the story had foretold; strange crevasses and plateaux, jumbled and distant, glinting like crystal in the hard white light. Still Skalter led them, mastbells clanking, bar
baric sails shaking and swelling. They held course stubbornly, shadows pacing them as they raced to the south.
At the foot of the vast slope they parted company with the Fyorsgeppian. He had reached ahead, favoured by some trick of the terrain, till Bloodbringer was a hundred yards or more in front of the rest. They saw the hull of the boat jar and leap. The smooth slope ended, split by a series of yard-high ridges; Hansan’s runners, hitting the first of them, were sheared completely from the hull. There was something tragically comic about the accident. The gunwhales split, the mast jarring loose to revolve against the sky like an oversized harpoon; the Fyorsgeppian, held by a shoulder harness, kept his place while the boat came apart round him like a child’s toy. The remnants planed, spinning at great speed, jolted to a stop in a quick shower of ice. The survivors swerved, avoiding the broken ground, whispering by Hansan as he sat shaking his head, still half stunned. The wreckage dwindled to a speck that vanished, lost against the grey-green scarp of ice, There were provisions in the hull; the Fyorsgeppian would live or die as the Mother willed.
For the first time that night the skyline round their camp was broken by valleys and hills. Still icebound, the land had begun to roll; there were gullies, hidden cliffs, ravines from which came the splash and tinkle of water. It was an eerie country, dangerous and beautiful. They had seen strange animals; but no sign or spoor of barbarians, or the things they sought.
Stromberg spoke to Skalter again at dawn, while Lipsill fussed with the rigging of his boat. He seemed impelled by a sense of urgency; all things, mountains and sky, conspired to warn his blood. ‘It has come to me,’ he said quietly, ‘that we should return.’
The Keltshiilian stood thoughtfully, warming his hands at the brazier, casting glances at the low sky, sniffing the wind. He gave a short, coughing laugh but didn’t turn.
Stromberg touched a skull on the high side of Easy Girl, stroking the wind-smoothed eyesockets, unsure how to go on. ‘Last night I dreamed,’ he said. ‘It seemed as it has seemed before that the Giants were not gods but men, and we their children. That we are deceived, the Great Mother is dead. Such heresy must be a warning.’
Skalter laughed again and spat accurately at the coals, rubbed arms banded with wide copper torques. ‘You dreamed of love,’ he said. ‘Wetting your furs with hot thoughts of Coranda. It’s you who are deceived, Lipsgaltian. Counsel your fancies.’
‘Skalter,’ said Karl uncertainly, ‘the price is high. Too high, for a woman.’
The other turned to face him for the first time, pale eyes brooding in the keen face.
Stromberg rushed on. ‘All my life,’ he said, ‘it seemed to me that you were not as other men. Now I say, there is death here. Maybe for us all. Go back, Frey; the prize is beneath your worth.’
The other turned to look up at the hulking shape of the boat, stroking her gunwale with a calloused hand, feeling the smoothness of the ivory. ‘The price of birth is death,’ he said broodingly. ‘That too is a heavy sum to pay.’
‘What drives you, Skalter?’ asked Stromberg softly. ‘If the woman means so little? Why do you strive, if life is purposeless?’
‘I do what is given,’ said Skalter shortly. He flexed his hands on the side of the boat and sprang; the runners of Easy Girl creaked as he swung himself aboard. ‘Rage drives me,’ he said, looking down. ‘Know this, Karl Stromberg of Abersgalt; that Skalter of Keltshill lusts for death. In dying, death dies with him.’ He slapped the halyards against the after mast, bringing down a white shower of ice. ‘I also dreamed,’ he said. ‘My dream was of life, sweet and rich. I follow the Mother; in her, I shall find my reward.’ He would say no more but stalked forward, bent to recoil the long ropes on the deck.
That morning they sighted their prey.
At first Stroffiberg could not believe; he was forced, finally, to accept the evidence of his eyes. The unicorns played and danced, sunlight flashing from their sides, horns gleaming, seeming to throw off sparks of brightness. He might have followed all day, watching and bemused; but Skalter’s high yell recalled him, the change of course as Easy Girl sped for the mutated narwhal. Already the Keltshillian was brandishing his long harpoon, shaking out the coils of line as the yacht, tiller locked, flew toward the herd.
It was as the story had told; the creatures surrounded the boats, running and leaping, watching with their beautiful calm eyes. On Karl’s left Lipsill too seemed to be dazed. Skalter braced his feet on the deck, flexed muscles to drive the shaft hissing into the air. His aim was good; the harpoon struck a great. grey bull, barbs sinking deep through the wrinkled pelt. Instantly all was confusion. The wounded beast reared and plunged, snorting; Easy Girl was spun off course by the violence, the Keltshillian hauling desperately at the line. Boat and animal collided in a flurry of snow. The narwhal leaped away again, towing the yacht; Karl saw bright plumes flying as her anhors fell, tips biting at the ice.
The herd had panicked, jerking and humping into the distance; Snow Princess, still moving fast, all but fouled the harpoon line as Stromberg clawed clear. He had a brief glimpse of Skalter on the ice, the flash of a cutlass as the creature plunged, thrusting at its tormentor with its one great horn. He swung the tiller again, hard across; Princess circled, runners squealing, fetched up fifty yards from the ice. Ice Ghost was already stopped, Lipsill running cutlass in hand; Karl heard Skalter scream, in triumph or in pain. He dropped his anchors, grabbing for his own sword. Ran across the ice toward Easy Girl, hearing now the enraged trumpeting of the bull.
The great beast had the Keltshillian pinned against the side of the boat. He saw the blunt head lunging, driving the horn through his flesh, the yacht rocked with the violence of the blows. The panting of the narwhal sounded loud; then the creature with a last convulsion had torn itself away, snorting and hooting after the vanished herd.
There was much blood, on the ice and the pale side of the boat. Skalter sat puffing, face suffused, hands gripped over his stomach. More blood pulsed between his fingers, ruby-bright in the sun; cords stood out in his thick neck; his white teeth grinned as he rolled his head in pain.
Lipsill reached him at the same instant. They tried, pointlessly, to draw the hands away; Skalter resisted them, eyes shut, breath hissing between his clenched teeth. ‘I told you I dreamed,’ he said. The words jerked out thick and agonized. ‘I saw the Mother. She came in the night, cajoling; her limbs were white as snow, and hot as fire. It was an omen; but I couldn’t read. . . .’ His head dropped; he raised himself again, gasping with effort. They took his hands then, soapy with blood, squeezed, feeling the dying vice-grip, seeing the eyes roll white under their lids. Convulsions shook him; they thought he was dead, but he spoke again. ‘Blood, and ice,’ he said faintly. ‘These are real. These are the words of the Mother. When the world is dark, then she will come to me. ...’ The body arced, straining; and Lipsill gripped the yellow hair, twisting it in his fingers. ‘The Mother takes you, Skalter,’ he said. ‘She rewards her servant.’
They waited; but there was nothing more.
They moored their boats, silently, walked back to the place of killing. The blood had frozen, sparkling in pink crystals under the levelling sun. ‘He was a great prince,’ said Lipsill finally, ‘The rest is smallness; it should not come between us.’ Stromberg nodded, not answering with words; and they began to work. They broke Easy Girl, smashing bulwarks and runners, hacking at her bone and ivory spars, letting her spirit free to join the great spirit of Skalter that already roamed the Ice Eternal. Two days they laboured, raising a mound of ice above the wreck; Skalter they laid on the deck, feet to the north and the domain of the Mother. He would rise now, on that last cold dawn, spring up facing her, a worthy servant and warrior. When they had finished, and the wind skirled over the glistening snow, they rested; on the third morning they drove south again.
There were no words now between them. They sailed apart, bitterly, watching the white horizon, the endless swirl and flurry of the snow. Two days later they resighted their qu
arry.
The two boats separated further, bearing down; and again the strange creatures watched with their soft eyes. The shafts flew, glinting; Lipsil’s tinkled on the ice, Stromberg’s struck wide of its mark. It missed the bull at which it was aimed, plunged instead into the silver flank of a calf. The animal howled, convulsed in a flurry of pain. As before the herd bolted; Snow Princess slewed, hauled round by the tethered weight, fled across the plain as the terrified creature bucked and plunged.
Less than half the size of the adults, the calf was nearly as long as the boat; Stromberg clung to the tiller as Princess jolted and veered, determined not to make Skalter’s mistake of jumping to the ice. A mile away the harpoon pulled clear but the animal was blown; a second shaft transfixed it as it stood head down and panting, started fresh and giant paroxysms that spattered the yacht with blood. Princess flew again, anchor blades ripping at the ice, drawing the thing gradually to a halt. It rolled then and screeched, trying with its half-flippers to scrape the torment from its back. Its efforts wound the line in round its body; it stood finally close to the boat, staring with a filmed, uncomprehending eye. Close enough for Stromberg to reach across, work the shaft into its torn side till the tip probed its life. A thin wailing, a nearly human noise of pain; and the thing collapsed, belching thunderously, coughing up masses of blood and weed. Sticky tears squeezed from its eyes ran slow across the great round face; and Karl, standing shaking and panting, knew there was no need of the sword.
The Complete Ice Schooner Page 23
