The Way to Babylon

by Paul Kearney

  Riven sat back on the bed and Madra’s arm encircled his waist. She laid her cheek on his shoulder. Almost there. And for the first time the thought held no terror for him. He felt that the many strands in this story were finally coming together.

  Everything is meant to be.

  He hugged Madra closer to him, feeling strangely whole.

  AND LATER, WHEN night had come and he was watching the snow pile up in crescents at the windows, and the fire was a red eye in the darkness of the room, she came to him again. She was barefoot, and wore a long cloak that hung to her ankles. As she stood by his bed, with her dark hair like a hood about her face, he was reminded of Jinneth in the dungeon. But she cast the cloak aside with a twitch of her shoulders and stood nude before him, the low glow of the coals bathing her skin in scarlet and shadow. She slipped into the bed with the cold air about her, seeking his warmth. He gave it to her without stint, taking and receiving all she offered. And none of the old ghosts came to crowd at his shoulder. He was a boy again, a youth with questions in his eyes and wonder at the sheer delight of touching her and joining himself to her. Again, he felt that fleeting sense of wholeness, of rightness. He was one with the slowly falling snow outside, the savage splendour of the mountains, the frozen earth and the people who walked it. He was splicing himself into the fabric of a world that had claimed him before his birth, and was happy to do so, for it was fitting. And he felt himself healed.

  It was time, at last, to seek the mountains.

  SEVENTEEN

  TALISKER WAS A hazy hill with the grey blade of the Great River winding around its feet. They stopped in their upward trek to look back at it, at the vast open plain of the Vale shining white in the weak sunlight, the black smudges of villages with their wisps of smoke, the beetle-like clutter of buildings that were Rim-Armishir already distant.

  Riven, Bicker, Ratagan, Isay. And then there were four. They were on the last leg of the Quest, climbing slowly but steadily into the foothills of the mountains. The Greshorns. And in their midst the Red Mountain; the Staer. Arat Gor to the Dwarves, and, in another world, Sgurr Dearg.

  Three weeks, perhaps, if the weather holds. Not long left. Riven’s legs were stiff and sore, his collar bone aching with the weight of the pack perched high on his shoulders. There was a wind picking up to stir the dry snow and whirl it in clouds about them. It was cold. The snow had stopped falling, and was even now beginning to melt, but there was more of it on the bitter wind and he could see where the distant heights were dusted with it. He peered ahead though the pain in his skull and his sucking lungs to see great ragged masses of stone rearing up to the sky in twisting ridges and peaks, veined with snow, bare as gravestones. The very sight ate away his strength, made him want to turn and stumble back down the steep way they had come, perhaps even to take his place at the side of a frowning woman who could not speak.

  But no. He had things to do. Places to see and people to meet. He smiled into the wind.

  They stopped their staring and continued on their way wordlessly, with Talisker and its fiefs at their backs and the stony hills in front.

  The day went past in a tired upward haul and the quiver of thigh muscles forcing themselves to flex and straighten time after time. They shed clothing as they walked, and sweated and laboured over boulder fields wet with slush, through ankle-deep mountain streams as clear as wet glass.

  There were curlews here, and once they startled a brace of grouse that launched themselves from under their feet as they trudged along. Where the snow melted, there was copper-coloured bracken on the sides of the hills and rabbit droppings on grassy slopes. And once they saw an eagle circling with his fingered feathers spread against the grey sky.

  Speed, bonny boat...

  At the fall of the first night, they camped below a profusion of rock buttresses that leered down at them, naked of vegetation. The ground was hard and chill, and Riven was grimly satisfied. Somehow it seemed more concrete with every step. There were no warriors here, no fortresses or monsters. Only the gaunt emptiness of the hills taking him back to what he had once been. He felt he could trust the cruelty of the granite cliffs and the icefields, the sullen massiveness of the mountains. He was at home here, as he had always been in the high, desolate places of Skye.

  More days went by, and the silence of the mountains became infectious. Even Ratagan was quiet and subdued, whereas Bicker wore a constant frown under his bandaged skull. All of them found the going hard, their recent sufferings having taken a toll of stamina and fitness. But they had not objected when Riven announced on their second morning in Quirinus’s home that they must leave at once. They seemed to recognise that there was something in him that was calling for urgency. It was almost as though they had an appointment to keep.

  Their way began to take them through the peaks proper and they found themselves treading the narrow ways at the foot of massive acned scree slopes with snow peppering the stones. The wind was cut off, and there was only the rattle of the rock and the far shriek of the eagles as they circled tirelessly in another world far above.

  Could be they can see Glenbrittle from where they fly, maybe even out to sea, and the dark cliffs of Rhum with Muck and Eigg somewhere behind it. Maybe they can even glimpse the fishing boats around Mallaig, and hear the gulls.

  Higher up, the snow was not melting, and they began to sink ankle-deep as they walked farther in to the mountains. The sky remained overcast and dull, and the aching, bone-numbing cold seemed to defeat the efforts of every fire they lit and soak its way through their bedding every night.

  The lower paths disappeared, and they began to ascend, seeking the knife ridges for the easiest way to maintain altitude. Here the wind could launch itself at them, and it tore at their clothing, numbing their faces and making their way among the ice-covered rocks treacherous.

  Apart from eagles, they saw no other living thing this high, but they all sensed that there were others in the mountains, other things watching them; following them, perhaps. The feeling grew so strong that they would stop often as if by common consent and scan the surrounding slopes for movement. There was the rattle of stone that could have been furtive steps, or may have been the wind in the rocks.

  ‘Sellswords would never follow us this high,’ Bicker said, voicing their fears. ‘There is no profit in it.’ And they nodded, but remained watchful just the same.

  They found themselves travelling through a desert of stone and ice, and lacking stuff to burn, huddled like children at night for the warmth, chewed their food cold and swallowed the snow they walked across until it made their throats ache. Soon it seemed that they had left any memory of warmth and comfort behind and were being transformed into creatures of the mountains themselves, chill and hard as the granite of the winding ridges and peaks, dumb as pebbles, scoured by the whining wind into new shapes, new hardnesses.

  Two weeks went by in a grinding march after Bicker’s lead. They were following a horseshoe course through the Greshorns, to come upon the long ridge from which jutted the steep peak of the Staer, the backbone of the entire range. If there were Dwarves in the mountains, it was said that it was here they dwelt, in the shadow of the Red Mountain, looking out over a vast gulf on to the land of men below. Myrcans had used the place as a lookout post for centuries, and had had many dealings with the Dwarves, but that had ended with the clearances. It was said that the Hidden Folk who had fled into the Greshorns had been taken in by the Stone-folk, as they were called. None had ever returned to the lands below to confirm the rumour.

  They halted on the twist of a sharp ridge, the steam of their breath whipping away in the wind. Bicker scanned the ground ahead.

  ‘We follow this one down, and should come to that bit of valley with the wide stream in the bottom. We’ll camp there. The way becomes easier for a while before we come to the last few ascents.’

  They jammed their feet into crevices to fight the tearing air and looked down from the ridge to a flat, gravel-floored valley with a s
hallow stream steel-grey on its floor and some dark shrubs clinging to life along its banks.

  ‘By all that’s holy,’ Ratagan said, ‘we may have something to burn tonight besides snow, and warm food in our bellies.’

  ‘Best make the most of it,’ the dark man retorted. ‘After tonight I doubt if we will have a fire again in these mountains. We will be going too high.’

  In the evening, it grew dark earlier than usual, with the clouds thick and dark enfolding the peaks around their heads. They sat around their small fire and listened to the wind and the promise of bitter weather in its noise. Close by, the stream burbled quietly to itself.

  Ratagan held his big hands out to the fire like fans, his eyes reflecting the flame above his beard. They blinked slowly.

  ‘How much farther do you think it is?’ he asked the company in general. ‘Where do you find Dwarves in these mountains?’

  No one spoke. Bicker looked tired, and Isay’s face was empty. Even his Myrcan sternness seemed weary. Riven poked an ember back into the fire with his boot. He could have told them he was sure something had to happen before the Dwarves would reveal themselves, but that would have sounded ridiculous, so he held his tongue.

  And something did happen.

  Rocks cracked and tumbled beyond the light of the fire. Dark shapes moved and boots crunched on the wiry heather. Others splashed through the stream to their side.

  ‘We are attacked!’ Ratagan roared. ‘Beware!’

  Instantly the four of them were on their feet, travel-weariness forgotten, weapons in hand. Riven was hefting a longsword which Quirinus had given him, Ratagan a borrowed battleaxe, Bicker a short sword and Isay an ironbound staff that had been dug out of the armoury at Rim-Armishir. They stood in a circle with their backs to the fire and met their attackers squarely.

  They came in a rush, skidding on scree or charging up out of the stream. Bicker killed one as he slipped on the bank and kicked another back into the water in an explosion of spray. Ratagan clanged another’s sword aside and shoved him to the ground, stamping his heel in the man’s face and then catching the weapon arm of his comrade and slinging him out of the firelight to collide with a boulder. He split the skull of the first man as he struggled on the ground, with a bark that was half laughter, half the cry of a triumphant animal.

  More of the enemy poured in around them. Isay knocked the feet out from under two in a swift blur of movement, and poked his staff butt viciously into their breastbones. There were two loud cracks, sharp and high through the tumult, as the men’s rib cages collapsed. There was a wild light in Isay’s eyes, and Riven thought he heard him humming above the noise of the fighting.

  A snarling face ran up against Riven out of the darkness, and their sword hilts crashed together. He threw his attacker back and the man stumbled, slipping on loose stone. Riven plunged his blade in at the neck and saw blood spurt black in the firelight, then he had to wrench free as another came at him, and twist his sword round frantically to ward off a blow. A voice shouted, clear and high in the night: ‘The Teller must live! Harm him not!’ A woman’s voice. Riven felt an absurd need to laugh, but the effort of parrying another blow took away his breath. The appointment had been kept, but would they live to see what happened after?

  He killed the man without thought, his body using reflexes he had learned in the past months. But another took his place.

  A body crashed down on the fire, filling the air with sparks. For a moment they were fighting in the middle of a firework display, before the wind caught the flying embers and took them and snuffed them out, and then they were fighting in near-darkness with the glint of swords reflecting the faint luminescence of the clouds above the mountains, and the snarling faces of their enemies pale blurs in the night.

  But the fight slackened. It trickled away. Their foes backed off, cursing, bumping into each other. A woman’s voice screeched at them to stand fast, to do their job, to earn their money, but they would have none of it. Ratagan’s savage laughter followed their running backs out into the night. Isay darted after them with murder in his eye, ignoring Bicker’s order to stay put. Riven felt the foul sweat on him turning cold and smarting his cuts. The smell of the burning man on the ruin of the fire filled the air with a stench that even the mountain breeze could not dispel. And then Isay came struggling back, pulling with him a frantic figure that fought him like a cat. He threw her down by the side of the fire, and she looked up at them with her eyes flaming. Isay’s stave had bruised her right temple and there was a thin thread of blood there, trickling slowly down to her neck.

  ‘My Lady Jinneth,’ Bicker panted, his face wolfish. ‘We are well met this winter’s evening.’

  The wind whistled round their heads in the darkness, and there was a cold touch on Riven’s face. He raised his head and it kissed his eyelids, melted on his lips. Ratagan lifted his eyes to the high peaks and stared.

  ‘Snow,’ he said.

  THE BLIZZARD WAS swift in rising. In minutes, a curtain of snow had enveloped them on all sides and was coating their clothes and hair, thickening on their eyelashes, covering the corpses that littered the campsite.

  ‘We’ll not last the night in this if we can’t find shelter,’ Bicker shouted over the strengthening wind. ‘Pack up!’

  ‘What about her?’ Riven asked, gesturing towards the woman who crouched on the ground beside them as though ready to spring.

  ‘She comes with us. Isay, guard her!’

  They retrieved their gear from where the fighting had scattered it, and bundled it into their holdalls. They could hardly see in the spinning murk. Isay lashed a leather strap about Jinneth’s wrists and tethered it to his belt. When she tugged on it, Riven saw him turn and put the tip of his staff against her throat, a thin smile bleakening his face. Then he tugged her onwards.

  They ploughed through the blizzard, the snow piling on their faces. Riven could feel the ground rising under their feet and wondered how Bicker knew where he was taking them, but the dark man did not falter. As they continued to slog uphill, Riven realised they were scaling the ridge at the end of the valley that he had seen before nightfall, the one that coiled westwards like a dragon’s backbone and led into the high peaks. But what shelter would there be for them up there?

  They pushed on silently, struggling against the wind and the driving snow. Ice formed in Riven’s beard and eyebrows. His hands stiffened even in the fur mittens that Quirinus had supplied for them all. The snow became deeper, lapping at his calves, and it was agony to force his legs to bend and stretch through it. At the same time, he was keeping his eyes fixed grimly on Bicker’s back, terrified of losing sight of the dark man in the whirling gloom.

  Suddenly Bicker let out a cry and sank out of sight in the snow. Riven rushed forward, and found himself sinking in a deep drift that had accumulated in a dip of rock. He floundered in the snow uselessly, chest-deep—then Ratagan had extended a brawny fist to him and was pulling him up and out. Behind him, Bicker’s head could be seen sticking out of the whiteness, almost invisible through the snow curtain.

  Riven lay gasping in the shallower snow, but in a second he had joined Ratagan in trying to throw a rope to the dark man. They saw his hand reach up out of the drift to grab it, but the wind was blowing it back towards them.

  ‘You’ll have to weight it with something!’ Riven yelled over the roar of the storm. Ratagan nodded. It was impossible to see any expression on his face under its covering of ice. He fumbled with his mittens, stuffed them down the front of his sheepskins and then began laboriously tying the rope around the haft of his axe with slow, cold-numbed fingers.

  Isay joined them, dragging Jinneth with him. She sank to her knees in the snow as he halted, and Riven saw that her hair had frozen to her shoulders.

  ‘Damn these hands!’ Ratagan raged, struggling to make his fingers tie the knot. He stopped to beat his arms against his side.

  ‘Let me!’ Riven shouted. He discarded his own mittens and began fumbling with t
he rope, marvelling at how so simple an action could be rendered so difficult.

  A sound bit through the tumult of the storm: a high-pitched howl that carried above the wind’s fury for a moment and then was dampened by the snow. Riven paused.

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘Tie the damn knot!’ Ratagan screamed, his head up and his eyes scanning the blankness of the storm. ‘We don’t have much time!’

  It was done. Riven threw the axe to where Bicker’s head was still faintly visible against the snow, praying belatedly that it wouldn’t split his skull. As he did, they heard the howling on the wind again. It seemed to be coming from farther down the ridge, but it was louder now, gaining ground.

  Bicker tugged on the rope, and immediately the three of them began hauling him in like an overweight fish. Finally he was with them, bulky with clinging snow, his face grey.

  ‘Rime Giant,’ he gasped with stiff lips. ‘Did you hear it?’

  Ratagan and Riven helped him up, and he shook snow off himself like a dog. The cry on the wind came again—very close, now. It was somewhere to their left, hidden by the blizzard.

  ‘It knows we’re here,’ Ratagan told them. ‘It stalks us.’

  ‘Christ!’ Riven said, remembering the dream at Beechfield where he had encountered a giant in the snow.

  ‘Come on!’ Bicker shouted, breaking the spell of immobility. ‘We must keep moving!’

  He forged off to the right, flanking the drift before them. Riven saw him tug his short sword out of its scabbard. His own fingers felt too numb to do anything, much less fight a Rime Giant. Once again he wondered if Bicker knew where he was going.