Weatherwitch: Book Three of The Crowthistle Chronicles (3 page)

Weatherwitch

In the darkness deep beneath the icy mountains of the north, something alive was delving, as it had been delving for years; digging through caverns and tunnels, scraping and scrabbling at small openings, making them large enough to push through so that it could continue on its journey. Its hands were torn from constant clawing at jagged rock. They had bled many times and half-healed, only to be wounded over and over. Repeatedly thwarted and aborted, the mending of the tissue had begun to go awry. The fingers, hard and blackened, now resembled talons.

To make its progress easier, the thing that dug sometimes made use of the traffic-ways of mining wights and other dwellers in the cold deeps: subterranean roads, ramps, bridges and stairs both ancient and new, by which those small immortal creatures traveled through the hollows of the underground. Yet the wights themselves were shy of this burrower, and seldom allowed themselves to be glimpsed. Generally they tolerated no commerce with foreigners, and if an accidental encounter occurred they swiftly hurried on their way. They were busy enough with their own tasks. The rumor of their industry echoed through shadowy labyrinths of stone; hammerings, scrapings, hangings, the clatter of a bucket drawn up by a windlass, a babble of outlandish jabbering and jarring, shrill laughter.
It would appear to any onlooker as if the eldritch wights were hard at work.

With the hubbub of mining echoing behind and ahead, the burrower approached a cavern in which three
knockers
were assiduously occupied. Members of this species of mining wight were truly dedicated laborers. Gap-toothed and straggle-bearded, the dwarfish ore-getters customarily clad themselves in moleskin trousers held up by braces strapped over their shirts. Some wore red and white spotted kerchiefs tied akimbo on their heads, lending them a piratical air. Large feet were thrust into capacious boots. Their torsos were strong and nuggetty, their limbs as wiry as the roots that grasped the loam and stones far above their heads. Ragged fringes of hair bristled from beneath their conical caps; tousled, shaggy locks, roughly chopped as if shorn haphazardly with knives. Ceaseless was their toil, yet they did not labor under some ancient curse, nor did they need to earn a livelihood, for they were not subject to death. Mining was what they did; it was their eternal obsession, and they were as incapable of abstaining from it as ordinary human beings were incapable of living without sustenance.

The knockers had the faces of hearty old diggers, and their shirtsleeves were rolled up to their elbows. One was hacking at a rock-face with his pickax, another was shoveling mineral fragments into a bucket, and a third was sharpening his tools. Before the black-handed burrower passed by, the wary trio had, not unexpectedly, disappeared.

Sometimes, from dim underworld lakes and rivers, naked female forms of waiflike delicacy would arise; lovely, despite their unhumanness—the chins perhaps a little too narrow, the jawbones a fraction too delicate and piscean, the bone structure of the lower half of the face conceivably thrust a little too far forward, as if about to extend further and metamorphose into a muzzle . . . yet lovely, somehow; graceful as reeds, with long, swaying backs and plenteous, shining hair that draped, dripping, down over their marble-white shoulders and arms into the flood. Unspeaking in the gloom, these wild water-wights would stare at the passing burrower with large and luminous eyes before sinking down once more into their habitat.

While the water-girls gazed and the knockers delved, many other kinds of wights lingered down there in the eternal darkness. The creatures known as “the Fridean” were so elusive as to be almost indescribable. A grinning leer from a crevice in the rocks, the sudden wink of a knowing eye deep in the shadows, a knobbly-fingered hand reaching around a stone—that was about all that could ever be seen of them, but it was said they snatched
crumbs dropped by picnickers on the sunlit upper surface, and at times their eerie bagpipe music drifted up to the ears of the burrower from beneath the floors, or wafted in spine-chilling wails from far-off halls and cavities.

Haunted were the northern mountains, and honeycombed with the workings and dwelling places of eldritch incarnations.

Yet, amongst the activity of strange diminutive beings, the black-handed burrower moved differently. Here was an entity that worked almost as ceaselessly as the little tin-miners, but in solitude. Always alone, for it was not of their kind. It was much larger than the wights, and could not fit its frame through all their doorways and gates. Sometimes its progress was swift, but often it went slowly, meandering in three dimensions; upwards, downwards, sideways. No matter what obstacles it encountered, it never gave up. It was forever moving, except when it slept; yet its slumber was never long. It moved relentlessly, as if mechanical. It was, however, no engine of steel, but a man.

More accurately, it had once been a man. . . .

Do ye know Tom Steele with his cap dark green

And his long-range bow and his blades honed keen?

Soft through the leaves he goes creeping unseen,

Hunting deer in the glades of an evening.

—
TRADITIONAL HUNTING SONG

The world, a sphere of metal and rock scarfed in water, turned.

Above the churning vapors of the troposphere, stars appeared to glide across the heavens from east to west; from High Darioneth, across the Snowy River to the western shores of Tir. There, in Grïmnørsland, a hunting lodge perched on a stark crag, looking out over the ocean. Surf pounded the cliffs and a blood-biting wind howled in from the sea, smacking of brine. Around this building the landscape ramped into the stormy distance; gaunt and wild, rugged, roaring with cataracts, roofed by racing clouds in full sail, battered by salt winds, lapped by mists. This was a realm of black rock, grey sky, and silver water, where dark green conifers, rank on rank, stalked up mountainsides to pierce steaming skies.

The hunting lodge belonged to the King of Grïmnørsland, Thorgild Torkilsalven. From here, on the twenty-first of Mai, five princes set out:
Halvdan and Gunnlaug, the second and third-born sons of Thorgild; Kieran and Ronin Ó Maoldúin, the eldest sons of Uabhar of Slievmordhu, and Walter Wyverstone, younger brother to Crown Prince William of Narngalis. Thorgild had invited the royal scions of his neighboring kingdoms to be his guests in Grïmnørsland, where they might participate in games and divertissements, celebrating the season and reconfirming the bonds of solidarity between the realms. The monarch himself remained with his queen, their eldest son Hrosskel and their daughter Solveig at Trøndelheim, attending to matters of state, while the rest diverted themselves with blood-sports.

Low in the sky rode the evening sun, drifting on a band of persimmon cloud. The five princes, accompanied by their retainers, moved on foot through harsh terrain, clambering up the sides of dim vales and following narrow tracks through forests of spruce, pine, birch, and larch that soared out of shadow. The topmost tapered tips caught the last bright gleams of sunlight so that they glistened like miniature trees dusted with gold. Against the glimmer of sunset the black silhouettes of wind-gnarled branches wove elegant patterns. Falcons with outstretched wings hovered over sharp-toothed crags; Steinfjell, Isfjell and Galdh0piggen, Sterkfjell and Skagastolstindane; heights with towering, majestic names.

“It is a fact,” Prince Gunnlaug Torkilsalven was instructing Walter of Narngalis, “that some archers conceal themselves in thickets to ambush whitetail deer, or crouch behind woven blinds near lakes and streams to waylay roe deer as they come down to drink. The second approach is never successful after rain. Game will not visit watering places when there are small puddles to drink from. Therefore, the truly versatile huntsman must perfect the art of stalking on foot.”

Walter nodded brusquely, his lips compressed in a thin line. He found it insulting to be lectured on a topic he understood well, but was too courteous to protest.

“Hounds would have been useful, of course,” continued Gunnlaug, “yet a man must learn to hunt without hounds, in case he ever finds himself alone in the wilderness.”

Gunnlaug of Grïmnørsland was a brawny youth, somewhat shorter in stature than his elder brother Halvdan, who walked ahead. His features were coarse, his pockmarked skin reddened and roughened by much exposure to wind and sun. Like his sibling he was flaxen-haired and hazel-eyed. As he and the other huntsmen made their way in single file along a precipitous goat
track he was sweating copiously, and to Walter’s joy, after some time he began to lag behind.

“There’s a big-antlered beauty up there in Hoyfjell’s crags, thinking he’s too clever for me,” Gunnlaug called out, wheezing slightly. “But I shall nail him. He shall be no match for Gunnlaug Torkilsalven. I’ll put him down for good and get a fine trophy this evening.”

“Make speed, Gunnlaug,” his brother Halvdan called back over his shoulder.

“There is no need to scuttle forward like a frightened pig,” panted Gunnlaug. “We have plenty of time. The sun is yet a thumb’s breadth from the horizon.”

“If you had not swallowed so much beer last night you might find it easier to keep up,” said Halvdan, but he said it in an undertone. His younger brother was easily provoked to wrath, and his inevitable outburst of rage would spoil the atmosphere of comradeship. Gunnlaug, perhaps guessing Halvdan’s thoughts, turned his head and spat upon the ground in a gesture that might have been either a cleansing of the palate or contempt. He flicked sweat-drenched strands of blond hair from his eyes.

The huntsmen leapt from rock to rock and scrambled down scree slopes.

“We have timed our excursion well,” said Conall Gearnach, mentor to the princes of Slievmordhu. “If we keep the sun behind us we can use the low light to our advantage. It will dazzle the eyes of our prey.” Gearnach, a doughty warrior who had weathered about forty Winters, was commander-in-chief of Slievmordhu’s crack corps, the Knights of the Brand. Having earned himself a formidable reputation as a fighting man, he had risen to the position of one of King Uabhar’s most highly respected knights. His nickname was “Two-Swords Gearnach,” for he was as well able to use his left hand as his right, and he had taught himself to wield two blades simultaneously, making him an opponent to be reckoned with.

Although Conall Gearnach was liegeman to the King of Slievmordhu, and performed the duties of guide and counselor to his sons, he was well acquainted with the princes of Grïmnørsland also. King Uabhar’s eldest son Kieran had spent two years of his boyhood dwelling in the household of King Thorgild. The young prince had been under the auspices of Gearnach, who in those days held the second highest office of the Knights of the Brand: that of captain-general. During that period Kieran had formed a fast friendship with Halvdan, second son of Thorgild. By chance, the two had been born on the same day, and they were like-minded in a great many ways: both
enjoyed shooting at targets, and wrestling, and balladeering, and fishing in the deep fjords of the west coast. Both were young men of fearless honesty, who loved duty and honor as much as they loved good fellowship. Kieran Ó Maoldúin, a youth of considerable height, possessed a mane of dark brown hair that flowed down upon powerful shoulders. In looks he took after his mother; his nose was straight and thin, and his oval countenance sharp-lined with the clean contours of late adolescence. Tall and blond was Halvdan Torkilsalven, with a muscular torso; a physical match for Kieran. When the two wrestled, the outcome could never be predicted.

“Continue to keep watch for unseelie wights,” Gearnach reminded the equipment-laden retainers as the party crossed the vacillating suspension bridge over the gorge of the great river Fiskflød. Far below, the torrent was gushing rapidly; droplets sprayed up like fans of threaded sequins as the water smashed against rocks in midstream and swirled around snags, gurgling and rumbling. Clinging onto the hand-ropes to keep their balance, the huntsmen eventually reached the other side of the chasm. There, on the grassy flank of an outflung spur of Hoyfjell, grew the stands of ancient spruce trees for which they had set their course. For a few moments the party halted beneath the needlelike foliage and swigged a draught from their water-bottles. The bearers and equerries handed to three of the huntsmen their arrow-packed quivers and tautly strung hunting-bows. Princes Halvdan and Kieran had carried their own gear, as had Gearnach.