Bloodmind (35 page)

With these dismal thoughts at the forefront of my mind, I helped the others set up a rudimentary camp. Glyn Apt was to take first watch, while Eld and I slept huddled against the side of the
sled. Cold, discomfort and fear had served to exhaust me; I drifted off almost at once, watching the arctic lights. After what seemed like a few moments, but which turned out to have been a couple
of hours, I was awoken by Eld.

‘What is it?’ I was immediately awake, nerves jangling.

‘Glyn Apt’s disappeared.’

Cursing, I got to my feet. ‘You mean we’ve been sleeping unprotected?’

‘I don’t know about you,’ Eld said, ‘but I’m not unprotected even
when
I’m asleep.’ Then he evidently thought better of the vitki sparring.
‘Although with Madam Skadi, that seems largely irrelevant.’

‘First Sedra and now Glyn Apt.’

‘Glyn Apt might have gone off after her. I don’t think the commander has much of a team spirit where non-Morrighanu are concerned.’

‘Either way, she’s likely to be dead,’ I said. Eld gave me a close look.

‘I know how you feel about Skadi. Believe me, I share it. But it’s a weakness, Vali, and that’s how she works. You’ve killed your enemies. You’re still
here.’

‘Maybe so.’ But I felt barely alive, in this freezing northern midnight. She had done her work, the mind’s knife being the sharpest one of all.

We scouted around the camp and found traces. Glyn Apt’s bootheel prints were rammed into the thin snow, marching with determination northward towards Therm. It looked as though Eld had
been right, that the Morrighanu commander had decided to make the kill her own. Or sacrifice herself to save us? If she’d been Skald, or ourselves Morrighanu, I might even have considered it
as a possibility.

After a brief consultation, Eld and I thought we’d be better off without the sled. We set off in Glyn Apt’s tracks. It occurred to both of us that it might be a trap – Skinning
Knife wearing someone else’s boots – but the depth of the prints suggested someone of Glyn Apt’s height and weight to me. Maybe that didn’t mean as much as it might
otherwise have done, but either way, the tracks could lead to Skadi and I found that I was anxious, now, for confrontation.

Of course my niece was angry when she woke to find herself up in the heights of Therm, in one of the lesser caves. She spat at me in chilly fury and I could see the
bloodmind coming over her. Feir indeed, but I told her coldly that it was her first lesson.

‘Kill me, then,’ I said. ‘Do you think I’m afraid? Then there’ll be no one to teach you. Go to Mondhile alone and see how they treat you there. On our world, your
kind are commonplace as insects and as easily swatted.’

She stood uncertainly in front of me and I saw the bloodmind start to ebb. She had more control over it than I’d thought and that was impressive.

‘There’s not just death,’ she explained. ‘There’s pain.’

I had to laugh. ‘I’m sure you’re an expert. But do you really think I don’t have control over my own death?’ It wasn’t true, but I couldn’t let her know
that. I stood to face her and let my lips draw back from my teeth. ‘Do what you wish. Or choose to learn.’

She did not apologize, nor was I expecting her to, but she inclined her head and stepped back. ‘Very well,’ she said and her voice was a little more submissive. ‘What do you
choose to teach?’

‘Survival, among other things. Endurance. You have these qualities already. What you do not have is patience.’

‘They say patience is its own reward.’

‘
Im
patience has got you noticed.’

That arrow struck home. She grimaced. ‘That’s true enough.’

I touched her shoulder and she did not flinch or draw away. A wild thing, I thought, nothing more than that. But the people among whom she’d been living did not understand. They were wild
themselves, but they’d learned to hide it under masks and patches.

‘But impatience,’ I said, softly, ‘will not necessarily get you killed.’

Now that I’d got her away from her hunters, however, I was becoming aware that I’d let myself in for a substantial problem. We could not stay
here. They would kill Skadi and maybe they were right to do so. Even settlements on Mondhile often slew people, when it was clear that they were feir and not mehed, who merely wanted to wander the
world, without killing. Yet on Mondhile, at least, she would have some kind of place. But that meant we had to get there. And in order to do so, we’d need a flying vehicle. My niece could
pilot one, maybe, but first we’d have to steal it. Problems were piling upon problems. I voiced these thoughts to her.

Her eyes sparked. ‘I should like to see Mondhile. Nhema – a world of shit. Here – no place for me, though for a while I thought it was. When I learned of Mondhile, it sounded like a
place of peasants and mad people.’ She said this with no trace of irony. ‘But then I met you.’ She laid her hand on my hand for a moment and it was oddly affecting.
‘We’ll go south.’ She was as excited as a girl newly returned from the world and I suppose I could not blame her. Her face shone. ‘We’ll steal a ship; it will be easy
enough. They’re all distracted by the war. We’ll go to
our
world.’ And I think it was only then that I realized how greatly she wanted to belong.

She slept after that. I think she was more tired than she cared to admit, for it was the sort of sleep that an animal sleeps: the sudden oblivion that follows furious activity. I watched her, as
I had watched my sister while she slept in the hollows under the sky, or the burrows under the earth. I saw in her the woman that my sister had been and then the grief burst in me like a black
bubble for that stolen girl, caged and used.

If Skadi’s hunters came after us, I did not want to see them dead. But they were not my blood; my niece was. If they had to go, then I would see to it. And then we would go south.

Skadi had been sleeping for around an hour when I heard the noise. It was stealthy and small, the kind of sound that an animal makes when it hopes not to be overheard. As quietly as I could, I
got to my feet and slipped outside.

It was still dark, but at these latitudes, that made little enough difference, and the moon was up. The cave lay behind a high pinnacle of rock. From most angles, it was well concealed: if I had
not been expecting to find caverns, and if I hadn’t been used to sounding out terrain, I might not have spotted it. Whoever now stood behind the pinnacle was looking for something, with
deliberate, measured movements. Human, I was prepared to bet, and not animal.

I sent out hunting sense and someone was there to meet it. I felt as though I’d been slammed into a wall of ice. Breathless, I withdrew, but the person who stood there had recognized me
and I knew them, too. The Morrighanu commander, Glyn Apt.

‘Sedra!’ Her voice had that whipcrack command but it didn’t work on me. But next moment I realized she hadn’t spoken out loud. It was the sense of my name that
she’d transmitted, not the word itself.

I liked Glyn Apt well enough. I didn’t want to see her dead. But nor did I want to fight my niece over her and if Skadi woke, that would be the end of the Morrighanu woman. I stepped out
from behind the rock and tried to look frail and old and afraid. I clutched at Glyn Apt and she steadied me by the shoulders.

‘Where is she?’
So Glyn Apt was not able to sense Skadi, then.

‘I don’t know,’ I quavered. ‘She . . . she took one of the sleds. She strapped me to it. I don’t know what she had planned for me.’

‘But you got away?’

‘I chewed through the bonds. All she bound me with was a leather strap. Maybe she thought she wouldn’t need anything else.’ I wrapped my arms around myself, shivering. Must be careful not to overdo it, though. ‘Commander, I am sorry. She took me by surprise.’

Glyn Apt gave a curt nod of the head. ‘You’re not to blame. We need to get you out of here.’

‘Where are the others? Are they with you?’

‘No. I chose to go my own way. I got tired of encumbrances. I followed the sled tracks to the foot of the glacier, then came up here. If your niece is not here, I will take you back down
and then return.’

I looked at her and saw the arrogance in her, so deep that it was almost buried. But I knew what that was like; I’d been that way myself, when I was younger. It’s a road to death, so
much of the time. ‘You go first,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure of my footing on this ice. I’ll follow where you tread.’ A flicker of the hunting sense: Skadi was still
asleep. I caught the twitch and quiver of a bloody dream.

The Morrighanu should not have turned her back on me, but it would have made little difference. As we began to descend, I called up the dream of snow, sending the first soft flakes to touch Glyn
Apt’s face. She looked up, puzzled, at the clear sky, and I conjured blizzard, sending it whirling out of the starry night. Glyn Apt stumbled, throwing an arm in front of her face.

‘Sedra!’ she called. ‘This – it’s come out of nowhere! We have to find shelter.’

‘You go on,’ I replied. ‘Don’t wait for me!’

The Morrighanu turned. ‘I can’t even see you!’

But then I saw what she had not. We were standing on a path of ice that wound down the glacier. The edge of this geographical track was close, dropping several times the height of a man. To me,
it was clear enough, but Glyn Apt, believing in the blizzard, could not see it.

‘Wait!’ I shouted. ‘Stay there!’ But it was too late. The Morrighanu took a flailing step from the path, and fell.

I rushed to the edge of the drop. Glyn Apt was already far down the slope, tumbling over and over. When she reached the bottom, she lay still. I sent out hunting sense and found that she was
still alive, but unconscious. She would not remain alive for long, in this cold, and I had no way of reaching her. I had intended only to distract her, not cause her death, but there was nothing to
be done. Cursing, I left her lying there in the cold light and made my way back to the cave.

Eld and I only found her because of the white bird. It plummeted towards us out of the greying sky and landed on Eld’s shoulder. I thought I heard it whispering, and
then it was gone.

‘Automatic distress signal,’ Eld said, grim-faced.

‘From Glyn Apt?’

‘Yes. I don’t know what’s wrong. It’s given me her location.’ He held out a hand and tossed an invisible
something
into the sky. Moments later, a raven
materialized and flapped slowly off to the north-west. Using the sled, we followed, for though it was still the glowing arctic dark, the raven itself seemed to gleam and Eld told me that this was a
function of its climatic regulators. I turned inward, to find the white bird in my own head, that little stolen snippet of Morrighanu tech, wakeful and watching.

We reached Glyn Apt after about an hour. She lay in a fold of snow at the bottom of a ridge. At first I thought she was dead, for when we gently rolled her over, her eyes were open and staring.
The data stream was still except for a single trickle of numbers, and when I put a hand close to her mouth, I felt no stirring of breath.

‘She’s gone, Eld,’ I whispered, but he shook his head.

‘There’s no sign of vital damage. A fractured shin and wrist . . . a lot of bruising. Probably concussion. But she’s still alive.’ Wings flickered and I got the image of a
heart, beating slow, slow, as if frozen. ‘She’s put herself into stasis.’

‘The Morrighanu can do that?’

‘Can’t the Skald?’

‘Sometimes. But it’s a rare ability.’

Eld shrugged. ‘It’s useful. Morrighanu often meet with accidents.’

‘How long will she stay like this?’

‘As long as she needs to. Months, if necessary. Or so they like to boast. I suspect it’s more a matter of weeks, or even days. And she’ll need to be brought round by someone
else: she can’t bring herself out of it.’

‘So what are we going to do with her?’

‘Put her on the sled. Send her to the edge of the ice. It’s a clear run.’ For a moment I thought he was advocating that we send Glyn Apt to her death in truth, but then he
added, ‘I’ll ask the raven to reprogramme her bird. It’ll take itself back to the warship. They won’t be able to land but they can send a copter with someone on the end of a
line.’

‘All right,’ I said. It didn’t seem right to leave her here and if something happened to Eld and myself, at least Glyn Apt would be in a more accessible location.

We strapped her with care onto the sled and Eld sent the co-ordinates. The sled moved away and I watched it go: a strange sight, seeing that long narrow form hiss away into the arctic dark with
the Morrighanu’s shrouded body on it. It reminded me of a funeral barge, gliding through the frozen waste. A light morning mist was creeping over the ice and soon the sled was lost to view. As soon as it had vanished, I turned to
Eld.

‘I’m not going back. First Idhunn, then Sedra, now Glyn Apt.’ The names were like a rosary, beads on a killing chain.

Eld just sounded weary. ‘She’s going to be difficult to take down. You know that.’

‘You said it yourself. All my enemies are dead.’

Eld gave a slight smile. All except myself.’

Are you my enemy then, Eld?’

‘Do you know,’ the vitki said, as if the thought had only just occurred to him – I was sure it had not. ‘I really don’t know.’

‘I’ll take that as reassurance.’ I’d only had two hours’ sleep but I was wide awake, and itching to get going. ‘She’s up there, Eld,’ I said. I
could see where Glyn Apt had rolled down the ridge, perhaps in an effort to get away. ‘She has to be.’

‘Well, then,’ he suggested, ‘let’s go.’

It was a hard climb, up over ice as smooth and sheer as glass, and ragged rocks. I was glad of the Morrighanu armour, feeling it rush and shiver across my skin in an effort to anticipate the
next move and protect me. Eld, despite being older and (I considered) less fit, stayed close behind. We used a gravitational axe and pitons to get up the ridge, moving cautiously as we drew close
to the summit. I did not want to find Skinning Knife’s booted heel stamping down on my fingers. But we crested the ridge without incident and found ourselves standing on a narrow ledge of
ice. It curved upwards, towards a thin, twisted spire like ice candy.