Snow-Walker (42 page)

On the third afternoon after the giant hall, the wood became such a tangled murk that they had to dismount and hack their way through, dragging the reluctant horses. The road, all that was left of it, was completely lost under leaf litter; the black gloom of the crowding, silent wood made them all uneasy. They felt they were deep in the forest, lost in it, that they would never come out. Far behind, a wolf howled, then another, nearer.

“That's all we need.” Hakon stumbled over a tree root and rubbed dirt wearily from his face. “Gods, I'm filthy. What I wouldn't give for a bed. And hot food. And wine!”

“Wine!” Jessa said scornfully. “A few months ago you'd never even tasted it!”

“It doesn't take long to get that hankering,” Skapti muttered. “Wine. Odin's holy drink.” He slashed a branch aside with his sword. “What do you say, gray man?”

Moongarm looked at him briefly. “Water is my drink.”

“Water's good enough,” Skapti observed. “For washing.”

Moongarm smiled narrowly. “As you say.” He looked into the trees on his right. “But I hear a stream nearby, and I'm thirsty.”

He shoved his body into the mass of leaves and almost disappeared; after a moment Kari led his horse in after him.

“We'll catch you up,” he said.

The others struggled on, deeper into the wood. “Aren't you going to stay and watch him?” Jessa teased.

Brochael frowned at her. “Kari can look after himself. And besides—”

A twig cracked, sharp, to his left.

He spun around.

A flurry of men in green, a sudden, bewildering ambush, were leaping and falling from trees and rocks, swift as thought. Hakon crashed down; Skapti yelled a warning. Already Brochael was struggling with two of them; another grabbed Jessa from behind. She screamed; the horse reared and as the man glanced up at it she saw his face, hungry, mud-smeared, leering. She drew her knife and struck without a thought, slashing his arm, the blood welling instantly.

Brochael was up, swinging his ax; there was a wary space around him. As she turned she saw something flicker at his back; her eyes widened with fear.

“Behind you!”

But the arrow, swifter than words, was in him. He slammed back against a tree, crumpled up, and lay still.

“Brochael!”

Kari's voice was a scream of anguish.

He ran from the trees; already the archer was fitting another arrow. Jessa yelled at him, wild, desperate. She saw Kari kneel, his face white and cold, and then he turned and struck—she almost saw it, that savage, flung bolt of power.

The archer crumpled with a scream. Facedown in the mud he smacked, and the searing crackle of that death rang in the wood.

For one shocked instant the attackers were still; then they were gone, as if the trees had absorbed them.

It had been so quick. Jessa was dizzy with the speed of it.

Skapti picked himself up and hobbled to Brochael, turning him gently.

“Is he dead?”

“No, Jessa. Your shout warned him enough. It's the shoulder. But it'll have to come out.” Working quickly, Skapti staunched the blood.

She glanced at Kari. He was white, his hands knotted together.

Moongarm bent over the outlaw. He glanced up at Kari with a strange fear on his face. “Well, this one is.”

The Snow-walker looked over at Moongarm, at first as if he barely understood. Then he went and stared down at the man and rubbed his hand over his forehead.

“I didn't mean this.”

“It looked final enough to me.”

Kari gave Moongarm a fierce look and went back to Brochael.

“Can't you keep quiet?” Hakon muttered.

Moongarm shrugged.

“Get the horses,” Skapti said over his shoulder. “We can't stay here. They may come back.”

“I doubt it,” Moongarm said.

“So do I!” the skald yelled at him, suddenly furious. “But I'm taking no chances! Get Brochael on my horse. Quickly!”

They rode warily, hurriedly, deeper into the tangled wood. Hakon was in front and Moongarm watched their backs, sword drawn. Jessa kept near Kari, who was silent. So was she. She hardly knew what to say.

When they found a defensible cleft in some rocks, they eased Brochael down, Skapti and Hakon taking his weight. They lit a fire, and the skald worked on the wound, probing it with his fingers and a thin knife, muttering to himself.

Kari watched bleakly, and when it was over and Brochael slept, he went and sat against a tree trunk. The ravens hunched unnoticed at his feet.

Jessa went and sat with him. “He's strong. He'll be all right,” she said.

He nodded.

“You had to do it,” she went on awkwardly.

“I killed him, I wanted him dead.”

“Easy to understand.”

He gave her a glance that chilled her. “Yes. Many people feel that. But I can do it, just by a thought. I let myself do it.”

He was shaking with shock and misery. She put her arm around him and they sat there for a while, watching Skapti build up the fire.

“Hakon will be jealous,” Kari said at last.

Jessa stared in surprise. “Will he?”

He almost smiled. Then he said, “When Brochael went down like that, Jessa, I felt as if it was me, as if it had struck me, right through the heart.”

She nodded. She knew that already.

Later, when Kari was asleep, she said to Skapti, “Who were they, do you think?”

He shrugged. “Outlaws. Kinless men.”

She looked at Brochael, restless and flushed in the fire's heat. “He will be all right?”

The skald ran a thumb down his stubbly chin. “I'm no expert, Jessa. I'd say so, if we can keep the wound clean. He's a strong man. But we need a place to rest up, and I don't know if it's safe enough here.”

“I can make sure of that.” Moongarm squatted beside them in the dimness. “I'll go and prowl around. Make sure we've not been followed.”

Skapti shook his lank hair. “It's too dangerous. We can't afford to lose you too.”

“So you need me now?”

“We need everyone”—Skapti stared at him levelly—“if we're all going to get out of here alive.”

“I'll be safe enough. No one will see me.”

He turned away into the shadows; Skapti muttered, “Fool.”

He started to get up, but Jessa put her hand on his. “Let him go.”

He looked at her.

“Let him go. I think he knows what he's doing. I think he knows this wood better than we do.”

They stayed in the clearing by the rocks for a day and a night. Moongarm came back soon after daylight, saying he had searched the forest around the camp as far as he could; there were no signs of the outlaws. The body they had left behind still lay there.

“Let the wolves have it,” Hakon muttered.

Moongarm gave him a searching look. “They already have.”

Brochael slept for a few hours, then ate the food Kari brought him. He was cheerful and joked about the pain. Skapti had told him what had happened, but he said nothing until Kari did.

“Death comes to us all. That's fate.”

“Not his death. It wasn't a fair fight.”

Brochael snorted. “You think it would have been, if you'd fought him with a sword?”

“It wouldn't have been fair to you then,” Jessa said.

Kari glanced at her irritably. “Thank you for reminding me.”

“We use one another's strengths,” Brochael said. “A sword for some of us. Jessa has her brains, Skapti his lore.”

“And I have sorcery.”

“Many would envy you,” Brochael said quietly.

“Not if they knew.”

On the second day, they left, traveling slowly. Brochael did not complain, though Jessa guessed the wound must be hurting him. But he laughed at her sympathy.

“Don't worry about me, little valkyrie. I've had a hard life.”

By midday the trees had begun to thin; finally Skapti pushed through a thicket and stopped. His voice came back to them strangely unmuffled.

“Look at this!”

Jessa broke through the cover quickly, and grinned as the cold clear air struck her face and lifted her hair; behind her Hakon gave a whoop of delight.

At last the forest had ended. They were on a high fellside, and below them spread a new country of lakes and open slopes, white with untrodden snow. Mountains rose to the north and east, huge and astonishingly near, their tips scarlet with the smoldering sunset.

Brochael and Kari emerged behind them, leaves in their hair. Kari looked tired and Brochael gruff-tempered, but their faces cleared at the sight of the wide, bare country.

“Thank the gods for that,” Brochael roared. “Another day of trees and I would have run mad!”

A flock of birds scattered at his shout.

“You're mad already,” Skapti said mildly. Then he whistled. “Have you seen what you're standing under?”

He reached into a hollybush and pushed branches aside carefully, and they saw that a great archway rose over them, almost completely masked by growth. The same strange runes ran around it, and on the top, glaring down at them between the red berries, was the stern, helmed face that had guarded the hall.

“Galar,” said Jessa. “I wonder if he's the one who's buried.”

“If it is, I'm glad he can't get up.” Hakon looked at Skapti. “This must mark the end of his land.”

“The end of the wood. The wood is his.”

“So where now?”

Brochael grimaced. “Down. Before night.”

But it was dark well before they reached the bottom of the steep, unstable slope, winding down on the broken path, between rocks and stunted trees to the silent land below. In the end Hakon's horse slipped suddenly and crashed heavily onto its knees. He fell clear, but the horse did not get up. It struggled bitterly, but the foreleg was broken, everyone could see.

“It's finished,” Brochael said grimly. “Get your pack off it, Hakon.”

When his gear was off, Hakon loaded it onto the pack beast; they led the other horses carefully down the rest of the ravine.

Brochael stayed behind.

When he came down into the camp they had made, some time later, the long knife he wore had been scrupulously cleaned. He carried a sack under his arm.

Stiff and sore, he sat down. “No spare horses now.” Jessa gave him some smoked fish; he chewed it thoughtfully. “At least we've got some fresh meat. Tomorrow, we'll cook it. You, Moongarm…”

He looked around quickly. “Where is he?”

The man's pack was there, but there was no sign of him.

“Now where's he lurking?” Brochael growled. “I don't trust him. Not even when I can see him.”

“The birds are with him,” Kari said quietly. “He won't be far.”

Later, deep in the night, Jessa rolled over and saw Moongarm come into camp and talk to Skapti quietly. The gray man looked sleek somehow. He refused any food and lay down, on his own as usual.

Jessa caught Skapti's eye and lifted her eyebrows. The skald shrugged.

Not far off she could hear wolves snarling and fighting over the carcass of the horse, where it lay under the stars.

The village was floating on the water.

That was Jessa's first thought as she gazed down at it from the deep snow of the hillside. Then she realized it was built on an island, or on some ingenious structure of high poles out there in the misty lake. A narrow wooden causeway linked it to the bank, built high over the marshlands, leading to a gate, firmly shut. A tall palisade guarded the village from attack. From one or two of the houses smoke drifted into the purple sky, up into the veils of aurora that flickered like ghost light over the brilliant stars.

It looked safe, snug behind its defenses.

And very quiet.

Brochael shifted, pulling the stiff, frosted scarf from his mouth. “Well?” he said gruffly.

They had been four days now living off horsemeat and herbage and melted snow. The horses limped with the cold; their riders ached with weariness and hunger. Each of them knew the settlement was a godsend.

Only Moongarm seemed uneasy.

“Are you coming with us?” Brochael glared at him sourly. “You don't have to.”

The gray man turned his strange amber eyes on him. “You know how much you'd miss me, Brochael. Don't worry, I'll come.”

“You would!” Brochael scowled.

As they picked their way down, Jessa wriggled her toes with relief. She was starving, and stiff with cold. Hakon grinned at her. There was no doubt what he thought.

Snow fell silently about them, small hard flakes that rolled from hair and shoulders and melted slowly, soaking through cloth. It fell on the dark lake water and glittered, the northern lights catching the brief scatter of crystal. On the hillside it lay thick, banked in great drifts, and the horses' hooves drove deep holes into it, compacting it to ice with careful, crunching steps.

Long before they reached the marsh they were challenged. A question rang out; Brochael stopped them at once, very still.

“Travelers!” he roared, his voice ringing in the hard frost. “Looking for a welcome.”

There was silence. An aurora whispered overhead.

Then two figures stepped out of the darkness, well muffled, with flat snowshoes strapped under their feet. One carried a long glinting spear; the other, whose eyes alone were visible in the wrappings about his face, had a peculiar weapon—a wand of wood, studded with quartz and crystals and tiny silver bells that tinkled in the cold.

They looked up warily at the travelers.

The man with the wand had bright, sharp eyes. He raised his hand.

“We give our hospitality to anyone, strangers, but especially at this time. Tomorrow is a great feast day for us, so you've come at a good time.”