Snow-Walker (7 page)

She kicked hard; the horse burst through the edge of the wood, leaped a black stream hanging rigid on its stones, and began to flounder up the white sides of the fell. The sky crackled and spat light; her horse was green, then gold, then scarlet. Behind her Thorkil galloped, coat flapping, his face shimmering with colors. Up and up through the deep snow, kicking the horse, urging it, swearing at it, and then, at last, the top!

She came over the lip of the white hill through the stars and an arch of flame. A great wind roared in her ears; the horse stood, snorting clouds of breath.

“Go on!” Thorkil was yelling. “Don't stop now!” His own horse fought and floundered up the slope.

But Jessa did not move. She sat, looking ahead, her hair whipping out in the gale.

“There's nowhere left to go,” she called grimly.

Beside her, he gazed breathlessly down into the valley.

At Thrasirshall.

It was huge even from here: a mass of black, broken towers hung with ice. The aurora flickered silently over it, tingeing glassy walls, dark window slits. A thin moon balanced on the hills behind, its light piercing the shattered roofs, stretching the hall's long shadow over the blue unbroken snow.

No smoke rose from the roofs; no animals lowed in the byres. It was a silent ruin.

Jessa heard Helgi's horse snort behind her, and then the other three came to a slow, doubtful stop. She didn't move, or care. All the danger from behind had gone. It had been sucked down into that black, glittering ruin below them.

After a long silence Thorkil said, “It's empty. There are no lights, no tracks in the snow. They must be dead long since.”

“Maybe.” Helgi turned his head, the colors of Surt's blaze flickering on his face. “Well?” he said quietly.

The three men were staring at the hall, their horses fidgeting uneasily. Then Steinar sheathed his sword with a snap. He glanced at the others; Thrand shrugged.

“We should keep together.” They seemed to have lost all will; Jessa saw how their eyes kept straying to the tower.

“Nothing will be said?”

“Nothing.” Helgi's voice was rich with contempt. Without another word he turned his horse and moved forward. The howl of a wolf broke out in the wood behind them; then another answered, not so far away. The horses flicked their ears nervously.

The riders moved together in a tight knot, down the long white slope of the hill. No one spoke. Behind them the pack mule floundered, its rope slack.

As they came down to the ruin, they could hear the wind moaning through the broken walls. The snow down here had drifted into great banks; they pushed cautiously through it, into the shadow of the walls. At the first archway, its keystone hanging dangerously low, they halted.

“Torches,” Thrand muttered. “The more light the better.”

Helgi nodded. The gaunt stones behind him were coated in ice; frozen in smooth lumps and layers. Nothing moved.

They had brought torches of pitch from the boat. It took an age to make flame, but then the soaked wood flared and crackled, making the horses start in the acrid smoke. “Two will be enough,” Helgi said, bending and picking one up. “I'll go first. You, Steinar, at the back. Take the other light with you.”

They moved through the arch. Its gates were long gone, rotted to one black post that stuck out of the snow like a burned finger. Torchlight gleamed on frozen stone, on shapeless masses of ice that might once have been carvings. As they came to the inner gate they saw it was blocked; a row of long smooth icicles of enormous thickness hung down to the ground. Helgi and Thrand had to dismount and hack at them with sword and flame; each snapped with a great crack that rang in the ruins.

One by one the horses squeezed through. Now they found themselves in a courtyard, a great square of white. Winds and breezes moaned in the outbuildings, sounding like voices, creaking a timber door somewhere out of sight, gusting snow from the sills of windows in the hall. The silence held them still; the silence and the emptiness. Kari is dead, Jessa thought. Whatever he was.

Helgi turned. “There's a door there, look. We might be able to get inside.”

He dismounted and waded over, knee-deep in snow. As he held the torch up, the flames lit the door. It was made of ancient wood, studded with nails, and had once been repaired with planks hammered over the weak places, but even these were now green with rot. Helgi kicked it; it shuddered but held. In the darkening air they waited, stiff with fear, but there was no sound or stir from within.

Helgi drew his knife. At the same time, something black screeched from the sky. Helgi yelled with fright and dropped the torch; the horses reared and plunged. In sudden blackness dim shadows flapped overhead.

Jessa shrieked. Someone caught her arm.

“Quiet! Helgi?”

Steinar had pushed forward, torch in hand. In the red light they saw Helgi scramble from his knees, his face white. “I'm all right.”

“What was it?”

He looked up. “Birds. Two of them.”

They were perched on the sill above him; the two ravens from the wood. Their eyes followed every movement.

Steinar gripped the thorshammer at his neck. “This is a place of sorcery, or worse. Let's get out, man. While we can!”

But Helgi snatched the torch from his hand and turned, holding it up. Then he stopped, stock-still.

Jessa's fingers clenched on the frozen reins.

Before them, the door was opening.

It was tugged open, jerking and grating against the stones as if the wood was swollen.

Firelight streamed out, as if a slot had opened in a dark lantern. It fell on their faces, glinted in the horses' eyes. A scatter of snow falling through it turned red as blood.

A man stood there. He was a giant; his head reached the lintel of the door, and though he was wrapped in furs and patched cloaks, they saw his strength. His face was flushed with the fire's heat; his beard and hair dark red, cut close.

Helgi gripped his knife, looking suddenly small and pale on the cold steps. The big man gave him a glance, then pushed him aside and shouldered his way down among the horses. He went straight to Jessa. She could feel the warmth of the fire glowing from him as he gripped her horse's mane.

“You're late, Jessa,” he said. “A good soup is almost spoiled.”

The chair was too big for her, and had once been covered with some embroidery; the firelight glimmered on a patch of trees and a threadbare reindeer. She snuggled back and sipped the soup. It was so hot it scorched her tongue.

They were in a small room, very dark. There was another ragged chair, a table, and in a corner some empty shelves, their shadows jerking in the firelight. By the hearth a stack of cut logs oozed dampness. The window was boarded up, and some torn shreds of green cloth were nailed across it to keep out drafts.

Jessa's knees were hot; she edged back. Her coat was dripping into a puddle on the floor.

On the table lay two fishing spears and a knife, thrust deep into the timber. Thorkil was trying to pull it out, but couldn't.

“That's another thing,” he said, tapping the empty platter. “Enough food for six. Everything prepared. How did he know?”

She shook her head.

Outside, voices approached; the door shuddered open. The big man, Brochael, came in, and Helgi trailed behind him, glancing quickly into the shadows. They had all done that. No one forgot that the creature was here, somewhere.

“We're going, Jessa,” Helgi said quickly.

She stared at him. “Tonight?”

He shrugged unhappily. “You've seen. They won't stay here. To be frank, neither will I. There's too much strangeness in this place.” She nodded, wordless.

“I'm just sorry to have to leave you both here.”

“Don't be.” Brochael planted himself in front of the blaze. “They'll be safer here than in any hold of Gudrun's.”

Helgi gave her a wan smile and went to the door. Suddenly Jessa wanted to go with him; she leaped up, spilling the soup, but he caught her eye and she stopped.

“Good luck,” he said. Then he went and closed the door.

In the sudden silence they heard the clink of harness, the muffled scrape of a hoof in snow. After that there was only the wind, howling over the sills and under the doors into all the empty rooms and spaces of the hall.

Brochael sat down. He cleared the table with one sweep of his arm, tugged out the knife and thrust it in his belt, and leaned both elbows on the bare wood. “Now. I already know your names and I'm sure you can guess mine. I am Brochael Gunnarsson, of Hartfell. I knew your fathers, a long time ago. I also know that Ragnar has sent you here into exile.”

“How do you know?” Jessa demanded. “How could you?”

Brochael took down a candle and lit it. “I was told,” he said. There was something in his voice that puzzled her, but she was too tired to think about it now.

She took the letter out of her inner pocket and held it out.

“Were you told about this?”

He took it, looked at her a moment, then put the candle down and tugged open the knots that held the sealskin. A square of parchment fell out; he unfolded it on the table, spreading it flat with his big hands.

They all leaned over it. Spindly brown letters were marked on the rough vellum. Brochael fingered them. “It's brief enough.”

He read it aloud. “‘From Ragnar, Jarl, to Brochael Gunnarsson, this warning. When I die she will come for the creature. It may be to kill, or it may be for some reason of her own. Take him south, out of these lands. I would not have him suffer as I have suffered.'”

There was silence. Then Brochael folded the parchment. “Does he think I don't know?” he said roughly. He picked up the candle.

“Come with me,” he said. “All this gossip can wait until morning.”

He led them to a thick curtain in one corner and pulled it back. Beyond it was the usual sleeping booth—it was well paneled in wood, the blankets patched and coarse. “The other is next to it.” Brochael put the candle down. “Not the silks of the Jarlshold, but just as warm. Sleep well, for as long as you like. We'll talk tomorrow.”

“Where do you sleep?” Thorkil asked, looking at the damp blanket with obvious distaste.

“Elsewhere.” Suddenly the big man turned, his shadow huge in the flame light. “The door will be locked—don't let that alarm you. If you hear anything—voices, movements—far off in the building, ignore it. You are safe here. No one can get in.”

There was a cold silence.

“Good night,” Brochael said calmly.

The curtain rustled. A moment later the key grated in the lock. “Well,” Thorkil muttered after a moment. “It's almost as bad as I thought. Dust, fleas, rats.” He rubbed at the soiled red cloth of his jerkin and went off to find his own sleeping place.

Wearily Jessa lay down in her clothes and wrapped herself in the rough, damp-smelling blankets. “But I didn't expect Brochael,” she muttered quietly.

“What?”

There was no answer. When Thorkil came back and opened the curtain she was already asleep. He watched her for a moment, then reached out and snuffed the candle, and the flames in the eyes of the serpent on his wrist went out.

Jessa threw two crumbling squares of peat on the fire and chewed the stale bannock that seemed to be breakfast. She watched Thorkil stagger in with the empty bucket and drop it with a clang.

“That water froze as I threw it out.” He sat down and looked at her. “We didn't get many answers last night. No one could have got here before us, could they?”

She was thinking of the peddler. “I don't know. Who would?”

“And have you seen this?” He tapped the slab of goat's cheese they had found.

“Cheese,” Jessa said drily.

“Yes, but where did it come from? Where are the goats?”

That surprised her. She shook her head, thinking of the empty outbuildings and the untrodden snow. “Perhaps in some building at the back—”

“They'd freeze. And Kari. Where's he?”

Jessa swallowed some crumbs. “I don't want to know that.” She wiped her hand in her skirt. “Locked in some room, I suppose.”

A scrape interrupted them; the key turned and Brochael ducked in under the low doorway. He had snow in his hair. He grinned at them cheerfully. “Awake! Sleep well?”

“Yes, thank you.”

They watched him stand in front of the fire, his clothes steaming.

Thorkil glanced at Jessa. “Look,” he said. “Are we prisoners here? Can we go anywhere we want to?”

Brochael gave a gruff laugh. “We're all prisoners, lad, but I'm not your keeper, if that's what you mean. But there's not much to see here. Empty rooms and snow.”

He watched them for a moment, and they waited for some word of Kari, some warning of one door not to be opened, one corridor not to be explored. But all he said was “This was a palace once, centuries ago. They say a troll king built it of unhewn stone, and the great road that led up here too. Perhaps the world was warmer in those days.”

He turned and began banking up the fire. Jessa couldn't wait any longer. “What about Kari?”

“Kari's here,” he said, without turning. “But you won't see him.”

Afterward they put on coats and went outside. The sky was iron gray; a stiff wind cut into them down the side of the fell. On the white slope they could see the frozen tracks of Helgi's horses, climbing up into the fringe of trees. And all around, like a white jagged crown, were the mountains.

One courtyard at the back of the building had been swept clear of snow; in the center was a deep well, with faint steam rising from it. As they gazed down they felt warmth on their faces. Thorkil dropped a stone in. “A hot spring. Now that's useful.”

They tugged open doors and gazed into stables and barns and byres. Everything was held in a web of ice, glistening with a faint film of soot, as if the entire hold had once had its roofs burned. There were no animals, not even a trace of them, but in one storehouse they found a few casks of dried apples and nuts, some cheese, and two hares hanging next to a row of smoked fish. Thorkil looked up at them.