Winter Witch (23 page)

Chapter Twenty

The First Star

Declan did his best to comfort the wounded with the materials at hand. Most of his remaining spells were of no use, but with a few cantrips he began a small fire. Lacking better fuel, he used pages from his sketchbook for kindling and ignited Mareshka’s broken staff. He tried not to think about the sounds that had filled his head as he wrestled Mareshka for control of its magic. As soon as he touched the staff he had heard a hundred demonic voices and the whispers of a thousand damned souls; he tried not to think about how much one of them sounded like his mother. The broken staff burned for hours, providing much more heat than Declan would have expected from so little wood.

It was Jadrek who did the hard work. With his bare hands, he formed blocks of snow to build a barrier against the wind. Declan thought it the height of irony that the men, who had both fallen to seemingly inescapable death, had suffered the least harm.

After Skywing caught him with his gentle falling spell, Jadrek had drifted safely down to the ice on the edge of the lake. By the time he touched the cliff face to begin climbing, Declan plummeted down after him. They gaped at each other for a timeless moment before the spell Liv cast with her dying breath cradled Declan in the same gentle hand, lowering him to earth. Once he saw that Declan had also landed safely, Jadrek clambered up the precipice. Thankful that this, at least, was a contingency he’d prepared for, Declan cast a spell and used its magically imbued expertise to clamber up the cliff face as nimbly as a spider. He reached the top first, but by then it was all over.

He gasped with relief at the sight of Mareshka’s impaled corpse, but fell silent when he saw Liv’s sundered body. Declan flinched, realizing the witch’s elemental was nowhere in sight and could swoop down at any moment. When Skywing perched on his shoulder, gagging and coughing out clouds of ice particles, he knew the sprite would trouble them no further.

He spotted Olenka’s bloody figure just as Jadrek crested the cliff. The men ran toward her, but Jadrek reached her first. One look at him revived Olenka, and it took all of the big man’s strength to pry her arms from around his neck and force her to lie still while he bound her wounds.

Ellasif was less injured, at least physically. She moaned and banged her head against the ground next to Liv’s body. Declan left her alone for as long as he dared, but as dusk approached and the temperature dropped, he knelt beside her and spoke gently. Nothing he said made a bit of difference, and he winced at the sound of the same tired platitudes he had heard men and women utter every time a neighbor lost a family member. By the time he finally persuaded her to come to the foot of the hill for shelter, he could no longer recall which words had done the trick. Whatever they had been, they were more potent than any spell he knew.

When Ellasif closed her eyes to rest, Declan returned to the bodies. He stripped away Mareshka’s cloak and laid it tenderly over Liv’s body. After retrieving Ellasif’s sword, he tore the witch’s robes into strips and rolled them for bandages. He took her dagger and searched for any other useful belongings, then rolled her corpse to the cliff’s edge. He kicked it over the side, watching as it struck the ice once and then splashed into the dark water, where it sank into oblivion.

The uncanny fire sputtered and died shortly before dusk, which was both blessing and curse. It was good because the howls of winter wolves soon persuaded them that they were better off not risking the light, yet the night was brutally cold. Declan and Jadrek shivered as they covered the women’s bodies with their own. They moved often, changing places and turning their faces outward or inward when the cold became too much to bear on one side.

Long after dark, as Declan strove to prevent his teeth from chattering, Ellasif pulled him down and took his place, sheltering him with her warm body. She ignored his protests, and he had little enough strength to resist. Later, Olenka did the same with Jadrek, although she required Ellasif’s help to twist the big man’s ears painfully until he obeyed. They continued through the night, sheltering each other from the cold as long as their bodies could bear it.

They rose soon after the eastern sky began to pale. They had no food, and no one dared suggest slipping back into Whitethrone for supplies. Their only hope of survival was speed. Only after they returned to the Lands of the Linnorm Kings could they expect to forage with any success. Even Declan knew that fact, and he doubted they could reach them before he or one of the wounded women succumbed to the constant winter of Irrisen.

Declan drew one more map before they left the hill. On the side they had not yet reached, he sketched a good, deep grave. He and Jadrek carried Liv’s body around to place it inside, and no one was surprised to discover a grave where none had been. No one had looked over his shoulder as he drew. None of them needed to ask to know what the others were thinking or feeling. It was as if they could all communicate like Skywing.

After they said their silent goodbyes to Liv, Declan thumbed the grave shut by smearing it away on the parchment. The sunrise glared brightly over the grave, leaving only a glimmer of virgin snow. Ellasif had finished with her tears, as had Olenka, but Jadrek turned his face skyward, blinking. Declan felt waves of sorrow radiating off of Skywing, who wrapped his tail a little too snugly around Declan’s neck. Declan didn’t mind. The pressure soothed the lump that had formed in his throat.

They trudged westward at a modest speed, following Jadrek. Declan did not know whether the big man set a modest pace out of respect for the women’s injuries or Declan’s inferior endurance, but he was too drained to protest that he would keep up. Besides, the warriors of White Rook might be able to run for days at a time, but Declan would be lucky to last an hour on foot beside them.

Skywing launched himself from Declan’s shoulder. The sudden motion made Declan queasy, and the dizziness refused to pass. Instead, he began to see an image of Whitethrone as if from a high vantage. He paused and closed his eyes, thinking,
Skywing, what’s happening?

Sharing my sight with you
, said the little drake.

How?

Familiar
, said Skywing.

The revelation stole Declan’s breath. He had performed no ritual, never consciously called for a familiar. And he was pretty sure that most wizards couldn’t see through their familiars’ eyes anyway. How, then, was this possible?

A gift from your mother’s staff
, sent Skywing, as if that explained anything.

Skywing’s aerial scouting allowed them to avoid two Whitethrone patrols, one of them composed of a troll, two ogres, and a swarm of goblins large enough to raze a town. Each time, Declan warned the others to wait, describing what Skywing had seen. No one questioned that what he told them was true. All distrust had fallen from them.

Once they were out of sight of Whitethrone, Jadrek led the way in a wide arc, turning north, then east, and finally south into the heart of Irrisen. When they came all the way around to follow the edge of Glacier Lake to its easternmost point, they made another simple camp beside the water. Jadrek broke a hole in the ice and lowered a hook on a long line of catgut. He checked the line periodically, but even by the following morning, nothing had bitten.

So they continued, hiding when they heard the howl of winter wolves, turning away whenever they saw giant tracks in the snow, and always moving southwest, toward White Rook. Twice Jadrek proposed attacking small groups of patrols from Whitethrone, and Declan surrendered his sword to the big man, but ultimately they decided against risking a fight. Olenka’s wounds were mending, but she grew weaker by the day.

Twice Skywing knocked out snowy hares with his stinger, leading Declan to the sleeping bounty. After the drake had led him to the second hare, Declan began dreaming of flight. When he awoke on the fourth night, he was not sure at first whether he was a man or a dragon.

By the time they reached the western border, Declan could feel all his ribs, and he could see them on the others as he helped change the dressings on their wounds. They took an unusually long rest as Skywing flew a long patrol and flew it again to confirm what he had seen. A pair of huts on enormous chicken legs stood sentinel between them and the nearest green plains of the Lands of the Linnorm Kings. They spoke more that day than they had since facing the winter witch, but all toward deciding whether it was better to wait for night or else creep between the two guardian huts in daylight. Eventually they took the latter course, crouching low as they hurried through the scant cover provided by snow drifts.

Once they put the snows of Irrisen behind them, they fell upon the land like ravenous beasts. Skywing hunted and felled prey more quickly than Olenka could gather it. Declan filled his satchel with mushrooms, and Jadrek spent the rest of the afternoon dragging pike out of a stream. The greatest pleasure came when they lit a proper campfire with deadwood Ellasif had gathered. Even just a few miles away from the land of the winter witches, the night had become summer once more, and the heat of flames stirred something that had frozen deep inside their bodies.

They gorged their appetites and lingered for an hour after sunrise before continuing their journey. Still they walked in silence, and so they continued until they met the first patrol from White Rook. A pair of men revealed themselves from their hiding places among the trees. One unleashed a mighty cheer at the sight of Jadrek and Olenka, but sobered when he received only nods in acknowledgment. One of them ran ahead to alert the village, while the other accompanied them, chattering questions about what had happened to them. When none of the others would answer him, the man turned to Declan.

“Is it true you are a witch?” he asked.

Before Declan could answer, Olenka clouted the man on the back of the head. “There are no witches among us,” she said. He rubbed his skull and jutted his jaw ruefully as Olenka added, “There never were.”

The villagers welcomed their returning heroes, although Declan felt their eyes upon his back whenever he turned away. He used Skywing’s sight to watch them when they thought he wasn’t looking. He could not understand what they said in their own language, but whenever he was included in the conversation, his friends insisted on speaking the common tongue. He noticed Jadrek and Olenka speaking intently to several groups of their closest companions, sending them out to spread word throughout the village. When Declan asked what they were doing, Olenka told him, “We’re making sure you don’t fall into the river.” He did not need the details to understand her meaning.

If he were ever in peril from the villagers, Declan never felt it. The village girls were almost as solicitous as the young Varisian women had been, but he had neither the strength nor the inclination to return their flirtations. He accepted their gifts of food and sweet mead, but he did little to satisfy their requests for tales from the south. When they asked what had befallen them in Irrisen, he imitated Jadrek’s stony stare. That stopped the questions, but not the girls’ attentions. The idea that he might be dangerous appealed to them, as it did to foolish girls everywhere.

Olenka and Jadrek were also the focus of great attention from the young men and women, but each of them firmly rebuffed the advances. They seemed more quiet than they had when Declan first met them, and somehow much older.

Ellasif was spared this part of the homecoming, but Declan noticed she was often called away by old men and women to confer alone in a smoking hut near the village mead hall. Virtually all other activities seemed to take place out of doors, at least in these balmy summer days, so Declan supposed she was party to some grave consultation. He sent Skywing to eavesdrop from the roof, but it was no use. They spoke not a word of his language inside.

Outside, Declan eventually relaxed enough to enjoy the constant feasting and even engaged in trifling conversation. Along with the food and endless mead came offerings of clothing and weapons. Jadrek returned Declan’s sword when the village smith presented him with his best warhammer. The big man showed the first signs of returning cheer as he savagely demolished lengths of firewood to demonstrate the quality of his new weapon.

On the third night, the elders gathered around a great central fire in the village. Ellasif stood among them, her garments all exchanged for a long cloak of winter wolf pelt, the beast’s massive head lolling back like a hood. One of the elders presented her with an enormous greatsword inscribed with runes. Declan could not help but smile when he pictured Ellasif with the monster’s head raised like a helm, the giant blade above it. How fearsome she would be in battle.

Beside him, Olenka whispered a translation of the proceedings. Ellasif had been given the sword of Red Ochme, one of the greatest heroes of the village, and their last great battle leader. The elders praised and anointed Ellasif, and after a mercifully short ceremony including prayers to Gorum and Torag, the lords of iron and warfare, they declared her the new battle leader of White Rook and placed themselves under her command.

The pronouncement should have shocked Declan, but somehow it did not. Upon learning the full extent of Ellasif’s deception in Whitethrone, he had felt hurt and betrayed for only a few hours before the full weight of his affection returned. He would not be afraid to say now that he loved her, and loving her, would never try to force his will upon her. She would make her own choices, and he would be happy for her, whatever they were.

Still, after the feasting and drinking, Declan’s heart shrank when he saw Ellasif go to Jadrek and take him by the hand. She drew the big man away from the fire, and they walked out into the summer night beyond the village. A few of the young men joked and struck each other playfully, nodding as the couple departed. The women whispered and cast sympathetic glances toward Olenka, who stared stoically into the fire.

Declan focused on her disappointment to avoid facing his own. He fetched a mead skin and filled her cup. They sat side by side, never speaking while the others chattered and laughed and left them alone. At last, Olenka slipped her hand into Declan’s and led him away into the dark. They found a soft bower and lay down without so much as a kiss. They simply lay together, their breathing gradually matching each other’s rhythm, and they slept.