CHAPTER VIII
ORMAN JOGGED NORTH without pause, ever upwards; he collapsed only when it became too dark to see. The next dawn he drove himself onward again. He stumbled and tripped the entire way. He found himself missing handholds, or falling over rocks as he misjudged them. He cursed the throbbing blindness of his left eye then. He also knew he was climbing faster than he should for his own safety. The change in altitude was making him light-headed. His nose bled. He was so short of breath he sometimes gasped, bent over, almost blacking out. His legs burned as if he was dragging them through coals, and the vision of his one eye swam.
Yet he pushed on. Soon the bare rocky rises and ridges gave way to snow cover. It was dense and heavy and wet. A white fox yipped at him as he waded through the knee-deep crests. After half a day’s journey across these broad fields of whiteness, he came to a halt at the barrier of a sapphire face of sheer ice pockmarked by streams of run-off. The roaring of the combined waterfalls seemed to shake the heaped gravel he stood upon. His breath plumed while he searched the sculpted gleaming ice face for the best route up. Satisfied, he tore strips from his trousers, wrapped them about his hands, and started up.
His fingers immediately became numb. His route sometimes took him past cave openings that gushed icy waters. The spray soaked him and sent him into uncontrollable shivers. A few times he nearly lost his grip upon the knobs and undulations he clung to and so he drew his hatchets and proceeded up by hacking and hammering at the ice face.
Halfway, he paused to glance back and behind. The massive shoulders of the Salt range descended below in gigantic sweeps of ash-grey stone and misted forests. Low foothills obscured the Sea of Gold. He knew that if he could see it, it would appear no larger than a puddle. And he was only halfway up this enormous slab of ice. It must be a good four chains thick.
He climbed on and at last pulled himself up on to a vast plain of gently undulating snow and ice. He’d reached the top of one of the ice-rivers that dominated the upper crags of the Salt peaks. What some named the Frost Serpents. He stumbled on. Winds of stinging ice rime lashed him, yet he hardly felt the cold. At night he wrapped himself in his plain cloak and curled up next to ridges of naked gleaming ice that reflected the night sky like mirrors. He felt as if he were floating among the stars. He awoke with a solid layer of iced hoar frost over his thickening beard.
On the third day of climbing, the crackling of ice halted him. He paused to listen. All this time he’d heard the distant booming and grinding of this massive ice tongue. Only now did the cracking and snapping sound near. He edged one foot forward, hunched, knees bent, meaning to test the ice. Then the ground fell from beneath him. He tumbled, clawing at a passing sheer face. The ice slashed and tore the flesh of his palms and fingers. He struck something that punched his legs into his chest and knew nothing more.
Some time later he awoke to the wet kisses of heavy fat snowflakes. He blinked to clear his eye and saw stars glimmering down upon him through ragged gaps in thin cloud cover. He watched them for a time, and their graceful deliberate progress was so stately and beautiful it made his heart ache. They appeared within a slim opening between ice cliffs: a narrow slash some four man-heights above the perch he lay upon.
He would have yelled for help but he knew there was no one to hear. He relaxed then, and tucked his hands – numb clubs of blood – under his arms, and watched the show.
The Realm-Lights shimmered into view next. The wavering sky banners that some said marked a gate to other realms. Perhaps the land of the giants, the Thel-kind. Or the Tiste, the Children of Night. Or the Joggen race, as some named the hoary old Jaghut, in northern Joggenhome. The storied creators of winter itself in the times of heroes. He found these curtains and graceful banners appeared breathtakingly beautiful. He’d always admired the lights. Especially those few winters when he’d trapped and hunted the borders of the Holdings with his father. It was consoling to see them now, somehow. As if he’d come home. Home to where he belonged.
He felt himself drifting off to sleep and a small voice railed against him for this, screaming somewhere far off. But he was tired so very tired.
Something hit him in the chest. He looked down: a coil of knotted fibre rope. He peered up, narrowing his one eye. A shape obscured the gap above. Mechanically, dully, he began wrapping an arm in the coils. He could not use his hands – they were beyond feeling, beyond use. After numerous turns of his arm through the rope, it began to rise. It stretched, tautened. He was pulled upright. He knew that if he hadn’t been so very far gone in numbness, he’d be in agony. His arm was probably being twisted from its socket.
Hanging limp, he was drawn up the ice face, unable to help in any manner. At the top, he was heaved over the lip of the crevasse and allowed to flop into the snow, where he lay staring up at an extraordinary figure: a giant, so tall was he. Yet painfully slim, and so pale he seemed to glow. His wild mane of hair was snow-white, as was his long ragged beard, and despite the frigid cold he wore nothing more than a loincloth. He peered down at Orman with something akin to startled bemusement, like a fisherman who’d landed a particularly puzzling catch.
‘What are you doing here, child of the lowlands?’ he asked in a quiet and gentle voice.
Child of the lowlands? ‘Are you Buri?’ Orman gasped, his mouth numb, the words slurred. ‘The eldest who brings winter?’
The giant’s silver brows rose. ‘Is that what they say in the lowlands?’ He shook his head. ‘I am Buri, but I am not eldest. Come, I will take you to shelter.’ And the ancient being bent down, lifted him and set off with him in his arms like a child. Above his mane of white hair, the dancing curves of the Realm-Lights circled his head like a crown.
When Orman next awoke he lay in a cave, a glittering cave of ice. A fire burned over exposed naked granite. He was alone; he allowed his eye to fall shut once more and slept again.
The mouth-watering scent of roasting meat roused him. He opened his eye to see a large bird carcass roasting over the fire. Buri sat opposite, watching him, his long thin naked arms and legs akimbo.
‘What is a child of the lowlands doing here amid the icefields?’ the ancient one repeated.
And Orman told him everything. Slowly, piece by piece, while he picked at the roasted bird. Including his shameful behaviour at the stream. The loss of his half-brother. All this Buri took in without making a sound. He started only once, when Orman described how he jammed Svalthbrul into the stones and Lotji took it.
When he finished, both were silent for a time. The fire snapped and crackled between them. Dawn’s light brightened the ice cave opening with a pink glow. Finally, Orman could stand the silence no longer and cleared his throat. ‘Will you not come, then? Lend your help? Your clan is sorely outnumbered. The invaders must number in the thousands.’
Buri raised his gaze from the fire. In the light of the flames, his great mane of hair and beard, so pale as to be colourless, now glowed orange and red. His eyes however held a deep amber radiance, like embers themselves. ‘No, little brother. I am gathering my strength.’
‘Gathering your— The enemy is upon us! Now is the time to act. Surely …’
But the ancient shook his head. He crossed his legs, rested his elbows on his knees. ‘These invaders, these pathetic seekers after gold and riches … they are not the true enemy. It is for others that I am preparing.’
‘Who—’
Buri silenced him with a raised hand. ‘What must be done is clear.’
And Orman believed he knew exactly what the ancient meant. He hung his head. ‘Yes.’
‘You know what you must do.’
‘Yes.’
‘You must return and challenge Lotji for possession of Svalthbrul.’
Orman, his head lowered, nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘Very good.’ Buri rose smoothly, towered over Orman. ‘I will show you the swiftest descent.’
At the base of a looming cliff of ice, Orman waved to Buri, a nearly indistinguishable shape amid the cornices and curves of snow above. Then the ancient was gone. Nearby, a waterfall pounded the bare rocks and gravel. The stream wound into a forest of spruce and pine. Orman followed it.
Jogging down slope, only now did he wonder about Buri’s use of ‘little brother’. He decided the giant must have meant it affectionately. Perhaps for his dedication to young Jass.
And he felt it again. That strange tightness across his chest. That feeling of belonging that he knew when Jass had held out his hand. He realized then that it was for the sake of this feeling alone that he now scrambled down through the evergreen forest for Lotji.