CHAPTER XIV
THEY KEPT TO the forest as they fled upland, though as they climbed higher the woods thinned. Spruce now predominated, and those thin and scraggly. Fisher and Jethiss stayed with Kyle, while the remaining Crimson Guard spread out about them. No one had formally set out the marching order. Kyle wondered whether it was to protect him – he who least needed protection. Stalker and Badlands ranged widely, sometimes scouting ahead, other times keeping an eye on the rear.
At least they travelled through the constant cover of the dense clouds that hugged these high slopes of the Salt range. Eventually, during the morning – if he judged aright the diffuse yellow glow of the sky – Cal-Brinn called a halt and they collapsed where they stopped to lie panting, sucking in great shuddering breaths of the frigid air. Water skins made the rounds.
The Crimson Guard captain came to where Kyle, Fisher and Jethiss sat leaning against the backrest of a toppled fir. ‘Sleep,’ he told them. ‘We will keep watch.’ He moved on. Kyle did not argue, and neither did his companions. They rolled themselves into whatever cloaks or blankets they had managed to salvage or pack. In Kyle’s case, it was an untanned bear hide he’d rolled and roped over his back before the fight. He lay down and his thoughts went to the lowlands, to the shores of the Sea of Gold. What was happening there? Were Lyan and Dorinn safe? Of course she might not even be there – she might have accompanied the army north. But somehow he did not think so; these Lether officers and soldiers were claiming the north for themselves. To them, she and her Genabackans were outsiders. Perhaps even a threat.
Some time later he was woken by the poke of a spear-butt and he sat up, shivering, bleary and coughing. The sun was a smoky, silvery orb among the clouds. Tendrils of steam rose in wisps all about, and a clawing cold wind slithered down across them from the heights.
‘The weather is strange,’ he commented to Fisher.
The bard did not appear pleased; in fact, he had been in an uncharacteristically grim mood since they fled the Greathall. ‘It is no weather,’ he replied.
By now Kyle was accustomed to having to draw information from this man the way one must shake coins from a miser. A strange manner for a bard. ‘Then what is it?’
Fisher drew a hard breath as if he would rather not say, but then he allowed: ‘It is power coiling and tensing. Preparing itself for an unleashing. An invocation of Omtose.’
Kyle noted Jethiss paying close attention. ‘What will come?’ the Andii asked.
‘I do not know for certain what form it will take,’ Fisher admitted. ‘But I fear the worst it might.’
Stalker and Badlands emerged from the dense fogs. ‘They are with us still,’ Badlands announced.
When he was younger, Kyle might have expressed his confusion: they’d pushed them out – the Holding was theirs. Why pursue? But he was older now, hard truths of the world had been beaten into him, and so he merely shook his head at the inevitability of it. Of course they were coming. What else would they do? To ensure their grip on the land these new rulers had to eliminate all last vestiges of any prior claim. Any survivors would be a potential menace: they might raid, or form alliances and return some day to try to reclaim their ancestral holdings. In this Marshal Teal had no choice. Usurpers – claim-jumpers – had to be thorough.
Stalker stopped before Kyle. ‘Far enough north for you?’ he asked.
Kyle laughed. ‘Aye. Perhaps for them as well.’
The Iceblood’s hazel eyes held amusement. ‘Well, I’ve never been up much higher. No call for it. From here, though, we can descend into the Sayer or Heel Holding if we would. I only wish I knew the best route.’
‘Our line is good for now,’ said Fisher. He shook out his cloak. ‘Straight on.’
Everyone eyed the bard as he clipped the cloak tightly about his shoulders. Stalker studied the man as he drew his thumb and forefinger down his long moustache, smoothing it. Fisher, for his part, said no more.
It seemed to Kyle that the man had left the role of bard behind. He was something else now and Kyle wasn’t certain just what that might be. Then, unexpectedly, he remembered the instrument the man had been strumming … the way he had held it. Like a treasure. ‘It’s not your fault,’ he said.
The bard turned a puzzled frown upon him. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘That old stringed instrument at the Greathall. We had to flee. There was nothing you could have done.’
Understanding blossomed in rising brows and a broad smile broke through the man’s dark mood. He squeezed Kyle’s shoulder. ‘Thank you for your thoughts, Whiteblade. But not to worry.’ He raised the shoulder bag at his side. ‘Such a rare thing should not be left to destruction.’
‘So there is hope yet, then,’ Kyle said.
The bard appeared startled. His gaze went to the shrouded heights. ‘You are right, of course. The skein of our fates is unknown. Or at least is not for me to say.’
Badlands slumped on the fallen trunk. ‘Now that that’s settled – did anyone think to bring any food?’
It turned out that Cal-Brinn and the Guard always carried pouches with a few days’ worth of dried rations pressed into bricks. It was hardly edible, but Kyle found that if one kept a knot of it tucked into the cheek, it slowly softened into something resembling food.
Cal-Brinn signed that they should get going, so they packed up their gear and set off jogging upland once more. They trotted through the rest of the day, as the light through the black clouds deepened to a silvery pewter. Kyle knew he would freezing if it weren’t for the heat of his exertions. His breath steamed and plumes of mist rose through his armour from his sweat-soaked tunic beneath.
Stalker ran with him and Fisher and Jethiss for a time. He gestured ahead where the valley slope rose in a steep ridge of naked rock. ‘We are nearing the top of the Lost Holding. Beyond that ridge lies a wide run-off stream, the Stonewash. Past that are the ice-rivers that descend out of the frozen wastes above.’
‘Will they follow us?’ Kyle asked.
He gave a non-committal shrug. ‘They may send a party to dog us.’ He eyed Jethiss. ‘You are intent upon continuing?’
‘I am.’
‘There may be no one there.’
‘In which case we are all free to choose whichever direction we wish.’
Stalker drew off his conical iron helmet and rubbed a hand through his matted hair. ‘Well, I have to admit to being rather curious myself.’
‘Not a good enough reason,’ Fisher muttered.
‘And you a bard,’ Stalker remarked. He pulled the helmet on once again and turned his attention to Kyle. ‘You still wear it, I see,’ he said.
Kyle’s brows drew down. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘The stone you’re always fingering.’
He realized he was rubbing the amber pendant at his neck, as he often did. He dropped the hand. ‘Yes.’
Stalker nodded solemn agreement. ‘He was a good friend, Ereko. We miss him too.’
Kyle cleared his throat. It still pained him to hear the Thelomen-kind, Thel-Akai as he had it, mentioned. He’d forgotten that Stalker had spent as much time with the giant as he. He answered the Lost’s nod. ‘Yes.’
‘I know that name,’ Fisher said, his eyes narrowing in thought. ‘He was said to have been one of the oldest of those raised up by the earth.’ He studied Kyle anew. ‘You travelled with him?’
‘Yes.’
‘I would have that tale.’
Stalker flashed his teeth in a smile. ‘Now you’re sounding like a bard.’ He jogged ahead to start climbing the slope.
From the knife’s edge of the ridge-top they could see nothing. The mists enveloped them. Stunted long-needle pine and juniper clung to the rocks here, damp with fog. Stalker and Badlands started down into the vale, which promised to lead higher up this shoulder of the Salt range.
Close to the floor of the narrow valley, the Lost cousins raised their hands for a halt. Dense banners of fog obscured all ahead. A fiercely cold wind buffeted them. ‘What is it?’ Fisher asked.
‘Listen,’ Stalker said.
Kyle focused on what sounds he could make out. Other than the moaning, gusting wind, all he could hear was a distant cracking and booming, accompanied by the occasional crash as of rocks falling.
‘Those are the sounds of the great ice-tongues,’ Fisher said. ‘Some name them frost-serpents.’
Stalker tilted his head in agreement. ‘Yeah. That’s right. But what’s strange is that we shouldn’t be able to hear that above the roar of the stream that comes down here.’
‘I hear no stream,’ Kyle said.
Stalker’s moustache drew down. ‘Yeah. Something’s odd. Wait here.’ He gestured Badlands to the right and he took the left. They disappeared into the roiling sheets of mist. Cal-Brinn signed for the Avowed to form a defensive perimeter. Kyle nodded a greeting to Leena, who winked back.
After a brief time, the two figures came jogging back through the fog. Their boots crunched on the stones and gravel as they closed. Stalker stood breathing heavily, his breath steaming. He smoothed his moustache while he shook his head in wonder. ‘It’s gone,’ he told Fisher. ‘The run-off stream is dry – well, muddy, but free of any flow. Can’t figure it.’
‘I can,’ Fisher answered, grimly.
‘And?’ Badlands prompted.
The bard scowled as if he regretted saying anything. Finally, he offered, ‘The ice has awakened. There’ll be no spring or summer.’
Badlands laughed aloud. ‘Ha! You’ve sung too many old sagas, Fisher. Such things no longer happen.’
Fisher gave Kyle a long-suffering why-do-I-even-try look. Kyle hid a smile and thought that perhaps he now understood something of the bard’s reticence.
‘We’ll cross then climb the ice-serpent, though it will be treacherous with crevasses,’ said Stalker, and he gestured to invite them onward.
They followed what was essentially a shallow empty riverbed of green-grey silt flats and broad gravel patches, all punctuated by boulders that emerged from the mists like sentinels. The way led them upslope. The wind was punishing now – a blasting current of cold that was oddly dry and desiccating. It carried the cracking and popping of the massive hidden field of ice. The eruptions burst as loud as the explosive munitions of the Moranth.
Stalker raised a hand to call for another halt. He came crunching across the gravel to Fisher, motioning for Cal-Brinn to join them. ‘You lot can carry on until you reach the foot of the ice. Badlands and I will check on our friends. We’ll re-join you upslope.’
Fisher and Cal-Brinn curtly nodded their agreement. Stalker waved for Badlands to accompany him and they set off jogging down the gravel bars and silts of the riverbed. In places they hopped from rock to rock as they descended.
Cal-Brinn and the Guard turned to walk on, as did Kyle, but at the last instant something urged him to turn back. Some sensation that brushed at the nape of his neck and made the small hairs on his arms stand on end. He suddenly knew they were no longer alone. He glanced about, alarmed, but saw only that, of the party, Fisher alone had turned back as well. He met Fisher’s troubled gaze, and realized: we two are of the blood …
Rocks clattered below, gravel shifted. Movement among the silts caught Kyle’s eye. Shapes were rising from the riverbed. Down below, Stalker and Badlands had halted and turned back as well.
Ragged skeletal shapes straightened. Clots of clay and silt fell to the ground. They wore rotting lengths of coarse hides and furs. Some carried the remains of a sort of crude armour of stitched straw. Stained brown skulls, some hairless, turned to him and Fisher. The faces were as he expected: dried and mummified with empty sockets and fleshless grins. T’lan Imass. The enemy of the Jaghut.
And, he realized with a terrified sickening jolt, his enemy.
‘Over here!’ he heard Stalker bellow from below. Several of the carious heads turned that way. A clash of weaponry: Badlands had charged the nearest. ‘C’mon, you bastards!’ Stalker yelled.
Kyle started forward. Hands grasped him from behind. ‘We must flee,’ said Cal-Brinn, now next to him.
Badlands was backing away down the slope, drawing the nightmare shapes after him. ‘Go, damn you!’ he yelled to Kyle.
‘Protect him!’ Stalker called, then he was off, running down the slope. This quick movement somehow settled the matter as the Imass started after him. Kyle counted some seventeen. He ought to follow – they would need the white blade!
‘We’re going to say goodbye to Coots!’ Badlands called, laughing, as he jumped from stone to stone. Their outlines disappeared into the mists.
More arms and heads were emerging from the gravel beds even as Kyle stood there, frozen, horrified.
Fisher appeared before him. He set his hands on his shoulders. ‘We must go. Now.’
Kyle blinked, remembered to breathe. He met the bard’s gaze, pleading. ‘We must help …’
‘They will outrun them. Do not worry.’
‘But …’
‘They will be safe. Perhaps they mean to lead them into the Lether troops! Imagine that, hey?’ Hands tugged at him. He stumbled backwards. The bard’s voice hardened: ‘Do not ruin their gambit! More are coming!’
This shocked him and he took a sharp breath of the frigid air. He jerked a nod. ‘Yes. All right. Yes.’ He turned and started up the gravel. Fisher’s tight grip on his upper arm urged him onward.
Higher up the slope, a wide expanse of dirty white emerged from the clouds. The serpent of ice. Far closer, however, down the wash towards them clattered stick-thin figures in rags and beast armour. Kyle snapped a glance behind: their pursuers were closing.
‘Circle up!’ Cal-Brinn ordered, and the Crimson Guard closed into a tight circle that pushed Kyle, Fisher and Jethiss inside.
Kyle fought to join the line. ‘You will need my blade!’ he shouted to Cal-Brinn.
‘You may yet have the chance,’ the Dal Honese answered grimly.
Their pursuers, further T’lan Imass that had risen behind, reached their circle first. Flint blades swung, meeting Crimson Guard shields in a clash of stone on bronze and iron. Kyle was startled to see the Imass using the flat of their blades upon the guardsmen and women. One of the women fell to a blow from an Imass fist.
Then he realized: they do not want these people … They are after us alone. His back shivered in a sensation that only hunted prey could know. He hefted the white blade, waiting for one to break through.
Next to him, Jethiss, his two hatchets readied, saw his chance and bounded out to join the defence. A blow of one hatchet split the skull of an Imass and shattered the haft of that weapon. He flung it aside. Another thrust for him but Jethiss swung, severing the arm at the shoulder.
Kyle watched this, amazed. Who could do such things to the T’lan Imass?
Then the newcomers from above closed upon them then, washing round the mêlée, and Kyle was further stunned as these Imass assaulted their attackers. Imass fought Imass in a ruthless terrifying whirl of flint swords and hard dry limbs, and then it was done, seemingly in an instant.
Eight standing T’lan Imass stood motionless, regarding them with their eerie empty sockets. One raised an arm of bone and hanging dry flesh to point upslope. ‘Run, now,’ it breathed in a voice like falling sand.
‘Who are you?’ Kyle called, even as Leena tugged at him.
‘We are of the Ifayle. I am Issen Li’gar. I came seeking my sister Shalt Li’gar, gone so very long ago. Now, run. We shall guard.’
Leena pulled Kyle backwards. He wanted to ask much more of this Ifayle, but of course to delay would defeat their purpose. He turned and kicked up the loose gravel as he went.
They pushed their way across a muddy flat of thick grey-green silt. It clung to his leather shoes and smeared all the way up to his knees. He’d served for a time in the Guard, and had heard the stories that the Imass had never attacked them. At the time he’d dismissed such tales as rather too self-promoting. ‘They wouldn’t kill you,’ he panted to Leena, still amazed.
‘They never have.’
‘Why?’
‘I believe they respect us,’ she answered, short of breath as they tramped through the thick mud. ‘Everyone calls us mercenaries, but the truth is we do not fight for money. We have honour, and this is their way of respecting that.’
Kyle thought of the Crimson Guard swordswoman they had picked up from the mud, groggy, spitting blood from the blow across her jaw. The Imass had an odd way of showing their high regard. As daughter of an Iron Legionnaire, Leena might think it was honour. The Legion had probably been esteemed for its noble values, and she had absorbed that. But he did not think such things would impress the Imass. No. There must be some other reason.
Ahead, across the broad gravel wash, now empty of run-off, the valley-wide dirty expanse of the ice-serpent rose ahead. They picked up their pace. A short hurried dash later and they reached the cliff-like leading edge of the nearest lobe, or tongue, of the ice-river. Great caves of sapphire-blue gaped at its base, where, Kyle imagined, rivers of water once flowed.
Something had halted that natural melting process. A few of the Guard, and Jethiss, clambered on to the dirty-grey leading edge and crunched their way up. They beckoned everyone to follow. A glance back revealed what Kyle thought might be thin motionless shapes through the tatters of scudding clouds. He climbed up on to the ice.