CHAPTER XV
THEY WERE ONLY a short distance up the wide sinuous serpent of ice when Kyle halted. Blustering snow obscured the distance. He could just make out tall spine-like ridges of iron-grey rock that rose as barriers far to the east and west.
Fisher came to his side. ‘What is it?’
‘I can’t walk away.’
‘I told you – they’re safe. The farther from here the better.’
But Kyle couldn’t shake the feeling that he was betraying the Losts. It felt wrong, just turning his back. Even if they didn’t want him to follow. ‘No. I have to go back.’
Cal-Brinn joined them. ‘They’re closing. We must keep moving.’
Kyle shook his refusal. ‘We should go back.’
Cal-Brinn’s already wrinkled and burnished features creased further in a frown of consideration. After a moment, he dipped his head in assent. ‘It is early yet, but I was going to have to tell you that we of the Guard cannot continue in any case. There is something pushing against us, so I must send my people back to find Stalker and Badlands. Will you accept this?’
Kyle clasped the amber stone at his neck. It was warm in his chilled hand. ‘I should go. They are my friends.’
‘Your loyalty is to be commended, but it is you our pursuers want, not us. And the Losts are our friends as well.’
He released the stone – the numbness from the bitter cold had gone from his hand. ‘Very well. I just feel … that I have let them down.’
Cal-Brinn inclined his head once more. ‘They would be angry if you showed up. Now, go.’ He motioned for Fisher to hurry him along, then turned to his company. ‘Jup, Leena, attend me!’
The bard took Kyle’s arm and urged him onward. ‘You and I must speak for the Myrni and the Losts above,’ he said, his breath steaming.
Kyle tried to bring his brows down to show his confusion, but his face was too numb. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean that any survivors will have been driven to the highlands, just like us. There will be a meeting of the families such as has never taken place.’ He waved to Jethiss, who waited ahead.
Kyle glanced back, still reluctant to go. Cal-Brinn now walked alone, his hands clasped behind his back. His long coat of armour kicked up snow as he pushed through the drifts. ‘A meeting? What for?’
‘To decide what to do.’
They caught up with Jethiss, who was carefully prodding the hidden ice with a broken branch he’d picked up when they had run across the dry stream bed. Kyle was grateful for this, as the great serpent of cerulean ice heaved and groaned as if in constant pain. Explosions of cracking ice would shudder beneath them, sounding up and down its length. The snowstorm and dark clouds obscured the way ahead, but it appeared to be steepening.
Night gathered as they walked, but shifting curtains of lights provided some illumination. They seemed to wreathe the heights, and they reminded Kyle of similar veils he’d seen in Korel, above the Stormriders. He thought they were some sort of manifestation of the manipulations of energy, whatever the source. They tramped on; Jethiss showed no need or inclination to pause. Kyle glanced back often down the sweep of the great serpent behind. Once or twice, through the gusting snows, he thought he glimpsed slim dark figures arrayed across the ice, tatters of cloth whipping from their shoulders.
They reached a plain of ice that lay like a plateau beneath a low bank of black clouds. Through gaps in the clouds he glimpsed a series of slim pinnacles, all bare ash-grey jagged rock: the peaks of this easterly range of the Salt Mountains. Then Fisher gestured ahead to where a group of dark dots marred the pristine silver expanse of blowing snow.
As they neared, the group resolved into four individuals, one sitting cross-legged in the snow, the other three lined up before him. They were a martial group, tall, in leather armour. Closer now, Kyle noted how young the three were, and that the sitting one, an older fellow, was impaled upon a wicked-looking spear.
Jethiss halted and Fisher stepped up to the fore. He raised his hand, calling: ‘Greetings! My name is Fisher and I speak for the Myrni. This is Jethiss, of the Tiste Andii. Kyle, who speaks for the Losts. And Cal-Brinn, of the mercenary company the Crimson Guard.’
The middle lad raised his hand. Kyle saw fresh scarring where a thrust had taken his right eye. A thick bearskin cloak clasped by a large bronze brooch humped his shoulders. ‘Welcome. I am Orman. This is Keth and Kasson. We speak for the Sayers.’ The lad half turned to the silver-haired elder. ‘This is … was … Buri.’
Fisher’s gaze, snapping to Kyle, was wide with wonder. ‘Buri in truth?’ he breathed, awed.
‘Indeed. It was he who summoned the ice-barrier anew.’
‘And who did this to him?’
The lad’s jaws writhed with suppressed emotions. ‘I did,’ he finally ground out, his voice ragged.
‘And why?’ Fisher asked softly.
‘Because he asked that I do so – to seal the invocation.’
Fisher was nodding. ‘I see. That must have been a … difficult … thing to do.’
With his one good eye, Orman was studying Fisher. ‘You give the name Fisher – not the Fisher, the bard?’
‘Yes.’
The Sayer was obviously quite impressed: he took a deep breath. ‘My father spoke of you. We are honoured.’
Fisher inclined his head in recognition of the compliment. ‘Any others? The Heels? No Bains survived?’
Orman shook his head, saying in a bitter tone: ‘The Bains are gone.’
‘Then we must decide upon our course of action.’
The Sayer glanced back to exchange a look with his two fellows. ‘How so? It is over. We can reclaim our Holdings.’
‘The Holdings are beneath rods of ice. But more to the point, we are pursued.’
‘Pursued? The outlanders?
‘That would be a simple matter. No, I speak of another enemy.’
The lad started in recognition. He exhaled a steaming breath in wonder. ‘The old enemy?’
Fisher nodded. ‘Aye. Our Army of Dust and Bone – the T’lan Imass.’
‘I know them only as the Undying Army.’
‘Close enough.’
‘But,’ Orman gestured back to the corpse of Buri, ‘the invocation was completed – this was his purpose …’
Fisher advanced until he could press a hand to the lad’s shoulder. ‘I know. And it has been successful. But some it seems are resisting enough to advance. Or a Bonecaster, one of their shamans, has come. In any case, we must flee.’
The Sayer lad appeared almost shattered by the suspicion that he had done what he did for nothing. Kyle could not help but step up as well, saying, ‘It is working – few are coming. We will escape, I’m sure.’
‘Someone is coming now,’ Jethiss announced, staring south. Kyle spun, his hand going to the grip of the white blade tucked in his belt.
Two tall figures emerged from the blowing snow, a young man and woman. Everyone drew weapons. Kyle took a few hesitant steps; he knew the one with the great bunch of wild curly hair. He raised his hand. ‘It is the Heels.’ He ran down to meet them. ‘Baran, welcome!’ He took his hand. The lad smiled behind the rime hardened round his beard. ‘Cull or Yullveig?’
The smile faded and Baran shook his head. He turned, pointing, ‘We aren’t alone.’
Kyle squinted into the gusts. Thin figures approached. Their tattered leathers and cloaks snapped and lashed in the wind and he shivered – for a moment he thought them Imass. They closed, and to his astonishment he recognized them … Shimmer, Blues and K’azz of the Crimson Guard. And with them a fourth person, a young girl, of obvious Iceblood heritage.
K’azz came forward. He walked bowed, as if struggling beneath a great weight. Kyle was shocked by his condition: emaciated and haggard, cheeks grey and drawn. The man was hardly more than skin and bone. Yet fire flashed in his eyes and he offered up a warm smile. ‘Kyle of Bael lands,’ he said. ‘It is good to see you.’
Kyle took his hands, found them frozen into rigid claws. ‘What by all the gods …’ he wondered aloud. ‘Why are you here?’
Shimmer approached and he embraced her, flinching when he found her skin as cold as the snow. It even held the same silvery paleness. ‘Kyle,’ she said. ‘We hear great stories of the white blade.’ He could only laugh as he gripped Blues’ hand.
Then he remembered, and invited them on. ‘Come. There is someone you must meet.’
He watched while they wearily trudged towards the rest of the gathering. The girl crossed to stop at Erta’s side. He watched as Cal-Brinn took a few faltering steps towards them, then ran, kicking up snow, and they embraced, the four, all together.
He went to join Fisher and Jethiss while the group spoke in low tones. To his eyes it was an oddly subdued reunion. Then he noticed the tears running down Fisher’s cheeks, his lips clamped as against a moan. In a moment the man lurched away, hugging himself.
‘What is it?’ Kyle whispered. ‘Are you sick?’
He jerked his head savagely, his eyes clamped closed. Then he seemed to master himself and raised his head to the ash-grey clouds above, the falling snow, blinking back tears. He offered Kyle a wounded smile. ‘Only now do I see it. Only now.’ He glanced back to the four Crimson Guard. ‘It was before me all this time, yet I failed to see.’ He raised his face to the dark sky once more, drew a rasping breath. He clenched the bag holding the instrument at his side and raised it to press it to his brow as if he would break it. ‘There are no words,’ he groaned. ‘No words for this song.’ He staggered away into the gusting snow and playing lights of the shifting banners above. Kyle moved to follow, but Jethiss caught his arm.
‘Leave him. All he needs is time.’
‘Do you know what he speaks of?’
The Andii shook his head, his narrowed gaze upon the mercenaries. ‘No. But the higher we venture I am beginning to see more and more.’ He raised his chin to the heights above. ‘I see that we are not alone.’
Kyle squinted to where the dark peaks reared naked and jagged high above. Movement pulled his eyes down. A single large figure was closing upon them; it looked to possess the height and narrow build of a full-blooded Jaghut. It wore tanned old leathers, trousers and a long jerkin. As it closed, the Sayer lad, Orman, let out a gasp of recognition. The newcomer was a Jaghut woman; she limped with one stiff leg. Laces of stones shone at her neck and hung woven in her wide mane of hair.
‘You!’ the Sayer lad exclaimed.
This newcomer offered him a small quiet smile. ‘Yes. Well met, Orman Bregin’s son, of the Sayer.’
And the lad actually knelt on one knee before her, saying: ‘Great Mother.’
Mother? Kyle wondered. Then, in turn, the Heels knelt, and then the Myrni girl. If Fisher were here Kyle imagined that he might actually kneel too. Then it struck him – he ought to as well. This creature’s blood flowed through his veins.
‘So few,’ she whispered, an edge of anger hardening her voice. She crossed to Buri’s corpse, still upright, impaled, covered now in a fine layer of snow. She rested a hand upon his bowed head, then walked round to take hold of the spear that pinned him to the ice. She yanked, and the weapon slid free. The slick, wet haft steamed in the chill air. She raised the weapon, studying its length. ‘It has been a long time,’ she murmured.
For a time no one spoke, until Jethiss broke the silence, saying, ‘It is not safe here.’
The Jaghut elder tilted her head as she looked him up and down. ‘You, I did not see.’ She glanced to K’azz. ‘Nor you.’ She limped to Orman and extended the weapon. The lad’s face actually wrinkled in loathing, but none the less, he took it from her hands. ‘But you are right,’ she said. ‘We must go higher.’
Kyle squinted to the south: he could just make out small dark shapes pushing through the field of white: a broad line of them that seemed to extend all the way across the ice-plain. He began backing up. ‘They are coming,’ he said, though he was sure they all knew.
‘This way,’ the elder said, and she started up the slight incline that led to the peaks.
The three Sayers followed with the Heels and the Myrni girl. Kyle and Jethiss came after, followed by the four Crimson Guard, who spread out as a laughably slim rear guard. They climbed the shallow rise. The snowfall thinned, as did the ground-hugging clouds. Looking back, Kyle was amazed to catch glimpses of the level tops of the packed cloud cover below looking like the calm surface of the ocean itself, extending off as far as he could see.
The wide face of the nearest peak closed before them, dominating the north. It appeared to consist of nothing more than jagged rock cliffs and heaps of broken talus. Their boots crunched upon loose stones as they climbed. His chest burned now; he felt as if he could never catch enough breath.
Past the snowfall, higher on the rock slope they climbed. Ahead, Fisher straightened from among the boulders to await them. As the woman limped onward, swinging her leg awkwardly as she came, he called down, ‘Come no higher.’
She paused, glanced back briefly and answered: ‘They will not relent.’
The lines of the bard’s mouth appeared graven in stone. His grey-streaked long hair whipped in the strong winds and his gloved hand was upon the grip of his Darujhistani longsword. ‘Go east or west. Hide anywhere but here.’
The elder continued to close. ‘You would draw a weapon upon me?’
‘If I must. You mustn’t disturb what lies above.’
‘What lies above is our only chance of escape.’
The bard’s features appeared ready to crack. He gasped as if in pain: ‘There are other ways.’
Kyle’s own hand went to the blade at his belt as he saw how the Sayer lad’s fists tightened upon the spear, and the two with him prepared to draw their longswords.
The elder shook her head as she advanced right up into sword-range. ‘Will you draw upon me?’
Some terrible emotion shuddered through the bard and his face broke as he groaned, defeated. His hand fell from the sword grip and he slumped to the rocks to sit hunched, his head in his hands.
The elder passed him. She rested a hand upon his head for a time, as in blessing, then walked on. When Kyle reached him he extended a hand. At first the bard refused to raise his head. But then he held up a hand, which Kyle took to pull him upright.
‘There is no dishonour here,’ he told him.
Fisher shook his head, fierce. ‘She is a fool if she thinks she can control them. Or dictate terms. No one can.’
‘We shall see,’ Jethiss said. His gaze was on the heights, where a blasting wind punished the bare rock above.
‘The same goes for you,’ Fisher told him.
A peculiar smile came to the Andii’s lips. ‘I merely have one simple wish.’ And he passed them, climbing once more.
The Crimson Guard reached them. Kyle noted how the bard regarded them now with a bruised look in his eyes of which the mercenaries seemed oblivious. Blues carried his sticks in his hands and he gestured back with them. ‘They’re gaining and there’re too many of them.’
‘Our guide believes she has a secret weapon,’ Fisher spat, hugging himself.
‘Well, we’d better find it damned soon,’ Blues grumbled. He urged them on.
Kyle almost groaned himself as he forced his legs to move. Dizzy spells came and went and he had to rest, sitting a few times, until one of the Guard appeared to chivvy him along. He had no idea how long they’d been climbing, though the sky was clear now and he could see that it was late in the afternoon. He felt as if he’d been wandering across the entire mountain range for an eternity.