Snow-Walker

Three

The gods hastened to their hall of judgment,

Sat in council to discover who

Had tainted all the air with corruption…

They carried Signi upstairs and laid her on the brocaded bed in her room, with a warm fur cover over her and the fire crackling over the new logs. But nothing they did could wake her, no voice, no entreaty. She breathed shallowly, so slowly that it frightened them, and both the herb woman, Gerda, and the physician, Einar Grimsson, tried every remedy they knew, filling the chamber with exotic scents of oils and unguents and charred wood. They even tried pricking her skin with sharp needles, but she never moved, though the red blood ran freely. Finally Wulfgar stopped it all and ordered them out.

When Jessa tapped on the door a little later, he was still sitting on the edge of the bed, his wine-stained coat held tight around him.

“Well?” he said, without turning.

She came into the room, Skapti behind her.

“Kari says it was some kind of supernatural attack.” The skald leaned against the shuttered window. “I think he’s right—there are no footprints outside, no horse tracks, no evidence of any armed force.”

“But we saw them! Some of the men are wounded.”

“I know, but what we saw were visions, Wulfgar, mind shapes, nothing that was real. Everyone seems to have seen different things. Some of the men may have fought one another, or against wraiths and shadows—none of us knew what was real. We were all spell blinded.”

“Can you remember,” Jessa said slowly, “what you dreamed?”

Skapti looked at her absently. “No. Not really. Except that it was full of pain.”

Wulfgar got up suddenly and stormed around the room. “How could she do this! And why Signi? She’s never even met Gudrun! If the witch wanted revenge on us why didn’t she kill us all there in the hall?”

Jessa stirred, on the bench by the fire. “This is what she said she would do.”

They both stared at her blankly, so she dragged the loose brown hair from her cheek and said, “Don’t you remember the night we all saw her, in that strange vision? The night the creature came? She was standing in a snow-field. She said she wanted Kari to come to her, and he wouldn’t. Then she turned to you.”

“I remember.” Wulfgar stared darkly across the room. “She said, ‘What you love best, that thing I will have.’ But I never thought it would be this.”

He looked down at the girl on the bed. Her eyes were closed now, as if she slept.

“Sit down,” Skapti said gently. “We need to think.”

Wulfgar came over and slumped beside Jessa on the bench. All his usual lazy elegance had left him. He put his head in his hands and stared hopelessly into the fire. “What can we do?”

Neither of them could answer.

In the awkward silence they heard footsteps outside. Then Brochael opened the door and ushered Kari in.

The boy looked frail; he went and gazed down at Signi, and they saw the deep raw cut across his forehead.

“You should be in bed,” Wulfgar muttered.

“That’s what I said,” Brochael growled.

Ignoring them both, Kari came and sat by the blazing logs.

“What do we do?” Wulfgar said again.

Kari watched him bleakly. Then he said, “It’s only too clear what we have to do. Gudrun has made sure we have no choice. We have to go to her.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s where Signi is.” He glanced again at the still shape on the bed. “That isn’t her, it’s just her body, her shell. It’s empty. She’s not there.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’ve been into her mind, Wulfgar, and it’s blank!” He ran long fingers through his hair and then said, “Gudrun has done this to make me come to her.”

“Come where?” Jessa asked, remembering her dream.

“I don’t know. Far away.”

“The land of the White People.”

He shrugged. “Wherever that is.”

Skapti came forward, intrigued. “They say it’s beyond the end of the world. A place of trolls, a giant haunt. They say the ice goes up to touch the sky. No one could live up there.”

“The Snow-walkers live there. My people,” said Kari grimly.

Wulfgar looked up suddenly. “All right. If you say that’s what we have to do to get her back, we’ll do it. I’ll take as many shiploads of men as I can get; a war band—”

“A war band is no use,” Brochael said unexpectedly. His huge shadow loomed on the wall, the firelight warm on his tawny hair and beard. “The last Jarl sent a war band up there and no one ever came back.”

“He’s right,” Kari said. “Besides, only I need to go.”

There was an uproar of protest, everyone speaking at once until Brochael’s strong voice silenced them. “You can’t go! Even if you got there, she’d kill you!”

“She could have killed me here.” Calmly Kari rubbed his forehead. “She doesn’t want that. She wants me alive.”

“You’re not going!” Brochael was angry now and obstinate; his face was set.

“There’s no alternative.” Kari looked at him hard. “Think of it, Brochael. Signi will just lie like that for months, for years, never speaking, never knowing any of us. We could all grow old and die, and she’d just be the same. Gudrun has plenty of time. Gudrun can wait for us.”

Silent with pain, Wulfgar clenched his fingers.

But stubbornly the big man shook his head. “It’s folly. She may wake; we don’t know.” He came over and crouched down, his strong hands on the boy’s shoulders. “And I didn’t bring you out of her prison for this. I don’t want you to go.”

“I have to.” Kari’s eyes were clear and cold; he looked like Gudrun, that secret, tense look.

Brochael stood up and stalked across the room to the door. He slammed his fist against the wood.

“We’ve never quarreled before,” Kari said bleakly.

“And we’re not now. If you go over the world’s edge, I’m going with you, and you know that well enough. But we’re walking into her trap. How could she steal the girl’s soul?”

Kari was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “She’s learned how. She’s been powerful for too long.”

Brochael’s scowl deepened. He glared at the poet. “You’re very quiet. You usually have some opinion.”

The skald shrugged his thin shoulders. “I think Kari is right, we have no choice. And for a poet, such a journey is enticing. A dream road. They say there are lands of fire and ice up there. Someone would have to make the song of it, and it might as well be me.”

“I won’t be left behind either,” Jessa said firmly. “Don’t even think it. I’m coming.”

Her scowl made them all smile, even now. When Jessa made up her mind, they all knew nothing would shift her.

Wulfgar stirred. “Then it’s settled. A small group of us—we’ll travel more quickly and secretly that way, and need less....”

They glanced at one another, wondering who would say it. Finally Skapti did. “Not you,” he said quietly.

Wulfgar stared at him.

“Skapti’s right.” Jessa leaned forward. “You can’t come with us, Wulfgar. You know that. Your place is here.”

“My place,” he breathed, “is with Signi.”

“It isn’t. It can’t be.” She stood up and faced him. “Look. I’ll tell you this straight out, as no one else will. You’re the Jarl. You rule the land, keep the peace, settle the disputes. You order the trade, keep the frontiers, hunt down outlaws. The people chose you. You can’t turn your back on them. If you came with us and we were away months, even years, what would be here when we came back?” She smiled at him sadly. “Famine, blood feuds, cattle raiding. Black, burned farms. A wasteland.”

He looked away from her, such a hard, desolate look as she had never seen on him before. The room was silent. Only the flames crackled over the logs. Then Wulfgar looked back at her bitterly. “I think I’ll never forgive you for this, Jessa.”

“You will.” She sat down and tried to smile at him. “And think of it this way. When she wakes, it’s you she’ll want to see.”