Snow-Walker

Six

Wider and wider through all worlds I see.

Late in the night Brochael woke up and turned in the cramped sleeping booth. It was too small for him, as they usually were, but this time he was glad of the discomfort, because the strange dream of the cell had come to him again, and the memory of it disturbed him.

After a moment he sat up with a mutter of irritation. It was cold in the stone room; the fire must have gone out.

He dragged the great bearskin from the bed, swung it around himself, and padded over the floor, scratching his tousled red hair. The brazier held a low glimmer of peats, and as he dropped new ones in, the light darkened even more, making the room a huddle of cold shadows. Still, it would blaze up eventually and last till morning.

He watched it sleepily for a moment, his mind avoiding the echoes of the dream. Gudrun’s sorcery still lurked here. It was not often that he thought about her—he hated the woman for what she had done to her son. Apart from Kari only he, Brochael, knew the full evil of that. And he feared her. As for Kari… All at once he realized how quietly the boy was sleeping, and turned quickly.

The bed was empty.

For a moment, rigid, Brochael stared at it. Then he shook his head, dragged the bench up to the warmth, and sat down, leaning back against the wall. The alarm that had flared in him for a second died down—he knew Kari well enough. The boy had strange gifts, and they drove him strangely. Often at home, in Thrasirshall, he would walk the snowfields and forests all night, the ravens flapping above him. Brochael knew he spoke to ghosts and wraiths and invisible things out there, things he could tell no one else about. He tugged the bearskin tight on his broad back. Wherever Kari was, it was his own realm. He was skillful there.

Under the oak tree at the edge of the wood Kari was digging, making a small pit with his knife in the moist soil under the leaf drift. Around him the night was silent, the wood a dank, rustling mass of darkness, rich with the smell of moss and wood rot.

When the hole was deep enough, he took a pouch from his belt, felt about inside for one of the small bone counters, and dropped it in.

“The last?” a voice croaked above him.

“Two more.” He straightened, stamping the soil down quickly, rubbing it from his hands. “One more to close the ring. Near the shore, somewhere.”

The moon glinted on his hair and face as he pushed through the tangle of bush and underbrush. Rowan saplings sprouted here at the wood’s edge, thorn and hazel and great fronds of bracken between them, chest-high. In the dappled silver light fat stems cracked and snapped under his feet. He struggled through, noticing the frosted crisp ends of the leaves, already dying. About him the night whispered; the dream wind brought him voices and murmurs and crystals of snow; two dark shapes drifted above him from tree to tree.

Then he paused and looked back.

A small boy stood in the wood, watching him. Caught in the moonlight, the child seemed faint, pale as bone. Kari took a step toward him; the boy backed away. Dirty tearstains smeared his face.

“You’re the Snow-walker,” he muttered.

“I won’t hurt you.”

The boy looked up, bewildered, at the high, rustling trees.

Finally he came forward. His hand reached out to Kari’s sleeve. “I can’t get back in,” he whispered. “I can’t. And none of them can see me anymore. No one talks to me but you. Father tells me to wake up but I can’t. I’m outside.”

Kari crouched in the mud beside him. “I know that,” he said gently. “Your name is Halmund Gunnarson, isn’t it?”

The boy nodded, rubbing his face. “I was feeding the hens—”

“You will get back,” Kari said urgently, “but I don’t know when.”

“My father keeps calling me! And I’m cold.” He shuddered, and looked around. “And the others frighten me.”

“Others?” Kari clenched his fingers. “People you know? People from the hold?”

“No. Shadow people. I don’t know them. They’re worn thin, like ghosts. And there are wolves that flicker between me and the moon. Ships out on the water…”

“Have you seen a girl?” Kari asked quickly. “Signi. You remember her?”

“She fell asleep.”

“That’s right.”

The boy shook his head. He took a step back, through a trunk of birch. “Has that happened to me? Am I dreaming this? I want to get out of the dream. I want to go home.” Suddenly he turned and ran down among the trees to the hold, sobbing. Kari watched him go, fading to a glimmer of moonlight. Then he dropped his head and stared in despair at the leaf litter on the ground. His silver hair hung still.

“Not your fault,” a dark voice said.

“In a way it is,” he said without looking up. “She wants me. I should have gone with her when she asked. I knew she would never leave them alone.”

He jerked up and pushed his way through and out of the wood, the two birds swooping above him, then ran down to the shore, where the black water lapped silently.

In the shingle he gouged another hole and dropped a bone disc in, then covered it with tiny stones and sand. A large boulder lay nearby; he tried to shift it but couldn’t. “Help me,” he muttered.

They came, one on each side of him, tall, dark men, their long taloned fingers tight on the rock. Together they dragged it over the buried talisman. Then Kari straightened wearily.

“That’s it.”

He looked back and saw the ring he had made around the hold, felt its power throb and tighten. The dream spell was held inside; none of it could escape. “The last should be left in the hall. A secret guardian over the sleepers.”

He walked quickly through the sleeping hold, by shapes he knew, that lurked at the corners of the houses. Coming to the hall he went straight past the watchman, opening the door and letting himself in softly, blanking the man’s mind and releasing it as soon as he was inside. The man scratched his hair, seeing nothing; the dog at his feet watched silently.

In the hall Kari moved between the sleeping war band to the roof tree. The ancient ash trunk rose high over him, the snake mark already half planed away by Wulfgar’s thralls. Two raven shapes drifted after him through the high windows.

“Here,” he said quietly. “This will be the place where the last of them gather. Whoever’s still awake. This is the heart of the hold.”

He took something small from the pouch and held it up for a moment, the moonlight glinting on its brightness. Then he bent and found a small slit in the seamed trunk, and pushed the shining fragment well inside with his long fingers. “Guard them,” he whispered. “Till the time comes.”

For a moment he stood there, winding it with spells and runes of protection, filaments of hope. Then he looked up at the birds. “I think you should stay too.”

One of them seemed to laugh, a harsh grating sound. “We go with you, Kari. What could we do here, with these sightless men?”

“They see well enough. Differently from us, that’s all.” He pushed his hair away wearily. “Now I’ve done all I can for them. Her power is here already, though. Nothing can change that.”

As he said it the tapestries rippled with a faint breeze. Some of the sleeping men turned uneasily in their fleeces and wraps. He watched them for a moment, tasting their dreams, then went quietly upstairs.

Brochael sat up as the door opened, his face a warm glow.

“All done?” he asked quietly.

Kari sat on the end of the bench and tugged his boots off.

“All done,” he said.

They looked at each other, a flicker of understanding.

In the cold morning Jessa tied her bundle more firmly to the packhorse and swung herself up onto her own pony.

“Yes, but why not go by sea? At least to start with.”

Skapti was picking at the upturned hoof of his horse with careful fingers. “Because of the ice.” He put the beast’s leg down and gave it an encouraging slap. Then he looked at her across the saddle. “If you sail around the coast, beyond Trond, beyond all the fjords, the coast starts to turn north, yes, but after a week or so, even in summer, you reach the ice. I’ve spoken to a few men who’ve tried it. Great floating bergs of ice. And if you manage to avoid them and sail on, the ice becomes thicker, smashed plates of it, jagged and sharp. The winter’s teeth. Many ships have been eaten by them. Beyond that, they say, you reach a wall of ice, unbroken, higher than the Jarlshall. No one has ever crossed that.”

Jessa laughed. “I’m convinced.”

“Good.” He swung himself up. “Are you all armed, Jessa Two-knives?”

“All armed.”

She watched Kari come down the steps in his dark coat. He looked bone pale in the wan light, and tired, as if he had not slept. Brochael was behind him, the huge ax under one arm.

They climbed up onto their horses and waited, the courtyard an agitated clatter of hooves, whinnying, shouts for those who were missing. A drum beat quietly from the corner of the hall; an old man in a shaman’s coat of feathers chanted luck songs and charms in a quavering voice.

Hakon came running around the corner with a bundle falling from his back and the precious sword under his arm; he fastened them both hastily onto the restless horse. His friends from the war band mocked him, and he got flustered and did the straps up wrongly. Watching him, Jessa saw how he had grown since he had been here. As a thrall he had been thin—now his arms were strong, his eyes quick from long sword practice with Wulfgar’s men. As he scrambled up she said, “We thought you weren’t coming.”

He grinned at her. “Jessa, you won’t get rid of me. This is my first real adventure, my first journey! I’ve dreamed of this for a long time.”

She nodded, thinking that it was dreams they were escaping from. He was the only one who seemed really happy. Wulfgar, on his black horse, looked morosely around. Then he nodded to Brochael. “We’re all here.”

And he turned the horse and led the company out of the hold, riding proudly between the houses, past the ships on the fjord, scattering chickens and a bleating, long-eared goat. The holders watched them go, muted and somber; only the children waved and shouted, dancing alongside.

Jessa turned in the saddle and waved back to them sadly. She tried not to think about whether she would ever see them again.

Or they her.

She knew she was going too far to come back unchanged.