Snow-Walker

Thirteen

The brood of Fenris are bred there,

Wolf-monsters.

“Near here,” Moongarm said abruptly, “is the burial place I told you about.”

They looked at him curiously. It was the first time he had spoken since they’d left the giant hall after another, milder ground shake had woken them all. Since then the gray man had walked tirelessly beside the horses. Brochael had grudgingly offered him the pack pony but he had refused, saying the beast disliked him. Jessa had noticed that all the horses did, whickering and rolling their eyes whenever he came too close.

Now, remembering what Kari had said, she looked at his ears. They seemed oddly placed, hidden by his hair. She glanced at Kari but he was gazing into the wood, lost in his thoughts.

The morning was bitterly cold; a thin layer of snow lay where the trees were sparse. It struck her how the weather was changing quickly—too quickly—as they traveled north. At the Jarlshold it had been midsummer. Now they already seemed to be riding into winter, as if they traveled in time as well as distance.

They came to a wide place which had been cleared of trees long ago. Saplings had sprouted up, but the frequent earthquakes had toppled and uprooted them; the whole area was a mass of tumbled rock and earth piled high, without shape, as if it had been shattered and heaved up over and over.

“This is it,” Moongarm said.

Brochael gazed around. “It seems like an ordinary landslip,” he said coldly.

“And that.” The gray man pointed. “What does that seem like?”

To their left, in a patch of sandy soil, something stuck out from the earth. It was big, a hard, shiny thing, curved like a shield, split and broken, blackened with dirt and age. As she stared at it Jessa saw it move, just a fraction.

At once soil slid; stones rattled. The ground began to rumble, a far-off deep tremble. The forest floor quivered, a tree crashing behind them.

“Out!” Brochael yelled, wheeling around; then they were all galloping for the trees, Moongarm racing after them.

The ground bubbled; it heaved and bucked as if something huge was indeed raging and struggling underneath, and only when they were well into the trees did it stop, and they felt safe.

“Did you see that?” Jessa gasped, fighting to control her horse.

“I did indeed.” Skapti looked at her slyly. “What did it look like, Jessa?”

She flicked her hair from her eyes reluctantly. “You know what.”

“Tell me.”

She glared at him, annoyed. “All right, if you’re all too scared to put words on it. It looked like a thumbnail. A huge thumbnail sticking up out of the ground. As if the rest of the hand was buried down there. Not even poets could make that up.”

Skapti grinned. “What a poem this will be.”

“The poem can keep.” Brochael turned his horse and glared darkly down at Moongarm. “This is no place for us.”

All that day, and all the next, they rode north through the endless wood, keeping to what remained of the road, and the air became crisp with frost. Already they wore thicker clothes; the packhorse traveled light, all the food almost gone. On the second evening Hakon caught a hare in a snare; they stewed it with mushrooms and puffball, and the juices were hot and sweet, a welcome change from dry meat and salt fish. But there was barely enough.

Even the length of the days had begun to shorten; winter was closing about them, the eternal cold of the north. Snow drifted often between the trees; the nights were bitter, uncomfortable times, spent as close to the fires as was safe.

Moongarm traveled tirelessly, easily keeping up in the tangled undergrowth that slowed them. On more open stretches, where the horses could briefly run, he loped behind, the ravens above him. Jessa was sure they were watching him. Brochael’s glance too often followed him suspiciously; Moongarm was well aware of this and seemed not to care. In fact she thought Brochael stayed awake through Moongarm’s watches, despite the ravens on the branch overhead. But the stranger did nothing. He walked silently and ate his food to one side.

On the third afternoon after the giant hall, the wood became such a tangled murk that they had to dismount and hack their way through, dragging the reluctant horses. The road, all that was left of it, was completely lost under leaf litter; the black gloom of the crowding, silent wood made them all uneasy. They felt they were deep in the forest, lost in it, that they would never come out. Far behind, a wolf howled, then another, nearer.

“That’s all we need.” Hakon stumbled over a tree root and rubbed dirt wearily from his face. “Gods, I’m filthy. What I wouldn’t give for a bed. And hot food. And wine!”

“Wine!” Jessa said scornfully. “A few months ago you’d never even tasted it!”

“It doesn’t take long to get that hankering,” Skapti muttered. “Wine. Odin’s holy drink.” He slashed a branch aside with his sword. “What do you say, gray man?”

Moongarm looked at him briefly. “Water is my drink.”

“Water’s good enough,” Skapti observed. “For washing.”

Moongarm smiled narrowly. “As you say.” He looked into the trees on his right. “But I hear a stream nearby, and I’m thirsty.”

He shoved his body into the mass of leaves and almost disappeared; after a moment Kari led his horse in after him.

“We’ll catch you up,” he said.

The others struggled on, deeper into the wood. “Aren’t you going to stay and watch him?” Jessa teased.

Brochael frowned at her. “Kari can look after himself. And besides—”

A twig cracked, sharp, to his left.

He spun around.

A flurry of men in green, a sudden, bewildering ambush, were leaping and falling from trees and rocks, swift as thought. Hakon crashed down; Skapti yelled a warning. Already Brochael was struggling with two of them; another grabbed Jessa from behind. She screamed; the horse reared and as the man glanced up at it she saw his face, hungry, mud-smeared, leering. She drew her knife and struck without a thought, slashing his arm, the blood welling instantly.

Brochael was up, swinging his ax; there was a wary space around him. As she turned she saw something flicker at his back; her eyes widened with fear.

“Behind you!”

But the arrow, swifter than words, was in him. He slammed back against a tree, crumpled up, and lay still.