The Icebound Land

3

A S THE WOLFSHIP ROUNDED THE POINT AND REACHED THE shelter of the bay, the heavy swell died away. Inside the small natural harbor, the tall, rocky headlands broke the force of both wind and swell so that the water was flat calm, its surface broken only by the spreading V of the wolfship's wake.

"Is this Skandia?" Evanlyn asked.

Will shrugged uncertainly. It certainly didn't look the way he had expected. There were only a few small, ramshackle huts on the shore, with no sign of a town. And no people.

"It doesn't seem big enough, does it?" he said.

Svengal, coiling a rope nearby, laughed at their ignorance.

"This isn't Skandia," he told them. "We're barely halfway to Skandia. This is Skorghijl." Seeing their puzzled looks, he explained further. "We can't make the full crossing to Skandia now. That storm in the Narrow Sea delayed us so long that the Summer Gales have set in. We'll shelter here until they've blown out. That's what those huts are for."

Will looked dubiously at the weathered timber huts. They looked grim and uncomfortable.

"How long will that take?" he asked, and Svengal shrugged.

"Six weeks, two months. Who knows?" He moved off, the coil of rope over one shoulder, and the two young people were left to survey their new surroundings.

Skorghijl was a bleak and uninviting place of bare rock, steep granite cliffs and a small level beach where the sun and salt-whitened timber huts huddled. There was no tree or blade of green anywhere in sight. The rims of the cliffs were scattered with the white of snow and ice. The rest was rock and shale, granite black and dull gray. It was as if whatever gods the Skandians worshipped had removed all vestige of color from this rocky little world.

Unconsciously, without the need to battle the constant backward set of the waves, the rowers slackened their pace. The ship glided across the bay to the shingle beach. Erak, at the tiller, kept her in the channel that ran deep right up to the water's edge, until the keel finally grated into the shingle and the wolfship was, for the first time in days, still.

Will and Evanlyn stood, their legs uncertain after days of constant movement.

The ship rang with the dull thuds of timber on timber as the oars were drawn in board and stowed. Erak looped a leather thong over the tiller to secure it and prevent the rudder from banging back and forth with the movement of the tide. He glanced briefly at the two prisoners.

"Go ashore if you like," he told them. There was no need to restrain them or guard them in any way. Skorghijl was an island, barely two kilometers across at its widest point. Apart from this one perfect natural harbor that had made it a refuge for Skandians during the Summer Gales, Skorghijl's coast was an uninterrupted line of sheer cliffs, dropping into the sea.

Will and Evanlyn moved to the bow of the ship, passing the Skandians, who were unshipping barrels of water and ale and sacks of dried food from the sheltered spaces below the center deck. Will climbed over the gunwale, hung full length for a few seconds, then dropped to the shale below. Here, with the prow canted up as it had slid up the beach, there was a considerable drop to the stones. He turned to help Evanlyn, but she was already dropping after him.

They stood uncertainly.

"My God," Evanlyn muttered, feeling herself sway as the solid land beneath her seemed to roll and pitch. She stumbled and fell to one knee.

Will was in no better state. Now that the constant movement had ceased, the dry land beneath them seemed to heave and lurch. He placed one hand against the timbers of the boat to stop himself from falling.

"What is it?" he asked her. He stared at the ground beneath his feet, expecting to see it forming and rolling into hummocks and hills.

But it was flat and motionless. He felt the first traces of nausea gathering in the pit of his stomach.

"Look out down there!" a voice from above warned, and a sack of dried beef thudded onto the pebbles beside him. He looked up, swaying uncertainly, into the grinning eyes of one of the crew.

"Got the land-wobbles, have you?" the man said, not unsympathetically. "Should be all right again in a few hours' time."

Will's head spun. Evanlyn had managed to regain her feet. She was still swaying, but at least she wasn't assailed by the same nausea that Will was feeling. She took his arm. "Come on," she said. "There are some benches up there by those huts. We might be better off sitting down."

And, lurching drunkenly, they stumbled through the shingle to the rough wooden benches and tables that were set outside the huts.

Will sank gratefully onto one, holding his head in his hands and resting his elbows on his knees for support. He groaned in misery as another wave of nausea swept over him. Evanlyn was in slightly better shape. She patted his shoulder.

"What's causing this?" she said in a small voice.

"It happens when you've been on board ship for a few days." Jarl Erak had approached behind them. He had a sack of provisions slung over one shoulder and he swung it down to the ground outside the door of one of the huts, grunting slightly with the effort.

"For some reason," he continued, "your legs seem to think you're still on the deck of a ship. Nobody knows why. It'll only last a few hours and then you'll be fine."

"I can't imagine ever feeling fine again," Will groaned in a thick voice.

"You will be," Erak told him. "Get a fire going," he said brusquely. He jerked a thumb toward a blackened circle of stones a few meters from the nearest hut. "You'll feel better with a hot meal inside you."

Will groaned at the mention of food. Nevertheless, he rose unsteadily from the bench and took the flint and steel that Erak held out to him. Then he and Evanlyn moved to the fireplace. Stacked beside it was a pile of sun-and salt-dried driftwood. Some of the planks were brittle enough to break with bare hands and Will began to stack the slivers into a pyramid in the middle of the circle of stones.

Evanlyn, for her part, gathered together bunches of dried moss to act as kindling, and within five minutes they had a small fire crackling, the flames licking eagerly at the heavier pieces of firewood they added now to the blaze.

"Just like old times," Evanlyn murmured with a small grin. Will turned quickly to her, smiling in return. All too clearly, he could see Morgarath's bridge looming above them once more, with the fires they had set feeding voraciously on the tarred ropes and resin-laden pine beams. He sighed deeply. Given the chance to do it over, he still would have acted as he had. But he wished Evanlyn hadn't been involved. Wished she hadn't been captured with him.

Then, even as he wished it, he realized that she was the one bright spark in his life of misery now and that by wishing her away, he was wishing away the only small glow of happiness and normality in his days.

He felt a sense of confusion. In a moment of extreme surprise, he realized that, if she were not here with him, life would be barely worth living. He reached out and touched her hand lightly. She looked at him again, and this time, he was the first to smile. "Would you do it again?" he asked her. "You know, the bridge and everything?"

This time, she didn't smile back at him. She thought seriously for several seconds, then said, "In a moment. You?"

He nodded. Then he sighed again, thinking of all that they had left behind. Unnoticed by the two young people, Erak had seen the little exchange. He nodded to himself. It was good for each of them to have a friend, he thought. Life was going to be hard for them when they reached Hallasholm and Ragnak's court. They'd be sold as slaves and their life would be hard physical labor, with no respite and no release. One grindingly hard day after another, month in, month out, year after year. A person living that life would need a friend.

It would be going too far to say that Erak was fond of the two youngsters. But they had won his respect. The Skandians were a warrior race who valued bravery and valor in battle above all else, and both Will and Evanlyn had proved their courage when they'd destroyed Morgarath's bridge. The boy, he thought, was quite a scrapper. He'd dropped the Wargals like ninepins with that little bow of his. Erak had rarely seen faster, more accurate shooting. He guessed that was a result of the Ranger training.

And the girl had shown plenty of courage too, first of all making sure the fire had caught properly on the bridge, then, when Will finally went down, stunned by a rock hurled by one of the Skandians, she'd tried to grab the bow herself and keep shooting.

It was difficult not to feel sympathy for them. They were both so young, with so much that should have been ahead of them. He'd try to make things as easy as possible for them when they reached Hallasholm, Erak thought. But there wasn't a lot he'd be able to do. Then he shook himself angrily, breaking the introspective mood that had fallen over him. "Getting damn maudlin!" he muttered to himself. He noticed that one of the rowers was trying to sneak a prime piece of pork from a provision sack nearby. He moved quietly behind the man and planted his foot violently in his backside, lifting him clean off the ground with the force of the kick.

"Keep your thieving hands to yourself!" he snarled. Then, ducking his head under the doorway lintel, he went into the dark, smoke-smelling hut to claim the best bunk for himself.