by Ellie Cypher
“A warning? What kind of warning?” Cody’s gaze turned back over his shoulder.
A smile played at my lips. “A pretty stars-forsaken good one, I’d say.” The image of the girl’s face flashed up before me and my smile faltered.
“I’d say,” Cody said. “I can add it to the Compendium.”
I frowned. “What’s a Compendium… no, never mind, I don’t reckon I want to know.”
Cody grinned.
“Alright, fine, but it ain’t a pleasant tale.”
“The best ones hardly ever are.”
I gave him the crooked look that comment deserved. “There were a girl once. Lived out on the edge of ice with her brother and father. A small village of trappers and traders. But she weren’t treated well.”
“Do they ever treat them well?”
I ignored the interruption. “Well, one day, as it’s liable to do round here, food stores ran low. And they sent the girl out in search of game. But it were late. The sun near to setting. And she got lost in the woods. Like any sensible girl she didn’t right want to starve, but the snows closed in. Near to dying she stumbled into the night. Alone. But she weren’t alone, not really. There was a woman there too. A strange woman callin herself Winter. She took the girl to her moonlit cottage and fed her and warmed her. Reminded her of a sister she’d once had, Winter said, before she was forced to live in the forest. All night she told the girl tales, all the while the world outside burned with cold.”
“And then what?”
“Then the girl, belly full and heart happy, woke warm in her own bed. A rich fur coat white as snow spread atop her. Her father and brother were angry, and demanded she show them the woman, who they called Witch so they could steal her furs, her foods, her home. Tried to peel out of her where she’d been, who she’d seen. But the girl kept the Witch’s secret. The punishments got worse and no one in the village would help her. Well, Winter, she didn’t right like that. She’d saved the girl after all, who were so like her long dead sister. And who were these men to hurt what the Witch had mended?”
“I’ve a feeling this is not going to go well for those men.”
I laughed, parroting his words back at him. “It hardly ever does. She saved the girl, set her up rich and warm and well. She buried the rest of ’em. Not just the family, but the whole town. Everyone who’d ever wronged the girl. Drowned them in ice.”
“That’s not so very nice.”
“It ain’t. I said it weren’t a good one. Dev would tell it when we were being troublesome, interfering with the hunting or the distilling or the like. Be careful now or the Witch will freeze you too.” I frowned at that. “We’d laughed at him and run off, Bren and me.… He said you’d see an arm here, a head there, bits and pieces of people reaching out for help that sure weren’t coming. And the ice were so clear you could see every frozen breath, the remnants of their screams still rising from their lips.” I gave a heavy shiver. “The entire village eaten alive by the hunger of the Flats and the anger of the Witch waiting for them.”
“Thank you.” Cody blinked at me. I blinked a little at myself. It were the most I’d ever said to him at once.
I nodded brisk. Not sure what to say. At the front of the line, hackles high, Fen gave a shake, steam rising from her dense coat. Teeth bared and ears alert. The team restless behind her. This weren’t no place to linger. I took up the reins.
“It’s time to go,” I said.
Cody scrambled to pull the sled’s furs over him. “Yes, right.”
When we were all loaded, I snapped the team into motion, glancing over my shoulder only once. Cause even though I knew we were alone, I were unable to shake the uneasy feeling that maybe we weren’t.
Troubled, I drove us into the Flats. Big rolling walls of green-white clouds soon began pooling over the horizon. Pillowed forms dulling out the low sun, giving the world a hushed kind of stillness as we drove. Muted, expectant. Charging the world with a near-palpable current. A friction in the air. As if even the Flats were waiting.
A storm were coming for us and it weren’t gonna be small.
CHAPTER 15 What We Cannot See
Our stop for the night were far worse than expected.
A small frontier outpost used mainly by summer trappers and their crews, Dev had told me about it. Had said it were a backwater at best. And for a man from Shadow Springs, that were saying something. Heart sinking, I scanned the terrain. Knowin more and more why it were called Dead River. Cause if it had been not much then, it were even less now. There were barely anything left at all. It were Cody who spotted it, jutting out from behind a barrier of ice. I pulled the team round.
I jumped off the sled, Cody quick to scramble out of the basket behind me. This were as protected as it were gonna get. The structure had no roof and only three standing walls. One of which were made entire from a series of rotten hides and supported by what looked suspicious like a set of bones. Elk. Or caribou maybe? Something big, any road.
I took hold of a massive antler, longer than half again the length of my arm, knife-sharp at the tips. At least twelve points, it were twice what were normal.
Real, real big. Not a comforting thought. Cause if the prey were this big, what did that make the animals that hunted it?
Ahead of me Cody, who had already and efficiently taken out the kit, had wandered to the front of the team and begun to unharness Fen. Who were leaning her canine body into his attentions, her tongue lolling and head butting his side. The very best of friends. Traitor, I thought without heat. I strode over to help.
The tent felt, if possible, even smaller than it had before. Which were in part due to it being black as pitch outside, combined with the fact that the tent’s walls rushed in and out with each howl of the storm. As if we were inside some giant bellows.
I scrambled in the bottom of the kit for a candle. If I didn’t much like seeing Cody during the daylight, not seeing him in the dark were worse.
“How bad is it going to get out there?” Cody asked, worried.
Where were the candles? “Well, it ain’t gonna get better anytime soon.” I thought I’d put them in here.… maybe in the other pocket?
“Will the dogs be alright?” Cody asked.
The question gave me pause. “I sure as stars hope so.” At least I’d managed to get them settled in tight; the cover I’d made from the animal hides were good. Well, good-ish. “Fen and the team have seen much worse, Cody, they’ll be fine. It’s us we’ve got to worry about. If we can’t get the light going, we won’t be eating.…” I began searching every pocket I could find. Finally, my fingers closed mercifully around the stub of a candle in a pocket of my coat.
It were the whale-fat candle from the dead man’s stuff. Cody’s uncle’s stuff. But if Cody recognized it, he didn’t say. I lit the candle and began melting some ice. We ate in silence.
“I don’t… what is that?” Cody reached toward the lantern, where a piece of something stuck out of the melted wax along the candle’s side.
“No idea,” I said, surprised. Yanking on the edge of the foreign material, I took care not to let the wick go out. Despite the warmth, it were in there firm. I tugged harder. And in a sudden give, a piece of paper came out. We both stared at it. A tingling cold spread out across my skin. I flattened it.
“A drawing maybe? Can’t quite make out of what.” I turned the page round and round. Squinting in the low light. “I think it’s a circle and there’s a bit of writing.…”
“It isn’t a drawing, Jorie,” Cody said, breath hitching.
I looked up from the paper. And I knew. I bloody knew.
It was a map.
My heart rose and then crashed as that realization hit me. I had what the Rover wanted now. But it also meant I had it then. If I’d searched better, he would never have taken Bren.
I looked up from the map. Cody was staying perfect still across from me. Waiting. I took a deep breath. You can’t change the past.
But I knew somethi
ng else too.
If I couldn’t change the past, I were certain going to change the future.
“Cody, tell me everything about this map you know. Everything about Vydra.” If it meant any advantage on this Rover, I’d have it. I’d have it all.
Nodding grim, Cody began to talk.
CHAPTER 16 All Good Things
I pushed hard all the next day. Too hard.
If I kept us on this pace, it’d be only three more days. Three more till Nocna Mora. And Brenna. And now that we had the map, at least a chance. Slim as it were.
I’d felt a dangerous flutter of hope inside me that morning, even if I didn’t believe half of what Cody had been saying. Stories from Scholars at the University about the great Northern city lost in the ice. Of the treasure it held, locked away and forgotten. And of the Witch who kept it that way.
I didn’t buy one word of it. Not that it mattered if I believed it or not. The Rover did. And his greed for it was what had brought him to Shadow Springs. Just like Walter Colburn. Different kinds of obsession, driving them to the same place. And bad ends.
Sitting on the ice were not the place I wanted to be. Not when there were still light in the sky. My hands shaking with more than frustration, I growled and began to stitch the pieces of my broken reins back together.
It were all my fault. I’d been careless, right stupid. Fallen asleep. Only I couldn’t figure out why. Cause I knew better. I know better. And I certain weren’t tired now. But I had let the reins slip.
Let the leather get caught under the cut of the rail. Get clear cut in half in four separate places, slicing the harnesses useless. Grumbling, I picked up the heavy S-shaped needle and leather thread.
I weren’t no good at sewing even when sitting by the fire, Ma and Bren at my side, warm fingers and a full belly. Which meant I sure as stars weren’t good now, out in the middle of the ice, angry and hungry.
“Damn it!” I dropped the needle and rein, red blooming at the tip of my finger. I cussed again, kicking at the lead rope. I pressed at my finger. Blood pooled.
“Here, let me see.” Cody held out his hand to me. His arm hovered in the chill between us. “I can help.”
I narrowed my eyes at Cody. Putting all my frustration into that look. At him. Though none of it were his fault. I put pressure on my finger. The cold made you worse than you were. Clumsy. Stupid. Bitter. Least that’s what it made me.
Only Cody didn’t recoil. Instead, calm as you could wish, bent down to my side. I shifted away. I didn’t need his help. I didn’t need anyone’s help.
Cody leaned in close, face near enough to smell the bright perfume of his skin. And with a hesitant smile, he picked up the needle and thread.
“Is this all we need to fix?” Cody asked, running his attention down the length of the leather, ungloved fingers feeling the rough cracks and broken edges of the caribou hide. And the clean slices of my carelessness.
His hair caught in the breath of wind, running over the soft skin of his cheeks.
I tugged rough on the edge of my scarf, stuffing it tight into the neck of my coat, and rumbled something along the lines of agreement. His smile got wider. And my scowl got deeper.
“Great. I think that shouldn’t be a problem.” Cody took the sliced leads and sat down on the sled next to me. Our shoulders touching. His breathing light as the brush of a fish’s tail in the reeds, exhaling in rhythm with mine.
The rail gave a little bow under our combined weight. I held my breath. Within a few minutes, he’d sewed it up right. Cody pulled hard on the rein. It held.
“Where in the world did you learn to do that?” I turned the rein over in my hands. It looked near as strong as new.
Cody smiled big, running a hand across his scarf. “Not so useless as I seem, huh?”
Despite myself, I let out a laugh. “Maybe, maybe not. Verdict ain’t in on that yet.”
A shadow of exasperation passed across Cody’s too-green eyes and I smiled. I took the rein with me. It would work just fine. Whistling, all too pleased with himself for my liking, Cody settled into the basket. And we were off. Just cause he were handy once…
Before we were over the horizon, a weight like the press of a hand pushed between my shoulders. I glanced backward. But there were nothing there.
I pressed one hand to my side, to where the map rested. It was making me paranoid. That were all. But for all the white emptiness, the press turned into an itch I couldn’t right shake.
By the time we’d settled down for the night. My mind found a million reasons to stay awake. To not dream, to think about the girl under the ice, her face, her hair. What kind of life she might’ve had. How much she had looked like Bren.
I lay awake in the darkness, my eyes fixed on the fluttering of our tent in the night. And tried and failed to ignore the wind outside, the great sweeps that lashed across the Flats, trapping the world in frost and muted starlight. The eerie calls of bodiless voices echoing across the snow, dark cries that pressed the cold of the world ever deeper into my bones. Cries that had me wishing fervent they weren’t real. My imagination robbing me of what little warmth my shivering body made. It were the worst night out here yet.
Sunrise came and with it the chore of digging ourselves out of three feet of fresh snow. The dogs of course were in heaven.
The sky weren’t completely clear, but the world under our feet soon became hard packed and the travel brisk. It took me near to midday to stop hearing the wild of the night ringing in my mind.
I studied the Flats. All around us the world vibrated with gold. The sun, low on the horizon, shimmered with it. With the illusion of warmth. Far to the west, you could just make out a thin line of black pushing through the air. Sea birds. I smelled the air.
Brisk as ever. Only now it came with a hint of salt and briny decay. I kicked at the snow. A sheet of worrisome thin ice glistened back. The glasslike surface disrupted only by hundreds of air bubbles that had been trapped just under as it had froze. The more recent the freeze, the more air got caught. Struggling from the sled, Cody came to stand at my side.
We’d need more than luck from here on out. Not that we didn’t need it before. Cody handed me the water flask. I took a long pull and handed it back. “We’re gonna need to be careful now. Cause this is where the Flats start to get real tricky,” I said.
Cody gave a sputter. “As in, it has not been hard up until now?” He wiped the spilled water from his chin.
“Not like this.” I pointed out over the face of the ice. “Just look.”
Cody’s eyes followed my hand. “I don’t—”
So impatient. “Just wait for it, Colburn.”
Cody raised an eyebrow, knocking the snow from the treads of his boots. “I don’t see what…” His voice trailed off as no more than fifty yards to the west a massive jet of water shot skyward. “What the…?”
“The ice round here? Not so solid as it seems.”
“Is it a geyser?” he asked, wide-eyed.
I shook my head. “Looks like it, but it ain’t. That’s the breathing of pods of animals caught in the ice when the rivers they use to go between hunting grounds froze ahead of ’em. And behind them,” I said. “Happens every year. Trapped with no food and no escape for months at time, just waiting for the sun to melt them out.”
“Melt them out? That’s terrible.” He looked around, disbelieving.
It certain were. “The rivers here all run to the sea, and salt water don’t freeze like normal. So between the motion of warm bodies and the seawater”—I waved a hand—“you get… holes.”
“That’s…” Cody looked out over the maze of ice with a new understanding. “Very interesting.”
“I hope it ain’t too interesting, is all,” I added, getting back to the sled’s rails. “I enjoy being above the ice, not below it.”
We pushed on, moving careful over the maze. Until there weren’t no easy paths left. I pulled up the sled.
I squinted against the glare of the
sun. Ahead of us weren’t just thin ice anymore, but huge black lines. Cracks in the ice wider than I were tall. I turned to look back the way we had come. If we had to retrace our path, it would mean another day. Another day out on the Flats, another day to Bren.
I tied the reins, staked the sled to the ice, and stalked forward.
“Gotta be a way through.” But I knew there weren’t. It were already too broken up, large cakes of ice—brash growlers smaller than floes—there weren’t no safe way past.
“What about there?” Cody lifted his arm.
I shook my head. “See there.” I pointed to where a long, thin collar of ice had risen from the ground, piles of frosted snow like flowers coating the surface. “That ice field still ain’t right. Looks solid enough, but that ridge were formed by one sheet of ice mounting the other. Step on it and it’ll flip.”
As if to prove my words, the top sheet gave a massive crack, splintering the silence, and slid into the waiting waters below.
Cody swallowed. “Right. So that is a no.”
I gave him a flick of smile.
To the east and west were massive fields of brine blooms. Outcroppings of sea salt leaking through the cracks in the ice and freezing. Beautiful crystal warnings that meant the start of the broken belt, an area of breaching sea ice miles wide. A place deadlier than the kiss of the rifle at my side.
North were also no good. Row after daggered row of stories-high shards of ice impaled the landscape. And if you somehow made it through, there were a massive swath of an impassable glacier, waiting.
“Stars help us, the only way is south.” Back the way we’d come. In my haste I’d missed the right path. Cursing myself for a fool, I turned us round.
Six hours. It took me six hours to find it. The place where we had started. A whole day gone. But weren’t nothing I could do about it but keep on. You always kept on. My teeth were clattering something wicked by the time I got the tent staked out, and I near fell to my knees with the ache in my bones. Rough didn’t begin to cover it. Tonight, even the dogs were tired.