by Tad Williams
“No, my lady, you will not.”
She gasped. “Let go of my arm. You’re hurting me.”
Somewhere above, Gan Itai’s song seemed to falter.
Aspitis leaned forward. His face was very close to hers. “I think there are things that must be made clear between us.” He laughed shortly. “As a matter of fact, there is much for us to talk about—later. You will go to your cabin now. I will finish my supper and then come to you.”
“I won’t go.”
“You will.”
He said it with such quiet certainty that her angry reply caught in her throat as fear clutched her. Aspitis pulled her close against him, then turned and forced her along the passageway.
The sea watcher’s song had stopped. Now it began again, rising and fading as Gan Itai murmured to the night and the quiet sea.
27
The Black Sled
“They are getting close,” Sludig gasped. “If your Farewell Stone is more than half a league from here, little man, we will have to turn and fight. ”
Shaking the water from his hood, Binabik leaned forward across Qantaqa’s neck. The wolf’s tongue lolled and her sides heaved like a blacksmith’s bellows. They had been traveling without a stop since daybreak, fleeing through the storm-battered forest.
“I wish I could be telling you that it is near, Sludig. I do not know how much distance remains, but I fear it is most of a day’s riding.” The troll stroked Qantaqa’s sodden fur. “A brave run, old friend.” She ignored him, absorbed in drinking rainwater from the hollow stump of a tree.
“The giants are hunting us,” Sludig said grimly. “They have developed a taste for man-meat.” He shook his head. “When we make our stand at last, some of them will regret that.”
Binabik frowned. “I have too little size to be a satisfying morsel, so I will not waste their time by being caught. That way, no one will be having regrets.”
The Rimmersman steered his mount over to the stump. Trembling with the cold, parched despite the pelting rain, the horse was heedless of the wolf a handsbreadth away.
As their steeds drank, a long rumbling howl lifted above the wind, blood-freezingly close.
“Damn me!” Sludig spat, slapping his palm against his sword-hilt. “They are no farther behind us than they were an hour ago! Do they run fast as horses?”
“Near to it, it is seeming,” Binabik said. “I am thinking we should move deeper into the forest. The thicker trees may slow them.”
“You thought getting off the flatlands would slow them, too,” Sludig said, reining his reluctant horse away from the hollow stump.
“If we live, then you can be telling me all my incorrectness,” Binabik growled. He took a tight grip on the thick fur that mantled Qantaqa’s neck. “Now, unless you have been thinking of ways to fly, we should ride. ”
Another deep, coughing cry came down the wind.
Sludig’s sword swished from side to side, clearing the brush as they pushed their way down the long, wooded slope. “My blade will be dull when I have greatest need,” he complained.
Binabik, who was leading the string of balking horses, tripped and fell to the muddy earth, then slid a short way down the hillside. The horses milled nervously, confined to the path Sludig had hacked in the swarming undergrowth. Struggling to keep his balance in the mud, the troll got up and tracked down the bridle of the lead horse.
“Qinkipa of the Snows! This storm is never-ending!”
They took most of the noon hour to make their way down the slope. It appeared that Binabik’s reliance on the forest cover had been at least partially correct: the occasional howls of the Hunën became a little fainter, although they never faded completely. The forest appeared to be growing thinner. The trees were still huge, but not as monumental as their kin that grew closer to Aldheorte’s center.
The trees, alder and oak and tall hemlock, were garlanded in looping vines. The grass and undergrowth grew thick, and even in this queerly cold season a few yellow and blue wildflowers lifted their heads up from the mud, bobbing beneath the heavy rain. Had it not been for the torrent and the biting wind, this arm of the southern forest would have been a place of rare beauty.
They reached the base of the slope at last and clambered onto a low shelf of stone to scrape the worst of the mud from their boots and clothing before riding once more. Sludig looked back up the hillside, then lifted a pointing finger.
“Elysia’s mercy, little man, look.”
Far up the slope but still horribly near, a half-dozen white shapes were pushing their way through the foliage, long arms swinging like Nascadu apes. One lifted its head, the face a black hole against the pale, shaggy fur. A cry of thundering menace rang down the rainy hillside and Sludig’s horse pranced in terror beneath him.
“It is a race,” Binabik said. His round, brown face had gone quite pale. “For this moment, they are having the best of it.”
Qantaqa leaped from the shelf of stone, bearing the troll with her. Sludig and his mount were just behind, leading the other horses. Hooves drummed on the sodden ground.
In their haste and ill-suppressed fear, it was some while before they noticed that the ground, while still overgrown, had become unusually flat. They rode beside long-empty riverbeds that were now filled anew with rushing, foaming rainwater. Here and there bits of root-gnawed stone stood along the banks, covered with centuries of moss and clinging vines.
“These look like bridges, or the bones of broken buildings,” Sludig called as they rode.
“They are,” Binabik replied. “It means we are nearing our goal, I hope. This is a place where once the Sithi had a great city.” He leaned forward, hugging Qantaqa’s neck as she leaped over a fallen trunk.
“Do you think it will keep the giants at bay?” Sludig asked. “You said that the diggers did not like the places that the Sithi lived.”
“They do not like the forest and the forest does not like them,” the troll said, gentling Qantaqa to a halt. “The giant Hunën seem to be having no such trouble—perhaps because they are less clever, or less easily frightened. Or because they are not digging. I do not know.” He tilted his head, listening. It was hard to hear anything over the relentless hissing patter of rain on leaves, but for the moment the surroundings seemed innocent of danger. “We will follow the flowing water.” He pointed to the new-grown river hurrying past them, laden with broken branches knocked loose by the storm. “Sesuad‘ra, the Stone of Farewell, is in the valley beside the forest’s ending, very close to the city Enki-e-Shao’saye—on whose outskirts we are sitting.” He gestured around him with his stubby, mittened hand. “The river must be flowing down to the valley, so it is sense for us to accompany it.”
“Less talking, then—more accompanying,” Sludig said.
“I have been speaking, in my day,” Binabik said with a certain stiffness, “to more appreciative ears.” With a shrug, he urged Qantaqa forward.
They rode past countless remnants of the vast and long untenanted city. Fragments of old walls shimmered in the undergrowth, masses of pale, crumbled brick forlorn as lost sheep; in other spots the foundations of eroded towers lay exposed, curved and empty as ancient jawbones, choked with parasitic moss. Unlike Da‘ai Chikiza, the forest had done more than grow into Enki-e-Shao’saye: there was virtually nothing left of this city but faint traces. The forest, it seemed, had always been a part of the place, but over the millennia it had become a destroyer, smothering the elaborate stonework in a mass of snaking foliage, enfolding it with roots and branches that patiently unmade even the matchless products of the Sithi builders, returning all to mud and damp sand.
There was little inspiration in the crumbling ruins of Enki-e-Shao’saye. They seemed only to demonstrate that even the Sithi were bound within the sweep of time; that any work of hands, however exalted, must come at last to ignoble result.
Binabik and Sludig found a clearer path running beside the river bank and began to make better time, winding their way through
the rain-soaked forest. They heard nothing but the sounds of their own passage and were glad of it. Just as the troll had predicted, the land began to slope more acutely, falling away toward the southwest. Despite its swerving course, the river was moving in that direction as well, the water gaining speed and becoming possessed of what almost seemed like enthusiasm. It positively threw itself at its banks, as if desiring to be everywhere at once; the gouts of water that flew up at obstructions in the river bed seemed to leap higher than they normally should, as though this watercourse, granted a temporary life, labored to prove to some stern riverine deities its fitness for continued survival.
“Almost out of the forest,” Binabik panted from Qantaqa’s bobbing back. “See how the trees are now thinning? See, there is light between them ahead!”
Indeed, the stand of trees just before them seemed poised at the outermost rim of the earth. Instead of more mottled green foliage, beyond them lay only a wall of fathomless, featureless gray, as though the world’s builders had run short of inspiration.
“You are right, little man,” Sludig said excitedly. “Forest’s end! Now, if we are within a short ride of this sanctuary of yours, we may shake those whoreson giants after all!”
“Unless my scrolls are none of them correct,” Binabik replied as they cantered down the last length of slope. “It is not much distance from forest’s edge to the Stone of Farewell.”
He broke off as they reached the final line of trees. Qantaqa stopped abruptly, head held low, sniffing the air. Sludig reined up alongside. “Blessed Usires,” the Rimmersman breathed.
The slope abruptly fell away before them, dropping at a much steeper angle to the wide valley below. Sesuad’ra loomed there, dark and secretive in its shroud of trees, a bony thrust of stone standing far above the valley bottom. Its height was particularly apparent because it was entirely surrounded by a flat plain of water.
The valley was flooded. The Stone of Farewell, a great fist that seemed to defy the rain-lashed skies, had become an island in a gray and restless sea. Binabik and Sludig were perched at the forest’s edge only a half-league away from their goal, but every cubit of valley floor that lay between was covered by fathoms of floodwater.
Even as they stared, a roar echoed through the forest behind them, distant but still frighteningly close. Whatever magic remained to Enki-e-Shao’s aye was too weak to discourage the hungry giants.
“Aedon, troll, we are caught like flies in a honey jar,” Sludig said, a tremor of fear creeping into his voice for the first time. “We are backed against the edge of the world. Even if we fight and stave off their first attack, there is no escape!”
Binabik stroked Qantaqa’s head. The wolfs hackles were up; she whimpered beneath his touch as though she ached to return the challenge floating down the wind. “Peace, Sludig, we must be thinking.” He turned to squint down the precipitous slope. “I fear you are right about one thing. We are never to be leading horses down this grade.”
“And what would we do at the bottom, in any case?” Sludig growled. Rain dribbled from his beard-braids. “That is no mud puddle! This is an ocean! Did your scrolls mention that?!”
Binabik waggled his head angrily. His hair hung in his eyes, pasted to his forehead by the rain. “Look up, Sludig, look up! The sky is full of water, and it is all being dropped down on us, courtesy of our enemy.” He spat in disgust. “This is perhaps become an ocean now, but a week ago it was a valley only, just as the scrolls say.” A worried look crossed his face. “I am wondering if Josua and the rest were caught in low ground! Daughter of the Snows, what a thought! If so, we might as well make our stand in this place—at the world’s end, as you call it. Thorn’s journey will stop here.”
Sludig flung himself down out of the saddle, skidding briefly in the mud. He strode to the lead packhorse and detached the bundled length of the black sword. He hefted it easily, carrying it back to Binabik in one hand. “Your ‘living sword’ seems eager for battle,” he said sourly. “I am half-tempted to see what it can do, though it may turn anvil-heavy on me in midstroke.”
“No,” Binabik said shortly. “My people are not fond of running from a fight, but neither is it time for us to be singing Croohok death-songs and be going happily to glorious defeat. Our quest is not yet given over.”
Sludig glowered. “Then what do you say, troll? Shall we fly to that far rock?”
The little man hissed in frustration. “No, but first we can look for some other way for getting down.” He gestured at the river thundering past them, which disappeared down the steep wooded slope. “This is not the only waterway. It could be that others will lead us down in a more gradual path to the valley.”
“And then what?” Sludig demanded. “Swim?”
“If necessary.” As Binabik spoke, the hunting cry of their pursuers rose again, setting the horses to milling and bumping in panic. “Take the horse, Sludig,” Binabik said. “There is still chance we may win free.”
“If so, you are a magical troll indeed. I will name you a Sithi and you can live forever.”
“Do not joke here,” Binabik said. “Do not mock.” He slid from Qantaqa’s back, then whispered something in the wolfs ear. With a bound, she was away through the dripping vegetation, tracking eastward along the face of the slope. Sludig and the troll followed as best they could, cutting a trail that the horses could follow.
Qantaqa, swift as a racing shadow now that the weight of her rider had been lifted from her back, soon found an angled traverse down the cliffside. Despite the sticky, treacherous footing, they were able to make their way slowly down from the high promontory, gradually approaching the lowest edge of the forest, now the shore of a wind-tormented sea.
The forest did not come to a sudden ending, but rather disappeared into the rain-rippled water. In some places the tops of submerged trees still protruded above the surface, little islands of rippling leaves. Naked branches thrust up from the gray flood beside them like the hands of drowning men.
Sludig’s horse pulled up just at the water’s edge and the Rimmersman vaulted down to stand ankle-deep in muddy water. “I am not sure I see the improvement, troll,” he said, surveying the scene. “At least before we were on high ground. ”
“Cut branches,” Binabik said, clambering through the mud toward him. “Long ones, as many as you can be finding. We will build a raft.”
“You are mad!” Sludig snapped.
“Perhaps. But you are the strong one, so you must be the cutter. I have rope in the packs for binding the limbs together, and I can do that. Hurry!”
Sludig snorted, but set himself to work. Within moments his sword was smacking dully against wood.
“If my axes had not been lost on this foolish quest,” he panted, “I could build you a whole longhouse in the time it will take me to chop a tree with this poor blade. ”
Binabik said nothing, intent on lashing together the rough spars Sludig had already knocked loose. When he had finished with what was available, he went searching for loose wood. He discovered another tributary nearby that dropped down into a narrow gulley before emptying at last into the greater flood. A treasure trove of loose limbs had accumulated in the narrowest spot. Binabik grabbed them up by the armful, hurrying back and forth between the river and the place where Sludig labored.
“Qantaqa cannot swim so far,” Binabik grunted as he carried the last useful batch. His eyes had drifted to the distant bulk of Sesuad’ra. “But I cannot be leaving her to find her own way. There is no way for knowing how long this storm will last. She might never find me again.” He dumped the wood, frowning, then bent to his knots once more, his fingers threading loops of slender cord around the damp wood. “I cannot make this raft big enough for all three, not and take that of our belongings which we must be saving. There is no time.”
“Then we will take turns being in the water,” Sludig said. He shuddered, staring at the rain-pocked flood. “Elysia, Mother of God, but I hate the thought of it.”
�
�Clever Sludig! You are right. We need only make it big enough for one of us to rest while the other two are swimming, and we will go into the water one after the other.” Binabik allowed himself a thin smile. “You Rimmersmen have not lost all your seagoing blood, I see.” As he redoubled his efforts, a furious groan rolled through the woods. They looked up, startled, to see a massive white shape on the promontory only a few short furlongs away.
“God curse them!” Sludig moaned, hacking frenziedly at a slender trunk. “Why do they pursue us! Do they seek the sword?”
Binabik shook his head. “Almost done,” he said. “Two more long ones I am needing.”
The white figure on the hillside above quickly became several figures, a pack of furious ghosts that raised their long arms against the storming sky. The giants’ voices rolled and boomed across the water, as though they threatened not just the puny creatures below, but the Stone of Farewell itself, squatting in serene insolence just beyond their reach.
“Done,” Binabik said, tying the last knot. “Let us move it to the water. If it is not floating, you will have that fight you so desire, Sludig.”
It did float, once they had pushed it out past the tangle of drowned undergrowth. Above the storm came the dull crackling of vegetation being smashed aside as the giants came pushing their way down the muddy hillside. Sludig carefully tossed Thorn onto the damp logs. Binabik hastened back to loot the saddlebags. He dragged one leather sack over unopened, and flung it out to Sludig, who stood waist-deep in the murky water. “Those things are belonging to Simon,” the troll called. “They should not be lost.” Sludig shrugged, but pushed the bag on beside the wrapped sword.
“What about the horses?” Sludig shouted. The howl of their pursuers was growing louder.
“What can we do?” Binabik said helplessly. “We must set them free!” He drew his knife and slashed the bridle-traces from Sludig’s mount, then rapidly cut the belly-straps of the packhorses as well, so that their burdens slid down onto the muddy turf.