In the Shadow of the Gods

by Rachel Dunne

  “Hey-o!” Iveran’s voice carried across the ice in ripples, bouncing off the cliff walls, the ice ceiling. His white-gloved hands were cupped around his mouth, his head tilted back as he shouted into the air. “Riikar drith,” he called, the sound of the words unfamiliar to Scal’s ears. Not the Northern tongue at all.

  Scal tilted his head up as well, confused, just as a wood-and-rope ladder tumbled through the air.

  The men all stepped back, clearing space as the falling end of the ladder clattered to the ice. Another joined. And another. Six in total, draped in a neat half circle wider than three men could spread their arms. Gaping up, Scal finally saw it. A hole cut into the ice far above, the ladders dangling and, dimly seen, a score of faces peering down.

  Ropes followed, and the sledge men set about unhitching their dogs from the cargo and stringing the snarling beasts up by the ropes instead. Scal watched in a mix of horror and amazement as the dogs were lifted into the open air. Wailing and snarling and thrashing, feet clawing desperately at nothing, twisting to try to bite the ropes. Moving up span by jerking span, terrified yowling voices bouncing from the walls and echoing down until they disappeared over the lip of the distant hole.

  The ropes dropped back down, and they did it over again.

  Scal’s jaw ached from clenching his teeth, his head pounding with the sound of blind dog-fear. The Northmen were just starting on the sledges when Uisbure nudged Scal with the butt of his spear, then pointed to the hanging ladders. Men were beginning to make the slow climb. Scal’s stomach sank at the thought of dangling in the air like one of those dogs. Blown around by the uncaring wind. Fear aside, his fingers were cold and stiff, and he was not sure they would be able to grip the wooden slats. That his legs could make such a swaying, upward climb.

  Uisbure poked him with the spear again. “Up,” he said, and his eyes darkened when Scal shook his head. Uisbure’s mouth was hidden behind his thick beard, but Scal did not need to see the frown to know it was there. “Go, boy,” he growled.

  Scal stood perfectly still, arms wrapped miserably around himself, and shook his head again. Stand behind your decisions; if you won’t defend yourself, no one else will.

  His ears rang and spots danced before his eyes; he did not realize Uisbure had hit him until the man’s hand was already back at his side. Blood filled Scal’s mouth. The prisoner’s cross, broken open once more. Uisbure’s face was no kinder, but there was a hint of something in his voice—reason? sympathy?—as he said, “I am telling you, boy. You do not want to make this hard for you.”

  There was sense in that. In choosing the easy path. Close his eyes and climb the ladder, fingers gripping cold, and give himself into this new life. Stick his head up through the ice-cut hole and smile at all the faces so like his own. Cheer and laugh and celebrate homecoming. Belong.

  Gingerly, Scal bent his legs and sat in the snow at Uisbure’s feet. He should have felt the cold seep into him, but he did not. It was beyond his concern. Uisbure kicked him, but he sat stern and solid. Belong? No. Never.

  Three Northmen joined Uisbure, and the four of them hefted the boy and hauled him toward the ladders. A smile tugged at the corners of Scal’s mouth. Did they think they could make him climb? Foolishness. But they did not set him by the ladders. They set him by the last sledge, by the empty dangling ropes. Three of them held him still, so by the time Uisbure began looping the rope around his chest and he thought to struggle, it was too late. They tied him as they had tied the dogs, a rough harness of scratching rope, and tied his hands as well. The rope tightened around his chest, and the Northmen released him, and he began to rise into the air.

  Rope dug into his shoulders and his chest, scraping painfully as he was lifted. Iveran looked up and laughed as Scal rose slowly above them span by span, and soon the rest were laughing as well. Scal, raised like a dog into Valastaastad.

  Panic did not take long. The Northmen grew smaller, the ropes dug deeper. His breath wheezed through his teeth and the prisoner’s cross. He twisted and kicked, aching for the solid feel of ground beneath his feet. His hands fluttered uselessly behind his back, denied even the dogs’ scared scrabbling comfort.

  There was a small noise, almost lost in his terror. A creaking, a protest, a strained groan. The sound of a rope harness made to hold the weight of a dog. Not a man. Not even a boy.

  High above the Northmen, still laughing. High enough that he would break when he fell. Shatter into pieces like a block of ice. He would fall, and he would die. He knew he must stay still, keep the rope from weakening. Fear is natural, Parro Kerrus had said, but so is pissing yourself. A man must learn to control both. But Scal’s fear was a wild thing. He flailed and howled, like a dog, and the rope wailed with him.

  Fingers touched his skull. A hand, wrapped through his hair, hauling up. Hands on his shoulder, under the ropes, pulling. Thrown limp, landing with ice beneath his back, a desperate joyous sob rising in his throat. They laughed at him, too, a ring of broad blond faces staring down. He did not care. There was solid ground beneath him. No matter that it was a sheet of ice hanging high above the real ground. For now, it was enough.

  Scal kicked out as he woke from his dreams, and was rewarded with a sharp yelp of pain. A smile with no joy tugged at his mouth. The dogs had been bothering at him all night, trying to steal his boots. They still smelled of the animal they had come from, no doubt. Kerrus had glowed when he had given them to Scal. Good boots were a luxury in Aardanel, new boots even more so.

  The kicked dog slunk away growling, eyes fixed on Scal. The others were watching him, too, the whole pack. A mixture of hatred and terror and hunger. One snarled as he met its eyes, baring its sharp teeth. The rest soon joined in, and the kennels were full of a barking and howling and snapping bedlam. Scal sat in his corner, and endured.

  A fist pounded against the wall of the kennel, a rough voice yelling fury. The dogs’ anger changed to fear, their crying bouncing around the kennel until it subsided to whimpers and a few growls, and the pounding stopped.

  It had been Iveran’s idea. The Northmen of Valastaastad had kept a close eye on Scal after hauling him up through the hole, though he had had no intention of moving. Then the chief had loomed over him, humor and anger and disgust and disappointment all playing over his face as he looked down at Scal. “You have much to learn, ijka,” he had said. “My dogs may teach you more lessons.” He had turned away then, and a group of Northmen had dragged Scal away. Thrown him into the kennels with the dogs. It was a long low stone building, not unlike the other buildings in Valastaastad he had glimpsed, although built to an animal’s stature. A small open doorway in each wall so the dogs could come and go freely. A fence, twice the height of the biggest dog, circling the kennel to keep them from running off. Scal had huddled against the fence, watching the dogs watch him with wary eyes. Watching as they had fought and played. Watching as Paavo Dogmaster had fed them, as they had fought for the best scraps. Watching as one hulking brute of a dog had torn out the throat of another that had come too close to its food. Paavo had laughed at that, and laughed more as the dogs had crept forward to pick at the body of their dead fellow.

  It had grown cold, though. There had always been fire in Aardanel, and even on patrols with Athasar there had been campfires. Scal had known cold—the chill, biting cold that crept up on toes and fingers and cheeks. He had known it, and never been much bothered by it. But that had not been real cold. Not the cold of the true North, the cold that blew pitilessly off the Faltiik Mountains. This cold was brutal, merciless. It crept through the cracks and hunted down any hint of warmth. Smothered it. There was no withstanding it. Scal, in tunic and breeches, had crept freezing into the kennels, ignoring the growls that challenged him. Found an empty corner and claimed it. The dogs’ breath misted in the air as they watched him all through the night. He had stayed there, having nowhere else to go. Not wanting to lose the space he had claimed. Listened to the cold whistle through his cheek.

  His stomac
h rumbled, though. He had refused most of the food Uisbure had tried to give him on the journey, and he had been offered none since being thrown into the kennels. He had known hunger in Aardanel. It had been a constant thing, as familiar as Brennon’s smile. He had lived with the faint gnawing hunger, and survived. But this hunger . . . it was like a live thing. Curled up in his empty belly. Fingers clawing at the insides of its prison, leaving deep aching gouges. Howling and snarling like the dogs, loud enough they growled in return. Leaving him weak and slow and shaking.

  Paavo’s voice rang in the yard, and the dogs moved as one, rising and rushing into the cold air. Food. Scal’s hands scraped numbly along the ground as he crawled out to join the dogs. Paavo was tossing hunks of meat, laughing as they fought over the fatty morsels. Raw meat, but the sight of it made Scal’s stomach roar. Still laughing, Paavo threw a chunk toward him and the dogs turned as one, teeth bared. Scal pounced before they could, grabbing the piece of meat and stuffing it into his mouth. Sharp teeth snapped shut on empty air where the meat and his hand had been seconds before. Scal bared his own teeth as he chewed and chewed, the raw meat sliding slimy down his throat. The dogs had moved on to the next piece of their meal falling from the sky.

  The meat hit the ground a pace or two away from Scal. A big piece of it, enough that Fat Betho could have used it to make meals for a week, stingy as the bastard had been. Scal jumped at it, but the dogs were faster. Jaws locked around the steak, pulling it away, but Scal reached still. Teeth sank into his hand, into the thick flesh at the base of his thumb. The dog shook his hand as it would a rabbit. Pain shot tearing up his arm and he cried out. Tried to yank his hand back, felt the teeth rip deeper. He brought his other hand up, pounding it against the dog’s skull until its teeth opened and the beast slunk snarling away. Scal cradled his bleeding hand against his chest. Felt the cold seep into the deep punctures and run through his veins. He ground his teeth, and air hissed sharp through the cross on his cheek.

  Laughter flowed over the cold air. Paavo, of course. And next to him, wrapped in white, Iveran. Teeth and eyes flashing. Not so different from the dogs still watching Scal with wary eyes and curled lips.

  “Come here, ijka,” Iveran called, waving a lazy hand.

  Scal used his good hand to push himself to his feet. He was slow, unsteady. Two days of sitting and crawling had taken their toll. He shook and stumbled like a new-walking babe. The dogs pressed their bellies to the ground, slinking away from him. Weak as he was, he was Man now, and Paavo had taught them well to fear anything on two legs.

  As he made his slow way through the yard, the dogmaster continued to feed his beasts. The chunks of meat fell near to Scal’s feet, so that dogs darted in snarling and snapping at his ankles, near tripping him as Paavo chortled. One of the dogs closed its heavy jaws around the toe of Scal’s boot. Tugging and shaking, and Scal fell backward. Instinct set his hands down to catch his weight, and he cried out as his wounded hand took the brunt of the impact. His arm crumpled, and his elbow and tailbone connected sharply with the ice. Something slammed into his chest, pressing him all the way back as teeth snapped near his nose. He threw up his arm to shield his face, and so the dog took a firm grip on the offered limb. More teeth took hold of his shoulder. Fangs scraped along the sole of his now-bare foot as he kicked out. Barking, so loud it drowned out the sound of someone screaming endless terror. Strange, that someone nearby could sound more scared than he felt.

  Barks dissolved to yelps. The weight lifted off his chest, teeth scraping against bone as the dog refused to let go its prize. The teeth held on until they passed bone and met in flesh, but still they pulled. Dragging, tearing, until finally the connection was severed. Paavo threw the beast into the wall, and it fell to the ground with a mindless cry and a crunch, and then lay silent and still. The other dogs swarmed to its body, filling mouths and dashing off with bloody muzzles. One carried a small mouthful, the edges of the meat pale around the blood. The size and color to match the dent in Scal’s arm.

  He managed to roll himself onto his side before throwing up.

  Paavo dragged him up, set him on his feet. Gave him a hearty thump on the back. And together he and Iveran roared with laughter.

  Bandaged, bruised, and limping, Scal trailed in Iveran’s wake. All of Valastaastad stared. The men with disapproving frowns. The women with concern, or perhaps pity. The children with the same hard, incurious eyes as the children of Aardanel. Even the buildings seemed to stare. Square-cut empty windows with flapping hide covers tracking their progress down the town’s single street. If it could even be called a street. A strip of ice, lined by ice-seamed stone houses. The gaping hole through which Scal had been hefted was the center of the town, with lowly hovels stretching toward the lip of the ice shelf, clustering together as though afraid of being blown out into the great emptiness. To the other side of the hole, the houses became grander, if homes of stone and ice could be called grand. They were bigger, for the most part, and had spaces in between their neighbors’ walls. A few raised up on platforms. Some even built two stories high. The grandest was at the end of the street. Stilts raising it up near man-high, and three uneven levels piled on top of it. It looked as likely to crumble as the shelf on which Valastaastad was built, which was fitting enough. Real glass filled the openings in more than half the windows. Scal did not need to be told that this was Iveran’s home.

  “My home,” the Northman said anyway, his face bright with pride.

  A ladder as rickety as the rest of the place was the only way up. Scal managed it one-handed, though his bitten shoulder burned with the effort. Once up, Iveran clapped him on the back and swung the door open wide. “Your home,” he said. “Until you make a place for yourself.”

  A fire burned in a wide pit at the center of the room, fighting off the chill that hung in the air. A woman tended the big pot hanging over the fire, and she turned as man and boy entered. Her stomach bulged hugely ahead of her. She had a pleasant face. A faint, wary smile. “This is the boy?”

  “Aye. This is Scal.” Iveran’s fingers wrapped around Scal’s unbandaged arm, drew him forward. “Ijka, this is my wife, Hanej. And”—a smile split his face, pure and bright, unlike anything Scal had seen since Brennon had wished him luck before the patrol left—“our son Jari.”

  Hanej rested a hand over her broad belly, her smile softening to match Iveran’s. “He is sorry he cannot meet you yet.”

  “Soon enough.” Iveran stepped forward and wrapped her in a gruff hug. Scal stared at his feet. At the one boot with a gaping hole along the instep, puncture marks all around. Paavo had brought it to him as the midwife was wrapping his wounds. Thrown it at his feet and told him to remember. As though the holes in his flesh were not reminder enough.

  Iveran led him limping up a creaking flight of stairs. The second floor was a narrow walkway, no more than two steps across, a hole in the center that smoke from the fire lazily climbed through. Looking up, Scal saw a similar hole in the ceiling, and another beyond, open to pale blue sky.

  There were three doors, hides stretched over the frames. “Mine,” Iveran said, pointing to one with a snowbear’s head hanging above. His finger moved to the doorway across. “Yours. Go sleep, ijka. We will talk more later.”

  Stepping around the hole in the floor, Scal pushed aside the door covering. The room was small, sparse. A pile of furs for a bed. A rough-hewn stone chest. A window, real rippled glass, looking out onto the edge of the ice shelf and the endless snows beyond. Inside the chest, a neatly folded pile of fur and leather, a set of boots. Some candles, a flint. A small, sharp bone knife for eating.

  There was an ease to the exhaustion and pain that filled him. It was a simple matter to collapse onto the pile of furs, drag one around himself with his clumsy bandaged hand. He closed his eyes, and there was a comfort in the blackness. In not having to think, or to feel.

  He dreamed of Brennon, of the easy smiling innocence that seemed to warm the air where he walked. He dreamed his fr
iend’s laughter, the simple heart-lightening joy of it. He dreamed of Brennon smiling, smiling as arrows and swords and dogs’ teeth tore at his body. Of his happy laughter ringing out as he bled into the earth. He dreamed of Parro Kerrus, making the sign of the Mother over Brennon with one hand while the other tried to fit his guts back into his belly. Of the parro’s soulful voice intoning, “And thus did Fratarro shatter upon the bones of the earth, his limbs flung to the far horizons, and a shard of ebon did pierce his immortal heart . . .”

  “And so did Sororra vow vengeance,” Scal whispered into the furs as he woke, his head aching and tears drying on his cheeks, fresh blood leaking slow and warm from the rent in his arm.

  It was dark, dark as the woods on a moonless night after Athasar’s fires had all gone out. He went to the chest, crawling along the floor like a lame dog, his wounded arm folded close. A low rumble filled the house, a rhythmic noise, achingly familiar. Parro Kerrus had snored like a bear in winter. It was not Kerrus, though, because Parro Kerrus was dead. Killed, murdered. He reached into the chest, groping blindly. The edge nicked his fingers, but it helped him to find his way. His cold aching fingers wrapped around bone, and drew the knife from the chest.

  It was dark, but the little blade seemed to glow, a single curving line of fire. Righteous fire. Vengeance, and salvation. He crept to the hide door and pushed it aside, leaning his back against the frame, staring across at the white bear hide and snarling head. Watching. Waiting. Patience is the Mother’s gift; the wisdom to use it is the Father’s.