The Anvil of Ice

by Michael Scott Rohan

  But at last, after what seemed like an age, the bows of the chieftain's ship ground into the sand of a narrow beach between high cold cliffs. Then all the Mastersmith's goods were carried ashore with great care, and stacked high above the tide line, under his watchful eye. The moment this was done a sharp word was given and the warriors who had carried the last cases ran to the bows and began to push them free. As they scrambled aboard on trailing cables the oars kicked up spray, backing water among the breakers, the rowers took up a chant and without sign or farewell the shark-sleek warship slid out to rejoin the others standing offshore. The watchers on the beach saw the black sails slacken as one and thresh in the breeze, while the great yardarms were canted round. Then the sails were reefed and the raiding ships swung about before the wind, gunwales dipping into the swell, and went racing out north and west toward the horizon, as if they fled the sunrise that was coming.

  Alv shivered. The Mastersmith had given him a good cloak and fine fur-lined boots—no doubt from among the Ekwesh loot—but in this dawn he lacked the shelter of walls, or his pile of skins, however dirty, and the faint warmth of the cattle's bodies in the air. And the air in this new place did seem to carry some extra tang of cold. Beside him he could hear Ernan grumbling through chattering teeth. Only the Mastersmith, bare-headed and lightly robed, seemed not to feel the cold; he was looking up at the dark gap in the rock wall, idly caressing a bracelet on his wrist, and listening. After a moment Alv heard the light clopping of hooves, and an instant later saw a soft lantern-gleam in the dimness. A train of ponies was making its way down the path and onto the beach.

  The rider on the lead pony sagged sleepily, but gasped and pulled up sharply when he saw the Mastersmith, and jumped down with a gush of apologies. The Mastersmith held up a hand. "You are early, my good Ingar. It is only that we were earlier, for the barbarians were in haste to be away. But on with loading, for so are we!" Alv watched the Mastersmith drift away, and fall into quiet conversation with Ernan, both men drawing strange numinous patterns on the sand. He had not missed the vast relief Ingar, whoever he was, had betrayed when he was welcomed kindly. It could be a bad thing, then, to fail this strange smith, even in a small way—that was worth remembering.

  Ingar, as it turned out, was the master's other apprentice— a heavyset young man about four years older than Alv, with dark skin, straight features and blue eyes like Er-nan's. He looked at Alv with something of the master's keenness, and nodded slowly. His speech was much like Alv's own. "You're welcome, boy. At the very least we can use another hand in our new forge—and a less clumsy one, I'll wager, than Master Roc here."

  "Clumsy!" snorted a scornful voice from the darkness. It had a gruff tone to it, but its owner was obviously little older than Alv. "If you'd leave your old books and lift a finger in the forge once in a day, we might see how deft you are, Master Ingar!" The speaker came strutting forward into the lamplight, and for a minute Alv thought he was looking at a round cloth bundle with legs. Then one end of an enormous muffler was unwound, and a broad pale face glared out ferociously, "What're you gawking at, you? Not my fault I wasn't born with ice in my blood like all you ruddy northerners—'cept Ernan, and he's caught it with age. Three cloaks I'm wearing and I still crunch when I sit down—if ever I get to go on this little jaunt—"

  "Listen," interrupted Ingar, "sitting down will not be your main concern for a while if you delay the master. Now come on, and you too, Alv; the ponies must be loaded at once. At least we'll have the sun soon."

  When it rose it was bright, and Alv and Ingar grew quickly warm as they lugged the boxes up onto the patient beasts, who stolidly stood and cropped the few patches of dune-grass within reach. But hot as it was, Roc was slow even to throw back his hood; when he did Alv jumped, and exclaimed out loud. In the sun the boy's hair seemed to be a tousled mass of flame, a spectacular, impossible color—red. Beneath it his square, snub-nosed face was almost pure white, but spattered all over with flecks the same uncanny shade of red. Roc stared right back at him. "And just What're you yelping at now, may I be so bold? Never seen a body so handsome as me before?"

  "He'll never have seen red hair, I'll be bound," chuckled Ingar. "Never been to the Southlands, then? They all look like that down there, you know. It's the sun makes their brains boil over."

  "There's rubbish for you!" said Roc. "He's a Sothran himself, isn't he? Brown hair and green eyes—at least I thought they were green…"

  "No," said the Mastersmith, who had come up behind them so quietly everybody jumped. "Alv is not a southerner such as yourself, though of the same kin. He has the look of one of the old people of the north, before they joined with the brown-skinned folk who came westward across the Ice. And that is a very interesting thing to be. So now, if you please, back to your work…"

  The young men scurried to obey. "Old people of the north, eh?" puffed Roc as they struggled to fix the carrying straps round an especially wide chest. "Well, kinsman, you should be right at home where we're bound. Further north than that men don't willingly go—except one or two, maybe…"

  "That's enough!" snapped Ingar. Roc pursed his lips and was silent.

  By the time the ponies were loaded it was full day, and the Mastersmith stood up from the sand and swept a foot carefully across all his drawings. Then he gestured casually to Ingar, now on foot, and the little party set off up the rocky floor of the defile. It had many windings and long steep slopes, and Roc and Alv, following behind, often had to help and steady the beasts, and even haul them on by their stiff scrubby manes over patches of scree that slithered away beneath their hooves. At last they emerged, some hundreds of paces from the cliff edge, and found themselves in wide rolling country of the kind Alv had always known. But as they crossed the top of the first low hill, heading inland, it seemed to him that there was a line of blue at the horizon too solid to be cloud, and that in places it was crested like a wave, white caps glinting against the sky and never folding, never breaking. He did not understand what he was seeing, and he was too afraid of looking foolish to ask Roc, but the sight stirred feelings in him—of the immensity of the world, and what it might contain, and of all the things he might find in it. The shadow of the Ekwesh lifted from him; he felt like singing, but didn't know how the Mastersmith might react. He hummed under his breath as he went, and at every rise in what seemed to be a well-trodden path he watched eagerly for that unchanging line, to see if it might look any nearer.

  By and by the path led them to a road, and along this they turned, with the Mastersmith strolling at their head. He wore now the black robes of his guild and rank, and at his side a short heavy sword. Ingar too was armed, and casting watchful eyes around at every bank and copse they passed. When the road cut through a wide area of woodland he dropped back to walk beside the younger boys. "Got to be wide-awake here, the pair of you. The Mastersmith chose this road carefully, to judge by ail the maps he was drawing, but no path is safe hereabouts. Robbers and outlaws gather near a big town, for they know what road the merchants'll take."

  "Are we near a town here?" asked Alv.

  "That we are, and a big one, the last in these parts; Harthaby they call it. We'll be there by early afternoon at this rate. But we won't be staying long, we've a long way ahead. And since we won't need all the ponies for carrying, at least we won't have to walk. Ever ridden a horse?"

  "No," admitted Alv. "A bull, though, once or twice."

  The others looked at him again. "A bull," muttered Ingar, when he saw the boy was serious. "Well, a horse shouldn't give you too much more trouble then."

  Harthaby town was large indeed, some three or four times the size of Asenby. Alv had never seen anywhere so large; too wide for a single hill, its walls meandered out around two or three, and each was crowned with a building larger than the Headman's house, larger even than Asenby's granary. When they reached the main gate, though, it was no wider than the Landgate, and well guarded; there was a press of people waiting to pass. But the Mastersmith simply sp
oke a few words to the guards, and they passed his party through ahead of everyone, much to Alv's embarrassment; nobody dared hiss or glare at so great a smith, so they reserved it for the most ragged member of his party. But he forgot that at once, the moment he was in the town, for so many streets and such a throng of people were new to him, though the others said there were many greater towns to the south. The huge buildings, said Roc, were the Halls of Guild, where mem-bers met and markets were held; it was to one they'd be going now, though only for as long as unloading the boxes and loading up some traveling gear would take. "And getting a bite to eat—if our noble master's not in one of his fasting moods!"

  "The Ekwesh gave me some food," Alv commented ruefully, "but I never dared touch their meat…"

  Roc shuddered. "Aye, the dirty brutes. Never know whom you'd be eating, eh?"

  Fortunately there was food enough at the Merchants' Guildhall, though others at the servants' tables complained bitterly about corn porridge and smoked fish, saying that they could get no decent delicacies anymore with the corsairs terrorizing sea traffic from the south, and now also the Ekwesh. To Alv it seemed like heaven to eat his fill, and he even out-ate Roc. The Mastersmith and Ingar dined with the Master Merchants, concluding their business over the chests brought from the ship. Watching them go, Alv wondered how much of the recovered booty came from his own town, and why Harthaby, so much richer, had not yet been attacked. But he kept that thought to himself. He was no less pleased when Ingar took him off to find a bath and some new clothes. To his surprise they were like Ingar's own, though less decorated—good woolen shirts, jerkin and hose of black leather, and the black boots and hooded cloak he already had. "The livery of an apprentice in our guild," said Ingar. "Our color is black-probably," he added disdainfully, "because it hides the dirt."

  Alv looked down at himself doubtfully; the clothes felt almost indecently soft and clean against his damp skin. "Ernan and Roc don't wear it…"

  Ingar raised an eyebrow. "Of course not. And count yourself lucky that you do, so young and untried. The Mastersmith has great confidence in you, that's obvious."

  Just how much Alv only realized when they rejoined the others, and he saw the look of shock on their faces. Ernan sniffed disapprovingly, Roc whistled softly and nodded, but said nothing. Indeed, from that moment a gulf opened between him and Alv, and in many ways, though they were to become fast friends, it never again closed. How-ever, when they loaded the ponies with new supplies, apprentice and servant shared the work as before.

  When they mounted up Roc did not spare himself a laugh at Alv's battle with the stirrups and frantic attempts to keep his balance, even by grabbing at his pony's stiff-bristled mane; nor did the girls and idlers in the streets, and more than once Alv burned with the same black anger of humiliation he had thought he left behind. He kept his eyes down or straight ahead and did not look around him. He did not know how long it would be before he saw this, or any other town, again. By copying Ingar, however, he managed to learn the rudiments of keeping his seat and managing the reins, and by the time they had reached the northern gate he already felt quite comfortable on horseback. And that was as well, for a long ride lay ahead.

  For the first day they rode fast along well-made roads, and from time to time they would pass others, single travelers on wagon, horse or foot, or small trading parties serving outlying villages. That night they camped in a stone enclosure with a hearth and roofed sleeping area, obviously built as a way station for travelers; but it was very old and crumbling. When they woke in the morning it was Alv's turn to laugh at his fellows, because all but he and the Mastersmith were stiff and sore with the ride and sleeping on the ground. On the second and third nights they found other stations like it, though even more decrepit. All this time the road wound on between the low hills, unchanging, but it became more cracked and overgrown. Other travelers were few, rarely on foot, and always armed and distrustful. The station they came to late on the third night was a ruin, little better than a low wall with a firepit; on the fourth night, after a day of driving rain, they could not find the station, so overgrown was it. At last they settled in the shelter of a great cedar, wrapping themselves in all their blankets, skins and oiled cloth. In the morning they were all shivering and miserable again except Alv and the Mastersmith. "And this is the best of our journey so far!" the smith remarked, listening to coughs and curses as he led the party away on a narrow trail through the brush. "From here on the High road has not been maintained this last hundred years, and the land reclaims it. So instead we are setting off across the Starkenfells—a good week's ride over moorland."

  "Is this where your house is, Mastersmith?" asked Alv, looking around dubiously as they neared the top of a slope. The trees were thinning out around them, and the underbrush also; ahead were wide patches of long grass, waving in the cool humid wind.

  "No indeed—the climate is anything but healthy! It lies beyond the Fells—a day or two's travel through the forests, and then another two into the mountains—high above the cares of this world. But I imagine you have never seen a mountain?"

  "I've heard of them," said Alv, a little casually. The Mastersmith smiled faintly, and stretched out a long hand northward. Alv followed his gaze as they crested the slope, and gasped aloud. The wave he had seen from afar seemed to tower over him now, a vast wall of gray-green glass sparkling in the clear air, flinging its jagged white crests up into the blue infinity like spray from the rocks. For a moment, such was the power and terror of the spectacle, he almost thought to see it come sweeping down across the land. And then it seemed a greater miracle that so immense and graceful a shape could remain frozen in that instant of motion.

  "Mastersmith—"

  "Yes?"

  "How did mountains come to be? They have not always been there, surely? They look—as if they had been thrust up from somewhere."

  The Mastersmith turned in his saddle to stare at Alv. "I was not mistaken, I see. There is perception in you, boy, true perception. Yes, they were thrust up, like a wave— and I believe not so long ago, in the life of the land, for the edges of the rock are sharp and little touched by the weather, and the fires under the Earth burn strong there— as you will see. But all the mountains are not the same age, I think, for some are more weathered than others and of different rock. That you will learn about in due time, boy, for a good smith must be able to find and mine his own new ore at times—to make it truly pure, and truly his. You will enjoy that, I think."

  Indeed, Alv could hardly wait. In this alone he would surpass that old idiot Hervar, for the graybeard had not strayed beyond the village in all the years Alv could remember, let alone gone searching for ore. Small wonder he had got himself killed, if he was so little concerned with his art. It was not a mistake Alv intended to make.

  Over the next few days it was increasingly he and not Ingar who rode and talked with the Mastersmith, plying him with questions and never failing to find an answer that fed the fires in his mind. He was wary of offending the senior apprentice at first, but for his part Ingar seemed glad of the rest. Hard as it was to believe, he seemed to find his master's company a strain, and was happier joking with Roc. Ernan rode in pinch-mouthed silence, which suited the others as much as it seemed to suit him.

  So they journeyed across the moorland, a lonely, eerie place in which they saw no other traveler, and the only sounds of life were thin cool bird calls echoing through the damp air. At times the Mastersmith would point out the wheeling flight of a condor, high against the clouds, and once, as they drew nearer, a cloud of huge vultures rose from something—they could not see what, but it was large—trapped and decaying in a wide boggy patch. The taint of it seemed to cling to the wind long after they passed. It might have been that which drew the pack down upon them soon after.

  They were hunting beasts, large but lean after the hard winter, and they crested the hill at speed, long tails stiffened and jaws set in wide fang-edged grins, breaking into harsh yipping cries as they s
aw the travelers. Catlike they were, carrion-eaters but just as ready to run down live prey; they were built for that, their limbs long, their brindled bodies light, flexing and stretching as they ran. But their shoulders were massive, to carry the heavy heads whose thick jaws could sever a pony's leg at a single bite. Alv, with his herdsman's eye, counted twelve of the brutes, and no chance of running to cover in this bare land. The Mastersmith whirled in his saddle; Alv expected him to draw a sword, but instead he sprang down and Ingar with him. They waved the others back; it seemed like madness, but Alv, acutely conscious of his new livery, seized a metal bar from the baggage and sprang down beside them. Ingar was calmly flicking an odd device, a flint and steel wheel with a thick loop of cord attached, till the brutes were almost on them. The cord sizzled suddenly, and flamed. The Mastersmith snatched it and drew back his arm as if to throw. Ingar swung away, covering his eyes, and Alv copied him, but an instant too late. A cloud of dazzling, searing light blossomed over the pack, as if the sun itself had come licking through the mists; flaming gobbets rained hissing down to lodge in their fur. Blinded, stung or afire, their onrush became a whirling confusion of yelps and snarls, burnt hair mingling with the carnivore stench. Only one huge beast, with gray streaks in its greenish fur, rose up on its hind legs and snapped viciously at the Master-smith's face; Alv, still dazzled, heard a horrible bone-and-meat thud and saw the beast roll kicking at his feet. Another snarling shape loomed up before him, he struck at it and heard bones break, and as his sight cleared he saw Ingar stoop with a tinderbox in his hand. This time he closed his eyes, but the tongue of light raced scarlet across closed eyelids, and the pack turned and fled yelping, tails firmly between their legs.