The Anvil of Ice

by Michael Scott Rohan

  And yet that in itself was a hazard, as he explained to Elof, for there were immediate dangers in sailing too close in. Rocks, reefs and hidden surfless shoals rose up too readily from deep water, and anything high up, cliffs, hillsides, even clumps of woodland, played mad games with the wind. Whatever landsmen might think, most sailors found it safer to stay well away from shore. For now they would have to strike a balance, and keep alert to the perils of the coast. In the end, though, it was out of the open sea that their greatest danger came to them, and it was heralded in Elof s watch, in the dark moonless hour before the dawn.

  It was the twelfth day of their sail, and he was well used to his post by then. The wind, as it often did, had slackened at that hour, the air grew still and warm, and the sea as nearly calm as he had ever seen it, a slow, heavy, oily swell. It heaved and surged under the slow-moving hull with sluggish weight, and made little sound. But in the unaccustomed silence Elof heard another noise. It was faint at first, as if coming from a great distance, but it made the hair bristle on his head. At first he thought Ils must be having some evil dream, for it seemed a woman's voice, sobbing in desperate grief. But then without break it slid downward below the range of any human throat, deepening, becoming a low, dull, throbbing moan, as if the waves themselves groaned under the burden of the hull, under all the sorrows of the world. Another voice broke in above it, a high keening croon that sounded mad, or foolish, or utterly unhuman, and another, a dark pulse, throbbing, humming, like the beat of some enormous heart. Elof listened a moment, holding his breath so as to hear more clearly. It seemed to him that the voices were getting louder. And there was something else in them…

  He slammed the tiller into its rack, and vaulted down to the deck to shake Kermorvan's sleeping form. As always, the swordsman was awake at once.

  "What threatens? Is it the hull?"

  "No. A sound… a strange sound, a frightening one. Like cries, high and deep, all together."

  "It could be seals," shrugged Kermorvan. "They grow large, here in the south."

  Elof shook his head violently. "I grew up by the sea, I have many times heard seals, sea lions, even the great morses and weed-browsers. Listen and tell me if this is like them!"

  Kermorvan listened, and his eyes widened. Before he could say anything Ils erupted out of the fo'c'sle. "Do you hear that?" she hissed. "The whole hull's aquiver with it!"

  "I hear," whispered Kermorvan, puzzled. "Like nothing I have heard—unless… Ils, do they sound louder down below? Under the waterline?"

  "Why… aye, they do! Then they're coming up through the very sea itself?"

  The sounds were growing louder, and it was as if there were more of them now. To Elof, rapt between wonder and fear, they seemed to blend like some strange inhuman choir, sounding strange harmonies that shifted and swirled like the shades of the North Lights. And the feeling grew on him that there was indeed something more, that the eerie chords were forming other sounds, separate syllables of some vast distorted voice, speech drawn out, elongated, smeared as ink is by a careless hand. A word, a single word stretched out and repeated over and over with gigantic, timeless slowness; a word he could understand only too clearly. He gasped, and clutched at Kermorvan's arm. "Do you hear?"

  "I said I did! What ails you, man?"

  "Not only the cries! Do you not hear it—hear the… the word in it?"

  "The word?" barked Kermorvan, and listened again, frowning. "No word! Just… cries, strange cries… no more…" He turned, as if struck by a thought, and peered out over the shadowed water astern.

  "No more," echoed Ils. "Elof, what is it you hear?"

  Elof heard his own voice sink to a harsh whisper. "My name."

  "Your name?" Ils stood dumbfounded as the sound grew and swelled around them. The whole ship shook to a soft booming growl, far deeper than any beast they knew of could ever produce: a high crooning tone rattled loose metal fittings, and even seemed to shiver in their teeth. Suddenly Kermorvan gave a great shout, and pointed. In the swell astern something sprang up, glistening and flicking in the air, and toppled back with a loud smack. Further off to seaward came other such sounds, a strange turmoil in the calm water. Another sprang up, close enough to be seen as a great barb-finned fish little smaller in the body than a man. But even as it smacked back into the waves, something rose up that dwarfed it utterly, a great dark hummock, lumpy and gray-mottled, edged with white foam. Forward it plunged, vanishing into the slope of the next leaden wave only to burst out of its nearer flank in a great scatter of spray.

  "Hounds of Niarad!" shouted Kermorvan, bounding over to the mast and seizing a sweep from the rack beneath it. Another high hummock came arching up no more than twenty yards to starboard. He stood poised with the great oar across his shoulders, straddling the center of the little craft, ready to leap to one or the other flank. "You two, to the tiller! Hold your course till I call; be ready to go about at once!" Ils and Elof reached the tiller, but as they seized it spray flicked up a little way astern, and one of the fish leaped in the air, higher than their stern-tree. But it did not land. From the wave beneath, with almost leisurely grace, a vast head arose, foam-streaked, to intercept the heavy fish as it fell. Long spearhead jaws slid smoothly open, closed, the fish vanished without struggle or snap and the mottled body plunged down in a great solid cascade that seemed to go on and on. A flattened half-moon blade of tail thrashed at the surface, and vanished.

  "The brute's twice as long as us!" whispered Ils. "Or more! And look!" She peered out into the first gray glimmer of dawn, too dim as yet for Elof to see far. "There must be hundreds of them! All spread out across the sea— Kermorvan, what are these things?"

  He hesitated a moment. "Valfis is what Elof's folk call them, I think."

  "Whales?" breathed Elof, staring into the gloom. Then he laughed. "But whales aren't dangerous, unless you actually hunt them or sail across their path! Every fisherlad in my village knew that!"

  "Then they didn't know Niarad's Pack! These are not the wise great whales, nor orcas even! Look at the head on them, narrow and sharp like the tip on an arrow! These are ancient, deadly brutes, with wit enough for anger and malice, little else. They are his sentinels, and his hunters! And may he draw them from us now!"

  "They called my name…" whispered Elof. There was a sound like an explosion, acrid spray fountained all over them and great gaping jaws, wide enough to take in a man, breached only feet from the aft gunwale. The teeth were few and wide-spaced but huge, many-crowned as mountains of stained ice, glinting cold as the eyes above them, set larger and higher than any common whale's. Behind them rose the body, and the mottled grayness of it was not skin but scaly armor, great heavy rows of shields/raped scutes stuck in the leathery skin. It was like some vast serpent in armor, as large around as the boat and nearly three times its length.

  It lay there a moment, not hunting like its fellows, but rolling lazily in the swell. It twisted half on its side, exposing a naked white underbelly and long white fins, and the wide cold eye glared up at the watchers on the deck. Then it rolled level again, and from nostrils halfway up its snout it blew great blasts of misty vapor, acrid and stinking, and ducked its head beneath the surface, slipping sideways—

  "It's going under the hull!" gasped Ils.

  Kermorvan nodded jerkily, but did not move from his spot. "Do nothing! We may not anger it. It is far too powerful…"

  The boat rose on the swell, the sea-hill of the back slid beneath, and for a moment Elof thought it would pass without harm. Then the little boat juddered, vibrated, groaned, and splintering sounds echoed up out of the open hold and fo'c'scle. The vessel bounced along the immense back like a child's toy dragged over cobbles; the tiller leaped out of the rack and swung wildly, the sail spilled its air and thumped tight again, the improvised leeboard groaned in protest as it was scraped.

  "The brute's scratching its foul hide!" groaned Ils, running to the port side.

  "Is that all it wants with us, I wonder?" mutter
ed Elof, grabbing the swinging tiller.

  But the others did not hear him, for at that moment came a violent cracking buffet to starboard, and the whole length of the creature seemed to come surging out of the sea. It scraped upward against the hull, rolling it till the rail dipped into the frothing water. Quickly, lightly, Kermorvan rested the butt end of the oar against the scutes and fended the boat off as gently as he could. "It may not notice—" he began, and then the tail flicked up and the boat bucked violently, flinging him sprawling on the sea-washed deck. A loud snap echoed hollowly out of the hold, and the rush and churn of water grew suddenly louder. For a moment it seemed as if the beat had dived back into the swirling sea. But then Ils cried out, a great turmoil grew in the water, and it breached once more, its whole forepart arrowing upward, curving over as if to come crashing down upon the deck, staving the side in if not splintering the little boat altogether. Elof staggered down the soaking planks, tugging the black sword free from his belt, and it whined an angry song as it matched edges with the rising wind.

  "Did you call me, brute? Did you sing my name? I come, then! Elof is here!"

  In the moment of its falling the huge body convulsed, twisted aside and toppled awkwardly down into the water. It landed with a thunderclap, a massive fountaining of water that fell in sleeting walls across the deck. The wave caught all three of them, flung them up and dropped them sickeningly. Elof went sprawling against the rail, barely keeping hold of his sword. The boat lay wallowing in the trough of the wave, floating at a crazy angle. Kermorvan hauled himself up by the mast. "We're shipping water! Steer for the shore!" Slithering and sliding, grabbing on where he could, he made his way astern to where Ils was fighting with the tiller. Together they threw their weight on it, he kicked out at one winch and the yardarm creaked about as the sea beneath them steadied. Dawn glimmered in the soaked rigging, spilled highlights across the swimming deck. The freshening breeze tugged at the soaking sail and rattled the topsail as Ils raised it. Out to sea, surging and sporting after the fish that leaped now like jewels in the sunlight, the leviathans surged on, and paid the listing craft no heed as it came rattling and creaking about in a last desperate race for the shore.

  Looking around, Elof was startled at how close to the land they were. It loomed over them, dark and featureless as yet against the glowing sky. The clash with the seabeast had somehow driven them far further in than they had been, and already he could hear the distant rumble of breakers. But louder yet was the hollow booming of the water washing around beneath the deck, and he turned and ran across the heeling deck toward the fo'c's'le. All their gear was stored there, and most important of all the gauntlet; water could not hurt it, but might easily hide it. Fortunately the sea had barely reached there yet, though he could hear it thudding against the bulkhead to the hold as he hastily made up their packs, bundling up as much of their remaining food as he could. He resisted the tempta-tion to put on the gauntlet; he could do many things with it, but not swim. Instead he strapped it tight inside his jerkin, and scrambled back up on deck, hoisting the baggage with him.

  It was already grown worse there, in the brief time he had been below. The little craft was still held on a broad reach, angling in toward the shore, but she rode low in the wavecrests now, and at every dip a little spray of water leaped from the hold. "Good work, my friend!" shouted Kermorvan, as he made fast the packs to the sweep rack. "Now get you for'ard and spy us out somewhere to land! We must needs bear away shoreward any minute!"

  Elof needed no urging. He was already at the stempost, squinting out into the half-light to the jagged shadow of the land. There was something, it seemed… "A beach!" he yelled.

  "Where away?"

  "Straight in… but 'ware breakers, there are shoals around it!"

  "No help for that!" called Kermorvan. "Even now she splits! We bear away!"

  For one sickening moment, as the bow bounced and plunged into the waves, Elof thought they would capsize. The shoals hissed and thundered on either side as he stumbled aft; they lurched a moment, almost checked as something tore shrieking to the bows, but then the next wave lifted them over and past it, and they were running before the wind, running through water that became rougher, choppier, full of foamy streaks and floating masses of weed, toward a narrow spit of shingle standing out from the foot of a high dark slope. There was a sudden smash, the boat lurched as the leeboard ground into some soft obstruction.

  "Cut it loose!" shouted Kermorvan, and Elof's sword crashed down through rail and planks and lashings, once, twice, and it was torn free and bobbing in their wake. Then a monster growled and seized the boat in its jaws, tipped up the bow and crushed it splintering inward. The rigging sang a discord and snapped, sail and yard crumpled downward and the mast broke in its step and toppled across the deck. They were all hurled flat on the planking.

  After that moment of shock and stunning confusion, what followed seemed like sudden, reverberating silence. It was only as Elof lifted his head cautiously that he began to make out sounds again, and sensation. The sounds were ominous, the wash and rumble of surf upon stone, the sea flogging a hull no longer light and resonant but dull, congested, full. And the sensation under him was no more of riding the waves but of being ridden by them, rocking and rising only a little, and constantly slipping, falling away. He tried to scramble up, and found the deck tilted to starboard at an impossible angle, and fixed there. He could see waves washing under the rail, looking strangely steady. "We're aground!" he said.

  "We are beached, is what you would say." Kermorvan, bleeding from a scraped brow, was handing himself along the port rail above. "At least the bows are, and split open like a rotten fruit. There is water enough here for the stern to sink, though, and perhaps pull us off. Better we get ashore at once." Elof nodded, and picked himself up more carefully. The stern dipped alarmingly as he stood, and barely rose again. Ils, less easily overbalanced, stood braced on sturdy legs at the sweep rack, untying the packs. They grabbed them and stumbled for'ard, clutching at rails, cleats or any likely handhold. One sprung plank came loose in Ils's hand, and she seemed about to go slithering down into the water, but Elof was fast enough to catch her. The bows were resting on a shingle bank some twenty feet from the beach, and they had to scramble down the splintered planks and half wade, half swim to the stony beach, holding their gear clear of the water. They stumbled up above the wave line and collapsed onto the rounded pebbles, gasping with effort, feeling the land they had not touched for two weeks seem to heave beneath them, so used were their bodies now to the movement of the boat. After a while Kermorvan rolled over and sat up, gazing at the wreck of the boat. And as he watched, the waves took it at last, dragging it from its weak hold upon the bank. Away it slid, its ruined bows rising upward a moment before they dipped and disappeared. "It let us down," he said bitterly. "All this way it bore us, and then failed at the last. We must still be far from Kerbryhaine. If it could only have lasted another day, another two…"

  "You yourself said it was never meant for such a voyage," said Elof. "Call it rather a miracle that it lasted as long as it did, and sailed as well. Though your skill and Ils's played an equal part in that, I am sure."

  "A miracle?" said Us. "Not so, not altogether. The boats of the duergar are loyal, there are great virtues set in them, of fair voyaging and safe landing. It did what it could."

  "Yes," said Elof. "It would have sailed on happily enough, I doubt not, had we not been driven ashore."

  "Driven? Deliberately?"

  Elof nodded somberly. "There was a will behind those creatures. They herded us as they were herding their prey, into the shallows."

  "How are you so sure of that? Because you thought one called your name?"

  "Not one," said Elof. "All, together. As if the cries of the whole pack merged into one greater voice… I can say no more. Do we know where we are?"

  "I hope so," said Kermorvan unhappily. "I had time to make out something of the land. If we are on the southern side of these
hills behind us, there is yet hope; if not… But we will have to climb them to be sure."

  "Aye," said Ils sourly. "But not before we've dried ourselves out."

  "And breakfast!" said Elof, rummaging in his sack. "So much I learned from a friend called Roc, that the worst world may look better from the other side of a meal.'Hope or despair mean little to the starving dead, Hope may sustain a man—but better yet is bread!'"

  They built a fire of driftwood against a boulder, though Kermorvan was worried about the smoke being noticed. But Elof put on his gauntlet and drew out the force of its rising, so that it rolled sluggishly away down the stones and over the water, like morning mist. Food and fire did indeed hearten them all, and so when they were rested, and their boots no longer squelched as they walked, they set out to climb the slope that led up from the beach.

  It was a long road, for there was no path; the grass and undergrowth grew lush around their feet, and the sun was very hot. Small birds, blue as sapphires, whirled and screeched impudence among the blades and bushes. The trees were tall but widely scattered, giving little shade; many more were old stumps half hidden in the long grass, which hissed at the travelers in the hot breeze. They could take off their cloaks and jerkins, but not the burden of their packs. "So this is the Southlands!" panted Elof. "A wonder any man can live here!"