[500 Kingdoms 04] - The Snow Queen

by Mercedes Lackey

  She helped Urho heave himself onto his feet, and the entire group wearily staggered to where they had left the sledge and the other two reindeer. The deer were unmolested, greedily grazing on the sweet tips of young birch saplings. Urho volunteered to drag in wood, and since he was clearly feeling a bit better, Aleksia allowed him to do so. After all, he could bring in far more than they could, with far less effort.

  Meanwhile the three who had put the most effort out in the fight, Ilmari, Annukka and Lemminkal, were made to sit on the sledge while she and Kaari made camp.

  It was a very crude camp, and it was a good thing that no storms were threatening, because Aleksia very much doubted that the camp would have stood up to a storm. Neither of them could manage to get the hide tents up. But there was another reason why Aleksia wanted the others to allow her and Kaari to deal with making camp. She was, after all, a Godmother. And there was potential here for trouble…and potential for something other than trouble. So long as she set things up carefully.

  So, she kept Kaari away from the men…and made sure that Lemminkal talked to Annukka. By the time they all rolled into their blankets, with the fire on one side, and the huge bulk of Urho providing warmth on the other, things were progressing to Aleksia’s satisfaction.

  15

  IN THE MORNING, EVERYTHING LOOKED BETTER. THE SUN was shining, and although the frozen forest was still encased in ice, it was beautiful. The air, while still bitterly cold, was not laden with the deathly chill of the Icehart’s presence. Urho had been wonderful to sleep up against.

  On the other hand, as soon as Aleksia moved, she wished she had not. The exposed skin on her face hurt. She had bruises where she would rather not think about. If this was being a Hero, she envied the stamina of those who did it all the time.

  On the other hand, they had slept the night through undisturbed; Urho went out as soon as all the humans were awake and came back with four fish from a frozen stream. Aleksia would have felt very guilty had he returned with a rabbit or some other animal, knowing that it was still alive under that ice, and had been totally helpless, but she felt no sympathy for fish. Although she could not help with the cooking—the honest truth was that she was totally helpless when it came to that skill—she was at least able to create a subtle warming spell to make them all comfortable in the cold until the fire built up again. While the fish were grilling over the fire, Annukka declared that they were all going to be looked over and tended to.

  It turned out they were all injured in some way or other. For one thing, all of them were frost-burned—like a sunburn, but caused by the Icehart’s freezing breath. The skin on their faces was sensitive at the least, painful at worst. In fact, the two men were lucky that they had escaped frostbite. Had it not been for their thick hair and beards, both Lemminkal and Ilmari might well have lost the tips of their ears. And in fact, Lemminkal did lose the bottom half of his long beard, for the hair had been frozen so stiff it had, to his chagrin, actually snapped off in the cold.

  As it was, Annukka treated them all with salves to their tender faces, and warned them that the burned skin would slough off in a few days, and that they must be careful about further burns. Aleksia’s tender forehead and nose gave her problems every time she did something that moved the skin, although she knew from past experience that once she shifted forms a time or two, that would mend itself. That was another benefit of shifting; by doing so, one could heal oneself.

  Urho, of course, had his head wound, which Annukka cleaned and treated again, this time getting most of the blood out of his fur and putting an herbal plaster over the gash. Both men had dozens of small cuts on face and neck from flying shards of ice, and both moved in a way that suggested they had more than a few bruises, and that they were a lot more painful than Aleksia’s. Honestly, they were all lucky that no one had broken bones, something that could be attributed only to the men’s skill as fighters. Annukka set up the hide tent and ordered them in, one at a time, with a bottle. Both came out smelling like pine-sap liniment.

  By then, the fish was grilled, and they divided the fillets up, with the lion’s share going to the men, and Aleksia taking only as much as would satisfy her immediate hunger. She had ways of feeding herself that the others obviously didn’t. As they all picked the last bits of fish from the bones and surveyed the chaos of their camp, Aleksia finally spoke up, and began explaining herself.

  “Well,” she said, dryly, looking about at all four of them. “You have probably gathered that I am not the ordinary sort of traveler.”

  Ilmari snorted. “We are waiting patiently to hear just what sort of traveler you are.”

  She nodded, and launched into her part of this tale. Or rather, she explained as much of herself as she felt comfortable revealing. The Sammi did not have Godmothers; Ilmari and Lemminkal might have heard of them, Annukka and Kari probably had not. She had announced herself as “Godmother Aleksia” and gotten no recognition from any of them, so she elected to leave that out. Knowledge of The Tradition, Traditional magic and Traditional paths was anything but common, and it was acknowledged among the Godmothers that it was probably best not to spread that sort of information too widely. Aleksia didn’t see any reason why this should change. Such information would do them no good, and might cause them to second-guess themselves at a moment when that was the last thing they all needed. So she glossed over the business of being a Godmother, leaving it as vague as she possibly could. And if she left them with the impression that she was merely a sort of sentry mounting a simple watch over the North, that was just fine. They gathered that she was considered a powerful and important Sorceress among her own folk, and that would certainly do.

  “And you keep watch, why?” Lemminkal asked.

  “To report troubles to those better able to deal with them,” she said easily, because that was certainly true. “Various Orders of Champions, for instance.” That was also true. “I supply them with information they cannot otherwise obtain.” She didn’t want the Sammi to get the impression that she was some sort of guardian who could be counted on to come to the rescue if any little thing went wrong. That was not what Godmothers did. And it wasn’t as if she didn’t have quite enough on her plate as it was without starting that. Fixing things was the job of Champions and Heroes. Trying to make sure they wouldn’t need fixing—that was for the Godmothers.

  “Bah. Champions.” Lemminkal snorted, but his eyes were twinkling. “Everyone knows that a true Hero goes up against incredible odds all on his own!”

  “Perhaps that is true for the Sammi, but it is not so elsewhere,” she temporized, and went on.

  However, when it got to specifics—well, she was quite willing to be specific.

  “Mirror-magic,” she told them. “That is my specialty, really. I can watch through mirrors, or any reflective surface. I can talk to people at a distance that way, if they are magicians or have a magic mirror, and sometimes I can work other magic through the mirrors. That was how I learned about the one you are calling the Snow Witch, how she had taken my name and even the look of my Palace. The harm she was causing! That was when I knew I must become involved.”

  She was adept at reading body language, and when it came down to it, the two men were surprisingly simple souls. They trusted her now, and would continue to do so unless she betrayed them—the fatal Traditional flaw and strength of most Heroes. In that, The Tradition was working for her. Ilmari nodded. “Being able to do things at a distance—that is most useful.”

  Kaari also trusted her, probably because Kaari’s nature was constructed on trust. Annukka was the only one more reserved, and for someone like Annukka, only time would help. That was fine. She suspected that they thoroughly understood each other. “The Snow Witch, at least, does not seem to use mirror-magic, so despite having my name, she does not seem to be using powers like mine. This means I can probably continue to watch her.” She hesitated, then added, “From all that I can see, she has learned all she knows from books, and has never ve
ntured outside the magics associated with ice, snow and cold.” There. For a Wise Woman, a Wonder-smith and a Warrior-Mage, she had just delivered an enormously important piece of information. “I am not sure she can detect magic if it is not associated with those things. And I am also not sure she is looking very hard for magical opposition. She seems very…” she hesitated “…tired, is the only word I have for this. As if she has been doing this for too long.”

  Ilmari pursed his lips. “Still, it does not do to take risks—”

  “No,” she agreed. “It does not. I do not use magic if I do not have to. And I am not going to underestimate this foe. I know that I have not sensed anyone searching for magic since we fought the Icehart—”

  “Nor have I,” Ilmari was quick to say, as Lemminkal and Annukka both shook their heads. “But in that we may simply have had great good luck that we cannot count on. Any magic that we use from now on, should be small and personal, and as far from ice, snow and cold as can be. There is no point in shouting our presence for all the world to hear.”

  Relieved, Aleksia nodded, and was going to leave it at that.

  But Annukka added, rather too casually, “But Aleksia can shape-shift, too.”

  Bother. I was hoping to surprise them. She sensed that her mirror-magic did not much impress Ilmari with its practical application to their current problems, and she did not seem to have much that was useful in fighting the Snow Witch. She had been thinking she might be able to set him off balance by transforming in front of them.

  Ilmari raised a bushy eyebrow, and winced a little as the skin of his forehead wrinkled. “And you intended to tell us of this, when?”

  “Soon enough,” she replied crossly. “Since I was going to shift to a bird to scout ahead when we leave.” She was rather put out, actually. She had been hoping to astonish the men at least a little.

  “Speaking of leaving…” Annuka glanced over the camp meaningfully. “It really is time we were going.”

  “Then I will hunt and scout a little ahead,” Aleksia told them, eager enough to get out of the packing up and cleaning up. “I will bring back some game to add to our stores. You will be a while organizing things.”

  “More than a while,” Ilmari grumbled a little. “Let me pack the sledge, if you please. It is a wonder you didn’t turn over a dozen times, top-heavy as it is—”

  Annuka threw up her hands. “By all means—since you are so much more expert at such things!”

  They eyed each other with the resentment only two strong personalities looking for ascendancy could show. Before the exchange got heated, Aleksia made the transformation and flung herself into the sky.

  She had chosen the Gyrfalcon this time, because among other things, she wanted to hunt. Urho was a good fellow, but there were five of them now, and he would be hard-pressed to feed them all. With the Gyrfalcon form she was able to get very high indeed, and the bird’s keen sight enabled her to see things very, very far beneath her. While she could not take down a deer—well, she could, if she was very lucky and very clever, but it was unlikely—there were plenty of things she could kill.

  Finally she found what she had hoped for: a flock of geese fitfully dozing on the surface of a completely frozen lake. She studied them from above. She was white, against a blue sky swirled with plumes of cloud. She was much harder to see than, say, an eagle. They were not aware of her.

  This would have to be carefully done. She would have to do the work of a full cast of Falcons, but if all went well, she would be able to take down two geese at least, and possibly four. One would feed all of them dinner—except Urho, and he could and would hunt for himself.

  Now one of the pastimes that she had enjoyed with the Court in the days when she was Princess Aleksia had been falconry. Well, not precisely with the Court—she had preferred to go out with the serious hunters, her father’s chief falconer and his men and the few—mostly older—men and women who took the sport with great gravitas. Now everything she had learned from that good man would stand her in good stead.

  But this would take care, planning and exquisite timing.

  She could do this.

  She set herself up carefully, choosing her first target, one of the birds with its head under its wing. This goose would have to wake up, and then get her direction, before she could even begin to try to escape. And a Falcon’s attack was all about fractions of moments. If Aleksia did this right, there would be no time for the goose to do more than awaken, and her next target would still be scrambling to escape when she hit it.

  When she thought she had everything thought through as perfect as could be, she took a long, deep breath, folded her wings and dove.

  She had set herself up so that she dove out of the sun, taloned feet tucked tight to her body, wings clamped down hard. The geese literally did not see her until she was practically on them. Then with a chorus of panicked honks, and an explosion of pinions, they tried to make their escape. She kept her focus on the one chosen as her target. It had thrown up its head, eyes still a little sleep-dazed, and was looking for where the attacker was. She was practically atop it. At that last minute her feet shot out—

  But she did not have those talons extended. Instead, they were curled into small, hard fists, and as she closed with her quarry, she lashed out with those fists. She felt the shock as her feet impacted the back of the goose’s head, felt the transmitted shock in her legs as she broke its neck and shattered the back half of her quarry’s head. The goose flopped to the snow; she used the momentum of the impact to bounce up, and snapped her wings open to claw for height again. The Raptor’s wonderful eyes scanned the panicking geese below. More than half of them still did not know what was wrong. One simply stood there, craning his neck, still trying to see where the attacker was—

  She did a wingover and dove again, aiming for that bird. There was not as much force to this blow, but it was still enough to break the second bird’s neck. She bounced up again, and drove herself into the sky with the most powerful wing-beats she could manage. She needed more height. If she was about to tail-chase, she needed speed, and plenty of it.

  She folded her wings and dropped again, her eyes fixed on a bird that was only now beginning the labored effort to escape. Its goal, of course, was to get enough speed to flee. Hers was to hit it before it could.

  Time slowed to a crawl. She watched the wings of her target pump with agonizing slowness, watched the goose’s neck stretch out, caught the frantic roll of its eye as it looked behind it and saw her coming, saw the sudden, desperate effort, the last pump of wings—

  And she hit it, as she had the others, sending it crashing into the ice of the lake. And ahead of her, a fourth bird was on the same path and if she tried, if she put impossible effort into it, she might be able to catch it.

  She opened her wings and drove toward it. It glanced back at her and redoubled its efforts. She did the same. She was closing on it. She was nearly there. She swung her feet forward, talons extended, reaching, reaching—

  The goose shuddered once, and was still as they hit the ground.

  She rested there a moment, panting, fighting the Falcon instinct that screamed at her to feed even though her stomach was still comfortably full. Then she shoved herself into the air again, to make certain of the other four birds, while the rest of the flock, honking their fear and distress, arrowed away toward the south.

  She had gone human and strung the geese together at the neck then changed to Bear form to come galumphing back with the geese draped over her neck and shoulders. One bird had been gutted—that had been her true breakfast, a feast for a bird of prey, and it wasn’t as if the others would miss goose-innards. Her father’s master falconer would have been astonished—and pleased. She had used everything she had ever learned about hunting with birds, and applied it to bring down four quarry. Four! It was unheard of for a single Falcon to do that in so short a period of time! Of course, this was a Falcon with a human’s mind, but still it was unusual even for a ful
l cast of Falcons to bring down that many quarry at once.

  And four geese meant that they could eat for four days without dipping into their precious stores or hoping that she and Urho would find something. Goose would be a nice change from hare and rabbit and dried meat, too.

  All this was in her mind as she closed on the camp, looking forward to the astonishment and pleasure that she would see in the faces of the others at her prizes.

  But instead, she saw them all huddled together, and heard the sound of sobbing.

  She increased her trot to a gallop, and transformed from Bear to human on the run, the geese flopping awkwardly against her as she ran. Kaari was weeping, with Annukka trying to comfort her, Lemminkal standing by awkwardly and Ilmari a bit apart, looking—guilty.

  She flung her grotesque necklace of heavy geese aside on the sledge as she reached them, seizing Ilmari’s arm and hissing, “What did you do?”

  “She showed us the loving-cup,” he said, hunching his shoulders. “And I told her that since Veikko could be at no great distance, and since I had some of his things still with us, I could probably scry for him using very little power. And that would at least serve to show us if he was still well—”

  He gestured awkwardly at a tiny forge fire lying between him and Kaari, that had his forge hammer lying beside it. And there in the flames—

  Was a scene that she herself had seen not all that long ago. The crude throne room. The Snow Witch on her throne. The shambling, clumsy snow-servants.

  And Veikko, in a pose of great intimacy, sitting at the Snow Witch’s feet and leaning against her leg.

  No wonder Kaari was crying.