Thatch was scenting the air, snuffing great gulps of it; and then, astonishingly, he calmed down, neighed a couple of times as though reassuring the other horses, and stood, still quivering a little, but not ready to bolt.
While his attention had been claimed by Thatch, Ash had been able to ignore the sounds, ignore his own heart leaping when they came. Now they hit him again, but Thatch’s calmness was reassuring. He looked around, ahead.
The fog was thinning a little. As it did, the shrieks stopped.
There was only the slight, slight breeze and their own breathing. Ash counted two breaths, three, four, watching intently as the mist lightened.
Shapes beyond the mist. Shadows that changed as he watched: small and thin and then huge, stretching up and widening impossibly. The other sounds had returned, too, the scratching and dull tapping.
“We should go forward,” Ash said. He walked a pace forward, then another, and Ember and the rest were pulled willy-nilly after him. The shapes spun and bowed, stretched and shrank like poppy-juice visions.
Ash took another step toward the closest one and it shrieked: high, inhuman, piercing. He knew that shape.
“It’s a bird!” he exclaimed.
Ember followed the rope to stand by Ash’s side, and peered ahead.
Birds, he thought. Yes. Cranes, or something like them. Tall and thin, when they stretched out and spread their wings they were suddenly huge.
The one in front of them was still obscured by the mist so that it seemed like a gray, screaming ghost. It reared up and spread its wings, still shrieking, and the ones next to it did the same.
Gray-winged, black-necked, each had a red patch of feathers on their heads, a jewel shining in the cool light. They were so big! And their beaks were long and sharp, their wings powerful. The fog lightened a little more. Hundreds of them, reaching back as far as he could see. And each of them, every one of them, was staring with a red eye straight at him.
“Are you sure they’re birds?” Ember asked. “Not spirits in disguise?”
The one in front tilted her head to the side and gazed at him. After all that talk about shapechanging back in Starkling, it was easy to recognize her. Grus, her gray gown transformed to feathers, her hair to a topknot of red.
She cawed at him, and then turned toward the other cranes as they began to dance. Bobbing their heads, almost pecking the ground, they paced across the path, left to right, right to left, circling the group until they were surrounded. No longer shrieking, they gave out booming notes which made the horses shift uncomfortably. Thatch was unhappy, moving from hoof to hoof, ears back.
Ash felt wary, but not afraid. He had never heard of cranes attacking humans, but he had never heard of cranes surrounding them, either. They were in a strange land, and anything might happen. And yet… he didn’t believe Grus would hurt him.
“Friends, I think,” he said to Ember.
He put Thatch’s leading rein and the pole into her hands and stepped forward, his hands spread wide. Better to greet them all, not just Grus.
“I greet you, noble cranes,” he said.
The birds cocked their heads so they could see him, some turning their heads right around on the long long necks, but they kept pacing, kept dancing. Grus paced toward Ash, then backed away, like a partner in a step-dance, and he laughed.
“Hello, Grus,” he said. He couldn’t help but laugh—what else could you do, when a bird asked you to dance?
Still chuckling, he bowed to Grus and began to dance, too, aware of Ember watching open-mouthed behind him.
Grus clucked and boomed to Ash and he laughed again and hit his chest to make a booming sound in response. They paced side by side, toward one another, back again, and other birds crossed and joined them, moving gradually into a great circle, which seemed to push the fog back with it as it widened.
He knew what to do. From some place, either inside him or sent from Grus, the knowledge of the steps and their meaning came to him.
Grus’s movements, toward him, away from him, back again. She was courting him.
Should he respond?
The bones of his ribs and arms felt light at the thought. Ember was at the corner of his vision, but she was a warlord’s daughter, and not for him. This was shapechanging land, and here, perhaps, may be, he could actually fly…
Ash tucked his hands under his arms and then spread them out in unison with the cranes, picking his feet up in mimicry, feeling emptied out, full of air, as simple as thistledown.
They paced and stamped together, and he could feel humanity begin to drop away from him, as a light breeze lets dust it has collected fall. Grus encouraged him with small shrieks and calls, and he saw the red topknot make the dips and circles which it should in the first stage of a mating dance. How he knew that, he did not question. He was caught up in the rhythm, the noise booming through him, the tuneful shrieking and the step, slide, pace, step of the dance.
The cranes were breaking up the circle. One by one they flapped their great wings, ran a few steps and took off, soaring higher. They took the mist with them. It shredded against their great beating pinions and melted away into a clear sky as they climbed.
Watching their flight was filling him with yearning, desire, the need to soar, to be free, to shake off the bonds of the earth. He stretched out his arms, fingers splayed as their flight feathers were splayed into arcs of the palest gray and black. He could feel the change starting, the feathers beginning to break his skin. It hurt, each feather a separate pain, the hollowing-out of his bones hurting even more.
But just a few more minutes of pain and he would be able to fly. His neck was lengthening, he could turn it so far…
He turned his head, testing it, and Ember was there, gazing at him with despair.
His eyes could see more than they used to: he saw the strange halo of fire that surrounded her, saw the leash the Power had put on her, binding her tight. It made him angry, as anything bound always made him angry.
Their gaze met. His sight was so good that he could make out his own eye reflected in hers: the eye of a bird, orange around black, hard and inhuman. She didn’t have the right to call him back. She had no rights over him at all. If he wanted Grus and flight, he had the right to choose. He flexed his fingers, feeling the feathers slide further down.
Tears spilled over onto her cheeks. She reached out her hand to him, and then snatched it back, as though she knew she had no right. But her face, her face was full of pain.
Ash let his arms drop. Beside him, Grus, her tuft high, shrieked to him: Come, she said quite clearly. Fly!
“No,” he said to her, sorrowing, formal as at a funeral. “No, I cannot come.”
You said you would give anything to fly! she cawed.
“Not quite anything,” he said. He bowed, his foot lifting as the cranes’ did when they danced. Grus bowed back and, last of them all, lifted into the air, circling with the others above their heads as they climbed in a long leisurely spiral. Leaving him alone, heavy, full of earth, as dull and plodding as a toad.
Ash watched, standing quite still, until they were so high that there was nothing left to see but a scatter of dots against the sky. Then he turned to Ember and simply stood while she dropped the rope and pole and walked to him, put her arms around him and laid her head on his chest. His arms came around her slowly. She gave a long sobbing sigh and his arms tightened, his head coming to rest on hers.
He could still hear the beating of their wings across the sky, and his heart was speared by regret.
“I’ll never get the chance again,” he whispered.
“But they chose you,” she said. She tilted her head back and stared at him seriously. “They chose you.”
“Yes.” He was half-smiling, half-crying, sure at least that all his lifelong yearning had been for something real, not just a boy’s silly dream. That was worth a great deal.
They turned to find Cedar staring at them—no, at him—with a mixture of awe and compassio
n, as he might gaze at a stranger. It was a hard look to bear from a brother. Ash straightened and moved away from Ember immediately, regaining his calm.
“Come on,” he said roughly. “Whatever was guarding this passage is letting us pass. Let’s go before it changes its mind.”
Timbertop, the Last Domain
There was only one stonecaster near Timbertop, and she was a reclusive older woman called Jelica, who lived in an isolated cabin and supported herself by trapping.
“She’s an odd one,” the Village Voice had told them, but Poppy took no notice of that. Her family were described that way, too.
“Not enough people around here to live on stonecasting alone, I imagine,” she said to Larch as they rode along the trail to Jelica’s house. The spring sun was bright but not warm, and it filtered through the big pine trees lining the path and slid over Starling’s hide, showing the warm red of his coat and how badly he needed a proper grooming. Poppy had brought only a small curry comb and a hoof pick with her, thinking that she’d be able to borrow what she needed, but they weren’t used to horses, out here on the edge of things. Horses needed too much care and feeding for too little return, where there was no plowing done and a one-man sled could take a whole year’s worth of trade goods.
The woods smelled of pine and water, of catchfly blossom and violets. Larch’s golden hair shone in the sunlight. Despite their serious purpose, Poppy felt a small bloom of happiness.
As they rounded a curve of track and saw the small gray cabin, an arrow thwanged into the tree trunk nearest to Larch. Instantly, Larch grabbed her bridle, rounded the horses and moved back along the trail, shouting, “Warlord’s messengers! Hold!”
Larch kicked the horses into a canter and didn’t stop until they were well out of arrow range, then halted, cursing under her breath.
“Pox-ridden backwood in-breds!” she said. Larch had never sounded so much like a soldier. But she was a soldier. She dismounted, strung her bow and nocked an arrow, loosened her sword in its scabbard, and her dagger in its boot sheath. Then she looked sternly at Poppy. “You stay here until I say it’s safe.”
Her head picked up the sun and she looked like a shield maiden in one of the old, old songs. Poppy felt both adoration and panic rise in her, and pushed them down, hard. This was no place for either. She obediently took the reins of both horses, her hand shaking. Larch nodded, face softening for a brief moment before she turned and slid back into the trees, making her way to the cabin silently and with great skill.
Her heart was pounding, her breath shorter now she was still than when they were fleeing. Because Larch was in danger? She started to count silently, to regain calm, to keep from calling out after Larch, and maybe putting her in more danger.
After two hundred and thirty-seven, Larch called her, sounding a little breathless, and she clicked her tongue to the horses, moving back up the trail at a walk. She had to force herself to breathe, her heart still pumping hard. When she reached the curve where the arrow had come, she could see the cabin again, and Larch, standing in front of it with an older woman, dressed in the trews and leathers of a trapper. Larch’s sword was at the woman’s throat. Although she was flooded with relief, Poppy bit her lip. Surely that wasn’t necessary?
But the woman—it must be Jelica—glared at her with real hatred as she rode up and dismounted. She had a knife of her own, but it was reversed, pointing at her own heart. Larch looked confused, as if she didn’t know what to do with a prisoner who threatened to kill herself.
“Here’s something new,” Jelica sneered. “A warlord’s whore sent as messenger.”
Some old and deep injustice there, which they had no time to investigate.
“The gods have sent me,” Poppy said simply.
Jelica slowly put down her knife and pushed a strand of her gray hair aside with the back of her wrist, ignoring Larch completely. Larch sheathed her sword with an air of relief.
“Tell me,” Jelica said.
The message from her mother, from the gods, was succinct, but the implications were large. Jelica thought them through.
“What d’ye need me for?”
Poppy smiled ruefully. “Because half of them think the same as you, that I’m the warlord’s whore, or his by-blow, or at best his wife’s granddaughter, and they won’t listen to a girl still wet behind the ears. But you—they’ll listen to a stonecaster.”
Jelica stared at the ground and scratched her head. She seemed disgruntled, or uncertain, or simply put out.
“Haven’t been to town these long years,” she said. “Do all for m’self, out here. Traders come out to get my trappings.”
“We’ll be with you,” Poppy said gently. Jelica’s eyes flashed.
“Doan’t need no striplings for comfort,” she said. “Stay here. I’ll cast and then we’ll know.”
She went inside. Larch moved uncertainly to follow her, but Poppy shook her head. Jelica’s bow was on the ground—what other weapons could she turn against them?
“If she’d really wanted to kill us, I think we’d be dead,” she said, her mouth quirking. Larch grinned.
“Aye,” she said. “She had a chance with me, a minute ago, but she didn’t take it.”
Jelica flung open the cabin door and came out.
“Come in, then,” she said.
“You Saw it?” Larch asked, as if she couldn’t help it.
Jelica stared her full in the eyes. “I Saw Cold and Ice and Death Herself flying on frozen wings.” She turned to glance sideways at Poppy. “And I saw Fire, too, and a redheaded girl.”
“Ember,” Poppy breathed. “She’s all right?”
“She’s heading for trouble,” Jelica said. “But aren’t we all?” She paused, fiddling with the strings of her pouch. “He wanted her?”
Poppy thought back to the terrible moment when Osfrid had died.
“He wanted something,” she said, “but I’m not sure it was her.”
Jelica relaxed a little, and pushed the pouch back more firmly, standing up straight.
“What will you tell them, at Timbertop?” Poppy asked.
“To get moving!” Jelica replied grimly. “Bolt for a hole like badgers, and dig ourselfs in, that’s what I’ll tell them.”
“The salt mines—” Poppy began.
“Aye,” Jelica nodded. “I Saw Salt, too, and Dark, and…” she paused, her eyes worried. “And the blank stone.”
“We’ll avoid the worst if we can get them to the mines,” Larch said firmly.
“Five towns,” Poppy said. “We have five towns to rally and get moving.”
“Tomorrow,” Jelica answered, frowning, casting an eye at the sunset sky. “First thing tomorrow, girl.”
“We could get halfway back to Timbertop by dark,” Larch protested.
“Aye, and freeze in the night,” Jelica retorted, stamping back to the cabin. “’Sides, there’s a thing I’ve a mind to do tonight.”
She stared at Poppy, and then at Larch, as if considering what she could say, then shrugged.
“There’s an altar here, just a bit of a one out back,” she said quietly. All her belligerence had fallen away, and her surety, too. She looked much younger, despite her gray hair. “I’m going to call Him.”
“Him?” Larch asked.
“Fire,” Poppy breathed, her skin turning cold. “He’ll kill us.”
“He’ll answer to me first,” Jelica said. “Woman and girl, I’ve lit the wildfire for Him, and He owes me truth.”
“Larch has no Traveler blood,” Poppy whispered. To take one of Acton’s people to Fire was to invite destruction.
“Um…” Larch hesitated. “My great-great-grammer was a Traveler, they say. Is that enough?”
Poppy and Jelica looked at each other, and it seemed to Poppy that neither of them were certain.
“Let’s hope it is,” Jelica said eventually. “It works best with three.”
The Ice King’s Country
They made their way along the
narrow path along the valley floor. Ash kept one eye up on the cliffs and craggy boulders that littered the hillside; it was prime country for ambush, but also prime hunting country.
Part of him sincerely wished that Ember wasn’t so reluctant to call a campfire in the evening. Now they were out of the forest he’d love a hot meal. But he couldn’t blame her, he supposed. The memory of Fire towering over her at the wedding feast haunted his dreams, too. He’d never liked Osfrid much—a bit too satisfied with himself—but to be erased from the world like that, in a breath, turned to ash and scattered on the wind… he wouldn’t wish that on the Ice King himself.
High above, an eagle circled. He sorted through the various mountain sounds, as familiar as his own hand. Wind. The horses’ hoof-falls. Scratching to the left, as a small animal hid. A mountain thrush poured out his mating call from a scraggy juniper tree halfway up the slope.
Rocks skittered down and he looked up in time to see a mountain goat bound away. He had the arrow nocked when he saw that she was pregnant, and he lowered the bow, but kept it ready nocked. Goats were flock animals. Where there was one, there would be more soon, although they spooked easily and would be impossible to track over this stony ground.
“Let’s go quietly,” he suggested, taking Thatch to the lead. “Watch for goats,” he added.
Cedar nodded understandingly and took his own bow from his saddle. It wasn’t good for the bows to ride with them strung, but in unknown country it was safest.
Ahead, the path twisted around a large boulder and turned sharply into the next valley. With luck, the goats would be there. Ash clicked his tongue to Thatch and he picked up his pace, drawing ahead of the others. If he could get a couple of shots off before the others caught up with him, they might eat well in a few days, once the meat had dried. He wound his reins around one wrist and brought his bow up.
“Quietly, now,” he whispered to Thatch. An old hand at hunting, the bay slowed and edged around the turn as Ash scanned the hillsides.
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