by Fritz Leiber
‘I’d sooner kneel to a snake! Or wed a she-bear!’ Fafhrd cried out, all thoughts of tactics vanished.
‘I’ll set my brothers on you,’ she screamed back. ‘Cowardly boor!’
Fafhrd lifted his fist, dropped it, set his hands to his head and rocked it in a gesture of maniacal desperation, then suddenly ran past her toward the camp.
‘I’ll set the whole tribe on you! I’ll tell it in the Tent of the Women. I’ll tell your mother…’ Mara shrieked after him, her voice fading fast with the intervening boughs, snow, and distance.
Barely pausing to note that none were abroad amongst the Snow Clan’s tents, either because they were still at the trading fair or inside preparing supper, Fafhrd bounded up his treasure tree and flipped open the door of his hidey hole. Cursing the fingernail he broke doing so, he got out the sealskin-wrapped bow and arrows and rockets and added thereto his best pair of skis and ski sticks, a somewhat shorter package holding his father’s second-best sword well-oiled, and a pouch of smaller gear. Dropping to the snow, he swiftly bound the longer items into a single pack, which he slung over shoulder.
After a moment of indecision, he hurtled inside Mor’s tent, snatching from his pouch a small fire-pot of bubble-stone, and filled it with glowing embers from the hearth, sprinkled ashes over them, laced the pot tight shut, and returned it to his pouch.
Then turning in frantic haste toward the doorway, he stopped dead. Mor stood in it, a tall silhouette white-edged and shadow-faced.
‘So you’re deserting me and the Waste. Not to return. You think.’
Fafhrd was speechless.
‘Yet you will return. If you wish it to be a-crawl on four feet, or blessedly on two, and not stretched lifeless on a litter of spears, weigh soon your duties and your birth.’
Fafhrd framed a bitter answer, but the very words were a gag in his gullet. He stalked toward Mor.
‘Make way, Mother,’ he managed in a whisper.
She did not move.
His jaws clamped in a horrid grimace of tension, he shot forth his hands, gripped her under the armpits—his flesh crawling—and set her to one side. She seemed as stiff and cold as ice. She made no protest. He could not look her in the face.
Outside, he started at a brisk pace for Godshall, but there were men in his way—four hulking young blond ones flanked by a dozen others.
Mara had brought not only her brothers from the fair, but all her available kinsmen.
Yet now she appeared to have repented of her act, for she was dragging at her eldest brother’s arm and talking earnestly to him, to judge by her expression and the movements of her lips.
Her eldest brother marched on as if she weren’t there. And now as his gaze hit Fafhrd he gave a joyous shout, jerked from her grasp, and came on a-rush followed by the rest. All waved clubs or their scabbarded swords.
Mara’s agonized, ‘Fly, my love!’ was anticipated by Fafhrd by at least two heartbeats. He turned and raced for the woods, his long, stiff pack banging his back. When the path of his flight joined the trail of footprints he’d made running out of the woods, he took care to set a foot in each without slackening speed.
Behind him they cried, ‘Coward!’ He ran faster.
When he reached the juttings of granite a short way inside the forest, he turned sharply to the right and leaping from bare rock to rock, making not one additional print, he reached a low cliff of granite and mounted it with only two hand-grabs, then darted on until the cliff’s edge hid him from anyone below.
He heard the pursuit enter the woods, angry cries as in veering around trees they bumped each other, then a masterful voice crying for silence.
He carefully lobbed three stones so that they fell along his false trail well ahead of Mara’s human hounds. The thud of the stones and the rustle of branches they made falling drew cries of ‘There he goes!’ and another demand for silence.
Lifting a larger rock, he hurled it two-handed so that it struck solidly the trunk of a stout tree on the nearer side of the trail, jarring down great branchfuls of snow and ice. There were muffled cries of startlement, confusion, and rage from the showered and likely three-quarters buried men. Fafhrd grinned, then his face sobered and his eyes grew dartingly watchful as he set off at a lope through the darkening woods.
But this time he felt no inimical presences and the living and the lifeless, whether rock or ghost, held off their assaults. Perhaps Mor, deeming him sufficiently harried by Mara’s kinsmen, had ceased to energize her charms. Or perhaps—Fafhrd left off thinking and devoted all of himself to silent speeding. Vlana and civilization lay ahead. His mother and barbarism behind—but he endeavored not to think of her.
Night was near when Fafhrd left the wood. He had made the fullest possible circuit through them, coming out next to the drop into Trollstep Canyon. The strap of his long pack chafed his shoulder.
There were the lights and sounds of feasting amongst the traders’ tents. Godshall and the actors’ tents were dark. Still nearer loomed the dark bulk of the stable tent.
He silently crossed the frosty, rutted gravel of the New Road leading south into the canyon.
Then he saw that the stable tent was not altogether dark. A ghostly glow moved inside it. He approached its door cautiously and saw the silhouette of Hor peering in. Still the soul of silence, he came up behind Hor and peered over his shoulder.
Vlana and Vellix were harnessing the latter’s two horses to Essedinex’ sleigh, from which Fafhrd had stolen the three rockets.
Hor tipped up his head and lifted a hand to his lips to make some sort of owl or wolf cry.
Fafhrd whipped out his knife and, as he was about to slash Hor’s throat, reversed his intent and his knife too, and struck him senseless with a blow of the pommel against the side of his head. As Hor collapsed, Fafhrd hauled him to one side of the doorway.
Vlana and Vellix sprang into the sleigh, the latter touched his horses with the reins, and they came thud-slithering out. Fafhrd gripped his knife fiercely…then sheathed it and shrank back into the shadows.
The sleigh went gliding off down the New Road. Fafhrd stared after it, standing tall, his arms as straight down his sides as those of a corpse laid out, but with his fingers and thumbs gripped into tightest fists.
He suddenly turned and fled toward Godshall.
There came an owl-hooting from behind the stable tent. Fafhrd skidded to a stop in the snow and turned around, his hands still fists.
Out of the dark, two forms, one trailing fire, raced toward Trollstep Canyon. The tall form was unmistakably Hringorl’s. They stopped at the brink. Hringorl swung his torch in a great circle of flame. The light showed the face of Harrax beside him. Once, twice, thrice, as if in signal to someone far south down the canyon. Then they raced for the stable.
Fafhrd ran for Godshall. There was a harsh cry behind him. He stopped and turned again. Out of the stable galloped a big horse. Hringorl rode it. He dragged by rope a man on skis: Harrax. The pair careened down the New Road in a flaring upswirl of snow.
Fafhrd raced on until he was past Godshall and a quarter way up the slope leading to the Tent of the Women. He cast off his pack, opened it, drew his skis from it and strapped them to his feet. Next he unwrapped his father’s sword and belted it to his left side, balancing his pouch on right.
Then he faced Trollstep Canyon where the Old Road had gone. He took up two of his ski sticks, crouched, and dug them in. His face was a skull, the visage of one who casts dice with Death.
At that instant, beyond Godshall, the way he had come, there was a tiny yellow sputtering. He paused for it, counting heartbeats, he knew not why.
Nine, ten, eleven—there was a great flare of flame. The rocket rose, signaling tonight’s Show. Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three—and the tail-flame faded and the nine white stars burst out.
Fafhrd dropped his ski sticks, picked up one of the three rockets he’d stolen, and drew its fuse from its end, pulling just hard enough to break the cementing tar
without breaking the fuse.
Holding the slender, finger-long, tarry cylinder delicately between his teeth, he took his fire-pot out of his pouch. The bubblestone was barely warm. He unlaced the top and brushed away the ashes below until he saw—and was stung by—a red glow.
He took the fuse from between his teeth and placed it so that one end leaned on the edge of the fire-pot while the other end touched the red glow. There was a sputtering. Seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve—and the sputtering became a flaring jet, then was done.
Setting his fire-pot on the snow, he took up the two remaining rockets, and hugged their thick bodies under his arms and dug their tails into the snow, testing them against the ground. The tails were truly as stiff and strong as ski sticks.
He held the rockets propped parallel in one hand and blew hard on the glowing fire-patch in his firepot and brought it up toward the two fuses.
Mara ran out of the dark and said, ‘Darling, I’m so glad my kin didn’t catch you!’
The glow of the fire-pot showed the beauty of her face.
Staring at her across it, Fafhrd said, ‘I’m leaving Cold Corner. I’m leaving the Snow Tribe. I’m leaving you.’
Mara said, ‘You can’t.’
Fafhrd set down the fire-pot and the rockets.
Mara stretched out her hands.
Fafhrd took the silver bracelets off his wrists and put them in Mara’s palms.
Mara clenched them and cried, ‘I don’t ask for these. I don’t ask for anything. You’re the father of my child. You’re mine!’
Fafhrd whipped the heavy silver chain off his neck, laid it across her wrists, and said, ‘Yes. You’re mine forever, and I’m yours. Your son is mine. I’ll never have another Snow Clan wife. We’re married.’
Meanwhile he had taken up the two rockets again and held their fuses to the fire-pot. They sputtered simultaneously. He set them down, thonged shut the fire-pot and thrust it in his pouch. Three, four…
Mor looked over Mara’s shoulder and said, ‘I witness your words, my son. Stop!’
Fafhrd grabbed up the rockets, each by its sputtering body, dug in the stick ends and took off down the slope with a great shove. Six, seven…
Mara screamed, ‘Fafhrd! Husband!’ As Mor shouted, ‘No son of mine!’
Fafhrd shoved again with the sputtering rockets. Cold air whipped his face. He barely felt it. The moonlit lip of the jump was close ahead. He felt its up-curve. Beyond it, darkness. Eight, nine…
He hugged the rockets fiercely to his sides, under his elbows, and was flying through darkness. Eleven, twelve…
The rockets did not fire. The moonlight showed the opposite wall of the canyon rushing toward him. His skis were directed at a point just beneath its top and that point was steadily falling. He tilted the rockets down and hugged them more fiercely still.
They fired. It was as if he were clinging to two great wrists that were dragging him up. His elbows and sides were warm. In the sudden glare the rock wall showed close, but now below. Sixteen, seventeen…
He touched down smoothly on the fair crust of snow covering the Old Road and hurled the rockets to either side. There was a double thunderclap and white stars were shooting around him. One smote and stung, then tortured his cheek as it died. There was time for the one great laughing thought, I depart in a burst of glory.
Then no time for large thoughts at all, as he gave all his attention to skiing down the steep slope of the Old Road, now bright in the moonlight, now pitch black as it curved, crags to the right, a precipice to his left. Crouching and keeping his skis locked side to side, he steered by swaying his hips. His face and his hands grew numb. Reality was the Old Road hurled at him. Tiny bumps became great jolts. White rims came close. Black shoulders threatened.
Deep, deep down there were thoughts nevertheless. Even as he strained to keep all his attention on his skiing, they were there. Idiot, you should have grabbed a pair of sticks with the rockets. But how would you have held them when casting aside the rockets? In your pack?—then they’d be doing you no good now. Will the fire-pot in your pouch prove more worthwhile than sticks? You should have stayed with Mara. Such loveliness you’ll never see again. But it’s Vlana you want. Or is it? How, with Vellix? If you weren’t so cold-hearted and good, you’d have killed Vellix in the stable, instead of speeding to—Did you truly intend killing yourself? What do you intend now? Can Mor’s charms out-speed your skiing? Were the rocket wrists really Nalgron’s, reaching from Hell? What’s that ahead?
That was a hulking shoulder skidded around. He lay over on his right side as the white edge to his left narrowed. The edge held. Beyond it, on the opposite wall of the widening canyon, he saw a tiny streak of flame. Hringorl still had his torch, as he galloped down the New Road dragging Harrax? Fafhrd lay over again to his right as the Old Road curved farther that way in a tightening turn. The sky reeled. Life demanded that he lie still farther over, braking to a stop. But Death was still an equal player in this game. Ahead was the intersection where Old and New Road met. He must reach it as soon as Vellix and Vlana in their sleigh. Speed was the essence. Why? He was uncertain. New curves ahead.
By infinitesimal stages the slope grew less. Snow-freighted treetops thrust from the sinister depths—to the left—then shot up to either side. He was in a flat black tunnel. His progress became soundless as a ghost’s. He coasted to a stop just at the tunnel’s end. His numb fingers went up and feather-touched the bulge of the star-born blister on his cheek. Ice needles crackled very faintly inside the blister.
No other sound but the faint tinkle of the crystals growing all around in the still, damp air.
Five paces ahead of him, down a sudden slope, was a bulbous roll bush weighted with snow. Behind it crouched Hringorl’s chief lieutenant Hrey—no mistaking that pointed beard, though its red was gray in the moonlight. He held a strung bow in his left hand.
Beyond him, two dozen paces down slope, was the fork where New and Old Road met. The tunnel going south through the trees was blocked by a pair of roll bushes higher than a man’s head. Vellix’ and Vlana’s sleigh was stopped short of the pile, its two horses great loomings. Moonlight struck silvery manes and silvery bushes. Vlana sat hunched in the sleigh, her head fur-hooded. Vellix had got down and was casting the roll bushes out of the way.
Torchlight came streaking down the New Road from Cold Corner. Vellix gave up his work and drew his sword. Vlana looked over her shoulder.
Hringorl galloped into the clearing with a laughing cry of triumph, and threw his torch high in the air, reined his horse to a stop behind the sleigh. The skier he towed—Harrax—shot past him and halfway up the slope. There Harrax braked to a stop and stooped to unlace his skis. The torch came down and went out sizzling.
Hringorl dropped from his horse, a fighting axe ready in his right hand.
Vellix ran toward Hringorl. Clearly he understood that he must dispose of the giant pirate before Harrax got off his skis or he would be fighting two at once. Vlana’s face was a small white mask in the moonlight as she half lifted from her seat to stare after him. The hood fell back from her head.
Fafhrd could have helped Vellix, but he still hadn’t made a move to unlash his skis. With a pang—or was it relief?—he remembered he’d left his bow and arrows behind. He told himself that he should help Vellix. Hadn’t he skied down here at incalculable risk to save the Venturer and Vlana, or at least warn them of the ambush he had suspected ever since he’d seen Hringorl whirl his torch on the precipice’s edge? And didn’t Vellix look like Nalgron, now more than ever in his moment of bravery? But the phantom Death still stood at Fafhrd’s side, inhibiting all action.
Besides, Fafhrd felt there was a spell on the clearing, making all action inside it futile. As if a giant spider, white-furred, had already spun a web around it, shutting it off from the rest of the universe, making it a volume inscribed, ‘This space belongs to the White Spider of Death.’ No matter that this giant spider spun not silk, but crystals—th
e result was the same.
Hringorl aimed a great axe swipe at Vellix. The Venturer evaded it and thrust his sword into Hringorl’s forearm. With a howl of rage, Hringorl shifted his axe to his left hand, lunged forward and struck again.
Taken by surprise, Vellix barely dodged back out of the way of the hissing curve of steel, bright in the moonlight. Yet he was nimbly on guard again, while Hringorl advanced more warily, axe-head high and a little ahead of him, ready to make short chops.
Vlana stood up in the sleigh, steel flashing in her hand. She made as if to hurl it, then paused uncertainly.
Hrey rose from his bush, an arrow nocked to his bow.
Fafhrd could have killed him, by hurling his sword spearwise if in no other way. But the sense of Death beside him was still paralyzingly strong, and the sense of being in the White Ice Spider’s great womblike trap. Besides, what did he really feel toward Vellix, or even Nalgron?
The bowstring twanged. Vellix paused in his fencing, transfixed. The arrow had struck him in the back, to one side of his spine, and protruded from his chest, just below the breastbone.
With a chop of the axe, Hringorl knocked the sword from the dying man’s grip as he started to fall. He gave another of his great, harsh laughs. He turned toward the sleigh.
Vlana screamed.
Before he quite realized it, Fafhrd had silently drawn his sword from its well-oiled sheath and, using it as a stick, pushed off down the white slope. His skis sang very faintly, though very high-pitched, against the snow crust.
Death no longer stood at his side. Death had stepped inside him. It was Death’s feet that were lashed to the skis. It was Death who felt the White Spider’s trap to be home.
Hrey turned, just in convenient time for Fafhrd’s blade to open the side of his neck in a deep, slicing thrust that slit gullet as well as jugular. His sword came away almost before the gushing blood, black in the moonlight, had wet it, and certainly before Hrey had lifted his great hands in a futile effort to stop the great choking flow. It all happened very easily. His skis had thrust, Fafhrd told himself, not he. His skis, that had their own life, Death’s life, and were carrying him on a most doomful journey.