by Sarah Zettel
“What’s happened?” Bridget asked, keeping her voice calm against the nervousness she felt building inside.
“The man Captain Chadek sent to scout ahead reports that the bridge we must cross has been blocked.” He drummed his gloved fingers on the edge of the sleigh. He looked straight ahead, seeing the possibilities in both the road and future. “We could, of course, cross on the ice, but he does not like the development and neither do I.”
Bridget felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle. Although she chided herself for being foolish, she could not escape the feeling that the black trunks of the trees had moved in a little closer.
The captain trotted his horse back to the sleigh and spoke to Valin. Valin replied with a single syllable and nod. “We’re going to try the ice. The area around the bridge is fairly open, and we will be able to see what comes. Bridget, you must listen to me,” he said seriously, laying his hand over her hers. “Should there be an ambush, you must get away, no matter what you see happening to us.” A thousand questions and protests rose in Bridget, and she bit them all back. Now was not the time to begin second-guessing the man who had brought her this far.
“Follow the road. It will take you to the palace. You must not …” His eyes grew hard and he clutched her hand tightly. If it had not been for the layer of rabbit fur, his grip would have hurt. “You must not, under any circumstances, leave the road. The forests are vast, and if you wander into the wrong valley, you could be in serious danger. Do you understand?”
Bridget nodded. Valin held her with his hard hand and harder eyes, as if he thought he could squeeze his words into her, or burn them in with his gaze.
“I promise,” said Bridget, pulling her hands away. “I will not leave the road.”
Valin flexed his hand a couple of times, and opened his mouth to say something more, but instead he just climbed back up next to the sleigh’s driver.
The soldiers touched up their horses, moving the procession forward again, but all seemed changed. The men rode close around the sleigh at a brisk trot. Their eyes scanned the trees, the hindmost checking the road behind them constantly. Bridget found herself straining to hear any unusual noises, but all she heard was the clopping of hooves, the jingle of the harness, the creak and rattle of the tree branches in the wind, and the soft hiss and thump as bundles of snow fell from the branches to the ground.
Bridget shivered and pulled her furs more tightly around herself.
Up ahead, the trees parted to make room for a river of black ice dusted with sparkling snow. A double-arched stone bridge spanned its length, and even from the sleigh, Bridget could see the huge mound of snow and tree branches that blocked the way.
The captain raised his hand, and the procession halted. The archers ringed the sleigh, unslung their bows and nocked arrows into their strings. The men with axes spaced themselves between archers, sitting tall in their saddles. Tension hummed between them, and they muttered to one another in their guttural tongue. Bridget found herself wishing in vain she could understand what worried them.
Valin stood on the sleigh box, shading his eyes with his hand, but Bridget could not tell what he was looking at. Captain Chadek, evidently satisfied with how his men had arrayed themselves, took one of the axes, and led his horse down to the icy bank. He stretched the ax out in front of him to test the ice and make sure it was safe for horse and man.
All at once, Valin shouted. Chadek looked up, startled, but as he did, the ax point touched the ice. Bridget felt a wave of cold like a silent wind rush past her. In the next instant, Chadek shouted. He struggled to pull the point of his ax away from the ice, and for a moment she wondered why he did not drop it. Then she saw that he could not, for his hand was stuck to the shaft. His horse reared and bucked, shaking its head from side to side. Chadek fell on the snow, his boots grappling for purchase and failing to find it while his panicked horse dragged him back and forth like a dead branch. The horse reared again, its hooves flailing dangerously near Chadek’s head, and Bridget saw that he could not release the horse’s reins either.
One of the soldiers shouted and jumped to the ground, running toward the captain and pulling out a knife as he did. Valin screamed after the man, who veered off, but skidded in the snow and tumbled down the bank, landing sprawled on his back on the ice. He called out and Bridget saw him struggle, but he did not rise.
“Remember what I told you,” said Valin to Bridget as he scrambled off the sleigh box.
Valin cautiously approached the madly plunging horse, one hand in front of him, and one hand reaching inside his coat. Chadek cried out, in pain this time, as the horse wrenched his arm yet again. Bridget bit her lip. In the woods, a crow cawed, and then another. Next to her, one of the axmen jerked his head up. He called out something to his fellows and raised his weapon.
They poured out of the woods on all sides, and for a moment Bridget thought they really were crows. Capes made entirely of black feathers flapped like wings, and dark, bony hands scrabbled and clutched like claws. The horses reared up under the sudden attack, and the soldiers all shouted. One man, then another, was pulled to the ground before they had a chance to defend themselves. But the others turned and wheeled, plunging into the flock of cloaked dwarves, stabbing down with sword and ax.
One of the creatures scrabbled over the side of the sleigh, and Bridget caught a glimpse of its wrinkled face and round black eyes, more like a crow’s than any human eye should be. It reached for her, and she threw her rug over it. Her driver grabbed the living bundle and threw it back down onto the road. Another crow-dwarf clambered up the side of the sleigh. Bridget snatched up the riding crop that lay on the sleigh box and lashed out, knocking the creature screaming backward. Cries rose on every side, making as much noise as a murder of true crows. The world around her filled with heat, sweat and blood, the frantic calls of men and horses, a hurricane of black feathers, blue cloaks, brown horse hair, and the glint of light on scarlet-splotched metal. The driver had the reins in his fist and was shouting at the team. The horses struggled to back and turn the sleigh. Bridget lurched, grabbing the sleigh’s gilded edge to keep her balance. Another of the creatures leapt to reach her and she swung her fist out, shoving it away, trying not to see when the soldier’s ax came down to finish it off.
A shadow moved overhead, jerking Bridget’s eyes upward in time to see a net drop down from the trees. Voices shouted, crows cawed, and Bridget’s hand flew up to knock the net away, but she was too late. It draped heavily across her and all at once she could not move. She froze there, one hand raised, her mouth open, with no limb, no sense, under her control. She could not blink, she could scarcely even breathe. Of all her muscles, only her heart still labored.
Bridget fell, toppling over the side of the sleigh like a log of wood. Panic surged through her, and her mind strained to reach her frozen body. Clawed hands grasped the net that held her, lifting her up onto feather-covered shoulders. Soldiers cried out — she thought she heard Valin’s voice mixed in with them — but all around her the crows cawed and would not be silenced. Their calls battered her ears, even as her mind battered at the inside of her skull seeking release that it could not find. Tears of fear and frustration spilled out of the corners of her paralyzed eyes, which stared up at the black branches speeding over her, making bars for the grey sky, which was all she could see. The human shouts faded away, leaving her only with the snickering and chuckling of crows.
Bridget hoped she would faint, but it seemed that respite was denied her. The world became nothing but cold, the clutch of claw-hands, and the blur of black branches and grey sky. Fear turned to anger, then to weariness, and then back to fear. There was a time when she was laid down on the snow and branches and leaves laid over her. Her heart hammered against her ribs, and her mind could only wonder if she had been left there for dead.
But no, the crows pulled away the debris and snatched her up again. The sky was deeper grey now, and the light dwindled with each passing heartbeat,
until at last she saw stars sprinkled across the black sky between branches that had become jagged slivers of shadow.
After an unknowable time, when cold and fear had finally numbed her mind, the branches pulled back from the sky. The dwarf-crows cawed perhaps eagerly, perhaps anxiously, and Bridget, who had thought herself past further shock, heard a human voice answer.
Golden light flickered at the corner of her right eye, and wooden beams slid over the sky. She was inside somewhere, somewhere with stone walls to block at least some of the cold, and a stone floor for her to be laid on. The dwarf-crows cawed, the human voice spoke again, followed by the shuffling of feet and rattling of feathers. A door opened, the wind swirled around Bridget, capes — or was it wings? — flapped and the door closed. Bridget lay on the floor, arm raised, mouth open, and eyes staring at the twisted ropes that held her, because she could do nothing else.
After a moment, she heard footsteps again. A man’s face with brown eyes and a full mouth bent low over her. He lifted his hand, and she saw a knife flash in the flickering light. Inwardly, Bridget screamed as the knife came down, but it only slit the ropes around her. The severed ends fell away. Bridget felt her mind open and her will rush back down to her limbs.
Her lungs hauled in a great gasp of air. Her lids squeezed shut over her burning eyes. Then, she remembered she was not alone and her eyes flew open and she shoved herself upright, scuttling backward, forgetting all appearance, until her back slammed against the wall.
The man straightened up, regarding her coolly. He still had his knife in his hand, she saw. But she could not help seeing other things now. He stood with his back to a fireplace that held a cheerful blaze. The stone room around them had two doors, one with a little snow melting before it, and another, which might lead to an inner room. Plants hung in bundles from the roof beams, along with a pair of rabbits, and a trio of fat brown birds. Cooking pots were piled in one corner of the hearth, next to some casks and bags. Chests and shelves waited against the walls. That, a table, a bench and the two of them seemed to be the extent of the place.
The man had not moved, not sheathed the knife or done any other thing. Bridget’s breathing began to even out. She swallowed, although her throat and mouth were painfully dry. Slowly, keeping her eyes on the man and his knife, she climbed to her feet and stood trembling with cold and strain.
Now she could see that he was a man of medium height. Slowly, carefully, she circled around him so that she was no longer looking straight into the fire and could see him better. He turned to keep his face toward her, but made no other move. His glossy black hair had been swept back from his broad forehead and divided into many braids that were looped and coiled around his head, threaded through beads and woven with scarlet ribbons until they were finally bundled into a ponytail at his neck. His eyes, which watched her, half-lidded under heavy black brows, were the brown of oak leaves in autumn. He had a strong, proud nose and a fine chin. His skin was a clear brown that shimmered almost golden where the firelight touched it.
Like most of the men she had seen since her arrival, he wore thick hose tucked into leather boots and a long, wide-skirted coat with fur at the cuffs and collar. But he did not wear it well. He held himself hunched in and awkward, as if his skin did not want to touch the wool, or perhaps it was just from the cold. This man did not belong in winter, she knew that instinctively.
In fact — Bridget’s own shoulders straightened — she knew him. This was Sakra, Princess Ananda’s chief advisor, and helper. She had seen him in Momma’s mirror when Valin had enchanted it for her, and then again afterward when she was alone in the lamp room.
Bridget’s throat closed. She had the outside door beside her, could she run? But to where? Out into the frigid night? How far would she get with each step betraying her trail? What if the dwarf-crows waited out there for her? And how would she find the road? The road Valin had warned her not to leave? She would not scream her head off like some silly girl in a melodrama. If this man had been worried about anyone hearing her, he surely would have gagged her before he released her body from the net.
Sakra spoke then, the same hard, consonant-heavy sounds that Valin used when speaking to the soldiers, but his voice had a lilt and a hesitation to it that was not in theirs. This was not his native tongue, probably, and he had learned it but lately.
When Bridget did not respond, he spoke again, loudly, and more slowly. Bridget set her jaw and shook her head. Sakra took three rapid steps toward her, and spoke again, a low harsh, whisper.
Bridget met his eyes without flinching. “It’s no good you threatening me, sir,” she said. “I cannot understand a word you say. Whatever you are going to do to me, you had best just get on with it.”
The man pulled back, searching her face for a moment with his autumn brown eyes. Then, much to Bridget’s surprise, he laughed. It was a rueful sound, and Bridget thought it might be directed more at himself than at her.
He stepped back, motioning toward the inner door with the blade of the knife. Bridget understood that gesture plainly enough. She thought again of the outer door at her side, and then of the deathly cold, and the possible dwarf-crows that waited for her outside it. Neck and back straight, she walked through the inner door.
The room inside was a comfortless bedchamber. It held only a thin pallet in a wooden frame covered with furs, a table, a crude stool and a clay jar of fairly obvious purpose. The man motioned with his knife again, and Bridget backed up against the far wall. He vanished from her sight for an instant, and then reappeared, setting a pierced tin lantern on the floor. He pushed the door shut, and Bridget heard the sound of a key turning in a lock, and then a bolt being lowered.
Bridget let her head fall forward. Marvelous. Marvelous. A new start to a new life in a world filled with magic and wonders. What kind of madwoman have I become that I believed this was a good idea?
Because there was nothing else to do, she picked up the lantern and set it on the table. She felt absurdly thankful that her captor had thought to give her a light, because otherwise she would have been shut in complete darkness. The room had no window, only the bolted door. As far as she could see in the flickering light, the wooden roof had been snugly made and looked quite sturdy. Even if there had been a way for her to climb up onto the thick roof beam, there did not seem to be any way out through that. Perhaps if she could reach it, she could use the flame from the lantern to burn a hole through which she could creep.
Which still left her lost, with inadequate clothing, in a winter colder than any she had ever known, and the only human being around remained Sakra, who still carried his knife.
She found water in the jug on the table and drank. There wasn’t enough, but she still felt somewhat better when she finished. That done, Bridget paced the room restlessly, her thoughts swinging from impossible escape plans to cursing herself for the greatest fool on Earth, or on any other world. A chimney took up part of the wall and provided a little warmth, but Bridget could not stand still to take advantage of it. Perhaps some part of her feared that if she stood still the paralysis that had gripped her before would return.
After a time that might have been an hour, or might have been ten, for all she could tell, Bridget threw herself onto the rickety bed and buried her face in her hands. Then, a familiar smell reached her — the odor of baking bread. Bridget’s mouth instantly began to water and her stomach growled painfully. When had she last eaten? At the moment, it felt like a lifetime ago. It must have been the bread and cheese in the sleigh, and before that it was the breakfast she shared with Valin in the lighthouse. The thought of the corn cakes and molasses, the very end of the bacon and the coffee, cramped Bridget’s stomach up again. Would her captor remember to feed her? Or was this some new torture? What would its purpose be? It wasn’t as if she could tell him anything, as if she would, even if she could speak to him.
But after a few minutes longer of smelling the bread, Bridget realized, to her shame, that if she could tell Sak
ra anything she might, just for a taste of that wonderful-smelling bread. Could she stand beside the door, wait for it to open, hit him with the stool, possibly even kill him with the knife, eat the bread and wait for morning when she could at least make her escape in daylight?
The plan filling her weary mind, Bridget stood. But, the plan had come too late. The door opened and Sakra walked in. In his hand, he carried a flat, braided loaf of bread. It smelled of warmth and herbs and it took all of Bridget’s strength not to lunge for it.
Sakra held out the loaf. Bridget swallowed but did not move. She might not be the only one with plans. Who knew what besides herbs and flour went into that bread?
Sakra nodded, perhaps with approval. He broke off the end of the bread, releasing a cloud of fragrant steam. He popped the bread into his mouth, chewed and swallowed. Bridget stared as if she had been stupefied. How long had it been since she had eaten?
Sakra held the bread out to Bridget again. Bridget realized, or hoped she realized, that he was showing her it was safe to eat. Holding herself in rigid control, she accepted the loaf from his hand, sat down on the bed, broke off a small bite and ate it, chewing thoroughly. Whatever else he was, her captor was a good baker. The herbed bread was heavy, stout and crusty.
When she swallowed the last bite, Sakra nodded. “Now we may talk.”
Bridget stared, she couldn’t help it. “You speak English.” Her hand flew to her mouth. The sounds issuing forth had no place in the English language. She thought of the bread she had just eaten, the braided bread, and Valin’s words about how magic was “a thing woven.” Could there have been a spell in the bread? Her stomach cramped again, this time in rebellion against what she had just eaten.
Sakra shook his head, disgusted, or perhaps just disappointed at her ignorance. “Who are you?”
“Bridget Lederle,” she answered primly. “Who are you?” No point in letting him know how much she knew.