The Shadow of Malabron

by Thomas Wharton

  After Freya, Rowen and her grandfather joined them on the ledge, Finn started across the snow bridge, coiling up the rope as he went. The toymaker turned from watching him and strode up to a pair of thick, slab-sided pillars of greyish stone at one end of the ledge. One of the pillars had collapsed in pieces against the other like a tumbled tower of children’s blocks. Both were covered with a layer of ice.

  “The stair to the great hall was here, between these pillars,” Pendrake said, and Will heard the weariness in his voice. “We can’t get through this way.”

  “You’ve been here before, Grandfather,” Rowen said. “There must be another way. It can’t end like this, not after Shade…”

  The toymaker turned to her with a stricken look, as if he had forgotten she was here with him, in danger, and had just remembered. Will hoped he would say something comforting to her, to all of them, but the old man shook his head.

  “We cannot climb sheer rock,” he said. “We’re trapped on this ledge.”

  “Then we will make our stand here,” Moth said, nocking an arrow in his bowstring. “The Nightbane will pay dearly for crossing the bridge.”

  Finn was now at the halfway point of the span, and the pursuing Nightbane had drawn up at the far end. They crowded together at the brink, those in front leaning forward hesitantly to inspect the chasm at their feet. It looked as though none would dare the bridge, until at last a huge mordog went among them, snarling and cracking an evil-looking whip. Then the throng began to order itself and move in single file onto the span. Those mordog that carried crossbows took up positions on the edge of the crevasse and began to load their weapons. Moth shouted a warning and Will, Freya, Rowen and the toymaker took what shelter they could behind a low pile of tumbled stones. Moth let fly one arrow and then another, dropping two of the archers to the ice before the others had a chance to fire.

  Finn ran now for the ledge, the black bolts of the enemy whizzing around him. As he did, Freya cried out, rose from where she was crouching beside Will, and charged back onto the bridge. One of the mordog arrows struck the ice directly in front of Finn and he stumbled. At the same moment Freya reached him and took his arm. They hurried for the ledge together, but the gap between him and the Nightbane advancing across the bridge had narrowed.

  An arrow sped past Will’s head and Rowen screamed. The arrow had struck her in the shoulder. She collapsed, her face contorted with pain. Will and the toymaker knelt beside her.

  Rowen’s eyes were closed and she was gasping for breath.

  “What can we do?” Will said desperately.

  “Do not touch the arrow,” Moth shouted. He shot another arrow of his own and hurried to their side. As he reached them a strange cry went up. Will turned to see something advancing through the ranks of the Nightbane on the bridge.

  It was twice the height of the tallest mordog and appeared to be a humped, spiny boulder with arms and legs. Will could see two tiny eyes and a gaping crevice of a mouth in the hump where its head should have been.

  “What is that?” Will gasped.

  “That is an unthunk,” Moth said, and even he sounded defeated now. “One of the giant ones.”

  Finn and Freya had almost reached the end of the bridge. At the unthunk’s roar Finn turned. Freya gripped his shoulder but he pulled away from her and charged back the way he had come. By now the creature had shouldered its way through the file of mordog on the bridge. With astonishing swiftness for something that seemed to be made of solid rock it swung a huge fist that Finn barely dodged in time. He dived forward past the gigantic creature, rolled to his feet, and instead of striking at the unthunk from behind, engaged a snarling mordog with an axe. Blade rang against iron, and again Finn dropped, so that the mordog’s next swing struck the unthunk’s leg as the monster turned in search of Finn. The mordog tugged its weapon free and scrambled to get away. With a howl the enraged unthunk batted it off the bridge and came charging at Finn and the rest of the Nightbane.

  Finn dived again and slid between the unthunk’s legs. The unthunk whirled and struck Finn as he was scrambling to his feet, sending him sprawling. But the monster’s furious swing had thrown it off balance. It did a kind of slow, flailing pirouette, batting several shrieking mordog off the bridge, until at last it stood teetering on the brink. Then, with a groan like a falling tree, it toppled into the abyss.

  Finn staggered to his feet as the mordog, only briefly cowed, advanced again in a rush. It looked as if Finn would be overwhelmed, but in the next instant Freya and Moth had joined him on the bridge. Two mordog fell, and the rest drew back. The defenders stood their ground. The grizzled mordog at the rear of the file cracked its spike-tipped whip, and the Nightbane surged forward once more.

  As Finn, Freya and Moth braced to meet the onslaught, the low rumbling began again from below, now much louder. The entire citadel of Aran Tir seemed to shake, and splinters of ice cracked and fell from the bridge. The charging mordog stopped short in fear, piling into one another, and then turned and tried to shove their way back into the horde still filing onto the trembling span. In the scuffle that followed, several more were knocked screaming into the crevasse. Moth shouted something that Will could not hear, and then he, Freya and Finn turned and ran for the ledge.

  Before they could reach it the bridge began to change beneath them. Sharp spikes of ice jutted from its surface, so quickly that the three had to dart between or leap over them. To his bewilderment Will saw movement within the bridge. A pulse like deep veins of blue water now coursed through the ice. Then the bridge shivered from one end to the other, shards of ice and snow falling from it like glittering scales. The rock under Will’s feet shook violently and he staggered back from the brink of the ledge, but not before he glimpsed horns, an immense scaled body, an icy blue eye.

  The bridge was no longer a bridge. Whatever it had become, it was alive.

  With a sound like sheets of glass shattering the creature broke free and plunged downwards, sending the shrieking Nightbane on both sides hurtling into the crevasse. Finn and Moth came flying through the air and tumbled onto the rock ledge at Will’s feet. At the same instant Finn’s hand shot out behind him and grasped Freya’s arm. She had fallen short and was clinging to the edge of the rock. As Moth helped him haul her to safety, a huge cloud of snow and ice shards billowed up and out, blinding Will and his friends.

  When the cloud had settled, the bridge and the enemy upon it were no more. But the creature was still there. Will and the others watched in stunned silence as it heaved itself out of the crevasse on the far side, its diamond claws digging into the bare ice. As it moved, the creature’s white scales gleamed with a faint blue tinge where they overlapped one another. The very air around it was hazy with frost.

  A dragon, Will realized, gaping in wonder. A dragon of ice.

  The Nightbane that had not ventured onto the bridge were flinging away their weapons in terror and fleeing in all directions, some even heedlessly hurtling themselves into the crevasse. When the dragon’s entire form was out on the ice, it lifted its head and gave a roar that made Will clap his hands to his ears. A pair of wings unfolded with a creak and billowed out like massive sails, sending ice crystals glittering through the air. Then the dragon was among the fleeing mordog and creech like an ice storm, its great head sweeping from side to side and its mighty tail lashing.

  There was a sound like the huffing and hissing of a steam locomotive, and from the dragon’s mouth came not fire but a blast of white air thick with frost. As it swept its immense head around, any Nightbane caught by the blast turned hoary and icicled in an instant. After a few slowing steps they ceased moving and stood frozen in grotesque poses of terrified flight.

  It looked as if many of the Nightbane not directly in its path would still escape, until the dragon did something even more astonishing. Its great head reared and then plunged into the ice, as if it was made of the same element and was merging with it. Moments later its head appeared again, like an upthrust pillar
of ice, and to Will’s amazement another head rose near it, exactly like the first, and then another further away, each one in the path of a knot of fleeing Nightbane, who were quickly halted by a blast of frosty breath. As it moved in pursuit of its prey the dragon’s body undulated over and through the ice as though the glacier itself was rippling in waves.

  In a short time there were no moving Nightbane on the glacier but only nightmarish white statues. Some of the very few who had escaped were scrambling over the rocky rubble alongside the glacier. Two of the dragon’s three heads plunged under the surface and did not reappear. The third stretched high on its scaly neck above the ice, and its body followed.

  The dragon opened its mouth wide and gave a thunderous bellow, like the crack and roar of an avalanche.

  Now that there were no unfrozen Nightbane within reach, the creature’s fury seemed to subside as quickly as it had itself appeared. It snorted a few times for good measure, and shook itself briskly from its horns to the tip of its tail. Then, as if as an afterthought, it slowly turned its massive head to look at Will and his companions. The steely blue eyes that regarded them gave no hint of the creature’s thoughts.

  “What will it do now?” Will whispered.

  “Whatever it wants,” said Freya.

  The dragon heaved its massive body round, folded its wings, and poured itself into the chasm, as if its long, lithe body had melted instantly into rushing water. Moments later it reappeared, crawling up onto the ledge a few feet from Will and his friends. They backed away quickly against the rock wall, Will and Pendrake helping Rowen, who had come to but was still breathing in gasps and looked deathly pale.

  The dragon hunkered down on its forelegs and seemed to solidify before their eyes. It studied the small mortals before it as if there was no hurry in the world to decide what should be done about them.

  Moth stepped forward, bowed, and spoke a few words in another language. The dragon’s eyes narrowed to blue slits and it gave a deep, frosty huff. Whether this was a sound of approval or scorn or something else entirely, Will had no idea. The dragon rose suddenly and with heavy tread, started forward. Its long blue talons clicked on the stone.

  “Keep out of its way,” Moth cautioned in an undertone, and they all quickly obeyed, crowding together against the rock face. The dragon went past them without a glance, as if it had forgotten they were there. As its huge ponderous bulk brushed by, like a slowly moving train, its shadow fell over the companions and the air seemed to grow even colder. Will had the uncanny sense that before him was passing both a living creature and a force of nature, like storm or lightning or the ice itself, a power that was aware of him and his friends yet apart from them, involved with deep, remote things that he could not fathom.

  The ice dragon reached the spot where the steps were blocked by the jumbled remains of the pillars. With one immense claw it began digging at the fallen rock. In a short time it had dislodged one of the huge chunks of stone, and then another. The dragon did not cast away the broken pieces of the pillar but instead nudged them almost tenderly to one side as it continued its work.

  Soon the staircase was free of all but a few small fragments of rubble. Briefly the dragon seemed to regard what it had done with a critical eye, and then it turned slowly to Will and his friends again. It now seemed to take particular notice of Rowen, who was doubled over and shaking in Freya’s arms.

  The dragon bent towards her, and at this, Finn moved to block its way.

  “No, wait,” Moth said, raising his hand.

  Finn drew back. The dragon studied him briefly, then stretched out one of its forelimbs to Rowen. She raised her head and stared in wide-eyed shock at the immense creature towering over her. The dragon’s huge claw reached down towards the black mordog arrow in her shoulder. From this close Will saw that the dragon’s scales were translucent, like the ice itself. A blueish fluid pulsed beneath the surface. The claw touched Rowen’s shoulder and spread out as if melting like snow on her skin. She winced and gave a cry, and a moment later the claw was moving away from her and the arrow was gone. Will thought he glimpsed it for an instant, a dark sliver vanishing into the liquid depths of the dragon’s limb.

  Rowen breathed out, the grimace of pain gone from her face, replaced by a look of astonishment.

  The dragon turned away, and the now familiar ominous rumble sounded from its throat. It stared out across the ice, as if daring the Nightbane to come near again. Rowen touched her shoulder. She was still breathing heavily but already some of the colour had returned to her face.

  “It was burning,” she said with a shiver.

  “The arrowhead must have been poisoned,” Pendrake said.

  “Now there’s no pain,” Rowen said. “Just cold.”

  She gazed up at the dragon.

  “Thank you,” she said, through chattering teeth.

  Moth stepped forward, bowed again and spoke once more to the dragon. This time it startled them all by answering, in a deep, booming voice that pounded in Will’s ears. It gave a long, slow utterance, punctuated with several snorts and rumblings, and then concluded with another mighty huff, so that jets of frost puffed from its nostrils and billowed over its head. Then the dragon turned to face the rim of the ledge and began to crawl head first down into the crevasse, its long, lithe body shivering into liquid again as it disappeared. The tail slithered out of sight last.

  As suddenly as it had appeared, the dragon was gone.

  No one spoke for a long time. Morrigan swooped down and alighted on one of the nearby fallen stones. She shook herself and gave a wheezy squawk that sounded like a stunned comment on everything they had just witnessed.

  “I agree,” Finn said.

  “There are verses in the Kantar about glaciers,” the toymaker said. “It calls them mighty dragons, slow to rouse but swift and deadly when the mood takes them. I should have paid more attention to those lines.”

  Finn asked Moth what he and the dragon had said to one another.

  “I thanked him with all the ceremony I could muster at short notice,” the archer said. “For saving us, and for his hospitality. The rock of Aran Tir is his home. He has been here as long as the ice has, if not longer, I would say. When the Stewards came and built their citadel, he befriended them. Now he guards the rock in their memory. I believe that last roar was his name, but I did not quite catch it. Too loud.”

  With anguish in his heart, Will looked back across the ice the way they had come. The dragon had not saved all of them.

  “Why did he help us?” he asked bitterly. “Why didn’t he get rid of us like the Nightbane, if we’re trespassing?”

  “He said we would find that out if we climbed the stairs. Unlike most dragons, he is not given to long conversations. When Rowen is ready, we should do as he said. There will be more shelter from the cold, at any rate. We may be here a long while before it is safe to leave.”

  “I’m ready now,” Rowen said, rising to her feet with Freya’s help. “I feel fine.”

  At the top of the steps they came out into an open, roofless space rimmed by tall columns. At the far end of this circular court rose a sheer wall, hundreds of feet high, topped by white towers that gleamed in the late afternoon sunlight, like a vision of a palace in some other world that was far-off and out of reach. At the base of the wall stood a wide archway, partially blocked by rubble and chunks of stone.

  “The forecourt of Aran Tir,” Pendrake said. “Through that archway is the main staircase up into the citadel. Even though our pursuers have been beaten back, we should probably climb as high as we can in the towers. It will give us a better view of where our enemies are and what they may be doing.”

  Just then they heard a sound from the archway, a clattering of fallen stones. Moth and Finn drew their swords. Everyone waited without speaking, and then, through the archway, limping and bedraggled, came Shade.

  Where once armour clashed and swords rang there is now only the keen of the wind, the whisper of water upon stone.


  — Redquill’s Atlas and Gazetteer of the Perilous Realm

  WILL SHOUTED AND RAN FORWARD. He knelt and wrapped his arms round the wolf.

  “I thought I’d never see you again,” he said through his tears. “I thought you were dead.”

  “I am not dead, Will Lightfoot,” Shade said huskily. “I am here. I will not leave you again.”

  “You found a swifter route across the ice than we did,” the toymaker said, laughing. “I know you’re fast, my friend, but that is still quite a feat.”

  “I did not travel across the ice, Master Pendrake,” the wolf said. “I went under it.”

  They all welcomed him with glad smiles and pats. Then, in his calm, methodical manner, Shade related what had happened after he and the garm-wolf fell from the stair. They had tumbled down the cliff to the surface of the ice, and both of them were hurt, but the garm-wolf recovered first and fled across the glacier. Shade gave chase as best he could and caught up with his enemy at the edge of a crevasse, where they struggled and both fell in.

  “I do not remember anything else,” the wolf went on, “until I woke up and found myself in a cave under the ice, with Whitewing Stonegrinder.”

  “With who?” Freya asked.

  “The guardian of the ice, Freya Ragnarsdaughter,” Shade said. “That is his name. He can be in many places at once. Or he can be … many of himself at once. It is hard to understand. When I first saw him I tried to get away but he was everywhere. There was no escaping him. He put his foot on me and I could not move. He was very angry and I thought he was going to crush me. I asked him not to, and he did not, but he wanted to know who had dared to enter his domain. He spoke in the voice of the First Ones, only much louder. I answered him, and after that he was not so angry, but he still kept his foot on me.”

  “He must have guessed you were one of the Companions,” Pendrake said. “Thank goodness for that.”