The Winter Road

by Adrian Selby

  We got fuck-all sleep that night with the horns blowing, screeching and keening through the night, laughter and hollering on the wind. I got a lot of moaning off the crew as I got up with the birds, but I got the whole camp up and ready to move straight off. I wanted to make the most of the bit of trail we had and send one of Eirin’s on with luta to see a path for us and the wagons.

  Once we saw the trees we come to the edge of the Almet without stopping, thinking we should just push on and get there, not least because the horns was getting louder, though they stopped suddenly just short of us arriving at the forest. The forest itself was vast, mighty ash trees larger than any in the rest of Hillfast. Sounds from in it was muffled, like it was asleep but dreaming of trouble.

  I hadn’t been here in a long time. I remembered being in the van with my da after we’d made our offering, when I was a girl of nine summers. We thought we’d get to Elder Hill, trading for salt and oil, before the Frenzy, when the wolves would go wild on the mushroom spores and amony so they could bring down more buffalo, and anything else living. That year the Frenzy come early, and our lives was saved by the Oskoro.

  The Offering Stone was easy to see, being at the edge of the forest and standing as it does in the midst of countless years of offerings strewn a league about. The van pulled up short of this lake of gifts from all the walks of life in the north of the world. Here was weather-worn statues, likenesses and inscriptions lost to rain and wind, figures in the shapes of trees and men now featureless, fallen over or else bearing rotten fronds of banners and necklaces of wood, silver and gold hanging in their hundreds. The skeletons of long-dead horses was variously filled now with jars of plant, smashed and whole, countless coins, keepsakes and carvings, rusted armour and more than one chariot now riddled orange with rust. The ground fairly cracked with bones. None of the great gifts was new, for few now come to the Oskoro, or the Circle.

  “Take nothing!” I shouted as Mosa and the children run past me to explore the strange and curious things left here.

  “Put something over your mouths and come away from the trees!” come the shout from behind me, then Chalky’s keep Edma run past me waving cloths before her.

  “You don’t need masks here,” I said.

  “You sure?” said Thad. “I can taste something on the air.”

  Edma chased after them. I put my tongue out. A hint of butter. Ahead of us the Almet was still, seemed curiously warm now, a fullness to the air in the trees. Maybe we had woken it.

  “We should camp away a bit,” said Thad.

  I was about to answer him, tell him that I thought breathing this air might not be a bad thing, for I was remembering the giant Oskoro that stooped to save me as a girl, when I heard the hooves of galloping horses from the plain behind us. Not yet settled, everybody was ready enough, and Eirin’s crew took positions while Bela rounded up the children with Aude and Chalky, moving them behind the soldiers.

  It was a crew of whiteboys, ten riders. At their head a man I recognised straight away, the one stood on the tower at the back of Thende’s longhouse in Crimore. He held a hand up to slow them as they approached. As they did a few pointed at what they saw around us and rode in to our right where eight giant stones stood, five in a row with three over the top of them like doorways.

  I walked out from our wagons towards them, Sanger, Yalle, Eirin and Skallern with me. We had spears and Jinsy’s men making a show of their bows.

  The whiteboy was as big as he looked on the battlement as he got down from his horse, still bare-chested, with black circles daubed into the white mixture over his skin, radiating out from his lean gut across his chest. Those around him chattered in their form of Abra, which I couldn’t follow very well. They watched him as dogs watch a master, eyes only for him and his every move. He stood before his horse, unarmed but for drudha belts. He kept his eyes on me.

  “Amondsen. Jeife sends his love. Samma sends his thanks.” He spoke Common well enough.

  He was in his prime, mid-twenties I’d have said. He had a few scars on him, paid up, a credible drudha in his crew then. Behind him a woman stayed on her horse, white-painted but bare-chested too, a fine strong body like I had once. She looked about us as a queen might. The others had some armour, two even in chain shirts. They had got down and was going through the field of tributes, taking the coins, bickering, casting nervous glances back at him.

  He whistled sharply at them, and it seemed to still all of them, including the woman. He snapped something in their Abra and the foragers worked quickly and in silence.

  “You know my name, I don’t know yours,” I said.

  He kept his eyes on Thad as he said it. “Gruma. Gruma Khiese. Brother of Samma.”

  “Gruma, Jeife made it clear enough he thought Crogan would not be met as an equal by your brother. I had hoped we could Walk, for Khiese talks of the Circle prospering and I too would have that.”

  “Swear oaths, then. We can put that drudha and your plant to work. I’m sure he knows some small recipe I do not.”

  “My oath’s to Othbutter,” said Eirin. Impatient to assert herself, her lack of fear, she saw a chance to put him in his place, I don’t doubt.

  “Brave words. You’re wasted on Othbutter, a fat and useless leader holding Hillfast back. Hillfast could be great again, first among the citadels as it once was, and you at the heart of it.”

  “My archers await your word, Master Amondsen,” said Eirin. I shook my head.

  Gruma took a good few moments to look at the forest and the gifts about us. He was making it about him, which spoke badly of his wit in a talk such as this.

  “You’re here to leave them a gift,” he said. “Means you can’t hurt me here, believing that offal. You think they’ll come running out o’ the trees when you leave a bit o’ shine or some dribble in a bag. Woman, what do you hope for? A Walk here?” He laughed at his joke.

  “We got different beliefs on the Oskoro. We don’t have different beliefs on the Circle and its people, my people included. I would have Hillfast and all this land busy with trade and the good that comes with it. Your brother would want the same.”

  He kept on looking behind me, at the earth and what was strewn on it, all so I did not have the respect of his eyes.

  “You see some slaves of ours in the plain, last day or so?”

  “No. You seen the size of the plain?”

  A couple of them had an exchange then, doubt was clear in their look.

  “We’ll find them and they’ll die. This was an opportunity to show your allegiance to Khiese. I knew you’d fail, but Samma has honour. He said that you should all turn about to Hillfast and give word to Othbutter of his brother Crogan, and the welcome he got. He said that if he should see you, now that you have received his warning, he will be savage. He keeps his word. You know he keeps his word.”

  Even then, despite that I didn’t really believe he’d let the whole van walk free, I wanted to believe that there was a chance to turn back. I wasn’t going till I saw my brother Thruun, who the Amondsens now was sworn to. Maybe behind it was a need for them to know that, me being this close, I would not turn my back on them.

  His men looting the gifts filled the silence, laughing and bickering once more over treasures they found and wanted from each other. He had to shout at them again to keep silence, but at that point the paint they covered themselves in, the marks of eyes and skulls in charcoal, looked stupid, for they was no more than nokes.

  He walked towards us then, fearless, and past the wagons up to the small stone column with a plain worn stone bowl on top where I’d place my offering. It was only noticeable for standing on a natural mound, though that only knee high. He looked off in the trees before clearing his throat and spitting into the bowl. He turned about to face us, held a cupped hand to his ear, then lifted his arms up into the air, inviting retribution.

  “Well, Teyr Amondsen, no arrows, no spores, no death for me.” He walked up to me then, closed in. Eirin and Yalle moved towards
him but I held a hand up to stay them.

  “Teyr!” called Aude, who feared for me. I stood chest height to Gruma. Couldn’t see his colour for he was covered in the chalky mix, but there was nothing to pinch on him, a white gorilla that could have thrown me over a longhouse with one arm. I killed a few like him, but not old as I am, not without a brew to stop me from shivering that fraction that let him know he was making me uncomfortable, close to me so I would smell him, so I would do this, look at him, feel his power.

  “You have your rope, I have mine,” I said. “I would still parley, there is much here in this van that could sweeten a treaty.”

  He leaned forward. “The only thing Othbutter has that Samma wants is Hillfast. If I see you again, I’ll take this van. Kill you down to the last little boy.” He walked through me, forcing me back on my heels to stop myself falling over. I give Thad a word to stop still when I saw him grit his teeth and reach for a spore egg. Gruma didn’t break his stride as he mounted his horse and whistled for his crew to be ready. After the last three of them had filled a sack and some pockets with coin and some jewellery they rode away. I took a deep breath. I’m sure he thought as I did that we could have stuck the other, don’t think he believed I was scared enough of the Oskoro I wouldn’t try. Odds weren’t good enough. Fifty–fifty never is.

  “Should have stuck him,” said Skallern.

  “Thank you, Skallern,” I said. He shrugged and stood down his crew.

  “Was it the Oskoro that delayed your order? We’d have shot the whiteboys all dead with a flick of your finger,” said Eirin. Aude and Mosa come up and I held them a moment.

  “Yes.” I wanted to say more, to fill out the lie. “Let me leave them their gift.”

  “Can I do it, Ma?” said Mosa.

  “Of course.” I looked at Aude and he winked. The van relaxed as the riders left us, continued its preparations to leave.

  “Do the trees thank you when you leave something?” said Mosa as we walked towards the Stone.

  “No, my love. But I’m leaving it to say thank you to them—well, the Oskoro. You know they saved my life as a girl only a bit older than you.”

  “You saw one?”

  “I did. A giant, his head covered in leaves and flowers which grew out of it, skin grey like a whale, and he had bright green eyes. I was travelling in a van like this and there was wolves had become Frenzies and chased us. I’d fallen over and I saw these giant wolves running at me, yellow teeth as long as knives. Just as one of them was about to crush me in his jaws, this giant, the chief of the Oskoro, threw a huge spear into its side so hard it flew past me. Then he picked me up and with a big club smashed the other wolf’s head flat.”

  “Oh Ma! Is he here, will he come out of the trees?”

  “I don’t think so. I wish he would.”

  He had cradled me in his arms, which was hard and smooth as sanded wood. He smelled of malt and leather and he hardly seemed to breathe, his mouth still as though carved, like it had forgotten what it was for both as a way of showing feeling as much as talking. My da, with my uncle Kerrig and the others running the wagons, watched the other Oskoro as they killed the pack of wolves and then stood with heads bowed like statues taken root, moving only as we approached. All appeared unique, men and women that had become so with what they did to themselves with plant. Some seemed awful to look at, small buds of mushrooms growing from their faces, other plant knitted under and over skin. Yet I was convinced of a kindness in their eyes, a joy even. This Oskoro I thought was the chief kneeled to lower me to the ground, making clicking sounds somehow and then a guttural phrase that commanded the others back to the forest without a backward glance. Two of our van made to go as well, so deep and heavy was the command in our chests.

  I led Mosa to the mound and the Offering Stone. I noticed a similar clicking then, sounds that might be of insects but too full, from a much bigger source. They stopped suddenly. Nobody else reacted or seemed to notice. Though I was only half a man higher here than with the crew behind me, I somehow felt quite alone, exposed to scrutiny.

  I eased out the necklace and the flat pouch of leather hanging from it, stitched and waxed closed, three fingers or so in size. I picked away the stitching with my knife and squeezed out a plant seed the size of an apple pip but bright orange, like a flame. The wind died, the trees stilled as though holding their breath. It was sudden and it made me wonder if it was the wind at all that we’d felt. Everyone in the van stilled in that moment, the only sound being Sanger’s sword leaving its scabbard, smooth and calm as a pebble in the moment before a thunderclap that never came. There was some more clicks, echoing now in the leaden stillness, but try as I might, looking to every branch and trunk, looking for a whisper of movement from the ferns and brush that filled the space between, nothing moved. I give the seed to Mosa, told him to hold it up high before he dropped it into the bowl, hoping perhaps to instigate an appearance of these mighty people.

  “Teyr?” said Thad. I gestured him to stand with me, not taking my eyes from the Almet. He looked into the bowl and his eyes widened, a smile playing on his lips.

  “Teyr, you kept a big old secret from me. I should be offended—no, I am offended—that you didn’t share this little treasure. This was your gift from the great Khasgal all those years ago?”

  “From the Ososi, brethren to these Oskoro, down in Khasgal’s Landing. I made a vow that I would pass it on to the Oskoro here.” I smiled then as he put his arm around my shoulder.

  “A kingly gift, maybe priceless,” he said.

  “Was it worth lots of gold coins, Ma?”

  “Yes, bluebell, but it is worth more than that to the Oskoro.”

  He squinted and strained his eyes then, desperate to see some sort of movement.

  “Do you think they see us, Thad?” I said.

  “I don’t know. I hope so. But we still have to meet with them if you want to impress the chiefs, or now Khiese, to a Walk. Do we wait?”

  I didn’t know. Nobody knows. The last Oskoro I saw was at Khasgal’s Landing, giving me and Khasgal our gifts. Khasgal was given a bow, a smooth grey wood that the Ososi, for that is what the Oskoro are called there, said was carved from the leg of one of his own kind, one who was “settling” as he called it. It give slightly to the touch, as though it knew it was being held, shy, I thought at the time, as strange as it sounds. Its power was unmatched, before or since. I believe it somehow knew its wielder, the draw needed matched the archer. I was given two seeds, one now with Tarry, an insurance against the possibility this expedition might fail or I might lose this seed. I had earned them defending the lives of the Ososi with Khasgal, and we saved the daughter of the Etza-ososi from ambush. I fell before her as a would-be killer swung the axe that would have split her in two, and its kiss give me this awful scar across my mouth. These orange seeds they called Afaru-Aka, or in Common, Flower of Fates, and I could have grown my own, had I not sworn I would gift them to the Oskoro. It was an ideal I stuck to despite how rich I could have become by growing the flowers myself. I would not forget that they had once saved my life.

  “I kept my promise,” I said out loud and I began crying, even though I tried to hold it in for I’d put off this moment all my life since then and I shouldn’t have and Mosa wouldn’t understand these tears. I felt proud of myself and all, in a life that held too little to be proud of, for seeing this through. I kept so few promises but this one, this one I made to Khasgal and the Ososi, who had wanted to know what it was I thought I was born to do. The only answer I had was one I’d cradled as I left my clan and had almost forgotten as the years wore on. I was stood at this Offering Stone because there was no fucking way I was dying a failure in the eyes of the Teyr Amondsen that thought she was born to change the world.

  A breeze come out of the forest then, a caress. Snatches of memories was tugged up by it, my da and me arguing, I was a girl of twenty, Ruifsen holding me against a gunwale while I retched, the others jeering at him like he was moving on
me. I breathed in deeper and more come to me: I’m arguing now with a captain, my old captain, Chellit, as he sent those poor duts to the Banquet of Rest. I’m punching his chest and spitting on him, Nazz has me by the throat.

  “Teyr, what’s wrong?” said Thad, and I come to, upset. “I … Something just … Did you have some memories come at you suddenly?”

  “I did.”

  “Me too. I recalled you and that captain we had, first time we crewed together, when we …”

  “Not me, I had no part in that.”

  Then it hit both of us that we knew we was talking about the same thing.

  I turned to look back at my van, subdued, even while some went about checking horses and unpacking the sheets we’d lie under tonight.

  “There’s something on the air, maybe the Almet is a dangerous place to Walk,” said Thad.

  “I like it here. We’ll stay overnight but in the morning we go south to Auksen lands, and my own family first. We don’t have time to wait for the Oskoro. They know we’re here.”

  “What about Gruma?”

  “He couldn’t attack us today, he won’t risk it. We run our scouts out around us as we’ve done till now.”

  Most of us slept deeply. Some of the children talked of waking, seeing things out of the corners of their eyes. Chalky and Aude skirted the camp to find nothing.

  The seed was gone by morning; young Jem and two of Skallern’s boys meant to be on watch was asleep like the rest of us when the camp come to, but Eirin, like me, wasn’t in the mood to punish them for it. It was the best sleep we’d had since we left Hillfast.

  Straight south to Amondsen lands, in the Hardy Falls. The plains give way to the hills and the Hardy peaks, the Mothers mostly in cloud, further south in the range than we needed to go, for my family edged the plains. Brackie’s Trail, where Thruun broke his toe as a boy, Lebbsen Fork, where Ma and Da stopped and found two bluehearts when we had ridden out for a day by Crinkell’s brook. A left there to Amondell Pass, which leads into the Amondell itself. Seemed like each stream or statue or the long-abandoned theits held a memory I could share with Mosa and Aude. With summer about here, it all come alive, and though watchful as we were, we saw few but for herders or sniffers, who give us a wide berth and the mood lifted with the good going and foraging.