‘Are you sure?’
‘I can smell it. Can’t you?’
‘No.’
‘You’ve been in the flatlands too long,’ she said contentedly.
‘I can smell the snowfields. The glaciers, Jant! After a morning’s ascent we’ll have to use snowshoes. I hope for a little snow at first, to break you in—’
‘I can cope with a bit of snow!’
‘Oh, really?’
I gazed ahead to the endless terrain of pinnacled cliffs stretching out above boulders and scree slopes. It didn’t seem so difficult.
She sipped her beery broth. ‘Do you want some?’
It was easier to refuse this time. ‘No, I’ll never drink kutch!’
‘Please yourself. But take some more nuts. You can’t live on hare alone. It’s too lean so, no matter how much you eat, you will end up starving. You need a mixture of food, plenty of fat - the hazelnuts are best … How wonderful this is! We have made tomorrow safe. Our equipment is sound and we have enough food. So we have left nothing to chance. We will start tomorrow well.’
She fell silent, and gradually I became aware of the crackling of the undergrowth, the very sound of plants growing, respiring, dead plants decaying and water permeating down through the soil. I could smell the mountains! My senses unblocked, first hearing, then acute smell. I could scent the fragrance of grass and lichen, woodsmoke, the stone itself. The air was full of the clean, crystalline smell of snow. This is what Dellin must feel like all the time. I glanced at her. She watched the mountainside, relaxed. This is what it’s like to be Rhydanne, senses alert all the time, confidently aware of your surroundings. With her cat eyes, their reflective membrane protection against snow glare, and her thick hair, each strand of which is hollow for insulation, the higher Dellin climbed, the more at home she was. She knew all the sounds, the capercaillie clucking and the bellowing of deer. The mountains are in constant communication with her, telling her about themselves and what tomorrow will bring. The mountains themselves talk to her like friends. No wonder the solitary Rhydanne are incapable of loneliness.
The sun set and a fine line of roseate haze above the peaks shone on the snowfields and turned them pink. Higher up, it merged into peach, then pale yellow segueing into blue, then darker and darker towards the zenith. To the east, the sky was growing velvety blue-black and several stars appeared. Above the ridges bright platinum streaks of cloud still reflected the light of the sun below the horizon. The air was decidedly chilly. I shuffled closer to the little hearth, which seemed to give out as much heat as one of the fyrd’s big bonfires.
Dellin watched me shrewdly. ‘Your clothes are inadequate, Jant. Even your overcoat … and that ridiculous long-tailed hat.’
I was indignant. ‘These are the best fyrd-issue kit. The Castle designed them! Every soldier at the front in winter wears them.’
She didn’t even bother to snigger, just shook her head, swishing her ponytail from side to side. ‘They’re silly.’
I took off my grey velvet hat and turned it over. ‘I thought it would be perfect for Carnich.’
‘Even hunters feel the cold up by the Frozen Hound Hotel.’ She stirred the fire. ‘Will the Awians be wearing similar sorts of clothes?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Good.’
I could no longer distinguish the features of the cliffs. They were all black, and as I strained to make out the rest of the camp, tiny blue specks prickled in my vision. Dellin’s skinny front and sharp chin were lighted orange by the embers; the dying fire hollowed her eyes and blotted her hair into a mane. Her head was bowed; she seemed thoughtful. ‘No signals. If there are any Rhydanne nearby they don’t suspect our presence. Well, that is good too, I suppose
… Are you hungry?’
‘No.’
‘Then I’m going to sleep.’ She unlaced her boots, stood nimbly and put them inside her tent. She took off her parka and trousers in front of me, without any shame - her skin was vividly white in the darkness against her cotton vest and drawstring shorts. She crouched and spread out her overclothes in the tent.
‘Don’t leave anything edible outside or the wolves will come,’ she said. ‘Bury the hare bones, put a few more sticks on the fire and leave it burning.’ She climbed into the tent with her head poking out, plumped up her parka hood as a cushion and went to sleep. The haze was clearing in the cool air and constellations spread across the sky. More distant knife-sharp peaks were becoming visible as their ragged shapes blacked-out the familiar stars.
There were no lights at all, and the stars between stars made a nonsense of the constellations you would recognise from the plains or the city. So many stars, so brilliant they outshone the noctilucent clouds. I made out the Strongman, with a square of four for his chest and three for his vaunting axe, and the Archer, near the zenith, but the Messenger hadn’t risen yet. There was Lynette, ‘the Beauty’, standing on her tiptoes as she does in winter, but now I could see a haze of fainter stars around her seven bright points. And, spanning the entire sky, the dusting of tiny stars in a milky river that Awians called the Whitewater. So many awe-inspiring millions that I was glad of Dellin’s presence or I might have lost myself among their lonely points of light. Dellin and I had the mountains to ourselves.
Next day, when I woke and crawled out of the cosy shelter, everything was covered in snow. Dellin struck camp quickly and practically with no trace of smugness, while I gazed at the monochrome landscape. A thick blanket smoothed the irregularities of the slope and whited-out everything apart from the sheer cliffs above us. I dreaded having to walk in it.
The snow continued for two weeks, until all but the most tremendous boulders were covered. We walked all that time. Dellin no longer bothered to pitch her tent each night but dug a snowhole and we crammed together inside it. Yes, I could have flown to Carniss in a couple of hours. I resented having to walk with her for the best part of a month, but she was an ambassador, in a way. The Emperor had commanded me to travel with her and I didn’t want to arrive at Raven’s house without her. However, in the snowholes I scarcely slept a wink, because such close proximity to her fur clothes and musty scent reminded me too much of my boyhood. Everything we did seemed to exhume a new memory and I shuddered with each one. I had plenty of time to tell Dellin about my past, but she didn’t reciprocate with hers. It’s only in the flatlands that gossip makes the world go round; if a Rhydanne has a secret, she keeps it to herself.
But I’m such a household name everyone knows my background. It was odd to recount it to Dellin who, moreover, didn’t care. I found myself being sensational in an attempt to interest her. My mother was a Rhydanne hunter, I said, and my Awian father some kind of pervert. I was a rape child, a Shira born out of wedlock, and a murderer before I drew breath: my mother died giving birth to me. The anatomical differences between Rhydanne and Awian made that likely. She had narrow hips, as Rhydanne do, on account of being superb sprinters, but I had wings which could only get trapped.
The Rhydanne of Scree pueblo would certainly have killed me, but my grandmother, Eilean Dara, thirty ferocious years old, stepped in and brought me up as her own. I can only guess why - I think I reminded Eilean of her beloved daughter, and she never lost a chance to blame me for her death. Eilean discovered that looking after me meant relinquishing her hunting life. I developed as slowly as an Awian and was good for nothing but herding. Her rancour deepened. She hid me in empty Mhor Darkling valley, and filled my head with warnings against hunters and herders alike. I led a grim and lonely existence there until an avalanche ripped the mountainside down and utterly buried our shieling, with Eilean inside. I spent that wild night clinging to the crag, yelling into the cacophony as the invisible valley liquefied below me. Next morning, amid the devastation, I started walking. Out of the valley, out of Darkling. One foot in front of the other, for hours and days, and years and decades, you can get a very long way. I still haven’t stopped walking and I never will.
I related all
this graphically. Dellin pondered it deeply, and said, ‘Eilean should have built her shieling higher up the slope.’
I trudged, head down, treading in Dellin’s shallow prints, but her tiny frame gave me no protection from the driving blizzard. I lifted my feet and compressed the snow with a crunch, kilometre after kilometre. After three weeks I had become used to it, but I felt unwashed, itchy and uncomfortable inside my clothes. Bits of meat between my teeth irritated me. My sword scabbard and crossbow bag, tied on my rucksack, chafed and dragged me back. My feet sank in the knee-deep drifts and I swore with every step.
‘It’s your turn to take the lead,’ Dellin chimed.
‘My boots are soaking,’ I said.
‘This is good snow, so don’t complain.’
‘What sort of snow can ever be good?’
‘It fell on damp ground,’ said Dellin. ‘So it will stick. If the ground had frozen solid first, it would be slippery, but this snow is secure so there’ll be fewer avalanches later.’
‘Avalanches! I never want to see another.’
‘This is just the beginning!’ She took the lead again, sloshing along on her snowshoes. Her hood was raised and its wide fur trim framed her face. My liripipe hat didn’t have a brim and the flakes blew straight into my eyes. They melted on my collar and dripped down my back. We walked uphill all day through an empty landscape of ever greater, ever sharper spires of rock. The cliffs were too sheer to hold snow but in every crack fine flutings of powder snow trailed like veils a thousand metres long. Ice in my water bottle rattled when I drank from it. As we walked we snacked on a sort of burger made from an ibex Dellin had speared, then pounded the meat to a paste and cooked it between two hot stones. It was revolting but it was all we had. I was still determined not to drink kutch, though.
The snowflakes became smaller as the day progressed, until in the evening they were graupel, tiny balls no bigger than hailstones. A few at a time drifted down from the leaden sky, and rested on the compacted snow.
Dellin looked back. ‘We don’t have far to go now. We’re nearly at my cave.’
‘You live in a cave?’
‘No. It’s one of the fissures I use as a store and an emergency shelter. The Rhydanne around here call it Dellin’s Cave - Uaimh Dellin. We can stay there for the night and reach Carnich tomorrow. ’
‘I want to press on to Carnich now. It’s only a few kilometres past the glacier.’
‘No, because in an hour or so it will be too dark to see. The last thing I want is for you to fall and break an ankle.’
‘I never fall!’
She shrugged. ‘Maybe not on the plains, but up here even the most sure-footed can slip. Besides, Laochan stored his winter clothes in the cave. You can have them. Knowledge of the land saves you from disaster.’
She repeated this last as if it was a casual aphorism. I soon saw its wisdom, because she led me, sliding and cursing, down a precipitous chasm. We picked our way carefully up the other side to the base of a range of cliffs as pleated as a lady’s fan. They were topped with pinnacles that I first thought were Rhydanne standing watching us. As my eyes grew used to the distance I realised each narrow flame of stone soared as tall as the Castle’s towers.
‘You said “We’re nearly there” hours ago. Are we nearly there?’
Dellin turned to laugh and the wind parted the fur on her hood, showing its soft, grey roots. ‘You sound like a baby! Yes, the cave’s just up here.’
We rounded an outcrop, and there, high above us, a deep fissure struck down the cliff face like a black bolt of lightning. It opened at the bottom into a steep-sided entrance and I saw dry earth and rocks inside before the floor disappeared into darkness. Great boulders, mostly covered in snow, formed a terrace around it, their black tops slanting out and points projecting. The snow lay in hummocks all around, signs of yet more boulders completely buried. The wind howled around the cliff’s buttress with tremendous force and whined through the upper reaches of the crack.
‘This is it! Uaimh Dellin!’ Her face, lost in its fur frame, again became the bulky back of the hood as she turned away and hastened up the slope. She diminished, black-and-grey against the black-and-whiteout, and, with something of a smile, I floundered after her. She stopped outside the entrance of the towering rift.
‘Well, come on,’ I said. ‘I can’t wait to be free of this coat and dry off.’
I stepped forward but she shot out a hand and grabbed me. ‘No! There might be wolves. Whole packs and lone wolves sometimes den here …’ She looked all around, as she had done in my room in the Castle. The thought of wolves stirred yet another memory. A pack of five once treed me like a cat halfway up a cliff. They were too hungry to fear my sling. They had jumped and snapped while I crouched on a narrow ledge sucking my skinned fingers, I’d climbed up so fast. Eilean appeared hours later, scattered the wolves and then boxed my ears for letting them get the better of me.
I unpacked my crossbow and loaded it. Dellin said, ‘You have to think like a wolf,’ and sniffed the air and examined the rocks. ‘No urine. I don’t see anything and I can’t smell them. Can you?’
‘No,’ I said flatly.
‘But they might be further in. Come downwind. You’re standing in the wrong place. Stay in the lee of that stone and they won’t scent you.’ She kicked off her snowshoes and took her spear in both hands, close to her side. Very slowly she walked inside. Her parka merged with the gloom.
‘Ha!’ a yell echoed out - the exertion of a spear thrust. Then a scuffling and an immense roar. Dellin flew out backwards as if blown by it, skipping over the cave soil with her spear pointing - at a bear!
It appeared from the darkness at an extraordinary speed. It lowered its wide head, mouth open in a snarl. Its gleaming eyes were fixed on her and its glistening nose twitched furiously. It lumbered at a run, its fur rolling over enormous shoulders, huge paws thudding the ground - claws ticking on the rock then crunching the snow. Blood ran freely down its neck from a deep wound behind its ear.
I shot it in the side but it didn’t even notice. I scrabbled for another bolt. Dellin kept her spear pointing straight at its eyes. She was holding the shaft nearly at its end, thrusting with the strength of both arms. The bear threw its head side to side, immense teeth bristling, and growled so loud it vibrated the ground.
Dellin retreated, jabbing at the accessible spots between its front legs, its chest, face and muzzle. She didn’t lift her spear to its forehead, or it would charge under the shaft. She kept trying to hit its blood-wet throat but had no chance as it thrashed its head.
‘Get back!’ she yelled. ‘I don’t need help!’
What, retreat and leave a mortal to die? No way! It slashed a paw at me. I jumped back just in time, felt the air move as it tore past, landed well but dropped the bolt.
The bear was now free of the cave. It stood up on its back legs, drew itself to its full two and a half metres and roared. Dellin was not daunted. She stepped back and stabbed it under the armpit. It lunged towards her and landed on all four paws. It covered metres but Dellin was already up on an ice-clad rock, braced with her legs bent. As it reared she belted her spear with all her strength into its eye socket.
It fell back and - ‘Ya!’ - she jerked the spear out and stabbed again, into its throat. She couldn’t force the whole point through the fur and it swung away, blinded and yowling. Its fangs and great furrowed forehead swiped past. Its nose dripped blood and foam - the snow was melting under its pads into a scarlet slick.
I loosed a bolt which vanished into its hump. Neither the bear nor Dellin cared. She jumped down off the rock, nimble in the snow, keeping distance as the bear lunged at her. I lost sight of her behind its backside. I sent a bolt in above its tail, and Dellin emerged on my left, her face intent. She darted about, thrusting whenever she found space, snatching the spear back with its thong round her palm. She landed puncture after puncture, moving with agility. Ten minutes passed but she wasn’t even panting.
The bear began stumbling from blood loss but she couldn’t land a mortal blow. It swayed its head, making a chomping noise and scattering drops of blood. It looked like a portly man being attacked by a little black-and-white wasp.
Its jaws snapped a centimetre from my knee. I tried to draw my crossbow again but the string was stretching each time and it was quickly losing its power. I dropped it and drew my sword - how do you fight a bear with a sword? I only know how to kill Insects. I backed away; the bear followed me. It turned side-on to Dellin and she saw her chance. She ran forward and with all her weight drove the spear under its left front leg.
The bear drooped its head and gnashed at the shaft. Holding it with its teeth, it began to moan. A surprisingly human sound. It lowered itself down onto its belly and folded its forelegs under its muzzle like an old man folding his arms. It rested its chin on them and closed its eyes - one still bright, the other a red, slimy hole. Dellin lowered her spear to prevent its weight breaking the shaft. We watched its sides heave, more weakly and weaker still, and its misty puffs of breath grew fainter and fainter, until it died.
Dellin worked her spear out triumphantly. She threw off her parka and pulled the front of her damp vest. The normally concave veins on her forearms stood as proud as branches. ‘Bear!’ she explained and began to laugh.
‘You mauled it.’
This made her laugh even more. She wiped the back of her hand over her face, sinewy neck and collarbones, and flicked the sweat off onto the slush. Clouds of breath wreathed from her mouth. ‘No bear hibernates in my cave! Ha ha ha. No, wait! Don’t go near it yet! You can never tell.’
Her laughter made me smile. Together, exhilarated, we looked down on the bear. It was a drop-shaped mound, with a wide backside, pantaloon hind legs and pointed snout. Foam dotted the short whiskers on its muzzle. Its two-tone fur was more obvious now: a deep black on its forehead, its rounded ears, its great hump and the hairs protruding from between its toes. The rest was shaggy brown, covered with sleek black guard-hairs. Its once-mobile nose was already dulling with ice.
Above the Snowline Page 10