Above the Snowline

by Steph Swainston

  He paused, possibly reflecting on his part in our dwindling business. Good, I thought. Eszai have no right to beat up mortals, especially in my hotel. He was supposed to act as an adviser, not like a bloody gangster! I wanted him to get rid of Raven, not wreck my livelihood.

  ‘I wish I felt better myself,’ he admitted. ‘I’m just tired, though … Last night she was encouraging, then she left me. No wonder I’m perplexed.’

  ‘She has to hunt,’ I said soothingly.

  ‘Bollocks. I’ll buy her the best dinner you can offer. She can have the best Tre Cloud can cook. There’s no need to hunt.’

  ‘She prefers her way of life.’

  ‘And won’t let me join it.’ His wing nearest me flexed open a little and closed, and I noticed he had clasped bangles around its broad wrist. ‘I wanted to stay up all night, talking to her about anything and everything. In all her speeches I thought she might be hiding some sort of message for me … What she wanted me to do … Hmm … Maybe I said the wrong thing and put her off. Have you got any whisky?’

  I fetched a bottle, poured two slugs into cups and he knocked his back. It gave him confidence, or at least a moment of clarity, because he leant forward conspiratorially. ‘I’ve never had this feeling before. Nothing as strong as this … I actually feel sick. Don’t tell anybody, will you?’

  ‘Who on earth is there to tell?’

  ‘Good.’ He nodded, one hand on the bottle. He knew his eyes were striking, and he was so vain he kept eye contact longer than normal, in a very mischievous manner. ‘Raven’s men - Snipe, Crake, all of them - say that although Awians and humans are people, Rhydanne are more like animals.’

  Life is too arduous to waste time and energy by being angry. I felt my anger rising sure enough, but I laughed it down because no good ever comes of it, as he’d proved yesterday. ‘No, Jant. Don’t lose perspective by talking to the colonists, ha ha. Don’t let their stupidity sway you, when you were right in the first place. Rhydanne are the rightful occupants of Carnich.’

  ‘The Castle’s Doctor told me they were indigenous. She was interested in Rhydanne, so when I joined the Castle she studied me thoroughly.’ He spread his wing across his lap, plucked a broken feather and crumpled it, deep in thought. ‘She said Rhydanne could have been humans who came to the mountains long ago … maybe even hundreds or thousands of years ago … and the harsh climate changed them. The mountains altered them, a little every generation, until they were suited to live here. Whenever I drank too much, she tried to keep me on the straight and narrow by saying, “The mountains were your ancestors’ gymnasium. You’d never have won into the Circle without being so fit.”’

  ‘Ha ha! So Rhydanne are more than human!’

  ‘No. Neither more nor less, just different. Rayne said, “Everyone knows things gradually improve. The Castle shows us that. The Castle keeps the best of every skill, which always improves as better practitioners come to light. Similarly the best of every species survives, and people and animals grow to be the best match for their surroundings.” But Dellin … well, somewhere along the line Rhydanne lost the need to rely on each other.’

  ‘Oh, I think every human secretly wishes for that.’ I poured another whisky and he sloshed it down. To be honest, I wondered how he ever got anything done. He seemed too impractical to be the Emperor’s Messenger. He was as impulsive as a schoolboy. I squeezed the bicep of his wing, quietly comforting. His feathers were hard and sharp, the muscle taut and powerful - a working wing. There was little I could say to comfort him, because I’ve never been in love myself. As far as I see it, our emotions, noble or despicable, are nothing more than those of animals raised to a higher power. All our fine philosophies and epic tales are nothing more than the refined grunts of beasts. Our high art is degraded instinct, and we shouldn’t flatter ourselves on being more than animals, because we form a continuity with them. Yes, we’re all animals: Rhydanne, Plainslanders, Morenzians and Awians too - and if that’s a blow to your pride, let me tell you: pride is an animal emotion. I said quietly, ‘Every emotion I’ve seen in people, I’ve also recognised in my hounds.’

  ‘What about love?’

  ‘What do you think?’ I whistled, and Snowblink bounded up from the fireplace to loll at my feet. ‘You talk to me about love, Jant, but the only thing I ever loved I killed.’

  ‘A man?’

  ‘No. A dog. A faithful dog, Snowblink’s grandsire. I was even more hound-surrounded then than I am now, ha ha.’ My eloquence is hardly up to Jant’s standard, since I live alone, but telling the story might take his mind off Dellin. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I came to Carnich twenty years past and I brought an avalanche dog called Barguest from Eyrie village.’

  ‘Barguest? Like the great wolf that Rhydanne tell stories about?’

  ‘That’s right. I named him after the great wolf. And he was great: he dragged his own weight of supplies up here on a sledge. He was a fine companion and saved my life on a few occasions. I once toppled into a crevasse and he pulled me out. When I lost my bearings in a snowstorm his nose sniffed us home.

  ‘I loved that great white hound more than anything. Don’t believe those people who extol the virtues of dogs or cats to the skies: dogs follow their vanities just as much as men do. Dogs are similarly prone to envy or greed, ha ha. They’ll squabble and try to be top dog in the same way as a man will. But in some ways they’re better than men. With a dog you have a partnership, and if you honour it and keep your side of the bargain he’ll be constant and faithful to the end.’

  ‘And cats?’

  ‘Are just the same. Human ego is pretence, Jant. Even the most lauded Eszai are crawling on all fours through life. I boggle at why we look for the human in our animals when we’re utterly blind to the beast in ourselves. We love to see dogs act in human ways, don’t we? Those are just the animal ways we share with them. When I started to build the trading post Barguest helped by hauling sledloads of logs. He carried water. He lugged rocks around, and we finished the roof before the first winter. We practically broke our limbs with working every hour of daylight and I wriggled into my sleeping bag exhausted every night. The icicles on the lintel grew so long they caged us in. Every morning I broke them and shovelled the snow. Otherwise it would’ve buried the whole cabin. We swept slush from the terrace every spring and received the Rhydanne goatherds travelling up to the meadows. We liked them because they trade rugs and kilims. The hunters never bother to weave.

  ‘Anyway, Barguest would sit on the step and guard the house. He’d bark a welcome when he saw them. Then came Macan’s father, an Awian trader, proof that men are more fickle and disloyal than dogs, ha ha. If you offer them a partnership they’re sure to take advantage.’

  ‘Like my father,’ said Jant.

  ‘What?’

  ‘He might have been a trader too.’

  I felt embarrassed because his father might have been anybody. As you know, Rhydanne arrange marriages for their children, to ensure there are two parents committed to bringing up any offspring. His mother was single and never had an arranged marriage, so being a Shira he was lucky to survive.

  ‘It was many years ago,’ I continued. ‘But that winter was more than usually severe. Rhydanne sensibly time their births to fall in summer, but I hadn’t calculated for Macan and I dealt with the birth right here, on my own. One day the blizzard was driving so powerfully that I didn’t want to take the baby outside, but I had to check my traps. I laid Macan in his woven cradle beside the hearth and left Barguest to keep him company.

  ‘I did the rounds of my snares, struggling through the drifts and stopping to disentangle a hare from each noose. The afternoon became evening; it grew dark and I trudged home. The gales battered me, the flung snow stuck to me and I bent double under my sack. I could just make out the cabin. The doorway was a black rectangle, the door open, crashing loose in the wind. Something was wrong.

  ‘Barguest bounded out and frolicked over the snow to greet me. His tail was wagging
- but his muzzle, jaws and chest were wet through and through with blood. I froze. He saw my expression, backed away, though still barking happily. He ran rings around me as I hastened inside. Snow covered the whole floor. It had blown in and lay in drifts all over the furniture. Macan’s cradle was knocked off its stand and lay upside down. The blankets had spilled out and they were soaked with pools of blood. My baby was nowhere to be seen. I screamed, “You’ve killed him!”

  ‘Barguest cowered and fawned. He tried to lick my boot and I saw blood on his fangs! “Evil hound! Murdering hound! Did you eat him, as well?” I grabbed my axe and swung. Barguest darted away - the blade chopped off the tip of his tail and buried itself in the floorboards. He yelped, dashed out of the door trailing blood drops and fled into the blizzard.

  ‘But at his cry a baby started wailing. I moved the fallen cradle and there was my son. He had been hidden underneath it and fast asleep. I scooped him to my breast, and gathered up the blankets. Snow powdered from them, a drift collapsed and revealed the monstrous body of a wolf with its throat torn out.

  ‘I hurried to the door. Barguest had gone; the snow had already covered his pawprints. I called, “Barguest! Barguest!” I called for hours and walked round and round the cabin with my baby inside my coat, but the gales blew my words back into my mouth and Barguest did not return.

  ‘I was haunted by his look of betrayal, the confusion in his eyes as he fawned at my feet. He’d slain the wolf that tried to devour Macan, so why had I turned on him? The brave lad couldn’t understand it. Now, Jant, if you jump to conclusions as quickly as I did, if you’re fast to anger rather than taking time to comprehend, you will only destroy the one you love.

  ‘Next morning I unfastened the latch and something dragged heavily when I pulled the door open. It was Barguest, frozen solid, and the fur on his back had stuck to the door. Late during the night, my dog had returned to sit on the step as he always did in the daytime, and he was covered in a layer of ice which held him sitting up straight, guarding our house even in death.’ I nodded at the door. ‘I buried him out on the terrace and raised the flagpole on his grave. Barguest the Frozen Hound. Poor boy … See his lead hanging on the chimney breast? I had a terrible struggle with the wolves after he died. They knew my other dogs lacked his courage.

  ‘So, Jant, I think misunderstanding someone is worse than hating them, because at least with hatred they have the luxury of hating you in return. Misunderstanding destroys any relationship, and even if they love you they will be helpless to respond … So you had better understand Dellin, and more vitally make sure she understands you.’

  He swallowed hard and nodded. ‘I’d better go find her … I still feel terrible.’

  ‘No offence, ha ha, but you look terrible.’

  ‘Console me!’ He put his head on one side, swept a curve of hair away from his face and whined mournfully, like a dog.

  ‘Cut it out.’

  ‘Cut it out? Yeah, I should. Sorry, Ouzel. I just feel miserable … I feel hope, remorse, longing—’

  ‘All at the same time?’

  ‘All mixed up. There’s a hole in the middle of my chest, as heavy as lead, but empty. Last night she was encouraging, but …’

  ‘You’re smitten.’

  He nodded so abjectly that I placed my hand on his shoulder. It was strange to be comforting an immortal, but he seemed distraught out of all proportion. He shook his head and muttered, ‘Comet, you’ve gone soft.’

  ‘Last night gives the lie to that.’

  ‘Hm? Oh …’

  ‘Yes, that!’ I said. ‘If you meet Snipe, would you consider apologising to him? Please?’

  He folded his wings and buttoned his parka, lost in thought. Then he pulled a little leather pot of lip balm from his pocket, and seeing it seemed to cheer him up. ‘I’d enjoy defending Dellin against anyone who insults her.’

  ‘Not in my bar!’

  ‘Even in Raven’s solar. Bye!’

  ‘Goodbye, Jant.’

  The door banged closed on its spring and I heard his footsteps outside crisping faster and faster. Then they stopped abruptly - he had taken flight. I turned back to the table and discovered that the bottle of whisky had gone. I laughed. He was so ridiculously charismatic, his smile so quirky, that for hours afterwards I had a clear impression of him, as if he was still here before me.

  SNIPE

  It were still snowing, had been since cock crow. It fell thickly in front of us, on the track, and straight down on our shoulders. It were building thicker on the branches of the trees on both sides. Every now and then a branch dropped its snow with a thump. I was listening to the chat and the hoof falls of the squad I were leading to Lanner’s place. We were heading to the lead mine.

  Glede rode alongside and asked, ‘Can you still hear Crake’s squad?’

  ‘Too bloody right. With all their crashing about the ’danne will hear ’em a mile off.’

  He shrugged and grinned savagely. ‘All the more for us then!’

  Clumsy in leather gauntlets over my usual gloves, I pulled the rein of my horse left, to keep her on the track. I rested my other hand, holding a bow, on the saddle. My four men were scanning the trees to either side. Trees and more bloody trees. More trunks in the spaces between ’em. Between them more trees, and between them nothing but blackness. Darkling pine, Skline spruce and the odd silver fir. I don’t like ’em. Anybody could hide behind ’em. We watched the lower boughs too: wildcats lie in wait on them and drop onto you. As do Rhydanne.

  Raven had sent out five squads to discover what had happened to the prospectors. None of those poor sods had returned to the keep and everyone thought the cat-eyes had done for ’em. Raven had told us to beat through the woods, dislodge all the ’danne hiding there and kill them. We were to check the prospectors’ cabins first, then fan out and drive the forest clean back to the keep. He knows his hunting techniques, does Raven. But he’s edgy, more highly strung than normal. Recent events are getting to him. I told him: carry on preparations for Francolin’s troops; don’t forget to let me know what’s happening and you can leave the savages to me.

  The men were eagle-eyed, hungry for revenge. On Raven’s behalf I’d promised a hundred pounds for each ’danne head. Spirits were high. The horses were in good nick and Raven had opened the armoury for us. He’d issued some of the gear we’d collected for Francolin’s force. The squad wore gorgets to counter bolases, and our cuirasses, greaves and chain were proof against any of the cat-eyes’ flint spearheads or the crappy metal ones we’d sold them. All this steel didn’t half get cold though. Its chill sank straight through my clothes. And I had little hope of good news when we reached the cabins. The poor buggers there must have been sleeping when the ’danne struck.

  My mare tended to the side again and I drew her back. Her shoes were wider than usual and spiked to grip the snow. I searched every space among the trees, and now and then I looked to the sky to see if that shit Comet was sailing round and round up there. I had slapped a beefsteak on my eye to stop the swelling but it did no good. I could hardly see. It were a garish purple and the freezing air made it sting, even though I’d pulled my hat down over it. My split lip was even worse: I hadn’t eaten anything but soup since. The gash in my hooter had wrecked my looks - I was no longer the man my wife knew and loved. But at least it was going to heal straight. My broken tooth was the worst of all. I was always going to have a nasty gap to remember the bastard by.

  The pain and humble pie weren’t as bad as the feeling of helplessness. But all these were practically worth it when I told Raven what had happened. He descended from the window seat where he likes to sit so high and mighty, and gazed at my fizzog. Then he laughed and said, ‘We’re both disfigured now! Snipe, we have both been badly treated by those in charge, but now Jant has played into our hands!’

  ‘Why?’ I asked. I like to play dumb sometimes, though Raven’s so convinced everyone else is an idiot it doesn’t take much effort.

  ‘He’
s given us an ace to play against him. Strange that he should lose self-control to this extent … I thought he was the one who invented blackmail.’

  ‘He was unreasonable,’ I said.

  ‘I can see that. Stay out of his way and be the card I play when the time’s right. Try not to heal too quickly.’

  I just nodded, which is safest when I can’t be sure of the tone of my voice. Raven may think me sullen, let him think it. He doubled my wage before sending me away. The beating had some other advantages too: the men are in awe of me - that I’ve been thumped by Comet himself - and I let them know I gave as good as I got. I told the silly sods that if any of them had been up against Jant, he’d’ve killed ’em.

  ‘I saw something!’ Glede called from the rear, and we all drew up.

  ‘What? Where?’

  He stuck out a gloved finger. ‘There, between the trees!’

  The others looked where he was pointing but I glanced to the trees on the other side. ‘You dumb oaf! Don’t yell, just shoot.’

  ‘It’s gone now, anyway …’

  I clapped my hands so they looked at me. ‘It could have been a ’danne. They move like smoke. Don’t shout, just shoot - it’s the only way. I want ’danne hands on my saddle bow, as they have bear paws. We’re going to get those bastards. OK?’

  ‘Yeah!’

  ‘Did you hear something?’ Sparrow, the youngest archer, said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘A twig cracking?’

  ‘Sh!’

  ‘Come on.’ I tapped my mare and we trudged onwards.

  Now I thought I heard the snow crackle, and a giggle, instantly hushed. I stared in that direction - but couldn’t see anything - and my horse carried me past. I was sure something was keeping pace with us. I was sure we were being watched but, staring, all I could see was the damn bark, the snow lying in hollows. I hadn’t been out this way since the snows began in earnest and the whiteness was disorientating. It masked all the familiar landmarks.