by C F Welburn
Fegg’s hammer was effective at sweeping clean the narrow path, but the number of foes was too great. A ferocious largatyn wrapped himself about the haft. Fegg wrenched it free but left himself exposed, hammer held high as the black tide washed over him like a pebble on the shore.
Balagir was tempted to turn and flee, but that decision was taken from him when Rothma took a spear through the shoulder. This only enraged him further, and he swung and struck with an abandon that threatened to catch Balagir within.
Then, he too was gone, and Balagir was alone, Doom levelled before him. He drew a deep line across the throat of the first oppressor; the second he cleaved the shoulder; the third he opened to reveal a tangle of oozing worms. All the while his blade charged; the hilt hummed, glowing. His fifth stroke thrust the victim backwards with a gust of energy, knocking several largatyn from the ledge. The sword had finally shown its promise. In fact, it had cleared the path enough for him to look over his shoulder and see he was alone, save Freya, who hung back, releasing arrows into the swarm.
“Run!” she shouted, and he would have, had not the mountain suddenly buckled and collapsed. A heavy shower of rubble and snow thundered down from above, striking his shoulder, spinning him. He saw Freya yelling something, pointing at the rock on which he stood. In that instant the ground disappeared. He leapt, the boots carrying him upwards into the white maelstrom, or so he assumed, having lost direction. The roaring whiteness engulfed him, stung his skin, churned him like the barrel of a crashing wave. The breath was sucked from his body as something hard turned his vision red and filled his mouth with blood. Noise ate the world.
It was black for some time, then crimson, then white. He coughed, clawed himself from the tumbled snow. Miraculously, he still gripped his sword with knuckles as white as the drifts. Something felt wrong with his legs, but the numbness of the ice concealed the extent for now. Not far from where he emerged, a huge chunk of the mountain lay shattered; a fallen peak, brought down to its roots with aeons of snow. He blinked, pressed his hand against his temple, and brought it away red. Weakly he looked up, but the heights were lost in cloud. He had descended the southern face, enveloped in the white avalanche. Era burst from the snow beside him, shaking icy droplets, hissing to steam before they landed. There was no sign of the others. Had they escaped? Had Freya made it? He could still see her, arrow nocked, screaming at him to run. Had she avoided that rumbling white cloud?
Somewhere he detected a trickling. Dragging his twisted legs behind him like a loathsome worm, he reached the milky rapids. He washed the blood from his face and hands, barely registering its iciness.
His head hummed as a gong long after it was struck; a high-pitched whistle tickled his ear.
When the sun was high in the sky, he forced himself to move. He could not go back. He would not find the others there, even if they had survived. Nor was he capable of such ascension. He examined his legs, his knees at angles which would turn the stoutest of stomachs. It spelt his demise, and should nightfall find him here on these slopes, all the sooner.
Then something caught his eye, mangled on the rocks of the river. Bodies. Many of them. He crawled nearer, dreading to see the broken faces of the ashen, but finding only largatyn. Many of them were bent like Pilga’s contortionists, with faces frozen in final throes. He tore strips from their cloaks and bound their ankles, then did the same about their midriffs and necks. Finally, he pushed the macabre raft out onto the water and splashed aboard.
He rolled and lay staring at the pale sky as the bloated boat bobbed and swirled, bearing him southwards and away from the broken Backbone Mountains.
PART 4: HERO
XX.i
OF RAFTS, RIVERS, AND RODS
It was the buzzing flies that stirred him, and the stench that brought him round. He opened his eyes to meet those who made up his raft; the one that looked over him was not an endearing figurehead.
The ice melt lapped and sloshed at the bodies, and his legs trailed like rudders through its blue translucence, dulling the anger of shattered bone.
Consciousness rose and receded like a tide, each time leaving the shore of wakefulness littered with more debris. How long he had drifted was a mystery; at times when he woke it was dark, and at others daylight draped him like a shroud. Creeping mists stroked him like phantom fingers caressing a broken gift borne on the mountain’s deluge. A fever gripped him, chattering teeth and aching ribs. His season cloak was too wet to function, his sodden pouch slung up across the largatyn’s twisted legs. The kalaqai hung above the raft like a ghostly green lantern—a lone beacon on the misty river of death.
Once, when he awoke in the night, the mists were gone, and the firmament was so clear that there were stars beyond the stars, and yet more still. It stirred a memory, and he plucked the Gazer’s eye from his pouch. He held it to his own and saw through stars already dead to those whose light just now reached him. Shapes shifted, reflections, echoes of the eye. If he relaxed his gaze accordingly, the stars blurred into images. Four armies, yellow, blue, red, and black. A figure on a hill, sword in hand, a sea of faces about. His head swooned as he tried to pan out, and the vision wavered like a pond’s reflection when a stone had been cast. Was this far-sight, or premonition? Illusion, or vision? His head was so light, he no longer trusted his own eye, let alone that of the Gazer. He dropped it back in his pouch lest it roll from a slack grip of slumber.
When next he saw the sky, it was blue. The ethereal world of stars and mist had diminished. The river was wider, slower, and from its banks trees dappled the light of a warmer sun. He watched them make strange shapes and shadows and squinted so the sun became three small yellow circles rotating on a blurred retina.
The scream that woke him was shrill and set his heart to racing. He struggled to sit. The raft had stopped moving. One of the corpse’s feet had become tangled in reeds along the river bank. The form of a young boy disappearing into the trees was enough to reveal the source of alarm.
“Wait!” he called, but his throat was dry and inaudible over the sound of the flies which feasted on his raft.
A few moments later, the reeds parted, and an old man with a long spear came, the boy gesturing wildly to where Balagir lay. The man’s face paled when he looked upon the raft, and he pressed a kerchief across his nose to ward off the decay.
“What in the name… Are you alive?” Balagir blinked and raised a hand. The old man extended the spear, and Balagir grabbed it as weakly as a newborn might a parent’s finger. It was enough for the man to manoeuvre the raft up to the bank, and for Balagir to roll with a thud onto the compact, root-woven mud.
The old man pushed the raft back into the flow so that it gathered speed and was swept around the bend. Only when it was gone did he remove his eyes and look down at Balagir. He grimaced when he saw his legs.
“Nim, fetch the cart, quick.” The boy nodded and set off at a sprint.
“Need to get that seen to,” the man said. “Here, take a sip of this.” Balagir feebly accepted the small flask and felt its contents slide down like liquid fire.
“Thanks—” He shivered.
“Shh. Save your strength. Rest now, talk later.” The trundling cart arrived, more of a barrow if truth be told, and Balagir was ungraciously loaded into it like a prize marrow. It bumped and jolted over roots, through the rushes and trees, until a small cottage came into view.
“Prepare a space in the shed. Lay down some straw,” the man was saying. Balagir was having trouble staying focussed.
Suddenly he was out of the barrow, stretched out on a mound of pungent straw. His consciousness ebbed and flowed. He grabbed the old man’s shirt and pulled him close.
“Don’t take my leg!” he hissed.
“But it’s… have you seen it? It’ll kill you—”
“Don’t take my leg!” he repeated, revealing his sword beneath his cloak.
“As you say, sir,” the man said quickly, stumbling away. Balagir watched them standing in the doorway
, observing him. Two blurred silhouettes, whispering. He blinked once. Twice. Sleep claimed him before the third.
A shaft of swirling motes found his face through the crooked timbers of the shed. He sat bolt upright and, finding his leg still attached, slumped back with relief, covering his eyes with his sleeve.
“Scared the boy near half to death.” He flinched and turned his head to see the old man sitting on a stool in the corner, gutting fish in a bucket. His red-cheeked face was covered in a rough white stubble and he wore a straw hat with several holes in it. He didn’t look like he had seen a bath in a while. “That was some vessel you had. Never heard the like.”
“Where am I?” Balagir croaked.
“Drink.” The man nodded towards a pail at his side. He did as instructed, coughing and spluttering as he drank too deeply.
“You’re on Spald River—not that that matters much. Infection has taken hold. Should’ve removed the limb at once.”
“Spald… Near Ozgar?”
“Near? Well, depends. A day to the south for an abled traveller. Might as well be the other side of the Backbone for you.” Balagir took another sip of the water, grimacing.
“You have anything stronger?” The old man smiled, reached into his breast pocket, and passed him a flask. Balagir nodded appreciatively and took several large gulps until his chest burned.
“Forgive me for pryin’,” the man said, accepting the flask and taking a sip himself. “But ain’t ye one of them ashen fellows?”
“I am. What of it?”
“Nowt. Just we don’t get many of your sort out this way. Don’t get many of anyone, more rightly. Tucked away round here, we are.”
“But you know of the ashen?”
“Wouldn’t go that far; heard a thing or two. Got one of them there fires just down the river aways. Always kept my distance though. The unnatural—begging your pardon—it’s… well, us river folk, we lead a simple life, see. Got no cause to be pokin’ our noses where it don’t concern us.”
Balagir felt the flame of hope ignite in his chest. If he could reach the fire, he could heal. Yet he had no smoke to offer. He’d spent it all at Iceval to fight the largatyn. Arriving without any would only offer him warmth and perhaps a fitting death.
“You like fish?” the man asked.
“Hm?”
“Fish, you want some? I know you ashen ain’t s’posed to eat, least that’s what my ma told me, but any living man must like the flavour of these beauties. Fresh from the ice waters. Won’t find better in all of—”
“Very kind,” Balagir said distantly, distracted by the knowledge of the nearby hub. Just then, the boy popped his head around the door.
“Need anythin’ Pa?” The sandy-haired youth couldn’t have been more than twelve and, whatever their story, it seemed unlikely they were father and son.
“Get the fire goin’,” he said. “Fish are almost ready. Good catch today.” The boy dipped his head and disappeared.
“He’s more skilled a fisher than I was at that age,” the man said, shaking his head fondly and scraping his knife on the side of the bucket. Balagir did not answer. As hospitable as these two were, he had bigger fish to fry than the ones that stared vacant-eyed from the pail. He tried to move his leg but winced. His trousers were red below the knee. “How’d it happen?” the man enquired.
“I had a fall,” Balagir understated. The man shook his head, wiped his hand on his trousers, and stood.
“Right, I’m off to set the table. Bok, by the way,” he said, extending a fishy hand. Balagir accepted out of courtesy. After sleeping on cadavers, his standards of hygiene had somewhat diminished. “I’ll send the boy with the cart when we’re ready.”
The house itself was less modest than the shed, but only marginally so. It seemed they ate, slept, and rested in the same room, with part of the back wall elevated for the pallets. The table was no more than a rough piece of wood on two sawn trunks, and the bowls were carved for functionality rather than aesthetics. Nothing could detract from the flavour of the fish, however. Bok had been right. Balagir had never tasted anything so good; even Shep’s sheep paled in comparison. He sucked his fingers and nodded swiftly when offered more.
“You should come back when it’s season,” Nim said, smiling. “Twice as big then. Oh…” He trailed off when Bok gave him a look. It was clear from the exchange that neither of them expected him to make the night, never mind the winter.
As the plates were clattered into an empty pail, they moved their seats onto the porch, where they had a clear view of the winding river. Bird song chirruped in the canopy, and a large silver tail splashed the surface of the water, sending out ripples in the warm afternoon sun. The place may have been lacking, but Balagir struggled to recall a time he had known such tranquillity. Maybe there were worse places to die. Perhaps they could bury his ashes under that weeping tree that dappled the river.
He shook the thought away. Fever might now be starting to grip him, but he would not give up so easily; not when he had come so far. To hear Bok tell it, Ozgar was just around the corner, and a fire hub betwixt. No, he had to try. But sweat glistened on his brow, and even Era, with whom he had had his share of ups and downs, flitted with consternation at the opening of the pouch. Undoubtedly not for his sake, but her own. He had felt imitated death in the ice temple; now he tasted it for real.
His hosts shared concerned looks, and Bok offered him the flask. He declined.
“You want to know a bit about ashen?” he asked them wearily, hoping to take his mind off whatever awaited. They both nodded, sitting back as avidly as two boys being told a fireside story.
“Well, for one, we don’t have a home. Not like this, at least. Roof, land, windows, walls… We roam, from fire to fire. Ever onwards. You know why?” They shook their heads, enraptured. But Balagir startled them with a long, grim laugh that finished in a cough. “Well, I can’t tell you. The truth is, I don’t know. Nobody does. Ha ha.” Bok and Nim clearly feared their bard was going mad.
“You mean…” Bok said, struggling with the entire concept if the furrows on his brow were any indication, “you just keep going? Without a reason?”
“Exactly,” Balagir said woozily, swaying slightly in his seat.
“Then why not stop? Become a settler. It’s an honest life. And if you don’t mind me sayin’, clearly a safer one.”
“Some do; for a time at least. But we’re restless souls. Something drives us.” Nim’s eyes were wide.
“You mean… the smoke,” he whispered. Bok shot him a sharp, silencing glare.
“Aye,” Balagir said austerely, gazing off towards the river. “The smoke.” After some time, he returned his gaze. “I was heading south to get some answers,” he declared. “Questions long ignored need to be asked.” The old man sighed, and a heavy silence descended. They all knew how that had turned out. The answers, it seemed, would not be forthcoming.
“You know we ashen can heal at the fires?”
“I’d thought that myth,” Bok said. “Then why don’t you go? Use our skiff.”
“It’s no good. You see, there’s a price for healing. We must perform oaths. Or kill. Or worse. I’ve seen things you would not believe,” he said, staring over the water. His head swam, his body slouched.
The next thing he knew, he was being dragged back to the shed and lay with straw sticking to his face. Bok and Nim hung worriedly at the threshold.
“Rest, boy,” Bok said, closing the door slowly. “Know peace.”
When Bok returned the next morning, he was amazed to find Balagir still breathing. By the reluctant way he opened the door, it was clear he had prepared himself for a grim discovery. Although his condition had not improved, it seemed not to have worsened, and he lay there sweating with a wan smile.
“Guess you’ll have to bring me another fish today,” he joked. “I don’t like to outstay my welcome, but…”
“Boy, I was certain I’d find you… Come, sit up. Drink some water. Aye fish!
There’ll be fish aplenty. Don’t fret about that.” Balagir was just lifting the vessel to his lips when Nim came running into the shed.
“Da! Someone’s pilfered our tackle.” Bok blinked, stood, and ran from the shed. Balagir strained to hear his distant curses as he verified his son’s allegations. When he returned, he was very quiet.
“Is all well?”
“No. It appears some rogue made off with our rods and nets in the night.”
“I thought you said it was an honest life?”
“It is. This is odd. Most odd. Maybe they came loose from the skiff, floated down the river…” Balagir shrugged, unable to offer any clearer speculation. “Well, I’m afraid fish’ll be off.”
“You have no other rods?”
“All gone,” Bok said, shaking his head bitterly. “Mine, the boy’s. Even the spare and the nets. My grandfather’s rod, that was. His pride and joy. I don’t understand who’d do such a thing.”
“What will you do?”
“Send Nim to Ozgar port for equipment, I suppose. As for us, well, it’ll be vegetable broth, I’m afraid. Got some old turnips out back.”
“Maybe I can help?” Balagir offered, propping himself up weakly on one elbow.
“You?” Bok said with unveiled scepticism. “No offence boy, but aside from the fact that you have no equipment, can you even move?”
“I know an ashen trick or two.”
“Hm,” Bok said doubtfully. “Well, I don’t see what harm it can do.” Balagir felt a soft vibration on his belt, but said nothing.
“Besides, if I don’t make it, you can let the river take me. Will save on the burial.” Bok forced a smile. Ashen lived always on the edge of death, whereas these folk would never jest about such things. “Fetch the barrow if you will, good Bok. This shed is a glum place.”