Book Read Free

Winter of Ice and Iron

Page 15

by Rachel Neumeier


  She had to get away. But she saw no possibility of escape.

  They met no other travelers. Only an occasional owl, floating by on silent wings, reminded her of life outside the endless days of snow and silence. Kehera rode with her eyes fixed on the mane of her horse, cold sunken so deeply into her bones that she could no longer believe it was possible to be warm. At first there was only the blank gray rock of the mountains and the occasional iron-black leafless tree, stunted by the savage winds and the lack of good soil. When they passed the Anha Narrows, where the pass divided and they might have turned west, toward Harivir, there was a gap in the ranks of the mountains. But of course there was no way to break away from her captors, and the Narrows would be impassable already anyway.

  After that, only other mountains could be seen, and sometimes a stand of the twisted black trees. As they went on, the pass become lower and wider and the trees stood more thickly along the road. Occasionally there was an evergreen among the leafless black, green needles vivid against the gray stone and white snow and black trees, a reminder of color in the world.

  There were wolves in the forest. Kehera had seen them first in the middle of the pass, shadowy gray flickers of movement across the snow. One great wolf, passing quite close, had stopped and looked at Kehera, amber eyes the only color in a world of white snow and black branches. Her captors did not seem to have noticed it, and Kehera did not speak of it, feeling the wolf less a threat than Nomoris.

  They passed finally into Pohorir itself on a day as cold and clear as any day from the first winter of the world. The trade town of Enchar lay just to the east, at the base of the mountains. They were still high in the mountains here, and ice had rimed the logs and stone of Enchar’s walls and towers so that the city glittered in the clear air like a jeweled child’s toy placed there by a giant hand.

  From Enchar a wide road ran south through the foothills toward the southern provinces of Pohorir, the little towns with their lords and the larger ruled by dukes. Another road ran east to the edge of the world where the King of Pohorir ruled from Irekay, the white city carved into the chalk cliffs above the sea. That was the way Gheroïn Nomoris would take her, she knew.

  At least once they left the mountains, it would not be so cold. Behind them a wolf called again into the clear sky, and she lifted her head to listen. She felt odd, as though she were waking out of a long night’s dream into a bright day. The cold here was not much less, but the icy wind seemed somehow less oppressive than it had been. Behind them, the wolf howled again, the long singing cry lingering in the still air.

  Nomoris turned his horse’s head toward Enchar. The animal started forward wearily. The continual cold of the pass had been hard on man and beast alike. Well fleshed and energetic in Lind, all the horses now seemed like different beasts entirely, with staring ribs and rough coats.

  Kehera followed Nomoris. She let her horse pick his own path down the slick road, sitting passively in the saddle with her hands tucked inside her sleeves, hardly gripping the reins at all. She could not imagine the tired animal plunging off the road voluntarily, even if the wolves did come unexpectedly out of the mountains to leap at its throat.

  The rest of the party strung back up the road, single file. None of them spoke. The pace was slow. Enchar hardly seemed to grow at all with their movement. Kehera could easily have imagined that the town was moving away from them as they approached, retreating to leave them forever in the mouth of the pass. When the road turned around the lowering curve of a mountain, Enchar slid from sight as though it were departing from the world entirely, never to return.

  The black trees crowded closer to the road here, as the bare rock gave way more and more to earth, dormant but living. Leafless branches interlaced overhead, supporting a solid roof of snow, here where the trees were protected from the wind by the bulk of the mountains. It was like riding through a tunnel fashioned of ice, ribbed with trees of wrought iron and spangled with diamonds. In this closed place, sound flattened and echoed oddly, and the thud of the horses’ hooves sounded dull and heavy as if they trod on a thick layer of muffling cloth.

  It was hard to judge the passage of time in this place, with the sun hidden and even the daylight, filtered through the snow, taking on a strangely artificial feel, like light glowing through opaque porcelain. It made the breath come short and the heart thump with the creaking of the ice-laden branches. It felt like anything could happen . . . no, like anything was about to happen, any minute now, unstoppable, and the frozen world was waiting for it with its own tense expectation. Every muffled hoof-fall seemed a drumbeat carrying the party forward to some climactic moment of a play. Even Nomoris seemed to hunch his shoulders forward against some anticipated blow. Kehera fixed her gaze on her horse’s mane, coarse black hairs sliding over his bay neck with every step, and took a firmer grip on the reins.

  The road turned again, widening, the trees spreading out from it to give a clear view, and Enchar emerged to glitter again before them in the daylight. Kehera took a slow breath of relief without consciously realizing just how oppressive the close press of the winter forest had been.

  A man stepped out of the forest to stand before them in the center of the road.

  Nomoris drew up his horse sharply, lifting a hand to halt his people. He said in his flat, deep voice, “King’s business, man. You would be wise to get out of my way.”

  The man did not appear to be impressed. He was dressed plainly, a heavy gray cloak close-drawn about his body. Lifting one hand, he put back his hood. Dark hair and dark eyes, a level stare and no sign of fear; Kehera thought he looked somehow familiar but couldn’t remember where she might have seen him before. He said calmly, “I think this is as near Irekay as the princess needs to go.”

  Kehera, watching in amazement, felt her heart begin to pound. A chance always comes. And so, at last, one had come, though she couldn’t tell yet just what this chance comprised.

  But Nomoris tilted his head with what seemed recognition. “Ah. The lesser Gods think to take a hand. They think to balk me and so they have made a servant. But they have left it too late, and I am beyond their reach. Certainly far beyond your reach. The greater Gods favor my design. Your masters, too, would be wise to get out of my way.”

  Kehera stared from one of them to the other. The Gods thought to take a hand? The lesser Gods, and the greater? She was sure Nomoris meant the Fortunate Gods and the Unfortunate. She had never heard the other terms. Tiro would have. He’d have known just what Nomoris meant, and all the implications. He’d know all the stories about “servants of the Gods”; he’d know just what it meant when the Gods reached into the mortal world to twist luck and coincidence and providence. She longed for her brother beside her, though at the same time she was so glad Tiro was safe in Raëh.

  The dark man did not answer Nomoris, but he lifted an eyebrow in what seemed dry skepticism. She recognized him at last. This was her father’s man. Quòn. Or not exactly her father’s man after all. Nomoris seemed to think Quòn was in the direct service of the Gods, somehow. Surely he had to be. How else could he have gotten ahead of them?

  Nomoris started to say something else, but Quòn didn’t wait to hear it. He raised a small crossbow smoothly from within his cloak and shot the Irekaïn agent in the chest. The quarrel made a little whick sound through the air and a muffled thunk as it struck home, and Nomoris sat very still for a long, long moment, looking utterly shocked, and then slowly toppled sideways from his saddle. His horse shied sideways as he fell but was too weary to go more than a few steps.

  The men behind Kehera began to surge forward, but Quòn, seeming completely unconcerned, put out his other hand and was holding another small crossbow, and shot the first among them in the face. And he dropped that crossbow and suddenly had yet a third in his hand, the bolt already in place, and the rest of the men reined up hastily, lowering their own weapons. Kehera though it was Quòn’s complete lack of emotion that brought everything and everyone to a halt. Such ut
ter lack of fear was frightening—though the crossbow didn’t hurt either.

  “A hard journey through the pass?” Quòn said to her. “I’ve been waiting for days. I’m glad to see you at last. It would have been seriously inconvenient if you’d been snowbound on the way.” He didn’t sound annoyed, though. He sounded, if anything, slightly bored.

  “You . . . serve the Fortunate Gods?” Kehera asked him. “Not my father?”

  “The two services run parallel at this present,” Quòn assured her, seeming unconcerned.

  “But how—”

  “One becomes disengaged from mortal concerns,” Quòn told her. “Indeed, such detachment is a necessary prerequisite, though not sufficient. However, this is not perhaps the most appropriate moment to discuss such abstruse matters, Your Highness.” He added, in a conversational tone, “I’ll shoot the next man who moves, and the next after that, but I won’t be able to hold them all forever. That wretched animal of yours had better have a gallop left in it.”

  “Yes,” Kehera said. “I mean, yes, I’ll do whatever you say, but we—you—we’ll go back through the pass? Because I’m not sure—”

  “No,” Quòn told her. “The pass is impossible now. The snows have buried that road too deeply. Enchar. It’s the only way open, so it will have to do. Take this.” He held up a stiff roll of paper in his free hand. “I’ve made arrangements. Follow these directions. I’ll find you there. You’d better go.”

  She took the paper, but then hesitated. “What about—” She glanced uneasily over her shoulder at the glowering men.

  “I don’t anticipate any difficulty,” Quòn told her. “If these men wanted to die, they would have rushed me already. I expect we shall come to an arrangement once you are out of their reach and not so compelling a temptation toward stupidity. Go on. Don’t look back. Don’t look for me. I will find you in Enchar.”

  Kehera believed him. He was a servant of the Fortunate Gods; she could hardly imagine what that might mean, but of course he would find her in Enchar. Anyway, she knew she was done hesitating. A chance always comes. A chance always comes, and if you miss it, it’s gone forever.

  She guided her horse past Quòn and kicked the tired animal to a canter. The wind blew icy past her face, and her horse’s hooves rang on the hard, frozen earth of the road.

  Enchar grew ahead of her. No odd turns to the road this time; it was a straight run to the city walls. . . . How to get past them? She knew, without doubt, that she would find a way. No more tame acquiescence to the will of her father’s enemies. No more captivity. There on the winter road, riding out of the mountains, Kehera made that a vow. She would never again let herself be made into a pawn, to be moved across the world at the whim of others.

  Enchar was a wooden city, built of timber from the endless Pohorin forests. As she came closer, Kehera examined the walls of the city. They grew taller as she approached, the towers withdrawing modestly out of sight behind their protection. How to get in? Perhaps Quòn’s directions had something about that. She let her horse slow to a walk and unrolled the paper—brittle and stiff with cold, the wax of its outer weatherproofed layer cracking as she unrolled it—and found there only terse directions: Third street west of the square, perfumer’s shop. Follow your nose. Kereis is the proprietor, he’ll hide you. He’s already been paid half. Destroy this.

  Kehera tore the paper into tiny bits as she rode and worried about getting into the town and finding the perfumer’s shop. And once she found the shop, what if Kereis didn’t think he’d been paid enough? What would she do then? She bit her lip and tried to stop thinking so far ahead. Get into Enchar, find the perfumer’s shop, just that, and then worry about everything else.

  She need not have worried, in fact, about getting into Enchar. The walls were indeed formidable, but the gates were thrown fully open and unguarded. After her first startlement, she was less surprised by this seeming carelessness. It wasn’t as though an army was likely to come charging through Anha Pass in the middle of winter, no matter how mad the Emmeran king might be. It had been hard enough for Nomoris to get their small party through, and as Quòn had said, every day that trickled by buried the mountains under more layers of snow. And the open gates let the people of the surrounding villages move freely in and out, which was probably good for keeping up market activity in the winter. It certainly made Kehera’s life very much easier. She rode through the gates unquestioned, picking up no more than a few quick glances from the sprinkling of other passersby, and so entered the city.

  Enchar was the first Pohorin city Kehera had ever seen, and there was something about it. She tried to decide where the difference lay. The streets were narrow, but that was only to be expected in a provincial city. Perhaps the difference was in the buildings on either side of the streets: tall and blank and oddly faceless, as though deliberately concealing their identities from strangers. She recognized an apothecary only by the sharp smell of pounded heart’s-blood and fireflower that hung in the air in front of the shop, and a restaurant or tavern by the scent of hard cider and ale before it. There were no signs marking out these things; presumably if you didn’t know what the shop was, the proprietors didn’t want your business. It seemed a strange attitude, but it made her understand Quòn’s directions a little better. If there were no signs, you might very well follow your nose. Once she found the square, the perfumer’s shop should be possible.

  Or perhaps it was the people in the streets who lent Enchar its distinct character. There were plenty of them, and they seemed normal enough, but it was odd how few of them took a second to look directly at the stranger in their midst. They peeked instead, quick covert glances as though they did not want to be seen looking.

  Perhaps, Kehera thought, it was the horse that was drawing the glances, and not her. There were very few other horses on the streets. Probably she should get rid of it; if Nomoris’s men were going to be looking for her, and she could hardly see how Quòn could stop them all, she certainly didn’t want to help them out. Without a horse, though . . . Well, perhaps Quòn intended to hire passage with a merchant’s train or something. That would make sense if they needed to get south to Roh Pass.

  She told herself firmly to concentrate on the immediate necessities. Get rid of the horse. Find the square—no doubt it was in the center of town. Then the perfumer’s shop.

  The market square. With a mental shrug, Kehera looked about, trying to judge where the center of town might lie.

  A man in a dark red cloak turned as she passed and stared up at her, his eyes narrowing. Then he put a hand on the bridle and swept back his cloak to lay his other hand on the hilt of a sword. “Who might you be?” he demanded coldly. “Get down off that animal at once.”

  Kehera stared at him for a second, shocked. Then she lifted her leg as though she meant to dismount, braced herself on the pommel, and kicked the man in the face as hard as she could. He fell back with a cry of outrage and pain, and she lashed the horse with the reins to make him jump forward. Behind her there were shouts. People were certainly staring now, although the street was emptying with amazing speed. The horse skidded on a patch of ice, and she threw her weight to the other side to balance him, terrified he would take her down with him. Break her leg now and she’d be in real trouble. As if I’m not in real trouble now. She felt an appalling desire to laugh, or perhaps weep with terror.

  After the next corner, she dragged the animal to a stop and swung down from the saddle. She jumped at him, waving her arms, and he shied violently and lunged away, back around the corner. Kehera glanced around hastily. The horse was too tired to go very far. She had to get away from here. She started walking quickly, first picking a direction at random, then turning and walking toward what she guessed might be the center of town and the market square.

  Her pale hair would mark her. She put her hood up. Just how badly did she stand out, in her ragged travel-worn clothing and Emmeran cloak? Just walk.

  She tried to think. If she couldn’t find t
he square, she still had to get off the streets. An inn? They would search the inns first, wouldn’t they? A restaurant? But how long could she sit in a restaurant without attracting attention?

  There was a shout behind her, not yet very close, but maybe the red-cloaked man had seen her. Without thought, Kehera turned a corner sharply and strode through the door of the first shop she came to. It was not, unfortunately, any kind of perfumer’s shop—that would have been a lot to ask even if all the Fortunate Gods had been looking after her. It was a sausage shop. Strings of sausages hung in the windows, the fat kind in casings and the long, slim spicy ones that were air-dried to keep.

  A bell on the door rang as it swung closed behind her. A young man brushed a curtain aside from a doorway to another room and came in. “May I assist you, mistress?” he asked politely, as if he found nothing odd in her worn dress and wide-eyed stare.

  Kehera leaned back a little and peeked out the door. There were several men in red cloaks just coming around the corner, walking fast and looking as though they meant business. Straightening, she smiled nervously at the young man. “Um, do you have any pork sausage with sage and thyme?”

  The young man glanced from Kehera to the door and back. “We have very fine pork sausages of all kinds,” he assured her. “We offer a sampler tray to new customers, mistress, if you’d care to step into the back room?”

  The thud of boots on frozen earth was close enough to hear. Or was that her heart pounding? “That sounds wonderful,” Kehera assured the young man fervently, and almost stepped on his heel as he led her out of the main shop through a curtained doorway and into a little room. It was comfortably if shabbily furnished. There was a small table with several chairs drawn up to it along one wall, and a little couch at an angle to a roaring fireplace set into the opposite wall. The table was plain and scratched, but there was a large, deep bowl of water with several floating candles set on it as a decoration. The couch, too, was slightly shabby, but redeemed by a pretty throw tossed over it. There was no other door out of the room.

 

‹ Prev