by Paul Stewart
Twitter twitter. Chirp chirp chirp.
He started to shake the girl, his gloved hands gripping her bony shoulders, shaking and shaking and shaking until she fell limp. And silent. Her head lolled back on her broken neck.
The winter caller released his grip on the body and it crumpled in a heap at his feet. He stepped over it and continued up the mountainside.
The words of the keld mistress returned.
Find them. Dig them out. Dispatch them … slowly.
Behind him, the two skitterwyrmes appeared from the crack in the rock, and were joined by half a dozen more. They scurried over the snow, which was already crusting up with the intense cold. They lapped at the blood. They probed the bodies with greedy curiosity, then sank their fangs into the still warm flesh. If they were to benefit from this unexpected feast before the carrionwyrmes arrived, they would have to be quick.
Two
‘Make a wish, Thrace?’ said Micah. He wiped the grease from his lips on the back of his hand and held up the wishbone.
Eli Halfwinter was over on the far side of the chamber, clattering pots and pans as he scoured them with sand and sluiced them clean in the water pail. The cragclimber didn’t hold with foolish superstitions and Micah hoped he wasn’t listening – though not enough to stop him from asking.
‘Thrace?’ he persisted. ‘A wish?’
The kingirl made no move. She was staring down at the wooden bowl in her lap. Micah watched her glumly.
The winter den that Eli had brought them to was far larger than Micah had first thought. As well as the low-ceilinged store chamber he’d seen first, with its boxes and sacks and barrels and sides of salted meat hanging from hooks, there were three other chambers besides, connected one to the other.
The first of them was large and airy, and with a ceiling high enough that even Eli did not have to stoop. The floor was scattered with dozens of nubbed wyrmepelts that warmed and softened the cold, hard stone floor, apart from a large indentation at the centre of the chamber which contained the fire upon which they cooked. Eli had rigged up a kind of flue above it. Beaten from rustfleck metal, the broad funnel tapered to a long pipe that led to the chimney hole in the cave ceiling high above, and carried the smoke away. The second chamber was long and narrow, with grooves in the floor where they slept, each one lined with rag and straw bedding. There was a wedge-shaped hole in the end wall, which offered a natural vent for air. The last chamber was much smaller, and there was a pit in the corner, a heap of sandsalt beside it, where the three of them went to relieve themselves.
Back on the plains, Micah had grown up in a cramped shack with five others. Compared to that, the winter den was spacious, and despite the ebb and flow of the howling wind outside, it felt cosy. Leastways, that was what Micah thought.
Thrace did not agree. Could not agree. To her, the place was a prison and, like a wyrme in a cage, she paced about listlessly, aware of her confines, unable to escape, unable to fly …
‘Thrace?’ he whispered gently.
This time, the kingirl looked up. She was beautiful; snatch your breath away beautiful, with her ashgold hair and dark grey eyes. But even in the dim lampglow of the chamber Micah could see that Thrace had lost weight. Too much weight. Her face was a shadow and gleam of hollowed cheeks and jutting cheekbones, while the suit of soulskin, that once had hugged her body, hung loose like a hand-me-down from some bigger sister.
‘A wish, Thrace,’ Micah repeated. He held up the wishbone.
Thrace looked at it blankly.
Trouble was, thought Micah, Thrace wasn’t eating enough. According to the sand that had trickled through the hourglass, Eli and he had spent nigh on three hours chopping dried roots and pickled vegetables, slicing and dicing the smoked squabwyrme and boiling it up into a thick stew which, if it didn’t sound too boastful, had tasted pretty damn fine. Thrace, though, had barely touched it.
‘Hunger, I have,’ she’d said when he urged her to eat. ‘Yet no appetite for food.’ She’d pushed the bowl away.
Micah stared into her eyes. Once, they had glittered slatedark and pooldeep. But now? It was like the life in them had been drained away, leaving behind two dull grey stones …
With a start, Micah realized that Thrace’s gaze had shifted from the wishbone, and that she was staring directly into his own eyes. He swallowed, then smiled at her.
‘Pull the wishbone with me, Thrace,’ he encouraged her. ‘Maybe it’ll come true.’
‘My wish?’ Thrace said wearily. She shrugged. ‘Maybe you would be happier if it did not.’
A cold shiver pinched the nape of Micah’s neck and tingled at his scalp. He swallowed again, and hoped once more that the cragclimber wasn’t listening. ‘That’s foolish talk, Thrace, and you know it,’ he told her. ‘Whatsoever you might wish for yourself, I would wish it too.’ He smiled again, leaned forward and took her by the wrist. ‘There is nothing I want more in this world than for you to be happy.’
Micah raised her hand, brought it to his lips and was about to kiss it, but Thrace pulled away. Micah feared he’d angered her – he hated angering her – but when she looked away, it was not anger he saw in those empty grey eyes, but an unhappiness that was desolate and intense. And that grieved him.
‘Thrace …’ he began.
But the kingirl had climbed to her feet, the bowl of uneaten stew clasped to her chest, and was heading for the adjacent sleeping chamber.
‘I could heat it up for you,’ Micah offered, jumping up from the floor.
‘That won’t be necessary,’ said Thrace, and was gone.
Micah slumped back down with a sigh. He’d hoped so much that, holed up together in the underground den for the long months of fullwinter, they might find contentment in each other’s company. But that was not the way it had turned out. Despite their physical closeness, Thrace seemed further away from him than ever.
Oh, she loved him, in her own way, and as best she could, Micah knew that. But as for being content … It was like she just wouldn’t allow herself to be. Worse than that, it seemed there was nothing that he could do to make it otherwise.
Micah stared down at the wishbone. He’d saved it specially from the smoked carcass of the squabwyrme.It was broad and graceful, and maybe three times the size of a large turkey’s.
‘Eli,’ he said, looking up. ‘Would you care to pull the wishbone with me. I have a wish for Thrace that I would surely like to come true.’
‘Can’t make a wish on someone else’s behalf,’ came the cragclimber’s gruff response. ‘Besides,’ he added, ‘wyrmebone’s too tough to snap by mere pulling.’
Eli did not look round. He didn’t need to. Micah knew from his words that he’d overheard him and Thrace talking after all, and he blushed at that.
‘Bring me over them dirty things when you’re done,’ Eli told him.
Micah observed Eli’s back tense and flex as he scrubbed away at a stubborn patch of burnt grease on the roasting pan. Time in the winter den was measured out with minor chores – potwalloping, knifegrinding and suchlike – and Eli filled his days with them. When he wasn’t cleaning or repairing kit, like as not he’d be planning and preparing their meals, meticulously eking out the provisions in the store chamber, where he seemed to be most often.
With a small sigh, Micah gathered up his and Eli’s wooden bowls, mugs and spoons, the liquor jug, and the large dish that had contained honey-sweetened barley mash, but now was empty. He piled everything into a stack, lay the wishbone across the top bowl and carried the whole lot over to Eli.
‘Set it down there, lad,’ said Eli, nodding towards a flat block of stone. His gaze fell upon the wishbone. ‘Wishes,’ he said, and snorted. ‘You’re too old for such nonsense, Micah,’ he observed, then added, ‘Besides, that fine wishbone could be turned to something useful.’
Micah frowned. He picked up the bone
and turned it over in his hands. ‘It could?’
‘Look at it close,’ said Eli, wiping his wet hands on the back of his breeches and turning to Micah. ‘Does its shape not bring something to mind?’
Micah shrugged. Eli took the wishbone from him and, holding it in one hand, stroked the pitted surface with the other.
‘See, Micah,’ he said, ‘unlike you or me or any other human being that ever lived, wyrmes have fused collarbones. Like birds.’ He traced a finger lightly down each of the curved lengths of bone, pausing at the ridged nub where they joined. ‘It strengthens it. Makes the creatures capable of flight.’
Eli gripped the wishbone by the thick shaft, and turned it over so that the two curved lengths were uppermost. He looked at Micah, his mouth twisted into a half smile and his pale blue eyes questioning.
‘Remind you of anything now?’
Micah frowned. ‘The letter Y?’ he suggested.
Eli switched the wishbone to his left hand and mimed a pulling-back motion behind it with his right.
‘A catapult!’ Micah exclaimed.
‘Maker be praised,’ Eli chuckled, ‘there’s something going on inside that head of yours after all. I swear I was beginning to doubt it.’ He nodded earnestly. ‘But you got there in the end, lad. A catapult.’
He held up the wishbone and Micah appraised it afresh through eager eyes.
‘You got the basic body here,’ Eli was saying. ‘All you need now is some stout leather, some thick twine and a couple of strips of tensible wyrmeskin, and you’ve got yourself a catapult that could down a man at a hundred paces.’ He smiled. ‘Should that need ever arise …’
He handed the wishbone to Micah, who raised it before him, closed one eye and, with clawed fingers and thumb, drew back the imaginary drawstring slowly, then released it.
‘Boof,’ he muttered, and looked at Eli. ‘Think it’ll work?’
‘First things first, Micah, lad,’ Eli told him. ‘You still got to make the thing.’ He turned and nodded towards the store chamber. ‘You’ll find everything you need in that old chest in the corner. When you’ve selected likely materials, you bring them to show me and I’ll get you started.’ He smiled. ‘Bit of luck, it should occupy you for a couple of days at least.’
Micah laughed. Making a catapult sounded a sight more interesting than chores.
He headed for the store chamber, passing through the sleeping chamber and ducking down to avoid grazing his head on the low ceiling. He paused. Thrace was sitting on the edge of her sackmattress, feeding scraps of stewed meat to the manderwyrme that was perched upon her shoulder. A wooden cage hung from a jutting spur of rock above her head, its barred door open.
Eli had explained to both of them how important the manderwyrme was. If the rock vent or the cooking chimney got blocked up and the atmosphere in the den grew toxic, then long before the three of them had even noticed, the sensitive creature would die – allowing them time to make good the situation before they too succumbed. Micah sighed wearily. They couldn’t afford to lose the wyrme, yet it wasn’t the first time that Thrace had removed it from its cage.
The kingirl missed her whitewyrme Aseel, missed him grievously, and it pained Micah to see it. But the whitewyrme had abandoned Thrace when she and Micah had lain together on the lakeshore in those last days of halfwinter. Now, holed up in this den for fullwinter, sheltering from the biting cold and deadly blizzards, this little caged creature was all she had. He knew that.
‘How’s it liking its supper?’ he asked gently.
Thrace peeled off another piece of stringy meat and held it up. The manderwyrme snatched it from her fingers and swallowed it whole.
‘Seems to like it well enough,’ he said, answering his own question. He paused. ‘Which is good …’ He paused again, looking at the uncaged manderwyrme and wondering how to phrase the words of admonishment he knew he should express.
But Thrace guessed anyhow. She spun round and glared at him. ‘I know, I know,’ she said, her eyes dull and sullen. ‘But it’s cruel to keep it caged every minute of the day and night.’
She raised a hand and tickled the manderwyrme beneath its chin. She shook her head slowly, and when she spoke again, her voice was soft and soothing, and little more than a whisper.
‘Nothing should have to put up with that,’ she told the little wyrme. ‘Nothing, and no one …’
Three
Micah’s eyes snapped open. Something had wakened him …
He looked around the sleeping chamber, though he knew it was useless to do so. The lamps in the winter den were out and the blackness was absolute. Tiny white specks, like glittering motes of dust, danced in the air as Micah’s eyes struggled, and failed, to get used to the lack of light.
He listened to the wind. It scoured the mountaintops and cliff-faces outside, wild and unrelenting, and got trapped in the cracks and crevices of the encasing rock, where it howled and yammered like some demented creature. But Micah had grown accustomed to the noise, and it was not what had roused him.
He pulled up his covers, relaxed back on his sackmattress and laced his fingers behind his head. He stared at the void above where the low ceiling ought to be and wondered whether it was snowing up top. He wondered whether the moon was up, whether it was crescent-shaped or full, or hidden behind banks of clouds – or whether it was even night at all. The lack of light in the winter den made it nighttime for him, Thrace and Eli right now, but what if the sun was shining outside?
Down in the den, the cragclimber imposed the hours of light and dark upon them all with a fastidious rigidity, and the lamps were either lit or snuffed out at his word. It was he who turned the hourglass each time the sand emptied from the top glass to the bottom, and he who kept a tally of the days drifting into weeks, striking marks upon the wall with a stubby piece of charcoal set aside for that purpose.
Like the Maker Himself, Eli gave them night and day, Micah mused – as well as the powerful liquor that blurred the time and made their underground den as tolerable as it could be.
He had to hand it to him, Micah thought; the seasoned cragclimber seemed to have thought of everything. The winter den was well hid from prying eyes, and stocked with provisions to last them through the winter. A trickle of running water emerged from a mossy crack and dribbled into a small rockbowl in an alcove at one end of the main chamber and, thanks to some deep thermal or other, it would never freeze up, no matter how far the temperature dipped outside. They had the means of making fire, and the zigzag arrangement of fissures through the rock not only took the smoke away, but brought it out near a smoking vent a safe distance away up the mountainside, ensuring that no one – neither friend nor foe – might link the two.
Micah closed his eyes. He was feeling drowsy again.
Just then, from somewhere in the darkness of the chamber, there came a sound. Micah froze, instantly wide awake once more.
It was a whispering voice – soft yet insistent, sonorous as far-off thunder, gentle as pattering rain and keening like the wind outside.
‘Thrace?’ he said gently. He reached out to the sackmattress next to his and found it empty. ‘Thrace?’
The kingirl did not reply, yet in seeming response the rainpatter, windsigh whispers grew louder.
Micah propped himself up on his elbows. He cocked his head to one side, trying to determine where the sounds were coming from. One moment they seemed to be coming from his left, the next it seemed like they were right above his head, and as the air fluttered in his face, he raised his hands protectively.
The whispering grew louder, imitating the whoosh and pitterpatter of wind and rain rising up like a gathering storm. Then all at once, out of the darkness, there came a long crooning cry that started like a rumbling growl somewhere deep down at the back of the throat and grew to a hissing sigh.
‘Aah . . . zheeeell …’
; Micah sat up straight, his stomach churning. The kingirl was talking in her sleep. Though not talking so that he could understand, but instead in that curious language the whitewyrmes used, and which Aseel had taught her.
‘Aah … zheeeell. Aah … zheeeell.’
The longing in her voice was unmistakable as she called his name. It sounded closer to him now, and Micah plunged his hands into the darkness, trying to find where Thrace was standing.
‘Aah . . . zh—’
The kingirl’s call abruptly cut short. The sound of wind and rain ceased. Micah strained to hear where she was, but all he could hear was the faint yet stealthy sound of someone moving, trying not to make a noise. The next moment, he felt a sharp stabbing pain in his chest.
‘Aaaii!’ he yelped, and fell back.
He felt the presence of someone standing above him, and legs straddled his body as he lay trembling, supine. The pain stabbed at his chest again, and he felt something sharp just above his quickly beating heart. With shaking hands, he reached up and grasped the stout pole that was pressing against his chest and tried to pull it away, but the pressure being exerted down upon it was powerful and unyielding.
‘Thrace … Eli. Eli! Eli!’ he called out to the cragclimber who, to give Micah and Thrace their privacy, had taken to sleeping in the main chamber.
The air abruptly filled with honeycolour light and Micah turned his head to see Eli standing silhouetted at the entrance to the sleeping chamber, a lamp raised in his hand.
‘Don’t wake her,’ he hissed. ‘Whatever you do, Micah, do not wake her up …’
Micah looked up at the kingirl standing over him, her arms braced as she gripped the end of the broomhandle and continued to push down hard. She looked awake already, her top teeth pressed into her lower lip and eyes narrowed with cold calculation.
Eli was beside her in a moment. He placed the lamp on the floor and took her by the shoulder, whispering reassuring words as he did so.