The Hidden Stars

by Madeline Howard

  And then it was over. The mast stood strong and whole in the position she placed it; the boat was as sound as ever she could make it. She drew back inside the limits of her own chilled and exhausted body—felt the cold sweat in the palms of her hands, a quivering weakness in her arms and legs, an intense and terrifying sense of her own separate and unique identity.

  Yet not the same, she told herself. Never the same again.

  As the tide took them out, Sindérian sat on the stern thwart and watched Aurvang slowly slip away, its deep streets all but hidden by the fog. From this distance, it looked a wholly different place than the town they had entered a few evenings before.

  It occurred to her then, with a pang, that she was more than twice as far from home as she had ever been before, and had still a great distance to go. The world was a much larger place than she had ever imagined.

  Yet it was pleasant to be out on the water. All those weeks traveling inland, she had missed the sea. She was satisfied to remain where she was for another hour, drinking in the bitter spray. And when finally she settled down in the bottom of the boat with her head pillowed on one of the saddlebags, lulled by the gentle motion she soon fell asleep.

  Sindérian woke in full sunlight, with the falcon pulling gently at her hair. With a gaping yawn, she pushed herself up on one elbow and then sat up. It seemed they had only just sailed out of the fog, for the men were still muffled up in their cloaks, and tiny drops of moisture shone in their hair.

  The day passed uneventfully. A light wind filled the sail, and the boat sped on through a bright morning, an even brighter afternoon. Sindérian could not help suspecting that sunshine, that silence, that steady progress. The sky was empty of birds, the sea of fish; extend her senses as she might, she could not detect so much as a sprat. She had thought to catch sight of the whales and sea lions who thrived in these northern waters, yet they, too, were absent.

  At these latitudes, the sun set very late in summer. For what seemed like days, the curiously empty sea and sky remained bathed in a brilliant golden light. At last, however, it grew very dark. At the same time, the wind died.

  Sindérian was of two minds about summoning even the tiniest breeze, for there was no knowing how close the Furiádhin might be following—and they could easily sense a magical wind from many miles off. In the end she decided to wait. Aell took down the sail, lit a lantern, and hung it from the yard.

  Sometime in the middle night, she felt a sudden prickling across the skin, caught a nauseating whiff of something foul, something unnatural. Beside her, Prince Ruan abruptly sat up straighter, his fingers gripping the hilt of his sword.

  She sprang to her feet, turning her head from side to side, straining to see. In the darkness off to her right, she heard a low sound between a moan and a whistle, followed by a harsh scraping against the hull.

  The men, too, had jumped to their feet, swords drawn and ready. Yet the next several minutes were so still, so quiet, Sindérian released a pent-up breath, hoping that the danger, whatever it was, had passed.

  Then she heard a loud thrashing in the water on all sides at once. The boat rocked so wildly, Sindérian lost her balance and had to clutch at the mast to keep from falling.

  All around the small fishing boat, the channel was boiling, seething. Hideous bony heads were thrusting up out of the water as far as the eye could see. Fleshless hands, fleshless arms, grappled the side of the boat; scaly bodies rasped against the hull.

  They are the dead that were buried at sea, Sindérian realized with a shudder.

  And still they bobbed up in the water, more and more of them, crowding around the boat: young boys and maidens, pale wraiths with long soaking hair and wide staring eyes, animated now by a fearful malice. Galley slaves, rattling the rusty chains that had bound them helpless while their ships went down. Drowned fishermen, nibbled away to naked bones riddled with sea worms or covered in barnacles. Worst of all were those who had made covenants of their own with the Deep, undergoing a fearsome sea change. They had kelp in their hair, and little live crabs and fishes; their eyes glowed a sickly green.

  Already, many were pulling their loathsome bodies over the side, sliding over the gunwales, creeping on board. The Prince and his guards put up a desperate defense, hacking and slashing, but they were outnumbered, already hopelessly outnumbered, and more and more of the dead came crawling over the side.

  Sindérian drew out her little knife and took a swipe at an advancing skeleton covered in spiny growths. A clammy hand caught at the half-healed ankle, tumbling her down into the bottom of the boat. She bit her tongue so hard that her mouth filled with blood. Somehow, she managed to keep her hold on the knife, twisted around, and aimed a reckless cut. By luck or sheer determination the blade struck true, severing the hand at the wrist.

  Over by the mast, she saw Jago fall to his knees under the blows of a dozen assailants. Unable to reach him because of the flailing bodies between, she could only watch in horror as two scaled hands grasped his head on either side, and wrenched it around with a hideous grinding sound until something snapped.

  Sindérian felt something tug at her scalp, something dragging her over the planks in the bottom of the boat. She angled her head around, and saw that a great horny claw had fastened on a handful of dark hair, was pulling her inexorably toward the side. She struck wildly at the claw, but the knife blade slid off that thick hard hide. Halfway over the gunwales already, she dug the fingernails of one hand into the wood, while with the other she made a frantic effort, sawing the blade against her own hair in order to get free.

  At the last possible moment, the lock parted and she fell back into the boat; the claw scrabbled over the side after her. Prince Ruan rushed in between; blood was streaming from a gash in his forehead all down one side of his face, but his arm had lost none of its strength, his sword none of its edge. He dispatched whatever was attached to the claw, and then took on a skeletal maiden in a garland of rotting seaweed.

  Shielded, for the moment, between the Prince and the side of the boat, Sindérian finally remembered the packet of earth that she wore on a cord around her neck. She fumbled for the linen bag and tried to loosen the drawstring.

  The voice of the king with the iron crown sounded cool and detached inside her head. Why do you disturb us, wizard woman?

  We need your help! We will all die here without your help, she hurled back at him.

  This battle is none of ours. Our battle is on Skyrra, and we are less than a league from the shore. We can reach land of our own will from here. Your service to us is ended.

  Sindérian’s fingers closed tight around the mouth of the bag. But not your service to me—fair recompense for bringing you this far! Either you will swear to fight for us or I will take you to the bottom of the sea with me, and hold you there a thousand, ten thousand years.

  In the whirl of combat, Ruan had moved on, giving Sindérian a chance to climb to her feet. She staggered to an upright position, wincing at the searing pain in her ankle yet still keeping a firm grip on the bag, so that the wraiths remained sealed inside. A scaly pair of arms enfolded her, surrounding her with a dead-fish stench that made her stomach spasm and her gorge rise, but the falcon came screaming down from above, wings thundering, beak striking, and beat the creature aside.

  Do you imagine I cannot do what I say, and you still bound by my spell? Decide swiftly. There is very little time, Sindérian demanded. The resistance of hundreds of minds hit her at once, battering her. She clenched her teeth, felt the sweat slide down her face. Swear now. There is no more time.

  We pledge to aid you in this battle, answered many fierce voices as one. Let us go free, and we will fight for you.

  She released her hold, tugged at the drawstring, and something came seeping out through the mouth of the bag: a scintillating blue-green light, tinged with silver. All around Sindérian, wraiths of Arkenfell shimmered into existence, and began to do battle with the dead from the sea. Ancient kings grappled with galley slave
s; shield-maidens sang as they drew their long knives and entered the fray; the warrior with the horse’s head took on the scaled thing that had killed Jago. Seeing that the numbers were a little more equal, Ruan and Aell began to fight with renewed strength.

  Their relief was short-lived. Against the dark southern sky a colossal figure rose up, her hair like scarlet flame rippling across the heavens, burning moon and stars to ashes. Her beautiful pale face was contorted with anger, her vast white hand reached out across fifteen hundred miles of ocean—

  Only for a heartbeat was she there, then the lights in the sky shone out again. The next moment there came a loud scraping under the water and the boat shuddered from one end to the other, as the hull hit submerged rocks and cracked open. The sea came rushing in.

  When the boat began to break up, Sindérian’s spell failed, too. She made a futile attempt to strengthen the charm, scribbling runes on the air, pouring will and intention into the wood, but the pattern she had made had shattered along with the hull. Nor could the old, warped planks long withstand the pounding of the rocks.

  Within moments, there was nothing left of the boat but some floating boards, a splintered mast; and everyone, living and dead, went down into the sea together.

  28

  The road, which had steadily climbed for so many days, began to descend, narrowing and becoming rougher and less reliable underfoot until it became a mere rugged path. A little stream, black in the shadow of the mountain wall, trickled along beside the trail for many miles.

  It was the afternoon of the fourth day since Kivik had made up his mind to head for Tirfang, and for the first time since he and his army left the foothills and began their slow ascent of the mountain slopes, the Prince saw something that had clearly been created by men: a tall, finger-shaped stone, wondrously carven, though not of the native rock.

  As he rode a little nearer and pulled up before the milestone, he could see that the carvings were not the ordinary triskeles, mazes, and cup-and-ring marks, but flowing, sinuous figures, scarcely weathered for all their enormous age, so rounded and smooth-looking he could not forbear to reach out with one hand and run his fingertips over them.

  “It is not much farther,” said one of his captains. “By all accounts, this stone marks the beginning of those lands anciently known as Tirfang, and from here it’s only a few hours’ ride to the Old Fortress.”

  A few miles more and the walls of the mountain fell back; the way before them began to open up, as though they had reached the gate of some high mountain valley. The light grew stronger, the water in the stream began to sparkle, and the wind brought with it a strong scent of green, growing things.

  The valley in which the first of Kivik’s horsemen eventually found themselves was long and narrow, not even a mile across, though it was impossible to see how far ahead it extended. Long, green grass covered the valley floor, but the steep slopes on either side were dark with forest. The trees were great pines and spruce and firs, and if the height and girth of the largest were any indication, this was a very ancient wood. Crows called out from among the shadowy branches, and every now and then a flock would rise up and wheel in the air like a black whirlwind just above the treetops.

  After another few miles, something far greater than any of the trees loomed up in the distance: a castle—no, an immense fortress, larger than any Kivik had ever imagined, all built of shining white stone. Though the dark wooded slopes rose up and up behind a large central mass that must be the keep, many of the towers and turrets rose higher still, until the very highest flamed out white against the pale blue sky. There were so many of those slender, needle-sharp towers clustered together that the fortress—no, this great city—must have housed thousands, even tens of thousands of souls in its time.

  “I don’t ever remember,” said Skerry, who was riding beside him, “that anyone ever told me the place was beautiful.”

  “Nor I,” said Kivik. Yet for all that, it was perfectly true. If some of the towers had lost their roofs, if some of the spiraling outside staircases ended in midair, still the Old Fortress was exquisite, enchanting, even in decay.

  And he thought, If this is how it looks now, what must it have been like when it was whole? With banners waving and trumpets sounding, with statues on some of those empty ledges, and those faded roof tiles shining out in fresher colors?

  Only perhaps that was the wrong question. Perhaps the fortress was more lovely now, with everything gross, or gaudy, or commonplace stripped away, until only the beautiful bones remained.

  As he came closer, it was possible to see that the outer walls were not, after all, the legendary thirty ells high, though still of a dizzying, impressive height, and that the fortress was indeed inhabited. Tiny antlike men and women ran back and forth along the walls, behind an embattled parapet. And while he could not make out any faces at such a distance, he knew that they were Skyrran, for the sunlight gleamed off hair that was every conceivable shade of blond from wheaten pale to golden brown.

  Then, remarkably, the sun went behind a massed bank of dark grey clouds, the light failed, and snow began to fall. At first, it was only a scattering of big damp flakes. But the air went from mild to frigid in the space of minutes, and the snow came whirling down in ever denser clouds.

  “This is impossible,” said the Prince, feeling the sting of ice on his cheek, experiencing a chill that had nothing—and everything—to do with the sudden bite in the air. “We are well below those peaks where the snow lies unmelted—and even there I doubt they have blizzards at the beginning of summer!”

  Skerry nodded his agreement. “Particularly not when the weather was so fine only moments ago!”

  Even the horses had grown uneasy; some whinnied and fought the bits until foam flew; they would have bolted if not for the firm hold their riders kept on the reins. Others sidestepped nervously, with eyes rolling, and nostrils flaring.

  Then Kivik heard voices of those to the rear rise shrill in alarm—faint with distance at first, but growing louder and louder as others took up the cry.

  Pulling hard on the reins to turn the reluctant gelding and see what was happening, the Prince gazed in horror as six or seven gigantic figures came roaring out of the crow-haunted pinewoods, charging toward the back of the line. The reason for this freakish weather was all too apparent.

  “Ice giants! They will go right through the women and the children if we can’t cut them off!” Whipping out his sword, he began to shout orders to those around him.

  Within seconds, those in the vanguard had separated from the rest and were gaining speed in a great wheeling charge, hoping to reach the wagons and those who traveled on foot before the giants did.

  Meanwhile, Winloki found herself at the very heart of a whirling maelstrom of men and horses. She had been riding farther toward the front than usual, eager to get a glimpse of the fabled fortress, and now, as one company of riders after another turned their horses and went peeling off, following the Prince, she realized that she was very much in the way.

  At the same time, her four guards had gathered around her, shouting something she could barely hear over the uproar. At last Haakon managed to edge in his bony gelding a little closer and catch hold of her chestnut mare by the harness.

  “Princess, we must ride on ahead to the fortress,” he shouted in her ear. “This is just the sort of situation where Prince Kivik meant us to take you out of danger. And you promised not to resist our efforts to keep you safe.”

  She was by no means certain she had promised any such thing. Though she had always gone where they told her before, that had always been with the healers and the other women. To desert those same comrades now when they were in terrible danger, to allow herself to be whisked away to some place of greater safety, leaving the rest to be almost certainly slaughtered—that was too much like cowardice. She shook her head emphatically “no.”

  “Princess—” Haakon was beginning again, when she reached out and struck at his hands until he loos
ed his hold on the harness, and she was able to haul the mare around and see what was happening behind.

  Her first steady look at the ice giants nearly took her breath away. They were manlike in form but many times greater, with skin of a bluish-leaden hue, pockmarked and craggy as mountains. They had eyes like deep black pits. And if their movements were awkward and somewhat slow, still they covered ground with their long, sturdy legs, and their pale hair streamed out behind them like blue flame on the wind of their passage. Each carried on his arm a mighty buckler, set with ice-blue crystals, and brandished an immense war hammer that looked capable of crushing great boulders into dust.

  Then one of the giants veered off from the others, heading her way. His empty black eyes met Winloki’s across the distance, and she felt a sudden, shuddering jolt of recognition.

  These creatures will be attracted to me, she thought, her blood turning to ice water and her heart to a frozen lump in her chest. Just as I am attracted and repelled by them. And if I do not put some distance between myself and everyone else, whoever is by me will share my danger.

  Winloki wheeled the panicking chestnut around again, laid heels to flanks, and felt the mare surge into a dead run. If the mare was running away with her, just at the moment that hardly mattered. The gates of the fortress lay straight ahead, and if someone opened them in time, she might yet be safe. If not, regaining control of her horse was the least of her problems.

  There came a pounding of hooves behind and to both sides, and Winloki realized that her guards were catching up to her on their more powerful mounts. “No,” she screamed, as one of the men drew abreast of her, riding low in the saddle and spurring his horse along. She did not want to see any of them die for her.