by Paul Stewart
Was this it, then? Was this the way he was going to die, staked out and helpless, like a rockwyrme in a snare?
Micah flinched. There was warm breath on his face, putrid and pungent, blowing first on one eyelid, then on the other. Heaving and gagging, he tried to turn his head away, but a hand clamped round his jaw and held him still. The frozen tears which had sealed his eyes shut began to melt, and as the soft wheezing breath continued Micah was able to open his eyes and peer out through narrow slits.
The winter caller rocked back on his haunches and gave a slurping giggle. This was the part he always enjoyed the most. Before the splintering and the screams, before the cutting and the blood, was this.
The fear.
He reached up and removed the bone mask.
Micah shuddered and wanted to scream, but the leather gag stoppered all but a muted sob. Beneath the mask, the keld’s face was quilted with tiny crisscross scars. They puckered his features, ridging the shapeless hump of the nose, pulling at the splayed nostrils and tightening the taut leer of the thin-lipped mouth. Pale blue eyes were sunk deep into bruised eyesockets and stared back at Micah, cold and emotionless. Muscles strained beneath the scar-tissued face, twitching almost imperceptibly as a moist tongue protruded from the mouth.
The winter caller was attempting to smile.
Micah stared at the colossal figure, unable to move, unable to cry out. He saw him reach behind his back and, following his intense gaze, found himself staring at a line of metal implements that had been laid out neatly in the snow. They glinted in the drab sunlight. Some had hooks, some had spikes, some had glinting blades; one of them had a length of compressed spring that separated two ridged metal blocks that appeared to be designed for clamping, or crushing. He watched a gloved hand hop along the line, before coming to rest on a dull grey implement.
As his hand closed around the eye-gouge, the wet hicking sound of the winter caller’s laughter filled the air. He blew the snow from the implement, then brushed at the stubborn flakes that still clung on.
The winter caller leaned forward and lightly touched the metal tool to the youth’s eyes. First one, then the other. He mimed a pressing and turning movement, and lest there should be any lingering doubt, he pointed to the youth’s eyes again, which were filling with tears. He savoured his victim’s terror, his moist tongue protruding from his lipless mouth as he carefully placed the eye-gouge back in the line, next to the marrow-spike and the bone-shears.
With a snort of derision, the winter caller climbed to his feet. He moved away.
Micah stifled a sob. He turned his head, to see the keld crouch down again – crouch down beside the figure lying beside him. His heart missed a beat.
It was Thrace. She was stretched out and fettered in the snow with ropes and stubby stakes that had been sharpened and hammered deep into the ice, and that he guessed mirrored his own. The right side of her body was badly bruised and grazed, and there looked to be blood at the fold of her ear. Beyond her was Eli, similarly gagged and bound, and with blood that had matted his hair and specked the snow about him. Like Micah himself, they were naked, their clothes lying in the snow just out of reach – boots, socks, breeches, undershirts; Thrace’s soulskin – each item laid out with mocking care.
He could have finished them off in the den, Micah thought, this keld. He could have stoved their skulls in. Slit their throats.
Yet he had not. Instead, he had dragged them outside and stripped them and laid them out in the freezing snow, where he had bound them tightly, fastidiously, hand and foot.
The winter caller prodded the kingirl in the ribs. He would save her for last. Still squatting down, he turned to the kith beside her, moistening his lipless mouth with his tongue as he did so.
Eli glared up at the keld. His voice protested, but behind his gag the words were muffled and indistinct.
The winter caller hickered and slurfed. He reached back and selected the bone-shears. He touched the jags of the blades to Eli’s fingers, thumbs, wrists, one by one, then twisted round and touched the toes. The ankles. The knees … There came another snuffling hick hick, and what passed for a smile plucked at the winter caller’s scarred features.
He was playing with them, Micah realized, this keld. He was enjoying their helplessness, their fear, taunting them with these gutting tools laid out in the snow with such hideous precision.
The winter caller laid the shears aside and leaned over Thrace. He reached out a huge gloved hand and, with something approaching tenderness, pushed a lank strand of hair from the kingirl’s face. Then, reaching behind him, he selected from the line of tools a heavy-looking implement with two rectangular plates, spiked, studded with perforations and attached to a threaded rod of metal.
It was a rib-spreader, for splitting open a wyrme’s sternum and holding the rib cage apart to gain access to the precious internal organs within. The lungs, the flameoil sac. The heart.
The winter caller pressed the rib-spreader’s spikes against the kingirl’s skin, not hard enough to cut through, but with sufficient pressure to leave a dark red mark that made Micah want to cry out.
The winter caller sat back. The kingirl had neither flinched nor made a sound. He rested the tool on his legs, and used his flattened hands to demonstrate the working of the tool, mimicking the metal plates closing and thrusting down into something resistant, then widening again and locking into place.
There was still no trace of a reaction on the kingirl’s face.
The winter caller paused. She was a tough one, this kingirl, and he was pleased. It would make her agony all the more satisfying. He drew back and was about to return the rib-spreader to the line of tools when a dark shadow passed over him.
He hesitated. The shadow crossed a second time, and this time he looked up. His eyes widened with surprise and the twisted grin melted away.
Ten
With a screech of rage the whitewyrme swooped down out of the pale grey sky and struck. Its claws strafed the keld’s shoulders, scoring jagged marks down the wyrmepelt of the hooded cloak.
The keld lashed out at the creature as, with a beat of its mighty wings, the whitewyrme soared back into the sky. It wheeled round sharply.
The keld threw down the rib-spreader and drew the broad gutting knife from his belt. He raised his arms, shielding his eyes with one hand and brandishing the knife with the other. In a wingchurn swirl of snow, the whitewyrme landed on the mountainside a little way off. Two tendrils of smoke rose from its nostrils.
High above, the sky was glowering and curdled. It was raw cold, but there was no wind.
The wyrme cocked its head and eyed the keld’s victims pegged out in the snow. Two kith, one kin. His kin. She was alive, at least. The whitewyrme’s gaze returned to the hulking figure of the keld standing over her, knife in hand. It arched its sinuous neck, the muscles beneath the white scales tensing as it prepared to engulf the keld in flame.
The winter caller dropped down onto the kingirl, clamped his legs round her body and put his face down near her face. He held the knife to her throat. Her wyrme was preventing him finishing off his task, and that irked him. Gripping the handle of the gutting knife, he looked up at the whitewyrme.
It was fully grown by the looks of it. He noted the pearlwhite scales that armoured its muscular body, the broad skintaut wings upon its back that were rigid and upright, and the barbels that twitched at the corners of its firebreath mouth. It would be tough to take down such a wyrme, and he’d need more than a gutting knife to do it. Beneath him, the winter caller felt the kingirl squirm and struggle. The wyrme wanted the girl, and would not breathe fire as long as the keld kept her close. But he needed his tools. He glanced over to the line of implements in the snow, just out of reach. The bolas, two lead weights attached by a leather rope. He’d need those. And the jaw clamp. The skullhammer would be useful too, if he could reach it …
‘Thrrrr … eeaaa … sssssssss.’
The winter caller flung himself towards the line of tools.
The whitewyrme rose up on its hind legs and, with a rattling roar, let forth a blast of white flame. Like a blazing lance, it pierced the quavering air.
The winter caller raised an arm and shielded himself as best he could with his cloak. The air turned rank with the odour of scorched wyrmeskin. He grasped the bolas, the jaw clamp and reached for the skullhammer, bracing himself for another fiery blast – but the whitewyrme had dropped back down onto all fours and had hurried over to the kingirl, neck lowered and tail raised and the spurclaws at the backs of its heels kicking up snow.
Stooping down over the girl, it sliced through the tethers that bound her hands with its claws, then slashed the fetters at her ankles.
The kingirl sat up. She yanked the gag from her mouth.
‘Aseel,’ she cried out. She rubbed at her wrists, then stumbled to her feet, wincing as she did so as her numbed limbs came throbbing back to life. ‘Aseel, you came back . . .’
All at once, there was a whistling sound and a blur of movement, and two lead weights, one at either end of the long leather rope, came flying towards them. The bolas wrapped themselves round three of the whitewyrme’s legs, then, as he struggled to free himself, round the fourth, binding them all together and pitching the creature to the ground. The winter caller lunged forward and was upon the wyrme’s back in an instant.
Thrace cried out and threw herself at Aseel’s assailant, but the winter caller kicked her viciously away and she tumbled back heavily to the ground.
Aseel reared upwards, wings flapping and back arched. He switched his powerful tail from side to side, then up over his back and struck a heavy blow to the keld clinging to his shoulders.
The winter caller fell to one side, but managed to cling on. The gutting knife was knocked from his grasp.
With a roar of rage, Aseel rolled onto his back. He felt something crack and heard a cry, and though the must have broken his attacker’s leg, or spine, but then the keld reappeared at his side – and there was something in his hands. Aseel arched his neck back and opened his jaws – but a stout leather noose was thrust over his snout and the keld twisted a bone rod that tightened the noose and clamped his jaws shut.
‘Aseel! Aseel!’ Thrace screamed.
Hobbled and muzzled, the whitewyrme pitched and bucked about in the snow. The keld leaped back, a heavy metal hammer glinting in his hand.
Thrace turned and sprinted down the snowy mountainside towards a twin outcrop of rock.
The winter caller jumped up onto Aseel’s neck, avoiding the tail, which twisted and thrashed. Beneath him, the whitewyrme writhed wilder than ever, eyes rolling in his head. Smoke billowed from his muzzled snout. The keld swung the skullhammer, but was knocked off balance as Aseel dipped his neck and flexed his wings, and the blow fell on the trampled snow, sending shards of ice flying into the air. Aseel tossed back his head, but the winter caller clung on grimly, his legs braced round the neck. Slowly, gripping hold of the wyrme’s neck crest, he started inching himself forward, intent on landing a clean blow.
Aseel writhed and wriggled, he flapped his wings and switched his tail, but there was nothing he could do to dislodge the keld, who was pulling himself inexorably closer to his head. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the keld raise the skullhammer …
He would crush the creature’s head; he would spill its brains. The keld mistress’s imperative echoed inside the winter caller’s head. Find them. He had found them. Dig them out. He had dug them out. Now it remained only for him to dispatch them, slowly, and he would not be thwarted in his task.
He gripped the heavy hammer and—
Searing pain burned through the top of his leg. With an agonized scream, the winter caller fell from the whitewyrme’s neck and tumbled down the mountainside in a flurry of churned snow. Coming to a halt, he climbed to his feet and looked up. The kingirl stood stockstill, looking back at him, a blackpine lance gripped in her hands.
Keeping a wary eye on the keld, Thrace reached up and removed the leather muzzle from Aseel’s snout. She tossed it aside.
The winter caller started back up the mountainside, the hammer gripped in his massive hands and blood spattering the snow as he limped towards the kingirl. The whitewyrme was still hobbled. He would smash the lance from her grasp and stove in her head. He would take his time with her wyrme.
Thrace clenched her jaws and held her breath as the keld approached. Beside her, Aseel turned his head to one side and opened wide his jaws. With a roar, he aimed a dense plume of white-hot flame at the mountainside, where plump blankets of deep snow were piled up over a high sloping ridge of rock.
The drifted snow hissed and steamed, and thin strings of water trickled down over the snow below. The jet of flame kept up uninterrupted. There was a sharp cracking noise, followed by a low rumbling that grew louder and louder, and suddenly the whole lot began to shift.
The winter caller looked up and hesitated as the snow above began to tumble down the mountain towards him. He stumbled backwards, and was engulfed in the advancing avalanche. A leg thrust up out of the whiteness for a moment, then an arm – then both limbs disappeared inside the rush of snow as it hurtled on down the side of the mountain, taking the winter caller with it.
Eleven
Micah turned his head to see Thrace standing in the trampled snow. Her gaze was fixed on the lower slopes, where the avalanche had disappeared into the blue-shadowed depths of the valley below, its loud roar fading to a distant rumble.
Planting her kinlance in the snow, Thrace bent down and gathered up her soulskin. Micah watched as she stepped into the faded milkwhite suit of sloughed wyrmeskin, first one leg, then the other. She pulled it up over her body and pushed her arms through the sleeves in swift graceful movements, before turning to where Micah and Eli lay, gagged, bound and staked out in the snow. She crouched down, and undid the leather ties at Micah’s wrists and ankles, then gently removed the gag from his mouth.
‘Thrace,’ Micah gasped. He sat up and reached towards her. ‘Thrace, I …’
But the kingirl turned away. She stepped over the blooded snow to Eli and untied him, before gathering up the cragclimber’s clothes and handing them to him. Eli took them, his eyes fixed on hers, and nodded grimly.
Micah tried to stand up, but his hands and feet were frozen numb and his legs felt like lumps of wood, and unconnected to him. He pitched forward onto his knees, shivering convulsively. Thrace picked up his long flannel undershirt and gently wrapped it round his shoulders, and Micah felt her breath, warm and sweet, beside his ear.
‘Forgive me, Micah,’ she whispered.
She straightened to her full height and walked over to where Aseel lay, hobbled by the keld’s bolas. Her soulskin hung loosely off one shoulder, soot-grimed and blood-spattered, and baggy on the thin frame of her body. As the kingirl released the whitewyrme’s legs from the tangle of leather rope, Aseel let out a long keening sigh and climbed to his feet.
Thrace threw the bolas aside and grasped her kinlance. Aseel bent his neck and brought his head down close to his kin. His nostrils flared.
She was tainted with the tang of kith, the scent of the one she’d lain with, and yet …
Aseel’s yellow eyes stared into Thrace’s face. Her lips parted and a soft noise like dry leaves in the wind rose from the back of her throat.
This kith of hers had helped her, protected her as best he could; had loved her with all his heart, and yet …
Aseel’s jaws opened, and gentle clicks, like the snapping of twigs, emerged between wisps of smoke.
When he had discovered
her by the lake, asleep in the kith’s arms, he had thought she was lost to him, seduced back to the ways of the kith. He had tried to forget her, but beneath the kithtang, her scent had never left him and, despite everything, it had drawn him back to her, here on this fullwinter mountainside.
She had been lost to him, and yet …
The whitewyrme opened his jaws and blew, and thick clouds of white smoke billowed forth. Micah could feel its heat, smell its aromatic sweetness, and as he watched, Thrace was enveloped in the smoke that grew denser and denser until he could no longer see her. Then Aseel drew back his neck, and as the smoke thinned, Thrace reappeared.
The soulskin was white and gleaming and skintight once more. Her hair was no longer unkempt and straggly, but straight and lustrous, with an ashgold sheen. And as for her eyes …
Micah stared into them. The intensity that had first drawn her to him had returned, a dark-eyed ferocity that both thrilled him and made him afraid.
‘Thrace?’ he said, his voice uncertain. ‘Thrace?’
The whitewyrme turned away and surveyed the sky where banks of dark yellow-tinged clouds were gathering. Thrace gripped her kinlance and looked over her shoulder at Micah. Her face was so beautiful, pale yet radiant, the sunlight gleaming on her soft lips, her high cheekbones, her lustrous hair. A teardrop brimmed in a dark eye, then traced a path down the cheek of her expressionless face.
Aseel dipped his head up and down and, turning to him, Thrace gripped the side of the whitewyrme’s wing and leaped up onto his shoulders. She wrapped her legs round his neck, then sat back, cradled in the niche of the wyrme’s clavicle spur.
Aseel raised his magnificent wings and beat them up and down, stirring the untrampled snow as, with a soft grunt, he kicked off with his hindlegs and soared into the air. The kingirl turned and looked back at the kith in the tattered shirt kneeling forlornly in the churned-up snow. Slowly, deliberately, she reached up and pulled the hood of her soulskin over her head, enveloping her face in impenetrable shadow.