by Paul Stewart
The words broke the silence of the cavern, sibilant and menacing.
Hepzibar and Asa looked up to see Kesh glaring at them, his skin livid and a vein pulsing at his temple. His eyes turned to narrow slits.
‘Put it down,’ he hissed.
Behind him, Azura stirred.
Hepzibar flinched as she realized that she was gripping the lance instinctively, and pointing it straight at Kesh’s chest. She swallowed. Did she have what it took to kill? She blinked and shook herself, as if waking from a trance.
‘Here,’ she said. ‘We didn’t mean no harm …’
Kesh snatched the kinlance from Hepzibar’s fingers, gripped it at its centre and spun it round, till that needlesharp point was lowered and aiming at Hepzibar’s heart.
‘Ever try that again,’ he told her, ‘and I’ll kill you, and your wyrme.’
Hepzibar nodded and looked down, unable to hold Kesh’s intense glare. Azura had climbed to her feet and was standing beside Kesh, ready to lash out at Asa.
‘It was me,’ Asa confessed. ‘I took it!’
Azura snorted. She surveyed the smaller whitewyrme with his gleaming white freshslough skin. The long barbels at the corners of her mouth quivered. ‘I fashioned that lance,’ she said quietly. Her eyes stared off into the mid distance, and her voice grew quieter still. ‘I flew high over the yellow peaks for days, until I found a branch from one of the thousand-year pines that grow only at the top of the highest crags. I hacked it down with my jaws, I shaped it with my talons, I forged it with my breath …’
She opened her jaws and spat a jet of flame at Asa, who shrank back in alarm.
‘And you, little wyrmeling, dared to touch it.’
Beside her, Kesh smiled meanly and turned away. ‘Leave them, Azura,’ he said. ‘They’re not worth our time. Come, let’s explore those store caves.’
The pair of them left Hepzibar and Asa standing by the cold embers of the spent fire. Hepzibar looked at Asa. His crest bristled and his tail switched, and when he returned Hepzibar’s gaze, she saw that his eyes seemed a darker shade than she’d seen before.
‘I shall fashion you one of those,’ he declared.
Seventeen
They made good progress the second day. The clear skies that had rendered the nighttime so cold now favoured the sun, and it shone down hot and squintdazzle bright.
They tramped across a bleak plain and up into a ridge of low crags beyond, and when darkness fell, they rested up in a narrow cutting in a sheltered cliffside, with Eli at the entrance and Micah deeper inside the rock.
They were both bellygnaw hungry, and Eli searched his pockets for something they might eat. He happened across a few pieces of dried wyrmemeat from an inside pocket, which he shared out. They chewed the meat slowly and to a pulp, putting off swallowing as long as they could. When it was finally gone, they were still ravenous.
‘Can’t we scavenge?’ said Micah. ‘Or snare us something to eat?’
The cragclimber shook his head. ‘We stop to forage or trap, Micah,’ he said, ‘most likely we’ll fall prey to something ourselves. Like I told you, lad, we got to keep moving fast as we can, or we’ll die for sure.’
The third morning broke while they were sleeping, and Micah would have slept on longer still had Eli not shaken his boots and wakened him. He sat up, grazing his head painfully on the low ceiling of rock as he did so, and cursed.
Eli had poured some of the flameoil into a battered cup, then lit it and used the flickering flame to melt snow he’d gathered in the copper pot, and bring it to the boil. He and Micah sipped at the hot water one after the other, passing the pot back and forth between them. When the pot was empty, Eli packed up and got to his feet.
They left the narrow shelter behind them and set off, back into the craggy landscape. Micah’s belly felt full and warm, but it would take more than hot water to sustain him.
‘You got any more food stashed away in those pockets of yours?’ he asked.
Eli shook his head. ‘But we’re making good progress, lad,’ he said. ‘Must be halfway there, by my reckoning. Let’s just pray the weather holds.’
They fell into silence, and continued trudging through the crunching snow side by side.
There were clouds high above and a breeze had got up that chivvied them across the sky like dogworried sheep. Micah watched the cloudcast shadows skitting over the snowfields before him – then screwed his face up in surprise when some of them seemed to come to a halt.
He looked up. The clouds were still moving, and when he looked back at the plains he realized that the motionless grey shapes were not shadows at all.
‘Greywyrmes,’ said Eli, following Micah’s gaze. ‘And having a hard time by the looks of it.’
The great creatures were bone-thin, their skin hanging in folds, like canvas over tent poles. They lumbered across the snowy plain in phalanx formation, the males in a circle surrounding the females and their firstyear young. As Micah watched, the herd came to a halt again, and the adults lowered their heads and with their neck muscles bunched up like thick ropes began sweeping their heads from side to side, down through the snow.
‘There’s grass to be had you dig deep enough,’ said Eli, ‘though there’s precious little nourishment to it this time of year.’ He tutted softly. ‘Them greys get much weaker and the redwings and ridgebacks’ll start picking them off – and us with them, we stray too close.’
Micah watched the greywyrmes enviously. Nourishment or no, they were biting and chewing and swallowing and filling their bellies, and his own belly grumbled in protest. Eli strode on and Micah hurried to catch up with him, scanning the skies for signs of predators.
It was maybe an hour later when Micah spotted a wyrme hovering in the sky ahead. It was a skitterwyrme, red-ruffed and sharp-beaked, but too small to do them harm. He borrowed Eli’s spyglass, put it to his eye and watched as the thin creature cocked its fluted ears, turned its head, then swooped down and dived deep into the snow. Emerging moments later, it flew back into the sky and dived again, then again. The third dive was rewarded by a small plump wyrme squirming about in the skitterwyrme’s jaws, which it shook to stillness and swallowed whole.
‘So, there’s wyrmes hiding out under the snow beneath our feet?’ said Micah.
‘Scratwyrmes, mainly,’ said Eli, taking back the spyglass. ‘It’s their strategy for making it through fullwinter. Insulated by the blanket of snow. They build tunnels down there to get about, and there are others, like that skitterwyrme there, that are grateful they do – for hunting them is their strategy.’ He shrugged. ‘As for us, scratwyrmes won’t repay the effort expended in catching them. We must …’
‘I know, I know,’ said Micah hungrily. ‘We must keep moving.’
He watched the skitterwyrme sit up on its hindlegs, then scamper away, its delicate claws skating over the surface of the snow before it took to the wing. Eli set off again, and Micah followed.
After a long slow climb, Eli and Micah finally reached the top of a steep incline and crested a sharp ridge. The land fell away before them in a broad sloping plain. Micah sighed out loud at the emptiness of it, and stopped, breathshort and lightheaded, and wondering if they were lost. Eli must have read his thoughts, for he stopped beside him and pointed to the tops of a distant cluster of tall rockstacks that were smoking like chimneys.
‘Them’s the highstacks,’ he said. He swung his arm full about. ‘And there, to the north, see that mountain that looks like a sugarloaf, that marks the start of the valley country. We’re on track, lad.’ He looked up ahead. ‘Over them mountains up yonder, there’s the high plain that you yourself have already crossed …’
‘Twice,’ said Micah with excitement. ‘It’s where Jura’s green haven lies, ain’t it?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Yeah, I remember thinking the shape of
them mountain peaks was the spit image of a bolt of lightning, laying on its side,’ said Micah. ‘Looks more like it than ever right now, white-tipped with snow and all.’
Eli smiled. ‘You’re learning, lad. You’re learning.’ His smile faded. ‘But we best make haste and find some shelter before it gets dark – out of sight of predators and suchlike.’
The two of them strode off down the mountain slope. Their worn boots slid and skidded. Behind them, the sun sank low in the sky, and their shadows slowly lengthened before them.
Suddenly Micah saw movement out the corner of his eye, and turned his head. Four … five creatures with sleek silver bodies were sliding down the mountainside in the distance, seemingly swimming through the snow in fluid rippling movements, one after the other.
‘Silverbacks,’ said Eli. ‘And off fishing most likely.’
Far below them now, Micah watched the line of wyrmes ripple across a shallow dip and over the lip at the far side, then disappear from view. Fishing. Just the word was enough to conjure up the sizzle and aroma of fish frying in a skillet, and Micah’s stomach cramped up like a miser’s fist at the thought of it.
As they neared the bottom of the incline, Micah heard the sound of rushing water, and the pillows of snow ahead stopped abruptly, to reveal a torrent of dark water cascading over a jumble of rocks.
‘If a river’s fast enough, it won’t never freeze up,’ Eli said.
He pointed at five bobbing heads in the river as the silverbacks battled against the current. One of the wyrmes had a large pink and brown fish clamped in its jaws, and Micah’s stomach cramped up again. He looked beseechingly at Eli, who shook his head.
‘We can’t risk fishing. Not with fullwinter predators all round.’ And he jerked a finger at the far side of the river.
There, pacing up and down on a jutting iceshelf, was a blackwing, its pointed snout twitching and yellow eyes fixed on the fish in the silverback’s jaws. All at once, with a strident screech, it launched itself off the ice and made a dive for the fish. But the silverbackwyrme was too quick for it. It slipped down under the water and disappeared beneath the crust of ice that fringed the fast-flowing river. It emerged a moment later, the fish nowhere in sight.
Screeching louder, the blackwing soared into the sky, doubled over, then dived back down, not at the water, but at the icecrust itself, which shattered as the creature’s sharp snout struck. It plunged into the water beneath, then rose again, water showering from its back as it flapped its wings. The pink and brown fish that the silverback had concealed beneath the ice was clamped in its own powerful jaws.
‘Come on, Micah,’ said Eli. ‘The light’s beginning to fade.’
They headed up the river a ways, till it disappeared beneath a roof of snow. Then, taking small tentative steps, they crossed it. The fragile ice cracked and groaned beneath them, but held up under their weight, and the two of them continued up the mountain on the far side. Far behind them, the sun had just set when they came to a shallow hollow in the side of a cliff.
Eli laid down the winter caller’s backpack as a windbreak and curled up beside it. Micah lay down next to him, the ice-covered scree squeaking as he pulled the wyrmepelt cape up around his ears.
‘We’ll rest up till first light, then make for the high plain. When we get down into the green haven, we’ll do all the fishing and trapping you want, Micah … Micah?’
But Micah didn’t answer. He was already asleep.
Eighteen
A manderwyrme flitted over the snow, its outstretched wings flexing and striped tail quivering. It was sleek and bright-eyed, and seemed oblivious to the intense cold.
It came to a halt next to a pile of greywyrme dung, dark against the brilliant white of the snow. It sat back on its haunches and looked up at the cloud of plump black flies that had risen at its approach and were hovering above its head. Then it started leaping. Up and down it went, time and again, snatching the insects from the air till its belly was full. It swiped a long thin tongue around its snout, grunted contentedly, then continued on its way.
It hadn’t gone more than a dozen yards, when the snow beneath it began to tremble and crack, and its sensitive ears picked up a scritching scraping noise that made it pause, and—
With a sudden explosion of snow and ice, a clenched fist drove up from below and grabbed the manderwyrme. There was a second, larger explosion, and a head appeared – a huge head, with a shapeless hump of a nose and skin quilted with crisscross scars. Pale blue eyes snapped open, and the hand pulled the struggling manderwyrme to its lipless mouth. It sank its teeth into the creature’s neck, tore off its head and, holding the dead body aloft, let the blood pour down into its open mouth …
Micah gasped and sat up. He was sweating, despite the cold. Beside him, Eli muttered in his sleep, but did not waken.
‘It was a night terror is all,’ Micah murmured. ‘The winter caller’s dead. And the dead can’t do no harm.’
Nineteen
Hepzibar and Asa headed through the caverns and out onto the broad snowcapped ledges. A light wind was blowing. It whispered through the great shadow-filled chambers that had been excavated between the strata of rock; it sighed round the fluted columns that supported them.
A fullwinter blizzard of three days had finally passed, and already a new snowstorm was threatening from the velvet greyness of the south-west horizon. But overhead, the sky was crisp and cloudless blue, and the sun beat down, casting soft grey shadows over the rolling expanse of deep snow below.
Asa stepped to the very edge of the jutting slab of rock and flexed his wings. Hepzibar climbed up onto his back. She gripped the crested ridge that ran down the centre of his neck, one hand behind her and one in front, and looked round.
Azura and Kesh were nowhere to be seen.
‘Where do you think they—?’
A shadow passed over them and, looking up, Hepzibar saw the youth and the great whitewyrme swoop down and barrel over and over, before rising up once more in the clear blue sky. As she and Asa watched, Kesh and Azura looped and dived and soared and rolled, putting on a display of effortless grace and aerial mastery.
Despite their surly menacing manner that had meant Asa and Hepzibar had kept their distance for the past week, the wyrme and her rider were obviously enjoying showing off. As they passed overhead, Kesh threw back his head and gave a savage whoop of delight, while Azura sent a jet of shimmering white flame spurting out into the icy air.
Caught up in the excitement of the moment, Hepzibar urged Asa to launch himself from the ledge and take to the air. Asa leaped from the overhanging slab of rock and dropped a little in the air, then rose again, the sound of his beating wings like handclaps.
It felt so good to be out in the open air, Hepzibar thought, with the cold wind against her face and the fullwinter sun glinting on Asa’s scales.
Asa flapped away from the whitewyrme galleries, his shadow gliding over the snow far far below. Hepzibar turned her head and her hair swept across her face. She pushed it back – to see Azura and Kesh speeding towards them.
Kesh had his lance braced in his hand. Azura’s eyes blazed red. And as they sped closer, Hepzibar saw the kin youth raise the hood of his soulskin, masking his face in deep shadow.
She looked desperately about her. They were too far from the galleries to make it back to the cover of the pillared ledges, and there was nowhere to hide in the snowy wilderness beyond. Asa’s wings beat blurfast at her sides, but Hepzibar could already feel the heat of Azura’s smoky breath at the nape of her neck, and hear the hum of the kinlance as the wind whistled past its deadly tip …
She wrapped her arms round Asa’s neck.
‘Aaaaaiiii!’
The cry ripped through the cold air like metal through metal – cold, violent, inhuman.
Hepzibar trembled, eyes closed, waiting for the lance to pierce her
soulskin, slice through her body and skewer her heart. The metallic screech sounded a second time, and Hepzibar turned, her eyes open now. Above, she saw a blur of white speeding down at Azura and Kesh as they bore down on her and Asa. The blur coalesced.
It was a second wyrme; a male. A kingirl sat astride his shoulders. Her hair streamed back as, face grim set, she gripped her kinlance. The whitewyrme tilted his wings and the kingirl leaned to one side – and they clashed with Azura and Kesh.
Kesh’s kinlance was knocked from his grip and sent tumbling down to the snowy ground, turning over and over in the air as it fell. As they flew past, the whitewyrme’s tail lashed round and struck Azura hard on her haunches, sending her into a spin that pitched her and Kesh spiralling down to the ground after it.
They landed awkwardly in the snowdrift that fringed the scrub-covered undercliff below the wyrme galleries. The second whitewyrme and his rider landed next to them, and the kingirl jabbed the tip of her lance at the red-haired youth. Her eyes glittered with a mixture of fury and contempt.
‘Kin don’t do that to kin,’ she said, her voice ice-cold.
Kesh’s top lip twitched. He glanced up at Hepzibar and Asa, who were hovering in the sky above. Asa’s wings were outstretched, the air plumping up the leathery white skin stretched between the fine bones.
‘They ain’t kin,’ he snarled, and the air around them fuzzed with smoke as Azura snorted her concurrence.
The whitewyrme male reared up and fired a plume of yellow-white flame. Azura stopped snorting and, as the air cleared, she stared at a dark zigzag scar that coursed down the side of the male wyrme’s neck. She dipped her head in submission and fell back, cowering and trembling so hard Kesh had to hold on tight to stop himself from being shaken from her back.
Asa extended his legs beneath him and touched down lightly on the snow-covered ground. Hepzibar stared at the lean yet powerful-looking kingirl.
‘Thrace?’ she said.