by Paul Stewart
Twenty
‘I don’t much like the look of that sky,’ said Eli.
Micah rolled over, opened his eyes.
Above them, the sky was leaden, and already small flurries of snow were being carried on the icy wind. Micah shivered and clutched at his belly. It was empty and cramped and growled at him like a neglected barn dog. He glanced at the winter caller’s pack questioningly.
‘Ain’t there nothing in there to take the edge off this hunger?’ he asked. ‘What about that jar you stowed away, Eli?’
The cragclimber eyed him levelly for a moment, then climbed wearily to his feet.
‘Bloodhoney,’ he said, pulling the backpack onto his shoulders. ‘Keld stuff. I hung onto it in case we got into a fix and there was no way of getting out of it. But if we make good time, we’ll be at the haven by nightfall, and we’ll not have a need of it.’
‘So, you reckon we’ll make it there by nightfall?’ Micah said, brightening up.
‘I intend we should give it a try,’ said Eli. He looked up, and his expression darkened with concern. ‘But I still don’t like the look of that sky.’
Micah had never experienced snow like it. It fell so heavy the entire world was whited out.
It had started as he and Eli had left the cliffside, fluttering down light at first, but soon thickening up till Micah struggled to see for more than a few footsteps in front of him. But Eli pressed on, and Micah knew that they had no option but to keep walking.
The snow grew deep. Their boots pressed and squeaked with every step, and Micah’s feet became numb.
Eli paused and looked back at him.
Micah saw how the snow clung to the cragclimber’s stubble and eyelashes, and the wisps of hair that stuck out from his hat. He noted the deepsunk cheeks and the raw rims to his eyes, and the eyes themselves, shiny and threaded with red. He saw how the cragclimber stooped into the wind, gnarled and bent as a blackhickory, and he knew he must look the same.
‘You all right, lad?’
Micah nodded stiffly. ‘I’m all right.’
But he was not all right, and as the cragclimber turned away again, and Micah followed after him, he felt his energy drain away, till his legs felt like rocks and every dragged footstep was a trial. Slowly, the air began to darken about them as the day wore on, and the snow kept falling.
Eli paused a second time, and Micah stopped beside him. He wanted to lie down, and had to lock his knees to remain standing. Without saying a word, Eli removed the rope from the backpack, tied one end round Micah’s waist and the other round his own. Then he turned away and kept on, and when Micah felt the rope tugging at his middle, he stumbled forward after him.
As the light faded, they left the mountains behind them and set off across an undulating plain that was flatter, but no easier to navigate. Cracks and crevices in the surface of the rock had to be skirted, and the tips of snowcovered boulders formed obstacles that should not have troubled them, but did.
Micah pulled the wyrmepelt tight around him, but the wind and the snow penetrated anyway, soaking into his breeches and jerkin, chilling him to his core. If they were travelling in the right direction, surely by now they should have come to the gash in the rock that marked the entrance to the green haven. Surely … But they had not, and Micah was plagued by the thought that they had wandered off course, or were heading round in circles, and when he tripped and fell, he could not stir himself.
‘Get up,’ said Eli.
‘I … I just need to rest up a moment,’ said Micah, his voice rasping and fragile.
‘Get up!’ Eli reached forward and dragged Micah to his feet. ‘We must keep moving.’
They kept on and, with every step he took, Micah heard the cragclimber’s words repeating inside his head. Keep moving. Keep moving.
Micah’s stomach tightened and grumbled.
If only he had something to eat. If only it would stop snowing. If only he could rest up …
Keep moving.
Micah trudged on, the rope between him and Eli – first tightening, then going slack – letting him know when he was falling back, and when he was keeping up. He was bent forward, his head down. Every time he looked up, the speckled void was the same, until he became aware that the darkness was fading once more.
Another night had passed. The greyness was shot with white. Another day had begun.
Keep moving. Must keep moving . . .
And then, with an abruptness that caught them both by surprise, the wind dropped and the snow stopped falling. Micah rubbed his eyes. It made no sense. The blizzard was over, but he still could not see anything, and he was suddenly hot with fear that the whiteout had robbed him of his sight.
‘Eli, Eli,’ he called out.
The cragclimber appeared before him, ghostly and pale, the outline to his body fuzzed.
‘It’s fog,’ he said simply. ‘Freezing fog. Keep moving, Micah.’
The freezing fog seemed to suck the moisture from Micah’s skin till his face felt like ancient parchment, and it froze the sweat-drenched clothes to his back. His body was chilled, but his head burned feverhot. He shook violently, and every step was an effort of will.
Keep moving. Must keep moving, he told himself, and was saying it over and over when he fell to his knees and sprawled forward, face down in the snow …
‘Drink it.’
Micah struggled to open his eyes.
‘Drink it.’
He was lying on his back now, and Eli was knelt down next to him, an arm wrapped round his shoulder, supporting him. There was something pressing at his lower lip.
‘Drink it, Micah.’
He opened his lips a little, and liquid filled his mouth. It was viscous and sweet, and tasted faintly metallic. He swallowed, then swallowed again, and as the liquid hit his stomach, his hunger left him. He gulped down more of the liquid, greedily now, and when the jar was removed from his mouth, he looked up expectantly, eager for more.
Eli sat back on his haunches and raised the jar to his own lips. He drained what was left in the jar, then passed the back of his hand across his mouth, wiping away the residue, that Micah noticed was a deep sumptuous red, like blood.
‘Is that …?’ he murmured.
‘Bloodhoney,’ said Eli, climbing to his feet and heaving the backpack onto his shoulders.
Micah stood up. His limbs pulsed with vigour and his stomach felt full. The fever had cooled, but his whole body was suffused in a warmth that seemed to be glowing deep inside him. He no longer felt tired, and his senses were taut and jangling. He was acutely aware of the soft squeaking crunch of Eli’s footfalls in the snow as the cragclimber turned away and resumed their journey, and the stale tang of his own wyrmepelt cape filling his nostrils as he followed him.
Twenty-One
Thrace sat crosslegged on the floor, her kinlance lying across her folded legs. She was oiling the blackpine, working claggy damsel-grub grease into the smooth dark wood with her fingertips. On either side of her, coiled round the fluted columns and dozing fitfully, were Asa and Aseel. The older wyrme dwarfed the younger one, his neck, body and tail winding round the right-hand column from ceiling to clawscratch floor.
One day, thought Hepzibar, stopping by the left-hand column, her arms full of firewood, Asa would be as big and powerful as Thrace’s wyrme.
In the shadows behind Thrace, Hepzibar was aware of movement and, narrowing her eyes, she made out the indistinct shapes of Kesh and Azura. Since Thrace and Aseel had saved her from them, the kin youth and his wyrme had kept their distance. Neither of them wanted to risk angering Thrace further.
Kesh caught Hepzibar’s eye and sneered, and Hepzibar blushed and turned away again. She busied herself with making a fire, constructing a lattice pyramid of sagebrush on the bed of silver ash at the centre of the cavern. When she was done, she nodded to
Asa, who uncoiled himself from the column and approached the wood. He opened his jaws and sent a jet of flame intothe centre of the pyramid. The sagebrush sparked and gave off twists of sweet aromatic smoke.
Hepzibar raised her chilled hands to the flames. Then she looked up, to see Thrace staring back at her, and she was struck, not for the first time, by the intensity of the older kingirl’s gaze.
‘Sit, little one,’ said Thrace softly.
Hepzibar settled herself next to the fire and Asa coiled himself around her in a circle. She smiled and stroked him, her fingertips playing with the fold of skin beneath the young wyrme’s chin.
‘Your kinship is growing strong,’ Thrace observed.
Hepzibar nodded, and Asa turned his head towards her. His warm breath enfolded her.
Thrace sat back, her hands flat on the ground behind her.
‘It is good to see,’ she said, ‘but if it is to grow further, you have much you need to learn …’
There was a derisive snort from the shadows behind her. Thrace ignored it. Her dark eyes were fixed on Hepzibar’s upturned face.
‘And I shall teach you.’
‘You will?’ said Hepzibar, feeling her chest tighten and a lump come to her throat.
Hepzibar nodded. ‘Yes, little one. Just as soon as the snows of fullwinter have thawed.’
She fell still for a moment, and when she spoke again her voice was hushed and intense, like something gnawing at dried grain.
‘Aseel was full grown when he found me. And he taught me the ways of kinship – though it cost him dear …’
Aseel, who had unwound himself from the column and come to share in the warmth of the fire, raised his head. He stared at Thrace evenly from beneath heavy-lidded eyes. Hepzibar noticed the way the end of his tail twitched from side to side, and she found herself watching the twin coils of smoke that rose up from his flared nostrils.
‘But Asa is new hatched,’ Thrace went on, ‘and you are young. You will both need the guidance that we can give you.’
She carefully laid her kinlance to one side, then unfolded her legs and hugged them to her chest. She looked at Hepzibar and Asa.
‘We are in the midst of a great struggle,’ she said quietly. ‘A struggle being fought here in the valley country between kin and kith.’
Hepzibar swallowed uneasily and glanced at Asa, who was staring into the flames. She could not tell what he was thinking. Aseel had closed his eyes.
‘When the thaw comes, the kith will be on the move again, so you must both learn fast.’
From the shadows came Kesh’s voice, low, guttural and full of hatred. ‘The kith need to be taught a lesson,’ he growled. ‘A lesson they’ll never forget.’ He paused. ‘Like the one Azura and I taught them in the yellow peaks.’
The four at the fire – Thrace and Aseel, Asa and Hepzibar – all turned and looked at him, and Hepzibar wondered if she was the only one who noticed the look of distant pain in Azura’s eyes, or the way her barbels twisted and coiled. Thrace turned back to Hepzibar, and she nodded.
‘There has been great cruelty, it is true,’ Thrace told her, ‘and there will be more. But kith understand no other way – at least,’ she added softly, ‘most kith …’
She fell still, and Hepzibar saw her eyes moisten. Aseel raised his great head and blew a cloud of warm smoke at Thrace that enveloped her, warmed and comforted her. She turned and smiled at him, but Hepzibar saw how sad that smile was, how full of longing. Then Thrace’s face hardened.
‘After all,’ she said, ‘it was kith who took you and sold you to Redmyrtle. Both of you.’
Hepzibar nodded and Asa growled menacingly.
Neither of them would ever allow themselves to be captured and imprisoned again. They would fight, whatever the cost.
Thrace looked at her whitewyrme, who was still lying with his eyes closed, listening. Her fingertips traced the length of the gleaming kinlance.
‘The first thing is for Asa to find a lance for you. We will help. He will fashion it and you will use it to defend yourself, so you will never be vulnerable to attack again.’
From the shadows there came only silence now. And when Hepzibar looked round again, she saw Azura staring intently at her kin, while Kesh, for his part, was biting into his lower lip and staring at the ground, his eyes ablaze.
‘The whitewyrmes may have departed,’ said Thrace, ‘but the galleries they’ve left behind shall afford us food and shelter this fullwinter.’
Aseel sighed, and when he spoke, there was a sadness in his windbreath voice. ‘I was once of this colony and the wyrme galleries were my home. My wyrmemate, Aylsa, still flies with the flock …’
The great whitewyrme shifted forwards on his haunches and turned his neck. The firelight flickered in his eyes.
‘They have ventured into the lands beyond the mountains, to strange lands. Wild lands …’ His eyes glowed a deep shade of red. ‘Lands where the others are said to dwell.’
Twenty-Two
It was light, the air an impenetrable matt grey, when they came to a cleft in the snowplain that cut down deep into the rock. Micah stopped and peered over the edge of the rock. The thick fog swirled below him, growing thicker, then thinner again, revealing trees and bushes cobbled with snow that plunged down the valleysides and into the depths.
‘The green haven?’ he said, turning to the cragclimber.
Eli did not reply, and when Micah turned, he could see disappointment in his face. ‘It’s a ravine, right enough, and possibly deep enough for a haven,’ he said at last. ‘But it ain’t Jura’s green haven.’
Micah frowned. They had walked over the snowclad high plain for most of the day and on through the night, the bloodhoney coursing through their veins and quelling all feelings of fatigue. But now, in the early light of dawn, the effects had begun to wear off and Micah felt increasingly giddy and unsteady on his feet.
‘Maybe there’s somewhere to shelter anyhow,’ he suggested. He knew he couldn’t go much further.
‘Maybe,’ said Eli. ‘And maybe there’s some who’ve already made their winter den down there.’
‘We could take a look,’ said Micah. ‘Couldn’t we?’ he added uncertainly when Eli remained silent.
The cragclimber shrugged. ‘Most kith don’t take kindly to den squatters invading their winter hold-ups. Freeloaders seeking shelter they’ve not earned don’t usually get a good reception.’
Micah swallowed uneasily. ‘We can’t turn back,’ he said quietly.
‘No,’ said Eli gruffly. ‘We can’t.’
Still tethered to one another, the pair of them started down into the precipitous crevasse. Clambering over boulders and scree, they found themselves in a frozen gorge that was frosted white with snow and wreathed in fog. Further down, blackpine and spruce grew out of cracks in the valley walls, and as they passed by, pillows of snow slipped from overladen branches and flopped to the frozen ground below.
Beneath their boots, the snow squinked and squeeched.
They went deeper. The freezing fog persisted stubborn, and Micah took care where he placed his boots as the ravine steepened. The air fell absolutely still and was silent. Micah’s ears popped when he swallowed. Around him, the snowclad trees stood tall, leaning together conspiratorially like marble giants.
Micah began to worry at how long it would take to retrace their footsteps should the steep descent prove to be in vain. Ahead of him, Eli’s pace slowed, and Micah wondered whether the cragclimber was having the same reservations.
The fog thinned momentarily. Micah looked down into the depths. He heard the unmistakable sound of boots tramping and, peering into the white gloom, saw a figure climbing up towards them.
Micah was pricked by the sudden recollection of his nightmare of the winter caller bursting out from the snow. Next to him, he saw Eli crouch low and st
iffen. There were rockspikes in his hand. Micah reached for his belt and drew out his catapult. With his other hand he fumbled in the snow at his feet and unearthed a few jagged shards of flint.
Whoever was approaching was just below them now. Dressed in a heavy cloak and a broadbrim hat, and clutching a wyrmehorn in one hand, the figure stopped and looked up.
Micah raised his catapult, then hesitated as he found himself looking into a face that was fresh and open-featured, eyes the colour of shards of turquoise looking back at him. Freckles crossed the bridge of an upturned nose, and there was a slight cleft to the full pale lips, which parted as the girl smiled.
‘Welcome,’ she said. ‘You’ll not need those weapons here.’
Twenty-Three
Far from their abandoned galleries, the wyrmehost flew across the mottled sky in skein formation, the gleaming white of their scales shimmering in the sunlight that broke through the high clouds. It was bitter cold, and the crisp, ordered lines of the mighty flock were blurred by the tumbling white clouds of breath that billowed from the mouths of a thousand wyrmes.
They were flagging, particularly the very old and the very young, and those females who were heavy with wyve. Up front, at the apex of the skein, was their leader, Alsasse, scar-scaled and grey-tainted with age but, with his high crest and powerful wingbeats, commanding. Just behind him flew the second of the host, Alucius. He was younger than Alsasse, gleaming-scaled and alert, his clear yellow eyes scanning the desolate landscape below.
Behind them, in a line, came three more wyrmes, and after them, five more. Then nine. Then thirteen … And so it continued, line upon line, each one longer than the one before, and forming a vast triangle of creatures that moved through the air like a gathering storm.
The mothers and their young flew at the centre of the formation, along with the oldest of the wyrmes. The males flew mostly at the fringes of the skein, maintaining its shape and ensuring no one strayed. Some of the older, more experienced males, however, flew in and out of the formation, keeping a watchful eye on the yearlings, who were struggling on this, the longest and most challenging flight of their young lives.