by Paul Stewart
‘Have you spotted someone?’ asked Cara, training her spyglass on the same spot. ‘I see no movement.’
‘Not exactly,’ said Eli, ‘though if you follow me …’
The three of them scrambled awkwardly down the valleyside. The thick mattress of snow rendered the ground featureless, and their boots stumbled over rocks they could not see, or slammed down between them. They fell back on their hands. They barked their shins.
Micah stared ahead, but the air was thick with snow once more and he could not see where Eli was leading them. He wished the howling wind would ease off for a moment, but then Cara slipped and seized hold of his cloaked arm for support, and he was glad it had not.
‘There,’ said Eli at last, coming to a halt on a humped boulder that glistened like a semi-precious gemstone in a setting of ice.
In front was the frozen waterfall. Micah looked up to see the mighty column of fluted ice rising and disappearing into the blur of whiteness high above him. The water had become solid in the absolute chill that had robbed it of movement, yet preserved the illusion. There were pleated folds and tallowdrip lines and blobs. Some of the ice was a pale milky green colour; most of it was clear as glass. And at the bottom, where the waterfall had landed in the pool below, the splashback of water had frozen to form something that resembled a crystal crown.
Eli was crouched down next to it, and at first Micah thought it must have been the curious twists and curves of ice that had caught his attention. Then he saw the wyrme. It was squat and round, about the size of a large turkey-cock.
Micah placed a hand on the cragclimber’s shoulder, and Eli looked round at him. ‘A squabwyrme,’ he said, ‘all fattened up for fullwinter – but killed by its thirst.’
Three of the plump wyrme’s feet and one of its stubby triangular wings were encased in ice. Trapped, the creature must have fought to free itself. Frozen blood around the claws of the fourth foot bore testimony to that. In its exhaustion, it had slumped down onto its belly, where it had succumbed to the cold that stopped its heart and frosted its eyes.
‘I seen it from up there on that sentinel point of yours,’ Eli explained to Cara, pointing back the way they’d come.
He drew his knife from the sheath at his belt and leaned forward. Then, clasping one of the squabwyrme’s back legs, he began to saw at the ankle joint with the glinting jags.
‘In the name of all that’s sacred,’ he muttered, reaching up and wiping sweat from his brow, ‘it’s like cutting through rock.’
He doubled his efforts, then kicked at the incision he’d made in the bone and the leg snapped off at the knuckle. The second hindleg soon followed, then the foreleg, and when he had cut through the base of the wing, the body rolled free. It looked like a boulder. Eli wrapped his arms around it, pulled it to his chest and climbed awkwardly to his feet.
‘Let’s head back,’ he said, ‘before we end up as frozen solid as this wyrme here.’
‘Squabwyrme!’ Kilian clapped his hands together in delight. ‘How wonderful. A welcome treat indeed.’
He raised a hand and clicked his fingers, and two Deephomers came running outside. They tipped their red hats at Kilian respectfully, then, at his command, relieved Eli of the squabwyrme and disappeared back inside.
‘The cooks will honour it with their preparation – and we shall honour it in its eating.’ He turned to his daughter, who had passed on the horn and hung up her cloak and was standing with Micah at the entrance to the store cavern. ‘Isn’t that right, daughter?’
Cara smiled and nodded. ‘Brother Micah and brother Eli have honoured Deephome with their endeavours.’
‘And I am most grateful to them for that,’ said Kilian.
‘The poor creature was caught out by the severity of the weather. I simply spotted it,’ Eli said modestly. ‘But I’m glad I could contribute something to your table.’ He shrugged. ‘With the storm up top the way it is, looks like the lad and I are fixed for a long stay …’
‘Stay as long as you like,’ said Kilian generously. He turned to his daughter. ‘If you wouldn’t mind, my dear, old sister Hester has been asking for you to sit with her.’
‘Of course, Father,’ she said, and glancing back and giving Micah one of her quick shy smiles, went with him.
Micah watched the two of them walking through the store chamber, side by side. Kilian the prophet, protector of Deephome, and his daughter, Cara.
Cara …
He watched how her hips moved, setting her long skirt swaying from side to side. Thanks to the harshness of fullwinter, he and Eli would be staying in Deephome a while longer, and he was glad.
He turned to Eli.
The cragclimber’s expression had turned grim. ‘Micah,’ he said gruffly, ‘we need to talk.’
Thirty-Two
‘Micah, I am not your father.’
‘I know it, Eli … My father died of plains fever way back. And since you’ve never taken a belt to me or shown me the back of your hand, I’m guessing you’re not my big brother neither …’
‘What I’m trying to say is, we got no blood ties, you and me. So I ain’t fixing to give you no fatherly advice. Here in the weald you are your own man, and as such, you should make up your own mind. But … there’s something not right about this Deephome place.’
‘But what? What? Eli, you spoke of my father. I tell you, compared with the hovel I grew up in back on the plains, Deephome is like a glimpse of the Maker’s paradise. Everyone looks out for everyone else, concerned for their needs and welfare – not just looking after themselves. What’s wrong with that?’
‘I’m just saying something don’t sit right.’
‘Cara says it’s simply a matter of learning their ways.’
‘Well, what I seen of them, their ways trouble me, Micah. In my experience, settling in one place comes at a cost in the high country. You got to defend what you got with force, or it’ll end up getting taken from you by those more powerful and ruthless. Seems to me a set-up like Deephome should be a good deal better defended than it appears to be. Hidden away down here it might be, but it’s still a tempting target for marauders, and that stockade wouldn’t keep hardened kith out for long.’
‘It wouldn’t?’
‘No. That’s why I prefer to keep on the move, to avoid trouble rather than waiting for it to come and find me. Yes, we have to hole up in fullwinter. It’s the only way to survive. But I have always preferred to find my own den, rather than squatting in someone else’s …’
‘But trouble found us in our den, Eli. Maybe trouble just can’t be avoided, and maybe it’s good to have folks around you when it does find you. Besides … I like it here.’
‘You like it here.’
‘I do, Eli. I like it here a lot.’
‘I went down there again, Micah.’
‘Into the tunnel?’
‘Into the tunnel. Only this time I went deeper than before. I took me a lamp …’
‘’Bout them clothes and all, Eli, I been meaning to tell you. Cara said that a while back, they did take in a bunch of kith. She said they were rough and violent, said how they tried to take their stores …’
‘And?’
‘And brother Kilian spoke to them. Persuaded them to leave.’
‘Persuaded?’
‘I know, Eli, and it sounded strange to me too. I don’t know, maybe it’s them eyes of his. You seen the way he looks at you, like he can read your thoughts. I reckon he sure can be persuasive when he wants to be. Cara said he gave the kith clean clothes for their old wornout gear, and that they went on their way.’
‘Maybe, Micah. Maybe … Anyway, like I was saying, I went deeper into the tunnel than before. I came to a door …’
‘The door to the equipment store?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You didn’t take a look?’
‘I couldn’t, Micah. The door had no handle.’
‘Jura charged me with your education, Micah. She was afeared that if I did not, then others would, and that they would learn you bad things. How to steal and plunder and kill …’
‘I know it. You told me before.’
‘I did. But what I did not tell you, Micah, is that I have been honoured by the task. Oh, I confess, I accepted the undertaking with reservations. Reluctance, even. Last thing I ever had in mind was to get weighted down by some greenhorn. But you was a quick learner, and willing and keen, and seldom discouraged, and I … I’m proud of what you have become, Micah, even if I might not always show it.’
‘You do show it, Eli. In your own way. And I’m grateful.’
‘There ain’t no need to be grateful. It comes from you, Micah. From the inside. I take no credit for it. Whatever hardships and privations you endured as a child, something went right …’
‘You think so?’
‘I know so … Micah, I intend to check on the weather every day, and if it improves then I shall leave Deephome, fullwinter or no fullwinter, and should you decide to leave with me, I would be glad of your company. But should you decide not to, then I shall respect that decision … son.’
Thirty-Three
Every afternoon for the next two weeks, Eli dressed in his winter gear and set off outside. Every afternoon – sometimes after a few hours; more often after only a few minutes – he would return, his face sombre and thoughtful.
‘Still no respite,’ he would say, and the weight on Micah’s chest would lift and he’d breathe easier.
Then came the day that Micah had dreaded.
‘I believe it’s easing off,’ Eli told him. ‘At last. And the skies are clearing to the west. Maker willing, we should be able to set off tomorrow morning.’ He paused. ‘At least, I shall …’
Micah nodded. ‘I’ll need to sleep on it,’ he said.
Micah awoke the next morning to find a neat bundle of folded clothes at the foot of his mattress. He looked at them for a moment.
They were his clothes. His old clothes. He picked up the undershirt, which was spotless and smelled fresh. Eli must have washed it for him, he realized, and discovered that the other clothes were just as clean.
He pulled off the undershirt Cara had given him and slipped his old one on. It fitted him better, and he’d forgotten its crisp coolness. He pulled on his shirt, his breeches, and the feel of the broad leather braces at his shoulder was familiar and kind of reassuring. He picked up the heavy wyrmeskin pelt he’d worn as a cloak. Eli had been busy. The pelt had been cut and tailored into a hacketon jacket, double-stitched at the seams and lined with grey homespun.
Micah slipped it on with a mixture of elation and pride. It was a fine piece of work, and he felt honoured to wear it.
He climbed down the ladder to the foot of the sleeping gallery to find Eli waiting. The cragclimber was grim-faced, yet his blue eyes glistened as he looked at Micah.
‘I reckon we could make it to Jura’s cave by sundown if we set off now,’ he said simply, shouldering his backpack and handing Micah a pack of his own. ‘Cara packed this for you herself,’ Eli said. ‘Last night I went and asked for any provisions that might be spared for the journey and she insisted on it – even though I told her you’d yet to make up your mind whether you were leaving or not …’
‘I must thank her,’ said Micah. ‘I … I need to say goodbye to her. To explain …’
‘Of course you do,’ Eli said. He patted Micah’s shoulder. ‘I’ll meet you by the stockade steps.’
Micah found Cara in one of the alcoves at the back of the kitchen cavern. He’d known where to look. The previous afternoon, they’d been working there together on a flitch of cured wyrmemeat, removing the outer skin, scraping off the layer of stringy fat and cutting the smokestain meat below into thin slices that they placed on trays to dry. Half the wyrme had been completed, and now Cara had started work on the second half on her own.
‘Brother Micah,’ she said, looking up from the cutting block, a short-handled scraper in her hand. Her gaze took in the clothes he was wearing, lingering over the fine hacketon jacket of wyrmeleather. ‘So, you are leaving us,’ she said softly.
‘Cara, I …’ Micah saw tears welling in her blue-green eyes. ‘I … I don’t want to,’ he said. ‘But I just can’t let Eli go alone. I’m a seasoned weald traveller, and young, and strong, and he can’t manage without me …’ He fell silent, wondering whether she knew he was lying.
Cara nodded uncertainly. Then she sniffed and turned her attention to the half-stripped wyrme carcass.
‘Let me help you with that,’ said Micah.
‘There’s no need,’ said Cara, without looking up.
‘I want to,’ said Micah.
He sat down at the table opposite her. He pulled out his hackdagger, wiped the blade on a bunched up cloth that lay on the table, and started the painstaking work of slicing the meat she’d prepared to a fine lacy thinness. He could feel Cara’s gaze on him, and when he looked up, she smiled sadly back at him.
‘You look nice,’ she said, and averted her gaze, and Micah recognized that her shyness had returned.
He made a show of the cutting, brandishing his knife with confidence and dexterity. He clamped his jaw in concentration. And when he took the first of the filled trays across to the drying racks, he rolled his shoulders as he walked, his head held high, pretending not to care as much as he realized he did.
And he knew that Cara had noticed.
Drawn by the sweet greasy smell of the meat, several wyrmes had turned up in the small recessed chamber. There was a stout grey buffwyrme. A handful of gaudy jackwyrmes with their elaborate neck ruffs, barbels and crests, that sniffed the air and chittered with frustration. And two tatterwings, like the ones Micah had seen on the floor of the sleeping gallery – or maybe even the same ones, for the wyrmes that lived in Deephome pretty much came and went as they pleased. They kept the place clean, scavenging any scraps they could find.
‘Them jackwyrmes are always so hungry,’ said Cara, laying her knife aside and tossing them a handful of scraps, and watching as they squabbled over the spoils.
Micah nodded. ‘That buffwyrme seems mighty interested in their breakfast,’ he said. ‘Reckon I’ll give him some of his own.’
‘You got to be careful of buffwyrmes, Micah,’ she warned. ‘With them bladesharp teeth of theirs.’
Micah sliced off a piece of the fatty skin and climbed to his feet. Stooping down, hand outstretched, he approached the buffwyrme, which drew back and eyed him with suspicion. He stopped. He jiggled the skin about.
The buffwyrme took a few steps toward him, then lunged at the meat, but Micah pulled it back at the last moment. Puzzled, the wyrme cocked its head to one side. It was grey and the size of a small sheep, and when it stood still it looked more like a boulder than a living creature. Micah held out his hand again. A long black tongue flicked out from the creature’s scaly muzzle. Then, with uncharacteristic delicacy, it took the proffered food in its fangs and withdrew.
Micah returned to the table. He smiled at Cara. ‘It’s about not showing fear,’ he said, and hoped she wouldn’t notice his hands were trembling. ‘You learn such things out on the trail.’ He paused. ‘It’s tough going out there in the weald, but I have learned to deal with its harshness and brutality. A single buffwyrme don’t hold no fear for me.’
Cara’s eyes widened with admiration. ‘You got a way with them,’ she said.
Micah nodded thoughtfully. He picked up his hackdagger, turned it over in his hand, pretending to find interest in the flex of the blade, the curve of the handle. He swallowed.
‘I knew someone who truly did have a way with wyrmes,’ he said at last. He did not look up. ‘With whitewyrmes …’
Cara breathed in sharply
. ‘Whitewyrmes?’ she said. ‘You … you mean a kin?’
‘Her name was Thrace,’ said Micah. ‘She—’
‘You knew a kingirl, Micah?’ Cara’s voice trembled with incredulity.
‘I did,’ said Micah. ‘I stumbled across a nest that she and her whitewyrme were protecting, and she nearly killed me …’
Cara nodded slowly, then tossed more scraps to the jackwyrmes and tatterwings. When she looked back, Micah was staring back down at his knife.
‘I … I know a little bit about kin,’ she offered. ‘Not much … just how girls and boys, orphans and such, get enslaved by whitewyrmes and turn as wild and dangerous as the wyrmes they ride.’
‘They ain’t enslaved, Cara,’ Micah broke in. He looked at his blurred reflection in the back of the blade. ‘They … they form a union, and the bond between them can’t never be broken.’ He swallowed again. ‘Thrace’s wyrme was called Aseel …’
‘Aseel?’ Cara sounded surprised. ‘They got names?’
‘They got names, Cara. Just like you and me. They’re intelligent, whitewyrmes – and we men and women, we threaten them. That’s why they kin, so that the whitewyrmes might get a better understanding of the way humankind thinks.’ He frowned. ‘Aseel would do anything to protect Thrace, and she would do anything to protect him.’ He looked up. ‘She carried a kinlance that he fashioned for her. It was with it that she nearly killed me. I still have the scar.’
Cara stared back at him, and Micah was unsure whether she believed him or not. Then she climbed to her feet.
They held each other’s gaze as Cara walked round the table. She stopped at Micah’s side, and he climbed to his feet and stood before her. She reached out, unbuttoned the hacketon jacket and pulled aside the undershirt beneath, exposing the nubbed ring of scar tissue at Micah’s chest. There was pity and awe and exhilaration in her eyes. She leaned forward and kissed the scar.