Forsaken

by Jon Kiln

  “I hope you brought coins for both of us.”

  Berengar wheeled his horse to the right and Nisero followed behind. The path was a ledge of rock that was technically wide enough for a small wagon, but looking off the side of the rock face from horseback made it feel far more perilous.

  There were wooden pitons driven into the rock overhead. Nisero could reach them from the saddle, but he wasn’t sure what good they would do. If the horse fell, he might have time to free himself from the stirrups or grab the piton above, but probably not both. Either action alone would result in a painful death. He could loose his boots from the gear in anticipation of a fall, but he might as well push the horse over, as that meant having less control on its body. It appeared that the option of not falling was the only option.

  There were patches of ice trailing up the rock face and crystallizing over the ledge. When he saw this, Nisero's plan of not falling became less sure. He did not want to steer the horse’s hooves over the ice, but neither did he favor the idea of riding along the very edge of the cliff to avoid it.

  When the captain weaved, Nisero imitated his moves. He trusted the captain’s judgment in most things, but knew that he was marking this trail and its perils for the first time. Still, he placed his faith in the greater combination of Berengar’s experiences.

  The rock face curved so that the trail ahead was hidden, and Nisero stared off into a column of empty space. The distance looked impossibly far. There were patches of frozen ground they could not avoid as they curved into the shadows of the indented rock.

  Berengar pressed onward and Nisero followed. He suddenly felt his horse’s back legs shift under him on the ice. The horse snorted in two thick clouds. The rider and the mount’s panic fed one another. Nisero bound his knees into the horse’s sides and felt the animal heaving for air as it threatened to charge blind. He choked up on the reins, but fought to control his pressure. He felt a sick fear in his stomach. The horse finally found dry ground and clopped its hooves in place, breathing rapidly. Relieved, Nisero pulled again to keep the horse from edging sideways to the drop.

  Berengar’s eyes and head stayed forward through the entire commotion. Nisero wasn’t sure whether to read that as disregard, trusting that Nisero could handle it, or simply focus on the path.

  They continued around the curves and down toward the floor below. Darkness drifted across the rock, as the sun began to set. The ice grew invisible.

  Nisero wished he had a mule or donkey for this ride, instead of horses bred for war.

  Doubt grew in Nisero’s mind, first about whether the trail would ever end, and then the seed of doubt in the captain’s judgment. His desire to press the chase led them into the Deep Pass as a pair instead of a force, although Nisero could not picture a company navigating this trail. He continued after stopping in the cave for dinner, without thinking of the shorter stretch of daylight below the mountains.

  Nisero reminded himself that the captain’s daughter was in the hands of a bandit king so bloody that other bandits feared his madness. He had seen the man’s work, and knew the captain would throw his life off the cliff to see her freed from such evil. Nisero could not blame him, and recommitted himself mentally to follow the captain all the way down the rock.

  Berengar’s voice came to Nisero’s ears in such a tone that he thought it was a trick of the wind. “Are you still well and whole there behind me, lieutenant?”

  “I have our coins ready for the trip across, if the ice gets the better of us.”

  The captain made a noise that Nisero thought might be a laugh, but he wasn’t certain. “I see the end of this trail ahead. Keep your faith a while longer.”

  Darkness hung heavy by the time they broke out onto the floor of flat ground. Bright patches of light marked the underside of the highest clouds above the mountains.

  Nisero let out such a long breath that he felt dizzy afterward. He did not realize how shallow his breathing had been.

  The horses’ hooves crackled on the icy ground. Nisero looked down and saw the darkness of solid ground between the broken sheets of ice.

  Berengar motioned forward. “That bridge marks the border of the kingdom. Across it there are more places to camp that should be defensible.”

  The lieutenant wondered again, if Berengar had in fact traveled this far before. Nisero saw the bridge beyond the field of the ice ahead of them. The ground looked more dry and clear beyond.

  It was unimpressive. It looked like a bridge one might build across a stream for the children of the village to cross during their play. If it had a railing, one side could be touched at the same time as the other. With a running jump, Nisero believed he could span most of its length.

  Nisero was somewhat disappointed that the kingdom’s border was unguarded. He imagined being posted on the patch of ice with barracks cut into the rock behind him. The roof would have to be thick to catch anyone that fell from the trail above.

  The river under the bridge in this section appeared quite narrow. He looked back at the waterfall in the distance, but could not see the wider river around the curves of the rock face.

  “Be careful,” Berengar said. “Ice has a way of shifting under you at the worst moments and sometimes hides trouble.”

  “I will, sir.”

  Berengar coaxed his horse forward and Nisero followed. The ice clicked and popped under them, but no longer broke. Nisero felt his horse shift again, but this time it was downward instead of to the side. He looked under him and in the darkness he saw the bubbles of air move under the surface with the weight of the horses.

  To their left, a fissure opened and water spewed up out of the opening, spreading across the surface. Nisero looked at the bridge ahead of them and back at the hole in the ice spurting water.

  “Captain?”

  The ice in front of them burst with three thunderous cracks. A section as large as a drawbridge floated away from the bridge, on the side the men approached. Nisero saw broken boards sticking up out of the water. A larger section of bridge wavered in the flowing water.

  “The bridge is collapsed,” Berengar shouted. “We are over the river.”

  The ice cracked behind, and they shifted several body lengths downstream. The progress ceased and Nisero wheeled his horse around. Sections of ice moved behind them and then paused as it bunched up in clots. Nisero considered making a run across the moving surface.

  Their patch of ice moved again more quickly and wobbled. Nisero heard more cracks thundering out around and under them.

  Berengar slid from the saddle and held the reins. The horses’ eyes were wide and wild. “Get down. The combined weight is too much.”

  Before Nisero could get his feet loose, the ice shattered under his mount. Berengar turned his horse and reached for the lieutenant, but Nisero’s mount rolled away. Nisero kicked free and fell away from the saddle before the horse could roll onto his leg.

  Nisero’s elbow and knee plunged through the crisp gap between two broken sections of flowing ice. It was colder than anything he remembered in his life. The well in Patron’s Hill was a hot spring by comparison. Nisero gasped in shock and scrabbled to get away from the cold as his muscles threatened to stop working.

  He rolled onto his back on a section of ice that tilted from side to side with no sense of balance. He turned his head to see his horse up to its neck, fighting between icebergs. Its teeth and tongue were visible. The whites of its eyes looked wide. The horse shifted down and then downward again. It raised its head, but seemed to give up kicking under the frigid water. The horse slipped under and the ice closed around the opening.

  Nisero thought of the weight of all the gear on the animal’s back weighing it down to the freezing bottom. Nisero shivered violently on his back and thought he might be joining the poor, faithful horse soon.

  He spotted Berengar pulling taut on the reins as the ice separated between him and his horse. The horse fought the captain and the movement of the ice. The horse pulled free of Beren
gar’s grip and the captain dropped to his knees. The horse wheeled one direction as the ice twisted the other. The animal stumbled and tried to gallop to the far shore.

  The ice parted as it stepped off the edge and plunged headfirst. The ice slammed back together and Nisero heard the bones of its front legs snap like branches. The animal screamed with a noise that echoed across the frozen river. It sounded unlike anything he ever heard, but was distinctly the voice of a horse. The creature pitched over and flipped upside down before sinking under the surface. The ice closed and shuffled again.

  The ice bunched and peaked at the edges. Nisero rolled to his belly and clawed up the slope to avoid sliding into the drink. The slippery surface denied his efforts. The cold traveled through every layer of his clothes.

  It split under him and the ice leveled again. He splashed in the frigid space and scrambled over to another flat of the ice. A series of explosions sounded ahead of them and Nisero rolled to look. The feeling was leaving his limbs, replaced with a painful numbness. He mentally prepared himself to lose a few toes to frostbite if he even survived at all. His doubt in his ability to find an escape was growing.

  Another explosion sounded and he saw shards of ice crystals spew into the air, raining down like enemies’ arrows. The ice flow went from a creeping trot to a wild gallop.

  Berengar rolled and lost his grip on his ice sheet. He slid down to his waist between chunks and fought to pull himself back up, like the horses that had struggled earlier. His hands found no holds and no friction. He sank into the water.

  Nisero realized the captain’s own light armor was filling with cold water, and the weight of his weapon was an additional anchor. He was being pulled down by his gear, just like the horses had been. The captain was not thinking of shedding the weight to save his skin.

  Nisero lunged and cleared the gap between ice sheets to close the distance on the captain. His new sheet was broad, and twisted under him. It raced past the captain, floating further away. Nisero ran to make another leap before he lost Berengar completely.

  The sheet cracked under him and separated. Nisero jumped, but the force of the attempt spilled the two sides and dumped him into the frigid space between. He clawed for position until the jagged edges of ice slammed into both sides of his skull. He swallowed water and felt his insides burn. He forgot to shed his armor or weapon to save his skin as well.

  Nisero’s vision twisted and grew dark. His legs and arms ceased to respond in the cold water. As he slipped under, a fist closed in his frosty hair and dragged him up to the surface. The pain and numbness of the cold blunted the sensation of having his scalp pulled to its limit.

  The captain moved his grip from Nisero’s hair to his armpits. Berengar leaned back as he pulled and hauled the lieutenant’s soaked chest up onto his own belly. A little water drained off Nisero’s armor and cloak, but more turned solid. Berengar rolled the lieutenant off of him and their clothes cracked and made a ripping noise, as the new ice broke between them.

  Berengar shouted into Nisero’s ear. “Stay flat to distribute your weight. Crawl with me toward the bank. Mind the gaps!”

  Nisero nodded as he could not find his voice, or seem to move his lips.

  They crawled on their bellies across the sheet. As the next hunk of ice slammed into theirs, they crawled over and continued. Nisero had the same feeling crawling across the broken, flowing ice as he did inching down the ice patched ledge trail. He felt the same sense of fear and dread from the threat of falling off to his death.

  They crawled onto a raised ledge of ice and pulled themselves up its painful slope. The sudden change in motion made Nisero feel sick. His head spun and he groaned, clawing at the slick surface trying to move, but making no progress.

  Berengar tapped Nisero’s back. “Lieutenant, we are ashore at last.”

  Nisero gave up the fight to move. He did not understand the words at first. He then registered that this ice was not shifting. They had pulled onto the bank, finally. He rolled to his back and stared up at an outcropping of rock above his head, forming a small frozen cave on the bank of the ice flow.

  Berengar rose up to his knees and groaned. “I want to start this day over again.”

  Nisero breathed out mist and felt his lips split. He tasted the blood. “If we are erasing days, I might suggest we go back further than one.”

  Berengar bowed his head. “Many, indeed. I’m not sure I would know when to stop any longer.”

  Nisero blinked. He was not certain if the captain was referring to erasing days or knowing when to stop their journey for the night.

  The darkness was heavy and made the unworldly cold feel even deeper. Nisero realized he was too cold to shiver, and he felt a sense of panic rise. He was not sure he could move any longer.

  Nisero spoke, but heard a slow slur in his own voice. “Which bank are we upon?”

  Berengar looked back at the ice flow. “Across the border in the unruled lands of barbarians and bandits. Closer to the blue mountains.”

  “I’m cold, sir. Dangerously so, I fear.”

  Berengar nodded. “We need to start a fire and warm ourselves, or we will die.”

  Before Nisero could ask for the help, Berengar took hold of his arm and pulled him up from the ice.

  Chapter 6

  : Monsters and Brothers

  Captain Berengar felt Nisero’s weight on his back and shoulders as they stumbled up the icy bank. As their feet spun under them, he thought they looked like a couple of infants learning to walk. He felt a core level of exhaustion from their struggle in the freezing water. He had pulled a muscle somewhere low in his back, and Nisero felt heavier than normal from the layer of frozen water over his clothes and skin. The last thing he wanted was for them to slip back down the frozen ground and into the water again, so he fought through the exhaustion, the pain, and the weight.

  They reached level ground and struggled forward. The wind made the cold drive deeper and the captain thought they were running out of heat to lose.

  The ice gave way from a solid mass to isolated patches across the ground. Berengar looked for another protective cave or outcropping to shield them from the wind, and hold heat from a fire. He saw none. Berengar still held the lieutenant as he leaned down and grabbed up a handful of dry grass and twigs. He saw no trees in the immediate area. He did not have much hope of finding any larger sticks or logs. There could be a felled tree nearby that explained these twigs, so he pressed onward.

  Berengar sighed. Pressing onward was why they ended up in the grips of the deadly ice in the first place. They lost their horses and all their gear too. They were exposed and unsupplied. He wasn’t sure they would survive the night even if they did start a fire. He was cold and in danger, but Nisero had submerged and was showing signs of shock. He might not have much time left at all.

  They worked their way up another rise and Berengar scanned the ground for wood.

  Nisero whispered next to his ear. “Captain.”

  “Yes.” Berengar looked at him and then out ahead of them. A little girl wrapped in a fur blanket stood a few steps ahead. She did not even come up to his hip. Her blond hair whipped out in the wind as she stood staring at them.

  He thought he was staring at a ghost. He almost asked Nisero to take out the coins to pay the keeper of the underworld. The money had probably gone down with the gear though.

  She spoke in a language that Berengar recognized as one of the tribal tongues, but he did not know the meaning of her words.

  “I don’t speak your language,” he said. “Do you speak the tongue of the kingdom? We are in trouble and need help. Fire.”

  She stared at the captain for a moment and said, “I heard your horses. I came to see. I saw them die. I thought I saw you die.”

  “Do you live close to here? Can you help us?”

  “I was sleeping and heard your horses. I saw them die.”

  Berengar swallowed. He thought about Holst and wondered if Solag had sent another child to
murder them. He was developing a real fear of children now.

  “Fire. Can you take us to a fire? We are cold.”

  “You fell in the ice. It is too thin to walk. The bridge is broken.”

  “Yes. Please help us.”

  She turned away and looked at them over her shoulder. “You follow me. Don’t talk in my house. My family does not like you.”

  Berengar sighed and nodded. “I understand.”

  She walked across their path and led them away at a diagonal. The landscape was deeply pitted with many places to fall. The little girl put out her thin arms from the dark fur of her blanket and began to climb the steep slope of the rock.

  “Nisero?” the captain asked.

  “I can do it, sir. Anything for a fire.”

  The little girl turned her head as she clung to the rock above them. She looked at them through her hair. “I said no talking.”

  The captain followed up the rocks and heard Nisero climb behind him. He felt responsible for their predicament. He was reminded of the dangerous trek along the canyon wall at the end of the pass. He wanted to reach back and help Nisero then, but the way was too difficult. If he didn’t watch his own step, he would take them both over the drop. He supposed he had done just that in the river.

  The girl vanished over the top, and Berengar pictured her rolling a great boulder over the edge to crush them. The captain cleared the top and spotted a cottage resting in the wide space of a plateau. He saw a trail that weaved down, probably forming a longer, but safer path to the home.

  Children always took the more adventurous route, he thought. Memories of his son and daughter in their smaller years entered his mind, and brought pain to his chilled insides. His thoughts went to his son’s consumed, blackened corpse and the idea of his daughter at the mercy of a monster like Solag. He couldn’t bear thinking about it and physically shook his head to drive the memory out.

  His skull ached as he climbed up to standing, followed by Nisero behind him.

  The girl put her hand on the handle of the door. “I must talk. You must say nothing.”