Graceling

by Kristin Cashore

  The cat made one horrible hissing, bubbling noise. Then it collapsed onto Katsa's chest, and its claws slid away from her skin. The mountain was quiet, and the lion was dead.

  Katsa heaved the cat away. She propped herself onto her right elbow and wiped the animal's hot blood out of her eyes. She tested her left shoulder and winced at the pain. She choked back an enormous surge of irritation that she should now have an injury that might slow them down; and she tore open her coat and sighed, disgusted, at the gashes in her breast that stung almost as badly as those in her shoulder. And other rips and tears, she realized now, as each movement uncovered a new sting. Smaller cuts, on her neck and across her stomach and arms; deeper cuts in her thighs, where the cat had pinned her with its hind feet.

  Well, there was no reason to lie around feeling sorry for herself. The snow was falling harder now. This fight had brought her injury and inconvenience, but it had also brought food that would last them a good long time, and fur for a coat that Bitterblue very much needed.

  Katsa heaved herself to her feet. She considered the great lion that lay dead and bloody before her. Its tail—that's what she'd seen lifting and curling in that tree. The first clue that had saved her life. From head to tail the cat was longer than her height, and she guessed it weighed a good deal more than she did. Its neck was thick and powerful, its shoulders and back heavily muscled. Its teeth were as long as her fingers, and its claws longer. It occurred to her that she had not done so badly in this fight, despite what Bitterblue would think when she saw her. This was not an animal she would have chosen to fight in hand-to-hand combat. This animal could have killed her.

  She realized then how long she had left Bitterblue alone, and a gust of wind blew thickening snow into her face. She pulled the dagger from the cat's throat, wiped it on the ground, and slipped it into her belt. She rolled the cat onto its back and grasped one of its forelegs in each hand. She gritted her teeth against the ache in her shoulder, and dragged the cat down to their cave.

  ***

  BITTERBLUE RAN up from the camp when she saw Katsa coming. Her eyes widened. She made an unintelligible noise that sounded like choking.

  "I'm all right, child," Katsa said. "It only scratched me."

  "You're covered in blood."

  "Mostly the cat's blood."

  The girl shook her head and pulled at the rips in Katsa's coat. "Great seas," she said, when she saw the gashes in Katsa's breast. "Great seas," she whispered again, at the sight of Katsa's shoulder, arms, and stomach. "We'll have to sew some of these cuts closed. Let's clean you up. I'll get the medicines."

  THAT NIGHT their camp was crowded, but the fire warmed their small space, and cooked their cat steaks, and dried the tawny pelt that would soon become Bitterblue's coat. Bitterblue supervised the cooking of the meat; they would carry the extra frozen as they climbed.

  The snow fell harder now. The wind gusted snowflakes into their fire, where they hissed and died. If this storm lasted, they'd be comfortable enough here. Food, water, a roof, and warmth; they had all they needed. Katsa shifted so that the fire's heat would touch her and dry the tattered clothing she'd put on again after washing because she had nothing else to wear.

  She was working on the great bow she'd been making for the past few days. She bent the stave, and tested its strength. She cut a length of cord for the string. She bound the string tightly to one end of the stave and pulled on it, hard, to stretch it to the other end. She groaned at the ache in her shoulder, and the soreness of her leg where the bow pressed into one of her cuts. "If this is what it's like to be injured, I'll never understand why Po loves so much to fight me. Not if this is how he feels afterwards."

  "I don't understand much of what either of you do," the girl said.

  Katsa stood and pulled experimentally at the string. She reached for one of the arrows she'd whittled. She notched the arrow and fired a test shot through the falling snow into a tree outside their cave. The arrow hit the tree with a thud and embedded itself deeply. "Not bad," Katsa said. "It will serve." She marched out into the snow and yanked the arrow from the tree. She came back, sat down, and set herself to whittling more arrows. "I must say I'd trade a cat steak for a single carrot. Or a potato. Can you imagine what a luxury it's going to be to eat a meal in an inn, once we're in Sunder, Princess?"

  Bitterblue only watched her, and chewed on the cat meat. She didn't respond. The wind moaned, and the carpet of snow that formed outside their cave grew thicker. Katsa fired another test arrow into the tree and tramped out into the storm to retrieve it. When she stamped back again and knocked her boots against the walls to shake off the snow, she noticed that Bitterblue's eyes still watched her.

  "What is it, child?"

  Bitterblue shook her head. She chewed a piece of meat and swallowed. She pulled a steak out of the fire and passed it to Katsa. "You're not acting particularly injured."

  Katsa shrugged. She bit into the cat meat and wrinkled her nose.

  "I've been fantasizing about bread, myself," Bitterblue said.

  Katsa laughed. They sat together companionably, the child and the lion killer, listening to the wind that drove the snow outside their mountain cave.

  Chapter Thirty

  THE GIRL was exhausted. Warmer now in the hide of the cat, but exhausted. It was the never-ending upward trudge, and the stones that slid under her feet, pulling her back when she tried to go forward. It was the steep slope of rock that she couldn't climb unless Katsa pushed her from behind; and it was the hopeless knowledge that at the top of this slope was another just as steep, or another river of stones that would slide down while she tried to climb up. It was the snow that soaked her boots and the wind that worked its way under the edges of her clothing. And it was the wolves and cats that always appeared so suddenly, spitting and roaring, tearing toward them across rock. Katsa was quick with her bow. The creatures were always dead before they were within range, sometimes before Bitterblue was even aware of their presence. But Katsa saw how long it took Bitterblue's breath to calm and grow even again after each yowling attack, and she knew that the girl's tiredness stemmed not only from physical exertion, but from fear.

  Katsa almost couldn't bear to slow their pace even more. But she did it, because she had to. "It's no use if our rescue kills him," Oll had said the night they'd rescued Grandfather Tealiff. If Bitterblue collapsed in these mountains, the responsibility would be Katsa's.

  It snowed hard now, almost constantly, and so now when it snowed, they kept moving. Katsa wrapped Bitterblue's hands in furs, and her face, so that only her eyes were exposed. She knew from the map that there were no trees in Grella's Pass. Before they reached that high, windy pathway between the peaks, the trees would end. And so she began to construct snowshoes, so that she wouldn't find herself needing them in a place with no wood to make them. She planned to make only one pair. She didn't know what terrain they would find in the pass. But she had an idea of the wind and the cold. It wouldn't be the place to move slowly, unless they wanted to freeze to death. She guessed she would be carrying the child.

  At night Bitterblue sank immediately into an exhausted sleep, whimpering sometimes, as if she were having bad dreams. Katsa watched over her, and kept the fire alive. She pieced together slats of wood, and tried not to think of Po. Tried and usually failed.

  Her wounds were healing well. The smallest ones barely showed anymore, and even the largest had stopped losing blood after a few hours. They were no more than an irritation, though the bags she carried pulled on the cuts and the half-constructed snowshoes banged against them. Her shoulder and her breast protested a bit every time her hand flew to the quiver on her back, the quiver she'd fashioned with a bit of saddle leather. She would have scars on her shoulder and her breast, possibly on her thighs. But they would be the only marks the cat left on her body.

  She would make some sort of halter next, when she was done with the snowshoes. In anticipation of carrying the child. Some arrangement of straps and ties, ma
de from the horse's gear, so that if she must carry Bitterblue, her arms would be free to use the bow. And perhaps a coat for herself, now that Bitterblue was warmer. A coat, from the next wolf or mountain lion they encountered.

  And every night, with the fire stoked and her work done, and thoughts of Po so close she couldn't escape them, she curled up against Bitterblue and gave herself a few hours' sleep.

  WHEN KATSA FOUND that she was shivering herself to sleep at night, wrapping her own head and neck with furs, and stamping the numbness out of her feet, she thought they must be nearing Grella's Pass. It couldn't be much farther. Because Grella's Pass would be even colder than this; and Katsa didn't believe the world could get much colder.

  She became frightened for the child's fingers and toes, and the skin of her face. She stopped often to massage Bitterblue's fingers and her feet. The child wasn't talking, and climbed numbly, wearily; but her mind was present. She nodded and shook her head in response to Katsa's questions. She wrapped her arms around Katsa whenever Katsa lifted her or carried her. She cried, with relief, when their nightly fire warmed her. She cried from pain when Katsa woke her to the cold mornings.

  They had to be close to Grella's Pass. They had to, because Katsa wasn't sure how much more of this the child could endure.

  An ice storm erupted one morning as they trudged upward through trees and scrub. For the better part of the morning they were blind, heads bent into the wind, bodies battered by snow and ice. Katsa kept her arm around the child, as she always did during the storms, and followed her strong sense of direction upward and westward. And noticed, after some time, that the path grew less steep, and that she was no longer tripping over tree roots or mountain scrub. Her feet felt heavy, as if the snow had deepened and she must push her way through it.

  When the storm lifted, as abruptly as it had begun, the landscape had changed. They stood at the base of a long, even, snow-covered slope, clear of vegetation, the wind catching ice crystals on its surface and dancing them up into the sky. Some distance ahead, two black crags towered to the left and right. The slope rose to pass between them.

  The whiteness was blinding, the sky so close and so searingly blue that Bitterblue held her hand up to block her eyes. Grella's Pass: No animals to fend off, no boulders or scrub to navigate. Only a simple rising length of clean snow for them to walk across, right over the mountain range and down into Sunder.

  It almost looked peaceful.

  A warning began to buzz, and then clamor, in Katsa's mind. She watched the swirls of snow that whipped along the pass's surface. For one thing, it would be a greater distance than it looked. For another, there would be no shelter from the wind. Nor would it be as smooth as it seemed from here, with the sun shining on it directly. And if it stormed, or rather, when it stormed, it would be weather befitting these mountaintops, where no living thing survived, and all that had any hope of lasting was rock or ice.

  Katsa wiped away the snow that clung to the girl's furs. She broke pieces of ice from the wrapping around Bitterblue's face. She unslung the snowshoes from her back and stepped into them, wrapped the straps around her feet and ankles, and bound them tightly. She untangled the halter she'd constructed, and helped the child into it, one weary leg at a time. Bitterblue didn't protest or ask for an explanation. She moved sluggishly. Katsa bent down, grabbed her chin, and looked into her eyes.

  "Bitterblue," she said. "Bitterblue. You must stay alert. I'll carry you, but only because we have to move fast. You've got to stay awake. If I think you're falling asleep, I'll put you down and make you walk. Do you understand? I'll make you walk, Princess, no matter how hard it is for you."

  "I'm tired," the child whispered, and Katsa grabbed her shoulders and shook them.

  "I don't care if you're tired. You'll do what I tell you. You'll put every ounce of strength into staying awake. Do you understand?"

  "I don't want to die," Bitterblue said, and a tear seeped from her eye and froze on her eyelash. Katsa knelt and held the cold little bundle of girl close.

  "You won't die," Katsa said. "I won't let you die." But it would take more than her own will to keep Bitterblue alive, and so she reached into her cloak and pulled out the water flask. "Drink this," she said, "all of it."

  "It's cold," Bitterblue said.

  "It will help to keep you alive. Quickly, before it freezes."

  The child drank, and Katsa made a split-second decision. She threw the bow onto the ground. She pulled the bags and the quiver over her head and dropped them beside the bow. Then she took off the wolf furs she wore over her shoulders, the furs she'd allowed herself to keep and wear only after the child was covered in several layers of fur from head to toe. The wind found the rips in Katsa's bloodstained coat, and the cold knifed at her stomach, at the remaining wounds in her breast and her shoulder; but soon she would be running, she told herself, and the movement would warm her. The furs that covered her neck and head would be enough. She wrapped the great wolf hides around the child, like a blanket.

  "You've lost your mind," Bitterblue said, and Katsa almost smiled, because if the girl could form insulting opinions, then at least she was somewhat lucid.

  "I'm about to engage in some very serious exercise," Katsa said. "I wouldn't want to overheat. Now, give me that flask, child." Katsa bent down and filled the flask with snow. Then she fastened it closed, and buried it inside Bitterblue's coats. "You'll have to carry it," she said, "if it's not to freeze."

  The wind came from all directions, but Katsa thought it blew most fiercely from the west and into their faces. So she would carry the child on her back. She hung everything else across her front and pulled the straps of the girl's halter over her shoulders. She stood under the weight of the child, and straightened. She took a few cautious steps in the snowshoes. "Ball up your fists," she said to the girl, "and put them in my armpits. Put your face against the fur around my neck. Pay attention to your feet. If you start to think you can't feel them, tell me. Do you understand, Bitterblue?"

  "I understand," the girl said.

  "All right then," Katsa said. "We're off."

  She ran.

  SHE ADJUSTED quickly to the snowshoes and to the precariously balanced loads on her back and her front. The girl weighed practically nothing, and the snowshoes worked well enough once she mastered the knack of running with legs slightly splayed. She couldn't believe the coldness of this passageway over the mountains. She couldn't believe wind could blow so hard and so insistently, without ever easing. Every breath of this air was a blade gouging into her lungs. Her arms, her legs, her torso, especially her hands—every part of her that was not covered with fur burned with cold, as if she had thrown herself into a fire.

  She ran, and at first she thought the pounding of her feet and legs created some warmth; and then the incessant thud, thud, thud became a biting ache, and then a dull one; and finally, she could no longer feel the pounding at all, but forced it to continue, forward, upward, closer to the peaks that always seemed the same distance away.

  The clouds gathered again and pummeled her with snow. The wind shrieked, and she ran blindly. Over and over, she yelled to Bitterblue. She asked the girl questions, meaningless questions about Monsea, about Leck City, about her mother. And always the same questions about whether she could feel her hands, whether she could move her toes, whether she felt dizzy or numb. She didn't know if Bitterblue understood her questions. She didn't know what it was Bitterblue yelled back. But Bitterblue did yell; and if Bitterblue was yelling, then Bitterblue was awake. Katsa squeezed her arms over the child's hands. She reached back and grasped the child's boots every once in a while, doing what she could to rub her toes. And she ran, and kept running, even when it felt like the wind was pushing her backward. Even when her own questions began to make less and less sense, and her fingers couldn't rub and her arms couldn't squeeze anymore.

  Eventually, she was conscious of only two things: the girl's voice, which continued in her ear, and the slope before them that
she had to keep running up.

  WHEN THE GREAT red sun sank from the sky and began to dip behind the horizon, Katsa registered it dully. If she saw the sunset, it must mean the snow no longer fell. Yes, now that she considered the question, she could see that it had stopped snowing, though she couldn't remember when. But sunset meant the day was ending. Night was coming; and night was always colder than day.

  Katsa kept running, because soon it would be even colder. Her legs moved; the child spoke now and again; she could not feel anything except the coldness stabbing her lungs with each breath. And then something else began to register in the fog of her mind.

  She could see a horizon that lay far below her.

  She was watching the sun sink behind a horizon that lay far below her.

  She didn't know when the view had changed. She didn't know at what point she had passed over the top and begun to descend. But she had done it. She couldn't see the black peaks anymore, and so they must be behind her. What she could see was the other side of the mountain; and forests, endless forests; and the sun bringing the day to a close as she ran, the child living and breathing on her back, down into Sunder. And not too far ahead of her, the end of this snowy slope, and the beginning of trees and scrub, and a downhill climb that would be so much easier for the child than the uphill climb had been.

  She noticed the shivering then, the violent shivering, and panic consumed her, racked her dull mind awake. The child must not sicken now, not now that they were so close to safety. She reached back and grabbed Bitterblue's boots. She screamed her name. But then she heard Bitterblue's voice, crying something in her ear; and she felt the girl's arms snake around her front and hold her tight. The line below her breasts where Bitterblue's arms encircled her felt different suddenly. Warm, oddly warm. Katsa heard her own teeth chattering. She realized that it was not the girl who shivered. It was herself.