Stars and a Wind- The Complete Trilogy

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  He strode off quickly into the darkness, boots scrunching into the ice. With a sudden intense curiosity Skarga watched him go, but she saw nothing. Just a man disappearing into the night. She cuddled down with his cloak over her head and tried to think of something reassuring, or of nothing at all, which would be easier.

  But it was not easy. Somewhere in the freezing north, Egil was safe. But he no longer needed her. What she herself needed was unclear. She was being taken to a place of strangers and strangeness, and without the hospitality of humanity nearby. Humanity had not always welcomed or befriended her in the past, but inhumanity would be worse. The behaviour of such shape-changing creatures as these was as yet unknown. She would surely be in danger, unwanted and lonely. Yet there appeared no alternative except death in the snow.

  These thoughts eased her into an uneasy sleep. She dozed and it seemed ten dreams later when she sat up, and for the first time knew she was truly frightened. The sound of deep breathing was very close. She shivered, staring around.

  The bear was not quite visible, as if it and the storm were combined. Its swaying elongated fur folded into the tumbling snow, white upon white, blurred into intangibility within the surrounding dark. A threat not entirely realised, but deeply sensed. The bear shambled, hesitant, unsure of the scents coming from the sled and the bearskin. Skarga knew, without a single doubt, that this was not Thoddun. This was a hunting, hungry bear and she represented only food. Thoddun had told her about the smell of fear. She would be sweetly perfumed then. But her smell, which she could not control, would be disguised by the threat of the transanima on her cloak and around the sled.

  Swaying, padding closer, the bear circled. Its nose sniffed at Thoddun’s remaining tracks, faint indented outlines winding away into the dreary distance. The bear hissed, raised its head and took one step back. Skarga was not sure it had actually seen her. She began, very slowly, to wriggle beneath the low shadow of the sled, slipping between the two blades, lying almost flat, peering out to the far side. From there she could see only the four huge paws and their black curled claws, part retracted beneath the shaggy fur. The bear was as close now as a breath. Its snout swung down, pointed black nose and two bright bead eyes, and it saw her and snarled. Skarga gasped, cringing back. The paw came at once, swiping under the base of the sled to hook her out. The claws, no longer part hidden, extended into huge dark curves.

  Her own knife was gripped tight and ready, her gloves discarded for better grip. The bear, leaning in, peered beneath the sled. It reached towards her, slashing again with its paw. No longer wary of the other, stranger smells, it was hungry, it smelled her fear and saw its prey. Skarga lurched backwards. The paw batted air and retreated.

  Quite suddenly her terror turned ice calm and her mind cleared. The sea bear shuffled, wary. Skarga made herself small, peeping out into the tiny wedge of snow visible to her. Then the bear sprang from the other side. With a speed she had not expected from its bulk, it pounced from behind and the claws slashed into the thickness of both her bearskin and wolf pelt. Skarga was dragged out, grabbing uselessly at the sides and sled tracks, booted heels digging desperately into the ground, pulled relentlessly from her hole. She stabbed the paw that held her.

  Hilt deep, the blade hit bone. The bear snarled and wrenched her into the open. She rolled out into the stink of its breath, but its claws held only fur. She flung off both cloaks, releasing herself at once, and with the deepest inhalation of breath she could manage, Skarga screamed. Flailing her knife, stamping and yelling, she danced, kicking up the snow into its eyes. It nosed the discarded furs still caught on its claws, then growling, lunged. The dark lips curled back from the teeth and with the same great paw, it knocked her, feet flying, to the ground. She was winded and in pain, losing both breath and mobility. The bear hooked the shoulder of her tunic, sliding her across the ice within range of its bite. She struggled to aim her knife but was held firm. The paw crushed her flat, the hot rot of its breath in her face, a stench of shit, rancid decay between its gums, and the avidity of overpowering hunger. Its saliva dripped wet on her cheek.

  Then in an instant it was gone.

  Skarga staggered up, ready to run, but one ankle no longer supported her and she stumbled, yelping. She crawled desperately to her knees, still clutching her knife. She expected teeth to her neck. But there was no bear. She fell back, rolled over, kicked up with the one foot she could still master and balanced herself on both knees.

  Not one bear but two. A great surging vibration through the ground and up through her body. Fighting giants; two bears, one already bleeding heavily at the throat. Heads up, circling each other, one hissing. Both sprang, hurtling together with crushing blows. Teeth to neck and bleeding stripes to the snout. Falling back, thundering, the rebound of incredible weight, ice flying. Skarga forgot the pain in her ankle, kept her grasp on her knife and stared. She knew exactly who the other bear was.

  The transanima, though no larger, circled with a strange human elegance. Its fur was silk, its eyes elongated and intelligent, its back straight. Both huge males, but only one planning its attack two steps ahead. Skarga saw the clarity of intention, the manifestation of experience and calculation. She almost thought it smiled. Then both bears crashed head on and Skarga cringed. The other streamed bubbles from the neck, open flesh and blood freezing to its fur. Now Thoddun was also hurt, left foreleg gashed. Both wounded, both fought head to snarl, bleeding heavily. Skarga, wincing and careful of the ankle which refused to support her, crawled slowly, backing away, danger as great from the paw swipe unintended, but which might crush her as it passed. The ground was scraped into scrolls and hillocks of snow. Then both bodies crashed again and the snow splattered and flattened, bursting beneath them.

  Above them in a parade of garlands, the northern sky’s lights shone once more, swimming across the black. Fanned in magenta, splashed by jade, the leaping colours swept over the stars and flung down their echoes across the sheen of the ice below, reflecting even onto the rippled fur of the fighting giants. Galloping above, thunder below. The injured bear, dominant in its own terrain, was furious and would not back away. It hurtled forwards again. Skarga stopped crawling.

  It seemed Thoddun was down, his bleeding front leg bent beneath him. The other creature, teeth to his belly, was onto him at once. Skarga forgot her ankle and was up and running towards them. The other bear stretched its jaws, gouging and mauling the body beneath. Then it turned. Skarga was the easier target and it sprang towards her. She rammed her knife into its lolling, gaping tongue, then stabbed directly into its eye. It stopped so abruptly she lost her blade. The hilt quivered, forced deep into its skull. She grabbed at it two handed and thrust deeper into the eyeball. Blood and jelly splashed her wrists. The bear lunged, one paw catching her leg and throwing her. But from beneath, Thoddun had its bloody neck between his teeth and was ripping out its throat. It was already dead.

  Skarga, thick with bear’s blood, fell back, gasping. She closed her eyes. Dizziness and nausea combined. When she managed to struggle up again, Thoddun the man was kneeling beside her.

  He was out of breath and panting. His breath was strained and heaving. But he leaned down and took her very tightly into his arms. With the exhaustion of utter relief, she leaned her head against the warmth of his shoulder and began to cry. Thoddun looked down at her a moment, his golden hair tousled in his eyes, and shook his head as though clearing bear mind from man’s mind. Finally he took the corner of his tunic, which was rough and not very clean, and dried her eyes.

  The ball of his thumb pressed gently below her lashes, smoothing across her wet cheeks. “Your courage,” he told her softly, “is admirable, little one.” His breath was hot against her face, making her blink and drying her tears as surely as his hands. She gazed up into the immeasurable depths of his expression and the tunnels of his blue eyes, as deep as the underground tunnels of his home which they had left.

  Skarga had become accustomed to his expressionless gaze. Now
she found herself sinking into his open embracing approval.

  Mumbling, “Admirable? To be – admired?”

  “We will continue this journey together,” he answered her, “and it will not always be easy for you. But we will continue in friendship.”

  She sighed. She knew he would read her mind, and whispered, “I’d like that.” Thick white fur from the cloak tickled her nose and mouth. Her voice was shy and muffled as she added, “Friends. I’d like you to think of me – like that.”

  “I do.” His smile warmed his face and lit his eyes. She had never seen him look like that before. “You did well,” he said softly. “Very well indeed, little cub.”

  Stars and a wind

  Book two:

  The Wind

  From the North

  By

  Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  Introduction

  Skarga woke three times during the long dark.

  The first time she was immediately aware of the giant at her back, the sense of it filling all her consciousness, with the breathing immensity of fur against her. She could hear the pounding heartbeat below her ears; and could smell the creature’s muskiness and its heat. Skarga knew exactly what was there. Unafraid, she moved close into the white fur of the cloak and the greater white fur of the beast itself.

  The second time she woke, she was quite alone.

  The third time, there was the man. Thoddun was sitting watching her, leaning back against the rock wall, one leg stretched out, the other bent, the knee supporting his forearm. Skarga sat up with a jerk. “You’ve been waiting for me?” she said. “Is it late?”

  He continued to watch her with something like curiosity. His eyes reflected a glittering intensity, but his voice was lazy. He was somehow different. “It is never late in my world.” His voice grated and slurred, as though his throat found pronunciation unnatural. “Time has no meaning,” he said. “There is urgency, or there is no urgency. Now there is no urgency. Your sense of time is irrelevant.”

  Skarga said, “Don’t you ever get impatient?”

  “If I am impatient,” he answered, “I move. I act.”

  “Were you impatient last night? I woke up and you were gone.” She did not mention the other time she’d woken, when he had not gone.

  “The answers to your questions, if I decide to give you any, will depend on where I am and who I am.” The torchlight lit his frown. “The man will speak of time. But here in the great northern darkness, the man in me is not so strong, and you will do better neither to pry nor to insist.”

  Skarga immediately relinquished her next question. She nodded. “I understand.”

  “Your frequent claims to understanding,” said Thoddun, “are inflated.” He stood, slowly unbending, and abruptly reached down his hand to her. “However, as you would say, it is time to leave.”

  She took his hand. Ungloved, she was aware of the heat of his palm and the threatening strength of his fingers. She imagined the massive paw of the bear, and then shut her mind, because she knew he would read it. The frown smoothed and Thoddun laughed, sounding more like himself again. “The dogs are already outside,” he said. “And they share your sense of time and are impatient.”

  Encouraged, she risked another question. “Are they only dogs then?” she said. “Not – anything else?”

  His frown reasserted. “Transanima? I would not harness and drive my own people. You take your own kind as slaves, but even you do not rope and ride them.” He paused a moment, and shrugged. “When we wish, we can inspire and lead the animals. We share intuition. I can enter the shallows of their minds, as I do with you.” He regarded her as she stood in the pool of light from his torch. “With little previous curiosity regarding humanity,” he continued, “I never explored the possibilities of human intuition until I used it to lead you into my ocean. Your reaction was not entirely dishonourable.”

  “I’ve offended you.” Skarga stared down at her toes. “Sometimes you answer my questions and sometimes you don’t, and you say I’m stupid and can’t be expected to know anything at all and then you get annoyed because I don’t know something, which I couldn’t know, because you refused to tell me.”

  “Amongst the transanima but also amongst the animals of many kinds,” he replied, “wordless understanding and the reading of intention directly from the mind, is utterly normal. Does that answer you?”

  Skarga shivered. “You’ll say I’m too stupid to understand.”

  Thoddun led her in silence out from the cave’s shelter into the sudden sharp freeze. He held the torch high within its own aura, almost extinguished in the sudden openness. She was wondering how dangerous his anger might be, when he said suddenly, “It seems you consider yourself insulted. And you believe your stupidity to be my fault? An interesting hypothesis. Yet I told you I found your behaviour honourable. Is that an insult?”

  They had come out into the vast white and it was still snowing. The drift of falling mist floated unhurried, the darkness spangled by snow flutter. The five dogs were stretched on the ground, already harnessed to the sled. Carved with a high bar at the front, low sides and a well worn bench, the sled looked very old. The treads were fine metal bladed. Skarga had never seen one like it. Thoddun sat beside her, taking the reins. The dogs were barking, straining against their harness, and the sled sprang forwards. The previous day’s storm had dissipated but the gentle snow turned to gust, cut by speed. Thoddun was silent for some time. When he finally spoke, his words were muffled by the cold. “Although you feel belittled,” he said, gazing thoughtfully into the endless whipped white ahead, “perhaps you should be aware that I am here entirely for your protection. If I did not consider myself responsible for your safety, I would not even have remembered you when the tunnels collapsed. I had other more important concerns, which I abandoned, because of you. But I cannot always be singular in my intentions, and am not always as – human – as you might find comfortable.”

  Skarga sniffed. “You’re telling me I’m a nuisance.”

  He shrugged. “Of course you are. As the sea eagle, I’d see you as a shadow and a passing irrelevance. I would ignore you utterly. The sea-wolf might notice you, but only if very hungry, with no other more appetising creature on the horizon. The sea bear would track you and feed on you. You would be a small but acceptable meal, easily hunted and therefore convenient.” Thoddun loosened the reins, cracking them like a sudden snap of wind. The dogs quickened. “But as a man,” he continued, “even though you are not my woman, I hold myself bound to you. Because I saved your life and took you as my guest, and because the boy cares for you, I accept responsibility for your safety. That is all. Do not expect more of me. You are the beetle beneath my foot, but I’ll not bring down the boot nor squash you. Be thankful.”

  Through the long changeless monotony of the miles, Skarga finally slept. The world became small within the dark embrace of the bearskin, and the motion soothed her. Peeping out, the world was hardly larger, enclosed by the snow billowing towards her out of the black. It was not until they stopped that she jerked awake and sat up, confused. The sled stood, banked by snow, the dogs knee deep and panting. Thoddun leapt down and unharnessed them, releasing them into the night with a word. He returned then to stand looking up at Skarga, and she saw his smile.

  Skarga rubbed her eyes. “Have we arrived?”

  He shook his head, all golden snow spun tangles. “Not in the sense of being at any one place in particular.” After a moment he asked, “Are you hungry?” then added, “Of course you are. Do you think you can eat raw meat?”

  “I’ve never tried,” she said.

  He lifted her from the sled and put her down in the snow against its side, protected from the wind. Then he wrapped her in his cloak. He seemed quite unaffected by the increasing cold. “Keep your skirts away from the damp or you’ll be frozen to the ground,” he said, “and stamp your feet if they feel numb. I can make fire under some circumstances but not without fuel, so even if I catch food, I
won’t be able to cook it.”

  Skarga swallowed. “You’re going to hunt?”

  “I’ve already sent the dogs to look for seals on the ice floes,” he answered. “They can’t run forever with empty bellies. Stay here and don’t move for any reason. Three steps from the sled and you’d be lost. I’m unlikely to return soon.”

  He strode off quickly into the darkness, boots scrunching into the ice. With a sudden intense curiosity Skarga watched him go, but she saw nothing. Just a man disappearing into the night. She cuddled down with his cloak over her head and tried to think of something reassuring, or of nothing at all, which would be easier.

  But it was not easy. She was being taken to a place of strangers and strangeness, and without the hospitality of humanity nearby. Humanity had not always welcomed or befriended her in the past, but inhumanity would be worse. The behaviour of such shape-changing creatures as these was as yet unknown. She would surely be in danger, unwanted and lonely. Yet there appeared no alternative except death in the snow.

  Then suddenly she sat up, and for the first time knew she was truly frightened. The sound of deep breathing was very close. She shivered, staring around.

  The bear was not quite visible, as if it and the storm were combined. Its swaying elongated fur folded into the tumbling snow, white upon white, blurred into intangibility within the surrounding dark. A threat not entirely realised, but deeply sensed. The bear shambled, hesitant, unsure of the scents coming from the sled and the bearskin. Skarga knew, without a single doubt, that this was not Thoddun. This was a hunting, hungry bear and she represented only food. Thoddun had told her about the smell of fear. She would be sweetly perfumed then. But her smell, which she could not control, would be disguised by the threat of the transanima on her cloak and around the sled.