Dead Stars - Part Two (The Emaneska Series) (44 page)

What annoyed her the most was that he didn’t show a scrap of fear. Not for her, not for the wolves, not even for the bloody corpse lying skinned in the snow. He regarded the scene with a mild disinterest. Like a passing oddity.

Lilith marched right up to the odd man. She was forced to crane her neck to meet his nonchalant gaze. He was tall, nudging seven foot to her five, but he was thin as a sliver of willow. ‘Who are you?’

‘
Systrungur ert. Miknjil skegol
?’ came the reply, a whispering, tongue-waggling mess. Samara made a face and prodded the man hard in the stomach. It was only then that his polite little smile faded, and his yellow eyes grew stony. ‘
Bashna
,’ he said, so clipped and harsh now compared to moments before.

‘Where did you come from? Hmm? Did you come with him?’ Samara pointed at the dead mage behind her.

The man did not move. He just looked down at the girl and narrowed his eyes.

‘Answer me,’ she demanded. ‘Did you come on a ship? Are you following us? Are you with Farden and the rest?’ The questions came like pellets. ‘He’s a halfwit,’ spat Samara.

‘He’s a wanderin’ type,’ said Lilith. ‘Snowmad. Icetreader.’

‘I don’t give a shit what he is, Lilith. He must know something about the ship. Where else could he have come from?’

Lilith sighed impatiently. ‘They live on the deep ice, girl. Probably never even seen a ship in their lives. Come, let’s leave.’

Samara scowled at the man, hands itchy for fire and the knife at her belt. His yellow eyes were cool and stony now. They goaded her. Her fury had found an unwilling target. She pined to teach this snowmad a lesson in manners.
Take her blade and show it to his throat
, she thought to herself. See if those yellow eyes don’t drain white. Samara sneered and turned away.

‘
Veglold. Bik
,’ came the garbled reply. It sounded like a jibe, but she kept walking. Lilith met her halfway and then fell in behind her fuming strides.

‘He can count his lucky stars we’re in a rush…’ Lilith was saying, right before an enormous boom shook the frozen ground. The seer collapsed to her knees as a brittle shower of cold snow rained down.

Samara was frantically wiping the snow from her face. She blinked like a blinded owl, half-expecting to see a smoking crater where the snowmad had been standing. Instead, there was a big dragon standing in his place. Something pink oozed from under its front claws.

Samara raised her hands, ready to show the dragon what she was made of, but to her surprise, it bowed its head to the snow, its gnarled metallic scales clanking like armour. It even closed its eyes, showing complete deference.

Two more dragons dropped from the sky. They fell a little less dramatically, but still the ground rumbled and shook as their claws touched down. One was a dull, rusty red, the other a milky brown. Each had a bare-chested rider on their back, wrapped in ice-bear fur. Some bore scratches and missing scales. One had a missing eye and a burnt patch where it had once been. They too bowed, and waited for the final dragon to land.

It was slightly smaller than the others, ever-so-slightly. It was a charcoal black with red mottling. Its horns had been painted red. As it landed, its rider, a muscled man with a ridged and scaly scalp, jumped effortlessly from its back and ran across the snow towards them. He bowed, albeit very briefly, but his dragon did not. Samara kept her spells simmering in her hands, dying to be unleashed, and waited for the man to speak.

The man approached her confidently. Samara found herself frowning. He too was tall. She was beginning to get annoyed by tall people. ‘Here she is,’ he was saying. ‘And even younger than I had even imagined.’

Samara was about to spit something in reply when the man bent to one knee. It looked a foreign and odd movement for him, but somehow he pulled it off. ‘It is an honour to meet you, my lady. Your ancient friends have told me all about you.’

Samara was still wary. ‘Valefor?’

‘And Hokus, yes. I asked them to meet me, and we bargained,’ he said, somehow making such a meeting between a rider and a pair of daemons sound so casual.

Lilith had found her way to her feet. ‘Bargained? What for?’

The man shrugged. He answered her, but kept his eyes on Samara. ‘Our new home. Allegiance. The chance to prove ourselves. Not everyone on this rock prays to the gods. Quite the opposite, I hear.’ A toothy smile, full of far too many teeth for any one mouth, spread across this man’s face. Samara somehow found herself liking him. She crossed her ams, quenched her spells, and smiled.

‘Quite,’ she replied. ‘And you are?’

The man got up from his knee. ‘Saker, my lady. Lord of the North, master of Hjaussfen and the Castle of the Winds.’

‘Hjaussfen, the Siren capital?’ Lilith piped up again.

Saker flashed her a smug look. ‘Until recently.’

‘Not a very peaceful transition, was it?’ Samara said, nodding to the blood on his arm and the marks on his comrades, both rider and dragon.

Saker flashed a look to the skies. ‘It was, until we had some guests. Turned the Old Dragon loose and sent us on a wild wyrm chase north. Fortuitous, now that I have found you, but not finished. I shall bleed them ten different colours when I find them.’

‘Mages, right? These guests’ she muttered darkly.

‘Two.’

Samara glowered at the east. ‘Then we can bleed them both together. I’m starting a war,’ she said, not bothering to hide her pride.

Saker looked behind the girl, at the mighty fenrir and the strange-looking, middle-aged woman. ‘And that is why we are to accompany you. To the Spine, and to the roots of
Irminsul
. Where your destiny awaits.’

Samara clenched her fists and felt the magick make her legs shiver. She turned to the north and squinted at the black cliffs on the horizon. Something far behind them belched dark clouds. A tremble ran through her, and this time it wasn’t the magick. Anticipation. Worry. The ache to prove herself. It was all of those things. ‘Then let’s not waste any more time.’

‘Let us not, my young lady,’ Saker bowed again. The muscles in his bare arms flexed as he gestured to his dragons. ‘Dragon, or wolf?’

Samara smiled. ‘Dragon.’

“And yet another thing irks me about the Scribe, and has irked me ever since I came to the twin thrones. How exactly does he survive so much exposure to the mages’ books? The scholars haven’t a clue. Neither do the mages and instructors of the School. I damn well don’t. Neither does Åddren. It’s a mystery, and one that I will get to the bottom of, if I ever have any time to do so. This city already demands my every moment. Now this business with the stolen book, and this reprobate Farden. It is irksome indeed.”

Excerpt from Arkmage Helyard’s diary, found after his death in 889

T
he snow was merciless. The ship had grown a second skin of it. On the masts, on the railings, on the deck, on the hatches, on the steps, on heads, on shoulders, on feet, on faces… the snow sought to drown it all under its deceptively pure blanket.

Farden was helping some of the other mages and crew clear the
‘Blade
’s deck. It was an unfulfilling job. The trails that the brooms and heat spells carved were turned white again within minutes. It was more to stave off the boredom than anything else. Something to distract from the constant shudder and crash of the splitting ice. Not many of them had slept through such clamour.

‘What a bastard,’ Roiks muttered to himself as he sauntered past Farden. He had been idly writing his name across the port side in the snow, challenging it to see how fast he could spell it out without the first letter disappearing. Farden smirked, wondering if he could be bothered to join in. He was desperately tired. He had spent most of the night staring at the Grimsayer, staring at this Korrin and his lost armour. It had been worth the lack of sleep.

The only mercy was the wind. Although it whipped the snow up into a vigourous frenzy, it gave the sails something to grasp at. It had also given the whales a welcome break from pushing. The
Waveblade
was now barging through the ice on her own terms.

‘Two degrees to port!’ came another yell from the bow. There was a communal clenching of fists and jaws across the deck as the ship lurched awkwardly to the left. A dull boom rang out, and Nuka could be heard cursing on the aftcastle. The ice was getting thicker by the hour. Nobody wanted to admit it, but they were slowing down. The
Waveblade
was struggling.

‘Njord’s balls,’ Roiks muttered again, only getting as far as the
i
of his name before the snow covered it. ‘Give me seapspray and mermaids any day, mates, not this frozen shit this sky is givin’ us.’

‘Thought we’d all be used to it now, after the Long Winter.’

Roiks winked. ‘Weren’t no Long Winter for me, mage. I spent most of it sailing up and down the Paraian cost. Spice ship. Bloody Long Vacation, I call it,’ he chuckled, absently trying his name again. This time he almost got to the
k
before the snow foiled it. ‘Here. You try,’ Roiks challenged the mage.

Farden shrugged and dug his broom into the slush. Its bristles hissed against the smooth wood of the deck below, leaving brown streaks. He spelt the letters with deft little strokes, as if it were a sword carving through a blanket. He finished and nodded at his quickly disappearing efforts.

Roiks was scratching his head through his hood. ‘Fine and well,
Farden
, but who’s Korrin?’

Farden looked down at the letters he had scraped. The snow had already seen to the first three. The other half were quickly fading. ‘Er…’ he began. He never got a chance to conjure up an excuse.

‘Hard to starboard!’ came the shout from the bow.

‘Grab something!’ Roiks bellowed instinctively as he grabbed the nearest rope.

Those who had heard were fine. Those who hadn’t sprawled in the snow as the ship lurched into the air at a rather disturbing angle, and then came down hard on the ice. Ears perked up, waiting for the telltale crack of the ice giving way under the heavy weight of the iron bow. And still they waited. Nothing. The ice refused to budge.

Swearing floated down from the aftcastle.

‘Think we’re in trouble,’ mumbled Roiks, as he helped another sailor to his feet. The man rubbed a sore nose, and agreed.

‘Sounds like we’re stuck,’ he said.

Farden left his broom on the deck. ‘Sounds exactly like that,’ he replied, walking to the bow. A few Written had gathered around the bowsprit. A few well-placed fireballs plunged into the ice, but still nothing budged. Farden excused his way to the front so he could take a look.

Waveblade
was stuck fast. The ice had bunched up like paper slid too fast across a desk, concertinaed into slabs each as thick as a banquet table. They were all slanted and jumbled at a crazy angle, and not one of them looked like it was ready to move. The north had become obdurate.

It took almost half an hour for the orca to break and nudge the ship free, and then another half an hour to push it back to a reasonable distance. With the mages pelting the ice with spells from afar, Nuka ordered the whales to drive the ship forward once again, this time at a different angle. The whales pushed and the wind mages blew, and the ‘
Blade
lurched forward almost as quick as it had escaping the Bitches.

All they got for their troubles was about ten feet. Maybe less. The ice crumpled up again and brought the ship to a sickening halt. The wood of her hull groaned for a full minute after the impact. Nuka even sent men below to check for leaks.

It didn’t take long for the rest of the crew and the passengers to come gawp at their situation. Farden was still at the bow, holding court with Nuka, Tyrfing, and Eyrum as they discussed their options.

‘What options?’ Eyrum shrugged. ‘I see very few.’

Nuka shook his head. ‘Few? I see one.’

Tyrfing’s throat was too raw to speak. He let Farden do it for him. ‘And what’s that?’ asked Farden.

‘It will take too long to turn her,’ Nuka said, firmly, ‘and too long to find another path. This is where my ship stops.’

‘I thought you’d never ask,’ said Farden. He cleared his throat and spoke a little louder. ‘We go north then.’

It took an hour to turn the ship inside out. The white ice clasping the ship began to catch a rash, a rash of dark blankets and boxes, of crates and bags, people and feet. The cracks in the ice hissed and moaned as its unspoilt surface was unceremoniously disturbed.

The rash spread outwards from the ship as the supplies kept coming. Ladders were propped up. Ropes trailed. Sledges constructed. Mages forced poles for lanterns into the ice, and lit braziers to keep the others warm. People took to walking around the ship, testing the splintered edges of the ‘
Blade
’s path, staring into the ink-blue water below and at the whales that cavorted there. Some of the children even had the nerve to make a game of sliding pots and pans into each other. The ice, given a voice, would have surely shouted at them to desist, and for the rash to retreat aboard its vessel. As it was, it had to be content with its creakings and grumblings, and being largely ignored.