In The Grip Of Old Winter (35 page)

Peter didn’t dare let her out
of his sight as his hand scrabbled over the floor. The seal-amulet must be
close.

The spae-wife came at him
again, hovered just out of reach as the staff swung past her in a wild arc and
then she dropped onto his shoulder, her legs extended, the claws ripping
through the first layer of his anorak to find a hold.

Peter screamed and rolled
onto the floor to tear her loose. A sharp pain, like needles that pierced skin,
pricked his ear as the spae-wife bit. He slammed his shoulder into the floor,
rolled again, smacked the staff close to where he thought she clung and when he
crawled onto all fours, she stood upon the floor, legs spread and arched like a
spider’s, the vicious face jerking left, right, up, down as she hunted for a
new way to attack.

She launched upwards into
flight and rose high above Peter’s head, where she hovered, her legs folded
close to her body.

Peter reared up onto his
knees, took hold of the end of the staff with both hands, ready to swing its
full length with greater force.

She dropped out of the air
straight at him, but as he swung the staff, she changed direction, swerved and
landed on Leonor’s face.

Bear yelled. “The
seal-amulet, Peter.”

It lay on the floor, a body’s
length from where he knelt, but unbalanced from the force of his swing, he
twisted and dropped onto his side.

Another, louder yell, full of
rage and Wulfwyn leapt towards Leonor, knelt and skidded. A cloud of dry earth
spattered Peter’s face.

Wulfwyn gripped the spae-wife’s
wings between his finger and thumb and pulled her off Leonor’s face. Specks of
blood bubbled where the spae-wife’s claws ripped her white skin.

The spae-wife writhed and
coiled and her teeth snapped and then she arched her abdomen back and up and with
a sharp jab, buried her sting into Wulfwyn’s hand.

He let go with a loud yelp
and the spae-wife landed on Leonor’s chest, where she closed her wings and
scampered with terrible speed straight towards the girl’s open mouth.

Peter dived for the
seal-amulet, gripped its chain with his fingers and dragged it across the
floor. He fumbled with the links, desperate to be quick and at last slipped them
over his head.

His vision blurred and
everything that moved, slowed. The skin-walkers sang and their notes sounded
strong and high and pure.

It’s like being underwater
in the swimming pool at school.
Where
some sounds stayed clear, but others became muffled and to move through the
water took effort, as every action needed double the strength for half the
speed.

He looked down upon the room
as if he floated in the air up by the rafters. Another new sensation that he’d
never experienced with the seal-amulet before. The skin-walkers’ song with its
pitch perfect notes swirled their perfect harmonies to hold him up, like strong
arms that gave support.

The spae-wife’s arched legs
pumped up and down as she approached Leonor’s mouth. Each rise and fall clear,
distinct and slow. Wulfwyn fell, every speck of dirt, or strand of loose hair
visible in their trajectory, as some moved faster and others slower than the
outlaw.

The seal-amulet glowed bright
red and the silver marks revolved in opposite directions. Peter didn’t panic.
He needed to stop the spae-wife. Secure that the right mark must appear and in
time, he shut his eyes.

The memory of his dream when
he slept by the skin-walkers fire flashed in broken pictures before his mind’s
eye, of starlight and planets and dust trails left by comets. One picture, of a
giant gas cloud of many colours, folded and revolved until it revealed two
white mountain peaks, one high, one low with their mirror image repeated
underneath and upside down. The skin-walkers’ song never ceased and a thousand
stars glittered as if they sang, too.

Peter opened his eyes. The
spae-wife’s front legs probed Leonor’s mouth and her head lowered as she
prepared to squeeze inside. Wulfwyn still fell, his position almost unchanged
from the last time Peter looked.

The picture in his head
appeared as a silver mark in the seal-amulet’s centre. The skin-walkers’ song changed
to a higher pitch and Peter revolved his right wrist and snapped his fingers.
He knew this to be the correct action for the mark, though he didn’t know why.

Ice formed in sheets of
crystal over Leonor’s body. A thin layer first, transparent, just frozen, with
water bubbles that shifted up and down as Leonor breathed. Then thicker, the
transparency lost, a milk-white sheen laced with deeper harder blues.

The spae-wife stung the ice
with ferocious jabs. Her claws beat upon its hard surface. As the ice thickened
and expanded, it forced her off Leonor’s mouth. She flapped hard to keep from
slipping and then, with a jump, took flight.

Wulfwyn fell, vulnerable to
any unexpected attack. The spae-wife dodged his arms that flailed in a slow but
wild attempt to break his fall and with her legs extended, she landed on his
cheek and dug her claws into his skin.

***

Peter revolved his wrist and
snapped his fingers again. Wulfwyn’s body juddered as the ice formed over him
from his feet to his head and he froze in a sitting position, as if a chair had
just been pulled out from underneath him.

Forced off by the ice, the
spae-wife took flight. A different silver mark shone bright on the seal-amulet.
The skin-walkers hummed a deeper note. This time Peter didn’t need to shut his
eyes to see the images from his dream. They appeared in his head, clear and
bright. He imagined his body split in two, or perhaps his mind separated from
his physical self. Whichever way, the sensation that he moved through two
different places at the same time and that he had this ability, enveloped him
with a comfortable glow of well-being and a deep awareness that somewhere a
power waited to be unleashed, like a lion’s tense stillness before it attacks,
and that he might be the one to set it free. Where this might be or how he
might find it eluded his grasp, but it crouched at the edges of his memory as
if it might reveal itself at any moment.

The spae-wife flew from
Wulfwyn to Leonor and back again. A furious scowl contorted her face and she brandished
her sting as if she meant to stab anything and everything.

The picture in Peter’s head
formed. Five lines of horizontal dots, five dots deep.  The same image appeared
in the centre of the seal-amulet. He placed the tip of his middle finger onto
the ball of his thumb and then straightened his other three fingers. He flicked
his wrist towards the spae-wife.

Rods of silver rain shot
straight at her. Time, as changed by the skin-walkers’ song, moved much slower,
yet the spae-wife, alert to the danger, swerved to avoid the rods and watched
as they hammered into the ground and hardened to form a cage with silver bars.

Her wings flapped harder and
her speed increased as she flew up and out of the room, into the passage and
towards the hallway. The skin-walkers’ song changed to a higher harmony.

Bear spoke and his voice
sounded close to Peter. “Quick! We must follow. She means to escape.”

Time returned to its regular
pace, though to Peter the effect resulted in a sudden rush of speed and he
didn’t know if he flew down from the rafters or if he’d been sitting on the
ground from the moment the skin-walkers’ song began and only imagined that he
floated.

Leonor and Wulfwyn, their
forms just visible, though blurred - one a flat block of ice, the other an odd
mound shaped like an iceberg, might be trapped in cold tombs, frozen for all
time.

The skin-walkers arch of
flame went out in a cascade of orange sparks. One skin-walker stepped forward
and their robe slipped to the ground. Eagle took flight and flew after the spae-wife.

Bear strode across to where
Peter sat. “You have done well. Leonor is safe and Wulfwyn saved.”

Peter stood. “The spae-wife
stung Wulfwyn. Will he be poisoned?”

“Not while the ice holds his
body between life and death.”

Peter took hold of the seal-amulet.
It glowed red, though no marks shone bright.

Bear placed a hand on Peter’s
shoulder. “We have work to do.” He hurried towards the passage with Peter at
his side. “The spae-wife believes that she can slip from the chase and hide
from our eyes, as she did before. Her fury will be terrible when she discovers
that Fox and Snake have sealed off her chance to escape.”

Peter glanced back at Wulfwyn
and Leonor. It didn’t seem right to leave them trapped in such cold, but they
all needed Bear’s help, so perhaps their wait might not be for long. The other
skin-walkers closed in behind him and he lost sight of the two ice-bound
figures.

“The spae-wife will try to
return to your time,” Bear said. “As she did before and hide there. The charms
we cast to hold her captive upon this land served with less potency in your
time, for with the passing of so many seasons their strength soon diminished
and their power dissolved. We mean to hold her here, though she will fight hard
to repel our arts.”

They stepped out of the manor
and into daylight. The skin-walkers fire blazed in silence.

Peter pointed. “The barghest
has gone.” Beyond the fire, the sideboard and the stepladder now lay apart.
“The carrier too. Has the spae-wife brought them back to life?”

Bear faced the trees. “No,
neither died, though they lay as dead without breath or thought. Inside her
host, the spae-wife commanded them, bound them to that host with the
seal-amulet’s charms. She used their wills, but she did not have their lives.
The seal-amulet dropped. The host is gone, the spae-wife revealed, those bound
to that host are free.”

Peter peered into the trees.
“They still might attack. She might get inside one of their heads.”

“She might,” said Bear.
“Though loosed from her will, I expect them to flee. That is why the carrier
gave you the seal-amulet. He wanted you to break the bonds that served her
purpose. He needed to be free of her before she awoke and walked once more. She
used the seal-amulet to enslave him and, whilst she stayed in her weakened
state, he needed to find another who understood its charms to rescue him from
thraldom.”

Eagle circled above the
trees. He called once, harsh and high and then swooped down to where they stood
and landed. A skin-walker handed him his robe.

“She is at the charred
branch,” said Bear. “We must prepare.” He stepped towards the fire and the
skin-walkers took up their positions, each an even space from the other.

“It is many seasons since we
all stood together,” said Bear. “It is many seasons since our arts worked as one.
Let us join. Release this land from the one that causes it so much hurt.”

Their arms rose and each
skin-walker sang a long high note that shifted with subtle changes until they
all sang the same note and the sound filled the air, so that Peter imagined
that he breathed their song, that it beat upon his head and pressed against his
chest. It comforted, yet under its calm, anger threatened.

With a loud
whoosh
,
the fire burned with its familiar roar and the scent of burning wood and the
hiss
of bubbling sap erupted as if they’d been released from a jar. The heat melted
the snow in a wide circle.

Peter stayed close to Bear,
uncertain what to do, the seal-amulet gripped in one hand and the staff in the
other.

The skin-walkers’ song
deepened, the melody softened and Peter’s feet tingled as the ground trembled.
The fire’s heart turned from orange to white and the sparks that rose high
above its tip didn’t go out and drift to the ground in trails of white ash, but
floated, joined one to another until they formed a red and orange cloud.

The spae-wife appeared
between the trees. She flew fast and dodged one trunk and then another, her
mouth open, so that Peter imagined she shrieked, but he didn’t hear it above
the fire’s noise.

Bear’s voice emerged from the
skin-walkers’ song. “Stay still, Peter. We will protect you from harm. We need
you to draw her close.”

Peter let go of the seal-amulet
and took hold of the staff with both hands. He didn’t want to be used as bait.
It scared him that the spae-wife might be quicker than the skin-walkers.

She emerged from the trees
and flew high. In daylight her body shone, hard and black, like polished stone.
The curved sting tapered to such a thin sharp point.

She dived and Peter yelled.
“She’s coming.”

The fire pulsed with a sudden
blast of heat. The cloud of sparks streamed towards her and coiled round and
round, like a spring that is stretched or a cardboard tube as it unravels.

The spae-wife folded her
wings and dropped even faster and the first coil of sparks shot past her and their
fire went out and they disintegrated into ash.

Peter raised the staff to
protect his face. The spae-wife dropped on to the staff’s curved top and dug
her claws into its hard wood. He let go with the hand nearest to where she
clung and rammed the staff into the ground to dislodge her, but he didn’t shake
her off.