In the Shadow of the Gods (14 page)

She went to wake Aro, and smashed a window open with the big blue gem set into the dagger's pommel. They climbed out of the window into a moonless night, and ran.

V
alastaastad seemed to hang in the empty air. A floating island held up by a broken cliff of stone and ice—a jagged arm of the Faltiik Mountains, reaching out to cup the clan-home in its palm. It was like something out of the fairy tales Mora the cook had sometimes told him and Brennon when they were younger. Valastaastad would be the home of an evil ice-giant who, through ancient magics, had raised his fortress high above the earth so that no one could rescue the princess he had stolen. For a brief, sweet moment Scal could imagine himself as the avenging warrior in shiny clothes, come to scale the impossible heights and free the beautiful princess.

Then a ragged cheer went up from the Northmen, and Einas leered at him, rotten teeth thrust out from his matted beard. The moment broke. If anything, Scal was the princess who had been captured by the foul ice-giants. It was a dampening thought.

“Welcome to your home,” Iveran said. Beneath the shaggy
yellow beard, his cheeks were bright and a smile stretched his lips.

Scal shook his head. “You burned my home.”

“That was no home for no one,
ijka
. Just a prison. For you especially.”

One of Scal's former jailors, Uisbure, threw his arms wide. “Breathe the freedom!”

Iveran nodded wisely, drew in a deep breath. “You will see one day,” he said to Scal. “Soon, I hope. That is all this is. Us setting you free. You will see,
ijka
.”

Scal shook his head and, out of pure stubbornness, held his breath for as long as he could, until spots danced at the edges of his vision and his feet stumbled on the crunching snow. Iveran was there to steady him, grinning, as his lungs reflexively filled themselves.

“You understand,” Iveran said.

Scal had used every way he knew of telling the man he would never understand. Never accept. He just shook his head and stared at the ground, refusing to look as they drew nearer to his prison.

He could not help but look, though, when they came to the solid wall of ice.

Staring straight up, the cliff dwindled away to blend almost perfectly with the grim sky. And hovering between the icy peak and Scal's craned neck was Valastaastad. Not floating in the sky, but built on a shelf of ice that hung out dangerously far into the open air. It must have been at least a dozen lengths up to it, and the shelf looked no more than a few lengths thick, with houses clustered all along it. Scal could not help gaping. It was a mind-bogglingly stupid place to build a village.

“Impressive, eh?” Iveran said, grinning.

Scal shook his head, groping for the right words to describe just how foolish it was. “The ice will break,” he said. “It is a miracle it has not already. The whole shelf will crumble away.”

A full-bellied laugh boiled up out of Iveran's throat. “Have some faith,
ijka
! Valastaastad has stood such for five generations. We may have thick skulls”—he rapped his knuckles sharply against the forehead of a passing Northman, who grinned in return—“but the ice is thicker.”

Scal shook his head in mute denial, but Iveran and the others were already moving away, tramping under the ice shelf. The dogs raced ahead, barking eagerly. The sledges jouncing dangerously across the rough ground. The dog handlers racing alongside and laughing with the joy of it. Only Uisbure remained, bushy eyebrows raised high. He held a long spear in one gloved hand, its tip glimmering like a fallen star as he waved it toward the backs of the clan. Scal hunched his shoulders, fixed his eyes on the ice, and set his feet one before the other. Into the wide pool of shadow cast by the ice shelf. Trying not to think about the weight of ice above him. Wishing it were more so it would crumble and fall. Wishing it were less so that it would not crush him so bad when it did fall.

He ached still, from the beating two days ago. Each breath sent jabs of pain through his chest, from the bruises and a few cracked ribs. He had to breathe heavily through his mouth, his nose broken and useless. With every breath he could hear a strange, faint whistling noise. It had taken him a while to understand that: the ragged edges of his new convict's cross were starting to knit on their own, but his tongue could not
leave the bloody edges alone, keeping the
X
in his cheek open enough for the wind to whistle through.

His legs felt like the bones had been replaced with fire-fresh iron pokers, burning with every step. They let him walk, at least. Pain was better than the shame of being carried like a trussed pig.
Pride is a fool's refuge,
Kerrus whispered at the back of his mind, and his body wanted to agree. But he would not give Iveran the satisfaction. The cold was starting to seep into his skin, too, and he walked hunched over with his arms wrapped futilely around his chest to hold the heat in. To hold himself together. The rest of the Northmen had thick furs to fight off the cold, and even their cheeks were rosy. None of them had offered him anything warmer than his own clothes. He was not about to ask for any.
We endure,
Kerrus had said.
Sometimes just getting by is a great accomplishment.

“Hey-o!” Iveran's voice carried across the ice in ripples, bouncing off the cliff walls, the ice ceiling. His white-gloved hands were cupped around his mouth, his head tilted back as he shouted into the air.
“Riikar drith,”
he called, the sound of the words unfamiliar to Scal's ears. Not the Northern tongue at all.

Scal tilted his head up as well, confused, just as a wood-and-rope ladder tumbled through the air.

The men all stepped back, clearing space as the falling end of the ladder clattered to the ice. Another joined. And another. Six in total, draped in a neat half circle wider than three men could spread their arms. Gaping up, Scal finally saw it. A hole cut into the ice far above, the ladders dangling and, dimly seen, a score of faces peering down.

Ropes followed, and the sledge men set about unhitching
their dogs from the cargo and stringing the snarling beasts up by the ropes instead. Scal watched in a mix of horror and amazement as the dogs were lifted into the open air. Wailing and snarling and thrashing, feet clawing desperately at nothing, twisting to try to bite the ropes. Moving up span by jerking span, terrified yowling voices bouncing from the walls and echoing down until they disappeared over the lip of the distant hole.

The ropes dropped back down, and they did it over again.

Scal's jaw ached from clenching his teeth, his head pounding with the sound of blind dog-fear. The Northmen were just starting on the sledges when Uisbure nudged Scal with the butt of his spear, then pointed to the hanging ladders. Men were beginning to make the slow climb. Scal's stomach sank at the thought of dangling in the air like one of those dogs. Blown around by the uncaring wind. Fear aside, his fingers were cold and stiff, and he was not sure they would be able to grip the wooden slats. That his legs could make such a swaying, upward climb.

Uisbure poked him with the spear again. “Up,” he said, and his eyes darkened when Scal shook his head. Uisbure's mouth was hidden behind his thick beard, but Scal did not need to see the frown to know it was there. “Go, boy,” he growled.

Scal stood perfectly still, arms wrapped miserably around himself, and shook his head again.
Stand behind your decisions; if you won't defend yourself, no one else will.

His ears rang and spots danced before his eyes; he did not realize Uisbure had hit him until the man's hand was already back at his side. Blood filled Scal's mouth. The prisoner's cross, broken open once more. Uisbure's face was no kinder, but there
was a hint of something in his voice—reason? sympathy?—as he said, “I am telling you, boy. You do not want to make this hard for you.”

There was sense in that. In choosing the easy path. Close his eyes and climb the ladder, fingers gripping cold, and give himself into this new life. Stick his head up through the ice-cut hole and smile at all the faces so like his own. Cheer and laugh and celebrate homecoming. Belong.

Gingerly, Scal bent his legs and sat in the snow at Uisbure's feet. He should have felt the cold seep into him, but he did not. It was beyond his concern. Uisbure kicked him, but he sat stern and solid. Belong? No. Never.

Three Northmen joined Uisbure, and the four of them hefted the boy and hauled him toward the ladders. A smile tugged at the corners of Scal's mouth. Did they think they could make him climb? Foolishness. But they did not set him by the ladders. They set him by the last sledge, by the empty dangling ropes. Three of them held him still, so by the time Uisbure began looping the rope around his chest and he thought to struggle, it was too late. They tied him as they had tied the dogs, a rough harness of scratching rope, and tied his hands as well. The rope tightened around his chest, and the Northmen released him, and he began to rise into the air.

Rope dug into his shoulders and his chest, scraping painfully as he was lifted. Iveran looked up and laughed as Scal rose slowly above them span by span, and soon the rest were laughing as well. Scal, raised like a dog into Valastaastad.

Panic did not take long. The Northmen grew smaller, the ropes dug deeper. His breath wheezed through his teeth and the prisoner's cross. He twisted and kicked, aching for the
solid feel of ground beneath his feet. His hands fluttered uselessly behind his back, denied even the dogs' scared scrabbling comfort.

There was a small noise, almost lost in his terror. A creaking, a protest, a strained groan. The sound of a rope harness made to hold the weight of a dog. Not a man. Not even a boy.

High above the Northmen, still laughing. High enough that he would break when he fell. Shatter into pieces like a block of ice. He would fall, and he would die. He knew he must stay still, keep the rope from weakening.
Fear is natural,
Parro Kerrus had said,
but so is pissing yourself. A man must learn to control both.
But Scal's fear was a wild thing. He flailed and howled, like a dog, and the rope wailed with him.

Fingers touched his skull. A hand, wrapped through his hair, hauling up. Hands on his shoulder, under the ropes, pulling. Thrown limp, landing with ice beneath his back, a desperate joyous sob rising in his throat. They laughed at him, too, a ring of broad blond faces staring down. He did not care. There was solid ground beneath him. No matter that it was a sheet of ice hanging high above the real ground. For now, it was enough.

Scal kicked out as he woke from his dreams, and was rewarded
with a sharp yelp of pain. A smile with no joy tugged at his mouth. The dogs had been bothering at him all night, trying to steal his boots. They still smelled of the animal they had come from, no doubt. Kerrus had glowed when he had given them to Scal. Good boots were a luxury in Aardanel, new boots even more so.

The kicked dog slunk away growling, eyes fixed on Scal.
The others were watching him, too, the whole pack. A mixture of hatred and terror and hunger. One snarled as he met its eyes, baring its sharp teeth. The rest soon joined in, and the kennels were full of a barking and howling and snapping bedlam. Scal sat in his corner, and endured.

A fist pounded against the wall of the kennel, a rough voice yelling fury. The dogs' anger changed to fear, their crying bouncing around the kennel until it subsided to whimpers and a few growls, and the pounding stopped.

It had been Iveran's idea. The Northmen of Valastaastad had kept a close eye on Scal after hauling him up through the hole, though he had had no intention of moving. Then the chief had loomed over him, humor and anger and disgust and disappointment all playing over his face as he looked down at Scal. “You have much to learn,
ijka,
” he had said. “My dogs may teach you more lessons.” He had turned away then, and a group of Northmen had dragged Scal away. Thrown him into the kennels with the dogs. It was a long low stone building, not unlike the other buildings in Valastaastad he had glimpsed, although built to an animal's stature. A small open doorway in each wall so the dogs could come and go freely. A fence, twice the height of the biggest dog, circling the kennel to keep them from running off. Scal had huddled against the fence, watching the dogs watch him with wary eyes. Watching as they had fought and played. Watching as Paavo Dogmaster had fed them, as they had fought for the best scraps. Watching as one hulking brute of a dog had torn out the throat of another that had come too close to its food. Paavo had laughed at that, and laughed more as the dogs had crept forward to pick at the body of their dead fellow.

It had grown cold, though. There had always been fire in Aardanel, and even on patrols with Athasar there had been campfires. Scal had known cold—the chill, biting cold that crept up on toes and fingers and cheeks. He had known it, and never been much bothered by it. But that had not been real cold. Not the cold of the true North, the cold that blew pitilessly off the Faltiik Mountains. This cold was brutal, merciless. It crept through the cracks and hunted down any hint of warmth. Smothered it. There was no withstanding it. Scal, in tunic and breeches, had crept freezing into the kennels, ignoring the growls that challenged him. Found an empty corner and claimed it. The dogs' breath misted in the air as they watched him all through the night. He had stayed there, having nowhere else to go. Not wanting to lose the space he had claimed. Listened to the cold whistle through his cheek.

His stomach rumbled, though. He had refused most of the food Uisbure had tried to give him on the journey, and he had been offered none since being thrown into the kennels. He had known hunger in Aardanel. It had been a constant thing, as familiar as Brennon's smile. He had lived with the faint gnawing hunger, and survived. But this hunger . . . it was like a live thing. Curled up in his empty belly. Fingers clawing at the insides of its prison, leaving deep aching gouges. Howling and snarling like the dogs, loud enough they growled in return. Leaving him weak and slow and shaking.