The Anvil of Ice (26 page)

"Or even the flesh on our bones," said Elof dourly. "So I read their taunts. Thus the Ekwesh drag us down to their level."

"And yet there is food all around them, for the hunting. But I will not risk staying to teach them the skill." He gave a wry laugh. "The Raven may have been kinder than you knew. There will be little enough traffic moving on the roads this year, even inland, if this is the rule."

Elof nodded. "I might have starved even as they do. I wish I could help them!"

"Rid them of the Ekwesh, then. For without that all lesser help is meaningless."

They slept in trees that night, and after, to put off any pursuers. But the day after that, as the road curved well away from the sea, they came to Tensborg, another and much larger town that had not been attacked or overwhelmed by fugitives, and found that though there was little food to spare there were horses in plenty, kept for the Sothran traders who had not yet come this year. They bought two decent mounts at small cost, and thereafter made good time northward. For a month they rode up the High roads along the coast, seeing the northern countryside alter gradually around them. As the roads turned inland, skirting a hilly region, they entered a changing woodland. The high redwoods and bristlecone pines became fewer; hemlocks, oaks, firs and spruces took their places, and the smaller dawn redwoods. The undergrowth, too, grew thinner; the high sword ferns disappeared, the anemones and rose rhododendrons, with their brilliant blooms, became gradually smaller and paler and finally all but vanished. But as the roads neared the sea once more, the woodlands themselves vanished among low hills topped with scrubby grass, and in the dunes only verbena and sea lavender showed bright. It was around the sea's margin that they saw yet more of the havoc the Ekwesh wrought among the little towns. "Always by the sea!" said Kermorvan coldly. "For the Ekwesh are not great horsemen, and have not mastered the act of fighting on horseback—you need proper stirrups for that! So they bring no horses with them, and will not roam far from their ships lest they be cut off."

Elof looked to the east, where rolling hills rich with grass and little patches of woodland stretched away into the dim distance. This was the country he had grown up in; he could not be so very far south of Asenby here. Yet it felt not in the least like home… "So the inland towns are safe?"

"No! Though they think they are, here and in the south. When those barbarians meet no resistance they will surely move further and further from their ships, bring or capture horses—oh, I have tried to tell so many men that, traders and farmers and fat little burgesses. And where has it got me? They don't
want
to believe! The Ekwesh are another man's problem, never theirs."

"But if it is the Mastersmith who drives them on, then besting him—"

The swordsman shook his head. "It may save the situation for a while, but not forever. He merely seizes his advantage, exploiting what his masters have already prepared, long before you forged that blade. Without him the Ekwesh would simply go on as they have been doing, and sooner or later they would have struck at the south. Other, stronger forces drive their empire on, and whether it is in our or any man's hands to best then, I do not know."

At length they came to a region where high hills and deep inlets blocked the coast way, and the roads turned away inland. Here they were in much worse repair, and the going was slower; it was weeks more before the trav-elers reached the feet of the mountains, and high summer blazed down upon them. It was the best and safest time to venture into the mountains, but as they did not mean to go by the well-trodden roads, or stay within the usual passes, the horses would be no use. They sold them at a little town Elof remembered from his first wanderings as reasonably honest, and with the proceeds bought food. But Elof held back a few coins to treat with the town smith for metal and the use of the forge. He took two strong staves and shod them with metal spikes and heavy beaked heads so well crafted that the smith suspected a plan to discredit him, and had to be persuaded otherwise at the point of Elof's blade. "At least that master of mine gave me some skill in the mountains! Picks like these may save our lives on the high slopes."

Kermorvan cocked an eyebrow at the fuming smith. "Then let us put them to the test at once! There is no safe bed for us here now, in any case. The mountains must provide!"

They slept that night in a small wood as they often did, a league or so above the town. But just as the moon was sinking they were rudely awakened by a sharp scuffling at their roof of branches, and springing up they found themselves face to muzzle with a vast bear. It sprang back at their sudden yells, and they had time to draw their swords. Moaning in anger, it reared up on its hind legs, twice as tall as Kermorvan, and cuffed its huge paws at them. The swordsman grabbed his pack and drew out his mailcoat, trailing it like a net ready to tangle its claws. But seeing them stand their ground the bear ducked down with a gruff snort and went crashing off into the wood. Kermorvan shivered. "I thought we would be safe, as we have been till now. Most beasts will flee a sleeping man, or ignore him."

"Indeed," mused Elof. "The smaller bears may be savage on occasion, but the giant breed who winter in the caves rarely eat meat, even carrion. What made him so aggressive?"

"Bears were ever fickle in their ways," shrugged Kermorvan. "Well, let us rebuild our shelter, and take turns on watch. I will take first turn, till moonset."

Elof nodded, but was silent. It seemed strange to him, that attack, like the symptom of some hidden sickness in the woods. He rolled in his cloak, now cool and unwelcoming, and did his best to sleep. But all through the next days, as they climbed through the steep hillside forests, the image of illness kept coming back to him, in the blighted trees, the weird phosphorescent fungus growths on the dead stumps, the huge patches of poison ivy that seemed to spring up at every turn. Vines and parasites trailed rootlets round their necks, creeps caught their ankles, thorns snagged their clothes and pricked their skins. Things of small moment, perhaps, but they were matched by the behavior of the beasts. More than once the travelers had to leap back as bronzen snakes struck rattling at their legs instead of slithering to escape. Kermorvan, gazing up at a strange sound in a twilit tree, almost lost an eye to a great horned owl that swooped upon him and was only with difficulty thrashed away. In the heat of the noon, flies came droning down the slanting sunbeams and would not let them rest an instant; toward evening the bloodsuckers hung about them in a whining cloud. All usual enough in woodlands, but not in such intensity. It seemed to Elof that some change, subtle and sinister, was taking place in the woodlands he had once roamed through on the Mastersmith's expeditions. All too often the blood-freezing yell of haunting daggertooth would send them hurrying on with drawn swords.

"How many of the brutes can there be?" panted Kermorvan. "So many in this small area would surely strip it of game in a week! Or is one persistent animal hunting us?"

Elof shrugged. They slept in a tree that night, lashing themselves to the boughs with the morse-hide ropes they had brought from the ship. Elof lay awake long on his perch, though it was not too uncomfortable, staring up at the pale glimmer over the mountains, at the edge of the night. He thought of the pent-up power it reflected. Was the spreading sickness, the new hostility of the wood, yet another kind of reflection? A chill breeze crept through his cloak; he shivered, and looked away. But before he was wholly asleep he heard a soft pattering on the leaves over his head, and great round drops came trickling down onto his face. He groaned, but there was no risking a shelter on the ground now; he would have to suffer the rain where he was.

The lower woodlands were hard enough to endure, but as they neared the higher slopes worse was to come. They had long since exhausted the food they carried, and it was chiefly Kermorvan's skill at trapping that kept them alive; they could find little enough game to hunt. "I almost wish that daggertooth would come after us now!" muttered Elof, worrying at the flesh of a small shrew-thing. "We might see what his steaks taste like!"

"He could hardly be any tougher," agreed Kermorvan, thrusting his portion back over the little fire to cook further. Then he sprang to his feet, overturning the meat, stamped the flames to embers and whipped out his sword. "
Hau yma!"
he whispered. "
What moves?"

Faintly Elof heard it at first, a low soft crackle, the sudden burst of a dead branch on the forest floor, bushes rustling as they were thrust aside. Something was moving indeed in the twilight, something slow but heavy. And yet there seemed to be no rhythm in the sound, no separate footfalls.

"It's… slithering…"he whispered.

"Aye…" muttered Kermorvan, and then suddenly he thrust himself sideways into Elof, slamming them both into the weeds behind the bole of a great tree. "Climb!" he hissed, and sprang for a lower branch, while Elof was still trying to collect his wits. Kermorvan saw him stagger up, and swung back down to reach out a hand, just in time. There was a sudden loud smashing in the bushes, and with a rush something huge came sliding and slithering into the little ring of bushes. Gasping, they hung there in the tree, Elof slung precariously between the branch and Kermorvan's hand. From where they were they could not see what had come at them, until there was a loud rasping sniff and it moved forward. Then a great dark flank slid into view. It rested on the ground like a serpent, but it was larger by far than any serpent they had ever seen, and a short stubby leg protruded from it. A long-clawed foot crunched down on the embers of their fire, and there was another loud sniffing sound, a rustle as of scaly skin, a waft of putrid, musky stench. Elof's blood ran cold, but his curiosity, as ever, overran it. Detaching himself from Kermorvan's unwavering grip, he leaned forward, trying to make out what manner of beast it could be. But unfortunately, perhaps, it was facing away from them, and he saw only a thick hindleg, some twelve feet behind the foreleg. Just in front of it lay their packs, with so many things they could not spare—

Elof swung down on the branch, and hung an instant by his hands. Then he swung back, kicked forward, and dropped light as a feather on a bare patch of pine needles, muffling his footfall. He bent, scooped up the packs, praying Kermorvan's would not clank again, and flung himself into the weeds as the dark flank heaved and the leg thrust out. But the thing had not noticed him. In another wave of stench it slithered slowly forward, almost rowing itself along with its short legs, and went snaking off downhill. But it was a long time after the sound died away before either man dared move.

Kermorvan swung himself down nimbly. "Kerys! That was bravely done, my smith! What in the world was it?"

"Don't look at me for an answer! A dragon, perhaps?"

"I think not. I remember dragons on old tapestries in our house, made by people who knew them only too well, and none looked like that. Besides, that seemed a very beast, a stupid one, and dragons are said to be—something more. It moved like a wall lizard—a quick rush, then rest."

"A lizard halfway to a snake, then, and as big around as a horse. I have never seen or heard of anything such in these woods."

"Then I'll wager it's something off the Ice, some beast let loose to wreak havoc in its vanguard. Faugh! The foulness of it! Let's be far from here, for our dinner's ended for tonight."

There were other encounters before they left the woods, though none so close or fearful. Once as they made ready to sleep they saw something dimly phosphorescent go hopping along between the tree trunks below, and where it went even the faint night murmurs fell silent. And later, as they were casting about for a way out to the slopes above, something came crashing and blundering across the path they had taken, away downhill; they could not see it, but from the threshing of the bushes it might be a man, if a very clumsy one. Neither curious enough to linger, they cut their way through onto the stony slopes with as little ado as possible.

"And yet here is no refuge," said Elof as they toiled up the rough hillside, the rock's bare bones showing between the thin coating of topsoil, scrubgrass and stunted shrubs. "For I remember this place, and we are now no more than a day or so south of the pass above the Mastersmith's house, and that means we take care; in clear weather he was often abroad. North of that, beyond his valley, he never took us; there the Ice thrusts glaciers deep among the mountains. Where those duergar creatures left us, that lies eastward around those peaks there, about two days' walk. That seems as good a place as any to search."

"Then we will climb to just below the snow line," said Kermorvan, "and make our way round."

Before long even the last traces of green died away beneath their feet, save for a few feeble plants in earthy crevices, and they were marching along great ridges of solid rock, or slipping and slithering across wide swaths of loose rock and scree, or scrambling up piled boulders. The wind had a bite to it now to match its howl, pressing their cloaks flat, plucking at their bags, lashing their faces till eyes grew gritty and nostrils burned. It was mustering the gray clouds like an army, piling them up in ranks around the northward peaks; Kermorvan looked up at them anxiously. He dragged out a scarf as long as his arms, and was binding it round his face when he realized Elof had none; at once he sliced it neatly on his half-drawn blade and handed over the remainder. Elof took it with a sober nod of thanks, for he could think of nothing to say.