Andre Norton - The Warding of Witch World

They went together to Captain Stymir and discovered that he had somewhat anticipated them by meeting with Hessar. The plaque the latter had found lay between them on the small table in the captain’s cabin of the ship. Simond was there and again he must have been at arms practice, for, though he had put aside his face-masking helm and thrown back the underhood of chain mail, he was still in full field gear. Matching him was Odanki, and they were both intent on the piece of skin scrawled with markings which the captain anchored in place with one thumb.

“No, Captain, I have not returned,” Hessar was saying as the three women entered. “Nor would I take up the like of that again. It is an unchancy thing. Also”—a glare as if he were issuing some challenge struck them all from under his bushy brows—“believe me or not, but that water—it seemed ice-born even as are all such streams. But by Blood Oath, I tell you, it was warm!”

He appeared to be waiting for scoffing dismissal of his story. But Captain Stymir looked thoughtful.

It was the shaman who broke that short silence. “There is a strange place in our own lands,” she said. “Ice lies around it—but within those walls there are springs which are hot enough to scald the hair from a leaper. And from them run—until they disappear underground—streams which are warm. Healing, too, though the smell is not pleasant. Those with an aching of the bones could lie in such streams where the heat was less and come out feeling limber once again. I have seen this place. When I was in my apprenticeship to Narvana I went with her. She harvested some of the water, and some of the ill-smelling encrustations about the hottest of the pools—which she kept and used for the good of the skin. If such a place is in one part of the world, why can its like not exist elsewhere? Hessar’s stream may be the guide to it.”

The Sulcar prospector nodded. But his scowl did not lighten. “Unnatural things are best left alone,” he commented gruffly.

However, he did agree to mark his trail to the ice stream, though he utterly refused to be the guide there, even when Captain Stymir offered him what Simond knew would be a well-filled purse even in Es.

It would appear that no one in End of the World wanted to be a part of what they would do. When Simond and Odanki went to buy packhorses they were refused, except for four with hanging heads which looked as if they were of small use to their present owners. Nor would any of the townspeople volunteer as guides.

They gained but one more for their party and she came to them in battle dress, a hard scowl on her face.

“I am blood-sworn to gather toll for my shipmates,” Audha declared defiantly as she faced them. The girl had changed. She was still lean of body, but Trusla, during her own bow practice each day, had seen the wavereader in training combat with any who would give her an opponent. And during the final days before they planned to leave, that trainer was most always Odanki—nor did he ever spare her, as far as Trusla could judge.

They had their supplies, but it was the Trade Master who at the end ordered them a selection of better beasts chosen from those owned by his own kin. However, these small creatures could not carry packs even as full as a hill pony of the south. So the party pared and pared again all they had brought with them.

They were assured there was game to be found clear up to the very verge of the ice wall. In fact, along the foot of that even greathorns were to be found. And such plants as could nourish a traveler were carefully displayed and the virtues of each explained.

However, Trusla was well aware that those who helped never expected to see the party again. In fact, a few were hinting that their very presence in the port perhaps could bring down the Dark on bystanders.

Stymir formally turned the captaincy of his ship over to his mate. Oddly enough, at the last moment he gained them another recruit—old Joul, who actually appeared where they were assembling the pack train with an animal of his own, a seaman’s well-corded chest on its pack frame.

Since there was no real dawn in this land that was nearly always light, Trusla was not sure what time their small party moved out. But early as it was, there were those gathered to watch them. The attitude of those watchers, however, was somber, and there was none of the bright joking and friendly calls which had marked their embarkation from Korinth.

The Trade Master marched with them to the end of the scattered burrows of the village, but the Watcher, though appearing bedabbled in her ceremonial paint, made no such concession to ceremony. In fact, it was plain that she was glad to see the last of them.

Odanki, Simond, Stymir, old Joul, and even Audha strode along with full complements of weapons and armor, helms covering their heads. As usual Frost was well to the fore with her swift smooth stride. She carried no visible weapons, but she had accepted from the Trade Master a seasoned staff with the admonition that it was sometimes wiser to test patches of footing ahead. Matching her, the bulk of her feather cloak and furred cloth making her look almost square from behind, was Inquit, who led one of the horses, on the back of which, above the rolled belongings of the shaman, perched Kankil, who alone of their present company appeared to treat this faring forth as a good and exciting adventure.

There were no roads to follow here, only the traces of trails made by those who had gone out earlier this season and returned during the past few days. But they did have a guide, as they need only lift their heads to view it.

The glaciers in their slow march had covered the land, but even with their weight they had not completely defeated some show of the rock crowns of a cluster of northern mountains. It was toward one of these that Hessar had pointed them and somewhere along its cloaking glacier—if it did exist at present—they would find the seasonal drainage stream.

The land about them was so fair under the clear sky that Trusla found it hard to believe that evil had already marked it. However, long before nooning they were to have proof of what had occurred before and could be done to the unsuspecting travelers.

They saw the smoke first—tendrils befouling the air—before the odor of the burning reached them. Stymir and Simond split off from the party, but not until Inquit had joined them, moving as swiftly, in spite of her heavy clothing, as the men.

Frost took up position between the rest of the party and those going to investigate. She was holding her jewel and it was beginning to glow. But she made no attempt to stop them.

They did nor go far. Those waiting could still see them as they stood together on a slight rise staring ahead—and then they returned at a swifter pace than they had gone.

“A death camp,” the captain explained curtly. “We must not be caught in the open so.”

“Nor shall we,” replied Frost. “We have warning.” She had slipped off the chain of the jewel and now held it lying flat on her palm before her. It glowed, not with the clear light of day, but rather with a dull and blackish color. Yet when Frost swung her hand toward the points of the half-buried mountains, it cleared.

“There be caves along the ice wall,” Joul rasped. “Better a wall to the back, even if it be ice, than have to face four ways at once and perhaps find ourselves a fifth one and them in it we don’t want to meet.”

They no longer kept to the even pace of their mornings start. And when they halted to rest the animals and take some food for themselves, they ate with weapons close at hand. As they continued to travel steadily far into the dusky night with only a few such rests, the third day brought them to the ice wall.