Andre Norton - The Warding of Witch World

Up at what? Where there had stood a wall barrier was a jumble of broken slabs, some seeming as great in size as a Sulcar ship.

Ship? Half-dazedly she tried to center her eyes on where that ship had once been caught. Did it lay crushed under this pounding, or had the woman indeed made her return?

“Lady Trusla!” Someone was tugging at her, striving to pull her free of the ice which half covered her. Bleared of eye, she looked up into the face of Audha.

There was spirit behind those eyes again, concern in the Sulcar girl’s expression. Truly what Urseta had taken she had, at that last moment, returned. Faintly Trusla was happy—faintly—for nothing mattered now that Simond was not here.

There came the sound of rushing water and she could hear calling in the distance, though that meant nothing to her now. That stream which had edged from under the gate was now a river, shearing off pieces of ice which bumped along in what seemed a strong current whirling eastward.

“Aaaaheee, ahhheee!” That cry broke through the confusion in her head. She was dimly aware of Audha digging swiftly about her, dragging her out of the mass of snow which half covered her. Not too far away Kankil was also digging, throwing a storm of snow and bits of ice into the air as she screamed over and over again that ear-piercing cry.

Odanki suddenly towered over the shaman’s small familiar and his big hands added to the welter of snow they were throwing into the air. Then the hunter stopped and, using both hands, pulled the shaman out.

However, even before she was raised to more than her knees, she was pointing to one side, crying in her own tongue nearly as loud as Kankil. The captain, staggering a little, came up. One arm hung limp and Joul was close to give him a hand.

But at the shaman’s insistence not only did the Sulcar man leave the captain, but Audha also moved to aid. Trusla remained dully where she was, watching them, as might a detached dreamer, work to bring out Frost.

At first she thought that the witch was dead, struck down by the very Power she had summoned. Then the girl was aware that the jewel on the other’s breast was showing a spark of fire.

Only… Trusla tried to get to her feet, and when she discovered she could not make it, she started on hands and knees to the river. If Simond’s side of the gate had collapsed even as Frost’s—and it looked as if it had—then he lay buried across that barrier of rushing water. The longer he remained below any heap of snow and splintered ice, the sooner the last flickers of life would be frozen out of him. That he was not yet dead Trusla could believe. Surely that shutting off of warmth and good, of her very heart hold, would be sensed by her.

She paid no attention to those behind her, pausing for a breath or so now and then to watch that other shore, see some small splotch of hide clothing perhaps among the everlasting blue-white of the snow. Then she was at the water’s edge and that was a perilous perch, but the danger meant nothing to her now.

The ice was still breaking off in pieces, to be rolled over in the water, carried away. And she knew this much of this land: to throw herself into that frantic stream and hope to reach the other shore was merely to reach out for death. Though in the end that is what she might well do.

She was dimly aware of someone who was standing now beside where she crouched in despair. The softness of a feather brushed against her and then a small warm body, almost like a brazier of coals, hurled itself upon her.

Inquit—Kankil. Of what matter their coming? There was nothing which would bridge that waterway—and no sign beyond of where to hunt.

“Little sister.” The Latt woman’s hand rested softly on her head. “He is not dead.”

Trusla shrugged. What matter? He would soon be so. She looked into nothingness and knew its bite.

Kankil was patting her face with soft paw-hands, crooning with a rumbling purr which reached into Trusla’s own body but did not soften the growing bleakness there.

“What can be done?” It took a moment or so for Trusla to realize that the shaman was not speaking to her but to Odanki, who had come up on her other side.

“To cross in this flood—Voice of Arska, that is impossible for anyone, for we cannot grow wings and fly.”

Trusla started up, dislodging Kankil from her lap with a sharp shove. She was on her feet, teetering on the very edge of the water, only half aware that a firm hold had fastened on the back of her belt.

But she had not been mistaken! Surely, by the Greatest of Powers, her eyes had not played her false now. That dark arm seemingly grown out of the very earth was showing clear against the snow. A moment or so later there was a cascade of chunks, then head, another arm, shoulders appeared!

“Simond!” Trusla screamed with all the power her lungs could summon.

He tried to rise and sprawled forward on his face. She would have thrown herself into that flood now if the hold on her had not remained so very strong.

No, he was not stirring now. They must reach him! Cover him with the garments he had discarded, somehow get him warm—bring life back to him!

Trusla tried to turn and fight that hold, but she was as entrapped as if the ice had risen to wall her in. She screamed at Inquit.

“He must have help!”

“There is no way to cross the river in such a flood.” Captain Stymir, his left arm now lashed across his breast, came up to them. “Unless…” He looked to the shaman. “Many times Power has done what force of arm and heart cannot. The witch seems to sleep; we cannot rouse her. Thus what she might be able to control we cannot call upon. And you, Shaman?”

“Animals I may command in the name of Arska, winds I can summon and sometimes lighten storms, and there are other things. But here I stand as you, Captain.”

Trusla’s breath was coming in dry sobs. “Simond, Simond”—she made of his name a plea, like some ritual which could not escape answer.

He moved. Somehow he had levered himself up on his hands, though his head still hung as if any effort was too great for him.

“Simond, Simond.” Perhaps it was her calling which reached him, kept him from lying waiting for death.

“Hunter!”

That one word was so imperative that it broke all their attention centered on the struggling man.

It was Audha who had come to them. Yet—it was not the Audha Trusla had known, beaten by adversity, robbed of her birthright. Now the Sulcar girl put out a hand to lay fingertips on Odanki’s bulky arm. He jerked and his mouth opened, but what he might have wished to say was swallowed up in the question she asked:

“You are one who knows the ice. If there be an air bridge, would you risk a crossing? You alone, for I do not know…” She hesitated. “I have yet much to learn.”

“A bridge?” he repeated almost stupidly, as if he could not believe that she had asked that. “To bridge that…” he pointed to the ever-flowing flood.

Trusla saw Inquit’s eyes narrow and then the shaman herself spoke.

“You have followed the flippered ones out on the floating bergs. You stand as my man and shield. If there be a bridge, dare you cross it?”

He shook his head as if he could not believe what she was saying. “I am the Lord Simonds bondsman for my very life! Did he not bring me out of the very jaws of the worms? Show me your bridge!”

Audha moved a little apart from them, even as Frost did when she would deal with Power. She flung wide her arms and in the wide space between her hands danced color, ribbons of color such as had run across the walls of the ice palace.

The fingers of her left hand slacked apart and those ribbons of color shot out over the river even as Trusla had seen a fisherman of the marshes throw a baited line. The tip of the rainbow touched a floating cake of extra width and drew it toward them. It nudged a second and then a third. In spite of the battering of the water—perhaps that now flowed beneath what Audha wrought and did not try full strength against it—there was a bridge.