Mark Lawrence - Prince of Fools

• • •

Just as Snorri had described, the Black Fort took me by surprise. The landscape offered no clues, no buildup, no growing promise of journey’s end. One moment it was a featureless white wasteland, bounded on one side by the Bitter Ice; the next moment it was the same featureless wasteland, except there was a feature, a black dot.

The trek had worn us to our final strength-Fimm it had worn past even that-but we were none of us the shambling, frostbitten wreck that Snorri had been when he had last stumbled to the gates. We came with at least some measure of fight in us, some final reserve to draw upon. And, as little as I wanted to battle anyone, I knew for sure that without the chance to rest and restock in the shelter offered by the Black Fort, I for one would not survive a return journey.

Snorri led us closer. Urging swiftness. He wanted to be inside before the sun set-wanted Aslaug’s strength in the fight to come. The terrain offered no cover and we relied only on being white upon a white background to hide us, and also on the hope that nobody would be looking out for us. This latter proved an unfounded hope.

“Wait.” Ein, raising a gloved hand. “Man in the south tower.”

However well we blended against the snow, with the sun sinking behind us our shadow might yet announce our approach if the man were paying close enough attention.

The Black Fort is a squat, square construction with a crenellated tower at each corner. A central keep, barely taller than the outer walls, sits amidst a large courtyard. Snorri believed the keep unmanned and that the small garrison kept to chambers within the thickness of the walls around the main gates.

“The Dead-Eye will shoot him,” Snorri said. “Then we climb.”

Arne rubbed gloved fingers across his face guard, the soft hide frozen stiff and hanging with miniature icicles. The wind swirled around us, full of razors. “It’s a long shot.”

“Not for the Dead-Eye!” A quad slapped him on the shoulder.

“And the light’s failing.” A shake of the head.

“Easy!” Another quad.

A slump of shoulders. “I’ll get my bow ready,” Arne said. “Then we move closer.”

It took a damned long time, extracting and unwrapping the bow, finding the string, waxing that, flexing this, warming fingers, hooking one thing to another. They’d taught me archery back in Vermillion, of course. Every prince had to know the art. Rather than having us become crack shots, Grandmother was, apparently, more interested that we know and understand the possibilities and limitations of the weapon so that we could better utilize it en masse upon the battlefield. Even so, we still had to hit the bull’s-eye.

If all those long hours of much-resented archery practice had taught me anything, it was that wind will make a fool of even the best archer, a swirling, gusty wind especially so.

At last Arne had equipped himself and we crept forwards across the snow, crouching low now, as if that might make a difference. The figure in the tower moved several times, facing our way for a heart-stopping moment, but showed no signs of interest.

“Do it here.” Snorri caught Arne’s shoulder. I think the Dead-Eye would have closed to fifty yards if they’d let him.

“Odin, guide my arrow.” Arne removed a glove and set a shaft to his bow.

On a still day with warm hands and no pressure on the outcome, it was a shot I might hope to make four times in five. Arne loosed his shaft and it hissed away, invisible against the sky.

“Miss.” I stated the obvious to break the still moment that held us all. The shot had gone so wide the man in the tower hadn’t even noticed it.

Arne tried again, taking deep breaths to steady himself. Fingers white on the bowstring. He loosed.

“Miss.” I hadn’t meant to say anything, the word just spoke itself into the expectant hush.

Arne pulled away his face guard and gave me a sour look. He ran his tongue over an array of teeth, most brown, one black, one grey, one white, two missing. He took another arrow, one of maybe a dozen remaining, and returned his attention to the tower. Three breaths, hauled in, released slowly, and he took the shot.

To be fair I waited several seconds. It was lucky all three shots had gone high rather than striking the stonework. The man on the tower hadn’t so much as flinched. “Miss,” I said.

“You fucking do it!” Arne shoved the bow at me.

Safe in the knowledge I couldn’t do much worse, I stripped off a glove and strung an arrow. The wind made an agony of my fingers within moments. Those moments would be all I had before the wind stopped them hurting and made them useless. I lined up on the man, guessed at compensation for the wind, and shifted my aim yards to the right. The lack of time helped. It stopped me thinking about what I intended to do. I’m told that I killed men in the Aral Pass, but I’ve no clear memory of it. On the mountain with Snorri a man had pretty much impaled himself on my sword-and I’d apologized to him for the accident before I knew what I was saying. That had all been in hot blood. But here I crouched, arms trembling, blood as cold as it had ever been, ready to punch an arrow through a man’s chest, to take his life without warning, without seeing his face. A different matter entirely.

“Miss.” I whispered it as I let fly.

Two heartbeats passed and I was sure I’d done no better than Arne.

“Yes!” The man spun around as if from a sudden impact. “Yes!” Snorri shouted.

“Shit!” That from Tuttugu as the guardsman remained standing, advanced to the wall, unsteady and clutching his arm, then turned to flee.

“Hel! Shoot him again!” Snorri shouted.

The man had descended by steps to the main wall and was running hell for leather towards the far tower where presumably his companions were housed. Why he wasn’t watching from that tower, I couldn’t tell you.

“We’re done.” I gestured at the distant wall. The man could be glimpsed every half second or so as a dark streak through the crenels notched down into the battlements.

Arne snatched his bow back, strung an arrow, and loosed it at the sky. “A pox on all the gods.” He spat and his phlegm froze before it landed.

“Why waste another arrow?” I watched the walls, wondering if they would come out to kill us or leave us to freeze.

The man fell with a thin cry, nailed as he and Arne’s arrow arrived together at the third crenel before the tower door, six yards short of his sanctuary.

“Dead-Eye!” A quad punched Arne in the shoulder.

“Dead arm if you’re not careful.” But he sounded pleased.

Snorri had already hurried away from us, towards the walls. We gave chase. It seemed to take forever to cross the hundred-yard gap. He had out a long coil of rope, knotted for climbing and stored away from the ice for this moment. At one end a grapple hook that looked suspiciously like the anchor from a small fishing boat. He threw it over the wall and it caught first time. Snorri had already reached the top as I made it to the base of the wall. A quad went up next, then Arne, then me, slipping and cursing now the knots were slippery with ice from the others’ boots. The body of the man Arne shot plummeted past me as I reached the halfway point. I bit off another complaint and kept my mouth shut after that.

• • •

With only Tuttugu yet to climb, we pulled our packs up on a rope and then hauled Tuttugu after them. That effort at last got a little warmth into my blood. I helped him to his feet after his rather undignified struggle between the battlements to reach the walkway.

“Thanks.” He grinned, a nervous thing, quick then gone, and unslung his axe from across his back. An unusual weapon, closer to the armour-piercing wedge design favoured down south.