James Clemens: Hinterland

Brant froze, recognizing in such a broken reflection not himself-but his father. The stubble on the chin was too thin, grown from a young man of fifteen winters, not the dark shadows of his father’s. And certainly one slivered reflection could not be misconstrued: Under the angle of a jaw, a branching scar marred the smooth bronze skin of his throat. If one squinted, it looked not unlike a hand, throttling him.

That belonged to Brant alone.

Shadows descended again as the wind died and branches fell back into place. It was time to go. Brant stood and followed the ice-edged brook as it switched back and forth through the wood. Around the last curve, the great blue expanse of Oldenbrook Lake opened before him. It might as well have been the sea itself. The far shore was only a promise, even in the clear, crisp morning.

The neighboring brook trickled into a misted meltpond bordering the shoreline of the great lake. The rest of the expanse was frozen over, but it was not flat ice. Instead the surface had been rilled into ridges by winter’s winds and dusted with mounds of snow. Out in the city, sections of the lake ice had been shaved smooth for games played atop thin silver blades.

Brant had always watched from the edges or atop bridges. The slick ice made him wary, and not just for its treachery of footing. When smooth, it was glassy. One could peer into the depths of the winter lake. Things were moving down there. And the clear ice seemed more illusory than real.

Brant crunched through the snow, happy for solid ground under his heels. A fringe of dead brown reeds marked the boundary between forest and lake. He was reluctant to leave the land for water.

The growl behind him changed that.

He spun, dropping to a knee, facing the depths of the shadowed forest as the hunter finally revealed itself. In Brant’s hand rested the hilt of his skinning knife, ready. He took a long slow breath through his nose, trying to catch a scent. Back in Saysh Mal, he knew most animals by their musk, but he smelled nothing lingering on this cursed dry air.

The beast moved as silently as the mist rising from the meltpond.

No crunch of ice.

The growl had been the only warning, full of hunger.

Brant dared not nock an arrow to his bowstring. He knew the beast would be upon him if he moved. He remained as still as a heron hunting among the reeds. Crimson eyes appeared in the forest, much closer than he had suspected, low to the ground. Muscles bunched at the shoulders. Bulk shifted. Ghost took flesh.

The wolf’s white pelt blended with the snow, blurring its edges. Still, what he discerned was massive. A giant that stood to Brant’s shoulders. Its head lowered in threat, lips rippling back from yellowed fangs. Large pads were splayed wide, made for stalking silently atop frozen snow. Black claws dug through the crust of ice, gaining purchase for the lunge to come.

Brant recognized the tufts of gray fur tipping each ear, marking the wolf as a hunter of Mistdale, far to the north. A Fell wolf. It did not belong so far south. But this winter had been long-too long. Rain should have been falling since the passing of the last moon, but snow still drifted from the slate skies. Even the hares over his shoulder were mostly bones, having barely survived on the few roots and tubers under the snow.

Brant met the wolf’s gaze, acknowledging the sunken eyes and thin stretch of fur over bone. He noted a single drop of crimson on the lower curled lip.

Blood.

He eyed his own trail of bootprints.

The wolf must have come upon the entrails of his catch, feasted upon them, then followed his track. Looking for more. It seemed the Way was as unknown to the beasts of the forest as the people of Oldenbrook. Or maybe hunger broke all pacts.

Brant sensed that to wait any longer would only drive the wolf to attack.

He knew what must be done.

The wolf had growled. Therein Brant placed his life.

In a swift motion, he swept the arrow from his shoulder and cast the meat toward the wolf. If the wolf had meant to attack, it would not have growled and given itself away. The rumble had been a warning, a challenge, and a cry of hunger.

The trio of hares landed near the wolf.

The beast lunged and snapped up arrow and meat. With a low growl, it retreated to the shadows under a tanglepine.

Brant used the moment to retreat, too. He backed out onto the ice, snapping through the dry reeds. The wolf kept to its bower, satisfied with its catch. Only then did Brant see a pair of eyes deeper in the forest, drawn by the meat and blood. Smaller eyes, closer together. Cubbies. Two.

With a flash of white pelt, the large Fell wolf-a she-wolf-fled with her catch and her offspring. No wonder the wolf had come so far south. Not for herself but for her cubs. Spring cubs, born too soon, born into a bad season. Still, she fought for them, to give them a chance.

Brant understood that only too well.

He rubbed a knuckle along the scar under his jaw.

As he crossed the frozen lake, he sent a silent prayer up into the aether for the she-wolf, from one stranger in this land to another.

With the sun a quarter-way up the sky, Brant climbed a last ice ridge. The full breadth of his new home appeared ahead. Oldenbrook. The city, the second oldest of all the Nine Lands, rose out of the lake itself, raised on stone pylons and stout poles of ironoak. It was a city of archways, bridges, and frozen boats. The sprawl hugged the southern coastline and climbed in snowy tiers from the city’s lowest level to the blue-tiled castillion that sat atop Oldenbrook’s highest point.

Beneath the city’s vast belly, the water remained unfrozen, melted both by the Grace of its god and the heat of the city itself. Even from here, Brant noted how the edifice steamed and misted, like some monstrous slumbering beast, waiting for true spring.

He could also hear the echoing groan and creak of the city. The song of Oldenbrook. On the calmest day in summer, it could be heard. It reminded Brant of the deepwhaler he had sailed aboard when forced from his homeland to these cold shores. The rub of ropes, the pop of planks. Sometimes he woke at night in his room, certain he was back in that ship’s cramped cabin. He would rub his wrists, remembering the shackles.

Brant found himself doing the same now as he stared at the city. As royally as he was treated here, Oldenbrook was not so much home as a place of exile and banishment.

Movement drew his gaze to the sky. A small flippercraft descended toward the city, aiming for the high docks neighboring the lofty castillion. The airship steamed as much as the city, its blood-fed mekanicals hot as red coals in a brass warming pan. Its rudders and skimmers churned the air. A trail of smoke vented from its topside. Burning blood. Someone came with urgency.

Brant squinted at the flag fluttering near the bow. He could not make out the full details. Silver on black. He knew what he would have seen if he’d had sharper eyes. A silver tower embroidered on a black field. A ship from the citadel of Tashijan.

It was not a particularly unusual sight. After the tragedy and bloodshed in neighboring Chrismferry last spring, all of Myrillia was still unsettled. For a turn of seasons, ravens had filled the skies. Ships had sailed water and air in every direction. The thunder of hooves over the stone bridges of Oldenbrook had woken many each night.

But as summer wore to winter, and winter stretched endlessly, the ravens returned to their rookeries, the ships were tied back to their docks, and horses remained stabled. It was as if all the northern lands had pulled into themselves, guarding, wary, waiting for this long cold to break.

Or for something else…an unnamed fear.

Gods had been slain.

With the deaths of two gods-Meeryn of the Summering Isles and Chrism of Chrismferry-the Hundred now numbered Ninety-eight. Though order had been restored by the new regency in Chrismferry, the world still felt out of kilter, unbalanced, and every inhabitant of each of the Nine Lands sensed the rockiness of this ship.