Энтони Райан - Queen of Fire

They were attacked again three nights later, though this time their assailants were content to linger in the shadows and loose arrows at the campfires, claiming the life of a Sentar who had stepped in front of the glow at the wrong moment. Alturk gathered together twenty warriors and led them into the darkness, returning a little while later with bloodied clubs and lance points. Their efforts seemed to have been enough to ensure an untroubled night and a group of Sentar soon appeared at their fire in search of a story in what was becoming a nightly ritual.

“Iʼll take a turn,” Orven said. “The Tale of Lord Vaelinʼs Charge at the Battle of Alltor.”

Vaelin got to his feet with a groan. “Spare me.”

“But they want a story, my lord,” Orven said with a small grin.

“I, however, do not.” He walked away from the fire as Orven began the tale, moving through the camp where the other Sentar greeted him with cautious eyes or studied indifference. He found Alturk sitting alone, wiping a buckskin rag over his war club, a recently sharpened knife placed close to his side.

“I come to ask more of your son,” Vaelin said. “I hope my actions had no part in his death.”

Alturk didnʼt look up, grunting, “Your hope is wasted.”

“You killed him for disobeying the Mahlessa?”

The Lonakʼs eyes rose from his work, bright with warning. “My clan killed him. His death was right and just. And Iʼll speak no more of it.”

Vaelin moved to the fire, squatting down to extend his hands to the warmth. The nights grew ever colder, the northerly winds stiff with ample warning of what lay ahead. “My queen told me men are forbidden the company of your Mahlessa,” he said. “You have never met her, yet you follow her word without question.”

“Do you question your queen?”

Vaelin grinned a little. “Not openly.” Alturk failed to respond, putting his war club aside and settling his gaze on the fire. Vaelin saw that the years had aged his face if not his body, lines etched deep into the ink around his eyes.

“You should know,” he told the Lonak, “I believe few of us will return from this journey. Those not claimed by the ice may well fall in battle.”

Alturk sat in silence for several minutes, watching the fire with his aged eyes. Finally, as Vaelin made to leave, he said, “A man already dead need fear nothing.”

Two more weeks brought them in sight of the ice, a ribbon of white on the eastern horizon beyond a curving shoreline fringing grey ocean waters. The mountains had begun to diminish in size in recent days until now they were but foothills, mostly bare of greenery and affording little cover to their enemies. The attacks had become more sporadic the farther north they travelled, possibly through simple weariness, though Vaelin suspected the constant attrition exacted by the Sentar to be the main reason. For all their lack of uniformity or soldierly custom they were every bit as disciplined as any company from the Sixth Order, and perhaps nearly as skilled; only two more had been lost since the night raid.

“Faith, that bites!” Lorkan said, wincing at the cutting wind and casting a questioning glance at Cara. “Canʼt you do something?”

She confined her response to a disgusted glance and dismounted as Wise Bear arrived with Iron Claw. The horses had grown only partially accustomed to the bearʼs presence and the shaman usually travelled at a short remove from the main body of the company, bouncing along on the beastʼs back. There was an odd wariness in the Lonakʼs attitude to Wise Bear, moving around him with a cautious silence, and he was the only one of the outsiders not required to share a story at the fire.

“Hello you!” Cara said, scratching at Iron Clawʼs mighty head, the animal snorting in pleasure and hunkering down at her feet, though his shoulder still reached as high as her chest.

“Need hunt more,” Wise Bear told Vaelin. “More meat.”

“We have meat,” Alturk said. “Enough for a monthʼs travel at least.”

“Not on ice,” the shaman insisted. “Need more and more.”

“From where?” Alturk gestured at the barren country around them. “Thereʼs nothing to hunt here.”

Wise Bear stared at him for a moment then gave one of his cackling laughs, pointing towards the shoreline. “Sea brings gifts, Painted Man.”

Wise Bear disappeared with Iron Claw for several hours before returning to lead them to a cliff overlooking the bay where the beasts made their home. There were perhaps forty of them crowding the rocky shore, plump, fur-covered bodies flopping around as they squabbled and barked at each other, impressive tusks bared. “What are they?” Lorkan asked, his voice kept to a whisper although they were a considerable distance from the creatures.

“Fur seals,” Dahrena replied. “We have them on the northern shores of the Reaches, though I donʼt recall seeing any so big.”

“Big,” Wise Bear agreed with a happy nod. “Big meat to take on ice.”

“Itʼll spoil,” Alturk stated. “And we have not the salt to preserve so much.”

Wise Bear replied with a baffled frown and it took some time for Vaelin to translate the meaning. “Spoil, hah. Meat not spoil on ice. Too cold. Just smoke over fire. Keep many many days.” He beckoned to Kiral and started for a narrow track leading to the shore. “We hunt, you build fires.”

They toiled on the shoreline for the best part of another week, building fires and butchering the unfortunate seals at Wise Bearʼs instruction. He skinned the first victim with an unconscious and rapid skill, harvesting a complete hide with seemingly only a few strokes of his knife, a feat none of them managed to match despite continued labour. The meat was cut into strips and hung over the fires to smoke whilst the hides were set aside to be cured, the shaman making it clear they would be needed later, his eyes constantly returning to the white line on the horizon.

“Have we made the journey too late?” Vaelin asked him on the last night. They sat together on a rocky outcrop near the shingle beach where the bloody work had been done, Iron Claw happily munching on a pile of entrails nearby.

“Still time.” Wise Bear raised a hand, the thumb and forefinger forming a narrow gap. “Small time.” He glanced over his shoulder at the camp where a crowd of Sentar were listening as Kiral translated Lorkanʼs somewhat ribald version of the Woodsmanʼs Daughter, a cautionary tale of unrequited love involving murder and adultery, though not usually in such quantity or detail.

“Not all make the islands,” Wise Bear went on. “Way of things on the ice. Always takes some, even Bear People.”

“The islands?” Vaelin asked.

“Where we go. Other side of ice. Home of Bear People once.”

“I thought your people lived on the ice?”

Wise Bear shook his head, eyes moving to the ice once more. It seemed to glow, lit by a pale green luminescence in the night sky the Lonak called Grishakʼs Breath in honour of their wind god. “Only small times,” Wise Bear said. “Our travel to your land the most time ever on ice for Bear People.”

Vaelin recalled the emaciated, hollow-eyed folk clustered at Steel Water Creek, a nation raised to survive the harshest climes and yet still brought to their knees by the ice. “I would not ask this of any soul,” he said, “if I didnʼt know in my heart it must be done.”

“Are there no words I can speak to dissuade you from this course?”