Энтони Райан - Queen of Fire

“Merim Her,” Alturk slurred, half rising, fumbling for his war club and promptly dropping it. “Son killer!” He braced his arms on the table and tried to lever himself up. However, the task seemed to be beyond his diminished limbs and he collapsed, his face connecting with the table with a painful thump. He remained in the same position and soon began to snore.

“Varnish,” Kiral sneered, sitting down again and glaring at Vaelin. “You should have let me kill him. My song finds little of worth in him.”

“A troubled mind deserves healing, not death,” Astorek told her, casting a sympathetic gaze over the slumbering Lonak. “And those of the same tribe should not kill each other.”

Kiral laughed, popping a berry into her mouth. “Then, since weʼre no longer allowed to kill the Merim Her, the Lonak would have little else to do.”

Astorek gave a sorrowful shake of his head. “All so strange, but so familiar.”

The feast came to an end some hours later, the Sentar carrying the still-unconscious Alturk to the far end of the hall where Astorek told them they were welcome to make their beds, the settlement lacking any empty dwellings to house so many newcomers. “The tribe grows larger by the year,” he said. “We are required to build constantly.”

Whale Killer and Many Wings appeared at his side along with Wise Bear, the shamaness pointing her staff towards the hallʼs broad doorway. “It is time for our tale,” Astorek said.

After the warmth of the hall the cold outside felt crushing, stealing the air from Vaelinʼs lungs and provoking an instant thumping in his temples. Dahrena and Kiral accompanied him as they followed the ice folk into the forest, Astorek leading the way with a flaming torch. The path was steep and thick with snow, the way ever more difficult the higher they climbed though the Wolf People moved with the unconscious speed born of having walked this trail many times.

Finally they came to a flat expanse at the base of a rugged cliff, Astorek lifting his torch so the light played over a narrow opening in the rock face. Vaelin saw how Kiral and Dahrena stiffened at the sight of the cave, and how Wise Bear took a firmer hold on his bone-staff. “Power?” he asked him.

“Much power,” the shaman confirmed, peering into the cave with obvious unease. “Maybe too much.”

“There is no danger for you here,” Astorek said, moving into the cave and beckoning Vaelin to follow. “This place is as much yours as ours.”

The cave entrance was narrow but opened out into a broad cavern, the walls dry and the air musty with age. Numerous bowl-like indentations had been carved into the cavern floor, each stained with dried pigment of different hues, but it was the walls that captured Vaelinʼs attention. The cavern curved around them in a long semicircle, two-thirds of its length richly adorned in paintings, the colours so vibrant they seemed to shimmer in the light from Astorekʼs torch.

Many Wings spoke, ushering Vaelin towards the stretch of wall nearest the cave mouth. “Mother bids you welcome to the memory of the Wolf People,” Astorek said.

Vaelin peered at the images painted onto the stone and was surprised to find the paint fresh, the images clear and easily discerned, a large patch of black paint adorned with small pinpricks of yellow he took to symbolise the night sky. A little farther along he found an image of crude stick figures, all arranged into a single large group, and next to them the same group divided by three black lines.

“The end of the first Long Night,” Astorek said, “and the birth of the three tribes, dividing the islands between them. There were no shamans then, and life was hard. But still we prospered.” He moved along, the torch flickering over various scenes, the images becoming less crude as they progressed, so that soon there were no more stick figures, but clear depictions of people and beasts. Hunters speared walrus on the ice or cast harpoons at whales from the prow of boats, others raised dwellings among the trees. Vaelin paused at the next image, taking a moment to fully understand the scene; an island, Wolf Home judging by the shape of the mountain, and alongside it a vessel of some kind, but of completely unfamiliar design. It was long and low in the water with only a single mast and far more oars than any modern ship.

“They came from the west in the summer months,” Astorek said. “So many years ago the stars have changed their course since. A tall people speaking in meaningless babble but bringing gifts of great value, blades of iron stronger and sharper than any we could smelt, and wondrous devices of glass to cast sight over great distances. We called them the Great Boat People.”

He pointed to three figures depicted next to the ship, two men and a woman. The woman was of arresting beauty, dark-haired with green eyes, wearing a long white robe and a golden amulet around her neck: a half-moon adorned with a red stone. The man on her left wore a blue robe and was slight of build, his face handsome but narrow and seemed to be wearing a half smile on his lips. But it was the man on the womanʼs right who captured Vaelinʼs attention, an impressive figure, bearded, tall and broad across the shoulders, his brow furrowed as if lost in the depth of thought, the face near identical to one Vaelin had seen before.

“Itʼs him!” he said, turning to Wise Bear, his heart thumping in excitement. “The statue from the Fallen City! You see it?”

Wise Bear nodded, his expression markedly less enthusiastic. “Story known to Bear People,” he said. “Great Boat People brought death to the ice.”

“Yes.” Astorek moved on, his torch revealing a scene of devastation, a settlement like the one they had just left, but littered with corpses. “They came peacefully, seeking to trade treasures for knowledge. They had no warriors, offered no violence, but still they brought death. A great sickness that laid waste to every settlement they visited until the three tribes were but a remnant.”

The torchlight revealed the woman again, standing alone this time, her face shown in profile, lowered and drawn in great sadness. Her hands were held to her face, red with blood from finger to wrist. “It was the woman who saved us,” Astorek said. “How is not fully understood, but she gave her blood and it saved us, the sickness faded. But…” He illuminated the next image, the two men standing over the womanʼs body. The handsome manʼs smile had gone, his face now hard with anger, whilst the bearded man wore an expression of stoic forbearance, though whatever ancient hand had captured his face had clearly seen the grief he was trying to hide.

“The tall man took his great boat and sailed away,” Astorek said. “But the other man stayed, unwilling to stray far from the body of the woman, refusing to give it to the ice as was custom. Then…” He revealed a shadowy image in silhouette, a man pulling a sled through a snowstorm. “He took her body north when winter came and was not seen again by the eyes of the ice people. But… he did leave a gift.”

Astorek paused, regarding Vaelin with an expression that was part reluctance, part awe. “They knew many things, these Great Boat People, the working of metal and the reckoning of the stars, even the course of the future.”

The painting revealed by Astorekʼs torch was the largest yet, covering the wall from floor to ceiling and executed with an artistry and clarity that would even have outshone Alornis. It was the face of a man, perhaps thirty years in age, his features angular rather than handsome, his eyes dark, a faint smile playing over his lips. It was a hard face, not unused to privation from its slightly gaunt aspect, or violence if Vaelin was any judge. He had looked into the eyes of enough killers to know…