Catherine Fisher - Snow-Walker

“Leave it here.”

The skald shook his head. “It’s not heavy. He may catch us up.”

“I hope so,” Jessa said.

“I don’t. We’re well rid of him.”

“He may be hurt, Brochael!”

Brochael snorted. “That one!”

The woman looked at him then. “There are all sorts of pain, Brochael. Maybe there are some you do not recognize.”

He turned away.

They said good-bye, and the skraeling woman watched them go, the wind lifting the ends of her black hair. She folded her arms and called, “If you come back, I’ll be pleased.”

“We’ll come back,” Jessa said.

The woman shook her head. “You walk into the whiteness now. Into dreams. Only wraiths and sorcerers can live there.”

She turned and went back into the low house.

Jessa turned away. “We never even asked her name,” she said.

Twenty-One

On Hel’s road all men tremble.

All day there was no sign of Moongarm.

The travelers walked through a perpetual twilight; for the first time the sun never rose above the horizon. Over them the icy stars swung in a great wheel, the polar star bright overhead. They walked on ice, immense tilted slabs of it, smashed here and there into jagged spars and shards that jutted up and had to be climbed and scrambled over.

A light snow fell on them, dusted them white with its touch. They saw nothing. No animals, no trace of anything alive in the long, pale blue shadows of the ice cap.

“He’s staying behind,” Hakon joked. “He’s wise.”

After long hours they were frozen with cold; they ate the skraeling woman’s food, and it put some heart back into them. Kari made a white rune fire spark and crackle on the bare ice, but it had no warmth; there was nothing here to burn. They seemed to have lost all idea of time; the perpetual twilight confused them, as if time was something they were walking away from, leaving behind.

They tried to sleep there but the cold was too bitter.

“We’ll carry on,” Brochael mumbled, scraping ice from his beard. “If we stay here we’ll freeze. Come on.”

They staggered up and walked, almost uncaring. The wind rose, roaring from somewhere ahead over the empty miles and crashing against them. They were no longer a group; each one dwindled deep within himself, daydreamed and imagined and sang silent songs. Speech died; their lips were too numb to shape words. At last, bone weary, they dug a snow hole and risked a short sleep there, out of the wind, but even that was dangerous. Blue and shivering, Jessa could hardly lift the food to her mouth.

Later, as they trudged on, she imagined that they were walking into the great white spaces at the top of the map, walking into blank parchment that no skald had ever written on, that held no words to make itself known.

Stumbling, ears throbbing, the skin under her scarves seared with the wind, she thought of Signi in that room, lying still on the bed with its silken hangings. She felt those furs and blankets now; she was walking over them, up to Signi’s mind, and they were warm, and all she had to do was lie down among them, like Signi, and sleep and sleep. But some nagging part of herself wouldn’t let her; it ordered her, angrily, to shut up and keep walking.

Then Brochael murmured something in awe.

Jessa stumbled, opened her eyes. Sleet stung her face like grit. And through her blurred eyes she saw, rising in a great arch against the dark sky, a bridge, glinting white. It was breathtaking; already it towered high above them, and she saw it glittered as if made of millions of crystals fused to a solid mass. Rainbows glinted deep within it; it shone against the snow squalls.

The sight of it brought them back to themselves; they stood still, their breath ragged in the wind.

Then Skapti said, “This will be my best song yet.”

“If you ever get to sing it,” Hakon muttered.

The skald wiped snow from his eyes. “You’re getting cynical, Hakon. Like me.”

They approached slowly, bent against the wind that tore at them. The ravens flew above, dim shapes against the stars, knocked sideways, squawking.

The ice here at the edge of the world was pitted with great cracks; they had to help one another over, scrambling and climbing, and all the time the scream of the wind increased; it raged in the terrible gap ahead of them, sending storms of snow and cloud churning high against the stars.

With an effort they gathered together, steadying one another. They had reached the foot of the bridge.

It was a fantastic, trembling structure, solid ice hanging in pinnacles and icicles of every thickness and length, frozen droplets bright as stars. The roadway itself was smooth as glass and looked slippery. On each side a delicate rail rose up, made of thin spines of ice spun in a fine paling, knotted with glassy balls.

Somewhere under the bridge, hidden in the falling snow, was the gap. The edge must be within feet of them, Jessa thought. Out of it there rose a howling and raging of wind; a stir of snow that twisted and burst.

The bridge rose into the storm and vanished. Of the other side they could see nothing.

“Right.” Brochael gathered them round him and spoke loudly. “I’ll go first. Keep your heads down or the wind will blow you clean off. Hands and knees might be best.”

Skapti slapped him on the back, nodding.

Brochael put his hands to the slope and began to pull himself up. At each step he slid back a little, his boots scrabbling for toeholds on the smooth glassy floor.

“It’s possible.” He gasped. “Barely.”

“Go on,” Skapti called. “We’re behind you.” He pulled Hakon over. “You next, swordsman. Take your time.”

Hakon settled his sword hilt and smiled at Jessa.

“Be careful with your hand,” she said.

“I will. Good luck.”

He stepped up behind Brochael, bent low against the screaming wind. They both climbed slowly, gripping onto anything they could. Under their feet the bridge was a glass hill, treacherous, beautiful. The others watched, the wind flapping their hoods and hair, until Brochael was a fair way up, the snow squalls hiding him now and then.

Dragging his knees up under him he squirmed round and looked down at Hakon. “Keep in the middle!” he roared. “In the middle!”

But Hakon’s foot had slipped; he slid sideways with a yell, sending a shower of crystals into the air, and began to slither, slowly, unstoppably, toward the frail ice uprights.

“Hakon!” Jessa screamed.

He scrabbled with his hands, with feet, with fingers, but nothing held. Brochael, scrambling down to him, cursed in the raging wind.

Hakon’s foot met the ice pinnacles; for a moment they held him, but as all his weight slid down on them they splintered; one snapped with a great crack, and with nightmare slowness he felt his legs sliding through the gap. Squirming, he grabbed at an icicle and heaved his sword out of the sheath, slamming it down flat on the wet surface. Then he drew himself up, and with all the strength of his terror he stabbed the blade down hard, ramming it into the ice.

It held, and he clung on, the sword grip so close to his face that the tiny red dragons blurred and moved in his wet eyes.

The wind tore at him. Below him was nothing; he hung over the edge of the world, swinging, clinging desperately to the sword that held him.

“Brochael!” he whispered.

“I’m coming. Hold on!”

Birds flew above him; the ravens. The glossy ends of feathers brushed his face, but they were wraiths, they couldn’t help. No one could. Numb, he knew he had been here before, long ago, in his dreams. He knew how it ended. And his hand, his weak right hand, was aching to the bone, unclenching on the leather hilt, the fingers opening, loosening.