Catherine Fisher - Snow-Walker

“Brochael!” he screamed.

Closing his eyes, he felt the gale drag at him. Suddenly the sword slewed sideways; he yelled, grabbed at nothing, at a hand, a sleeve, warm fingers.

“Got you!”

Brochael’s whisper was close, his face, huge, taut, the sweat freezing to crystals on his beard. He began to squirm back, and Hakon felt himself move. He was hauled up over the wet ice, swinging, until his knee came up and found the solid edge, and he heaved himself over and collapsed against Brochael, all breath knocked out of him.

For long seconds they lay there, dizzy, the sky glittering above them.

Only Jessa’s desperate shouts stirred them.

Brochael waved. At this distance his words were lost, but the others saw he was safe.

“Thorsteeth!” Jessa breathed. She unclenched her gloves, felt the ache loosen between her shoulders. “I thought they were gone.”

“So did I.” Skapti looked white. “You next.”

She scrambled up quickly.

“Keep your head down.”

She struggled up the glassy slope. It was very difficult. The wind forced against her; she crouched low, feeling for every treacherous, sliding step.

“Kari?” Skapti said.

But the boy had turned; he was looking back into the snow. Something moved in the squall, a great gray shape that leaped by him; with a snarl it had Skapti down and was standing over him, paws splayed, slavering at his throat with white teeth.

“Moongarm!” Jessa yelled. She stopped, looking back. Above her on the bridge Brochael roared with rage.

The wolf turned its head and looked at Kari, and there was something deep in those eyes that Kari knew, but it was lost, almost lost.

“All right,” Kari said. “Let him up.”

The creature backed, snarling. Skapti scrambled to his feet, shaking.

“He wants me to go with him!” Kari yelled. He moved away, a small dark figure on the snow.

“You can’t!”

“Go with the others. I’ll be close behind.”

“Kari!” Brochael thundered.

Kari looked up at him; too far to hear, Brochael heard the words clearly, sharp with pain. “Cross the bridge, Brochael. You must get them across the bridge.”

The squall blinded them for a moment; when they could see again, the ice was empty.

“Kari!” Jessa yelled furiously. “Don’t do this to us!”

But in all the miles of snow, there was no one to answer her.

Twenty-Two

A third I see, that no sunlight reaches,

the doors faced northward,

Through its smoke vent venom drips

serpent skins enskein that hall.

They crouched in a snow hole, the blizzard lashing them. Shards of snow stung Kari’s face; he tugged the scarves tighter.

The wolf had brought him here, leading him through the snow. Now it dissolved; became gray rags of mist that the wind whirled away. The man’s body lay half-buried; Kari scraped snow from the eyes and mouth, and lifted the head.

“Moongarm!”

He was cold, almost lost. Putting his thin fingers on the man’s wrist, Kari searched desperately within him for the frail soul, dragging it to the surface. Ravens descended around him.

“He’s gone,” one of them said harshly, crouching beside him.

“Not yet.”

The man gasped, his eyes flickered. Slowly the taints and wildness of the wolf were gathered into him; Kari felt them enter and flood the man. For a moment he had the impression of someone gentler, older; now it was gone, submerged. Moongarm’s amber eyes watched him, intent. Snow roared between them.

“I have to get back,” Kari said. “The others—”

“No!” He struggled up, his cracked fingernails gripping the boy’s shoulder. Kari waited, uncertain. The man was still savage with the beast nature that tormented him, but under that was fear, almost terror.

“Help me.” The words were quiet, nearly lost. “Only you can.”

Kari shook his head. “This power is your own.”

“I don’t want it!” Moongarm snarled. “It’s taking me over—you can see that, you with your ghost sight.” His face was gray, his hair streaked with ice. He crouched, head bent.

“When it began, I could control it; I could change my shape and my nature as I wished. I was free, Kari! I could become something else, something wild, strong, fierce, without the troubles men have!”

“Without reason either.”

“Yes. But free.”

“You still can.”

“It’s destroying me!” He paused, as if struggling for calm, his eyes wild and bright in his tangled hair. “Every time, it takes me longer to come back. Gets harder. And even when I fight my way to man shape, the rage is still there. I’m changing. I think more and more like an animal thinks. Moods sway me, hungers, fears. I can’t control them. After the bear died, I was savage; those three men were just enemies, scents; I slavered for them. I didn’t know their names, that they were Hakon, or Skapti, or even Brochael the Stubborn. I have to get the wolf out of me, Kari. I have to!”

Kari wiped snow from his face. He was chilled to the bone, desperate to get back to the bridge. “Why now?”

“The bridge. Once we cross it, anything might happen.”

“To me,” Kari said bitterly. The rainbow shimmers of the ice bridge came back to his mind.

“I need your sorcery. Reach in now and take the wolf out of me.” The man’s eyes were close; his fingers closed tight as claws on the boy’s arm. “Now, Kari! Before it devours me altogether. Before I run mad.”

Kari shivered, trying to think. Then he moved out of himself into Moongarm, walked down the trackways of wolf sight, saw the long loneliness of the man, the flung spears, the barking dogs, the blood on the snow. He tasted endless arctic nights, the itch of fur, irrational terror. Then the wind splashed him with ice. He shook his head.

“I can’t. Or if I did, it would kill you. It’s too deep in you, Moongarm. You welcomed it in, and it’s tangled about you. Why?”

“A woman once offered me a chance of strength and courage. I was a weak man, of no family, no importance. Like a fool I took it.” Numb with cold and hopelessness he stared up at the ravens. “Take it out, Kari.”

“No. One man is dead already because of me.”

Moongarm leaped up, sudden and supple. “Then if you can’t help, the gap will have me. The world’s throat can take one more morsel.”

“No!” Kari jumped up quickly.

“You won’t stop me, ravenmaster.”

“Won’t I?” Kari gave him a cold, amused look. “I may seem frail, Moongarm, but I can hold you to life. And I will!”

The wind blew his hair into his eyes; he shook it away. The shape-shifter stared at him through the scatter of snow.

“Then you will. And I must fight and struggle with myself. But if I can, Kari, I’ll escape it, wherever I have to go. To have a power you dare not use is worse than having none.”

“I know that,” Kari said bitterly. “Better than anyone.”

“Not much farther!” Brochael yelled.

He was lost in the snow squall ahead; Jessa couldn’t see Hakon either. Behind her somewhere, Skapti slithered. She rested for a moment, crouched, her head low. Inside her frozen gloves her hands were blue and numb; her legs and back ached unbearably. She felt exhausted.

The bridge had been endless; first the climb high into nothing but sky and storm, and now the long scramble downward, slipping and stumbling on the glassy slope. Briefly she thought of Kari and her anger and worry flared. Where was he? She was uneasy without him. Brochael must be too.

She looked up again; the bridge led away into blown snow, but through that she thought she could glimpse something else now, a shimmer of colors.

“Come on.” Skapti gasped behind her. He settled the bag with the kantele in it more firmly on his back. “Not the time for dreaming, Jessa.”