Read Song of the Ice Lord Page 7

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  Asri finished and there was a collective sigh as everyone came out of the spell of her tale. Then, after a moment, the hall echoed with applause and shouts of appreciation. She stood, found her stick and bowed to them all in the Shantar manner, flushed with pleasure at her success. Edan took her arm and guided her back to her seat, and then some of the Gai Renese went up onto the dais to play a lively song in their own language. The chorus was simple and everyone was soon stamping away and singing along.

  Lodden turned to Maran. “I haven’t heard that one before; have you?”

  “Something like it, long ago and far away.” The bard smiled sadly. “She told it well, though.”

  “It does seem to me that no matter where you come from or what language you speak, every country has its tales about dragons,” Lodden continued. “Sometimes the dragon is foolish, sometimes wise. They can be good or bad or indifferent, but there are always dragons. I wonder what that means?”

  “Maybe the tale is right, and dragons sang the world into being.” Maran was obviously making an effort.

  “Maran...”

  “It’s all right, Lodden. We’re doing fine. We work through the day, and we distract ourselves through the night. That is how we will get through the next few days, and anything after that is out of our hands.” The bard smiled, and this time it was an unforced smile. “That’s an oddly comforting thought, isn’t it?”

  “Yes and no...” Lodden shrugged off thoughts of tomorrow.

  “Let’s not think of that now though. I came across something that might interest you.”

  It was an obvious change of subject but one which Lodden welcomed. “Tell me.”

  “Well, you see the Potentate of Gai Ren? The little man sitting next to him on the right?”

  Lodden squinted over in the dim lantern light. “What has he got round his neck?”

  “Precisely. He has little glass windows, two of them in a frame. He puts them in front of his eyes and it makes what he’s looking at bigger.”

  “Really? How do windows make it bigger?”

  Lodden’s interest was infectious, and Maran laughed. “Shall we go and ask?”

  The following morning Edan brought his mother up to the Dragon’s Teeth. Once she was settled, he took Lodden to one side. “Maker, I have been asked to help with the defence. I know that what we are doing here is important but with the Ice Lord so near...”

  “You feel the need for action.”

  “I can’t just wait around here for the army to appear, when we have no means of defending ourselves!” the boy burst out. “I can’t! Not after last time.”

  Lodden nodded gravely. “I think you do right.”

  “I do?”

  “What we do here is important, but we will need time to finish it. If the Ice Lord arrives before we are done, all is lost. Besides, I do not know how any of us can be saved, but if it is possible it will be through men such as yourself.”

  Edan stood a little straighter. “Thank you, Maker. I had thought that you might be angry.”

  “How could I be?” Lodden patted the boy’s arm. “It breaks my heart that we rely on the swords of the young. I am horribly afraid of the losses we will suffer but we must each follow our hearts, for there will be no quarter when the Ice Lord arrives. Besides, there is little enough room in the chamber now, so we cannot fit in everyone who is willing to help. One thing, though.”

  “What?” The boy looked apprehensive.

  “Be careful of yourself, Edan. Your mother has lost much in this war. When the armies come, do your best but do not take any risks you do not have to.”

  Edan nodded. “I am not a Skral. I don’t look for glory in death. I just want to strike against the Ice Lord for my father and sister, and to keep my mother safe.”

  Lodden watched the boy leave. War was a filthy thing when it involved children, but this was not war so much as a struggle for survival. That being the case, children had as much to fight for as the adults did – perhaps even more. It was their future they fought for, after all.

  Lodden gathered his helpers together. “Everyone, we have much to do and not much time in which to accomplish it. The keels are all in place now but there are shards of wood everywhere. We need to gather this into sacks. The Potentate has got permission of the Skral Elders to use it in some of their contraptions. After this we need to make blocks of snow to pack the spaces between the Heart of Wood and the stones of the Circle. We will roll the snow into spheres, and when they are in place we will carve them flat and pack them with loose snow so that every bit of the space is filled. The top will be difficult to manage, but we will do our best.”

  He looked round at the faces surrounding him. “This will be cold, hard work. Make sure you have gloves on and try not to get too cold to help. If you are getting painfully cold, go back to the Skraelhall and thaw out by the fire, change into dry clothes if you need to, and come back as soon as you can. Time is getting short, and we need to use it as productively as possible, but bear in mind we won’t be finished today, and at the end of it all we will have a battle to fight.”

  As the people dispersed on the snowy field, he went to find Asri. “Asri, is this something that you are happy to do?”

  “Yes.” Asri was decisive. “I can see the difference between the whiteness of snow and the dark grass. I can roll the snow if someone else will take it back to the Circle, and keep me from wandering away lost.”

  “That sounds like a job for me!” Maran volunteered. “We can work together.”

  And so they started. First, every splinter of the wood from the ships that was not used was carefully collected together and sent back to the Skraelhall. The Heart of Wood was finished but as work started on building the great blocks, word came that the pot-bellied ships of the Ice Lord had landed on the island.

  “Look,” Maran breathed as they packed up for the evening. Far away in the darkness, a tiny spark flickered into being, and then another, and a nearer one. They grew and flared into tiny points of light, and as they did, more appeared, larger and nearer to.

  “What are they?” Lodden laid a chisel into the leathern pack which held his tools, and rolled it together.

  “They are the beacons. The Potentate had wood carried up to the tops of the highest hills when he arrived, that we might have more notice than Gai Ren did. At the top of every hill is a boy with a dog-sled, a supply of oil and kindling and three lanterns.”

  “Three?” Asri gathered together the last of the timber shards into a sack.

  “One to stay lit at all times, one as a back-up for when he needs to refill the oil, and a third in case of mishap. When the scouts saw the Ice Lord land they lit the first beacon and fled. Each boy is set to watch the previous beacon and when it fires up, to light his own brazier. When the one after him in the chain has been lit, he is to leave and head back. Somewhere along that line there are boys fleeing in the night, with only the stars to guide them back here and their sleds to carry them. And further along that line of fires, the Ice Lord’s army has started the march to Skraelhall.”

  “Maran – over there!” Lodden pointed to another point of fire which flared on the other side of the plain. “More beacons?”

  Maran caught his breath. “They come at us from two sides, maybe more! Come, friends, we need to be sure that others have seen this.”

  The three of them hurriedly gathered the last of their tools and made their way back to the Skraelhall.

  “The Ice Lord has landed troops on several different parts of the island,” Tusken Seal reported. “The beacons burn at all points of the compass. The troops will not reach us all at the same time, which is some little consolation, but they come in numbers such as will easily overwhelm us, even with the first wave of foes. As the rest reach us, all that will be left for them is to chase down anything that has escaped destruction. I say any thing, my friends,” he looked around at the faces of the other Clanfathers and leaders who sat in the hall with hi
m, “because I do not think that any one of us will be able to escape or retreat. They surround us utterly, or will do by the time they arrive.”

  “What shall we do?”

  Tusken Seal looked at the Potentate gravely. “What shall we do? We shall fight to the last man, and when that last man falls we shall hope that somehow Lodden and Maran have managed to catch the Ice Lord in that complicated structure of theirs. I think every Skral here knows that this is not a quest for glory so much as honour. None of us are likely to be remembered for our deeds on the battlefield as there will be none but the enemy left standing, but each of us can die with the knowledge that we have fought in all honour, and have fallen in the defence of all that was once good in the world.”

  “The people of Gai Ren stand at your side.” The Potentate rose and bowed to the Skral.

  After a moment the Mother did the same. “The Shantar will fight with you.”

  “Then let us forget all distinction of clan or race.” Tusken Seal’s statement earned a raised eyebrow from the Mother. “We are not Skral, Shantar, Gai Renese. We are the last remnants of the world we knew. We are brothers.”

  The Mother cleared her throat pointedly.

  “Very well, we are family.” Tusken Seal rolled his eyes. “Now, enough words. There is much to be done. Are the ships prepared?”

  “They are,” the Potentate confirmed. “The Gundal, the Dreda and the Aelfrith are stocked and ready.”

  “Are the children and their guardians ready to leave?”

  “They await the word to board.”

  “They should go at first light, and the Gods send them a clear journey and no sight of the Ice Lord’s ships.” Tusken Seal’s sigh was echoed by many in the room, and with little more than nods of acknowledgement, they each left to begin their preparations.

  One of the women was weeping quietly as she made her way back to the halls.

  “Frida.” Her cousin hurried up behind her.

  “Olann, what are we going to do? I don’t want to send the boys away, but Eldred’s only fourteen, and Ranfrith is just twelve. I can’t have them stay here and be killed! What are we going to do?”

  “Shhh! Get Bran and meet me by the sleds.”

  She stared after him with burgeoning hope. Olann would come up with something. He always had done, ever since they were children. She fetched her husband, much to his irritation, and brought him to the long low building where the sleds were kept. Olann was waiting there by the smallest sled, bundled up for a long journey, with a pack on his back.

  “What is this, Olann? What are you doing?” Bran, Frida’s husband hissed. “Do you plan to run from the Ice Lord’s men?”

  “I am not doing it for myself, but for Frida and the children. And I am not running away. I intend to go up the mountain and spy on the enemy, Bran. It’s just that if I’m up there and out of the way of the army, I should like to take Frida and the children with me.” Olann hesitated. “I can teach your boys a bit of woodcraft, perhaps, and... and...”

  Frida clutched at her husband’s arm. “You and Olann can defend them better than the oldsters who will be on the ship. I don’t have to come. Leave me, if you must, but take Eldred and Ranfrith. Teach them woodscraft. Teach them to kill the enemy one by one. Teach them... teach them whatever it takes.”

  Ignoring her, Bran turned on Olann. “Would you dishonour the clan? Would you drown our name in shame forever?”

  “No. I would have it continue. Whatever shame you may feel now will be as shortlived as everyone here. Only we will be left, to earn glory and honour in dedicating our lives to killing as many of the Ice Lord’s men as possible. Let me ask you this,” Olann raised a hand to forestall the interruption that he could see coming. “What earns the most honour, a short brutish death or a long life fighting the enemy? Because those are our choices. If we do not blindly do what we are told now, will we not wash away the shame in the blood of the Ice Lord’s men? In twenty years, or thirty, will that not make amends for it?”

  Bran turned his back.

  “It will make amends, Bran. They will be heroes, living up on a crag and raining death on the enemy. Living heroes, not dead boys!” Frida clutched at his arm.

  He snatched it away from her. There was a long silence before he spoke again. “What is your plan, Olann?”

  “I will go up to Fang Peak. There is a place I know there, a little hidden valley with game and water and shelter. I will scout the way and make sure it is clear. When I am there, watch for my signal. On the top of the peak I will light a fire. When you see it, come as fast as you can. Bring provisions as if you will never see this place again, for the chances are that you will not. Do not tell anyone, not anyone. We will just go, as silent as shadows, and your line will live on in Eldred and Ranfrith when you and I are long gone. I swear, Bran, by the sigil of my father, this will I do.” He pulled up his sleeve to expose the tattoo on his arm, a complicated spiral that was the sign of his father’s line, and echoed those painted on his shield and weapons, and embroidered around the border of his cloak.

  Bran did not turn. “Go. My wife and sons will follow. I will not.” He strode off into the night, as if trying to deny this surrender.

  Olann bent to hug Frida. “Can you travel to Lamefoot Pass in the dark?”

  “I will. I must.”

  “I will meet you there, and bring you up to the valley.” He kissed her on the cheek. “I will take a sled tonight and send it back before morning. The dogs will come back here when they are hungry. Make sure all is set in place and put away before anyone else rises.” He lifted his pack onto his back and shrugged his shoulders to get it settled properly. “Frida? Do not tell anyone, not your mother, not your sister, not anyone. The game will be scarce. We will be lucky if we do not starve in the winter. I would not have separated you from Bran, but the fact that he is not coming means we have a better chance of avoiding starvation. For the sake of your sons, Frida, do not tell a soul.”

  She nodded. “Be careful. The Ice Lord’s men are on their way. I am placing the life of my sons in your hands.”

  “I know it. I will not fail you.” He disentangled himself. “I must go. Watch for my sign, and when you see it, come with as much speed as you can.”

  Mopping her eyes, she nodded, and hurried back to the clanhall to tell her sons that they would not be embarking with the other children.

  There was little sleep to be had that night. There was much to be done as they finally moved everyone who was to leave to the shore and on board the ships. They were sending away the oldsters and the wounded, the children and those who would look after and defend them if they could not outpace the Ice Lord’s ships. Everyone knew that these were likely to be their final goodbyes. By torchlight parents took their children on board, found them a place on the hastily-erected bunks and set their packs down. They stayed till the last possible moment, with the wounded and the oldsters coming on around them and most of the remaining stores of food and water. Those staying did not expect to need more than a few days’ supplies. As little as possible was to be left for the enemy.

  Eventually, word came that the parents should gather on the shore. As the first light turned the sky from black to grey the quays were lined with silent faces, and the children stood along the rails of the ships. No-one shouted or waved. There was the occasional sniffle but none had words for an occasion such as this, and even the younger ones who did not understand were awed into silence by the sombre mood.

  In eerie quiet the anchors were raised and the ropes cast off. The three ships moved away with only the hushing of the waves, the clank of the anchor chains and the booming slap of canvas as the sails caught the wind. No-one moved. They simply stood, husbands holding wives, friends with their arms around friends, throats locked tight with tears unshed, watching the ships that held their children, their parents, all their hopes for a future beyond the coming bloodshed.

  Slowly the sun rose, its rays touching the far-off sails with whi
te as they diminished into the green sea. In little groups, friends embraced each other. Silently they filed off along the quay and back to the halls with aching hearts, but a calmer resolve. If all else went badly, something at least might be saved.

  At the halls, food was prepared. Few were hungry but they ate anyway, and gradually the noise levels in the hall rose to a more normal level, if still subdued.

  “May I have your attention please?” The Potentate stood on the dais to address them, and there was a lull in the conversation. “Good people, what we have done today is a little miracle. In the face of overwhelming odds, we have saved a little of ourselves from the Ice Lord. The Gundal, the Dreda and the Aelfrith hold all that is precious to us. It has strained our heartstrings to watch our loved ones sail away, but there is no time for us to indulge in grief. Neither is there reason to do so. Our children have sailed with those who will give them a good chance of surviving this time of death and madness. We will not see them again in this world, but we do not have time to lie and weep. To preserve the ships, we must keep the Ice Lord’s attention focussed here long enough for Maran and Lodden to trap him in the Dragon’s Teeth, and that will take all the efforts of every last one of us.” He looked round the hall. “Come, friends. There is little hope for us, perhaps, but we share a purpose. Let us work at our tasks with a ready will. We all have equal share in these times, and every task is as important as every other. We are only a ragtag group of exiles from different clans and nations, but we are all that is left to stand between the Ice Lord and his wish to bring death to the world. Let us do our best to stop him.”

  A Skral stood in silent toast, and a Shantar followed. One by one all the inhabitants of the hall stood, and when all were on their feet, the Potentate raised his tankard. “To the Gundal, the Dreda and the Aelfrith. Safe sailing and an easy landing to them, wherever that may be.”

  All drank, and the tone in the hall eased a little as they filed out of the benches and went about their tasks. Warriors as they all now were, the various members and nationalities made peace with themselves and each other, making vows of brotherhood to their comrades, even those from other countries. Many of the women and some of the older children had refused to leave, and the smiths were still hard at work sharpening blades and fitting them to staves cut down from the handles of oars, that these smaller ones might have a weapon with which to defend themselves. The Gai Renese were putting finishing touches to the contraptions they had fashioned to send into the Ice Lord’s army, carrying fire and destruction in their wake. These were strange, complicated things with sails to catch the wind and propel them onward, and a space in their bellies where burning pitch could be set. Wood from the keels had been woven into their design and they were tethered by the Dragons Teeth, where their strange, angular skeletons thrummed and rattled in the breeze like headless warhorses raring to dash down into the fray.

  As the day wore on, the sandships were sent out with the scouts aboard. They returned with several of the boys from the beacons on board, and reported that the army were indeed advancing on several sides. Time was short, and there was much to be done.

  Night drew in, and fires lit the horizon. Snow was falling as Lodden, Maran and Asri returned to the clan-halls, and the misty flakes glowed with the far flames of the army’s advance, burning everything in their path. The sandships skimmed through the snow like ghosts in the red half-light, returning ever more frequently to report how near the army was, what they had destroyed. The great stands of oaks which had been nurtured for generations to build Skral ships, and the shipyards nearby had gone. Maran wept to hear of the passing of the Halls of Lore. From the plain the scouts had seen the flames leaping high amongst the mountains, where the Halls had stood for a thousand years. Even the ruins of the old palace where the Kings of Skral ruled when the Skral were one tribe, even these had been razed to the ground. All that was Skral was destroyed. The rivers were befouled and where they could, the Ice Lord’s armies felled trees into the harbours and blocked them with great boulders, cut the struts of quays, burnt crops and killed livestock.

  Eldred and Ranfrith had been working alongside Edan for most of the day, helping to fletch arrows, but as the darkness drew in, they were sent back to their various families.

  “I never thought Mother would let us stay and fight,” Ranfrith gloated. “Normally she treats us like little children, so I was certain they would send us away with all the babes.”

  “I wasn’t sure my mother would let me, either, but I was determined not to go.” Edan packed the remaining feathers.

  “It was a bit unexpected, really.” Eldred was thoughtful. “I thought it would take more than just saying we didn’t want to go. But then we are nearly grown men – not that they usually treat us that way, but in age we nearly are.”

  “But it’s too late now! The ship has gone and they can’t send us after it!”

  Eldred looked at his brother in some irritation. “This isn’t going to be all mead and glory you know. Horrible things happen in battle, and they might happen to us too.”

  “To you, maybe!” Ranfrith punched his brother on the arm. “Great warrior like me, I’ll probably win the whole war for you!”

  “That would save us a lot of time. Get on with it then!”

  Edan had to grin at that. “You coming to the food hall later?”

  “I reckon so. Depends on how long it takes me to get away from my mother.” Eldred grimaced. “I know everyone’s acting strangely at the moment but honestly, my parents are the strangest of the lot. My father’s striding round like Arn the Destroyer and my mother’s looking guilty as sin.”

  Ranfrith looked up. “Talking of which...”

  Frida hurried over. “Eldred, Ranfrith, hurry up and stop loitering about! There is a lot to do before we go to bed for the night. And it will be early tonight. Tomorrow will be a long day, so don’t try and persuade your father’s friends to give you ale until you throw up again.”

  Ranfrith pulled a face. He had suggested this very plan to Edan. “So much for being counted one of the men!”

  “Of course you’re not men, you silly boy! It’s just that you’ll be much better here with your father and your uncle Olann than you will on a ship with some ancients who can barely see well enough to read a map, never mind manage a sail!”

  “I’ll see you later, Edan.” Eldred followed Ranfrith in the wake of their mother, deeply embarrassed and a little resentful at the way she had talked to them in front of their friend.

  They ate quickly and she had them go straight to bed. Ranfrith rebelled considerably at this, until his father, who was in one of the worst moods they had ever seen, suddenly turned and blasted him.

  “What kind of warrior will you grow to be if you cannot take orders?! Will you dash into battle before the rest of them are ready? Do as you are told, boy, and do not shame me with your disobedience!”

  Considerably taken aback, the boys went to bed in the little niche where their sleeping furs were. Ranfrith reached forward and pulled the curtains of their bedding place slightly apart. Through the gap they watched their mother hurrying about. Gradually they became aware of what she was doing: under the guise of tidying their ownings, she was gathering them together in one place, packing them in sacks and every so often, putting on a cloak to hide the sack she was carrying out of the hall.

  Eldred did not know quite what to make of this. The night wore on, and others filtered in and went to their own bedding places, until the sides of the halls were one big wall of curtains, with the occasional gap where some drunken warrior had slumped on his bed (or off it) in a stupor of mead and anticipation. Then his mother drew aside the curtain to his own bedding place. “Shhh. Come.”

  Ranfrith started to protest, but Eldred hesitated. “Father?”

  Bran was sitting nearby, but now he came into the bedding place. “Do as your mother says, boys; but before you go, I want to give you something. Here, Eldred.This was your grandfather’s. I think
he would have liked you to have it.” It was an eating set, the one his father used every day, and now Eldred was really concerned.

  “What-?”

  “Ranfrith, take this dagger. Look after your brother.”

  “Father, I want to fight. I don’t want to-”

  “Don’t argue, boy. Just go. Take it, and remember me.” He caught the boys to him in a brief hug. “And make sure you clean our slate in the blood of the enemy in the days to come.”

  “But Father...”

  “Enough! Go. Frida, you have seen the sign?”

  “I know the way, Bran. You will not come with us?”

  “No. I will stay, and fight.”

  “But father, I don’t want to run away!” Ranfrith interrupted. “I will fight with you!”

  “Be quiet! Someone will hear and your mother will get into trouble!” There was no answer to that, and so the boys rose, put on their cloaks and slipped out of the warmth of the hall into the freezing darkness. Their father patted them on the shoulder awkwardly and made his way back inside.

  Uncovering a shielded lantern, their mother led the way to the dog-sheds, where she had packed and readied a sled and team. “Get on, and hurry!”

  The boys were bundled onto the sled with all the other baggage, bewildered by the suddenness of it all. Frida strapped the lantern on, and climbed on the back. With a jerk the sled moved off across the plain.

  For some hours they rattled on in the darkness, going slowly and always aiming for that flickering firelight on the mountain. The ground climbed up to the foothills, and they came to the road that wound over the mountains: Lamefoot Pass.

  “Unload the sled. We will find somewhere to hide the food until we can come back for it. Hurry!” Frida loosed the dogs’ harness from the sled and tied it to a tree so that they should not move away. Eldred had been asleep despite the bumping, but Ranfrith was awake and burning with resentment.

  “You never meant to let us fight, did you? You told us we didn’t have to go on the ship because you had already planned to run away like a coward. And what are we going to do here?” Ranfrith heaved a bundle off the sled and slammed it on the ground.

  “Don’t shout! Someone will hear you!” Frida moved the bundle over to a stone. “Your brother understands why I did it, though, don’t you, Eldred?”

  Eldred looked at her for a long moment. “I understand why you did it, but you have given away our honour without even asking us.” He shook his head. “If any Skral survive this war, we will always be the ones who stole a sled and ran away. I can’t believe that Father allowed it.”

  “Eldred...”

  “You should have asked. It should have been our decision as well.” Eldred picked up another bundle. “I will help you bring your load to wherever you’re going, but then I will take the sled back. They might need it.”

  “But Eldred, you will die! They will all die! That is the only reason why we are here – so that someone will be left to fight the enemy when the rest of them have all died.”

  Eldred shook his head. “That might have worked on Father because he would want to believe it. It makes no sense at all though. You should have sent us on the ship if that was what you intended.” He began to harness the dogs to the sled again, calm but determined.

  “You can’t go back now though, or we will all be in trouble, me especially.” Frida stopped. “Do you want that? You know the punishment. If they sent me away now I’d be alone with that army coming along. How long do you think it would take them to kill me? No, it’s too late now. We’re here and we’re going to meet up with Olann and we’re going to go with him. Look, that will be him now.” She nodded at a light that was coming closer. “Who else would be on the mountain?”

  The dogs began to growl. Eldred exchanged glances with his brother. “The enemy?”

  Frida backed toward the sled as the boys turned it round.

  Eldred stepped onto the driving platform. “Get on, just in case!”

  As Ranfrith and Frida tumbled onto the sled, the light came round the corner, to reveal three men, thin and wary. They all froze, and then one of the men came forward, speaking some language Eldred did not know. He smiled, and approached gently. The other two fanned out either side and edged forward. He was not holding a weapon. In his hand was a piece of roasted meat on the bone, hot and succulent. Juices ran down his hand and he licked at them. He said something to the others, who roared with laughter as he tore a big bite of meat off, chewing it as if it were tough.

  Eldred stared. The meat was a strange shape for an animal. What was it?

  The dogs were snapping and snarling and as the man edged nearer, Eldred saw that the skin on the meat was marked with a convoluted spiral tattoo.

  Eldred froze. Then in a flurry of fear, he whistled the signal and the dogs were off and running, faster and faster into the dark. He could not see the way very well but the dogs were on familiar ground and knew where the clanhalls were, and all of them were desperate to be far from the Ice Lord’s men and the terrible feasting on Fang Peak.

  When they reached the halls. Eldred went round and knelt by the sled, where Frida was clutching at Ranfrith. “Mother. We’re back, Mother.” Frida did not react. Tears were streaming down her face.

  Eldred’s brother struggled out from her grasp. “She’s been like this all the way home.”

  “She was very close to Olann.”

  “What? What happened to Olann?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “How do you know?”

  Eldred paused. His brother had not seen or understood what had happened. He would not leave him with that image which was burned into his own brain. “They had his axe, all covered in blood,” he lied. “He would never give that up. Listen, we need Father. Go and get him – but quietly. No-one must know. Mother said so.”

  And as Ranfrith slipped away into the night, Eldred put his arms around his mother, holding her until help came.

  “Eldred.” Bran stank of mead, but was in control. He crouched beside them. “I am glad and sorry to see you.”

  Eldred smiled crookedly. “Is Ranfrith in the halls?” Bran nodded. “This is what happened. I have not explained to him.” He went through the events of the evening, ending with the lie he had told Ranfrith.

  “You did well tonight, boy. You are growing to be the man I hoped you would.” Bran sat back on his heels.

  “And I have killed you both.” Frida still had that strange intense stare. “You should have gone on the ship.”

  “That’s not important now.” Bran pulled her to her feet. “Come. We must get you back to the halls. Eldred will see to the sled.”

  Eldred was left to unharness and water the dogs that had saved them that night, and then to make his way though the noises and whispering of the darkness into the temporary safety of the clanhalls. When he got back, Frida was in bed and apparently asleep and Ranfrith just drawing the curtain shut on his own bed.

  Catching Eldred’s eye, Bran came to the doorway. “Come. We need to tell the Elders what you saw.”

  “I do not want to get Mother in trouble...”

  “Olann was the instigator of this foolishness, and Olann is dead.” Bran held open the door of the clanhall. “Your mother will not be punished.”

  The clanfathers were not pleased at being woken, but once assembled, Eldred’s story quietened their murmurings.

  “You say only your wife and the boy here know?” Tusken Seal stifled a yawn. “Then I say we tell only those who need to know. There is no point in panicking everyone. On the other hand, we do need to pass it on to those manning the scoutships. If they see people on foot, we will make sure they pick them up. To be eaten is no death for a Skral.” He paused in thought. “We will not need the sleds now. There is nowhere for us to attempt to escape to. Send Drankar and his people out, one rider with each sled. Make sure they are good fighters. Have them circle around as widely as they can, and get back quickly. We do not send them to die now. We need
them back before the battle begins, and it will not be easy.”

  The sandships came back with first light, reporting that though the greater part of the Ice Lord’s army was still making its way over from the other side of the island, the nearer part was within a half-day’s march. The ships would not go on long sweeps any more lest they return to find themselves trapped, and as the light grew into a grim dawn, enemy scouts were sighted.

  With the coming of day, the first soldiers of the Ice Lord’s army came into view and as the day progressed, the army came on and on, and no end to it could be seen. As the front edge of the army grew nearer, the Skrals and their allies spilled out of the clan-halls and went to take their places around the Circle.

  Lodden, Maran and Asri worked like demons, but even so they paused every so often to glance round at the horizon. No word was spoken as the bowl of the plain filled to overflowing, the white snow trampled by the black tide of armoured soldiers who spilled into it.

  “I cannot see them. It is bad, is it?” Asri’s face was weary with resignation.

  Lodden knew her well enough not to lie. “The Ice Lord’s army stretches to the horizon.”

  “The Skral are few.”

  “Valorous as they are, they cannot stand against so many.”

  She fell silent for a moment, her every movement expressing a kind of fury. “Then let us hope that it is finished in time. You are sure that it will work, this trap?”

  “The ships told me it would.” Lodden nodded slowly. “I am sure, yes.”

  “And you can make the Ice Lord walk into it?” she demanded of Maran.

  “Yes. I will promise him that which he desires. He will walk in. I have seen it.”

  “And then the ships will lock him in place.” Lodden leaned on the snow wall in front of him. It all seemed so simple. Perhaps he had been wrong in his fear for Maran. If the Ice Lord was inside the Heart of Wood, how could he hurt the bard? Perhaps it was no more than a danger of something happening, rather than a definite prediction. Lodden glanced across at his soul-twin, who looked tired and pale in the dullness of the morning. No matter what the ships foretold, if he could save the man he loved from this danger, he would – but still his heart wept within him with the fear of parting.

  Maran met his gaze and came over to him. “Stay strong, my brother,” he whispered raggedly. “You are my strength. You have seen what happens if we do not tread this path. You have seen what the Ice Lord did to Lyria at first hand, and the ships showed you what the consequences will be if we turn aside now.” Maran held him tightly. “If you try to save me, you kill the world and I will die with all the rest of it. There is no point in that. If I am not to survive this, I would rather die here in the Heart of Wood of my own choice that at the mercy of the Ice Lord. Let me end my life doing something worth dying for! The ships have said that I am the means of freeing the world from the Ice Lord’s threat. That is a choice worth the making, my brother, wouldn’t you say?”

  Lodden could not speak, but swallowed hard, trying to get past the tightness of his throat.

  “Lodden, you know as well as I that it is necessary. Help me to acquit myself with honour. Please...”

  They embraced for some moments before Lodden was able to nod.

  “Many have sacrificed much to allow this to happen, bard.” The gentleness of Asri’s tone belied the harshness of her words. “It is a hard thing you do. We will both help you, as far as we can.”

  The Ice Lord’s soldiers spilled over the plain, not attempting to engage with the rabble of warriors setting up a last defence before them. Further and further round they spread, until the defenders were completely surrounded and the enemy stretched from one horizon to another.

  The leaders had set their defences in place. Closest to the Dragon’s Teeth the weaker fighters stood with the few children who had remained, defending the areas set aside for the wounded. Round them, a ring of the crossbows whose bolts would carry furthest, along with a couple of mangonels fashioned by the Gai-Renese. In front of them, three rings of archers, each staggered slightly so that the children who were in charge of the arrows could dart through and keep them supplied. Outside these, the first circle of defence was made up of the better fighters among the men, women and the older children. Among these Alaera, Edan and his friends stood, Lodden knew. Once all were in place, it was just a matter of waiting while the plain filled and overflowed with the Ice Lord’s army. There was so little time!

  A rustle of robes heralded the Potentate, whose leather breastplate contrasted oddly with his usual silks. He carried one of the lethal Gai Renese blades. “They have us surrounded. How long will it take you to finish the trap?”

  Lodden set down the tool with which he was packing the snow and tucked his hand under his armpit to warm it. “I cannot say. We have finished much of the wall but there is still the area on the top to be done, and it is difficult. The net of rope will not support solid blocks of snow so we must slice slabs from the top and lay them on. We will finish as quickly as we can but...”

  The Potentate finished his thought. “There is little chance for any of us. I had hoped that perhaps a few might break away and survive.”

  The paltry ranks of Skrals and outlanders arrayed around the Circle were thinly stretched, trying to defend it on all sides. Tusken Seal and the Mother joined them.

  “We will hold them as long as we can,” Tusken Seal told them, “but how long that will be is anyone’s guess. It is a question of how long they wish to play with us. If they decide to crush us now we cannot stand against them.”

  “When they attacked the Court at Lyria, there were fewer of them and more of us.” With so much that was terrible surrounding Lodden, the pain of the memory was lost amongst the rest. “They sent their champion against ours. Ours won, and they shot him down with arrows. Their herald challenged us for another champion, and another and another until no more would come forward. They taunted us as cowards and then attacked, but the point is that while they were calling out champions they held off from the main battle. They used it as distraction then. Perhaps we can do so now.”

  There was a silence.

  “Now this is more like the Skral Way!” Tusken Seal boomed suddenly, startling the Mother and the Potentate. “While there are Skrals left standing, you shall have your champions!”

  “But they will die, inevitably!” the Potentate objected.

  “We all will, but that kind of personal glory is very much to the Skral taste, I should think.” The Mother clapped Tusken Seal on the back. “They are assured of a place in the Hall of the Forefathers at any rate.”

  “Aye!” Tusken Seal looked positively gleeful.

  The Mother shook her head, baffled. “You are a strange, macabre lot, you Skrals, but I am honoured to fight alongside you.”

  The Potentate thought for a moment. “Very well. A challenge.... We need a herald, preferably with some sort of drum or horn, and we need to attract their attention quickly before they are all positioned for the attack.”

  “The Clanfathers have horns. I need them not to go in on the first wave in any case. When the battle starts the youngsters will go berserk too quickly if left unguided, and we cannot win by fury alone here. The Elders will take it hard not to be allowed to volunteer as champions but there are three things that a Skral never gives to another – his ship, his knife and his battlehorn. We will use the Clanfathers as a guard of honour.”

  “Very well. And the champion?”

  “We may have to draw lots to find out who goes first. I shall go and tell my people.” Tusken Seal nodded at both and left to organise this.

  “Skrals!” The Mother sighed. “They are an extraordinary people. I hope this is not the last the world sees of them.”

  “We will do our best to make sure of that.” The Potentate looked at the sparse lines of fighters between the Dragon’s Teeth and the vast armies surrounding them. “Let us hope that our best suffices.”

  “Edan? What are you
doing here?”

  Edan turned. “Alaera? I didn’t know you could fight.”

  “I’m Skral.” The healer smiled sadly. “We all learn to wield a weapon, even if we don’t want to. In the old days the clans used to raid each other, until it occurred to them that if they raided other people the clan-halls didn’t get burnt down every year or so. I’m no warrior though. And neither are you.”

  The boy looked down. “I did kill a man once. It was horrible, but I did it. And I’m not very good but they said we need everyone we can get.”

  Alaera looked out over the plain. “I know. I keep telling myself we aren’t going to get out of this, so there’s no reason to worry about it, but I must admit the sight of all those soldiers scares me.”

  “Me too. I must be a terrible coward...”

  “There is no shame in being afraid.” The Potentate paused, on the way to his place. “Everyone feels fear. It is part of being human. It is what we do when we are afraid that makes us brave or cowardly. The brave man accepts his fear and does what he has to despite it. It is only the man who allows his fear to rule him that is the coward, the man who uses fear as an excuse not to do what must be done. We are all afraid, young man, because we know that pain and death await us. All we can do is sell our lives dearly enough to win the time that is needed for the completion of the Heart of Wood.”

  “Will it work, sir?”

  The Potentate looked at the boy standing before him, nearly as tall as he but with fear and uncertainty in his eyes. “I am no seer myself, but if the shipspirits have said it and the Mother of the Shantar agrees, then I think it will work. And if it does not, at least we will not be here to see it. It is a strange kind of consolation, but it makes me feel better nonetheless.”

  The boy’s face eased a little. “Thank you sir.”

  Around them the massed armies settled into place. The ranks stopped moving and a quiet descended on the plain, broken by the sounds of flags snapping in the icy wind and the faint shouting of men, almost beyond the edge of hearing.

  Alaera fidgeted. “I hate doing nothing. I hate it anyway but more so when I’m nervous. Would you like to help me sort out the bandages while they’re still getting in position? We made extra but didn’t have time to roll them.” She handed him a tangle of material.

  “Thanks, Alaera. That might keep my mind off it for a bit.” The boy began to tease it out so that he could roll it up, ready for use. “How quiet it is. The waiting is horrible.”

  “It is the calm before the storm, no more.” They both jumped as a cacophony errupted within their own lines.

  “What on earth is that?”

  Further around the little circle of defenders, a procession was forming. A double line of Skral men blowing on horns were flanked by Shantars, bashing weapons on shields. The greybearded Skral carried ornately ornamented axes and horns, and were led by Tusken Seal. Behind them walked a brawny warrior, strong and confident in his bearing.

  Alaera wiped her eyes. “That is Rankar, of my clan. He is a mighty warrior. He deserves this honour.”

  “What honour? What is happening?”

  “He is the first of the champions. He goes to a valorous death against the enemy.”

  Edan looked out across the seas of men on the plain. Tusken Seal led his procession out into the gap between the armies. The Clanfathers gave a final mighty blast on their horns, and Tusken Seal opened a great scroll and called out what was written on it, brief phrases in two or three languages.

  “A challenge?”

  “Aye. That’ll be an addition from the Potentate,” Alaera replied. “The Gai Renese have a good feel for effect.”

  “But what’s the point? If he’s going to die anyway?” Edan blurted. “Doesn’t he just want to get it over and done with? I would.”

  “Perhaps so, but every moment that he buys for us is another moment that you and I get to live. Give us enough moments, and who knows what we may do?”

  There was a thunderous roll of drums. From far back in the Ice Lord’s army, there was a ripple of movement. Rank after rank of men parted to allow a party of mounted officers through. There were fifteen or twenty of them, broad-shouldered and powerful of build. Edan could not see their faces from that distance, but they cantered through their own men with a blithe disregard for life and limb. He saw at least two of their own soldiers trampled under the horses’ hooves. The tallest officer wore the same black cloak as the others, but with a dash of red satin around the edges – the uniform of a member of the elite Ice Guard. He rode right up to Tusken Seal and spat on the floor beside the older man.

  There was a brief exchange. Rankar shouted something in a language Edan did not understand. The Ice Guard reared his horse, and galloped back through the enemy ranks, his men close behind him. The drums rolled again, and then settled into a heavy beat which hung in the air, stifling as thunder. It went on for a short while, and then there was another drumroll and crash.

  “What does that mean, Alaera?”

  “I think we’re about to find out.”

  This time when the Ice Guard returned there was another man with them, wearing crimson armour and armed with a spiked mace and a spear.

  “He has no shield,” Edan whispered.

  “He is not intended to survive. He is there only to entertain them.” Alaera continued to wind her bandage as if that could hold off the fighting for another moment, just one moment more.

  The drums were speeding up now, taking on a double beat that echoed the racing of Edan’s heart. The Clanfathers saluted Rankar and drew back, as did the enemy officers. The Ice Lord’s pennants snapped in the sharp wind.

  The drums resounded across the plain. Rankar and the other warrior hefted their weapons and began to circle warily. Suddenly they lunged into action, feinting and blocking. A roar went up from both sides. The Ice Lord’s man stabbed his spear at Rankar. The Skral deflected it with his shield and brought the axe smashing down. It missed the warrior but hacked through the spearhead. The warrior whipped the spearhaft round like a cudgel, beating the Skral over the shoulders. Rankar staggered and the warrior tripped him with the spearhaft. Rankar fell. The lethal spiked mace sank deep into the turf where Rankar’s head had been as he lunged away, jerking his opponent’s legs from under him.

  They rolled and climbed to their feet, beginning to circle again.

  “He’s good.” Edan could barely breathe. He did not want to see but could not tear his eyes away.

  “He’s very good,” Alaera replied softly. “He will fight well and, I hope, die well.” As the warriors lunged and parried on the field, Edan opened his mouth as if to speak, but did not. She caught the movement. “Does it shock you that I should say that? If we expected to survive, perhaps I should not, but Rankar does not expect to live. I would rather he died quickly and painlessly. Now, death is sure, and because the uncertainty is gone, it is to be accepted, not feared – but I cannot help but fear pain.”

  “I am glad to be standing here with you, Alaera,” Edan told her suddenly. “My friend Ranfrith was talking like a mighty warrior, boasting how many he would kill and how we would win the day despite the odds. For all his talk, fear was in his eyes and his hands shook. It made me feel even more afraid. You are not hopeful as he seemed to be, but you are determined. That makes much more sense to me.” He watched the champions as they wrestled on the sparse grass of the plain. “I do not think we can survive, either, but I will do my best to die honourably.”

  Alaera gave him a brief one-arm hug and released him quickly. “I had a son, you know. I sometimes imagine how he would be now. I hope he would be a bit like you.”

  Edan did not quite know what to say to this. “I wondered if you had your own children, but it seemed rude to ask. You’re like everyone’s mother.”

  Alaera did not take her eyes from the bandage she was rolling. “I only had one child. My son died when he was a baby. He would have been a bit younger than you are now, I think. I never thought
to say so, but I am glad his little life was so short. All he knew was a few months of flowers and sunshine, and then he went to sleep and never woke up.”

  Edan looked at the ground. “That seems like a good thing to me now.” He was thinking of his sister.

  A roar went up from the Skrals as Rankar’s axe went through the helm of his opponent. The Ice Lord’s champion stiffened and fell. Rankar yelled his triumph, brandishing his axe high, and Edan and Alaera shouted with the rest.

  Then Rankar stumbled and collapsed to the ground, an arrow in his neck. The Skrals fell silent. He lay still. Warriors came forward to carry Rankar back to the Dragon’s Teeth, while men from the Ice Lord’s army dragged their own champion to one side.

  “Is he –?”

  “He’s dead.” Alaera wiped her eyes again. “From the look of it, that arrow pierced the artery in his neck. But he died triumphant, just as he wished. The Forefathers will make a special place for him.”

  There was a moment’s pause before the drums started again, and the rippling ranks of the army announced a new champion coming through. A second Skral champion stepped forward. Again the drums picked up that double beat, getting faster and faster, and again the warriors chose their ground.

  Alaera turned to Edan. “Pass me another bandage, please. We will put up champions for as long as we can. We could be here for some time.”

  Three times the drums rolled, and three times a new champion came to battle, but if the Skrals won they were slain with arrows. By now the ground was trampled and so slippery with blood that it was difficult for the fighters to keep their footing, but still there were many young Skrals waiting and ready to volunteer. After the third champion was slain, bowstrings twanged and the victorious Skral died, but the pattern of the drums changed.

  There was a prolonged roll that filled the horizon with thunder. Then, as the echoes faded, a new beat started, and now it was a fast marching beat. Horns brayed, and across the whole plain there was a shifting of black, as if the sea was suddenly flooding over the island.

  “They have tired of their sport too quickly. I hope we have at least bought Lodden the time he needs.” Alaera packed the last of the bandages into a basket and held it out to Edan. “Would you return this, please? And Edan?”

  “Yes?”

  She held out the weapon he had put down. “Take your sword. This may happen very quickly.”

  Edan glanced out at the enemy, from the ragged ranks at the front to the well-armed, uniformed soldiers ready behind. Taking the sword, he slotted it neatly into his scabbard. Then he ran for the centre, holding the scabbard against his leg so it did not trip him. He dropped the basket of bandages by the oldster who was closing the eyes of the last champion whose body had been brought to lie with that of Rankar and the other. The oldster crooned the Skral death-rites, but Edan had the feeling that that withered voice sang for all of them, Skral, Shantar and Gai-Renese alike. He nodded acknowledgment to her but she did not pause in her song. The Ice Lord’s drums kept up that fast pace, and the horns brayed again, a great blare of sound which echoed across the plain.

  Edan took a deep breath. He suddenly felt very young, but as he looked out over the great sea of black before him, there was a chirp.

  “Tiris? What are you doing here?” Arrows thrummed out from the first ring of archers as he leant down and grabbed the little bird, which squawked in outrage. There was no time to hesitate. Edan ran back to the entrance of the Heart of Wood. “Mother!”

  “Edan?”

  “Mother, Tiris is here. He will get hurt. I brought him back so you can look after him.” He thrust the bird into his mother’s hands.

  “Edan, don’t go...” Asri’s voice shook as he embraced her quickly.

  “I must. They’re coming. I love you.” He kissed her on the cheek and stepped away.

  “Fortune!” Lodden called.

  “And to you!” Edan sped back to the lines. A mighty thunk – the mangonel loosed its load and projectiles flew overhead. There were screams and yelling from the enemy. Edan ducked back into line with Alaera just in time. Soldiers were running up the slope towards them.

  Edan’s heart was banging on his ribcage, but suddenly he was back there on the mountain, hiding with his mother as the Ice Lord’s soldiers descended upon his father and sister. Rage filled him, and he raised his sword, his hands suddenly steady. “This time I am not helpless!” he roared, slashing at the face of the man who reached him first. Beside him, Alaera swung her blade mightily, and after that it was all a blur of blood and fighting.

  As the three worked frantically to complete the walls of snow, the battle raged. Blood flowed and many died. Lodden and Maran did not stop to look and Asri did not ask but cries echoed over the plain, punctuated by the occasional boom as one of the rattling, wind-powered Gai Renese constructions went off.

  They filled the space between one monolith and the next, as high as they could reach, and moved round to the next.

  “We’ll never finish in time.” Lodden slammed a fist into the snow block he was working, shattering the corner off. “We will fail and it will all be in vain. What is the use of going on when we cannot finish?”

  “We do not know that yet,” Maran soothed. “We have still a little time.”

  “But not enough – nowhere near enough!”

  “Do you mean to give up?” Asri interrupted, fierce as a hawk. “After all this? After all that the Ice Lord has done, would you let him win?”

  “Of course not, but against so many, what hope is there?”

  “That battle is not ours to fight. Those who can are fighting the Ice Lord with spear and axe, we with snow and shovel.” She stabbed her shovel into the snow viciously. “Edan is out there fighting for us. I cannot see well enough to fight beside him, but I can see where there is snow, and I can build it into blocks. Do not let us waste these moments. They are dearly bought, and we have walls to build before the enemy come for us.”

  There was no way that Edan could tell how long he had been fighting. His shoulders were weary with the ache of thrust and parry, and of endless impacts on his shield.

  When the first wave had passed, he looked about and was appalled. All around him were the dead and dying. There seemed to be equal numbers of the Ice Lord’s men and those from his own side, for the defenders were fighting with unstinting ferocity, but that had eaten into their numbers badly and the Ice Lord’s armies still covered the plain.

  That said, there were pockets of uproar well into the enemy ranks. The Gai Renese had set off their contraptions a few at a time. These were great rattling things made of the precious bamboo they had brought with them. They were like skeletons of giant centipedes, multi-legged and with little sails along their backs. As the wind caught them it wound up springs and joints so that they scuttled across the field, flapping and rattling – terrifying enough if one bore down on you, but the Gai Renese had so built them that they carried a fire in their belly and every so often would flick out little rags soaked in burning pitch. The enemy fled before them, but in the crowd there was not room enough to get out of reach of the pitch, and so there were screams and flames tracking across the army. After a while the bamboo itself would burn, though it had been soaked in water beforehand. Edan could see two burning in heaps and one afire, soldiers trying to upturn it with pikes as it crept its last steps and then exploded in a shower of sticky flames. There were another four left tethered behind the defenders, unlit, but shifting in the breeze.

  “They make me shiver,” Alaera gasped, following his gaze as she leant on her axe. “They scuttle like giant insects.”

  “Insects taller than horses.” Edan shuddered. “I’d probably run if one came towards me.”

  “That’s the idea.” Alaera straightened a little. “You look mostly unhurt.”

  “A scratch or two.” Edan raised a hand to his face. Blood trickled from a scratch to his scalp. “You?”

  “No wounds. A couple of blows from a stave.” Sh
e handed him the axe. “I think we have a few moments. Take this.”

  She slipped a dagger from her belt and while he watched, horrified, she went round the enemy soldiers nearby and made sure they were all dead. Some had been screaming, but stopped with a gurgle as she cut their throats. She wiped the blade on the jerkin of the last, and returned to her place as the drums began again. “How my father would laugh,” she said bitterly. “He always said that I was too soft. He would not believe how ruthless we have become in these latter days. What kind of healer kills without attempting to heal? But they would have received no help from their own.”

  Edan could not help staring. More than the blood on his hands, more than the split guts and death littering the ground about him, this brought home to him that they were fighting beyond hope.

  Alaera saw his face. “One of the evils of war is what it turns us into.” She wiped her eyes on a sleeve, leaving a smear across her cheek. “But now we are here, and hopelessly outnumbered. Every death wins Lodden and Maran a little more time, and your mother. If it is easier, fight for her.”

  Edan took a deep breath. To keep his mother from these beasts, what would he do? Anything. “I will do what is needful to keep her safe.”

  Alaera patted his arm. “So will we all.” She looked down into the field where another charge was coming together. “A few moments and they will come again. Straighten your jerkin, Edan. The leather is pulled up so there is a gap along your side. If they see that, they will aim for it.”

  As Edan yanked his jerkin down, the mangonel thunked, sending its load into the crowded enemy. Many were killed or maimed, but more took their places. The front rank were taken by crossbow bolts. As they fell, the second ran into a shower of arrows.

  The archers fired and knelt so that the row behind had a clear view. Children ran back and forth with bundles of arrows for the archers and bolts for the crossbowmen, who reloaded much more slowly but sent their bolts further into the enemy. For all the hail of deadly projectiles, there were still those who got through to the front line of the defenders and when the arrows and crossbow bolts ran out, Edan knew they would quickly be overrun.

  The Gai Renese were heating more pitch for the next of their contraptions, and the oldsters who could not fight were dragging the wounded to the centre to be tended. The air was thick with screams and roars, the clang of weapon on weapon and the rush of arrows. Acrid smoke drifted across, making their eyes water and further away was the dull boom of another of the Gai Renese contraptions exploding.

  Now the next wave of fighters came, and for a time all thought was lost in the fear and exhilaration of fighting. Beside Edan an older man died, nearly cut in half by the curving sword of a giant man. The warrior paused, triumphant, but quick as a snake Edan slid his sword between the man’s ribs. Blood pumped out over Edan’s fists. He tried to jerk his sword free as the man toppled, but it was stuck firmly. There was someone behind him. Edan turned, helpless. Alaera lunged forward with her axe but she was too far away to help. All Edan could do was watch the blade descending and hope that it would not hurt too much.

  Lodden paused to warm his hand under his armpit again. They had a wall of snow inside the standing stones nearly all the way round, leaving only a gap between two stones, but he could not see how the three of them could complete the snow roof over the Heart of Wood as he had seen in his dream. He stepped inside the Heart of Wood and looked closely at the interwoven ropes, caked with slabs of snow. There were gaps between them, and areas which they had not been able to reach. Would it work, incomplete? Against such a powerful entity as the Ice Lord, how could it? It had to be perfect or all the sacrifices of Maran and all the others around him would be in vain. What could he do? No inspiration came to him, and he sank down disheartened.

  “Lodden? Are you all right?” Maran came into the Heart.

  Asri sat back on her heels. “What has happened?”

  But the moment that all three of them were in the Heart of Wood a great wind arose and a great lashing of hail and sleet. Cowering in the Heart of Wood, they crawled together and sheltered under the beams from the ships. After a short time the wind fell and the sleet stopped. They emerged from the Heart of Wood to find that the sleet and hail had filled the gaps in the roof, flung around by the wind into all the tiny corners and areas which the humans had not been able to cover. The roof was now as complete as the walls, and only the doorway remained. All that had to be done was to lure the Ice Lord into the Heart of Wood.

  “It is nearly finished.” Maran breathed. “All but the doorway...”

  “How do we seal up the last gap? The Ice Lord will not wait in there for several hours while we close him in,” Asri objected.

  “The ships said walls of water, not walls of snow.” All of a sudden Lodden saw again that one solitary drop that had fallen from the top of the Heart of Wood into the pool of visions – but this time it shattered on the frozen – “Ice.”

  “Ice?”

  “Yes. There are icicles, Asri.” Now Lodden knew how it was to be achieved.

  Choosing an area round the side of the circle where there was a space he placed the cloak on the ground, oiled side up. Taking a chisel, he went round the Heart of Wood gathering the long spear-like icicles that hung from the edges. Felling them with one sharp tap, he lay them one by one in the cloak. When they lay top to toe, lengthwise across the whole piece, Lodden laid down his chisel.

  “What next?” Asri asked.

  “Now we drip on a little more water, and wait for it to freeze.”

  “Where will we get the water?”

  Lodden sprinkled a light covering of snow over the icicles, and then taking a handful, let the warmth of his hand melt it. “Pack between the icicles carefully, and when it is packed we will wet the surface so that it holds together. The snow is already frozen so we just need to make it stay together.”

  “Can we bind it?” Asri was thinking hard.

  “We have no yarn or thread.”

  “I can help with that.” Asri pulled the bone pins out of her bun and her hair slithered down. It was long, down past her waist. “Do you have a knife? If we make braids of a few strands each, we should be able to make something long enough to hold it. Then the snow need only pack the gaps.”

  “You’ll know more about braiding hair than we do.” Maran took the knife. “Are your hands warm enough to do the braiding? I’ll cut the hairs.”

  Lodden chafed Asri’s hands in his own to warm them. She grimaced as Maran pulled the hairs tight, then he laid a strand upon her lap and guided her hands to it.

  She knotted the ends and held it up to him. “Hold this for me while I braid, please. I shall need two or three strands at a time. I will tell you when to pass me another. Lodden, when the braid gets long enough, tell me. I’ll knot it off and you can be working on the door while I work on the next.”

  “If it is bound and just needs packing, how long will it be before it is strong enough to lift?” Maran asked.

  “I cannot tell. We will need all the time they can buy us.” Lodden fell silent, watching Asri’s clever hands as she intertwined the hair into a tiny braid. She braided more and more strands into it until it was the right length, and then she passed it to Lodden, who set about binding each of the wrist-thick icicles to the next. It gripped the ice better than he had expected and, to him, seemed stronger than it had any right to be.

  Maran cut another strand and passed it to her. “Asri, this is going to need a lot of your hair.”

  She snorted. “Yes, and I am sure to be very upset about that for the next few hours while the Ice Lord is hacking us to bits. I have more to worry about than my hair, Maran.”

  “I know, but I’m sorry it will look so messy, nevertheless.”

  As he waited for the next braid, Lodden packed snow in the gaps between the icicles until they were tight and solid. “The cloak will support it for now. How it will fare when we bring it upright I do not know.”

  “The shi
pspirits have been with us so far.” Maran laid another strand on Asri’s lap. “They will not fail us now.”

  Edan awoke with screaming in his ears. A jolt sent pain burning through him like knives, and he realised that it was him screaming. There was a shape looming over him. He cringed away.

  Alaera’s voice gasped. “Don’t fight me, Edan. I can hardly keep a grip as it is.”

  He blinked, but the sun was bright and low behind her, searing the sky with a million colours of bruises. “Alaera?”

  She did not reply but tugged at him again. Something lay heavy over him – yes, the big warrior. He started to wriggle free, but almost blacked out again with the pain. After a few moments it ebbed a little, but stayed, burning in his left leg. “How long...?”

  “I thought you were dead. It looks bad. I’m sorry.” She sounded strained and faint. Edan gritted his teeth as she yanked him free and began to drag him across the field. She must be little more than crawling, her arm hooked under his shoulder as she pulled him in fits and starts in towards the centre, where the healers were. Edan knew he should be afraid but with Alaera there, he was not.

  Around him the battle was shrinking in towards the Circle. Out where they had been there were only bodies. None of those who had stood near him were anywhere to be seen, and the Ice Lord’s soldiers were not even pushing at that area any more. As pain stabbed at him, he looked further out. “They are playing with us. They send in one row at a time, and when they have all fallen, they send in the next. There is no end to them. We must fail, as surely as the sun sets.”

  Alaera paused in her dragging. She gasped for a while. “We knew that. We delay them, that is all.”

  “Alaera, are you hurt?”

  “Yes. But I can get you to the healers before I go.” She dragged again and he helped as he could, though every movement sent agony through his leg. They crawled through the sharp grass of the plain, made slippery with blood and viscera. Edan’s world narrowed to the next movement of arm or leg, the next breath, the next stab of pain. A corpse lay sprawled in their way. They struggled over it. The face. Edan had seen the face before. It was a Skral, he thought absently, biting his lip against the agony of his leg. A Skral. A boy a few years younger than himself.

  “Ranfrith. That was his name.” He gazed at the contorted face as he dragged himself further away. “He was my friend.”

  “We are near the fighters. Do not call attention to yourself. If they come, play dead. Do not scream, even if they trample on you.”

  The battleground was a storm of noise. The drums kept up that insistent beat and the horns yelped, but mostly the air was thick with the stink of sweat and blood and excrement, mixed together with the clutching mud. His ears hurt with the clash of weapons, the screams of the dead and dying and –worst of all – the laughter of the rest of the Ice Lord’s men who lolled about on the plain, cheering on their favourites.

  The ground was a mass of bodies. Some were dead, others writhing in agony and a few, a very few trying to crawl to their brothers by the Circle. Alaera stopped again, and her breath came in sobs now. She did not let go of Edan and so he could not turn to her, but he hugged her arm.

  “Not far now, not far,” he crooned, and she seemed to take strength from this.

  “’Ware!”

  A wave of men dashed across the field. Edan and Alaera fell limp and stayed still. The Ice Lord’s men leaped and stumbled over the corpses, making their way across to where a knot of Gai Renese had become separated from the rest of the defenders. More screaming and shouts. Edan was weak with pain and fear, and ashamed to find himself weeping quietly.

  Alaera gasped again and her breaths bubbled. “We must go, while we still can.”

  They began the slow crawl across the field again. They were close now, so close that skirmishers tripped and slid nearby.

  A heavily-built Skral slew his foe and turned to find no enemy close.

  “Edric?” Alaera called faintly, but he heard his name.

  “Gods, Alaera!” He strode over and knelt.

  “Take the boy first.”

  “I’ll take both of you.” The Skral tucked his axe in the back of his belt and grabbed Edan by one arm and Alaera by the other. The pain of his leg made Edan dizzy and sick and as he was dragged behind the lines, every jolt made grey spots dance in front of his eyes but he was limp with relief. Alaera sounded to be badly wounded. At least now she would be safe for the moment. The jolting journey ended as the smith dropped them unceremoniously in a space on the ground and called for healers.

  With a great effort, Edan turned himself over. He had to see. Alaera lay beside him. Her face was smeared with the red muck of the battlefield, and blood was dribbling out of the corner of her mouth. Her breathing rattled and bubbled. He could not tell how much of the blood on her clothes was her own, but there was a bad wound to the side of her torso.

  “Alaera?”

  Her eyes flickered open. For a moment, there among the shrieks of madness and death, he did not think that she would recognise him but she smiled weakly. “Edan. See, I said I would get you here.”

  “And you did.” Tears ran from his eyes, pain, weakness, sorrow. “But you must not leave me.”

  “I don’t think I have any choice in the matter, but do not be sad, Edan. Remember I am Skral, and this is our chosen manner of dying.”

  “Lying in the mud, in the middle of this horror?” he demanded bitterly.

  “In truth, it is overrated but at least I shall be welcomed into the Hall of our Forefathers. I am glad you are here though, and not lying out there with the enemy. Even if death is the end of everything, that is something to be proud of.”

  Edan took her in his arms. “You saved my life, Alaera,” was all he could manage.

  “For a little while, at least. There is a dagger in my belt. Take it. When the Ice Lord gets tired of playing with us...” She gasped for breath again. “... He will overrun us entirely. They do not spare the wounded.” Her breath rattled in her chest. “...Take my dagger. The arteries in neck and groin, or the heart will bring you ease quickly...” He could hear the bubbles in her breathing, but she struggled to finish. “Better that.... better that than.... the fate they bring...”

  Edan reached down to take the dagger, and he tucked it in his belt carefully. “I will do it. I promise.”

  Alaera seemed to relax a little. “My sight... is fading. I am cold.”

  He brought a fold of her cloak over her, filthy as it was, and tried to warm her with his own body heat. Further off, the smith was coming back with one of the oldsters. Edan willed them to come faster, to somehow save her. “Don’t worry, Alaera, help is coming. They’re nearly here now.” She lay quiet. He rocked her back and forth as his mother had rocked him as a baby, anxiously watching the others hurry across.

  It was only a few short moments till they got there, but even so, they were too late.

  The smith closed Alaera’s eyes with a gentle hand. The oldster bowed her head and began to croon the death rites of the Skral. They composed Alaera’s body with what dignity they could, covered her face with her cloak and left her there on the battlefield, with so many of her clan. Edan they moved away to the centre, near the Dragon’s Teeth where he lay, one among the many wounded, and wept for the healer who had saved him.

  At the last, as the sun fell, the Ice Lord’s army were still many and the last few defenders gathered together. Around them the field was littered with their dead, the women and children killed as mercilessly as the warriors, and the snowfield was stained red with battle and sunset.

  The mangonels were shattered. The Gai Renese contraptions had long since burned. The crossbowmen were on their last bundles of bolts, and many of the archers had been killed by poisoned darts, their bows passed on to the remaining children and wounded. The last wave of the Ice Lord’s men had fought and fallen and now there was a brief breathing space while the next company shuffled into place and lined up. The drums were silen
t, unneeded while the companies were manoeuvring, for which Edan was heartily grateful. The endless drum beat seemed to echo the pulse of the pain in his leg until he could not tell which of them was booming in his head. For now, the drums were quiet and his leg was still screaming at him, but it was somehow more manageable.

  Edan was propped up against a boulder, facing outwards and waiting silently. He had a bow, but only a handful of arrows. It would not be enough. A child came along the field past him, face streaked with dirt and tears, carrying a bow which he had taken from a dead body further along.

  Edan lifted a hand to attract his attention. “Could you bring me another bundle of arrows if there are any, please?”

  “Are you fighting still?” the little boy asked.

  “I think we all are.” Edan replied wearily. “It’s better than lying there waiting to die.”

  “What happened to your leg?”

  “I don’t know.” Alaera had not lived long enough to tell him. “It is shattered but my arms still work enough to use a bow.”

  The boy regarded him solemnly. “Your hands are shaking.”

  “Yes, they are.” His hands were shaking with pain and fear, but Edan would not give up now. For his mother, for Alaera, he could not. “But there are so many men out there that if I can get an arrow flying, it’s bound to hit someone, and that will be one person less to come and fight us here.”

  The boy nodded. “I will bring arrows.”

  Edan watched the boy run away to take the spare bow back to Ranulf. The bard, too old to fight, was supervising the wounded. Now there were no bandages left, he was left with the task of providing them all with weapons for the last push.

  Edan lifted his hand and looked at it. It was shaking quite badly, but all he had to do was to get the arrows flying. There were so few defenders left now that it would not, could not be long before the end, and when he had need, Alaera’s dagger would bring him to a safe rest. He hoped that his mother would find an easy death, but Lodden would do what was necessary if he had to, Edan was sure. The Maker was a good man, and had suffered at the hands of the Ice Lord. He would not leave Asri to their tender mercies.

  The boy returned. “These are all that are left.” There were maybe a dozen arrows in the bundle he passed over.

  Edan glanced at the Ice Lord’s men. They were still milling around and the drums were silent for the moment. “There are arrows lying on the ground in places – could you gather some of those for me please? Watch out for the army, and come straight back if the drums start.”

  Maran, Lodden and Asri stood in the centre of the Skrals, by the Dragon’s Teeth. Lodden had been packing thin layers of snow onto the icicles, waiting for it to freeze and then adding more until the long spears had frozen into a great panel of ice. It felt as if he had spent hours constructing this fragile door, ready to shatter at a blow, but he trusted in the spirits and kept at his work doggedly, trying not to think of the battle which raged around him and the friends who were dying to earn him time.

  Maran chafed his hands in his gloves to be sure that the fingers were warm and supple enough to play when the time came. Eventually a child ran over. “The Elders say if anything is to be saved, you are to call on the spirits now.”

  “How is the door coming?” Asri asked anxiously as the child sped away.

  Lodden looked up. “It is as near ready as I can make it.”

  “Time to bait the hook.” Maran took off his gloves and began to uncover his harp.

  “With what?” she asked.

  “With me.”

  “What will you do?”

  Maran smiled sadly. “I will show him a new kind of magic.” He embraced the two of them. “Take care.”

  Maran took his harp into the Heart of Wood, which was so built that when he played, even the softest note, it was amplified and echoed across the plain. Lodden went on working on the door, Asri beside him, for there was nothing else to be done now.

  After a moment’s thought, Maran began to play. In the absence of the drums, the notes whispered across the plain, quiet but carrying. As his melody floated across that cold, blood-sodden field, those who heard it stopped in wonder to listen; and the field fell quiet.

  “How beautiful,” Asri breathed. “My mind has been full of blackness and terror for so long that I had forgotten how to be at peace. Now it is filling with memories of my old life. It seemed just everyday then, but compared to this place it was a paradise.”

  Lodden let the music wash through him. He remembered the wonderful homely smell of the basil that grew in a pot on his workshop windowsill at home, and the soft coolness of water on his hands as he washed them in the little waterfall he had built. He savoured the rich blackberry flavours of Kuhrin’s favourite red wine, and smiled at the thought of the fresh wind from the mountains as it swept away all the dust of summer, bringing the gentle autumn rains and a relief from the parched Lyrian sun. Across the field, people stood quiet to hear the lingering strains.

  Almost before the last note had faded, Maran began another song, and this one was of poignant loss.

  Sitting with his back to the boulder, Edan wept for his sister, for his friends, for Alaera. To Lodden and those who had seen the sack of the cities, it spoke of the burning of fields and the killing of the innocent, and it brought every man there to a just realisation of the horrors he had seen and committed. Many of the Ice Lord’s army fell to their knees, and tears ran down their faces.

  But then the song began to change. To Lodden, it spoke of redemption, of returning to the old ways and helping to rebuild the life he had known. Into his mind came the exuberance of the first green blade of grass rising from the blackened earth, and of a multitude more to follow.

  Maran sang of the beauty of growth, of trees covered with flowers and fruit, and of forgiveness and peace, beautiful peace. His words flowed out over the field like balm over a hurt.

  Lying among the wounded, the Mother remembered home and family, and found herself inspired with cunning ways of repairing what had been lost and bringing it back over many years to fruitfulness and prosperity. She smiled faintly, despite the pain. A similar smile was on many of the faces around her as the music went on. Then the song stopped.

  It did not end, but simply stopped, leaving that note resounding in the air like the warm bronze tones of a bell in summer. Even when there was no sound and the harp was silent, it still echoed in the hearts of those who had heard it.

  The battlefield was silent.

  A beat sounded on the drums, and another, but it faltered and stopped.

  All was still for a moment. Then Tiris swooped down from nowhere and perched on the hilt of a sword sticking out of the ground in between the two lines. Caught in a stray shaft of the setting sun, he gleamed like all the colour and richness and joy in the world, there in the middle of that sea of carnage.

  A man stepped forward from the chaos that was the front line of the Ice Lord’s troops. To Edan, there was something of the look of Lodden about him. Perhaps he was Lyrian?

  Certainly the little green bird seemed to spark some kind of memory in him. The Lyrian whistled at Tiris, who chirped but did not move. The man looked down at the sword he held, and wept. He let it fall from his hand, and began to walk away. His comrades watched him. For a long moment no-one moved.

  Then another man seemed to come to a decision and stepped out of line too. A third and a fourth followed, and suddenly the plain was awash in ripples of movement, this time heading outward from the Circle, not towards it.

  Officers shouted and cracked whips. Some picked up bows and shot the deserters, but the Ice Lord’s glamour of fear was broken, overwritten by the horror of each man at what they had done, and the overwhelming urge to find their own place and make amends, a need for home as strong as that which guides birds across oceans and continents.

  Edan watched in wonder.

  “Is it over?” The young boy was back, with handfuls of arrows.

&
nbsp; “I don’t know.” Edan dared not relax, not yet. “There are so few of us left and so many of them. Thousands could leave and still enough would remain to defeat us. But I am not so sure that they will bother, now.”

  “We aren’t that important, are we?”

  “I don’t know. I guess we will find out, but perhaps not as quickly as we thought...” Edan took the arrows from the boy. “Thank you.”

  The plain was in chaos. Here and there amongst the trudging men, officers on horses cut their way through, trampling over people where they had to. Slowly, Edan became aware that the Ice Guard were converging on a point, a richly embroidered tent from which a black pennant flew.

  Around Edan, the able-bodied were dashing into the field to bring back their wounded while the Ice Lord’s troops were not attacking. A couple of Shantar carried the Mother in, and lay her near Edan. Tusken Seal turned up, blood across his face and part of his ear missing, and shortly after, the Potentate with his arm strapped uselessly to his front.

  “Gentlemen.” The Mother coughed. “It is good to see you still in the land of the living.”

  “Madam.” The Potentate knelt. “Are you in pain?”

  “Not for long, I think. Your bard seems to have done us good service.”

  “Aye. But also not for long, I think.” Tusken Seal was watching the enemy troops. “Enough of them are waiting to finish us off.”

  “That was never in question.”

  “At least this will give Lodden the chance to finish whatever he is doing.” The Potentate looked out over the field. “Come, they are gathering together those who still wish to fight. We should do the same.”

  “Without help from me, I fear.” The Mother coughed again, and a small trickle of blood made its way from her mouth.

  Tusken Seal knelt to wipe it from her face with surprising deftness. “As for that, you go before us to the Hall of our Forefathers. They will have a place set aside for you.”

  She smiled at that. “Generations of Skrals would be speechless to hear you say so, my friend! Fight well, die cleanly, and who knows? Perhaps you and I shall drink a horn of mead together in the afterlife!”

  Tusken Seal saluted her. The Potentate bowed, and they left.

  The last few defenders gathered about the Dragon’s Teeth. There were perhaps fifty who could stand and fight, and twice as many of the injured who had been given bows, crossbows and even slingshots in an effort to arm them. In what seemed like a very short time, they were arrayed so as to defend the Heart of Wood. Lodden’s door of ice was as ready as it could be, and the inside of the Circle was dark and cold as the tomb. Asri was stroking Tiris who had returned to her. She put him back under a fold of her shawl where he nestled, crooning quietly to himself as he fell asleep.

  “We are ready now,” Lodden informed Tusken Seal. “When the Ice Lord comes, retreat here so that he follows. I do not know what deaths can be avoided, but you have bought us the time we needed.”

  Horns sounded. A growing space had cleared between the fleeing army and the Circle, but now the Ice Lord and his chosen officers strode towards them.

  “Just as well that you are finished, I think. There are still too many of them.” Tusken Seal rubbed absently at a bloody blister on his palm.

  “The Heart is finished but I am not quite done. Let me try once more.” Maran took up his harp again and this time he played a song of such joy in life that the Skral laughed as they raised their weapons to meet this new onslaught from the Ice Lord and his men. The Ice Guard did not laugh. They were so mired in death that to them this exuberant vitality stung and wearied them. It could not make up for the difference in numbers, but it made the fighting harder for the Ice Lord’s men and easier for the defenders.

  Edan, sitting in the centre with the wounded, drew and fired, drew and fired until there were no arrows left. A couple of times the boy ran up with more arrows, until he was hit himself and lay near Edan, sobbing quietly.

  “Where are you hurt?” Edan called, unable to reach him.

  “My leg. At the top.”

  Edan glanced over. He had an arrow through the flesh at the top of his thigh, but did not seem to be seriously injured. Nevertheless, he was better where he was. Edan threw over his cloak. “Cover yourself up and lie still. If they think you’re dead, they won’t pay any attention and someone will help you when it is all over.” The boy did as he was told. Edan did not know if it was true, but at least the boy was not so frightened any more.

  The Ice Guards massed around the Ice Lord in a wedge and drove at the circle, always aiming for Maran. They were experienced warriors, and the tired remnant of the defenders could not withstand them, but the wounded unleashed arrow after arrow from where they lay. A party of the enemy broke off and attacked them. Ten or twelve of the remaining twenty Ice Guards charged around to the side of the Circle, and lay about with their scimitars. The wounded could not stand to fight, but neither did the hail of arrows cease.

  “Lie still!” Edan hissed to the boy. “Even if they stand on you, lie still!”

  One of the Ice Guards was making his way along, peppered with arrows already but staggering on. The wounded were scattered over a small area, but he was taking as many of them with him as he could. He stabbed at a Skral and went on to a Shantara whose head was swathed in bandages, falling on one knee to finish her. The Ice Guard heaved himself up from the sucking mud and staggered across to take off the head of a slender Gai-Renese boy, though it took a couple of blows. Then he saw Edan and turned. Edan had only one arrow left. He would have to save it till the last possible moment and be sure that he did not miss.

  The Ice Guard struggled to take every step, but he was determined and staggered towards Edan. He tripped on the little boy and fell heavily. The boy cried out, and the Ice Guard twisted round and grabbed the child by his hair. As he raised his scimitar, Edan fired his arrow. It went deep into the Ice Guard’s armpit. He dropped his scimitar as his arm fell, useless, but he growled fury, and heaved himself upright again. The child scrabbled away.

  The Ice Guard retrieved his scimitar awkwardly, left-handed. It was only a few more steps to Edan, and the man dropped to his knees. Edan beat him uselessly about the face and neck with his bow. The Ice Guard raised his scimitar again. Edan was seized by a thought – Alaera’s dagger! He dropped the bow and thrust the dagger into the side of his enemy’s neck. The soldier stiffened, but with his last strength brought the scimitar flashing down.

  Lodden watched the carnage with horror. Fifty refugees and a hundred wounded against a cadre of fresh, able-bodied Ice Guards. They did not stand a chance. And yet the defenders had nothing to lose, so the soldiers fell or retreated, one after another, until Tusken Seal felled the last of the Ice Lord’s officers and collapsed on the ground, bleeding from many wounds. Now only four were left standing; the Ice Lord, the bard, the craftsman and the Shantara.

  Lodden and Asri retreated before the Ice Lord. Even without his armies and his officers, he was terrible to look at, and they were gripped by fear. They retreated around the standing stones, and the Ice Lord ignored them.

  “What are you, man of ice?” called Maran from within the Heart of Wood. “What do you intend for this world?”

  “What am I? I am not of this world, man of music,” the Ice Lord grated as he stalked ever nearer. “I wish for an end to the world, nothing less.” The body he was wearing was that of a Skral whose face was familiar to them, but the eyes marked it as the Ice Lord beyond any shadow of doubt. The body was torn by wounds which did not bleed. The face was contorted and starting to change already, though he had not been wearing that body for long. The cheekbones were sharper than Lodden remembered, and this slow alteration from the face of the good-natured Skral he had known – Bran had been his name, Lodden thought suddenly – made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up with terror.

  “The end of the world? Why would you wish for that?” Maran strummed as he spoke.

  “So that I am rid o
f all this burning life around me.” It paused outside the Circle now. “So I can go back to the stillness of my own land, and be rid of all this noise and chaos.”

  “Are the lands of your youth so very beautiful, then?” Maran began to hum, and the tune that he hummed was of being lost, alone and exiled in a harsh and bitter land.

  “I see what you are doing, man of music!” The Ice Lord stepped nearer despite himself. “It will not work with me though. You cannot play me into laying down my weapons because I have no need for weapons.”

  Maran’s song took on a terribly sad, weary tone then, and the Ice Lord faltered a step nearer, into the Dragon’s Teeth.

  Lodden and Asri hoisted to themselves the panel of ice and stood to one side of the gap in the Circle, waiting for Maran to slip past his foe so that they could shut the way, but Maran did not move as the Ice Lord came closer, and closer.

  “I see what you would have, man of ice,” Maran said softly. “I have you now.” And he smiled past the Ice Lord at Lodden and Asri. His song changed from weariness into a song of triumph, a terrible song of war spanning worlds and galaxies, a music that could inspire any creature to do anything, however horrific. At this the Ice Lord smiled, and it was the smile of a deathshead.

  “I see you have no need of weapons either, man of music. You are a weapon, and one that I mean to have!” His body crumbled to dust and from it black tendrils of smoke reached out towards Maran.

  “No!” Lodden shouted.

  “Yes,” Maran smiled, and it was a smile of such beauty that it broke Lodden’s heart. “Mine is not a gift of the body but of the soul. He cannot have it. Close the trap, Lodden. I am a dead man already, just one given time to say his goodbyes. He shall not have this though, sinews of my heart – make of it a safeguard lest he ever escape again.”

  He threw his harp out to land in the snow. As he did so the black ribbons of smoke wrapped around him. Lodden stood in horror as his friend convulsed and then, grotesque in that beautiful young face, Maran’s eyes rolled open to reveal the black glare of the Ice Lord. But when the possessed body tried to move forward, it found that Maran had chained himself to the central pillar of the Heart of Wood.

  “Lodden, quick!”

  Spurred into action by Asri, Lodden grasped the panel of ice with his one hand as she held the other side. As the Ice Lord turned his deathly glare upon them, they staggered it into place. The ice touched the standing stones, and a great wind arose. They both cowered on the floor as the ice and snow howled and mourned around them. Sleet was whipped and stung by the roaring winds, and the ice crystals cut them like tiny knives as the full wrath of the shipspirits rose to capture and render powerless the being who had killed so many people and burned so many ships.

  Cold was the wind, cold and enduring as the endless depths of night. The wind’s howl rose to a scream, unbearably loud, and then just as they had abandoned themselves to dying in that fury of sleet, all fell quiet.

  Lodden cautiously looked out from under the cloak he had thrown around himself and Asri.

  “Lodden...?” Asri’s voice trembled a little.

  “It is done,” he said dully. “The spirits have done as they promised. The whole Circle of Stones is encased in ice, around and over.”

  “The Ice Lord is trapped?”

  “Yes... and Maran’s voice is stilled forever.”

  They sat for a moment, overwhelmed. Around them the air was heavy with the stink of war. The plain was a sea of bodies. Lodden was glad that Asri could not see it. It was cold, and the sun was sinking towards the horizon. Soon it would be dark, and they were alone, tired and weary in the cold. Lodden hoped that death would come easily, and then he could be rid of this life and all its anguish.

  Far off on the plain there was movement. It would be the deserters from the Ice Lord’s army, probably looting the Skral clan-halls. He hoped they would not come back to make sure the job was done.

  Suddenly there was a muffled chirp, and another.

  Asri laughed mirthlessly. “All this time, he lay quiet. I had forgotten he was there. Come out, little one! You were lucky not to get squashed.” She unwound a fold of her shawl to let Tiris out. The bird flew to Lodden who ignored him. Then he darted about the plain a little, stopping here to perch on a sword, there on a shield’s edge. Finally he stopped just out of sight behind a hulking corpse. There was a cry – almost a gasp. Lodden ignored it. He was watching the path to the clan-halls. People were getting nearer. He did not want to die at the hands of the Ice Lord’s deserters, not after all he had gone through.

  Tiris fluttered back, but Lodden brushed him aside. There must be a weapon somewhere. Even a dagger would do, just to open a vein with. This was a battlefield, damn it!

  Tiris flew back to Asri, but did not settle. “What is Tiris doing?” she asked. The bird flew back to where he had been.

  “I will go and see.” Lodden heaved himself to his feet. He did not want to mention the deserters to Asri in case they were just looting, but this was a good opportunity to go find a dagger. Staggering over the slippery mud, he found himself following the bird the short distance to where the large warrior lay. He was dead – there was a dagger through his neck – but behind him, half-hidden by a rock was –

  “Edan! Asri, I’ve found Edan. He’s hurt, but not dead.”

  “Where! Bring me to him, Lodden, quickly!” Asri began to crawl in the direction of his voice, but Lodden was back with her, helping her to come to her son. “He’s so cold...”

  “Here.” Lodden laid his cloak over the boy. “We might be able to get him back to the halls. There might be shelter there.”

  A movement startled him; a child, whose face was streaked with tears and filth. He crawled painfully out from a bespattered cloak and held it out. “This is his, Edan’s. He gave it to me to hide under, but if he’s cold he might need it.”

  Tears started to Lodden’s eyes. He had thought that they were the only ones left alive. “Thank you, child. What is your name?”

  “Ran,” the boy whispered miserably. “Rankar was my brother. But everybody’s dead now.”

  “Not everybody. And we shall need your help. Are you hurt? May I see?” Lodden judged the boy’s wound to be more painful than serious. “Can you stand?”

  Ran struggled to his feet, grimacing in pain, but stood. “Yes sir.”

  “Brave boy. We shall need two spears and a cloak. We shall make something to carry Edan back to the halls.” What would happen then, Lodden could not tell, and he was beyond planning further than that.

  “There are people over there. Do you think they are on our side?”

  Lodden looked over. The deserters were definitely coming closer. It looked as if they were making a beeline for him. “Perhaps so. I can’t tell from this distance. But we will need to carry Edan in any case.”

  “I will look for the spears.”

  Lodden stood. “Asri, there may be trouble.” But Asri was rocking her son in her arms and crooning as if he was a baby, and she did not pay him any heed. It was down to him, one-handed and unskilled as he was, to defend them. He picked up a weapon and stood between Asri and the deserters, hoping that it would be quick but too cold and tired to really care.

  As they grew close in the failing light, he realised that they were not as huge as he had thought. They wore heavy furs and hefted axes in their hands.

  “Ho there! Who stands watch?”

  Ran dropped the spear he was dragging and limped over to throw his arms around the burly newcomer, shouting “Uncle Drankar! Uncle Drankar!”

  The Skral whisked the boy up in his arms and held him tightly. “I am glad to see you, Ran. Are you injured?”

  “I got an arrow. It went right through my leg, and there’s all blood. It hurts.” The boy pointed over to the others. “Edan looked after me but he is hurt. Will you help him?”

  “Aye, lad. We’re here to help any that are left.” Drankar clambered over the treacherous battlefield and took
Lodden’s forearm in the warrior’s greeting. “We were cut off behind the Ice Lord’s lot in the mountains and could not get back in time. There is much to tell, but for now we must get the wounded into the halls. It is going to be a cold night.”

  Two burly warriors carried Asri and Edan back to the halls on a makeshift stretcher, for she would not let go of him. Lodden followed numbly behind. He had resigned himself to death and welcomed it – but he had also promised Edan that he would look after Asri so for this day, at least, he must live.

  The path to the halls was long, and seemed longer because every step was a stumble and slip over bodies in the dusk. Tiris flew ahead at first, but soon came to sit on Lodden’s shoulder, his feathers fluffed against the rising cold. Step, and step, and step; soon it lost all meaning. Lodden did not know who he was or why he kept taking a step and a step and a step, and he did not remember reaching the halls.

  Lodden woke in the dark of the sleeping hall to the sound of quiet sobs, much muffled. “Asri?”

  “Edan... He is gone.” Her voice broke on the words. “He died in my arms. But he knew me, and he died safe.” She stopped for a few moments to regain control of her voice. “He said – he said he had avenged his sister, and was content. And he said that he would hold you to your promise.”

  Lodden bowed his head in the dark. “He was looking after you to the end.”

  “He asked you to watch over me.” Her voice was heavy with tears.

  “Yes.”

  They did not speak more. Asri’s sobs were soft and convulsive throughout the night. Lodden felt his way across to her bed, holding her while she grieved. As the light grew grey she finally subsided into sleep, and Lodden returned to his own bed to watch the night fade to bleak morning.

  The returning Skrals worked hard. They spent the next two days on the battlefield, bringing back such of the wounded as could be saved and moving the dead into separate pyres for the defenders and the Ice Lord’s men. It was a vile job, but they worked without complaint in the stinking mud and cold. On the third day the living assembled to sing the death rites of the Skral, and the pyres were lit. Lodden stood empty of heart and dry of eye. He did not speak Old Skral but had heard the melody of the death rites so often of late that he hummed along with the others who did not know the words to sing.

  A young lad stood forward. “Shipspirits and gods, hear our plea. We cannot honour the fallen as they should be honoured. The names of the dead should be recited by the bards of their clans, singing the names and the deeds of the fallen at the feast in their favour. The bards have died with their clans, however, and with them the wisdom of a thousand years. I am the oldest acolyte to survive, so though I cannot tell the families and deeds of those who were my brothers in arms, I will at least sing their names. We leave it to you, oh gods and shipspirits, to guide them to the Hall of the Forefathers and show them to places of honour, for all have fought like warriors and Skrals.” He took out a scroll – the last scroll of the precious parchment had been dedicated to this purpose – and sang the names of the dead. There were many, and more would be added. Many of the wounded were dying slowly, and there was neither the expertise nor the supplies to help them now.

  After the ceremony, the few remaining Shantar gathered to one side for their own rites. Many Shantar had fallen defending the Mother. Badly injured, she had seen the battle out and had survived long enough to choose her successor. Normally it went to the daughter most suited to the task, but the Mother had no surviving daughters after the long flight from the Mountains and so she had chosen another; Asri. Lodden approved. She was fierce as a hawk and stubborn as a mule, and she would not let her people despair.

  Lodden made his way back to the halls with Tiris. The little bird was a constant companion in the cold and Lodden was grateful. Tiris distracted him from the roaring abyss in his soul caused by the loss of Maran. It coloured everything as if it was he and not the bard who had been devoured by the Ice Lord. Still, here he was, walking over the plain without Maran at his side, returning to the clanhearth where Maran was not waiting, listening to the conversations in which Maran was not taking part, and eating the food that Maran could not share.

  Tiris came to sit on his shoulder, and Lodden tilted his head to feel the softness of the bird’s feathers against his cheek. “The world has gone dark, Tiris, and I have lost my way.” But he trudged back to the clan-halls, all the same.

  The sickroom was a horrible place now, for there was little enough in the way of salves or tonics to help the suffering, and virtually no-one who was versed in the arts of healing. Those who helped did whatever they could, and cursed the Ice Lord and his wars. Amongst the wounded was the Potentate of Gai Ren, his breath rattling and bubbling.

  “Maker...” he wheezed. “I am not...long for this world.”

  “You cannot be sure of that.”

  “I can barely...breathe. It does not... improve. The winter has... settled.... in my lungs.”

  Lodden drew the blanket a little further over him. “Are you warm enough? Is there anything that would help?”

  “I am.... cold. Always... cold. But I do not expect... to be warm again.”

  There was little point in contradicting. The Potentate had always been little and birdlike, but now he was frail, so frail that it seemed the slightest breeze would blow him away. Gai Ren was much warmer than the Skrallands, and a night lying wounded before Drankar’s men found him had left the man with pneumonia.

  “Bring me... the box.” He gestured to a rubble of wood on the floor. It had obviously been a beautifully inlaid box once upon a time, but now it was partly smashed. Lodden set it on the Potentate’s lap.

  “This is all... that is left... of the treasures of ... my people.” He gasped for a while. “Use what you can....”

  “I will, I promise.” The Potentate, too short of breath to speak more, pushed the box at him and Lodden sorted carefully through the remnants. It was a small collection of things salvaged from the looted clan-halls and the battlefield but as he looked, Lodden found ideas springing into his head. “Some short lengths of bamboo... silver wire... a clear crystal...” He went through, telling the dying man what purpose he saw for each, but the Potentate was sinking fast, so he ended quietly, “Potentate, these are treasures indeed.”

  “I ... am glad.” The Potentate’s eyes were closing now. “Use them ... wisely, Lodden, and .... Fortune continue to ... guide your hand. You ....have been the saving ....of us all.”

  Lodden thought of that long list of the dead, of the carnage of the battlefield and the vision that he could not unsee, of Maran’s beautiful face contorting into the deathmask of the Ice Lord. “Not all.”

  He sat with the Potentate as the rattling breaths became slower and more laboured, the gaps between more pronounced. When finally they stopped there was silence. He closed the Potentate’s eyes with a gentle hand. “I will use them wisely, I promise.”

  Another death, another promise. The air was heavy with vows and tasks and duties. He had made so many promises he was not even sure he could remember them all. So many had died. All he was left with was promises to keep. Lodden gathered the Potentate’s treasures into the box and left it in the little alcove under his bed.

  A boy shouldered his way into the hall. He had one arm in a sling and was carrying something in the other. “Maker.” He nodded respectfully.

  Lodden racked his brains. “I know you, don’t I? You were playing knucklebones with Edan.”

  “Yes sir. My name is Eldred. My brother and I were good friends with him.” The boy’s voice caught a little and he looked away, embarrassed.

  “Eldred, yes, I remember.”

  The boy changed the subject. “I found this on the field, by the Circle. They said that you would want to have it.” He held out a bundle wrapped in dirty cloth. “Perhaps it can be mended?”

  Lodden unwrapped it to reveal Maran’s harp. Soaked in the filth of the battlefield, it felt heavy and lifeless, a heart that
had stopped beating. “I do not think so, I’m afraid. There is no music left in it.”

  “I am sorry, Maker. I thought that if anyone could bring it back, perhaps you could.”

  “Thank you. It was a kind thought but... Some things cannot be fixed.”

  The boy slipped away solemnly and Lodden clasped it to himself, a tangible reminder of the lost half of his heart. He held it so tight that the wood creaked, and for the first time since the battle he wept like a child, full of loss and hurt at the unfairness of being left behind.

  The following months were hard. There were no stores of food, and precious little wood. Their only blessing was that the sea provided fish and driftwood and even seaweed, which stank but, dried, could be burnt for warmth. The sparse trees of the plain were gone, and there were still many of the Ice Lord’s deserters on the islands. Though most of these were a little lost and seemed happy to join the Skrals, in the deeps of winter some banded together and tried to attack the halls. Drankar and his men fought them off, but precious lives were lost doing so. The survivors who could spent most days out foraging for food, and in time reached the far side of the island, where they found one of the Ice Lord’s ships, beached and battered but whole. This allowed them to gather together supplies from around the island, and though the winter was harsh, when spring came they managed to till and plant a few fields. At first the only animals they had were the hardy mountain goats, which were difficult to catch and as difficult to keep, but as they reclaimed the islands, they found a few sheep and cows; not many, but enough to start a herd of sorts. The nights became shorter, and the biting winter cold grew mild. The first flower opened on the plain, and with it came hope. The worst had passed, and they had endured it, and they had survived.

  Once survival was not such a priority, they began to put thought to wider questions. The survivors were not predominantly Skral or Shantar or Gai-Renese. The customs and culture of each differed widely. By whose laws should they live? At first there was much dissension, but in the end it was agreed that each should retain the right to its own culture, any disagreements should be settled by a panel of nine Elders, three from each race, and the majority vote would carry the decision. One of the very first questions was that of the education of women. In the new society even the Skral had to agree that with the small numbers that remained to them, women were just as important as men. The Shantar were brought to agree that similarly, men could not be considered lesser than women and as the first couple announced the news that a baby was due, it became clear that some form of education was needed to ensure that such of the healing skills as they still had could be passed on among anyone who would learn them, as well as the knowledge and histories of the three cultures. With this, hope for the future grew, and they began to construct a new society in earnest.

  As for Lodden, he had spent a long time cradling the harp as if it was a child, stroking the wood and trying to make it sound as it had when Maran was alive. He dried it out carefully and oiled the wood so that it was smooth to the touch, but the strings were spoiled. It squalled like a gull and did not sing again, and so he wrapped it in its cover and set it on the side in his workshop, a task unfinished.

  In the evenings he and Asri sat together. Sometimes they talked of those they had loved and lost, and sometimes they sat silently, comforted by sharing their griefs.

  In the day, he spent what time he could helping Asri or the healers, watchful in case he could make things that would help the struggling group. Every one of the Potentate’s treasures was used, though it went slowly. Before he could start, he had to build a forge and make tools. At least with all the weapons scattered across the plain, he was not short of metal.

  One day, Lodden was in his workshop when a shadow fell across the doorway. He looked up. “Can I help you, Eldred?”

  The boy came in hesitantly. “Maker. You know I broke my arm? It has healed a little crooked and is taking a long time to regain its strength. I am conscious that I cannot do my fair share of the work. I cannot dig or hoe or look after the animals or help with the rebuilding. It is driving me mad. I know it is a lot to ask, but I thought perhaps given that you know what it feels like, you could help me?”

  Lodden laid down his tools and straightened. “Are you asking for some kind of false arm like mine? I am no healer, lad, but if your arm is healing, no matter how slowly, you probably should not be using a false one. But I know well how frustrating that can be. Is there something you could do that does not involve strength or lifting heavy things?”

  Eldred leaned against the wall, dejected. “Not that I can think of.”

  “Do you mind menial tasks like fetching and carrying?”

  “Not if I can be of use.” Eldred’s face lit up. “Is there anything you need fetching and carrying?”

  “Always, lad, always.” Lodden gestured to the wooden stool by the workbench. “For a start, why don’t you bring in another one of those so we can both sit. Then you can help me mend the runner for this sled. I have yet to design a fitting that will grip a nail as steadily as I’d like, but if you’d care to chance it, I promise you I am extremely careful with a hammer!”

  Eldred stood straight again. “Thank you, sir. I’ll be back directly.”

  Lodden watched the boy as he dashed off to the dining hall. It would be nice to have a bit of company when he was working and if the lad was interested, there was a lot he could teach him.

  Summer was over and autumn coming when Asri asked Lodden to take her to the shore. She waited outside the hall in the early morning. The plain was wreathed in autumn mists as he approached, and he saw she held a bundle. “Asri? Is all well?”

  “I do not know what the Lyrian customs may be but we Shantar allow ourselves a year and a day to mourn those who have left us. They go to the silver seas, and are freed but we who are left behind, we need a little time to let go of them. A year and a day has passed since my son fell in the battle of the plains. You mourn for Maran as do I for my son. It is time you released him, too.”

  “I do not know how to do that.” Even now, even a year after he had lost Maran, his voice locked on the words.

  “I will show you, if you will take me to the shore.”

  Lodden took her arm and walked down to the deep bay from which the ship of children had sailed. “Where do you think they went, the children? I hope they found somewhere safe to land.”

  Asri’s face was sad. “I do not know. I wanted Edan to go with them, but he was adamant that he was not a child any more, but a man grown. I have asked myself a million times if it would have been better to send him away, shamed that I thought so meanly of him, or to allow him to be the man and to die out there on the field. My heart says that to have him alive would be the better path, that given time he would have got over it... but my head is not so sure. He died bravely, and was content that he had done his part.”

  “He was with you at the last and he had done his part to protect you. That was what he was determined to do from the start.” Lodden felt his eyes fill. “But somehow it doesn’t help much. I know Maran did what was necessary, and that otherwise there would be nothing left but dead ashes but even so, sometimes I want to rip the world to shreds with my bare hands because it is still here and he is not.”

  “We all have those days, but we cannot bring our loved ones back with rage or grief and they would not want us to waste our days in unhappiness. If Maran was with us now, he would tell you to let go and allow time to salve the hurt.” She stopped and turned to him. “It is not a betrayal to let go, Lodden. It is the first step towards being able to remember them with happiness instead of sorrow, and this is what they would want above all else.”

  Lodden blinked, trying to get the tears away before they could trace hot tracks down his cheeks. “I cannot let him go, Asri. I cannot.”

  “Why not?”

  Lodden sobbed. He could not help it. “What if I forget him? Grief is all that I have left. If I let go of it, I have nothing.” He
sobbed again, and wiped the tears away from his face with his sleeve. “I am afraid, Asri. I cannot bear to be without him. I do not know how to let him go.”

  Asri felt down his arm to his false hand and pulled it up in front of him. “You had a hand here once. Do you remember it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you remember how it looked? How it felt? How easy it was to pick things up?”

  “Yes, I remember it.”

  “Do you still mourn it?”

  “Yes...”

  “Really? Is it the first thing that comes into your head when you wake up? Or is it more that when you find things difficult you wish that things had happened otherwise?”

  Lodden thought about this. “Too much else has happened for it to be as important as I thought it was. It’s inconvenient sometimes, but I think more about ways to make things happen without it.”

  “And if that is true for your hand, do you not think that your heart can also heal? We do not lose our loved ones really, not while we remember them. We miss them, aye, and we never will stop missing them or turning to say something to them or wishing we could share the sunset or the scent of a flower or the taste of food with them; but though it stings now, the sting fades to poignancy. The memories never fade, though, and when the sting has gone the memory remains.” Asri sighed. “I would give everything I have to bring Edan back but there is nothing I can do to make that happen. That being the case, the only way I can get something of him back is to let him go.”

  She took Lodden’s arm again. “Take me to the end of the quay, Lodden. I am weary of grief. I want to relive the happy times with a smile on my face, not drown them in tears.”

  They walked silently to the end of the quay from which the children’s ships had left, and Asri opened the bundle. It contained two or three items, personal belongings.

  “This is the story of Edan, last of my line,” she intoned, taking out a woollen hat. She held it close to her face to squint at it, and then hugged it briefly. “This is his hat, that I made for him when he was a young boy. Young he lived and young he died, and all my heart is gone with him. And yet here is his hat. I give it to the water, that it may be taken to him on the silver seas, and with it my grief.”

  Lodden cried out as she flung it into the water, where it slowly became sodden and sank under the surface.

  “Salt of my tears, salt of the sea, wash away grief and set me free.” She looked out over the water, and Lodden stood silently by. The sun had risen now and the water was sparkling and beautiful. He knew that all Asri could see was the brightness, but the sibilance of the waves seemed to wash through him like breathing.

  After a while, she reached once more into the bundle, this time taking out Alaera’s dagger. “This is the dagger that a brave woman gave to him so that his death might be easier. It was a gift borne of mercy, not of despair and he used it in the defence of a child. Brave he lived, and brave he died and all my heart is gone with him. And yet here is his dagger. I give it to the water, that it may be taken to him on the silver seas and with it my pride in him.” She flung it out over the water. It arced high, and fell point first, disappearing into the sparkling swells with hardly a ripple.

  “Salt of my tears, salt of the sea, wash away anger and set me free.”

  Again she stood quiet. Lodden suddenly remembered how Edan had been proud and relieved when his mother had allowed him to learn to swordfight with his friends, the way he had stood a little taller, and the sheer adulthood of his determination to keep his mother safe. As the waves washed at the shore, Lodden understood that though painful, this had absolutely been the right decision for Edan. He hoped Asri had come to this conclusion. If she had, a part of the weight of uncertainty and guilt would lift from her mind.

  Finally she turned back to her bundle, and now she pulled from the shawl in which it had been wrapped a pendant, a simple thing, made from a smoothed stone with a hole in it, through which was threaded a leather thong. She smiled as her fingers found it. “His lucky stone. He found it in the stream near one of the camping grounds when he was a tiny boy, and his father told him it was lucky. He wore it around his neck every day until his sister was born, then insisted that they take turns so that they would both be equally lucky. He was wearing it the day his sister died, and when we got back to safety he gave it to me and would not allow me to go anywhere without it. Caring he lived, and caring died, and all my heart is gone with him. And yet here is his stone. I give it to the water, that it might be taken to him on the silver seas, and with it my love for him.”

  Lodden knew what was coming now, and yet he still found himself wanting to protest as she threw the pendant into the water. How could she make herself part with something so precious? But as she chanted “Salt of my tears, salt of the sea, take him my love and set him free,” he thought that if it would really take a message of love to Edan, then it was absolutely worth it.

  Asri fell silent, and the waves sparkled as they washed at the shore in the mild autumn morning. The mist was beginning to burn off the water, the morning becoming less veiled, but the stillness of the shore seeped into Lodden’s soul like balm.

  Asri held out her hand and Lodden took it. Wordlessly she turned to him and he took her in his arms, each holding onto the other while the sea washed a little of the pain away with the hush of every wave.

  After a while, Asri stood away. “The sun is not warm enough to stay here this late in the year. Let us go and sit by a warm hearth, and talk of cheerful things.”

  Lodden took her arm, and they started along the path back to the halls. “Is that how it works, for the Shantar?” he said at last. “That they go to the sea when they die?”

  “The silver seas are the seas at the end of life. They are made of tears, but tears can be for joy as well as sorrow. We believe that we will find our loved ones again. When we return to the silver seas, they will be waiting to embrace us.” She walked on a pace or two. “What of your people? What do Lyrians believe?”

  “We are not very much inclined to believe anything, though we have our legends. In Lyria they say that the afterlife is like a beautiful garden full of wine, women and so on, which doesn’t make it any more likely. As for me, I’ve never really known what I believe. All these stories of an afterlife seem just stories. But having been to the ships’ graveyard it is clear that there is more to it than that. Either there are other ways of being alive than wandering round in a body made of flesh, or it’s much more complicated than I can ever hope to understand.” He sighed. “I wish I had more concrete answers. It’s all so nebulous, but it seems there is something more to us, something indefinable. I’m clinging to that.”

  Asri nodded. “We give it a shape that we can understand. The stories are only stories, but we tell them because there is something there that we find difficult to understand, not because we are trying to fool ourselves. I don’t really think it will be like a beautiful garden, or a Skral hall, or even a silver sea as our own legends suggest – after all, how would we know? But all legends agree that we will meet up with those we have lost, and if something remains when the body dies, it is just a matter of time before we meet Maran and Edan again.”

  Lodden’s heart wrenched within him. “I want to believe that. Gods, how I want that to be true!”

  “It is what I believe, in any case. It won’t help us to get there any quicker, but there is some measure of comfort in the fact that all we have to do in the meantime is to get through the day as well as we can.”

  This was a new thought, and one Lodden needed to mull over, but for the first time since the fall of Lyria, he felt the possibility of hope.

  “I do not know when,” he said suddenly, “but I would like to have a ceremony like yours for Maran. It feels like a way of – not sending him a message, exactly, but-”

  “Sending him your love. I believe that it reaches them somehow, though I don’t know how or why.”

  “I will need to think about it.” They turned into th
e main path to the clan halls now.

  “When it is time, you will know.”

  The idea of having some sort of ceremony of his own took root in Lodden’s mind. He realised that he too was weary of grief, though his love and longing for Maran were no less. The idea of a world without the bard was not so overwhelming now that this obscure certainty had gripped him. He had no logical reason to think that he could possibly meet his love again, and yet logic had no power in the face of this certainty.

  “Am I deluding myself?” he asked Tiris, on one of the bird’s passing visits. “Is it just that I want to believe in something that can never happen?” Tiris jumped onto the table and started sorting through the food on Lodden’s plate in case there were some dried berries somewhere. There were none, but the little bird simply eyed Lodden accusingly and gave another cheep.

  Lodden laughed and reached up to the shelf behind him, taking down a little wooden box in which were a few dried berries. Tiris was such a favourite that people saved them and passed them onto Lodden, and the bird was no fool. “You might not see the berries but you know they are there, don’t you?” He took out two or three of the treats, and placed them one at a time on the table. Tiris gobbled them up greedily. “I should learn from you, perhaps. And where is the disadvantage? If I live my life in hope and there is nothing after death, when I die I shan’t know I’m wrong!”

  Tiris checked the plate again in case more berries had magically appeared and then flew up onto Lodden’s shoulder for a moment before swooping away into the rafters again.

  Lodden watched the emerald bird flash out of sight and smiled fondly. “You are a happy soul, Tiris, and one whose company I treasure.”

  He began to sort through his belongings and those few items that had been Maran’s. He had the beginnings of an idea, and though his own ceremony would not be the same as the Shantar one, he hoped that it would serve the same purpose. The details though... The details were hidden from him.

  And then that night he had a dream.

  The next morning, he went to seek out Asri. “Asri, your people know about dreams, don’t they?”

  Asri was sitting outside the hall. It was chilly, but in this sheltered spot the sun was warm. “We know a little, certainly. Why do you ask?”

  “I had a dream, and I’m not sure whether it was simply a dream or...”

  “Guidance?” She patted the bench beside her. “Sit down and tell me about it.”

  “It started out as the same dream I have had a thousand times, the dream about the Dragon’s Teeth.” Lodden took a seat beside her. “I first had it when I was a child. The landscape was so alien I thought no such place could possibly exist. It was a long way from the sand and heat of Lyria. I dreamed that I stood on the plain, and in the distance was a circle of standing stones, the Dragon’s Teeth as they were when we first got here. I walked round, marvelling at the roughness of the stone, but when I had done a full circuit, I saw the Heart of Wood building itself inside and Maran standing in it. At first I was afraid lest it was the Ice Lord wearing Maran’s body, but as he smiled I knew that it was Maran. He beckoned me in, and all was as it was when the Heart of Wood was in the ships’ graveyard. There was the pool in the centre, and the drop that fell and shattered the reflections into pictures.”

  “What did the visions show?”

  “They showed time passing, a long time. Cities rose and fell, until the world was new and totally different. And then the Circle began to crumble,” he took a deep breath, “– and Asri, it fell, and the Ice Lord was released into the world again.”

  “No!” Asri gasped. “Then all of this was in vain?”

  “That was what I thought, and I looked up to Maran. His face was sad. “I could not stop him, but we can delay him while the world recovers, and in that time those will come who can take him back to his place.”

  “But so many have died!” I shouted.

  Maran looked at me sadly. “I of all people know that, my dear. They died to give us time to trap him, and we trapped him to give the world time to bring together the forces it needs. You cannot kill what does not live, but that does not mean that he cannot be sent out of this place. We cannot do that, but we can contain him until the right time comes. Nothing is wasted. Because of us, millions will live their lives before the Ice Lord returns. Thousands of years will pass. Much will be lost, but more will be achieved. Cultures will rise, knowledge increase, lives be bettered. All this we have bought, and it was worth the price.”

  “But he will come back?”

  “Yes, and when he does, others will be there to fight him. We must not leave them defenceless though.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My harp. There is no music left in it, but it is not lifeless wood. Use it. Make of it that which can be used against the Ice Lord when the time comes.”

  “But what should I make?” I asked.

  “He is made of the darker emotions. Despair, fear, resentment – all these add to his power. He cannot abide life, love, happiness, unselfishness. Remember, emotions are our tools, you and I...” But Maran began to fade, and I understood that it was a dream.

  “I would have given anything to spare you what happened,” I said quickly. “That I lived and you died. My life is filled with the emptiness where you should be.”

  “What makes you think I am not there?” Maran laughed, in the old way. “You cannot see me, that is all.”

  “You are there? I miss you. I miss you with every breath I take.”

  He was fading into the mist now. “I am with you always, my brother. Take comfort. This shall not be our last meeting...”

  “Will I dream of you again?” I whispered, but he had gone. There was only the sun through the mist, and I was alone again.” Lodden sat back, and looked out over the plain. “I awoke, still alone but comforted. And I think I know what my ceremony will be. I will make the harp into three things. Love, happiness and unselfishness, he said. I must think about these.”

  Asri smiled. Her smile was always surprisingly beautiful, in a plain face. “And what is it you wish to know?”

  “Was it a real dream? Was it one of your type of dreams? Or was it just born of my fears and longing, and because I miss him so much?”

  She sat back against the wall, thinking. “Lodden, when the shipspirits told you how to trap the ice Lord, did they give you detailed instructions?”

  “No. They showed me what must be achieved by using their timbers but I worked out how to put it together. I knew what the end result should be, and what the qualities of the materials I was using were, so it was like building any of my other inventions – just a matter of finding the simplest way from the start to the end of it.”

  “But no-one else could have done it.”

  “Anyone else could have put together the materials in the same way.”

  “But they did not think of doing it. I suspect the same is true for many of your inventions.”

  Lodden shrugged. “Often they seem perfectly obvious to me, certainly, so I never really understand why it takes me to invent them.”

  “It takes you to invent them because you are the tool that is made for the job.” Asri turned to him. “To the awl it must seem obvious that the way to make a hole through leather is to be pushed against it with great force, but the hammer will not be able to achieve the same end, even if it was pushed against the same piece of leather with the same amount of force.”

  “But what does that have to do with the dream?”

  Asri laughed. “It means that if there needs to be a hole in the leather, the question of who put the force behind the tool is irrelevant. The important bit is that the tool is capable of making a hole in the leather, and that the hole is made.”

  Lodden looked at her with some irritation. “Do Shantar leaders always talk in such obscure terms?”

  “Always.”

  “But if the dream is true, I must take the harp and do as the spirits have shown me. And if the dre
am is just a dream...”

  “What then? You will keep a harp that doesn’t work? From the way you speak, you have already decided to do this, Lodden. If you are asking me whether you are a fool or not, I have no answer for you except – does it matter if you are? If this is all nonsense, does it matter? What do you lose by doing it?”

  Lodden had not considered this.

  “You enjoy making things, so that’s hardly a task. You are using something that is no longer able to do what it was designed to, so there is no waste. And if all of this is nonsense, you will have had some hours’ enjoyment making something useful from something useless. What’s the disadvantage?” She nudged him in the ribs. “Go do your job, Maker!”

  “As the Mother of the Shantar commands!” He stood to go, and hesitated. “There was one other thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “At the end of my dream as it was all fading into light, the mist was so bright I could barely see, but it parted and I saw Edan.”

  “Edan?”

  “Yes. He did not say anything and I only saw him for a moment, but at his hip was the dagger, at his neck the pierced stone, and in his hand the woollen hat. He saw me, and he smiled.”

  Lodden took Maran’s harp in his arms and walked down to the bay. For a while he sat on the beach and remembered Maran, the good days and the horror of his ending, and he wept regretfully, cradling the harp in his arms. Finally he sighed. “It does not feel any easier. I see now that it is not that our grip loosens, but that we that must decide to make ourselves let go.”

  He left the beach and went to his little workroom behind the smithy, where he set the harp on the worktop in the sunlight and considered it from all angles. After some thought, he took it to bits and laid out the pieces gently on the worktop.

  “Maker?” Eldred was by now a regular at the workroom, and learning fast. Lodden found him an intelligent boy with a thoughtful approach. “Is there anything I can help with?”

  “Perhaps so.” Lodden gestured at the harp. “I have to make three things of this, things that represent love, happiness and unselfishness. At the moment I don’t know quite what they will be though.” Eldred took a seat on his stool and did not interrupt as Lodden continued, almost talking to himself. “What is Love? Love is the soul’s union. Perhaps a token to symbolise the union of two souls...”

  He considered the pieces in front of him, and then picked out the various keys which were used to tune the harp. “Can you fire up the crucible, please, Eldred? We will melt these down. Is there any clean sand left?”

  “I will check.”

  “Just the small mould, I think.”

  Eldred set the crucible to warm as Lodden cleaned the keys as much as he could. Going to the back of the workroom, the boy selected a small wooden frame and set it on a stone slab, adding sand and tamping it down, wetting it and adding more until the frame was a solid, dense block of sand.

  Lodden left him to watch over the melting keys, and took out a sharp knife. In Lyria the smiths had shown him the art of making moulds for casting metal. Now, he wet the sand and compressed it once more, to be sure it was as solid as possible. When it was compacted into a solid block, he carved into it the shapes he would need. “How are the keys coming on?”

  “Starting to lose their shape. Shall I get the tongs?”

  “Yes. Are you happy to pour?”

  “Yes.” Eldred’s arm was much improved, and he was getting more confident. A few moments more, and he gripped the crucible firmly in the tongs. “Watch out.”

  Lodden moved out of the way. “Try to get as much of it in the mould as possible. The neater the pouring, the easier it will be to smooth it off later.” He watched as the boy poured the fiery liquid into the moulds, where it hissed and steamed. “Good. We’ll leave that to set now, and while we’re waiting we’ll make the decorative bits.”

  They melted down other metals, and Lodden moulded little inlays in gold as red as sunset. Then he took from his pocket one last item.

  “What is it?” Eldred asked.

  Lodden showed him. “This little piece of metal has come a long way.”

  “Is it the silver pin? The one you brought all the way from Lyria, that Tiris had brought back?”

  “Stained with the blood of my King. It is that same pin.”

  “And you are going to put it in with the rest?”

  For a moment Lodden clutched it in his hand, thinking of his old life. “It is a piece of my past. It comforts me to think that a piece of my past will be part of what we make of Maran’s harp. Even when we are long gone and our names have been forgotten, he and I will be intertwined in this piece.” He held the pin out to Eldred who dropped it into the crucible, and melted the silver ready to take its new form.

  When all the pieces were set, Eldred knocked the metal out of the sand. Lodden picked it up with a pair of tongs and scrutinised it, and then with his help and guidance Eldred ground and polished each piece to silky smoothness, and the pair of them fitted the pieces together carefully. Eventually they were finished. Eldred held up the amulet they had made in the light of the setting sun.

  “Are you happy with it, Maker?”

  Lodden bent close to examine it, nodding to himself as he did so. “It is as I had hoped.” He straightened and patted the boy on the back. “Now all we have to do is to design the other two artefacts.”

  The following day they began to work on the second.

  “Happiness.” Lodden mused. “What is happiness?”

  “Happiness is something you share with your loved ones.” Eldred scratched his ear.

  “Yes: but you can also be happy alone. It is... being able to do something for those that need help, and being able to accept help from those that offer it with no question of payment. It is the calm of the soul, the openness of the heart, the fulfilment of being a part of this world. It is a communion, it is as vital to us as bread or water...” He stopped.

  “It is difficult to think of one thing that captures happiness.”

  “Yes, it is. Perhaps there is something else we could do. We share food with our loved ones and eat it alone, make meals for those that cannot feed themselves or accept food from others. It brings us comfort and contentment when it is good. It can be complex and creative in the making. Eating together is an act of sharing that encompasses all who partake. What do you think?”

  Eldred paused to consider this. “Yes. Yes, I think it fits. But in what form?”

  Lodden picked up a piece of the wood of the harp and turned it over in his hands. “In Skral tradition every man should have his own knife.”

  “An eating set. Of course.” Eldred melted down metal to make a blade, and while he was working on it, Lodden took the wood and shaped it into a handle for the eating knife. He bound long thin pieces together with metal bands like a cooper’s barrel to make a mug, and polished the wood until it was smooth. Then they made a spoon to match the knife, and a metal box into which all of them fit snugly, and the set was done.

  “Good work, lad.”

  Eldred set down the box, giving it one last polish. “There is not much left, other than a few scraps of the harp.”

  “We will use these for the final and most difficult part. Start thinking, Eldred. Tomorrow we will need to make something representative of unselfishness.”

  The morning sun arched through the dooring, dancing on the spoiled silver strings as Lodden entered the next morning. He placed them in a little crucible until the heat melted the silver of the harp strings into a glimmering liquid. Eldred made a mould out wet sand, which Lodden carved into the correct shape, and Eldred poured the silver in. When the pieces were cool, they knocked the hardened metal free of the mould, and Eldred filed it and ground it until it shone like captured moonlight. The pieces were cunningly fashioned and Lodden showed him how they fit together to make a pendant, a beautiful thing with a tiny compass in it. The compass needle took a deal more skill, and for this Lodden relied strongly on wha
t the shipspirits had shown him in the dreams that continued to guide his hand as he worked.

  “Can you see a little box on that shelf?”

  Eldred reached down the box and opened it cautiously.

  “Look carefully. In there you will find one glittering splinter, dark as obsidian.”

  “Yes, I have it.” Eldred picked it out with his fingernails. “It is sharp! What is it?”

  “The very last shred of the keels. This is a splinter chipped from the oldest figurehead’s eye.”

  It was fiddly work, but between the two of them they eventually got it mounted it on a tiny pivot. This needle did not point North but that was not its purpose. Eldred made a hardy case, and from the Potentate’s treasures Lodden took a small clear crystal. He took a chisel and tapped it just so, chipping off a tiny slice which he polished into a solid lens to protect the compass needle. When all was finished, and polished to a gleam, they wrapped it carefully in silk and leather, and placed it in the Potentate’s box, now solidly mended, with the other two treasures.

  Packing the odd remnants away in the Potentate’s box, there was something wrapped carefully in cloth. The last of the Potentate’s clear crystals. He weighed the pair of them in his hand for a moment. “Stir up the fire under the crucible again, Eldred. We still need to make one last thing.”

  Asri was walking on the plain with Ran, who had taken a great liking to her. “And so the boy climbed onto the dragon’s back, and they flew to the palace, and when the Princess found that he was not dead, she married him on the spot. They became the father and mother of a great nation, and all because of a silken hair ribbon!”

  “What became of the king?” Ran asked, all agog.

  “Nobody ever spoke to him again. He had to stay in the kitchen and wash out the cauldrons after every meal, and the only thing they ever gave him to eat was cabbage.”

  “Why didn’t they kill him? I would have done.”

  Asri laughed. “Because they were not bloodthirsty Skraelings, but cultured Gai Renese, you little barbarian!”

  Ran thought about it. “That makes sense. They don’t seem to kill people very much at all. Oh, hello Lodden!”

  “Hello, Ran. Who are you killing today?”

  “A bad king, that’s all. Asri was telling me a story.”

  “And what brings you out on the plain today?” Asri asked.

  “I was looking for you, and for Tiris.”

  “He was in the meal hall this morning,” Ran offered. “He was begging for berries again.”

  Lodden laughed. “The greedy little thing! He’s incorrigible. Come on, let’s go and see if he’s still there.” He took Asri’s arm while the boy dashed on ahead. “There’s something I want to try today and I think it could be useful if Tiris was around.”

  “You haven’t been in evidence much, the past couple of days. Have you been working?”

  “Yes, I have. I have made Maran’s harp into three things, as he told me. Soon, before the winter, it will be time to hold his ceremony, though it will not be at the bay.”

  “I am glad to hear it. Do you feel better for having made the decision?” A brisk breeze was blowing, and Asri swept the hair out of her eyes.

  “It feels a little too fresh yet, a little too raw, but I know in my heart that it is the right thing to do. I have made the safeguards, and now it is time. Will you come to the ships’ graveyard with me, when I go?”

  “I am willing to try, but it will be so much slower if you have to guide me all the way there.”

  “Would you go, though? If you could? Or is it too far, and too long to be away from your people?”

  “Lodden, you are family now. Of course I will come, if you will help me to get there.”

  “Thank you.” He walked her to the bench outside the hall and they sat down. “I wanted to ask you now so that you had time to think about it if you needed to, and so that you should not feel that you had to go.”

  Asri smiled. “Am I so polite that I would trek two weeks across the tundra rather than say no to you?”

  “No... but even so.”

  “I’m teasing, Lodden. I appreciate your thoughtfulness.”

  A cheep heralded Tiris’ arrival, and Lodden reached in to his pocket for the last of the dried berries. He placed one in Asri’s hand and Tiris jumped up to get it. Perched on her thumb, he eyed the berry with his head on one side and then the other, and took it very deliberately.

  “What can you see of Tiris, Asri?”

  The Shantara squinted at the little bird. “A flare of emerald happiness, no more. He is a little spark of hope through dark times but I cannot see his shape, only a blur of colour in the sunshine.”

  “Stay still just a moment.” Lodden reached into his pocket to pull out the little frame he had made, and held it in front of Asri’s eyes. “Now?”

  Asri froze for a moment. Slowly she brought her free hand up and moved the frame closer to her eyes, and further away again. Then she inhaled sharply, looking at the little bird. “He is so beautiful. The iridescence on his wings... I cannot see every detail but I see a bird, Lodden, a bird rather than a blur!” She looked up at him, still holding the lenses in front of her eyes. “And you! I have never seen your face before, but I see the shape of it now! Lodden, you have given me my sight back! How have you done this?”

  “This time I can claim no credit. The Potentate’s scribe had something of the sort, and we had a long discussion about it. I do not have his skill, but I understand the principles, and it may be that we can improve them further with a bit of work.”

  “I do not know how to thank you...” Asri’s smile faded a little.

  “Asri?”

  She looked up again, her eyes magnified greatly by the lenses he had given her. “Edan... I wish that I could have seen my boy before he died. I would have liked to know what sort of a man he had grown into.”

  Lodden patted her on the arm. “Drankar has a daughter, a pretty girl in her early teens. She took something of a shine to Edan, I suspect because he spoke to her respectfully instead of dismissing her as the Skral tend to do. She is a rather exceptional artist. I had one last scrap of parchment...”

  Asri took the parchment with trembling hands. On it was a picture, carefully inked, of Edan. A lot of work had gone into it and the girl had captured his likeness very well, from the determined tilt of his chin to the mischievous glint in his eyes. Asri moved it near to her face, and then further away, and gasped as it came into focus finally.

  “Is he as you imagined?”

  “He is the image of his father. It is as if both of them have been returned to me.” She clutched the parchment to her chest for a moment. “Such gifts you bring me, Maker. I can never repay you.”

  “Joy is in the giving.” Lodden was a little bit startled to find himself using a Lyrian courtesy, but it had never been as apt as it was then. “Now, tell me where you can see most clearly, and I will see if I can refine the lenses to suit your eyes.”

  It was a couple of weeks more before Lodden was satisfied with his work. By then he had brought the lenses as near to correcting Asri’s vision as he could. It would never be perfect, but she could now see people and places, and spent several confusing days taking her usual walks and discovering what they looked like. Lodden was as pleased as she, but he was also very conscious of the autumn passing. He needed to get back to the ships’ graveyard before winter made the journey too difficult.

  Asri had not forgotten the ceremony though, and one of her first requests was to see what he had made from the remains of Maran’s harp. Lodden took her to the workshop.

  “Love, happiness and unselfishness...” she mused. “A difficult task, to make things that represent these.”

  “Let us see whether you can tell which is which.” Lodden laid the amulet, the eating set and the compass on the worktop before here.

  She examined them all closely, exclaiming at the cleverness of the fashioning, and then considered them all for a lon
g moment. She picked the amulet up and twisted it. It became a figure of eight, cleverly jointed, and as she twisted it back the loops swung together. “Two that are one, just like you and Maran. This must be love.”

  She ran a finger over the smoothed wood of the beaker. “If the amulet is for love, I would hazard that these are for happiness. Certainly some of my happiest times have been the sharing of meals with my family, before the Ice Lord came. And these are a pleasure to hold in the hand.” She laid down the beaker and cutlery. “So this is for unselfishness?” She picked up the compass and looked at it closely.

  “It is a guide. The needle is a shard of one of the keels. The shipspirits guided Maran, and his acceptance of that sacrifice was the only thing that stood between the Ice Lord and his domination of the world. The keels are locked in the Dragon’s Teeth and thousands of years from now, how can we be sure that anyone will know about the shipspirits still? There are temples in my country that are older than the hills, but we do not know whose they were or who worshipped there. All I can do is put a little part of the keels into something that provides guidance. The compass does not point North. It points to where the shipspirits want you to go. It is my hope that they will find someone willing to follow the path they are led upon, even when it is not in their interests to do so. I do not know if it is likely or even possible, but that is my hope.”

  “And where should we be now?” Asri laid the compass flat on her palm and it pointed across the plain to the interior of the island. She looked up at him. “The ships’ graveyard...”

  Their preparations took some time, even with Asri’s newfound sight, and Eldred and Drankar insisted on coming with them as guides. Lodden packed everything but the three artefacts he had made. These caused him some bafflement.

  “They must be kept safe,” he told Asri. “Maran said that they must last while the Ice Lord remains here, and it is a very long time for such to remain intact. When the time comes, they must be ready.”

  “Wrap them in oiled silk, and in leather,” she suggested. “That will not preserve it forever, but it might help.” They oiled the wooden parts and waxed the metal, and then they put them in little boxes, well-oiled and sewn into greased bladders so as to stay as waterproof as possible.

  It was a gruelling journey. Asri did her best but she could not focus for long with her new lenses before her eyes started to hurt. The sleds they used ran on wheels over the first part of the plain and when they got to the snowline, there were the runners to fit. However, Drankar was used to this kind of travelling and Eldred did much to keep their spirits high. Finally, the irregular hill of the ships’ graveyard hove in sight, and the great scar of the road where all the keels had been removed, and with the Skrals’ help, Lodden and Asri set up camp. They ate a simple meal and settled down for the night, wearied to their bones.

  Outside the embers of the fire burnt low, glimmering red. Lodden lay awake in his bedding for long hours, listening to the hiss of wind-swept snow on the tent walls, and thinking about Maran. He missed him more than he missed his arm. Maker or no, there was nothing he could build that would take the bard’s place in his heart. But Maran was gone, and Lodden was left behind. The ceremony the following morning was the last gift he could give to his soul-twin.

  Morning came reluctantly but Lodden, though tired, was far from bleary-eyed. He rose quietly so as not to wake Asri, who was sharing a tent with him. By the time the others woke, he had swept the fire pit clear of snow, lit the fire and had water heating. They ate a good breakfast of porridge sweetened with honey from the bees that had returned to the hives near the clan hall. Once fed, Lodden stood.

  “Is it time?” Asri had her spectacles in a leather pouch in an inside pocket, and now that they were up and doing, she put them on.

  “Yes it is.” Lodden gathered up the three precious gifts he had made. “Shall we go?”

  The cleft into the great horseshoe hill was thick with snow. It was a beautiful morning, the sky a deep blue. The still silence was as calm as water, and the snow sparkled in the sunshine.

  Eldred slowed to a halt, cautious not to slip. “Is this the graveyard?”

  Asri peered through her spectacles. “These shapes...”

  “The ships.” Drankar gazed around in awe.

  “This is where the Heart of Wood lay.” Lodden came to a halt in the middle of the basin. “The keels were intertwined in the same way we put them in the Dragon’s Teeth. This little pool was right inside, in the middle. I’m going to leave the three gifts here for the shipspirits to guard over.”

  He waited. He felt approval from the ships surrounding them. It was probably as clear an answer as he was going to get. “Will you help me with your ceremony, Asri?”

  “I will do what I can to help you, and to honour him.”

  There was a fallen beam to one side of the pool. Lodden laid his three treasures on it, taking each out of their bag.

  Asri joined him and when he was ready she began. “You are weary of grief, my friend. Let go of your sorrow and relive your memories with happiness. Tears help neither us nor those we have lost. ” Asri turned to address the amphitheatre of ships around them. “This is the story of Maran, last of his line. Well do you know his story, for he is of your people. We bring you these treasures, that you may carry them to him with our love and respect.”

  Lodden took up the amulet. “This amulet is made of the keys of his harp. It is both two and one at the selfsame time, as were we. Young he lived and young he died, and all my heart is gone with him. But here are the keys of his harp, made into an amulet for those whose souls are intertwined. I give it to you who guarded his clan and his people for so long, that you may take it to him and with it my loss.”

  Lodden wrapped it in box and bag and took it across to one of the ships nearby, setting it on the ledge under the figurehead. “Salt of my tears, salt of the sea, wash away loss and set me free.” It seemed to Lodden that the figurehead had nodded to him, but his eyes were wet and the sun was bright and he could not tell whether he had imagined it.

  Lodden took the cup, spoon and knife now. “This eating set is made from the wood of his harp. Many a time we sat together, eating and laughing, and there was much joy in the sharing. Hopeful he lived and hoping died, and all my heart is gone with him. But here is the set, made from the wood of his harp. I give it to you who carried his forebears over the seas, that you may take it to him and with it my joy in him.” He took the set to another of the ships and set it in its wrappings on the ledge under the figurehead. “Salt of my tears, salt of the sea, take him my joy and set us free.”

  Finally he took out the compass, and there was a feeling of increased focus from around them. “This compass is made from the strings of his harp. His music and your guidance allowed us to achieve that which seemed impossible. Maran’s gift to us was time to find another way. Though it took his life, it was a gift he was ready to make and with the passing of the seasons I have come to see that his unselfishness and your guidance allowed what is left of this world to be saved. I have made this compass against the day the Ice Lord is freed from his prison, that there is a way to guide those who do not know of you. Keep it safe until it is needed, and when the world is threatened again, bring each of these gifts to someone who can use it. Use this compass to guide their steps, and bring an end to the Ice Lord as we have not been able to.”

  He began to wrap up the compass in its little box, trying to remember the words that came next.

  Asri was there before him. “Edan, Maran and all who died did so to prevent worse happening. Hopeful they lived -”

  “And hopeful died, and all my heart is gone with them.” Lodden joined in, and was a little startled when Drankar and Eldred did so as well.

  “But here are the gifts he bid me make,” Lodden continued alone. “I give them to you that you may safeguard them over the years as you once safeguarded the clans of the Skral. Take them to Maran with my love, that he may know I have done as he aske
d and will remember him with every breath that I take.” He set the compass on the ledge below the third figurehead that made the lowest circle of ships in the graveyard. “Salt of my tears, salt of the sea, take them to him and set us free.”

  He backed away slowly, and went to stand with Asri who grasped his arm tightly. They stood in silence for a moment, while the sun glinted crystal tears on the frosted hulls of the ships.

  “The ships are happy, aren’t they?” Eldred said suddenly. “Did we get it right?”

  “Yes, I think we did.” Drankar looked around him as the wind picked up, and snow began to blow across the clearing. It was beautiful but cold, and their faces stung in the blast, but Lodden showed no signs of moving. “We’ll wait for you outside.”

  Lodden did not reply. He was staring at the puddle in what had been the Heart of Wood. Reflections danced and whirled, pictures and futures that might be, a kaleidoscope of faces. A girl; a girl with long hair. A tall man, and a strange figure which could have been male or female. Indistinct behind them all stood a figure that was both dark and light. The shipspirits would guide them to where they had to be. Lodden felt Maran there looking over his shoulder and turned, but with the movement, he was back in the bright snow of the ships’ graveyard, grinning like a fool.

  “Are you all right?” Asri asked again.

  “Sorry, I was miles away.” If he was going to tell anyone about the visions he had been granted, it would be Asri, but the visions were too new, too precious to discuss yet. The time would come, but it was not now. Instead, he linked her arm though his. “I am all right. Yes, I truly am.”

  They followed Drankar and Eldred’s footprints along the road to the open plain.

  At his side, Asri was drinking in the beauty which she had been unable to see for so long. “It is like diamonds. The glint of the ice, the white snow and the shadows, blue as the sky... They are a gift I never expected.”

  “It is very beautiful.” Lodden savoured Asri’s enjoyment of it as they walked. The snow squeaked underfoot, and through the crisp chill of the morning, the sun was warm on his face. And suddenly Tiris was darting about, agitated, before them.

  “What is it, Tiris?”

  Lodden stared. Behind the bird a tree was moving. For a moment he simply goggled at it, and then he took a firmer grip on Asri’s arm. “Landslide!” They ran the last few paces to safety. There was a thunderous roar. A great chunk of the hill slid in on itself, bare seconds after they had reached Drankar and Eldred on the plain.

  When the mist of snow died down, Drankar brushed the powder from his beard. “Now no-one shall have your treasures. They are buried under the hill.”

  “I do not think they are lost.” Asri peered through her lenses at the great slope of earth where the path had been. “When the time comes, they will be there. I think this is merely to safeguard them, as safe a place as the Dragon’s Teeth.”

  Lodden said nothing. Finally he had finished the task he had been set. A weight he had not realised he was carrying fell from his shoulders. Maran would have clapped him on the shoulder and congratulated him on a job done, and done well. He could hear the bard saying it so clearly that it was as if he stood at his side. Suddenly Lodden knew that Maran was not gone, not while he had such sharp-cut memories of sunlight on those blonde curls, and that laugh ringing out across the plain, carefree as summertime.

  He took a deep breath of the cold, crisp air, and smiled at the bemused faces of his companions. “Last time we were here the travelling was much easier. When we get back to the halls, I must look into the making of the Gai Renese sandships. They are fascinating little craft.”

  ~~~

  Other Books

  If you have enjoyed this story, you might be interested in other books set in the same world.

  Flight from Shantar

  Some three thousand years later (nearly), the Shantar nation is recovering from a long war with the Mardonese.

  Vansel and his crew have been sent to Shantar to smuggle a woman across into Mardon City, but all is not as it seems, and this is only the start of an adventure which will take them on a very long journey.

  ~~~~

  On Dark Shores

  Trapped in fear and poverty, the thief Nereia will go to desperate lengths to protect her beautiful younger sister from brutal moneylender Copeland. No-one has dared to attempt escape before; the whole town of Scarlock trembles in his grasp. Only Nereia’s cunning and some unexpected help give her hope.

  Copeland is becoming unpredictable. Even his bodyguard Blakey is not safe; when he is summoned down to the sea-caves, Blakey is uneasy – and so he should be, for he is about to meet the Archangel…

  In a country still recovering from war, events are stirring and the little harbour-town will not remain obscure for long; but in Scarlock, right now, Mr Copeland is coming to call – and this time he's not taking ‘no’ for an answer.

  ~~~

  Other Titles Available from Weasel Green Press

  J.A. Clement

  On Dark Shores

  1. The Lady & 2. The Other Nereia

  3. Mother of the Shantar (due)

  Parallels

  The Black-Eyed Susan

  A Sprig of Holly

  Flight from Shantar (due)

  Jo Edwards

  Work-Wife Balance

  Potbound

  A Mixed Reception

  Foggy’s Blog

  A Very Foggy Christmas

  Dulcie Feenan

  Christmas Comes to Oddleton

  Before You Go...

  Hello readers! JAC here.

  When you bought this book (and thank you for doing so), I bet you had a quick look at the reviews or ratings before you did. Everyone does – they’re so useful. I wondered if you’d consider leaving a review of your own?

  When you leave a review it helps to guide other people with similar tastes to yours to a book they might like, or to avoid a book that probably won’t appeal. That’s pretty powerful, if you think about it... and whether you loved it or hated it, your individual opinion really counts.

  Your review doesn’t have to be lengthy; you could just say what worked well, what didn’t work so well, and whether or not you would recommend anyone else read it.

  Thank you; every review is appreciated.

  JAC

  Acknowledgements

  Again, huge thanks are due to:

  Mike Rose-Steel for his editing prowess and a far better title than the one I was using,

  Julia Lee Dean for her notes on character,

  Tricia Kristufek for formatting the text into this lovely book.

  and Kari Ayasha for her trouble and artistry in putting together the cover to a most exacting brief.

  About the Author

  J.A. Clement lives with her partner in the South of England. She absolutely loves having the opportunity to share her stories with real live readers, and is working to finish the next book rather faster than this one...

  Blog: https://jaclement.wordpress.com

  FB: https://www.facebook.com/ondarkshores

  Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/jaclementwriter

  See blog pages for news and gossip and to say hello, or mail her on [email protected].

  Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net
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