Above the Snowline (36 page)

Read Above the Snowline Online

Authors: Steph Swainston

Tags: #Fantasy

BOOK: Above the Snowline
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I’d never seen one before. They were acting like adults. Shit, they were creepy. They were hunting us. Hunting
us
! I set my jaw. Can’t get through my armour, can they? Then I’ll damn well outride them.
 
The team on our right merged with us, thundered beside me at arm’s length. Now something else on top of the ridge. Angular scarecrows of black and white with fluttering twig fingers, all along the crest. Can I break through? I gathered Sorrel’s reins and tried to force her left against the mound. She swerved closer, closer still and then I saw ropes strung between the trees, at the level of her withers. The ’danne had netted the trees! The ropes looked as thin as threads, but for me to see them at all, they must be sturdy. The sort the savages climb with. The sort they make from their own hair.
 
I eased the rein and she bent to the right again. We were among Crake’s squad now - ten riders left alive and two, three riderless horses including ours - and another squad was close ahead.
 
I hadn’t known, none of us had known, there were so many ’danne. The forest had been silent, but now they were everywhere! How many? Twelve? Fifteen? No more than that. We should be able to kill them, easily, but Sorrel won’t stop!
 
More jumped out from behind the barricade. They let us pass then sprinted after us. Those previously screeching on our tail lost pace and climbed up the barricade. They were exchanging places with the new relay. It’s like a racetrack, I thought wildly, and then they’re funnelling us together. They’re funnelling us together!
Where are we
?!
 
We descended an incline. The ground became rougher, the snow more powdery. Sorrel and everyone around me plunged down without breaking pace. One brown horse lost her footing and went down in a whirl of snow - the rider catapulted over her head, smashed against a tree and lay still.
 
Screams sounded from the squad ahead. It’s a cliff! A fucking edge! I pulled the reins with all my strength but Sorrel stretched her neck and the bit ring snapped. They went loose in my hand.
 
The horses in front of me went over - heads and forelegs into space, their butts shining, rear hooves raised. The riders screamed and looked down in front of them. They threw out their arms. One grabbed his horse’s neck; another prepared to jump - too late! There was clear air between the saddles and their arses. All were in free-fall. Then they were gone.
 
I struggled to kick my foot out of the stirrup - the tab on my boot wedged and all the time the cliff edge was getting closer. I wrenched my foot out, kicked the other free, swung my leg over the saddle and dived.
 
I hit the ground, my arms around my head. I rolled over and over till I crunched into fresh snow. The hooves of the following horses charged past, beating the snow. They pounded across my vision, kicking up clods. Thunder and crunching all around me, the riders yelling, trying to rein in their horses. The horses jamming to a halt with all four legs and sliding. Some tumbled. Others stretched out galloping without pause straight over the precipice. They fell, slamming into each other. The heads and upflung arms of the riders were last to vanish.
 
The last group hurtled towards me and with them Crake, his face set in horror. I yelled, ‘Jump!’ He slipped back on the saddle, then threw his leg over and crumped to the ground - didn’t roll - and all the horses following went over him, throwing his body this way and that. They stormed over the precipice and shrieks rang out . . . faded . . . horses and men falling a great distance through the air. Distant thumps as they smashed against the rock . . . fainter . . . fainter . . . and a remote series of thuds and crashes.
 
Crake lay still, extended and rigid. His back was broken. His hands shook. Between us hoof prints and gouges scored the snow to the precipice about five metres away. Shit. They were all dead. Thirty good men, all killed.
 
I was about to run to Crake when a light crunching signalled the arrival of the ’danne who’d been chasing us. Two ran past me to the cliff edge and looked over. Teetering there, spears in hand, they started laughing. I boiled with fury and hatred. I lay still. Their fur-bordered hood openings turned to each other; the smaller one nodded and pointed downward. The other actually dug his talons into the snow and lowered himself over the edge! He turned, facing me. I caught a glimpse of his weedy, beardless face, then he climbed down the cliff and disappeared.
 
Another couple stopped beside Crake and stood with spears raised, wondering where to thrust between his armour. It’d be folly for me to move. I wanted to be up and running but they’re like dogs - if you run they register you as prey and chase you. I figured I had bugger all chance of living through this and I had best lie still and not give them the pleasure of hunting me.
 
The small ’danne left the cliff edge and joined the others around Crake. One of them tapped his spear on the plates of armour - his head on one side. He raised his spear and tried to thrust it into the gap between Crake’s gorget and breastplate. Ching! The flint point broke. He threw his spear aside in disgust, hunkered down and drew a knife. He began sawing into the gaps between the joints of Crake’s armour - armpits, throat, the backs of his knees - wherever he could find a slit, until blood spurted onto the snow. Crake was alive all through this and they cackled louder than ever.
 
Eventually the short savage figured out how to unbuckle the gorget. He took it off, gave it to his accomplice, then cut Crake’s throat with one neat slash. The tall one, having got the idea, eagerly started stripping Crake’s armour. The little one left him to it and ran towards me. Halfway over I recognised her as the small woman who’d come to the keep with Comet. The one who’d chattered to our porters and spilt the barrel. She had more bear claws on her belt than the other savages and they rattled.
 
Recognition flickered across her face as well. She crouched an arm’s length away, her spear at the ready. My fingers curled numbly round the hilt of my blade but I knew I could never draw it before she’d finish me. This is it. I braced myself for the thrust.
 
Her eyebrows drew together. She spoke and was halfway through the sentence before I realised I understood her. She was speaking
Awian
! I could hardly hear it through her accent. ‘You are Steward Snipe, yes? Raven’s man? The bruise eye man?’ She reached out her spear and the point came at my face, circling round and round.
 
I nodded, scraping my cheek in the snow.
 
‘Steward Snipe. Jant hit you.’ She laughed and her cold eyes glittered. ‘Jant hit you hard and good. Now I beat you too. What you think of this?’ She flourished her spear at the precipice then trained it on me again immediately. ‘Go, tell Raven this. Tell Raven to leave Carnich or I hunt him. I hunt you
all
!’
 
I scrambled to my feet, slipped and stumbled. I forced myself up again and ran, sure she would pounce. The male ’danne looked up from claiming Crake’s armour but she barked a command at him - a
command
! - and he shrugged.
 
I passed other ’danne squatting by my dead friends or sitting on their snow bulwark. They all eyed me keenly and their babies trotted alongside me but not for very far. They were obeying the words of the huntress.
 
I staggered back into the forest and began to follow our footprints. I was shivering and gazing wildly round, thinking more Rhydanne would appear like ghosts. The light were fast ebbing and even the fucking trees seemed alive. The ’danne behind me fell quiet and when I looked back they’d gone. Crake’s body lay alone, surrounded by wide bloodstains, sprayed out onto the snow from every joint.
 
I found the track as dusk were falling. I walked all the way back to the keep and emerged from the forest long after dark. The tower rose before me. I were shivering so violently it hurt; my face was numb and stinging, my lips cracked and bleeding, and I couldn’t feel my arms or legs, let alone my bloody hands or feet. I stumbled like a dying thing out of the wilderness, and all the way I hummed to myself to take my mind off the pain. I clambered over the snow piled beside the path and the guard at the gate drew his bow. I called to him and he looked horrified at the state of me. No one in front of me, no one behind. I was the only survivor.
 
JANT
 
I flew for hours trying to find Dellin - I mean, trying to find any Rhydanne, or the troops Raven had sent after them. But the forest thickly cloaked the slopes, rising over its buttresses, descending into its gullies, and I couldn’t see down between the pines. Pines grew solidly on every centimetre of land that wasn’t vertical and bristled on the tops of the cliffs. They covered the cliff’s slopes and ledges on all sides, surrounding rock faces which showed as black granite scars. Where the forest petered out, a fresh snowfall enlarged every hummock, disguised the crevasses, and smoothed away every sign of Awian or Rhydanne footprint or ski trail.
 
Where was she? I flew so low that my wingtips touched the treetops, but I couldn’t hear her howls. I landed several times to rest my wings and listen, but it was nearly impossible to find clearings and just as difficult to take off again. Flying was no use, but if I borrowed skis from Ouzel it would be just as frustrating and even more disorientating criss-crossing among the shadowy trunks.
 
Snowflakes drifted down with endless patience - a patience I did not share in any way. I tore the sky in two looking for Dellin. I no longer cared whether I lived or died.
 
Then in the distance I heard a whistle. A Rhydanne whistle. I strained to catch it, but the swoosh and batter of my wings kept interrupting it. Up-slope slightly; in that direction nothing but blackness, the trees merged into the bulk of Klannich. I glided, straining to hear over the roaring airflow. Then . . . voices . . . and drumming!
 
The forest suddenly plunged away under me. I had flown over a cliff concealed by the trees. I gasped, checked I was still flying straight, and looked down into the black depths that had opened up below me. Way down below was a blossom of yellow light no larger than a mountain flower. I leant and turned - the forest soared up around me, then above me - and I spiralled down in front of the rock face.
 
The yellow light was a campfire in a large clearing at the foot of the cliff. It cast a halo on the snow and flickered on the dappled brown surfaces of some rectangles around it. I now heard Rhydanne voices and laughter, loud raillery, the occasional whistle, and the drumming.
 
I landed with a crunch and walked towards it, tentatively feeling each step in the half-light. The snow squeaked under my soles and the Rhydanne around the fire fell silent. Now I could hear another sound as well, like pebbles being struck together. ‘Chack! Chack! Chink!’
 
The glow of the bonfire illuminated the ring of tents around it, casting their tapering shadows long over the snow. The ends of the tents facing me merged blackly with the night, but the flames reached high above their ridges, dancing so the orange glow lapped back and forth, sending sparks in a stream to the sky. The smell of smoke and a wonderful aroma of roast meat enticed me. Dellin must be here. I stepped over a windbreak and made my way between the buff-coloured tents. About twenty Rhydanne lounged around the fire, warming their soles or sitting with their legs covered with pelts. Their eyes reflected the fire as they stared at me, but the ‘Chack! Chack!’ continued for a second. On the other side of the fire - Dellin. She had a doe-skin kerchief over her nose and mouth. She glanced up, saw me, and pulled it down to reveal a broad grin. She removed a piece of hide from her lap, bounded around the fire and took my hand.
 
‘He’s on our side,’ she said to the group. ‘He’s our friend!’
 
As one they whooped and whistled. I belonged here! I felt a remarkable rightness that I hadn’t felt since first entering the Castle. I felt I was home.
 
Dellin tugged my wing, inviting me to sit down beside her on a chamois skin. Its small, pointed hooves reflected the bonfire light; its hair was like soft, beige moss. She pressed a cup of whisky into my hand and arranged a fur over my legs. ‘Have a drink and warm up. Did you hear our drums?’
 
‘Yes, I did.’
 
‘We’ve been calling Rhydanne in since sundown. We’ve had a successful hunt!’
 
Indeed, a huge haunch of meat was spitted over the fire, dripping fat into a tray lying among the flames. Every so often a huntress would lean forward, baste it, and give the spit a turn. Dellin forked a slab of meat from a pile of carved chunks on a hearthstone, plopped it into a piece of leg armour which made quite a good plate, and passed it to me. I drew my knife and cut the wobbly, pale fat from its edge.
 
She was so beautiful, and I was sitting beside her! She had rubbed red ochre powder in her hair and it hung in hard, red twists. Her parka was unbuttoned down as far as her breasts. Its toggles were tubes of eagle’s bone and she had threaded porcupine-spine beads on its lacings. All my anxieties of the last hours melted away. Now I was here the journey seemed inconsequential.

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