The Anvil of Ice
The Anvil of Ice (
Winter of the World volume one)
By
Michael Scott Rohan
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Resounding praise for Michael Scott Rohan's
The Winter of the World:
"OUTSTANDING FANTASY FICTION" Andre Norton, author of
The Mirror of Destiny
"AMONG THE BEST OF THE CROP…Rohan has an entertaining, engrossing style"
Science Fiction Chronicle
"BOLD…IMPRESSIVE…ORIGINAL"
Kirkus Reviews
"ENGAGING FANTASY…MARVELOUS…VIVID…THOROUGHLY SATISFYING"
Publishers Weekly
"STARTLING…EXCITING…HAUNTING…REMARKABLE… Adept strokes of almost science and seeming reality, and characters that live and breathe…A gifted writer…Pages turn as if by magic." Jean M. Auel, author of
Clan of the Cave Bear
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Other AvoNova Books by
Michael Scott Rohan
The Winter of the World
Trilogy:
Volume 2:
The Forge in the Forest
Volume 3:
The Hammer of the Sun
Chase the Morning The Gates of Noon
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All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
AVON BOOKS
The Hearst Corporation
1350 Avenue of the Americas
New York, New York 10019
Copyright © 1986 by Michael Scott Rohan
Published by arrangement with William Morrow and Company, Inc.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 86-12426
ISBN: 0-38O-7O547-8
All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever except as provided by the U.S. Copyright Law. For information address Permissions Department, William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1350 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10019.
First Avon Books Printing: February 1989
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For Richard Evans
Acknowledgements
:
To Deborah, as ever, for her intense involvement and support; to Richard, Toby, and Sarah and other staff members at Macdonald & Co. (Publishers) Ltd., for all they have contributed; and to Maggie Noach, agent extraordinary. Also for their ballads, to the shades of Aloys Schreiber and Carl Loewe.
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Contents
Chapter One
- The Forging
Chapter Two
- The Apprentice
Chapter Three
- The Sword
Chapter Four
- The Smith of the Saltmarshes
Chapter Five
- The Corsairs
Chapter Six
- On the Anvil
Chapter Seven
- Stone and Steel
Chapter Eight
- The Wind Beneath the Earth
Chapter Nine
- The Voices
Chapter Ten
- The Tempering
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Chapter One
- The Forging
It was the chill before dawn that woke him, and the snuffling and stamping of the great bull in its stall. The dawns were always cold then, whatever the season, in the Long Winter of the Old World, in the dominion of the Ice. So the chronicles record, and though copied and recopied by many hands, the voice of one who has seen, and felt, speaks still from their pages. But now, on this day, it was newly spring, and the keen air was making the great beast impatient to run free in the pastures among its cows. So the boy sprang out of his pile of skins, wincing at the air's bite, and began scrambling into those of them that were garments. If he let the bull begin bellowing here so early, it would mean a beating. He swung the moth-eaten fur cloak round his shoulders and seized the long goad off the wall, the strange shapes and characters in the icy metal branding his fingers with unknown wisdom. The bull's tossing head, with its horns as long as his body, was no more than a lighter patch in the blackness high above him, but with the ease of long practice he slipped along the stall wall, a slab split from a sandstone boulder, and quickly looped the goad through the carved ring in the bull's nostrils. Instantly the outswept horns ceased goring the air, the great head drooped, and the bull stood docile while the boy undid its tethers and urged it out of the stall. It waited placidly while he untied the rest of the herd and shooed and bustled the huge beasts, white as soiled ice, out into the pallid air, their breath billowing in clouds as they lowed and snorted, their hooves crushing the half-frozen mud. Thus the day that was to change all days began, for him, like any other.
Nothing else was stirring in the little town called Asenby. The very houses seemed asleep, shuttered tight against the cold; even the wide-eyed faces painted in vivid red and black across their planks looked dazed and only half-awake. The boy scowled as they passed the Headman's great house with the painted whales framing its porch, leaping four stories to the rooftree. When he was a few strides further on he jerked the goad slightly; the bull snorted loudly in pained protest, awaking loud anxious lowings from the rest of the herd. But by the time the shutters slammed open he was already past, turning the corner toward the Landgate.
From the high old house on the corner light gleamed, warm and red as a breath of summer, running molten gold even into the cold puddles, and there came the low muttering of a chant. The boy scowled again, yet more darkly, and led the bull closer so he could peer in the open door as he passed. Yes, Hervar was there, his lean shadow dancing immense on the wall of the forge as he squatted over his anvil, crooning and tapping away at a flake of blackened metal. The new hoeheads that would be, new for the newmade virginity of the soil. In the working of the metal, in the quavering of the chant, lay potencies united by the power and craft of the smith to make the hoes potent in themselves—a virtue of fertility, for the fields and perhaps also the women who would till them. That much the boy knew, but no more, for all he wished to, for all he had tried to puzzle out the markings on the goad. The wizened old smith had always refused him knowledge, even the simplest instruction in signing and reading that he gave every child of the town. Now he was looking up, glaring through straggling sweat-plastered gray locks and waving the boy sharply away without missing a beat of the chant. His plump apprentice came bustling out, brandishing long iron tongs and shouting. "You keep off, Alv! Out to your work, or I'll scratch your pale hide for you where it itches! Tinker's brat!"
The boy sneered, twitched the goad around suddenly and set the wide horns tossing a foot's span from the ap-prentice's flattened nose. He retreated with a panic-stricken squeak, and the herd, moving close to the house, began to press against its walls and peer round-eyed and stupid into the smithy. Some beasts were actually scratching themselves against the timbers, till the house vibrated and the chant inside rose to a cracked screech. That might be too much. Hurriedly Alv called them off, back into the center of the street, slapping at their grimy flanks with his hands and leaving the goad securely in the ring.
The town wall was a massive affair, circling the little knot of streets and running straight out into the sea on either flank of the little harbor, acting as a breakwater. As long as Alv could remember they had been rebuilding and strengthening it, thickening the broad drystone base, shoring up the double rows of mighty pine trunks above and adding towers on the rampart that ran between them, so that constant watch could be maintained on both sea and land. The watchman in the gatetower ahead yawned when Alv hailed him, and made no haste about swinging the great bars up on their counterweights to open the narrow gate. The other herds weren't even stirring yet, though that would have been no defense for him if he'd been late. The cattle filed through in pairs, no more, and the gate swung to again behind. Alv dimly remembered it as wide, and always open in daylight, but these were troubled days; few traders' wagons ever rolled this way now. The cattle jostled and crowded on the uphill path, eager to get to their pastures, and when they reached the high meadows overlooking the town they broke and scattered, some clumsily skipping and bounding as if they were calves once more. Alv clambered up onto his favorite rock seat and deftly flipped the goad free from the ring. The bull stared at him an instant in baffled fury, then snorted violently and went lumbering away across the meadow. Alv settled down to eat the chunk of hard cornbread he had been given last night, and the strip of salt fish he had stolen to go with it. He looked out, far out across the sea to the horizon. Soon the sun would arise and bring him warmth; small birds were singing in the bushes, and the sky was filling with light that reddened the flanks of the cattle and the wisps of smoke that rose over the wood-tiled rooftops below, as kitchen fires were kindled. But the sight kindled other fires in him; how often he had sat there and prayed, to powers he did not know, that the calm gray sea beyond might leave its rolling and rise in wrath to sweep those rooftops away!
He shivered. The breeze off the sea was growing strong, sending ragged banks of cloud scudding landward; in the growing light they cast weird rippling shadows on the waves. For a few minutes he amused himself watching them—and then he sprang to his
feet
. In those shadows under the clouds other, deeper, darknesses were slipping across the waves, long sleek shapes lancing in toward the shore. Four of them, low in the water where a watchman nearer sea level might easily miss them in this dim, hazy light.
Without thinking he cupped his hands and yelled. Nothing happened. If he was wrong they'd flay him alive. He yelled again, and saw the Landgate watchman look up and wave casually. "No!" he screamed, so loud his voice cracked. "Out there, you fool! Out there!" Alv stabbed his arm out seaward again and again. The watchman turned and seemed to cock his head and squint into the low light. Then he sprang up, grabbed the huge steerhorn that hung above the gate and blew a loud bellowing blast. The bull in the meadow echoed it, stamping the turf in challenge. Confused shouts rose up from below, and the rumble of feet on the ramparts; an instant later another horn blew from the seawall, and a drum stuttered. All over the town shutters slammed open, voices squeaked and yammered, men and women charged half-dressed into the street, colliding with each other and tumbling down in the mud. Bright gleams moved more purposefully through the streets and up onto the ramparts, armored men of the town guard marching to their posts, staring as Alv was, out to sea.