Winter Warrior (Song of the Aura, Book Two) (12 page)

   
Bending down slowly, he picked up the dead dripsparrow in two cupped hands. Perhaps they could cook it and eat it. Meat would taste heavenly after such a harrowing experience.
What are you becoming, Prince?
a voice mused in his head, but he ignored it.

~

   
If he listened very intently, Gribly fancied he could hear agitated noises coming from where Lauro had vanished to. He grimaced to think what they might be.
It was early in the morning, and there was just enough light to work by. In the short time since the deadly fight with the draik, Elia had picked out the best of the Treele wessiles to take out on the ocean. Gribly had commanded the draik to help her get it into the water, which it was now doing as carefully as it could, dragging the vessel off the grounded snow and carefully down a steep, sloping decline, using its metal claws to dig in and stop from slipping.

   
Elia jogged up and sat beside Gribly where he was seated on a mat he’d salvaged from the decimated Treele camp.

   
“We can leave once the wessile’s in the water,” she said cheerily. The girl never seemed to get exhausted- Gribly felt like he could sleep for a week right then and there, if the threat of more attacks wasn’t looming over him. “Have you found anything of use?” she asked.

   
“Yeah… right over there. Big pile o’ rags and tools and things. Even found a little food.” Gribly couldn’t keep the pride out of his voice as he gestured to the sack of varying provisions laying off to her side. And rightfully so- he and Lauro had gathered it during an hour of picking through the mess that used to be the Tribe Circle. It had been gloomy work, and he was pleasantly surprised with the results. “Saved some vittles for you. They’re on the top.”

   
“Thank you.” She dipped her head a little in thanks and got up to get her share. He watched her go, marveling. He wasn’t usually one to gawk, but everything about Elia seemed to draw his gaze and thoughts to her. Her talking, her moving, her thoughts… they all seemed streamlined and beautiful. Not in a superficial way, of course- if he could have found the words and courage to say it, he would have told her that she
glowed
, in a metaphorical way: she radiated friendliness and made his heart stop with an odd kind of homesickness he couldn’t define.

   
Blast it all! What was happening to him? He couldn’t actually be infatuated with this girl, could he? Gribly forced himself to stand and walk to the edge of the low embankment, where the draik had just vanished with the boat.

   
Peering over, he saw the beast swimming leisurely around the wessile where it bobbed in the current the draik created. He wondered how the seawater didn’t rust the monster’s body apart, if it was really half-machine like it looked.

   
Looking back over his shoulder, Gribly caught Elia staring at him as she ate. Her gaze was like daggers… a pain that felt good. The look on her face was thoughtful… or perhaps something else. She saw him looking back at her and suddenly diverted her eyes to what she was doing, in an attempt to make it seem like a casual glance. It didn’t convince Gribly, and it gave him an uneasy- but not unpleasant- feeling, as he turned away.

   
“Draik!” he called, feeling a little embarrassed. “Keep the vessel as it is, and do not harm it!”

   
“YES, GRAMLING, MASTER.IT SHALL BE SO.”

Gribly shivered. He’d never get used to the way that thing talked. He turned to join his friends again and tell them it was time, but an odd thought popped into his head and he looked down at the draik again. “Draik!” he shouted, “I have heard what you call me- Gramling. Now I ask: What shall I call YOU?”

   
The draik was silent for a long time, continuing its slow swimming course around the Treele boat. Finally it answered in its same, unnatural tone.

   
“MASTER CALLS THIS DRAIK… NEBULEKEF.”

   
“Nebuleh?” It was Elia, coming up beside him with that unshakeable poise and gracefulness that seemed to come so naturally to her.
Stoppit, Gribly!
He told himself.
You’re going to say something out loud that you’ll regret!
Well, in any case, she was taking their new companion rather well, considering it had probably murdered her kin. “That means
steam
in nymph. Or
mist
.
Kef
is
claw
. That would make you Steamclaw, wouldn’t it?”

   
A growl.

   
Gribly felt oddly conscious that he was standing so close to Elia. Turning a little in her direction, he tried to make conversation.

   
“So… you know the nymph speech well, I guess?” As soon as he said it, he felt like an imbecile. Of course she did!

   
But her only response was a light, airy laugh. “Yes, yes I do. Though not as well as some.” She winked. It gave him the chills.

   
Get a hold of yourself!
His mind was screaming at him. He tried to obey it, while at the same time keep the conversation with Elia going. Why was it so hard to talk sensibly to an almost-total stranger?

   
“I only meant… oh, it doesn’t matter. I suppose I’m just too tired to talk right.” He tried a weak smile of his own, and was rewarded with a tireless one of hers. It encouraged him. “I mean, I’ve gotten so little sleep, it’s a surprise I don’t hear the birds and fish talking, too, and not just Steamclaw, here!” He grinned, and she laughed with him. It felt so good to hear that…

   
“What’re you both looking at?” Lauro cut in from behind, coming up between them and nudging them apart. How had he come up so quickly? “Whatever tricks that overgrown bear can do, they won’t matter if we’re all dead of hunger. Look, I’ve caught a strange bird that was waddling along the ice. Do you think we could make a fire and cook it, Elia?”

   
The girl spun around to see him, obviously as surprised as Gribly was that their little tête-à-tête had been interrupted. “W-what, that poor thing? Throw it away. It’s no good.”

   
The prince shrugged, emotionless, and tossed the fowl to Steamclaw, who snapped it out of the air. Elia shivered, but Gribly caught a queer gleam in Lauro’s eye that disappeared before he could decide what it had meant.

   
“Well then,” he said, trying to break the awkward situation that seemed to have leaped out at them. “Let’s get going, shall we?”

   
“Indeed,” Lauro agreed, and his eyes gleamed again.
This will be a long, tiring trip,
Gribly thought. He knew it was an understatement.

Chapter Nine: Menace from Afar

   
The journey that followed the climactic battle of the night before was the most exhilarating yet- mostly because Gribly fell asleep almost as soon as they set out, and therefore had a few more hours of sleep than his companions; but also because the trio’s mode of travel was so unheard of.

   
It was rising morning, and the sun was shining bright in the East. The Inkwell glimmered and glittered like a fluid expanse of sapphires in the crown of the Ocean King. The swell of the waves was calmer than it had been in many a long day, and certainly much less active than it had been ever since the
Mirrorwave
set out from the Zain Circle. Titanic
 
icebergs of the unnatural shapes common in the enchanted wintry waters were scattered at random throughout the bay, but not so close together as to inhibit swift passage to the Grymclaw. It was a fine day for sailing… but there was no wind.

   
Here and there a breeze blew, skimming across the foamy tips of the waves, but that was all.

   
Then, without warning, a blast of air and a spray of water exploded at the crest of one such wave. The tapered end of a white wessile broke through and skimmed across the rippling water beyond, followed by the rest of the vessel. Its bow dug low in the saltwater, pushing up high walls of spilling water on each side. An endless, high-pitched moan filled the air as it passed in a rush of wind and stormy sea-spray, then died away as it sped on at an impossible pace towards the next wave.

   
When it had gone, the Inkwell was silent again.

~

   
Gribly woke from his dream partially refreshed and shaking from the chill of the spray that reached him in the midsection of the wessile. He was soon occupied with watching the horizon, but the words he’d spoken with Traveller still lingered on the edge of his mind.

   
You’ve done well. And you’ve discovered one more thing about yourself you didn’t know before. Many go their whole lives without discovering as much.

   
It was barely enough to rein in that monster. How you contrived it, I’ve no clue.

   
I contrived nothing; I merely gave you advice. I do not interfere; I merely suggest.

   
Right. Your suggestions sure do come at the right times.

   
You will not need them any longer, I think. At least, not so much. You can stand on your own feet now, as the Southerners say. The world is yours to explore. Take care it does not swallow you up.

   
You’re as confusing as ever, naturally. Are all your kind like that?

   
Not to each other.

   
I guess you won’t answer any of my other questions, then?

   
For example…

   
Who, exactly, AM I? What’s going on?

   
Ah…

   
You’re not going to answer, are you?

   
The answers you seek lie not with me… but you will find them, soon enough enough. Speak with the innkeeper. He will know.

   
What?

   
When you see the innkeeper, speak to him these lines:

   
Wait…

   
“
When the king grows old and the world bleeds gold;

      
When all our hopes have come to grief;

          
Doubt not that winter’s warrior comes;

             
The brother of a thief.”

   
How am I supposed to remember that?

   
You will. It is your Doom.

   
I don’t like this…

   
Nor do most who see their duty as it truly is, and yet still follow its course to the bitter end.