Dead Stars - Part Two (The Emaneska Series) (45 page)

Speed was of the essence. Noon had slid into afternoon, and was quickly turning into evening. The temperature, already nudging the depths of unbearable, was slowly and surely plummeting.

‘Bless Thron and the gods for fire mages, that’s all I’ll say,’ mumbled a passing Siren soldier, shouldering a crate. He nodded to Inwick, who was standing next to the brazier and massaging its tentative flames into life. She had the thing roaring in moments. Everybody in the vicinity, Farden, Eyrum, and several sailors catching their breath, shuffled closer.

‘We can share as many of our furs and clothes as possible, but it will barely be enough to cover a dozen more,’ Eyrum was saying.

‘A dozen more is better than a dozen less,’ Farden replied.

Eyrum shrugged at the obvious logic. Great beads of sweat clung to his brow, and yet still he was glad for the fire. Farden was sweating too, trying to hide how much he was trembling. They had been put to work carting supplies down the gangplanks. It was hard work, and yet it did nothing to keep them warm. The breeze was savagely cold.

Eyrum leant close and lowered his voice. ‘What about you?’ he asked, quietly.

‘What about me?’ Farden raised an eyebrow quizzically, conscious that Inwick was staring.

Eyrum sighed. ‘I’ve spoken to Tyrfing. I know what you’re going to do. Are you coming with us?’

Farden shook his head. ‘I need to check the Grimsayer,’ he said. ‘For directions.’

‘Well, mage. You’d better get to it. The sleds are almost full.’

Eyrum was right: the makeshift sleds the sailors and ship’s carpenters had fashioned were bending worryingly in the middle, heavy with supplies and blankets and food for the journey ahead. If one looked closer, the glint of swords and shields could be seen amongst the provisions. They had more to fear in the north than the cold.

‘Right you are,’ said Farden, with a sigh. His legs ached. He swore he could feel the sweat on his forehead freezing. So far, he wasn’t enjoying this excursion ashore as much as he’d hoped. What made it worse was that he had the distinct impression that this was going to be the high-point of the next few days. The calm before the storm.

So be it
, he thought, as he strode up the gangplank.

He found the Grimsayer right where he left it, on the table beside his bed. With a heave, he lifted it onto the mattress and split it open with a creak. It was quiet in his room, deep in the ship. The heavily muffled thumping of busy feet was the only clue of the commotion outside. Farden briefly pondered locking the door and shuffling under the bed, falling asleep even. Hiding away from it all. He shook his head at his old, stubborn ways, and prodded the Grimsayer with his finger.

The magick must have been strong indeed in these parts. The lights leapt eagerly from the page, drawing waves and ripples around his fingertip. ‘Show me the way to Korrin,’ Farden spoke to them. ‘Show me the way from here.’

The little lights obeyed with a will. They sketched a swift likeness of the ship and its new friend the ice, and then suddenly flew north, scanning back and forth to weave the endless, featureless expanse of the ice fields themselves. Suddenly there were rocks, and broken slabs of ice scratching at the sky, and then mountains. The lights stopped abruptly above a cracked plateau, swirling around and around a crown of tall rocks, and the mouth of what looked like a well in the ice. Even as a drawing, the mouth of the well sucked at the little lights, trying to tug them down into its darkness. Farden slammed the book on it, and hoisted it under one arm. ‘Let’s be off with you then, shall we?’ he told it jovially. It rattled its pages in reply, and was promptly carted to the door.

Just before Farden reached the door, he heard a plaintive squeak from behind him. There on the bed was Whiskers, sat upright on his haunches and sniffing at the air. Farden sighed sadly as he made his way back to the bed. ‘Not this time, old lad,’ he said. ‘Too dangerous for old rats. I need you here to keep an eye on the ship.’ The rat looked up at him with his deep black eyes, and Farden couldn’t help but think he understood. He teased his whiskers and patted his head. ‘Keep the pillow warm for me,’ he said, and went back to the door. Behind him, Whiskers curled up into a tight ball. The old rat watched the door long after it had closed.

Tyrfing was pacing up and down the corridor outside. Farden’s confident smile faltered at the sight of his uncle. He was wringing his hands. His face was haggard. ‘I still can’t get hold of Durnus,’ he croaked.

‘Have you tried a hawk?’ asked Farden.

Tyrfing nodded. He had tried two. ‘No reply.’

‘Is there anything else you can try?’

Tyrfing shook his head.

‘Is there anything else you can do about it now?’

Tyrfing thought, and then shook his head again. ‘It’s a feeling I have…’

‘Well…’ Farden said. ‘We’ll just have to trust he’s alright. It is Durnus after all. The pale king Ruin himself. With any luck he’s halfway here already. We could use his help.’

Tyrfing gently pressed one of his fists against a bulkhead. ‘Since when did you become the wise one?’

Farden laughed wryly. ‘Since you let me.’

The two mages stood on deck and watched the last of the supplies make their way onto the ice. All around them stood heavily-breathing sailors and soldiers, scratching their heads and holding themselves against the cold. It was easy to see which ones wanted to stay, which ones wanted to go, and those weren’t not with a lot of choice.

Nuka was sitting on the steep steps of the aftcastle, arms folded over his knees. He looked to Tyrfing, and the Arkmage nodded for him to go ahead. As he got to his feet, his eyes roved over his ship and those on the ice below. ‘It’s a first, for a captain to split his crew in half. Then again, it’s a first when a captain finds his iron-clad ship being pushed through the northern ice by a pod of whales,’ Nuka sniffed, no humour in his face, ‘but if there is ever time for firsts, it is now. Firsts and lasts. You go to do what the rest of the world cannot. You go to do a noble thing, a brave thing, a necessary thing. Stay strong, all of you. And Njord, and all the other gods, be with you.’

There was a muted cheering as the captain sat back down again, eyeing the mountains in the distance with a wrinkled lip.

‘Fine words,’ muttered Roiks, as he shouldered his snow-covered pack.

‘You’re coming?’ Farden asked, a little surprised.

Roiks winked bravely, but a tiny hint of something that might have resembled worry twitched at the corner of his mouth. Farden almost missed it. ‘I’m a sailor through and through, but I’m also an Arka, and that means I go north with the rest of you sorry lot. Landstriding be damned. Besides, I ain’t needed on this tub any more. She’ll be waiting for me when I get back. Won’t you, miss?’ he chuckled, giving the ship a lingering look.

Farden reached for his own pack as he stamped his cold, half-numb feet on the solid ice. He cleared his throat. He abruptly realised that everybody was looking at him. Every mage. Every soldier. Every sailor. Every Siren. Even his uncle stood idly by, watching him, waiting patiently on his word. Four hundred pairs of eyes, waiting.

Farden quietly strapped his pack to his back, checked his armour, and then nodded. He took a deep breath, and shouted over the ice, as loud as his cold throat allowed.

‘Let’s go!’ he announced, and one by one the makeshift army shuffled off. What a fierce, motley crew they made: the borrowed, the eager sailors and grim-eyed soldiers, war-shy ship’s mages and Written armoured to the brim, Siren refugees and a strange smattering of others, two shadows of gods, a sick Arkmage, and his nephew, a mage but not a mage, leading the way. They left the
Waveblade
in their quiet wake, boots creaking, heads bowed against the snow, a lone gryphon circling above them.

Nuka watched them leave with a cold feeling in his heart. He couldn’t help but count each figure as they disappeared into the snowy haze. Recording them for posterity maybe, or perhaps to see how many of them returned. The truth of war was always in the numbers. It is by numbers that victory is measured. The cold, hard, calculating of the math.

Nuka caught himself before he reached the end of the long line. Maybe he didn’t want to know the truth after all. Nuka drummed his long nails on the wood of his ship and shook his head. ‘I want half-hourly patrols of the ship. Chip the ice from the rigging. Batten the hatches. Keep those lanterns burning!’ he yelled, distracting himself. ‘We’ll be ready for them, when they return.’

Trudging was what one did on the ice. There was no other word for it. One did not saunter. One did not skip. One certainly did not jolly or prance. One
trudged
, simple as that.

It was half the terrain and half the cold. The former made the going awkward, and the latter made the going slow. All the socks in Emaneska couldn’t keep the northern cold out of their boots.

Farden had never longed for his magick so desperately. His uncle trudged behind him, periodically slapping his legs to force some hot magick into them. Despite his sudden sickness, he walked as only an old mage like him could in the snow: secretly warm and simply tired. Farden cursed himself one more time.

Roiks and Eyrum walked on his left and on his right, dealing with the cold in their own ways. Ever the true Siren, Eyrum stoically held his chin high, as if daring the cold to get even colder, Roiks seemed to be trying to fold in on himself. Farden knew the feeling. Lerel was behind with his uncle. Farden just kept his hands in his cold pockets and watched his feet plod.

Somebody was trying to sing at the back of the column. Farden had to applaud them for trying, he supposed, even if it was the singularly most annoying thing he could have imagined at that particular point. Annoyed elbows soon silenced the singer, and the column moved on with a few scattered mumblings.

Farden soon found a hand on his shoulder. It was his uncle. Tyrfing had wrapped a scarf around the bottom half of his face. Plumes of steam emanated from its mottled threads, as if he were finding it hard to breathe. ‘Are you okay?’ Farden asked him.

‘I’m fine,’ he croaked. ‘Heimdall wants to know why you’re not going ahead with Ilios.’

‘Tell him it’s because I’m needed here.’

‘How so?’

‘Somebody needs to lead these people.’

His uncle narrowed his eyes. With the scarf it was hard to tell if he was smiling or grimacing. ‘Not putting anything off are you?’

‘No,’ Farden replied, with perhaps a hint of a lie. He knew what was coming. He couldn’t deny the little tingle of fear.
A ship made of fingernails. A vulture’s head…
his mind kept repeating it.

‘Sure?’

‘Indefatigably.’

‘You put on a brave face, nephew.’

‘So do you.’

Tyrfing fell back. ‘Elessi would be proud,’ he mumbled, before he left.

Farden’s chest swelled with that. He pushed aside his thoughts with two names, repeating them with every step he took, like he used to on the flint roads of Fleahurst.
Elessi. Korrin. Elessi. Korrin. Samara
might have sneaked in here and there.

Within the hour, darkness had fallen. Soldiers began to flank the column with their swords drawn. A few mages and Written walked up and down, their hands and skin shining like beacons. They made an impressive sight in the thick snowfall.

Talk of camp scampered up and down the lines. Eyes began to look into the darkness and long for trees or rocks or anything besides endless flat ice. They were nothing but disappointed. There was nothing there on the ice fields. And so, soon enough, the snow and darkness grew too thick to allow them to go any further. Camp had to be made.

Tyrfing strode up and down the long column, shining twice as bright as any of the other mages. Farden walked beside him, quietly helping the people tip the sleds onto their sides and set up lean-tos and tents to keep out the cold. Braziers and lanterns were dug out and forced into life. The smell of dried meat and warm broth soon joined the bitter breeze and the smell of tired bodies and trodden leather. Ilios came down from the sky, frozen almost stiff by the snow and the wind. Tyrfing spent half an hour snapping the icicles from his wings while the gryphon whined and whinged about missing his deserts.

For the most part, the people of the ship seemed quietly resigned to the terrible weather. They had bigger things to worry about. Nobody spoke of what was to come. It wasn’t necessary. What was there to say, after all? Only the sailors seemed twitchy. Farden could see them longing for the sway of something wooden under their feet. They huddled together in thin little groups and sang quiet songs of waves and Njord’s storms.

All the while, the gods stood like two statues in the haze at the head of the column. Like Eyrum, they stood with their chins and faces held high to the snow and the wind, almost as if they were tasting the air. Farden watched them from a little distance away, wondering what they were up to. Loki had his hands deep in his pockets as usual, while Heimdall scanned the darkness with slow sweeps of his head. Farden could only imagine what he could see, so he decided to ask.