The Edge of the World (58 page)

In the evenings, Hannes sat at long tables with the other prisoners, who were too exhausted for conversation. He ate his bowl
of watery fish stew, accepting the food without comment, but finding irony in the fact that his captors were giving him the
nourishment he required in order to turn on them. When he sat to eat, Hannes always chose a bench that faced toward the mountains,
so he could constantly study the cliffs and canyons, in search of possible passes that would lead him out of here.

The guards insisted that there could be no escape, that the cold and rocky wilderness would kill them. His fellow prisoners
were convinced that no one could survive the impassable mountains, but those men, Hannes knew, were weak, meek, and beaten.
He
had the faith of Aiden in his heart.
He
had the strength and blessing of Ondun.

He also knew that those mountains were part of Corag Reach. On the other side lay Tierra. The crags seemed to pose an ominous
challenge, but Prester Hannes had done the impossible before.

Another vision quest in the arctic wastes—his thirteenth such journey—and this time Destrar Broeck went alone. He took his
furs, mittens, and eye protection against the stinging snow and blinding whiteness; he carried dried food, and he could add
snow to a water pouch inside his coat, where it would melt for drinking water. Broeck needed nothing else for his body, yet
he needed so much more for his soul.

He left Calavik abruptly, having awakened at night after an unsettling dream. For most of his life, he’d been a hale and hearty
man who loved people, loved noise, and loved his memories, but now Broeck realized that his heart was hibernating like a brown
bear from the deep forests. So he packed his things the next morning and announced his intentions. Iborians were accustomed
to a man’s need to be alone and face the challenges of a self-imposed quest.

Broeck journeyed north to the tundra, where he joined a family of itinerant mammoth herders, who occasionally drove mammoths
down to Calavik, where the beasts were domesticated and put to work hauling logs down to the rivers. Broeck accepted their
quiet hospitality for three days before setting off for the distant white lands even farther north. He thanked the mammoth
herders, then said, “I have hunting to do. A private hunt.”

In all his life, Broeck had seen an ice dragon only twice. Now he stalked it. He had to hunt the monster, had to defeat it
with the three long sharp iron spears strapped to his back. He trudged in fur-lined boots across the packed snow and ice,
skirting ominous dark areas that hinted at fragile fissures. He knew how dangerous and unpredictable the north could be.

When his wife, Wilka, had vanished in the snowstorm, her loss took him completely by surprise. She had lived her life in Iboria,
and she knew the vagaries of its weather. She should have watched the shapes of the clouds, noticed the changing taste of
the winds. Broeck had never thought he needed to worry about her. Wilka…

He’d always had a fondness for frostberries, and though it was late in the season, Wilka had gone out by herself, wandering
far to find unpicked bushes. She shouldn’t have been so far from home, from shelter, but the anniversary of their wedding
day had been nigh. That evening, when she didn’t return, while Broeck had huddled in their house from the blizzard outside,
holding his five-year-old daughter, he had noticed the makings of a pie that Wilka had begun. She had gone out to pick the
berries for him.

Ilrida had cried in his arms as the wind howled, and he had hoped against hope that Wilka had seen the brewing storm in time
and made her way to a cabin or a hunting camp. The next morning, as the storm continued, he and ten searchers—against their
common sense—had trudged out through the howling white gale, shouting her name, but the words were snatched away by the jaws
of the blizzard. They had not found Wilka’s body until the spring thaw…

Despite the legend, the ice dragon certainly hadn’t protected
her
.

As he raised his daughter, Broeck had thought he would eventually heal from the emptiness. He devoted himself to ruling his
reach, knowing his people, working hard in the forests, and wandering out on his vision quests. He had survived, and had gradually
become himself again.

And then a single scratch from a rusty nail…

For three years now he’d waited for the pain of losing Ilrida to abate, for the sadness to lift from him like a freezing fog
on a winter’s day. He had missed his daughter when she left to marry King Korastine, but that was nothing compared to the
cold wound left by her death. At first he doubted that even Korastine’s anguish could match the chasm in Broeck’s own heart,
yet when he saw the utterly lost expression in the king’s eyes, he knew he was wrong.

The ice dragon’s protection no longer seemed to benefit Iboria.

By contrast, the king’s new Arkship project gave them all a beacon of hope, a beacon far more significant than the safety
of his cold and sparsely populated reach. Though many people complained about the enormous and costly construction project,
Destrar Broeck understood the need for a ruler to create works greater than himself. If there was a chance to find the land
of Holy Joron, Ilrida would have insisted on going herself.

The Arkship could not truly be completed until Broeck contributed a vital, yet mystical, part to its construction. If Raathgir’s
horn could indeed protect a ship from other sea monsters, then Aiden’s blessing could be conferred on King Korastine’s bold
giant vessel…

It was the time of the brief thaw in the great white north, the season when the ice dragon was most likely to surface. As
he made his way toward the mountains of snow and ice, Broeck removed his mittens and knelt to touch the ground so that his
sensitive fingertips might feel the vibrations. The stumps of his missing, frostbitten fingers throbbed, as if with a sympathetic
connection to the cold. Concentrating, he listened for the rumble, then followed lightning-bolt cracks in the ice, tracing
them to their origin.

Knowing he was close, he looked up at the snowpack, the fissures in the icy cliffs. He sipped meltwater from the pouch inside
his coat, chewed on dried meat to fortify himself. When he reached a solid ice cliff, Broeck thrust his three spears, points
upward, into the packed snow so they stood ready and available.

Drawing deep, cold breaths, he unslung the iron ice hammer from his waist and swung it with all his strength into the frozen
wall. A spiderweb of cracks radiated from the impact point. Broeck pounded again and again, knowing the thunderous sound would
attract the ice dragon. “Come to me, damn you!” he shouted into the cold wind. He slammed the mallet a final time, and the
crack went deeper into the ice cliff. “Ho, Raathgir!”

Behind the smeared barrier, he saw a reptilian slither, a blue-silver blur shifting and moving. The cracks in the ice wall
widened, and Broeck staggered back, seizing the first spear just as the cliff split open. Behind the crack the enormous serpentine
body glided through a slick-walled tunnel, like an adder crafted from frozen metal.

Boulders of ice calved away, falling all around him. Broeck dodged and ducked, then stood his ground with the first spear,
fitting it into his full-fingered grip. The ice dragon’s triangular head burst out, glaring with pearl-white eyes, its fangs
flashing like silver icicles. A single knurled horn protruded more than two meters from the center of its bony-plated forehead.
It lunged out, breathing a gust of freezing mist. Broeck dodged, feeling the impenetrable shattering cold ripple past him.

He hurled his first spear at the base of Raathgir’s throat. The sharp point smashed into the creature’s hard scales, and silver
and blue shards tinkled from the serpentine neck, leaving a bare patch on its throat. Roaring, the ice dragon lunged down
at Broeck and sent the destrar sprawling as it smashed its head into the snow.

When Wilka was lost out in the blizzard, did the howl of the storm winds sound like the ice dragon’s roar?

He scrambled up, grabbed his second spear, whirled. When the ice dragon reared up and opened its fanged mouth, Broeck threw
the second spear into its throat, where it stuck.

The ice dragon thrashed in agony, smashing its head against the cliff, snapping the cold-brittle spear shaft, but leaving
the iron point embedded. Broeck seized his third and last spear, spread his booted feet, and cocked his arm back, waiting
for Raathgir to turn toward him. When it did, he let the spear fly directly into the naked patch on the dragon’s throat.

Deadlier than a scratch from an iron nail…

Steaming black blood sprayed out. The ice dragon gave a dying roar that sounded like the harshest blizzard of the year. Broeck
scrambled away, taking shelter among the blocks of ice and snow that had collapsed from the cliff, and waited while the creature
thrashed in its death throes. Finally, with a great sigh, Raathgir slumped onto the packed ice. Black blood stained the pure
white snow. It twitched once more, and its long snakelike body oozed the rest of the way out of its warren of cliff tunnels.

Broeck stared at the magnificent beast, feeling great sadness now as he had second thoughts about what he had done. But he
hardened himself and remembered his purpose. He drew his ax and stepped forward.

The immense knurled horn of the ice dragon would be perfect for the prow of the Arkship. Iboria may have lost the aura of
Raathgir’s protection, but King Korastine—and the hope of all Tierra—would gain it.

After the excitement and terror of the bandit attack, Saan was ready to go as soon as dawn’s glow graced the desert. The southerly
breezes would whip up with the rising heat of the day, and they wanted to take advantage of the strongest gusts to whisk them
across the expanse of dunes.

Soldan Xivir clapped his hands to rally everyone in the camp. “The soldan-shah has spoken. Come, let us get these travelers
on their way.”

“Precipitous decisions often lead to mistakes,” Sen Sherufa cautioned as the men rushed about making final preparations. She
was still rattled by the raid. “Are you sure you aren’t being rash, Imir?”

The former soldan-shah brushed aside her concerns. “We have been ready for days, my dear. It is time to go!”

Asaddan crossed his arms over his big chest. “Yes, it is time to go.” He had taken the time to replait the braids in his ebony
hair, which now hung like dark ropes around his head.

While Sherufa circled the base of the coracle for a final inspection, Saan and Imir filled the iron brazier inside the basket
with coal from the camp’s supply; Saan lit the fire, stoking it until the black rock glowed bright orange. The heat rose,
puffing breath into the colorful silken balloon tied to the basket, swelling it into a spherical shape that stretched the
guy ropes and the support netting. The coracle’s wicker body creaked and groaned like the rigging on a sailing ship.

Saan tested the taut hemp ropes from outside the basket. “I’m ready as soon as the balloon is.”

“You’d better be.” Asaddan nudged him into the basket. “The balloon will not wait for you.”

Imir graciously assisted Sen Sherufa, though she seemed perfectly prepared to climb in without help. Asaddan stood, feet apart,
as though savoring the last few moments of solid ground. He raised his voice to address Soldan Xivir, the guards, the camp
workers as equals. “People of Uraba, I promise to keep my companions safe—with Saan’s help, of course!”

“Yes, Asaddan, I will protect you, if need be.” Saan quickly realized how crowded the coracle would be, at least until they
consumed some of the salvaged supplies, drank the water, burned the coal.

When they were situated aboard, old Imir gave a signal, and the Missinians released the ropes from the wooden stakes. Like
a freed stallion, the sand coracle leaped into the air, making its passengers clutch the wooden frame for balance. Saan felt
dizzy and worried that they might keep falling up into the sky and never come down. From the basket, they waved and shouted
their goodbyes, listening to the ever-fainter return cries from Xivir and the camp workers as the buoyant ship soared high.
Like an oceangoing vessel leaving port, the sand coracle drifted out across the expanse of sand, pushed southward by the breezes.
Saan moved from one side of the basket to the other, bumping into his fellow passengers, peering in all directions.

“Think of all the stories you’ll tell about this!” Imir said to Sherufa, hoping to evoke an expression of delight identical
to his own, but she appeared seasick.

Even up here, the winds spat sand and dust at them. Asaddan squinted into the glare. For the most part, because the coracle
drifted on the air currents, they seemed surrounded by silence, hearing only the crackle of coal burning in the brazier. The
horizon shimmered outward.

Early in the first afternoon, they passed over a sheltered dell in the dunes, an unexpected patch of greenery. Tracks extended
in several directions, and Saan could see tents, tethered animals, groups of men by fire pits. “That must be where the bandits
live!”

Imir made a low sound like a growl in his throat. Still shaken by her ordeal the night before, Sherufa tried to sound analytical.
“An oasis in the desert—a seep of water that they’ve dug into a well—enough for them to survive.”

Seeing the remarkable silk balloon high overhead, the bandits pointed upward, shaking their fists, and Asaddan bellowed a
challenge down at the desert men. Saan just chuckled. “They can’t bother us up here.”

The bandits began shooting arrows, and with a soft “thunk,” one struck the bottom of the sand coracle and another whizzed
by. Sherufa shouted, “If those arrows puncture the silk, we’ll crash.”

“How do we make this thing go higher?” Imir asked.

Saan and Asaddan frantically added more coals to the brazier, and as the heat blazed brighter, the silk of the inflated balloon
stretched tighter, and the sand coracle rose out of range of the arrows.