The Way to Babylon (Different Kingdoms) (56 page)

When they had squared away their belongings and wolfed down some cold food, they relashed their crampons and started out again into the grey morning, following Bicker’s lead. Even though Riven now knew the way ahead better than he.

T
HEY WERE ON
a level with the high peaks and they could now look the Greshorns in the eye. Range after range twisted and arched away, and blue gaps appeared in the clouds as they crunched forward. There was actually sunshine to light their way, making the snow blaze. The mountains were vast, barren, sharp as spears. Riven felt he had entered a different kingdom, a place where the affairs of men were irrelevant and ignored. He was as insignificant as a beetle. But that was not true. There was something in him that had the potential to dwarf even these mountains.

Their path forward became uncomfortably exposed: a jagged ridge of adjoining peaks that rose and fell like a breaker hitting a beach. The pace slowed, and once more they roped themselves together, using their axes as walking sticks. There were places where great buttresses of stone thrust up out of the ridge to form minor peaks, and these they had to climb, one by one, someone—usually Bicker—belaying from the top. Riven could not bring himself to contemplate that task.

The sky cleared farther and the wind dropped somewhat. They began to sweat in their heavy clothes, their palms becoming slick inside the thick mittens. There was no sound except the scrape of the snow, their own breathing and a far soughing of air through the teeth of the mountains.

In the middle of the day, they halted to rest and eat, breaking out bread and fruit and dried meat, slugging at their canteens and then stuffing them full of snow. Riven’s eyes were full of the dazzle of the snow, and he kept them slitted against its glare. His lips were cracked and split and he had to lick them into mobility.

They set off again. The Dwarves had reckoned on the journey to the Staer taking them a day and a half, but they were making slower progress than they had planned. They were tired, even Isay, and it was as much as they could do to keep lurching forward, with Bicker leading them like a recalcitrant shadow. The Red Mountain was not only higher here than on Skye, it was also higher in relation to its fellows, its pinnacle towering above the rest of the range, whereas in Riven’s world it was not the highest of the Cuillins. Its outline remained the same, however, as familiar to him as Jinneth’s profile.

The afternoon wore round quickly. It was almost with a start that Riven realised the sky was darkening. The air was calm, with hardly a breath moving, but snow had started to drift down in a silent curtain.

They stopped and stared at what was before them. They had come to a vast curve in the mountain, the peak arching up savagely to their left and a huge expanse of smooth ice cupped within its maw, stretching out as wide and unbroken as a white lake, tilted down towards the northern flanks of the traverse at a sharp angle.

‘We have a choice,’ Bicker said into the quiet that had enfolded them. ‘We can scale the peak or cross the ice field. But either way the mountain must be reached tonight. We cannot stop any more. There is nothing to burn, this high, and we would be hard put to it to last out another night up here.’ He did not mention what they would do after the mountain had been reached, how they would find a way back to the Jhaar.

‘The ice field,’ Riven said abruptly. ‘It’s getting too dark to climb.’

‘My thought also,’ Bicker said.

They were still roped together, and shuffled off the rock of the mountain and on to the face of the ice like a procession of blind men. The field’s tilt was some thirty degrees, and they leaned into it with their axes, digging into the ice with their fanged feet, kicking every step home. The field loomed off below into an unknown distance down the flank of the mountain.

Riven’s ears were full of the rasp of his own breath, the crunch and scrape of his feet, the cracking of his joints as they ached to do his will. The falling snow clamped all other noise down, muffled what he could hear of the others. The quiet was almost surreal, even the ever-present sound of the air currents in the peaks inaudible.

There was the crack of ice breaking upslope, loud as a gunshot in the gathering twilight. Shards and pieces of the stuff tumbled down towards the company in a small avalanche, and they paused, breath misting the air in front of their eyes. Riven looked at Bicker questioningly and saw that the dark man’s face had gone as pale as paper.

‘What is it?’

‘I don’t know. Keep moving! Don’t stop!’ And the rope at Riven’s waist tugged him on again. He glared upslope but could see nothing there except the blankness of smooth ice. Cursing, he did as he was told.

Then the ice beneath his feet exploded.

He glimpsed something grey and snake-like launching itself out of the ice like a blunt-headed missile, and then it hit him in the chest and he was catapulted away, blasted from the slope. He somersaulted and came down hard on the ice once more, hearing it creak under him. The rope at his waist was biting into his flesh like a wire, and he screamed. There were shouts in the air around him. He swung like a trapped fly, and felt his rope sing with strain. Desperately, he scraped at the ice with his axe, trying to halt his mad jerking. He looked up to see a huge stone-grey column looming over him, and a screech rent the air, hurting his ears.

‘Ice worm!’ Ratagan’s voice yelled.

He heard Bicker shriek, saw the creature hurtle at him and knock him sprawling, and then the dark man was loose and was sliding down the ice field. Riven’s rope tore at his waist and the shock clashed his teeth together. He tasted blood in his mouth, and then was torn free of his hold once more, and the ice was sliding away under him. He was caught again with a jerk that sent lights and darkness spangling before his eyes, and then was swinging there by the rope with Bicker’s weight suspended below him. Isay. Isay and Ratagan must be supporting them.

There was another screech, like that of a large bird of prey, and he heard the hiss and crack of weapons, the splinter of ice. They were fighting above.

He struggled round to face the slope and swung the axe into it as hard as he could. It had been thonged to his wrist, or he would have lost it. He kicked his feet in and grunted with the effort to anchor himself. But then the awful limp weight that was pulling on him lessened, and he looked down between his legs to see Bicker climbing upslope with his eyes glittering.

‘Cut the rope!’ the dark man hissed, and Riven severed it unquestioningly with the axe. They were free of each other.

Something massive crashed into the ice, making the entire area shake and groan. ‘It dives!’ Isay shouted up above. They climbed to meet him and found the ice churned into a maze of broken blocks and splinters. Ratagan, Isay and Jinneth were crouched in its midst with wild eyes, their ice axes at the ready.

‘It’ll be back. It’ll come again,’ Bicker croaked. ‘We must get off the ice, get on to stone. We have no chance here.’

But there was a sudden fountain of rime and ice among them, and the thing was towering before them again, mouth agape. It was as thick as an old beech tree, with a crested dragon’s head and eyes like green fires. It reared up to twice Ratagan’s height, and then turned to regard Riven.

Isay leapt forward and sank his ice axe into it with a cry. The thing screamed, and whipped back and forth like a pinned worm. The Myrcan was smashed aside, his rope pulling Jinneth with him and yanking Ratagan to his knees. Then the worm plummeted down on Isay, and the great jaws closed about his leg.

‘No!’ Riven shouted, lurching forward with his axe upraised. The worm lifted Isay into the air and shook him like a dog shaking a rat, the connecting rope lifting up a screaming Jinneth also. Riven swung his axe, and the rope severed, letting her tumble to the ice. The worm discarded Isay, flinging him off into the falling snow. They heard the ice twenty yards away shatter as he struck it.

Ratagan surged forward, bellowing with fury. His axe scored a long crimson line about the worm’s trunk, and it reared backwards, hissing with anger and pain. It stabbed down at him, but he flung himself aside, scrabbling through the broken ice, and the beast’s head missed him by a foot. The body followed it, and Riven realised it was tunnelling down into the ice at unbelievable speed. Even as he watched, the tapering tail disappeared down the hole it had created. It was gone.

They stood immobile, gasping for breath for perhaps a second, and then Bicker grabbed Riven’s arm. ‘Take the woman—make for the safety of stone. We will hold it here.’

‘Isay—’ Riven said brokenly.

‘Go! We will see to him. You must go now!’

Riven wanted to weep. He seized Jinneth’s arm and dragged her away, but he had not gone ten feet when there was the sound of splintering ice and the worm erupted into the air beside him, knocking him aside. The green eyes bore down on him and he raised his axe feebly, but then Ratagan’s great bulk had collided bodily with the creature and his axe had been buried up to the shaft in its body. Riven thought the scream it uttered would burst his ears. It writhed backwards, slithering away across the ice whilst Ratagan stood like a blood-smeared giant over Riven and Jinneth. They heard him laugh, a laugh as free and unforced as any Riven had ever heard him utter.

‘Come on then, you damned worm! Try Dwarf-forged steel once more. Try the thews of Ratagan and see how you like it!’

Bicker and Isay stumbled out of the snow to join him. The Myrcan had splinters of bone sticking out from one dangling forearm and his face was shining and dark with blood, but he wielded an axe in his good hand and his eyes were bright as stars. Bicker steadied him with one hand whilst in the other his short sword glittered. The snow was piling on their heads and shoulders.

The worm hissed hatred at them, dark fluid pulsing from the deep wound Ratagan had inflicted. Its eyes lit the spinning snowflakes with green. The head swayed a moment, and then it dived into the ground with a spray of shattered ice and disappeared with a grinding noise. The ice field quivered under their feet for a moment, then was still.

Isay half-sat, half-fell down to the ground, and Riven noticed for the first time that his leg was a ragged blood-soaked mess from the thigh down. The ice around was already blushing scarlet, a dark stain in the dimming light. Bicker joined him and began cutting away his clothing on arm and leg to get at the wounds.

‘Will it come back?’ Jinneth asked them hoarsely.

‘Maybe,’ the dark man replied. He was wincing unconsciously as he tightened a thong about the top of Isay’s thigh to halt the streaming blood.

‘There may be others, I’m thinking,’ Ratagan said. ‘I have heard of these creatures. They are seldom encountered alone.’

‘Leave me,’ Isay managed to whisper, but Bicker glared at him.

‘We’ll patch Isay up as best we can and then get off this ice field. They are creatures of the snow and ice, the worms, and they don’t like being met on stone.’

Riven bent down beside Bicker and the fallen Myrcan. The blood was already beginning to freeze in the snow.

‘How is he?’

‘Not so good. He will be dancing no jigs for a while, and his blood will draw the worms to us.’

‘Arm,’ Isay mumbled. He was slipping in and out of consciousness. It was a shock to see him so helpless, so crippled.

I looked like this once, after I had fallen off the mountain. All blood and splintered bones.

‘He’ll be all right,’ Riven said firmly, dragging his eyes away from the slivers of bone that poked out of the flesh of Isay’s forearm.

A sudden, far-off screech battered the air, muffled by the snow. Another sounded below them, down in the darkness.

‘They smell us,’ Ratagan said, beating his weapon hand on his breeches. His mittens were clogged with snow. ‘It is not going to be too healthy around here in a few moments. Are you finished, Bicker?’

The dark man nodded. Isay was unconscious, his leg bound with an assortment of furs and linen and leather. Bicker had wrapped his arm in a thick cloak and immobilised it with the shaft of an axe. ‘Rough and ready, but it’ll have to do for now,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’

Ratagan bent and lifted Isay as tenderly as a baby, placing him over one shoulder so that his smashed arm hung stiff and straight over the big man’s pack. Then they set off again, unroped this time. They moved more slowly than before. Riven’s legs were trembling with the aftermath of the fight and he had to help Jinneth along as though she were lame, his arm muscles on fire as he stabbed his axe into the ice and supported both of them.

It was getting harder to see. The night was deepening and the snow fell as steadily and noiselessly as ever. Riven was sure that the Red Mountain could not be too far ahead, but it was impossible to tell. The great size of these mountains and the confusing darkness had disorientated him. And they were barely halfway across the ice field.

There was a roar and a crash upslope, and a hail of broken ice showered down on them. They paused, searching the gloom frantically for movement.

‘They’re closing in,’ Bicker said calmly. ‘They smell the blood.’

‘How much farther to stone?’ Ratagan asked. He sounded weary now, though it was impossible to read his face in the darkness.

‘Too far. We won’t make it.’

Again, there was that roar, like the scream of a caged raptor. It was answered by two others. The worms were above, below and behind them. They heard none in front.