Winter Song (17 page)

TEN

"Don't move," Bera said.

    Karl groaned, but froze. "What now?" He wasn't sure that he could move, though he couldn't crouch over the stream for long. His back and his legs were hurting too much.

    "Dragon," Bera said. "Do everything, very, very slowly. No sudden movements or he may attack. Sidle toward me as smoothly as you can. No, don't look at it! Just edge this way; one step at a time."

    Bera backed away to give Karl room. She looked at him, rather than the dragon.

    He crabbed sideways, a step at a time, waiting a few seconds between steps. When he had moved about two metres, Bera said, "I think you're out of range now. Look to your right."

    About three metres from Karl was a blue-green lizard with a sinuous metre-long body, from which stubby wings sprouted. "He's gorgeous," Karl breathed. "Is he edible?"

    Bera laughed. "Said like an Isheimuri. No, he's poisonous. His gut splits water vapour into hydrogen and oxygen and… ah, let me show you!"

    She picked up a stone and threw it at the dragon, which hissed and backed away, its claws skittering on the pebbles. Bera threw another and another. At a fat
blatt
, Bera giggled. "Hear that? He's farting oxygen! See his stomach bulging? Back away: one more should do it." She threw another stone, and the dragon belched a fireball barely twenty centimetres across that scorched the grass just short of them, warming Karl's skin. He wrinkled his nose at the rotten egg smell.

    When the dragon half-scuttled, half-slithered away, they stood. "They're so rare," Bera said. "If you're lucky, you see maybe one a year. They're supposed to bring good luck – if you don't get scorched."

    They finished topping-up their water bottles. Bera said, "Come on, let's get going. We're still on Ragnar's land."

    Karl groaned as he pressed his hands to his back. "Need to redirect the vascular nanophytes," he said to her questioning look. "And have the neurophytes release some extra endorphins into the brain to ease the discomfort." He cricked his neck and looked up at the dark blue sky that was littered with salmon and yellow clouds. Though both suns had now fully risen, it was still cold. Karl stripped off, and Bera looked away, blushing. "I need the sunlight," he said, his skin turning almost purple as it reacted to the radiation. He shivered.

    "Ready now?" Bera said.

    Reluctantly, Karl nodded. He was no happier now than just over an hour ago, when once they had cleared the valley bordering Skorradalur and were on flatter terrain, Bera had said, "Climb on Grainur's back." She pointed at the grey mare at the back of the three. "We'll make better time."

    Karl had swallowed. Until now he had been able to keep a safe distance between him and the animals.

    Bera had said, "Don't worry, they won't bite. They're as placid as you could want." She chuckled. "Those that aren't, we eat. It eliminates the nasties from the gene pool."

    "What if I fall off?"

    "You get back on. It's not far to fall."

    Somehow Karl had boarded the beast in a welter of limbs. "I've never ridden one before. Will it – aagh!"

    Bera had kicked her own brown-and white horse. Attached by a line to the second and to Karl's own shaggy mount, all three broke into a trot.

    "They're especially bred to be easy to ride and hard to fall off," Bera had called out. "They have a special gait which means that the horse stays level beneath you, even on uneven ground. It's called
skeid
."

    Now Karl watched the ground flying by, and reluctantly admitted that the motion was pleasant, if unsettling, and far faster than walking.

    A snow flurry had started and eased, all in a few minutes, leaving streaks of pale yellow and grey clouds across the suns. Bera leaned back slightly in her saddle. "It's going to be – no, it is a nice day! Actually, it's a wonderful day!"

    She laughed, and Karl thought, It's the first time I've seen her truly happy. Then he realised what he might have got her into, and sobered. He had a feeling that her sabotaging the Oracle, though necessary, had been a far greater crime than horse-theft or oathbreaking.

    "What are you thinking about?" Bera said. "You're always thinking."

    "Is that a bad thing?" Karl teased.

    "No," Bera said. "I guess not. Just unusual for Isheimur. You're always so closed – I know so little about you!"

    "There isn't much to know," Karl said. "I wake up. I go to work. I have a family."

    "Do you play sports?" Bera said.

    "I sail sky-yachts in Avalon's atmosphere. I like to be on the move." A sudden revelation overtook him. "Maybe that's why I hated being a prisoner so much…"

    "What else?"

    "I like to travel," Karl said, and laughed. "Though right now…"

    "What?" Bera laughed. "You don't like Isheimur?"

    "Um… I've had better times than the last few weeks." How could he tell her how much he hated this cold, crappy little world with its danger behind every rock, and its thuggish men and screeching women?

    Karl watched the horses in front; "The legs on each side move together."

    "That's why it's such a smooth ride," Bera said.

    "How fast are we going?"

    "About twenty kilometres an hour. We can go faster in bursts, but this is a good long-distance pace; they can keep it up all day!"

    It was almost stationary compared to spaceflight, yet he felt the horses' swiftness more than he had ever noticed speed aboard Ship.

Ragnar awoke and licked his lips. "Ugh, feels like a chicken's shat in my mouth." Winterfinding, the Harvest Feast the day before, had been a good one, full of beer and poetry. Ragnar dimly remembered Thorbjorg resting her hand on his thigh. Everything was hazy after that; did he imagine moist lips and a tongue that flickered and tickled against his? He turned in a sudden panic, but he was alone in the bed.

    Isheimur's day was close enough to standard to keep the Old Earth times. Glancing at the clock, he saw that it was after nine o'clock. But why shouldn't he sleep in?

    There came a knock, but before he could answer, the door opened. Hilda entered, twining a loose thread from her night-dress around a finger. Her face was whiter than the meadows after a snow-storm, and she bit her lower lip.

    Ragnar saw that she was shaking. "What is it? Spit it out, girl."

    "The, uh, the utlander… Allman – he's gone." Hilda stepped back.

    Ragnar felt a terrible weight descend on him. He closed his eyes, and his good mood turned as ashen as his hangover. But he kept his voice level, for all that the rage started to build. He would not give into it. He would not. "Who… was guarding the farm this morning?"

    Hilda didn't answer at first. He was about to repeat the question – which fed the furnace within him further – when she said in a low voice, "Yngvar." Using his full name showed that Hilda realised the terrible nature of the question.

    "Bring him," Ragnar said, "to my study."

    He dressed quickly, donning his ceremonial robes, and went downstairs.

    Hilda was gone longer than she needed to be; the heat and the pressure within grew ever stronger. He took his sword, Widowmaker, from its place on the wall where it had rested since the Summer Fair, and rummaged in the dresser until he found the leather strop. Then slowly, rhythmically, breathing deeply through his nose and exhaling through his mouth, he sharpened the sword, trying to bank down the fires.

    Eventually Yngvar and Hilda reappeared, flanked by Arnbjorn and Ragnar.

    Yngi's eyes were wide, and his breath came in ragged pants. Ragnar wondered what Hilda had told him – he guessed that she had kept it simple, something like: "The Gothi wants you – you're in trouble."

    "Yngvar," Ragnar said. "The utlander has fled with Bera."
Swish, swish
went Widowmaker, up and down against the strop.

    "I – I thought you'd released him," Yngi said.

    Ragnar stared at him.
Swish, swish, swish
. "Why would I do that, boy? Did I tell you? You were on guard–"

    "Thorir said he'd guard them!"

    "I never said any such thing!" Thorir shouted from the doorway.

    "Don't lie to me to cover your dereliction of duty, Yngvar." The strop went faster and faster. Rather than soothing Ragnar, it only made him angrier.

    "I'm not lying, Pappi, I'm not!" Yngi's face was flushed, and his nose ran. He swiped at it.

    "I'm not your Pappi, now, Yngvar," Ragnar said. "At times like these, I must be the Gothi. You were tasked with guarding the utlander, and he has fled with Bera."

    The room seemed to shrink, to encompass only Yngvar and Ragnar. "Even if he's only a drain on our resources, there's still Bera to consider. You're guilty of dereliction of duty, and all to feed that pet of yours." He held the sword in his right hand, the strop in his left. Tossing the sword a couple of centimetres in the air, he caught it by the blade between thumb and fingers. It was so sharp that it still drew blood, but no matter. "Take this." He proffered Thorir the sword, hilt first. "Kill the bird."

    "No!" Yngi cried. "Not Render! That's not fair! It isn't!" Arnbjorn gripped Yngi's shoulder, but the younger brother shook Arnbjorn off. Tears sprang to his eyes.

    That did it. Until then, Ragnar had just about kept a grip on the fire-demon within, but a man weeping always enraged him. "Don't cry!" his voice grated. "Do not cry, boy!"

    "I can't… help… it!" Yngi sobbed and the fury took Ragnar. He lunged forward with the strop wrapped round his knuckles and blocked out Yngi's screams.

The suns were at their zenith when Bera said, "We're leaving Ragnar's land now."

    They had gradually dropped down from the hills to pass through a low-lying valley whose ground looked as if it had been churned up recently. To one side was a marshy reed bed. It seemed vaguely familiar, but Karl couldn't think why. A snolfur stood with blood-stained muzzle over the woolly corpse of a rock-eater. From nowhere, Karl had a sudden vision, of an animal exploding. "Where are we?"

    "These are the water meadows that Ragnar and Steinar are disputing. They're actually lower than Skorradalur," Bera said. "The air's so thick down here they reckon you can get drunk on the oxygen."

    "Hah," Karl said, half-laughing dutifully. The air was thicker than normal. He'd barely noticed the low air pressure on Isheimur. Ragnar had said that it was about four hundred millibars, as low as Tibet on Old Earth, although the colonists had adapted to it. Although it was less than half of Avalon's murky soup of oxygen and nitrogen, Karl's circulatory and lymphatic nanophytes had modified him easily enough.

    He stared at the ground.

    Bera said, "What?"

    Karl didn't answer, but dismounted and walked to where a body lay on the ground, partly sheltered from the carrion-bats by an overhang.

    "It's just a troll," Bera said. "Probably killed by one of our men. Or Steinar's." She frowned. "You were out here a while ago with Arnbjorn and Ingi."

    "Was I?" Was that where the thought of the exploding animal came from? Karl turned the troll over. "No sign of violence." He peered at the skin under the fur. It looked abnormally pink, but he had nothing to compare it with.

    He shrugged and remounted, and, climbing out of the valley again, they left Ragnar's land.

    As they crested the next rise, Karl said, "What's that in the distance ? Half-hidden by the clouds?"

    "Thekla," Bera said, "a volcano. These hills eventually lead there, if we take that route. But it's over a hundred kilometres away."

    They rode on in silence, and Karl noticed a gradual change in the terrain as they climbed, grassland giving way to native scrub and rocky outcroppings covered with a thorn-like plant with purple leaves. Furry white creatures that he thought at first were sheep nibbled at some of the plants, and he wondered at Steinar leaving his sheep out so late. Then he saw the head of one of the animals and said, "Looks more like a gopher."

    Bera followed his outstretched arm. "Rock-eaters."

    "I assume they're harmless?" Karl had noticed the rifle that lay in one of the horses' saddlebags, with its long barrel poking out of one end and the stock at the other.

    "They are," Bera said.

    "Why rock-eaters?" Karl said. "They're eating plants."

    "Because they have been seen eating rocks from time to time," Bera said, and added with a giggle, "well, actually stones, but Isheimuri like to exaggerate. We think that they provide roughage for their intestinal tract. Or maybe it's trace elements." She shrugged. "Actually, we're not sure. They're all just theories."

    Karl stared at the shaggy metre-tall beasts. They had short stocky legs, and every so often he glimpsed small ears poking through the long, fine fur. They seemed familiar. "Can you eat them?"

    Bera shook her head. "Nice idea, but they're toxic."

    She was silent for a while then said, "You realise that you may have antagonised Ragnar for no real purpose?"

    He stared at her. "What do you mean?"

    "Our journey is over two thousand kilometres through lands empty but for trolls and dangerous animals, in ever-worsening weather, with limited rations, all while probably pursued by Ragnar."

    "So it's easy, then," he said.

    Her smile started slowly, then spread as she caught on. "Just a stroll," she joked back.

    "Why did you come with me?" Karl said.

    "Anywhere's better than Skorradalur," she said.

    The horse's gait was hypnotic, and he allowed his attention to drift.

    The next thing he knew, he was lying in her arms. "Whoa!" he said. "What happened?"