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Such a fine volva, you cannot even heal a man, the wind snickered, shaking a load of heavy frost onto my bowed head.Can’t use their Elder toys, either, the trees responded, diseased sap ice-bubbling with hurtful, frozen glee.Useless, witless, worthless, the snow chanted, each flake a single voice in great whispered chorus listing my failures, my inadequacies, my sins, and my unfitness for the bands I wore.
I staggered under Aeredh’s arm, the steady warmth of an Elder body beside me finally failing. Even the usual brief cloud-clearing past midnight in that season, starlight filtering through ice-hung, tossing branches, brought no hope. I watched the freeze-clogged toes of my felt overboots brush granular snow, and thought longingly of lying down in a drift.
Snow-death is quiet, and brings with it a great warm stillness.
Each dawn was a stinging lash, and each early dusk a progressively greater torment. The Black Land’s mountains hung over us as we followed the treeline west, step by painful staggering step. We were so close to our goal, though I did not know it. The air was knives; I could not summon the strength to warm it as I breathed. Even Arn dry-coughed with increasing frequency, and I hoped she was not developing ague or any other winter ailment.
Such things do not often trouble shieldmaids, but the thought would not leave me. I flinched every time I heard her clear her throat, or Eol infrequently make half-swallowed, grit-tooth sounds of pain. He held to twilit consciousness by a thinning thread, and hung between Gelad and Efain like a damp black rag.
“They are fading,” Daerith said in the deep cold quiet long after one particularly hellish midnight, just as the cold had turned not only my toes but my arms and legs to dumb meat. “Should we build a fire?”
Aeredh shook his head; dark hair clung to his glisten-damp forehead. Even his steps had slowed, and sometimes our feet sank a fingerwidth or so into the snow. More was falling to erase our tracks, yet I thought of the great lich somewhere behind us, passing through the cringing forest with rapid ease, and a great wave of shudders coursed through me.
The mental image was so strong I thought it a sending for a moment, a warning granted by grace of a passing god or spirit. It faded reluctantly, my teeth chattering hard enough to rob me of speech.
“We are close.” Short, sharp words, by far the least gentle I ever heard Aeredh utter. “I will burn every lamp remaining to me, and should I fall you must—”
“You will not.” At least the harpist sounded as if he meant it, asif he believed without question in the one he followed. In fact, his tone bore a great similarity to Efain’s on certain occasions, though Daerith might or might not take that as a compliment. “It is merely the Shadow upon the mountain speaking. Take heart.”
“It is not my own despair I fear, but theirs.” Aeredh sucked in a pained breath, and his arm tightened across my shoulders. “We are close, Lady Solveig. Stay with me.”
Perhaps he had forgotten I knew the Old Tongue, or perhaps he was merely being polite. In any case, I raised my chin with a supreme effort, and found dull iron-grey light had crept upon us while we suffered.
Another dawn had come.
The Ice Door
Into the North did he fly, and settled amid icy peaks. Deep he did delve, riven earth groaning under his will. Dark plans did he set into motion, upon which he had brooded during his long punishment. And many terrible fires did he light to create a shield of noisome smoke—for above all things, the Enemy fears light.
Yet within that fear lies a deep craving…
—The God-Tale of Dun Mirit,
attributed to Bjornvalt the Younger
Some little strength returned that blessed morn. The Elder were slightly more cheerful and even Eol rallied a bit, every step away from the sheer peaks and their foul icy shadow granting some manner of relief. We sore needed it, for another series of jagged hills rising to high crests cut across our path, falling west and south. Though forbidding, they were cleaner than the dark mountains, their plain white caps bearing no gloom. In fact, as dawn rose they turned gold for a short while, and I thought I glimpsed tiny specks riding a freezing wind above them.
I had seen the ravens of the Blessed, those great birds who take news to Odynn and to Manhrweh the Judge. A great good omen indeed, though I did not know it then.
Each flask was drained and all the waybread gone; the Elder hadno more to give us. My feet would not work quite properly; I almost slithered from Aeredh’s grasp when my knees failed. He halted only long enough to bend, exhaling softly as he straightened. I curled in his arms like an overtired child on a river-festival night, too cold to feel any shame at being carried thus.
Arn suffered it just as she suffered Daerith and the Quickwit at either arm, bearing her over frozen ground even as she still grasped her spear. The remainder of the Elder and the wolves of Naras spread out to screen our passage as much as possible—except for Gelad and Soren, who had taken over the duty of supporting Eol. There were no skittering, malformed creatures in the shadows, though I could not even feel relieved at the absence. The wind fell off after the sun rose, bringing in a sparkling, crystalline winter day.
I would have endured this weather with good grace at Dun Rithell. I could have walked along the frozen riverside, well-wrapped and thoughtful; returning to the hall would mean a hot cup and a good fire. Arn would enjoy practicing in the ice-crusted yard, not to mention the ale Albeig would pour when she returned. Bjorn would be anywhere and everywhere, into mischief or using his ox-strength to aid our neighbors with repairs and winter chores; Mother would be in the stillroom or at her loom and spinning wheel; Astrid would dance while she carried and fetched, singing the winter songs in her clear light voice. My father would be hearing cases in the hall, or stamping through the snow with a group of warriors to make certain no outlying settlements were in distress.
Were we at home, as the sun fell there would be more singing in the hall and I would be called upon for a saga or two, making the fire shift and crackle with colored pictures while I intoned stories of heroes, history, or the Blessed. I might even have sung of the wars against the Black Land, not knowing the awful truth—I had many a time during my training, after all.
Songs do not even approach the reality; that is a lesson only time and life may grant.
I fell into a fitful doze as Aeredh moved briskly on, seeming to take no notice of my weight. Dun Rithell rose inside my head, an image clear and detailed as I had seen thenagàthstriding through thewoods. Later, I found the Seven have a captain as well, as dire to them by comparison as they are to other liches.
At that moment I was still blissfully unaware of so much.
Again I could not tell whether the vision was a true sending, a possible future, or a foul lie from the gloom-wrapped peaks of the Enemy’s borders. My home showed itself to me as a blackened shell, the great timbers transformed to bare flame-chewed ribs and the roof’s gilding melted into frozen puddles. Strange shapes crouched or lay motionless amid the charring, and for a moment I thought them children.
Yet I soon realized otherwise. The heat had simply been so furious the corpses of my home’s inhabitants shrank, curling around themselves like tired small ones at the end of a long day just as I lay half-coiled in an Elder’s arms, lacking even the strength to stand.
Near nooning the cold fastened its teeth upon my marrow, and sharp ague-pains speared me. Had there been anything resembling proper food in my middle I might have vomited upon myself and Aeredh, who began to sing once more. Gaps lingered between the notes, for he could not quite gather his breath. Still, some small warmth crept back into my limbs, stinging terribly as I sank my teeth in my bottom lip to keep from making a sound.
