Chapter 14
A hand on my arm awoke me well before dawn. They’d made me a bed by the fire, a pile of blankets into which my tired body sank. I’d fallen asleep instantly, but I didn’t dream. The night was a wide chasm of darkness.
“You’d best be on your way,” Gregor said when I sat up. He was already dressed, a cup of warm water in his hands. “There isn’t time to be wasted. Once you leave the forest, there’s a large plain between us and the foothills. You have to be off the plain by nightfall or the wind will claim you and your horse. There’s shelter in the foothills, caves and trees to offset the weather. If you leave now, you’ll reach it by sundown.”
“What of the foothills?” I asked. “What should I know of them?” I stood and donned my wraps and boots, my body screaming with aches and pains after so much time on horseback the day before.
Gregor hesitated. “I don’t know,” he answered. “I’ve never been there. But remain on your guard. You seem smart enough to know that. Use all of your senses, and most importantly, don’t be on the plain at nightfall. Don’t think of what awaits you in the foothills. Think of sparing yourself from the slow, aching death of succumbing to the cold where no one can help you. Let that be a fire beneath your feet.”
I nodded, swallowing a knot in my throat. “And my horse?” In my hurry to leave my village, I hadn’t thought to pack her food.
“I’ve prepared you a pack of grain. It’s a rarity, worth a lot, but you’re a good enough cause. We all want to see you succeed.” His words were kind, though the way his face fell as he spoke them said, We don’t think you will.
Outside, the air was biting cold, yet somehow invigorating. It was still, devoid of wind – before dawn was the coldest part of the night, when the sun had been out of the sky for so long that all hints of warmth had been long since chased away. To me, though, it had always felt like a safe time, a time when all the dark things that came out to play at night were retreating to where they’d come from, anticipating the approaching light. The sky was crisp, clear, the stars overhead glistening fiercely. Few sights could be more beautiful than that, I thought. Yet appreciating the beauty of anything right now felt wrong.
Ri was tied to the post, though she’d spent the night in a nearby stable.
“She’s been fed and watered,” Gregor told me, patting her shoulder fondly. “The grain’s in this pack here.” He tapped one that hung with the rest of my bags. “Don’t give her much in the morning or she’ll be full and lazy during the day. Make her bigger meal at night. It’ll give her energy in the morning.”
“I will.” I ran a hand under her mane. Her coat was warm, comforting.
“Don’t run her into the ground on the plain, but don’t stop for anything. Keep a steady pace and you’ll make it to the foothills by nightfall.”
I mounted and stretched my stiff neck, ready for a long day of riding. “What else should I know?” I asked, soaking up the last few minutes of another’s company.
“Stay out of the jōt’s way. Once you reach the mountains, only light a fire if you have cover. You never know what might be attracted to the light. And think of us here once in a while. The Ør are a fierce foe.”
“I could never forget,” I told him, looking back in the direction of my own village. A shot of fear coursed through me, but I quelled it quickly. “If you go, you know my father already, but find Ivar. He’ll help you. He’ll answer your questions.”
“Ivar,” Gregor repeated, nodding. “I’ll remember.”
“Here, take this,” his wife said, emerging from the house. She handed me a leather flask. “It’ll warm your insides this morning,” she said, and gripped my hand in a farewell gesture.
“Best of luck,” Gregor said, patting the horse’s rump. She began to walk.
“And luck to you, as well,” I said. “Go and speak to the people of my village. Everyone must work together.”
“Indeed, I shall!” he shouted back.
I put the village behind me.
The trees lasted for perhaps an hour after our departure from the village. As we passed the last of the trunks, I brought Ri to a brief halt. Before us stretched the most vast expanse of nothingness I’d ever seen in my seventeen years. Even the open sea offered more than this, what with its rolling waves and white crests. Here, white snow spread as far as the eye could see. In the darkness of pre-dawn, the only thing I could make out of the mountains were faint, tiny shards of black silhouetted against the stars. I shivered at the sight. Until this moment, they’d been nothing more than stories and the accompanying pictures created by my mind. Now they were real. They were real, deadly, and my destination.
From here, they seemed impossibly far away, but this was deceptive. As the day went on, they’d grow and grow like the ground itself was pushing them up towards the sky.
I urged Ri on. The snow was deep, nearly up to her chest, and while our progress wasn’t fast, I remembered Gregor’s words about pushing her too hard, and let her make her own pace. We had the entire day ahead of us to reach the foothills. If we kept up this steady rate, I was sure we’d make it in time.
Here in such a vast space, with no village lights or trees to hinder the view, the stars overhead blossomed. Hundreds of thousands of the tiny points of light seemed to emerge from hiding, like candles to guide my way. There was a comfort in the stars. They were reliable, familiar, and even so far from my village, I felt at home. In the northwest sky, the Horned Horse seemed to watch my steps. They were a creatures of legend, never seen in the real world, but I wanted to believe they might have walked somewhere, once upon a time. People said that horned horses were the mounts of the first peoples to ever walk the earth, fierce immortals who, despite their immortality, had somehow disappeared.
Just to the south of it, as if to challenge the Horse’s prowess, sat the Wolf. Another creature no one had ever seen, it was painted in the stories that surrounded it, a predator much, much larger than the smaller wolves that roamed Skane. There was a list we learned as children: The Five Greats. They represented the five biggest constellations in the sky. The Goddess, the Giant, the Horned Horse, the Wolf and the Warrior. The Warrior was just coming into view as the year wore on. His sword became more and more visible on the horizon every day.
I tilted my head a little as we rode on. The sky seemed … not quite right, but I couldn’t place what it was. Something in the heavens had changed, yet it was too subtle for me to detect.
I thought, then, of Gregor’s words from last night. Of golden lights shining in this very sky, a meaning I didn’t understand. Never, in all my years in this world, had I heard that story before. The red lights always portended some sort of end, some sort of death. But this strange thought – gold lights – something old reawakening, sent fear like spiders crawling down my spine.
Dawn broke in an explosion of orange. It was faint at first, not more than a glow in the eastern sky that soon blossomed into a fiery orb that was reflected off the snow. The few clouds were cast in a multitude of colours: red, orange, pink. The higher it rose, the less intense the colours became, until at last morning had finally broken. At one point I turned to look behind me, but the trees were out of sight. There was nothing except pure, flat snow in every direction except forward, where the mountains were slowly rising taller and taller.
Loneliness set in. In the woods, even when there were no other people for miles, the trees seemed alive. They stood tall, watching and old, and in their shadow, I felt comfort. Out here, a minuscule figure in such an infinite space, isolation seeped into my very bones.
An hour after midday, the sky changed. Dark, brooding clouds crept in from the south, and before long, they’d blotted out the sun. A chill wind picked up, whipping my curls about my head and into my eyes. I grabbed another wrap from my bag and tied it around my face, leaving only my eyes exposed. Perhaps it was no more than passing flurries, here to drop a centimetre or so of snow and move on.
But the angry sky overhead, roiling like the sea, didn’t bespeak a day of gentle flurries. I’d seen skies like this too many times before to believe that.
Afraid the storm would slow our progress and we’d be stranded on the plain after sunset, I urged Ri on a little faster. At the rate we were going, it would take us longer to reach the foothills than we had daylight left.
“There’s a storm coming,” I said aloud, as if perhaps she’d understand. Glancing over my shoulder at the onslaught of clouds, I lightly patted her shoulder, Gregor’s words haunting me. “I know you don’t want to be out here any more than I do.”
Maybe there was something in my tone that encouraged Ri, because her steps quickened ever so slightly. It was small comfort, though, knowing just how much distance we still had to cross. Eventually, I didn’t know whether to look at the growing storm behind me or the growing mountains in front. Both of them filled me with dread, and a small part of me wanted to stop and bury myself in the snow and just forget about it all.
Flurries began to fall. They spun and swirled about, taunting me. Now, no matter what direction I looked, the blue sky had vanished.
The storm set in with a vengeance. I held one hand aloft, and could barely make it out through the furious snow, mere centimetres from my face. The sun might as well have slipped behind the horizon again, for it was so dark there was no differentiating day from night. Gregor had warned me about the plain at night, but certainly the plain during a storm such as this was far worse.
I remembered, then, another storm such as this one.
I trudged through the woods behind Father, my short, childlike legs burning with the effort it took to carry myself over the snow. More fell every second, burying us. Yet on we walked, Father determined to see us home. I wanted to stop, wanted to find shelter of some sort and hug my own body until I felt even faintly warm again, but I couldn’t break off from his lead. If I lost myself out here, I’d die within the hour. Carry me, I wanted to say, working to stop tears from building behind my burning eyes. But he would never. He hadn’t held me since I’d learned to walk.
I tried to move my feet faster and faster, pushing against the snow until they burned with pain, but slowly, slowly, he disappeared from view. The snow swirled around me, surrounding me in every direction. I screamed for him, screamed until my voice gave out and my mouth simply moved, soundlessly. As panic began to set in and I imagined dying out here, never seeing my sister again, never seeing Ivar again, I stopped walking and closed my eyes. I saw a warm house. A fire in the hearth. Food on the table. It wasn’t my home, but it felt like it was, more often than not. I could see Ivar seated by the fire, scrolls lying all around him, lost in a world of symbols and markings.
I wanted to be there with him, safe and warm, more than anything else in the world. That longing somehow pulled me back to the present, back to the wind and snow.
We’d been walking east, towards the village. I envisioned the stars in my mind, pictured which ones would be where and which ones I’d need to follow to get back home. For all I knew, I could have been turned around. Could have been heading in the entirely wrong direction. I followed my instincts. I hadn’t had many lessons with Ymir yet, but I knew enough to not get lost.
When I opened my eyes again, I pressed onwards, and when at last I reached home, I didn’t speak to my father for three days.
Ri’s legs kept moving, though I no longer knew in what direction we travelled. Perhaps we’d turned and were heading back towards Is̊avik. Perhaps soon the shelter of those trees would engulf us and the wind would die down. Curse this wind, this biting, evil wind. My face, my eyes were so cold, my hands long since numb, I couldn’t find the energy within myself to stop Ri. Even moving my head was a struggle, my bones giving complaint with the smallest of movements.
I’d left home yesterday and already Skane wanted to claim me.
Snow.
Wind.
Darkness.
It never seemed to end.
If it hadn’t before, certainly by now the sun had gone down. Cold as I was, I could feel the temperature dropping. It wouldn’t be long until hypothermia set in. If I survived, I’d be one of those poor souls who’d lost limbs to the cold. Then I’d be no use in the mountains. No use in a war against the Ør.
I slumped forward on to Ri’s neck, and soon she stopped walking, unwilling or unable to fight through the storm any longer. Better that we sit here together, and perhaps fall asleep from the cold. Then we wouldn’t have to be awake, wouldn’t have to feel it when death came for us.
A presence.
Something changed in the air around us. I fought to open my eyes, peering through my wraps, and there was light. The snow continued to swirl around us, but something shone through the darkness. And it was moving. Coming closer and closer. I couldn’t sit up, couldn’t move towards it or away from it. If it was danger, my mind was too numb to recognize any instincts. I simply lay there, blinking the snow from my eyes.
And then Ri began to move again, unbidden, her legs carrying us on to the Goddess knows where. Another bit of light joined the first, and then another. I was so, so tired. So close to giving up. I let my eyes close, let myself fall into a beautiful abyss of darkness where there was no more wind and no more cold.