“It’s all that fine broth.” She peered over his shoulder, inquisitively. “Keeps me fit and strong. What have you cooked today?”
“Come on, take off your coat and you can have a bowl. It’s vegetable; beef is still too expensive after the cattle-plague in the summer, although I’m guaranteed a side in two or three weeks. From a friend of a friend, no?” He gave a broad wink.
Removing her coat, Nienna edged to the oak table and cocked one leg over the bench, straddling it. Kell placed a hand-carved wooden bowl before her, and she reached eagerly for the spoon as Kell sliced a loaf of black nut-bread with a long, curved knife.
“It’s good!”
“Might need some more salt.”
“No, it’s perfect!” She spooned greedily, wolfing her broth with the eagerness of hunger.
“Well,” said Kell, sitting opposite his granddaughter with a smile which split his wrinkled, bearded face, making him appear younger than his sixty-two years. “You shouldn’t be so surprised. I
am
the best cook in Jalder.”
“Hmm, maybe, but I think it could do with some beef,” said Nienna, pausing, spoon half raised as she affected a frown.
Kell grinned. “Ach, but I’m just a poor old soldier. Couldn’t possibly afford that.”
“Poor? With a fortune stashed under the floor?” said Nienna, head down, eyes looking up and glinting mischievously. “That’s what mother says. Mother says you’re a miser and a skinflint, and you hide money in a secret stash wrapped in your stinky socks under the boards.”
Kell gave a tight smile, some of his humour evaporating. “Your mother always was one for compliments.” He brightened. “Anyway, my girl, you’re the cheeky monkey here! With your tricks and cheeky words.”
“I’m a bit old for you to keep calling me that, grandpa.”
“No, lass, you’re still a little girl.” He leant forward, and ruffled her hair. She scowled in distaste.
“Grandpa! I am not a girl anymore! I’m nearly seventeen!”
“You’ll always be a little girl to me. Now eat your broth.”
They ate in silence, the only sound that of fire crackling through logs as the wind outside increased in ferocity, kicking up eddies of snow and howling mournfully along frosted, cobbled streets. Nienna finished her broth, and circled her bowl with the last of the black bread. She sat back, sighing. “Good! Too much salt, but good all the same.”
“As I said, the best cook in Jalder.”
“Have you ever seen a monkey? Really?” she asked suddenly, displaying a subtle hint of youth.
“Yes. In the deep jungles of the south. It’s too cold up here for monkeys; I suppose they’re fond of their bananas.”
“What’s a banana?”
“A soft, yellow fruit.”
“Do I really look like one?”
“A fruit, or a monkey?”
She smacked his arm. “You know what I mean!”
“A little,” said Kell, finishing his own broth and chewing thoughtfully. His teeth were paining him again. “There is a likeness: the hairy face, the fleas, the fat bottom.”
“Grandpa! You don’t speak to a lady like that! There’s this thing we learnt in school, it’s called eti…ettick…”
“Etiquette.” He ruffled her hair again. “And when you’re grown up, Nienna, then I’ll treat you like a
grown-up.” His smile was infectious. Nienna helped to clean away the bowls. She stood by the window for a few moments, staring out and down towards the distant factories and the market.
“You fought in the south jungles, didn’t you, Grandpa?”
Kell felt his mood instantly sour, and he bit his tongue against an angry retort.
The girl doesn’t realise,
he chided himself. He took a deep breath. “Yes. That was a long time ago. I was a different person back then.”
“What was it like? Fighting, in the army, with King Searlan? It must have been so…romantic!”
Kell snorted. “Romantic? The dung they fill your head with in school these days. There’s nothing romantic about watching your friends slaughtered. Nothing heroic about seeing crows on a battlefield squabbling over corpse eyes. No.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Battles are for fools.”
“But still,” persisted Nienna, “I think I’d like to join the army. My friend Kat says they take women now; or you can join as a nurse, to help with battlefield casualties. They give you good training. We had a Command Sergeant, he came to the school trying to sign us up. Kat wanted to sign, but I thought I’d talk to you first.”
Kell moved across the room, so fast he was a blur. Nienna was shocked. He moved too quickly for a big man, for an old man; it was unreal. He took her shoulders in bear paws with surprising gentility. And he shook her. “Now you listen to me, Nienna, you have a gift, a rare talent like I’ve not seen in a long while. The music’s in your blood, girl, and I’m sure when the
angels hear you sing they’ll be green with envy.” He took a deep breath, gazing with unconditional love into her eyes. “Listen good, Nienna, and understand an old man. An unknown benefactor has paid your university fees. That person has spared you a lifetime of hardship in the tanneries, or in the factories working weaving machinery so treacherous it’ll cut your damn fingers off; and the bastards will let it, rather than stop production. So, girl, you go to your university, and you work like you’ve never worked before, or I’ll kick you so hard from behind, my boot will come out of your mouth.”
Nienna lowered her head. “Yes, Grandpa. I’m sorry. It’s just…”
“What?” His eyes were glowing dark coals.
“It’s just—I’m bored! I’d like some excitement, an adventure! All I ever see is home, and here, and school. And I know I can sing, I know that, but it’s not a future filled with excitement, is it? It’s not something that’s going to boil my blood!”
“Excitement is overrated,” growled Kell, turning and moving with a wince to his low leather chair. He slumped, grimacing at the pain in his lower back which nagged more frequently these days, despite the thick, green, stinking unguent applied by old Mrs Graham. “Excitement is the sort of thing that gets a person killed.”
“You’re such a grump!” Nienna skipped across the room, and tugged on her boots. “I’ve got to get going. We’re having a tour of the university this afternoon. It’s a shame the snow has come down so thick; the gardens are said to be awesomely pretty.”
“Yes, the winter has come early. Such is the legacy of the Black Pike Mountains.” He gazed off, through the wide low window, to a far-distant haze of black and white teeth. The Black Pikes called to him. They always would. They had a splinter of his soul.
“Some of my friends are going to explore the Black Pikes this summer; when they finish their studies, of course.”
“Fools,” snapped Kell. “The Pikes are more dangerous than anything you could ever imagine.”
“You’ve been there?”
“Three times. And three times I believed I was never coming back.” His voice grew quiet, drifting, lost. “I knew I would die, up there. On those dark rocky slopes. It is a miracle I still live, girl!”
“Was that when you were in the army?” She was fishing for stories, again, and he waved her away.
“Go on! Get to your friends; go, enjoy your university tour. And make sure you sing for them! Show them your angel’s voice! They will have never heard anything like it.”
“I will, Grandpa.” Nienna tugged on her coat, and brushed out her long brown hair. “Grandpa?”
“Yes, monkey?”
“I…I nearly told mam, about you, this morning. About coming here, I mean. I do so want to tell her…I hate keeping secrets.”
Kell shook his head, face stern. “If you tell her, girl, she will make doubly sure you never see me again. She hates me. Can you understand that?” Nienna nodded, but Kell could see in her eyes she did not have the life experience to truly comprehend the hate
his daughter carried for him—like a bad egg in her womb. But one day, he thought savagely, one day she’ll learn. We all do.
“Yes, Grandpa. I’ll try my best.” She opened the door, and a bitter chill swept in on a tide of fresh, tumbling snow. She stepped forward, then paused, and gave a half-turn so he couldn’t quite see her face. “Kell?”
“Yes, granddaughter?” He blinked, unused to her calling him by name.
“Thanks for paying my university fees.” She leant back, and kissed his cheek, and was gone in a whirl of coat and scarf leaving him standing blushing at the top of the steps. He shook his head, watching her footprints crunch through a fresh fall towards a gentle mist drifting in off the Selenau River.
How had she guessed? he thought. He closed the door, which struggled to fit the frame. He thumped it shut with a bear’s fist, and absently slid the heavy bar into place. He moved back to the fireplace, reclaiming his abandoned resin-liquor and taking a heavy slug. Alcohol eased into his veins like an old friend, and wrapped his brain in honey. Kell took a deep breath, moving back to the wide window and sitting on a low bench to watch the bartering traders across a field of flapping stalls. The mist was creeping into the market now, swirling around boots and timber stanchions. Kell gazed at the mountains, the Black Pike Mountains, his eyes distant, remembering the hunt there; as he did, many times in a day.
“Join the army—ha!” he muttered, scowling, and refilled his mug from a clay jug.
Kell awoke, senses tingling, mouth sour, head fuzzy, and wondered not just what had awoken him, but how in Hell’s Teeth he’d fallen asleep? “Damn the grog,” he muttered, cursing himself for his weakness and age, and swearing he’d stop the liquor; though knowing, deep in his heart, it was a vow he’d never uphold.
Kell sat up from the window-bench, rubbing his eyes and yawning. He glanced right, but all he saw through the long, low window was mist, thick and white, swirling and coalescing through the streets. He could determine a few muffled stone walls, some snow-slick cobbles, but that was all. A terrible white had expanded to fill the world.
Kell moved to his water barrel and gulped three full flagons, with streams running through his grey beard and staining his cotton shirt. He rubbed his eyes again, head spinning, and turned to watch the mist creeping under his door. Odd, he thought. He glanced up to Ilanna, his axe, hanging over the fireplace. She gleamed, dull black reflecting firelight. Kell turned again, and with a crack the window, nearly the width of the entire room, sheared with a metallic crackling as if it had been placed under great pressure. Mist drifted into the apartment.
In reflex, Kell grabbed a towel, soaked it in his water barrel, and wrapped it over his mouth and nose, tying it behind his head. What are you doing, you crazy old fool? screamed his mind. This is no fire smoke! It will do you no harm! But some deep instinct, some primal intuition guided him and he reached up to tug the long-hafted battle-axe from her
restraining brackets. Bolts snapped, and the brackets clattered into the fire…
Ice-smoke swirled across his boots, roved across the room, and smothered the fire. It crackled viciously, then died. Outside, a woman gave a muffled scream; the scream ended in a gurgle.
Kell’s eyes narrowed, and he strode to his door—as outside, footsteps moved fast up the ice-slick ascent. Kell twisted to one side. The door rattled, and soundlessly Kell slid the bar out of place. The door was kicked open and two soldiers eased into his apartment carrying black swords; their faces were pale and white, their hair long, braided, and as white as the ice-smoke which had smothered Kell’s fire.
Kell grinned at the two men, who separated, spreading apart as Kell backed away several steps. The first man rushed him, sword slashing for his throat but Kell twisted, rolling, his axe thundering in a backhand sweep that caught the albino across the head with blade slicing a two-inch slab from the soldier’s unprotected skull. The man stumbled back, white blood spraying through clawing fingers, as the second soldier leapt at Kell. But Kell was ready, and his boot hooked under the bench, lifting it hard and fast into the attacker’s path. The soldier stumbled over oak and, double-handed, Kell slammed his axe overhead into the fallen man’s back, pinning him to the bench. He writhed, gurgling for a while, then spasmed and lay still. A large pool of white blood spread beneath him. Kell placed his boot on the man’s armour and tugged free his axe, frowning.
White blood?
He glanced right, to where the injured
soldier, with a quarter of his head missing, lay on a pile of rugs, panting fast.
Kell strode to him. “What’s going on, lad?”
“Go to hell,” snarled the soldier, strings of saliva and blood drooling from his teeth.
“So, an attack is it?” Kell hefted his axe thoughtfully. Then, his face paled, and his hand came to the water-soaked towel. “What dark magick is this? Who leads you, boy? Tell me now, and I’ll spare you.” It was a lie, and it felt bad on Kell’s tongue. He had no intentions of letting the soldier live.
“I’d rather fucking die, old man!”
“So be it.”
The axe struck the albino’s head from his shoulders, and Kell turned his back on the twitching corpse showing a cross-section of spine and gristle, his mind sour, mood dropping fast into a brooding bitter pit. This wasn’t supposed to be his life. No more killing! He was a retired soldier. An old warrior. He no longer walked the mountains, battle-axe in hand, coated in the blood and gore of the slain. Kell shook his head, mouth grim. But then, the gods mocked him, yes? The gods were fickle; they would see to it any retirement Kell sought was blighted with misery.
Nienna!
“Damn them.” Kell moved to the steps, peering out into ice-smoke. He nodded to himself. It had to be blood-oil magick. No natural mist moved like this: organic, like coils of snakes in a bucket. Shivering, Kell moved swiftly down the steps and ice-smoke bit his hands, making him yelp. He ran back up to his apartment and pulled on heavy layers of clothing, a thick
hat with fur-lined ear-flaps, and a bulky, bear-skin jerkin which broadened Kell from his already considerable width of chest. Finally, Kell pulled on high-quality leather gloves and stepped back into the mist. He moved down wooden stairs and stood on a mixture of snow and cobbles, his face tingling. All around, the mist shrouded him in silence; it was a padded world. The air was muffled. Reduced. Shrunk. Kell strode to a nearby wall, and was reassured by the rough reality of black stone. So, he thought. I’m not a victim of a savage, drunken nightmare after all! He laughed at that. It felt like it.