Authors: Jen Williams
Once or twice he’d seen a black bird too, flying high above them. Gwiddion was following along at a distance, it seemed, and that thought cheered him a little.
‘Where are you taking us?’ asked Wydrin. According to the prince her werken was waiting for them at their destination, so she walked by the sturdy little ponies that carried their kit. Dallen walked with her, an ice-spear at his side.
‘It’s a place between our territories,’ said Prince Dallen. He gestured ahead, where the ground in front of them sloped gradually upwards again. ‘Once we are out of this canyon we will be close.’
‘If it is between your territories, then who does the land belong to?’ asked Frith. With him they were still openly cautious; his hands were firmly bound once more, and he had been forced to ride one of the ponies, much to his obvious discomfort.
‘It is neither Skald nor Narhl,’ said Prince Dallen. ‘The place where I am taking you is just on the edge of our home, a thin strip of land that lies between us and the very outer reaches of where the Skalds dare to travel. It is neutral territory, and therefore the best place that I know of for peace talks.’
Frith snorted derisively; the young lord was very sceptical about Prince Dallen’s apparently earnest talk of peace, but Sebastian was inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. When they met up with the rest of Prince Dallen’s squad, still moving furtively under the cover of night, they had been shocked to find the Heart-Stone waiting for them there, also smuggled out of the settlement without King Aristees’ knowledge. Sebastian had caught sight of its eerie, green light, painting the surrounding snows with a colour like seawater, before someone had hastily thrown a blanket over it.
When Sebastian had asked him about it, the prince had actually grinned ruefully, looking mildly embarrassed.
‘You were entirely right, Sir Sebastian. The stone is, technically, stolen property. It should not be ours, no more than it should be the Skalds’. If I take it to a neutral place, then perhaps we can begin to sort things out.’
Sebastian surprised himself by laughing bitterly. ‘Your father was ready to cut our heads off for the sake of that stone. You yourself told me that the Skalds are defiling a sacred spirit. Now you talk of diplomacy?’
‘We are not savages, Sir Sebastian, whatever the Skalds would have you believe,’ said Prince Dallen. And then in a lower tone of voice, ‘my father’s throne room is no place for the Heart-Stone either.’
Sebastian had asked him what his father would think of his plan, and Prince Dallen had looked uneasily over his shoulder, as if expecting an army to sweep down on them at any moment.
‘If we don’t move quickly, we may find out,’ was all he’d said.
Now Sebastian glanced over at the prince, who was chatting easily to Wydrin, remembering that look of rueful cheer.
He wants to change things,
he thought,
and somehow we’ve given him an opportunity to try.
‘So this place we’re going to,’ Wydrin was saying now. ‘Why isn’t it part of your territory? Why have neither of you claimed it?’
‘That’s because it’s haunted,’ said Dallen mildly. ‘A cursed place.’
‘Oh, good,’ said Wydrin dryly. ‘I haven’t been to a cursed place for ages.’
‘This land is full of magic, Wydrin Threefellows,’ continued Dallen. ‘And certain places are more sensitive to it. No one knows why this particular piece of land is haunted, but everyone feels it who ventures there. Even the stone-headed Skalds. Now it is inhabited only by animals, who live even closer to the Edeian than we do.’
Eventually they came out of the canyon, as Dallen had promised, and were faced with another lonely snowscape. Here and there were soft peaks, like sand dunes, with the black teeth of rocks poking through. Sebastian was surprised to see movement in this place; a herd of distant animals, their shaggy white hides standing out in stark contrast against the black mountains that circled them. He paused, trying to make out what they were. There was something about their shapes that looked wrong to him.
Dallen saw him looking, and smiled.
‘A colony of arachnos,’ he said. ‘There are many such gatherings in the wilder parts of Narhl territory.’
‘What are they?’ asked Sebastian. He noticed that the prince wore a tuft of white wyvern fur on a cord around his throat, next to a tooth that looked like it had belonged to a bear once. There was a lot he was noticing about the prince. ‘Are they dangerous?’
For a time Dallen kept looking at the distant beasts, until Sebastian thought he wasn’t going to answer.
‘They are not dangerous, no, not unless provoked. We are heading towards them, Sir Sebastian, so you’ll get a closer look soon enough.’
Dallen was right. Another hour of walking, the wyverns flying above them like unlikely standards, and the strange herd of animals swerved across their path. They were enormous, twice as tall as a man, with broad furry bodies supported by four long, tapering legs. Their fur was white and grey, and their heads, which nestled close to their powerful shoulders, were dotted with four glassy red eyes. Underneath these apparently lidless organs was a pair of black mandibles, half hidden in the long fur. The overall effect was that of a giant, white-furred spider with four legs, and they moved with slow grace over the brittle snow. The herd that moved past them had around thirty members, the biggest twice as tall as Sebastian, with the smallest the size of a large cow.
Next to Sebastian, Wydrin shook her head. ‘Please tell me those things eat grass.’
‘They do eat flesh, but instances of them attacking humans are very rare,’ said Prince Dallen. He had ordered the group to a standstill while the arachnos passed. ‘And accidental, mostly. You see, they can form the ice like we do, and use it to build traps under the snow. A thin layer of ice over a deep hole. Unfortunate men and women have been lost this way, but an actual attack from an arachnos? I have never heard of it happening. They are peaceful animals.’
Wydrin had gone slightly paler under her hood.
‘As if falling into a hole in this place wouldn’t be bad enough, without a giant snow spider showing up to eat you afterwards.’
Dallen chuckled. ‘I fear I have accidentally portrayed the arachnos in a poor light. When we get to our destination, I will be able to show you a different side.’
They reached the unclaimed lands under a sky ragged with black clouds and moonlight. The land had been gradually sloping downwards again, until they came to a sudden drop and, beyond that short cliff, was a wide, shallow bowl filled with snow.
‘What are those, then?’ asked Wydrin. Dallen’s squad led them down the cliff, along a rough path carved directly into the rock, and she found her eyes turning again and again to the strange objects nestled in the snow.
‘This is where the arachnos lay their eggs,’ said Dallen. Frith had been turfed off the mountain pony, and was walking with his arms held awkwardly behind his back, while Sebastian brought up the rear. ‘Aren’t they beautiful?’
‘They are that,’ agreed Wydrin. The wide expanse of powdery snow was covered in round hemispheres of ice, all clustered together like bubbles floating on the top of a puddle. They glittered in the moonlight, as though they had been sprinkled with diamonds. As they got closer, Wydrin could see that they all had a small hole where the ice met the ground – small for the arachnos, anyway; a human could walk in and out without much trouble. ‘Very beautiful. Are you really telling me you’ve brought us to where those things
nest
?’
Dallen gestured with his ice-spear. ‘This nesting site is long since abandoned. They never lay their eggs in the same place twice, and certainly wouldn’t reuse their ice-warrens. Look.’ They had reached the first cluster now, and Dallen’s squad were swiftly unpacking their goods from the small mountain ponies, while the wyverns and their riders landed some distance away. ‘They lay their eggs and then cover them in a protective shell of ice. When the young arachnos hatch, they claw their way out with their mandibles.’
‘This is all fascinating,’ said Frith from behind them. ‘Perhaps one day I shall return and write a book about it.’ Wydrin shot him a look, amused; she could tell from his tone that he was close to losing his temper. ‘However, if I do not get to sit near a fire soon I shall be forced to set myself on fire.’
Dallen glanced over to him. ‘Of course. I have had your belongings brought here ahead of us.’ At his word, five more men and women appeared from within one of the arachnos’ nests, and they were carrying their packs.
‘You intend to give them back to us?’ asked Sebastian.
‘Perhaps not immediately.’ Prince Dallen smiled slightly. ‘Which I’m sure you can understand. Wydrin, your werken is also here, although I wish to talk to you about that before we go any further. I want to talk to you all about what I intend to do here.’
‘Sure.’ Wydrin glanced at Frith and Sebastian. Neither of them objected. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got something to drink while we have this chat? My insides feel like I’ll never be warm again.’
‘We have plenty of grut,’ he said, gesturing to one of his men. ‘I hesitate to recommend it, though, on my honour as a prince.’
‘That’ll do,’ she said. ‘I’ve had worse.’
‘I must demand that my hands are untied,’ said Frith as soon as he was seated. His hood had fallen back from his face and his brown skin was the warmest thing Wydrin had seen in days. She looked away. ‘I am the Lord of the Blackwood, and I refuse to suffer this indignity any longer.’
They were sitting inside one of the ice nests, with a cold-lamp wedged in the snow between them. Inside the nest the ice was cloudy and white, with fine swirling lines traced all over the surface like giant fingerprints.
‘You may as well untie him,’ Wydrin said. ‘You won’t get a word of sense out of him until you do.’
Prince Dallen nodded reluctantly before leaning over and cutting Frith’s bonds with a knife. The young lord made a great show of rubbing his wrists.
‘I imagine you’re wondering what I have planned, taking you away from the Frozen Steps in the middle of the night.’ He sat forward slightly, the leather armour gaping open around his neck. He seemed utterly unconcerned by the cold.
‘It has crossed my mind,’ said Sebastian. He was watching the prince closely. Wydrin thought she saw more than mild curiosity in that look.
So he is not dead below the waist after all.
Dallen chuckled dryly.
‘We have been in conflict with the Skalds for as long as anyone can remember. My father is a very traditional man. As you may have noticed.’
‘He’s very keen on his axe,’ said Wydrin. ‘I noticed that.’
‘The king wants us to stay behind the walls of the Frozen Steps, to carry on with the way of life we’ve had for thousands of years. Everything must stay the same.’ He tugged at his small beard with his thumb and forefinger. ‘And I cannot really blame him. The Narhl are a part of this land, and our way of life has served us well. Our relationship with the land is unique, and perhaps it is necessary that our contact with outsiders is so strictly controlled. But I fear it is unsustainable. One day, I will be king, and I do not want to lead my people into a future of constant war. Of continual solitude. I believe,’ he shifted on the ground, speaking slightly faster now, ‘I really do believe that we can benefit from learning more about the outside world. That it can lead to better lives for my people. There is so much we don’t know, hidden away behind those walls, and we will never know any of it if we must be continually at war with the Skalds. On the other hand, their practices are a direct insult. An attack on the Narhl soul.’ The prince paused, looking up to meet their eyes. ‘It is not a jest when we say that they are destroying the mountain spirits. We all feel it, in here.’ He tapped his chest. ‘They cannot continue to treat the Heart-Stone in this way, chipping pieces of it off to make their slaves.’ He glanced down at his own hands, as if to keep his temper in check. ‘Werkens, as they call them, are pieces of the soul of the mountain. They are sentient, thinking, feeling creatures, as capable of thought and emotion as you and I.’
‘From what I have seen, the Skalds will not give them up on your say-so,’ said Sebastian softly. ‘The werkens are how they build their homes, how they defend their city. Werkens are at the heart of Skaldshollow.’
Prince Dallen nodded.
‘Oh yes, I am quite aware of that. Even so, I want to build a peace between our peoples. I want to start building it now, while there is still a chance for the mountain spirits. I want the leaders of Skaldshollow to come here, to meet with me, and we will talk. Properly. As we haven’t for generations.’
‘They will not come,’ said Frith. ‘You give them no reason to. You have stolen their property, killed their people. Now you propose they give up that which they hold to be the very centre of their civilisation.’
‘That is why I want you to take them a message. Wydrin, can you feel the werken in your mind?’
Wydrin shrugged, and reached out for Mendrick. She could feel it close by, a chilly extension of herself, just waiting in the dark.
‘Tell me about the werken,’ he said. ‘How does it feel in your head?’
Wydrin shrugged. ‘It doesn’t feel like anything much. It’s a cold feeling, like a little part of me is somewhere else.’
‘You do not feel its mind? There is no sense of another being?’
‘Not really, no,’ she smiled crookedly, realising that she was actually a little sorry to disappoint Prince Dallen.
‘There is a link between you,’ said Dallen, ‘but it is very faint. I can open that link, deepen it, and show you that the werken you are ordering around is a thinking, feeling being. When I have done that, you can take that message back to Skaldshollow. Perhaps then they will listen.’
‘Hold on a moment,’ said Frith. ‘The joining seemed violent enough, and quite frankly, it was a foolish thing to do in the first place. How do we know that this isn’t going to hurt Wydrin?’
‘Foolish?’ Wydrin shot him a dark look. ‘Foolish would be chucking yourself into a lake full of mage magic, surely? Or getting cold-cocked by a bird-headed god.’