Above the Snowline (35 page)
The pain and humble pie weren’t as bad as the feeling of helplessness. But all these were practically worth it when I told Raven what had happened. He descended from the window seat where he likes to sit so high and mighty, and gazed at my fizzog. Then he laughed and said, ‘We’re both disfigured now! Snipe, we have both been badly treated by those in charge, but now Jant has played into our hands!’
‘Why?’ I asked. I like to play dumb sometimes, though Raven’s so convinced everyone else is an idiot it doesn’t take much effort.
‘He’s given us an ace to play against him. Strange that he should lose self-control to this extent . . . I thought he was the one who invented blackmail.’
‘He was unreasonable,’ I said.
‘I can see that. Stay out of his way and be the card I play when the time’s right. Try not to heal too quickly.’
I just nodded, which is safest when I can’t be sure of the tone of my voice. Raven may think me sullen, let him think it. He doubled my wage before sending me away. The beating had some other advantages too: the men are in awe of me - that I’ve been thumped by Comet himself - and I let them know I gave as good as I got. I told the silly sods that if any of them had been up against Jant, he’d’ve killed ’em.
‘I saw something!’ Glede called from the rear, and we all drew up.
‘What? Where?’
He stuck out a gloved finger. ‘There, between the trees!’
The others looked where he was pointing but I glanced to the trees on the other side. ‘You dumb oaf! Don’t yell, just shoot.’
‘It’s gone now, anyway . . .’
I clapped my hands so they looked at me. ‘It could have been a ’danne. They move like smoke. Don’t shout, just shoot - it’s the only way. I want ’danne hands on my saddle bow, as they have bear paws. We’re going to get those bastards. OK?’
‘Yeah!’
‘Did you hear something?’ Sparrow, the youngest archer, said.
‘What?’
‘A twig cracking?’
‘Sh!’
‘Come on.’ I tapped my mare and we trudged onwards.
Now
I
thought I heard the snow crackle, and a giggle, instantly hushed. I stared in that direction - but couldn’t see anything - and my horse carried me past. I was sure something was keeping pace with us. I was sure we were being watched but, staring, all I could see was the damn bark, the snow lying in hollows. I hadn’t been out this way since the snows began in earnest and the whiteness was disorientating. It masked all the familiar landmarks.
I
thought I heard the snow crackle, and a giggle, instantly hushed. I stared in that direction - but couldn’t see anything - and my horse carried me past. I was sure something was keeping pace with us. I was sure we were being watched but, staring, all I could see was the damn bark, the snow lying in hollows. I hadn’t been out this way since the snows began in earnest and the whiteness was disorientating. It masked all the familiar landmarks.
Glede behind me yelled and loosed an arrow.
I pulled up so suddenly his horse ran into mine. ‘Nothing there.’ I said.
‘Sorry, steward. Nothing there.’
This is no good, I thought. We’re getting spooked. ‘Look, if Rhydanne were around, our horses would smell ’em. They’re relaxed, so the bastards are bloody miles away.’
‘All those trees,’ grumbled Glede.
‘So it’s taken you two years to notice we live in a forest! Now come on, it’s not far now.’ Sure enough, the pall of smoke from the mine works was rising in front of us, just down the track, but we couldn’t yet see the cabins. We rode on, into the shadow of a rock outcrop, one of the buttocks of Capercaillie. A definite crunch sounded behind us. We all heard it this time.
‘That isn’t snow falling,’ said Glede.
‘Where’d it come from?’
‘There . . . No, there.’
‘From
behind
us.’
behind
us.’
‘I can’t see anything,’ said Sparrow. ‘I know something’s there, but I can’t see it.’ He flexed his arms, half-drawing then relaxing the bow on his knees. ‘They’re fucking with us.’
We waited, but heard no other sounds apart from the whisper of the flakes.
‘Must’ve been a branch breaking.’
‘They’re fucking with us, they’re fucking with us . . .’
‘Stop that! Men, we kicked their arse yesterday. And we’re going to kick them again today. Let’s have that song again: The foot folk/ Put the ’danne to the poke.’
‘By way.’
‘Never heard I say,’ muttered Glede.
All together: ‘Of readier boys to get the joke.’
I glanced up to the profile of the outcrop against the sky, and on its very edge a thin figure leaned out in silhouette. It held on with one hand, the other arm extended and the fingers clawed. Its profile was jagged, the outward knee bent. It let itself be seen, then it drew back into the cliff, seemed to merge with the rock and was gone . . . as if a gargoyle could suck itself back into a castle roof.
I drew, loosed, and my arrow cracked off the rock. The men stopped singing abruptly. I scanned the cliff face for movement. Something fell towards us. A stone, about the size of my fist, lodged in the snow to my left. More began to shower down from above - one bounced off my cantle. God, they have good aim. ‘Come on!’ I yelled, and spurred down the track, but the falling rocks kept pace with us. God knows how many were up there, running along the ledges, clinging to niches. I scanned the cliffs desperately, squinting against the sun. ‘Can you see them?’ ‘No!’
Abruptly a ’danne stepped into the path about thirty metres ahead, waving something. A slingshot banged off my shoulder guard. Before I could draw, he darted back behind a tree. ‘There’s one! Give it feathers!’
I spurred to a gallop. I could see the ’danne running in the fringe of the trees, parallel to the path ahead, its parka white against the trunks. An arrow cut past from behind me - too wide - and the thump of hooves told me the others were following. I had no chance of shooting it while galloping but if I could keep the thing in sight we could work together and corner it. I blew two blasts on my horn: when the other squads heard they’d circle up ahead and the ’danne would be trapped between us.
Suddenly it changed direction, vanished under the boughs and I feared we’d lost it. Sorrel, my mare, carried me to the spot in a second, and I could see it had turned down a small deer track running off the path. Now it didn’t have to dodge trunks so much, it was beginning to accelerate away. I followed without pause. At the very least the path took us away from the cliffs and the rocks raining down.
I held my bow low to stop it snagging, ducked under the branches flailing my face, and sped on. Trunks flashed by; the path twisted and narrowed. We emerged into a clearing, a gash torn in the forest by a fallen spruce that lay half-buried. I couldn’t see the ’danne anywhere now. The others piled up behind me, horses and men panting steam into the air.
‘Where?’ gasped Glede.
‘Don’t say we’re lost,’ wailed Sparrow.
‘I don’t get lost riding from the keep to the mines. Not unless someone has turned the forest around. Now shut up and listen.’
We had lost sight of the ’danne but he had to be around here somewhere. My breathing seemed too loud and the icy air tore at my throat. Up ahead I heard approaching hoofbeats.
‘Crake’s men are coming - hear? We’ll catch that cat-eyes between us.’
A whoosh. I felt the passage of air behind me, and Glede was carried off his saddle. He hit the track, something tall waving above him. A spear. He screamed a wide-jawed scream, and my other three men loosed their arrows indiscriminately into the trees. They fumbled for more, drew again. Their shafts needled between the trunks, struck bark, ricocheted off. ‘Stop! Stop!’ I bellowed. ‘Mark your targets!’
Glede flexed and kicked on the ground, screaming. The spear had gone through his cheek, through his mouth and out his other cheek. He was holding the shaft upright, his head on the snow. He couldn’t close his mouth, couldn’t pull the spear out. From the dumbness of his screams it had severed his tongue. From the clacking it had knocked his teeth out as well.
Now a bolas came whirling from between the trees on the other side, whacked Sparrow on the shoulder, tangled around his bow and whipped it out of his hands. In its wake the forest edge erupted with Rhydanne. They dashed into the clearing and towards us like a flight of arrows. Three, four, five, that’s all. Howling and shaking antler rattles they bore down on us. Sorrel bucked so deeply I were almost over her head, and she swung round so all I could see were a line of trees. I opened my wings to steady myself, felt the cold stab at them, and forced her to turn back. With a kick in the ribs and dragging her rein I won the battle of wills and saw the ’danne split up.
Two ran round me on each side and passed by a whisker, melted into the forest still shrieking and rattling. The last alighted beside Glede, who tried to kick away. Its hood bent to Glede’s screaming face; it grabbed the shaft and with a swift twist and thrust shut Glede up permanently.
It turned and ran for the forest. I drew, loosed. It dropped its spear and fell flat on its face, my arrow projecting from its back. Take that, murdering cat-eyed scum! At once the howling and rattling started again. Two of the things bounded from behind a fallen trunk; two dashed from the trees on our right, forming a circle around us. Spears pointed at us - in their other hands they shook rattles or flaming branches, and their yowling was unearthly.
Sorrel reared so high I thought they’d dash in and spear her belly, turned and came down hard. My mates were squashed round me as their horses pitched and panicked, trying to turn but jammed too close. We tangled in a mesh of horses’ hindquarters and our knees pressing together. The ’danne looped round behind us and closed in.
Sorrel pawed the ground, combing up the snow, lurched this way and that, then bolted. I tightened her rein but she kept bloody going, out of the clearing, away from the path. Trees loomed either side of me, then I was between them. She carried me, dashing between the trunks. Cries told me the others were following. Yowls further back as the ’danne chased us. My mare stretched out her neck and went hell for leather.
Terrified by the savages’ hooting, terrified by their stink, and maddened beyond terror by slingshots, Glede’s riderless horse plunged on behind me. Their aim was deadly - slingstones smacked off my helmet with such force they shoved my head forward. Sorrel wouldn’t respond - I couldn’t rein her up - at that speed if I tried to guide her she’d smash into a tree.
Damn ’danne could come from anywhere. A spear through the branches at any time! They were everywhere and I couldn’t fucking see them! I was helpless. I was fucking helpless! They could snuff my life any time now, so why were they chasing us? Why were they chasing us? Why didn’t they just kill us?
Sorrel crashed on. Snow flew up from her hooves. My quiver rattled on the saddle bow - I unclipped it and let it fall. I folded my coat back and checked the hilt of my snickersnee - I’m braced to take one of the fuckers with me.
I heard more cries to my right - human voices yelling, bawling, keeping pace with us. A second later I saw them through the trees - fleeting, pine trunks in the way like an illusionist’s trick. A bay horse, the rider clinging to her mane, not the reins, his blue scarf streaming out behind. Another horse with blood streaks down her withers and froth all over her muzzle. They were the patrol - what was left of them - on our right, who’d been riding to Lanner’s place. The savages were chasing them too.
I turned in the saddle and glanced back at Sparrow. His face was a mask of fear and his wings clamped tight. The other team was coming closer and closer. Rhydanne were driving them, and they’d have joined with us but our horses were starting to veer to the left. Cries were now coming from their other side - I glimpsed more horses among the trunks. Another squad. I recognised Crake’s bellowing, his voice raised high in fear. They were out of control as well, and stampeding nearer and nearer. Were the scum hounding them too?
Now a snow pile loomed on my left, a long ridge between the trees. A savage appeared from behind it, leapt onto its summit, waving firebrands in both hands and yelling. Sorrel plunged away; all the other horses did too, carrying us closer than before to the team in the middle - now only three or four trees away. God, if we’d only brought dog teams instead of horses!
The ridge continued - it must have been shaped by hand. It rose half the height of a man and the ’danne had stuck branches in the top, sticks with rags and rattles on them. Our horses hurtled straight along it and I tried even harder to rein Sorrel back, but she was running for her life and cared for nothing. Had the ’danne built this bulwark? I thought they lived in potholes and tents. They’re not capable of building! Tiny dwarf-creatures bounded up on top of it, howling and shrieking, waving flaming torches. I raced past. What were they? What the fuck were they? They were the same leggy shape as ’danne - dressed the same way. They had damp patches on their knees where they’d been kneeling, hiding. Then I realised - they were Rhydanne
children
.
children
.
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