Rebel Ice (2 page)

Offworlders called our pack beasts snow tigers, and admired their appearance and strength. The jlorra were immense, long-bodied creatures with six agile appendages and splayed paws edged with sharp digging claws. I suppose to ensleg eyes they appeared quite attractive. Their sleek pelts changed with the color of the snow crust, at times dark blue like the endless night of sunless seasons, only to grow as pale as drift crystal during the long rising.

A number of traders once attempted to export them for labor to other ice worlds. The Iisleg were quite willing to sell their beasts, and then send the gjenvin later to recover the crashed skimmers and round up the outraged jlorra, who slaughtered their buyers.

From this sort of foolishness came the Iisleg saying "Death cannot be made a servant."

I came upon Galla attempting to wrestle a retainer over the massive head of the pack leader, who was resisting her touch. Seeing the other beasts becoming restless, I carefully placed the harnesses I carried on the floor.

"Allow me to serve," I said, and held out my hands.

Galla flung the retainer at me. "They should be beaten and starved."

"I would not recommend you try." The jlorra padded over and rubbed the top of its heavy skull against my side in a gesture of affection.

I looked into the beast's large, silver eyes, and saw again what Galla could not. The jlorra would never go hungry. If the skela did not provide adequate food for them, the big cats would simply break through the ice separating our caves and dine on us. It was their nature, and had spawned another, more menacing proverb among the Iisleg: "Death never worries about its next meal."

We reached the crash site after the gjenvin from the nearest iiskar had arrived. As skela were not permitted to approach the living, we waited a short distance beyond the ring of debris. The ship was almost as I had predicted: of League military design, but not a leader's vessel. It was of similar size but, from the lack of bodies and the large amount of visible salvage waiting to be recovered, more in the way of a freight transport.

I murmured an apology to Daneeb, who only shook her head. "I have never seen or heard the like, either, Skjæera. It was not for you to know." She pointed to one of the others on the skimmer. "Look after her."

I climbed down, and saw Enafa waving a mitt at me. Despite my harsh words, somehow the girl must have persuaded Daneeb to permit her to come with us. My numbness intensified. "I will, Skrie."

Once we came into view, the chief gjenvin recalled his team to their wind skimmers. According to our laws, the wreck could not be salvaged until the dead were removed, and for that, he had to yield the site to the skela.

"Why do they not stay?" Enafa asked as I took her arm and led her toward the debris field.

Had this fond mother of hers never instructed her on anything? "They cannot work if we are near."

She made a haughty sound. "D? vena, so they fear us."

"No." I turned her to me, my hands tight on her arms. "They do not wish to be contaminated by us. We are unclean. They are not. If you stray too close, they will kill you. Do you hear me?" Enafa's eyes went large as she nodded, and I let her go. "Stay by my side, watch, and learn."

My apprentice held her tongue, and kept her eyes on the ice. When the last of the salvagers had retreated, Daneeb turned to face the gjenvin skimmers and sank down on the ice—an expected obeisance as well as a warning that our work was to begin—then rose and snapped out orders. The rest of us moved in to begin our search through the twisted wreckage for bodies, and I showed Enafa how to rummage through alloy and snow.

"Their blood freezes instantly, so always look for color on the ice." I told her. "Remember, they are mostly offworlders, so it may not be red, like ours. Harnesses or retainers are usually torn, but may lead to where they were flung on impact."

"How many have you claimed?" she asked as she pawed through the debris.

"I do not count." Yes, I did, but I had no intention of telling her I had recovered and skinned 1,040 bodies of worgald.

Some of the younger gjenvin watched us. Enafa stiffened when the wind carried their whispers and sniggers to our ears.

Look at them.

The soiled ones.

Perhaps they are hungry.

"They speak as if we were jlorra," she said, glaring at the skimmers. "They know we do not eat the dead ensleg."

"We amuse them." Had she not reacted, I doubt if their contempt would have registered with me, so accustomed to it was I.

"The beast driver does not like it." Enafa nodded toward the big woman approaching us.

I shoved a twisted panel aside. "That would be useless."

"Like this teat sucker Daneeb latched on you?" The beast driver grunted a laugh. "I thought you done with nursing the weak, Skjæera."

Enafa's cheeks darkened. "I am not a baby! And Skjæera is a healer!"

"She is nothing but shit, like the rest of us. You, newling, are less than shit." Galla pulled the body I had uncovered from the snow, and used her dagger to strip it of its worgald. I tried to urge Enafa past, but the beast driver glanced up at me. "She will watch." She began to work on the head.

As Galla slid the flat blade beneath the ensleg's skin and began removing his face, Enafa made a choking sound. "What are you doing?"

"The work, useless." She flipped her knife to clean it, hard enough to splatter both of us with blood crystals and bits of frozen flesh. "You must take it whole."

My apprentice stumbled a few steps away, then vomited. I supported her as she heaved, until her belly calmed and she could stand alone. Rather than thank me, she clutched at my arm with fierce fingers. "Why do you not stop her? She desecrates him!"

"Galla does our work. The windlords require the intact facial skins of ensleg dead be sent to the skim cities," I told her. "Offworlders will pay handsomely to identify their dead."

"They sell ensleg scum to the ensleg scum," Galla corrected as she rose to turn the male over. "At least the jlorra and the rothawks dine well on what is left. Look at this poor bastard, Skjæera. He's mostly intact. You might have saved him with your witchery, were you not shit now."

Referring to my ability to heal often amused the bitterest among the skela, who had honed mordacity to an art form. That I should end a handler of death was perhaps the ultimate irony. Over time I had grown accustomed to it.

Galla's sneer had a far different effect on my apprentice, however. "As well you might have been grinding beneath him tonight!" she snapped.

It was well-known that Galla had been an ahayag who repeatedly serviced every male in her iiskar. Being a harlot was accepted, if not particularly admired, but dallying with ensleg traders was not permitted. Galla had been caught with the wrong color male in her furs. Since becoming beast driver, she liked to pretend she had never been a prostitute. She made sure everyone else kept up the pretense, as well.

I stepped in front of Enafa to take the blow meant for her, and managed to stay on my feet. I clutched my aching belly as I gasped out, "She does not think… before she speaks… Forgive her… beast driver."

The knuckles in Galla's bloodied mitt bruised my breast as she shoved me back against a portion of the ripped hull. "Get out of my way."

"Do not hurt her!" Enafa snatched at Galla's arm. "Let her go!"

"Galla." Daneeb appeared out of nowhere. "Release your sister and return to your labor."

The beast driver took her hand from me and pointed to my apprentice. "She called me a whore."

"The child is mistaken. You
were
a whore." The headwoman folded her arms. "Take the body and pile it

with the others.
" Galla slung the dead ensleg over her shoulder and, after a final snarl in my direction, strode off. "Enafa, go and work with Lati." Daneeb waited until my apprentice moved away. "I vow, Skjæera, that

woman would have you staked before the season is out." A large hand helped me to my feet. "Do not give me reason to permit it."

"It will be as you say, Skrie." I breathed in deeply, willing the cold to ease the pain. "Over there seems a likely spot. Go and search it." Daneeb nodded toward a chunk of the fuselage far from Galla. "Work quickly. The salvagers become impatient."

I waded through piles of useless components and grid housings before I reached the fuselage, and put my lever bars to work on an intact compartment.

You might have saved him.

The remarkably undamaged alloy refused to give, apparently once a door panel that had been secured.

Staked before the season is out.

I wedged the tip of one bar into a seam and pulled back with all my weight. The physical work was difficult for me most of the time, perhaps because my hands had been trained to repair, not to destroy.

Do not give me reason to permit it.

The panel slid open, and something fell out. An arm, glistening wet and red, horribly broken and yet still attached to a body. I stepped back, astonished not by the limb, but by the fact it was
still moving
.

I moved in to have a closer look. "Mag D? vena."

The ensleg was small, slight, and apparently Iisleg. It wore offworlder garments, so I assumed it to be human, like the ancestors of the Iisleg, whom the Toskald had abducted and brought here to Akkabarr centuries ago. Impact had mangled its puny body, judging by the broken bones and torn flesh showing through jagged rents in its garment. Blood masked its face, and for a moment, I thought someone had already claimed worgald from this one. But no, more red blood still pumped from the wounds, and gushed from a deep crater in its skull. I drew in my breath when I saw the gray-and-pink brain showing plainly through silver-sheened dark hair. Odd, broken lengths of chain encircled its wrists and lower limbs. They did not rattle, as the blood on the alloy links had frozen them together.

And despite all of this, the shattered arm still moved, the broken hand still reached.
A miracle
. I found myself unconsciously reaching down to cover the hand with my mitt.

Enafa appeared at my side. "Skjæera, it lives!"

Her voice jerked me back to reality, and I snatched my hand away in revulsion. What was I thinking, trying to touch it? "Not for long."

We would have to wait for it to die.

But my young apprentice was already kneeling beside the ensleg, shouting, "Skrie! Here! Over here!" She looked up at me. "Skjæera, can you heal it?"

I hesitated, eyeing the terrible head wound, knowing what I might have done for it had I my instruments

Daneeb hurried over. "What now?" She halted, and stared. "D? vena yepa, it cannot be."

I turned to Enafa, who was touching the ensleg, and took in a swift breath. "Skrie, no one has yet seen this." "I will tell them!" My apprentice jumped to her feet and ran for the wind skimmers, leaping over debris. Daneeb and I immediately took off after her, trying to stop her. But Enafa was young, and swifter than

both of us, and threw herself down before the chief gjenvin's hovering skimmer.

I was terrified—Enafa had not listened to me when I had told her that skela are forbidden to speak to the gjenvin unless spoken to—and ran faster. She was already pleading with the chief when I sank to my knees in the snow beside her. "You see?" She held out her bare hands for the chief to see the frozen crystals of ensleg blood glittering

on them. "It lives." "You put hands on it?" She nodded eagerly, and I closed my eyes briefly. The chief turned to Daneeb. "You are head-woman?" "Yes, Kheder." She knelt beside me. "Forgive this transgression. The fault is mine." The chief, an older male with much experience on the ice, nodded. "I trust you to see God's work is

done." He tossed a pistol to her, which she caught neatly. "Now take your filth out of my eyes."

Enafa opened her mouth, foolishly trying to protest, but Daneeb jerked her to her feet and hauled her away from the skimmers. I kept pace with them, desperately trying to think of how to stop this. "She did not know, or think, Skrie.

Her first time in the fields—I did not anticipate that she would—I am the one to be punished, not—" "No more words, Skjæera." She gave me a furious look. "He had just cause to put us all to the ice." Daneeb ordered the others to gather at a clear spot beside the fuselage. Someone gave her two of the

jagged stakes we used to fix things in place, and then the headwoman threw Enafa down on the ice and

drove the stakes through the palms of her mitts. My apprentice screamed with pain as her blood spilled on the ice. "No! What did I do? Why do you do this?"

Galla came to watch. "You have offended the God of the living, and contaminated the ears of the faithful, newling." She smiled. "For that, you die." "Skjæera!" Enafa turned her face toward me. "Please! Stop them! I don't want to die!"

Daneeb came to me. "Your blade, Skjæera." I removed it from my hip and stared at it. The blade had been given to me for one reason. One for which I had not yet been made to use it. "I cannot."

I looked over my shoulder. The gjenvin had their crossbows loaded and pointed at us. If the chief gave the order to fire, every skela on the ice would be shot and killed. Which he would, if the transgressor was not punished.

I did not have to rudely count faces to know it was one life or twenty-six.

The chief gjenvin shouted something, and a crossbow twanged. Galla shrieked, clutching the bolt in her chest, and then fell over into the snow.

I could not walk to her under my own power. Tears froze on my cheeks as Daneeb guided me over to Enafa and made me straddle her body. The child stopped screaming and her eyes went wide as Daneeb seized my wrist and hoisted the blade over her chest.

"Jarn," Daneeb said against my ear, her voice low and urgent as she used the name I had not been called since my once-life. "You cannot save her, but you can save her suffering. Guide my hand."

It was not Daneeb's duty to do this. It was mine. Unlike the other skela, I was meant to do more than drag the dead from the wrecks of their ships and strip the faces from their skulls. I was special among the skela, for my knowledge of the living body, and for knowing precisely how to remove life from it as quickly and efficiently as possible.