Saint Elm's Deep (The Legend of Vanx Malic) (2 page)

I told her that her eyes
were bluer than the sea,
but then, after she kissed me
she said two coppers please.
-- Parydon Cobbles

Finding men willing to go after the notoriously treacherous shagmarian saber shrew proved a bit more difficult than manning a conventional elk or snow leaper hunt, but with the well-known tracker Endell helping, they were managing to piece together a crew.

The world outside of the ice wall was a frigid rolling plain of snow, dotted with copses and small forests of pine trees. In the heat of the summer, a short span of about a month, the upper layers melted away, leaving the trees looking like giant spears with only branches on their extreme upper portions. The rest of the year, save for the deep of winter, when even the treetops were buried, the woods seemed typical. Only these needle-strewn, pinecone-littered floors were full of loose drifts and snow covered holes that could swallow a party whole.

There were great ice falls and steep, rocky hills out there as well, places where a man might be stricken speechless by the wondrous hues of a thousand-foot- tall cliff of compressed glacier just before a huge slab of the majestic stuff broke off and crushed him. The worst was the open tundra - endless flats of white nothingness deceptively hiding the valleys and stream beds that are buried far below the surface.

That was the domain of the mammoth saber shrew. The rat-like creatures hollowed voids beneath the snowfields and tunneled through the depths of the compacted glacial ice with scoop-shaped claws and ice-crushing, saber-fanged jaws. They ate elk, grizzlies, and even the occasional frost-wing that nested too low on the cliffs. Anything that trod across the tundra was its prey. A party could be walking just yards over a saber shrew burrow and never even know it. Entire caravans had fallen into a tunnel or had been attacked from underneath with no warning. Over the years, hundreds had met their end.

Getting men willing to risk their lives in the open tundra was hard. Quite a few came to the Iceberg Inn’s common room to speak to Vanx and Endell about employment, but as soon as they heard the party would not be traveling on the magically protected caravan routes, they blanched. When they heard what the party was truly after, most simply thanked Vanx for the offer and walked away. A few exceptionally brave, or maybe desperate, souls decided to sign on. After all, a share of the saber shrew carcass was comparable to a few years’ worth of wages.

Chelda Flar, a big-boned huntress, had thrown in with them. She was gruff but likable. She had the typical ice-blue eyes and snowy blonde hair of the native Bitterland giant folk. She and her kind weren’t truly giants, Vanx had long since decided. They were a big people, but not nearly as big as the real giant Vanx had seen hiding in the granite crags off of the Highlake Mountain Road. That creature, had it stood erect, would have easily been sixteen or seventeen feet tall. Chelda was only a few fingers over six feet, which put her roughly eye to eye with Vanx when they stood. Vanx was pleased that she hadn’t, as of yet, shown the normal female reaction to his appearance. So far, she’d been all business.

The reason Chelda’s people were referred to as giants, Vanx surmised, was because the other sort of human folk that called the Bitterlands home were smaller with almond-colored skin, dark hair, and usually dark brown or coal-black eyes. The Skmoes were hearty little folk who claimed to have dwelt in this frigid place since the dawning of time. They said the giants were not welcome, but they tolerated them. They said Chelda’s people had migrated from across the glacial mountains only a few thousand years ago. To Vanx, that made them both natives to the land. If a people lived somewhere for a thousand years, they were native.

Beyond Orendyn’s ice wall, both races had villages, clans, territories, customs and religions. It amazed Vanx that there had never been a war between them. It also irritated him, because the big, pale folk and the darker, smaller people were both suspicious of and spiteful toward the full-blooded Zythians who sometimes came to port. If they knew his true heritage, they would no doubt feel the same about him.

“The reason we’ve never fought the Skmoes,” Chelda was telling him, “is because it’s such a hard life out there trying to stay warm and fed, while fending off nature, that the idea of creating more ways to die never has time to manifest itself. I think that the people who squabble over coins, boundary lines, and gods have far too much time on their hands and too little to worry about otherwise.”

“Yup,” Vanx agreed. He gestured for her to hold her next words and waved over a pair of Skmoes who were standing in the doorway of the inn, looking around as if they were searching for someone they were unsure of. Endell was out gathering supplies and securing haulkatten sleds. Vanx thought he might have sent these two over.

“Please, continue what you were saying,” Vanx said.

“After you talk to them.” She started to back away from the table.

“No, stay, please.” Vanx smiled. “You are in this now as much as the rest of us. I want your take on them.”

“They’re brothers,” she said quickly, before they were close. “I heard they are good out in the tundra but a little off in the head.”

“You know them?” Vanx asked as he stood to make the customary Skmoe greeting of a head bow.

“I know of them,” Chelda mouthed before making her own head bow from the less respectful seated position.

They looked exactly alike, and like unruly children no less. They had short-cropped, yet shaggy, black hair and wide, solemn faces. They stood a handspan over four feet tall, which put the tops of their heads at Vanx’s chest. Even with his keen Zythian senses, he couldn’t tell them apart.

They were dressed the same, too. Thick gray-striped-on-black sea tiger fur coats and elk-hide britches. The coats were worth a sizable bit of coin. Vanx could tell by the way they wore them that they hadn’t bought them, but had killed the sea tigers themselves. Out among the native peoples, it was a sign of great skill and bravery. Here in the city, it was a sign of great wealth.

The only difference Vanx could determine now was that one of them had his left pant leg caught in his boot cuff.

Seeing Vanx notice this, the man with his pant leg fouled gave Vanx a deadpanned look. “It’s like that so we can tell ourselves apart.”

Chelda snorted out a laugh, and Vanx smiled, despite his attempt to remain staid. Both of the Skmoes managed to stay stone-faced, as if the comment were a completely serious remark.

The one who hadn’t spoken yet took a seat, and his brother followed. The one with the fouled pant leg called for the barmaid.

Vanx waited patiently as a woman he didn’t know by name brought over a fresh round for all four of them.

“It is so kind of you,” the woman said to Vanx, nearly drifting away into his gaze when she caught it. “Salma is beside herself. I’m certain she will look splendid when your tailor is done with her gown.”

Vanx smiled and nodded politely. After Darbon formally asked Salma to the spring dance, Vanx sent them both to the tailor to be fitted with proper attire. He wanted them to look and feel like royalty. He wanted Darbon to lose himself in the evening. Salma too, for that matter, but at the moment he wanted the barmaid to go away so he could talk to these odd twins.

Chelda must have noticed, for she slapped the woman on the arse sharply and sent her for some fresh bread. This caused Pant-leg to grin mischievously. After the barmaid had gone, the other Skmoe finally spoke.

“You’re going for saber shrew, no?”

“We are,” Vanx answered.

“We are going with you. I am Inda, and this…” he backhanded his brother’s chest smartly, drawing his attention back from Chelda, “…is Anda. We want enough of the pelt to make dungaloons and some meat for our clan. No gold.”

“I like them,” said Chelda immediately. “That means more gold for me.”

“Not necessarily,” Vanx told her. “If they… What are dungaloons?”

“Britches,” she said.

“If they take the fur to make the britches, won’t it detract from the value of the carcass? Darbon and I are planning on having long coats made from it.”

“Not like you think; the fangs and claws are the real value.”

“One claw each,” Anda said with a stiff return smack across his brother’s chest.

“Yes,” Inda agreed. “Fur for dungaloons, the meat we can carry, and one claw each. No gold.”

“If we are piecing the thing out, I want the saber fangs,” Chelda said. “That leaves fourteen claws and over half of the hide. Not to mention the majority of the meat. You’ll be able to pay fifty more hunters out of that, with coin to spare.”

“Do you know any others who want to go with us?” Vanx asked the Skmoes. He’d asked Chelda the same question, but she hadn’t bothered to answer.

The twins looked at each other stupidly then nodded, as if one were a reflection of the other.

Inda answered. “We know Skog. A good grizzly sticker. He’s brave but stupid. He likes gold and stout.”

A skog, Vanx knew, was a person of mixed blood, part giant, part Skmoe. They tended to take the physical influence of both blood lines and were mostly city dwellers or caravan workers. The tribes and clans outside the ice wall were only tolerant to a point. Skogs were not accepted.

“What’s his name?”

“Skog,” Inda said simply.

Vanx waited a long moment, hoping that one of the two would elaborate. Neither of them did.

“Will Skog be ready to set out the morning after the spring dance?”

“He’ll be drunk, but he’ll be ready.”

Vanx nodded that he agreed with their terms. “Make a list of the supplies you’ll need, and meet us here for supper tomorrow. We’ll go over the lists and look at the maps with Endell, Chelda, and Darbon all together.”

“Bring Skog tomorrow?” Inda asked.

“Why not?” Vanx chuckled at the strange twin’s continual seriousness.

Just then, Poops came trotting out from the kitchen with a fresh elk bone that was half as big as he was. One end of it dragged as he came. He dropped the bone beside Vanx and nuzzled his muzzle in Vanx’s hand for a moment before lying down and returning to his prize.

Anda was leaning out from his seat, looking under the table. “Dog looks healthy,” he said. “Get ’em fat and they make a better stew.”

Vanx looked at him sharply then. No one was making a stew out of Poops. A long heartbeat passed, and everything was still and tense. Finally, Anda broke into a playful grin and backhanded his twin brother across the chest. Inda only grunted in response and downed his mug of ale.

“I told you they were off in the head,” Chelda said before downing her own mug.

Chapter Three

Don’t pass through the frigid gate,
there is nothing North to see.
Stick to the docks and mind your cocks,
or frozen you will be.
-- a sailors song