Travellers #2 (7 page)

“What can you smell?” Jak didn’t look at me but sniffed again, intent. The strait was packed with islands of ice and curtained by fog which for many days had protected us from the sun. A light breeze off the hidden mainland blew towards us. Jak faced in that direction, tasting the air. I asked again what he was smelling but was distracted by the shriek and scrape of conflicting ice sheets.

“Where does all the ice come from?” I wondered aloud and thought of the mountain that ate the sun. “Come on. Better get up to the hut.”

I used a long smooth stone and a hollow rock to grind the seeds we had gathered off a grass that grew thick on the flat. Mixed with the oats we had brought, the ground meal made a delicious bread. “Over the winter,” I told Taur, “we’ll fence off the top flat with tea-tree brush to keep out the goats. When spring comes, we’ll put in potatoes and oats down that side. And we’ll plant the rest in these grass seeds. That’s what Hagar’s stories said they used to do, and they got heavier crops with bigger heads than the wild grass. What do you think?”

“Awgh,” said Taur. Just the mention of Hagar’s name usually excited him, but he stood and stared east, as if he could see through the lookout knoll which hid the hut from the mainland.

I ground enough meal for several loaves. As I knelt in the heat and set the pots of dough in the embers, Taur called from our lookout. I chuckled and wiped the sweat from my face. Yesterday he’d trapped me into running up there, but I wasn’t going to get caught again. Then something in his voice made me step outside. Taur ran down the knoll, pointing to the beach.

“Garawgh, Urgsh! Glurf!”

I grinned and went back inside, covered the lids with embers, but Taur seized my arm, dragged me out. He had seen something strange.

“You’re not catching me again.”

“Gaw! Gaw!” He shook his head. I followed, and we ran down through the animals on the grassy flat, Jak and Jess bounding ahead.

“What’s the matter?”

Above the beach, Taur stopped and pointed at something: a cloud blowing towards us on the easterly. One of the floating islands, I thought, surrounded with light coming from behind a bank of fog. It neared the shore, looking more and more like a huge bird, and I remembered how Jak had sniffed the easterly wind. The strange thing blew closer. We ran along the beach to see better.

When I saw things moving on it, I realised it was neither floating island, cloud, nor bird. Something like our raft, but sailing much faster. The things on it people. We gaped as they pulled down the curved clouds of the sails, pushed out long poles, and paddled closer. They must be goblins, with eyes in the backs of their heads, paddling with their backs to the shore.

“Hide!”

“Urgsh?”

The craft grated on the beach, and dark-skinned men, Salt Men, uncouth and slow-moving in heavy cowhide armour, clambered over the side and lumbered ashore. Arrows clinked off the stones as we ran.

They might have caught us, but for the weight of their armour. We led them into the forest up the north end, shook them off, doubled back to the hut. The freshly-baked bread and baskets of smoked fish we stuffed into our packs, took our heavy cloaks, seized bows and spears, and climbed towards the south end, followed by Jak and Jess. Taur was so
slow I was annoyed and shouted at him to hurry.

From an open spot we looked down on the grassy flat and saw smoke. The Salt Men had butchered several of our animals and were cooking them. Taur held me still. I looked for Het and her pups, but thought they would follow our scent.

After dark we descended again through the trees. Before we reached it, I knew by the rank air they had burned the hut, our winter stores. Once more Taur warned me. He ran to a tree and drew our scythe out of the branches, patting it, pleased the Salt Men hadn’t found it.

Towards their bonfire on the beach we crawled. Halfway there the ground was wet and stank – blood, guts, skins of sheep. I cursed, and I cursed the Salt Men again when Taur found Het and her three full-grown pups speared. Tek and Trick had been killed defending them. Rage filled my head till I thought my skull would crack. Taur put his hand over my mouth.

Through wind-buffed tea-tree – I remember its sharp scent – we crawled and watched. The invaders had spitted the carcasses whole, roasted them over several grave-sized pits of embers. I was disgusted to find my mouth watering at the smell. The Salt Men sprawled between the pits, washed in the red glow, shouting boasts, cramming down gobbets of hot meat. In the warmth they had taken off their thick cowhide armour.

“Fire!” Our arrows whistled. Two men collapsed, mouths stuffed full. We fired again. Something toppled full-length into the embers, flared, and screamed. Before they could accustom their eyes to the dark we fired again and again, and were gone, Taur picking up the scythe on the way. I had not seen Squint-face among the Salt Men.

Over the next couple of days we ambushed several more, but another craft arrived from the mainland, and they were too many. They set sentries at night. Their armour was some protection against our arrows. On the third day they found our fort.

Silent, threatening, they stood out of bowshot, the other end of the causeway. That night Jak and Jess warned us with whimpers. There were screams as we thrust spears through the palisade. We rolled boulders off a platform so they bounded and crushed the fleeing figures.

Next day a figure we recognised set his men in a line cutting us off. They dared not approach along the causeway, nor climb near our fence; but we could not get out. After several days Squint-face ordered his men to eat and drink in sight of us. Our smoked fish had lasted well, the bread, and the pots of water we had kept renewed, but we had Jak and Jess to feed and water as well as ourselves. If the fog lifted and allowed the sun to rage through, we would be burned to death.

There was little room on top of the cliff. I was grateful Taur had insisted on building the shelter. And the rough latrine on the furthest cliff edge was useful, I admitted now. When he was putting it up, I laughed and asked what he thought he was doing.

Under dark, one night, I lowered Taur to a ledge halfway down the cliff. There he soaked his heavy woollen cloak in a pool that accumulated after rain. I helped him back, drew up the sodden cloak, and we all chewed and sucked on it.

“Taur!” a voice called. I knew it was Squint-face and nocked an arrow. “Taur, you can save yourself. Give back the green stone dolphin Ish stole.”

I felt the fish around my neck. “Dolphin?”

“As for you, Ish,” Squint-face called, “We will not kill you too quickly. Give back the green stone dolphin now, and we might finish you quicker.”

I scanned the dark hillside. “Taur!” The gloating voice again. “Get the green stone dolphin. Save yourself.”

Into a shadow halfway down the slope I fired. A shriek. Part of the shadow detached itself, rolled over the cliff.

“Ish must die!” Squint-face’s voice came again. “Save yourself, Taur!” I swore and did not give up scrutinising the slope
below until the dogs took over the watch.

Next night we tied all the ropes together, and I lowered Taur to the bottom of the cliff. He insisted on taking the scythe. At the bottom he twitched the rope. I pulled it up and lowered our packs. The dogs went down in harnesses. They understood the need for silence.

With a knot Hagar had shown me years before, I fixed the rope around the strongest post and clambered over the edge. Then I climbed back, took a piece of charcoal and – over the the bulge of a boulder – sketched a dolphin diving. One continous stroke, its lovely arc like a rainbow. The last thing I did was to set the gate in the palisade ajar.

Over the cliff again. At the bottom I jerked on the other end I had left hanging. That pulled undone the knot at the top. Its double length tumbled out of the dark, felling me.

Taur guffawed so I had to put my hand over his mouth, though the waves covered any noise. We ate raw mussels, drank water from a rock pool, and crawled under an overhang before daybreak.

The following night, the island shook. Then we heard cries and yells above. It must be only a matter of time before Squint-face worked out how we had escaped.

First light showed us a floating island of ice had rammed the western side, riding up the cliffs, spinning logs aside, crushing boulders to dust. As we looked, one of the craft of the Salt Men came paddling around the south end of Marn Island.

We struggled down over logs, through jumbled boulders and ice. Cries from the cliff-top. A spear clattered between us. Taur seized it as Jak and Jess scrambled on to the ice island. I noticed the dogs’ coats were longer than usual, supposed they had grown that way because of the cold, and wondered how, even at a time of danger, my mind would run off after something so unimportant.

We helped each other through a belt of buckled ice ridges. Taur was slow. I looked back once and saw the Salt
Men had landed. Impeded by their weapons and clumsy armour, they were having trouble climbing over the furrows of rent and smashed ice.

“We should throw some of this stuff away. Leave that scythe behind. It’s no use.”

“Gaw!”

We crossed a level terrace and were blocked by an ice cliff twice Taur’s height. I looked back and saw the Salt Men lurching cumbersome, gaining. Taur gave me a leg up to where I could grab a ledge. I paused, swung out, and he thrust my feet up so I shot to the top, snatched, and pulled myself over. Taur threw a rope on which I pulled up my pack, and the two dogs, and all the time the Salt Men shuffled clumsy towards us. Ugly cries clear on the cold air.

I drove my spear into a crack, tied the rope, dropped its end. Leaned to take the weight of Taur’s weight but felt nothing. Looked over the ice cliff. Taur was charging back across the terrace towards the Salt Men. I shouted, but he leapt down between the broken slabs. “Taur! Taur!” He stopped, saluted me with the scythe, pulled something over his head. Tall he towered, and I saw he was wearing his bull mask. He raised something to its mouth. The horn-trumpet! Weird on the icy air its bellow brayed.

By now the first of the Salt Men were near him. I screamed, scrambled down the rope, an arrow ready even as I landed. But they were out of bowshot, would reach Taur long before I could get in range. I whistled, and Jak roared and leapt down the face of the cliff, springing out before he reached the bottom, taking the force from his drop. Jess followed, bounding past me, leaping an upthrust, a buckling line in the ice that cracked beneath them.

A grinding rumble. An explosion ripped the air like rotten cloth. The ice gaped before my feet, too wide to jump. I ran to where the crack was still narrow but widening. Cleared it just in time.

A Salt Man ran at Taur. Another came at him from behind. I shot the second man, missed the first, and Taur skewered him screaming on his scythe.

Taur carved out a circle from his attackers, lopping them like swathes of grass. The cold air carried the scythe’s dreadful whistle and grind. Heads rolled, limbs slid. Blood gouted red on white ice. Spears whistled from the Salt Men running up. Taur dodged them as there came another boom and another. Then I was beside him. Off a sheared arm I tore a heavy cowhide shield, threw it to Taur, took another for myself.

Taur ignored the shield, lopped another head and threw down the scythe. He drew the axe from his belt and charged bellowing at the Salt Men, horned head swinging. As he hewed off an arm and its shoulder, the other Salt Men recoiled. Shrieked. Turned. Taur roared after them, splitting heads. He tumbled over a block of ice, unable to see it for his mask. By the time I pulled him up, the Salt Men were out of range, throwing away weapons, undoing armour buckles and belts.

Taur swung the huge horn up on its cord where it hung over his shoulder and blew such a blast the Salt Men screamed and ran even faster, pursued by leaping, savaging, blood-covered red demons, Jak and Jess.

Like a reflection of the trumpet’s blast, the ice cracked again. Beneath us it trembled. Black water ran up to our feet and receded, slewing a crimson slop across the ice.

“Gurgh, Urgsh!” Taur leaned on his bloody axe.

A thunderous crack ached in my ears. Air shoved as if a huge soft animal leaned against me. A shudder threw us off our feet. We scrambled up. Where the Salt Men had been was only black water. Loaded with heavy cowhide armour, they were engulfed.

Two heads broke the water. Jak and Jess swimming, eyes fixed on me. I threw myself down, seized the loose skin of their necks, and swung them up. They shook themselves, leapt barking at Taur. Far across the distant ice sheet towards
Marn Island, a few tiny figures limped and ran, waving arms in terror.

Our own sheet of ice jammed together again, lurched soundless into the fog, leaving Marn Island behind. I helped Taur pull off the Bull Mask, stared at him sluiced in the Salt Men’s blood. And Taur bellowed and laughed until I was afraid and embraced his bloody torso, quietening him. He shivered, laughed, and began to cry. From somewhere far away, he seemed to be coming back into his huge body.

The scythe had vanished through the ice, but we had Taur’s axe, our spears and bows. I gathered all the arrows I could see and led Taur across the terrace to the ice cliff where, somehow, I managed to get him up. He was like a great baby, lolling arms and legs, head swaying to and fro.

I rolled him in his heavy cloak, put on my own. It was only then I began to feel the stinging fire in my feet. Desperate to warm them, I thrust Taur’s feet and my own inside the bull mask, and we lay on our packs. The ice about us smudged red. Blood crusted and darkened the bull mask, but my feet tingled warm as Jak and Jess arrived, having found their own way up the cliff, and lay beside us.

We must have slept with exhaustion. I dreamt Squint-face lay under the black water, the armoured Salt Men at his feet. I tried to wake from the dream, remembered Old Hagar chanting a story about somebody lying on the bottom of the ocean, with his lords at his feet. The words, the nightmarish picture submerged themselves, and I woke wondering who lay beside me.