Snow-Walker Read online

  He turned to face her quickly.

  “No!” she yelled, but Vidar’s knife was out.

  It slashed down into the Jarl’s back, swiftly, silently.

  Twenty

  To elude death is not easy.

  Wulfgar crumpled into the wet moss; Vidar whirled around in fury.

  “Get her!” he roared.

  But he found Jessa was already racing toward him, her face twisted with wrath; she hurled herself into him, catching him off balance so that he crashed into the mud.

  She turned, crouched. “Wulfgar! Quick!”

  Blood seeped through his coat and over her hands.

  Then Vidar had grabbed her heel and thin wiry arms snatched her from behind, pinning her elbows back as she kicked and screamed and squirmed. It was useless. The thief held her tight, his wheezing laughter warm against her ear.

  Slowly Vidar picked himself up.

  She stood still now, breathing hard. She watched him wipe lichen from his scarred face and thin beard, all the time keeping his cold gray eyes on her.

  “Traitor!” she said.

  He shook his head. “Not so. Wulfgar was that. He was a friend of the sorcerers. Like you are.”

  She glanced down quickly. Her heart thudded as she saw Wulfgar was still breathing.

  “Not for long,” Vidar said sadly. “The creature will finish him.”

  “Creature?”

  “That’s what I’ll tell them. That’s what they’ll all believe. And I’m afraid that you too will have been its victim. A few knife slashes will look very convincing. I’m sorry this had to be, Jessa, but you can see I can’t have any witnesses.”

  He nodded. Behind her, just for a moment, a hand slackened. In a whirl of panic she tore her arms free and ran, splashing through the bog, dragging the knife from her belt. She raced around the mere, hurtling over tussocks of grass, leaping branches, dodging around rocks, and behind her the thief crashed in pursuit, in the pounding of her breath, the thud of her heart.

  She reached the trees and fled in among them, with one glance back. He was close; he ran lithe and low, the long blade gleaming in his hand. She ducked branches, leaves that slapped her face and arms; her coat snagged and she tore it desperately away, hot with fear. Down a slope, around a pile of rocks, and she crumpled there, swallowing breath, the wood swinging crazily around her.

  Gasping in air, she flipped over onto her stomach and peered back through the tangle of bracken.

  He was coming, slowly now.

  “Come on, lady,” he said. “This just makes things harder.”

  Silent, her face set, she let him come. Anger was cold in her, a terrible icy fury that she gripped tight, like the corded hilts in her hands. Let him come. She owed him this.

  He edged against the rock, tensed, his small eyes darting. She clenched her teeth; she felt wild and reckless and tingling with a bitter power. She hated him, and Vidar, especially Vidar!

  He came to the rock and paused. For a moment he looked the other way.

  She was out in an instant, the knife slashing down at him, so that he gave a yell of pain and fury and struck back at her, the blade slicing the air with a swift whistle of sound. As she turned he caught her sleeve; with a scream of pure anger she tore the coat right off and raced into the trees.

  A stream ran down the fell, a small, noisy torrent. She leaped up from rock to rock, reckless, over the fierce falls of peat brown water, the smooth white creamy foam gathering in pools. Up and up, the roar and crash of the falls filling her ears, and the thief climbed after her, swearing and cursing.

  Near the top, under low trees, she climbed deftly up into the branches.

  Now keep still. Keep still.

  She held herself light, among the larch leaves. He was moving somewhere below; she could hear him. How long would he search? Or would he give up, go back and tell Vidar she was dead? Maybe that, she thought scornfully. A thief was usually a liar as well.

  He was slower, clumsier. She’d hurt him.

  She glanced at the blade; it was clean. But he’d yelled.

  Slowly the rustles of his movements grew distant. Jessa took deeper breaths. For long minutes she waited; minutes that lengthened to an infinite, unguessable time of quiet breathing, listening, watching. Rustles and breezes moved in the clustered trees; the water below roared and churned over the rocks. Noises of the forest closed slowly about her, the breeze through the topmost branches, the birdsong.

  It was the birds that convinced her he was gone.

  After a while she knew she had to take the chance. He might be near, he might be lurking, but she had to get back to Wulfgar. She had to tell the others about Vidar. The thought of him made her drive her nails into the soft trunk.

  Cautiously she slid down the branches, her hands rasping the crumbling bark. Then she waited. No sign of him.

  She pushed through to the stream and began to clamber down it again. One foot slid into the water with a splash; she stopped and glanced around quickly.

  Still nothing. And yet, if he had any sense, this was where he’d wait. Anxious now, she climbed down the stream, lowering herself carefully, forced to put away weapons and use both hands. Water foamed and roared about her; she slipped again, soaked with spray.

  At the bottom of the slope she looked around. Trees stood in all directions—which way had she come? Silence hung behind the race of the water. She could shout, but only the wretch with the knife would hear her. Or had he really gone? With a sudden shiver of alarm she remembered her coat. He had it! Vidar’s words echoed in her head. A few knife slashes. Very convincing.

  Now she was really afraid—a chill of terror she hadn’t had time to feel before. She plunged into the wood, heading along the overgrown bank of the stream. It had to run into the mere.

  It took her a long, anxious time to find the hollow; as she scrambled eagerly down to it her feet sank into the deep wet mosses.

  It was empty.

  Cold, uneasy, she ran over to where Wulfgar had fallen. The flattened mosses were still springing back into place. Two dark clots stained their fronds.

  She turned, crouched, looked at the trampled ground. Men had been here, lots of them.

  She forced herself to think.

  Skapti and the others had come. They must have heard her scream. But had Wulfgar still been alive? And what did they think had happened to her, that they didn’t even search?

  She stared out at the rippling brown water.

  That wretched coat!

  Then suddenly she smiled, a hard smile. Wulfgar must be alive. The urgency had been to get him back to the hold. But with Vidar to look after him, how long before … there were lots of ways he could finish it. Poison. The pillow over the face. And the others didn’t even know!

  She leaped up and ran through the forest, pushing her way back the route she and Wulfgar had come, scrambling up the sliding scree, leaping through the trees without thought.

  At the edge the fell was empty, the horses gone. And far, far away, tiny blurs among the trees of the valley, she saw them galloping. “Skapti!” she screamed. “Skapti!”

  But they were too far to hear her.

  Sinking down, she let the weariness and the fear and shock of it all flood over her; a cold trembling and sobbing that burst out despite herself. Clenching her fists, she fought for control. She was alone here. Wulfgar would die and no one would know Vidar had killed him.

  But after a few minutes she raised her head, dragging a breath of sudden despair into her lungs.

  She had remembered. She wasn’t alone.

  The creature was out here too.

  Twenty-One

  With such biting words of rebuke and

  reminder he taunts him at every turn.

  The hunters arrived back just before dusk.

  Hakon, sitting on the fjordshore listlessly tossing in stones, heard the ring of hooves and scrambled up quickly. By the time he reached the hall, men and dogs and horses were everywhere, the air full o
f voices and angry words.

  Grabbing someone’s elbow, he asked, “Did you get it? The creature?”

  The man shrugged him off. “It got us. Wulfgar’s hurt badly. The girl’s dead.”

  “Jessa?”

  Astonished, he let the man push away, staring at him without seeing. He couldn’t believe it. He thought of how he’d spoken to her right here, only this morning, in her soft leather coat, her hair braided. Jessa? And he hadn’t been able to warn her. The fear of it struck him to silence.

  Everyone was hurrying into the hall. He went with them, passive, hustled by holders, women, fishermen.

  Inside they gathered in a hushed, anxious throng. Hakon was crushed at the back against the tapestried wall. He leaned back against it, feeling lost. Vidar came in, a crowd of men about him. Skuli was one of them. Everyone fell silent.

  “Friends.” The priest’s voice was low and bitter; his face gray. “There’s bad news—bad for this hold and for the whole of the north. You may have heard that Wulfgar is badly hurt. The beast struck him from behind, we think. He’s lost much blood. He’s unconscious and may not recover.”

  A ripple of talk ran down the hall. Vidar watched, the scar on his cheek dragging the pale skin.

  “What happened?” someone yelled.

  “Sorcery.” He said it deliberately into the silence.

  After a moment he went on. “Wulfgar and Jessa Horolfsdaughter were at the end of the line. Only a few paces into the forest we realized that they were gone. Some rune craft, some filthy sorcery enticed them into the dark. We searched, all of us.” He paused, rubbing the back of one hand down his stubbly beard. “I and one of my men found them in a hollow by a mere, a place of stinking lichens and soft, boggy ground. The Jarl lay still—slashed by its claws. Then we saw it.” He stared in silent horror at the floor, as if he didn’t want to go on.

  The crowd kept silent, waiting.

  “It was crouched over the remains of the girl—a great, pale thing, a beast of ice, its eyes burning like demons’, a rune terror brought down on us by witchcraft and spells. Not a bear, no. I struck at it in my fury, but the sword passed through, as if through mist. It carried the girl off. Only this was left.”

  And he held up the coat. It was slashed apart, bloodied, almost unrecognizable. But Hakon knew it, and he shook his head bleakly. All over the hall, fingers felt for amulets and thorshammers.

  Vidar shook the rag fiercely. “Look at it! All that’s left of her! Already it’s killed three of our people, and maybe the Jarl too. And friends, tell me, where can this curse have come from if not from the Snow-walkers?”

  A roar of approval erupted. Fists were thumped on tables; near Hakon a woman screamed words of hate, lost in the uproar; men shouted, dogs barked frantically. Alarmed, he glanced around. There was no sign of Brochael or Kari, but he didn’t care about them. Skapti was missing, probably with them. Skapti had been kind to him, he realized dismally; Skapti and Jessa. He began to shove his way to the back of the hall, filled with a sudden, cold foreboding.

  “And why look to Gudrun for this?” Vidar shouted, his voice clear and harsh. “She’s gone, long gone. But she was no fool—we all know that! She left us her son. And what weird coincidence brought him here the night of Freyr’s warning, if it wasn’t that the god was warning us of him. Of Kari!” He had to shout now, above the noise. “Kari brought this creature! Why else wouldn’t he go to hunt it when Wulfgar needed him? Will we let him enslave us and torment us, like his mother did?”

  The walls rang with shouting, a storm of anger, but not everyone was convinced. One, a tall man named Mord, leaped onto a bench and yelled, “Wait! Listen to me! Listen! Kari Ragnarsson helped save this hold, this whole realm, from her sorcery! We can’t forget that! There’s no proof he’s responsible for these deaths. And above all Wulfgar trusts him.”

  “He does not.”

  Vidar said it quietly, and the shock of it brought stillness.

  He spoke ominously now. “Only yesterday he told me this. He feared that Kari had only come back here to claim his father’s rights, and his mother’s place. To rule us all. To weave a web of sorcery around us, as she did, moving our hearts, our souls, making our minds do what he wants, think what he wants.”

  Hakon had reached the stairs. No one was guarding them. He raced up, hearing the noise gather again below.

  There were doors, many of them, all closed. Wulfgar’s men clustered outside one anxiously.

  “Where’s Skapti?” he snapped.

  “In there.”

  He pushed through the ring and flung the door open.

  Wulfgar lay on a bed heavy with woven coverings. He was pale, and seemed hardly to be breathing. Kari was bent over him, his long fingers touching the Jarl’s forehead.

  “Leave him alone,” Hakon snarled.

  “What do you want?” Skapti came forward and grabbed his elbow roughly. The skald looked bone weary; his eyes were hard, unremembering.

  Hakon said, “Are you in it with them?”

  “In what?”

  “I wanted to warn you—you were … you and Jessa…” He turned nervously. “Get out, Skapti. Now. Vidar will be here.”

  But already the noise was loud on the stairs.

  The big, tawny man, Brochael, had an ax in his hands. He caught Kari by the shoulder, pulling him back.

  Skapti turned angrily. “What’s going on?”

  Then Vidar was in the room, backed by a crowd, among them a small rat-faced man at the back.

  “We want you, Kari,” Vidar said quietly. “No one else.”

  Brochael raised the blade. “I’ll kill any man who touches him,” he said evenly.

  Vidar nodded. “What about you?” He turned to Skapti. “You’re Wulfgar’s benchmate. Where do you stand in all this?”

  Skapti stared at him grimly, as if he had begun to understand. “With Wulfgar. All of us do.”

  “Not all.” Vidar came forward. “Keep away from the Jarl,” he said fiercely to Kari. “Haven’t you done enough? And why kill Jessa? Why?”

  Kari looked up, his eyes bright. “Jessa is alive.”

  “Liar! I saw it happen!”

  Unmoving, Kari watched them. His eyes had no color; he looked at them each in turn and they quailed, remembering always Gudrun and her power, the cold draining of your mind as you stood before her. Then he shook his straight silvery hair. “Jessa’s alive. I know that. And this creature is not my sending. It has nothing to do with me.”

  Vidar came up to him slowly, ignoring Brochael’s threat until the ax lifted.

  “We can’t take the chance. We have to protect the Jarl from you.”

  “No,” Skapti said unhappily.

  “Yes.”

  Vidar reached out quickly, grabbed Kari’s wrist. Brochael moved, but almost at once Vidar fell with a sudden cry to the wooden floor, curling, rolling in agony.

  “Stop!” he screamed. “He’s killing me! Stop him!”

  Kari stared at him, almost in astonishment; then the men surged forward, overpowering Brochael with difficulty, two of them staggering back, the rest leaping onto him and Kari, striking with fists and hilts until Skapti pulled them off, yelling in his loudest hall voice.

  On the floor Kari slowly uncurled. The skald crouched. “Leave him! This is Wulfgar’s hold and under his law! He’s not dead yet!”

  Some of the men helped Vidar up. Ashen and shaking, he straightened out of their arms. For a moment he seemed unable to speak. Then he said, “Take them both below. Chain them.”

  Skapti stood up. “Not that.”

  “We must! Don’t you see, the boy has power. He attacked me with it. He must be held secure or he could do anything.”

  Brochael struggled furiously in the grip of two men. “Lying fool,” he muttered. “Skapti, for Thorssake…”

  The skald bent and picked Kari up gently. “I’ll carry him myself, Brochael. No one else will touch him. And I swear no one will harm either of you. Not until Wulfgar speaks o
n this.”

  “And if he dies?” Brochael snapped.

  “There’ll be a new Jarl,” Vidar said. He turned to the door, and only Hakon glimpsed his small, hard smile.

  Twenty-Two

  The dark death-shadow

  drove always against them.

  The smell of blood was in the forest.

  Raising its dripping mouth from the pool the spellspun creature sensed it, the edges of its nostrils widening.

  Blood. And more.

  Men, horses, dogs. And more.

  Anger.

  The creature let the complex wash of fear and wrath into its mind. Excited, it roared and thrashed, tearing the branches from a young spruce, crushing the pungent leaves in one clenched fist.

  Then it tossed them down and followed the scent. In these last days it had moved always upright, rarely crouching as at first. It walked, an eerie glimmer in the murk, and the birds fled before it. Pushing between branches it came to its high vantage point and looked down. About it the forest breathed and murmured in the breezy afternoon, the cold wind strengthening ominously. Gray heavy cloud gathered in the west. The thing sniffed, recognizing the signs of rain.

  And there it was, something else, something faint on the wind, a new scent. Human. Not too far away.

  Find it, the voice instructed firmly.

  Stalking forward, the sending moved downhill. Its head was high now, tall among the trees. Clouds of whining gnats tormented it, so that it snarled and beat them off. Among the clefts and broken hillsides of the steep wood, it slid back to all fours awkwardly, snapping boughs with its weight, dragging out a shallow-rooted sapling in a shower of soil as it steadied itself. Far into the trees the noise rang, a cracking, splintering progress.

  And then the rain came, silent at first, then a steady hard beat of drops pattering among branches, rolling from leaves and stalks. The wood dropped into a blurred, trickling place; the pelt of the rune beast clotted, became sodden, water dripping into its small eyes. Oblivious, it strode out of the trees onto the lakeside. Then it stopped.

  Scents drifted, faint in the wet air. Rain fell on the water, dimpling the surface with millions of dancing ripples, appearing and disappearing so that the creature gazed, half-entranced, until the voice snapped at it and the sudden, sharp hunger made it turn away.