Hinterland g-2 Page 8

  The cubbies had come out of hiding, come to their mother, nosed her cooling form, smelled her blood and pain. Brant knew that pain. There was nothing he could do to lessen that ache-only end it swiftly.

  He slid an arrow from the quiver on his back. He warmed the frozen fletched feathers with his breath. He would make their ends swift. Better than to let them starve and freeze, locked in grief. He would finish what Sten and his man failed to do.

  Brant moved away from the other men’s trail for the first time, following a new one now. Scratches in the ice. He would find the pair together.

  Who else did they have?

  Brant rose from one knee. He had been fingering a broken and bent twig on a bramblebriar bush. A pluck of black downy fur clung to it.

  Frowning, he straightened. The hunt had stretched longer than he would have expected. He was deep in the wood by now. The whelpings were still on the move. Had they heard him, scented him? Fell wolves were known for their cunning, but the pair of cubbies were still suckling. Surely they were not so wise to this strange forest, separated from their own dark mountainous haunts of Mistdale far to the north.

  Brant felt the pressure of time. Blind to the skies in the fog-shrouded forest, he had no way of judging the coming storm. But his nose sensed the snow in the air. He would not reach Oldenbrook before it fell.

  Still, he continued. Turning back was not a choice. If the Way led into the teeth of the storm, so be it.

  Clearing the patch of bramblebriar, he noted a dart of shadow ahead, a flicker from the corner of his eye. He froze in place, not even turning his head. He stretched his senses. From the edge of sight, he saw a flash, close to the ground, a pair of eyes.

  One pair.

  Where was the other?

  From the clouded skies, large flakes of snow shed downward. It started as if it had been snowing all along. First nothing. Then all around, the flakes fell heavily, silently. It was as if the ice fog had simply crystallized and begun to collapse around him.

  Flakes landed on his lashes, on the edges of his ears.

  Too cold.

  Rather than melting, they froze the flesh they touched.

  Before Brant could react further, a small hare skitter-pattered right past his toes, fleeing to the left.

  Farther in the forest, the fog broke enough to reveal a large buck bounding in the same direction, head low to the ground. Behind him, Brant heard something even larger breaking through the brush in a panicked scrabble.

  Heading in the same direction.

  South.

  Soon Brant spotted more hares. A pair of fat badgers, driven from their dens, hurried by, all but scrambling over each other. Off in the distance, snow crunched and branches cracked, marking the passage of more and more fleeing animals.

  Brant finally moved, obeying the forest.

  What was amiss?

  The snow fell thicker, burning with its cold kiss. Unnaturally cold. He might have missed it if he hadn’t stopped, his senses on edge. He dragged up his hood, protecting his face. He moved with a steady but swift gait. He didn’t know what had routed the forest with such panic, but he knew better than to ignore it.

  His trot grew quicker, his heart suddenly pounding.

  A pair of flicker deer flew past him, parting to either side of him. Something large growled farther to his left. Grass bear. But the anger was not directed at him; it was a blind warning to whatever had set them aflight.

  Brant found himself hurrying, boots pounding through the iced snow, dredging through occasional deeper drifts. He used his shoulders and back to keep moving. The cold rolled over him-sinking into him, drawn in with every breath.

  Ahead, a hare, which had been spearing ahead of him in zigzagging bursts, suddenly collapsed on its side. It skidded into the snow, shook a breath, then lay still.

  Brant ignored his own thundering heart to stop at its side. He touched an ear, blue and frosted. He nudged the body with a gloved finger. It was stiff and solid. Frozen to the core.

  Impossible.

  Brant stumbled onward.

  Snow blinded now. But he found more bodies in agonized postures or simply dropped in their tracks.

  This was no natural cold. There was something behind him, cloaked in the storm, something of Dark Grace and deadly touch. He could almost smell the taint in the air-or maybe it was just the fear in the forest. Then again, maybe it was one and the same.

  Then he saw them, off to the right. Two pairs of eyes glowed from beneath a leafless thrushberry bush. The cubbies huddled together, lost, panicked.

  He would have to hurry. Each breath was now ice in the lungs. But he had come to honor the Way. Even what lurked in the storm would not stop him.

  He notched an arrow, drew a full pull, and aimed for the first cubbie. He clutched the second arrow between his lips. Eyes glowed back at him. He saw their trembling, a mix of fear and cold. It spread to his aim. He tightened his grip to steady himself.

  Still, his fingers refused to let go of the string.

  Snow burned his exposed wrist where his coat sleeve had pulled up.

  Cursing silently, he relaxed the tension and lowered his bow. With an exasperated sigh, he dropped the bow and spat out the arrow. His actions were foolish, a waste of precious breath, but the forest had seen enough death this day.

  Brant undid the top hooks of his coat and used his teeth to pull the gloves from his fingers.

  By now, the forest had gone silent again. All the animals had fled past him already.

  He reached to his pockets and found the she-wolf’s teats, now thawed enough to squeeze. He massaged a bit of milk over his fingers, smearing them. Satisfied, he pulled his hands free and approached the cubbies’ hiding place. He held his hands out and made a small growled whine.

  The whelpings backed from him, deeper into the bushes. They were dark-furred except for white-tipped ears, the better to hide in a den or shadowed nest. They would gain a winter’s snow white pelt only when full grown.

  Brant held still. He had only the time to try this once. If they bolted, he would have to chase them down with bow and arrow. While he would honor the Way, mercy went only so far.

  He waited for a full icy breath. Then noted one of the cubbies’ nose shift, tasting the air.

  “That’s right-” Brant whispered gently. “You know your mama.”

  A whine escaped the second, scared, testing.

  The first cubbie, the one who tested the air, reached toward his fingers, sniffing and growling. The second huddled against it. Brant’s fingertips were at the first one’s black nose.

  A fast nudge, and the braver cubbie licked its nose.

  “You know your mamma’s milk,” Brant whispered with a growling whine of his own. “There’s no one you trust more.”

  The pair trembled, caught between panic and hope.

  Brant reached farther, sliding his palms between their flattened ears, filling their noses with their mother’s scent. The first cubbie continued to growl. Brant dared wait no longer.

  He grabbed each cubbie by the nape of the neck and hauled them to him. They growled. The first swung around and bit him in the forearm, catching mostly coat but also a pinch of flesh. He pulled them to his chest. The cubbies struggled, but just as weakly as the first one’s bite. The pair was thin, half a stone each at best, exhausted to the edge of collapse.

  He tucked one pup into his half-open coat, then shoved in the second. Using one arm to sling under them, he rehooked his coat.

  The cubbies took solace in the darkness and were reassured by each other’s presence. They gave up their fight and settled together within the warmth of his coat.

  Brant straightened. The forest had emptied out. The world was snow and tasted of ice. The distraction of the cubbies had helped calm his heart, allowed his wits to settle. He was done running blindly like an animal. Whatever came from the north flowed south, driving the beasts ahead of it. There was another path. Rather than flee from whatever death was within the st
orm, he could step aside.

  So Brant set off to the west instead, toward Oldenbrook, moving fast, abandoning quiver and bow to the snow. With his breath frosting the air, he fought the snow, underfoot and from the skies. He moved with an unerring sense of direction, swiftly, crossing frozen creeks and hurtling deadfalls. He flew as straight as an arrow.

  As time froze around him, he fought only to keep moving, to put one boot in front of the other. His face went numb and senseless, vanishing away, stolen by the storm. He was only a walking, gasping lung. The cold now sliced with each ragged breath. He tasted blood on his tongue.

  Snow continued to fall. He lifted his head, cursing the skies.

  Flakes settled atop his upturned face-and melted.

  The icy water ran like tears down his cheeks. It took him another two breaths before he realized the significance. The snow fell just as thickly, but this was no cursed blizzard. It was simply ordinary snowfall.

  Relief surged through him.

  He had cleared the river of death flowing through the wood, reached its western bank. He stumbled on with a coarse laugh, sounding half-maddened to his own ears. In steps, the forest vanished around him, and the lake opened ahead of him.

  Free of the forest’s shelter at last, the winds blew stronger. Ducking against the onslaught, Brant headed out onto the ice fields. Ahead, Oldenbrook had been swallowed by the storm, but Brant trusted the tidal pull of his senses. He trudged onward.

  Still, his brush with whatever Dark Grace tainted the storm had weakened him more than he had suspected. He coughed into his glove and saw the blood. His eyes watered, freezing lashes together.

  He fought onward. Winds swirled and battered him, trying to drive him back into the forest. His legs trembled, and he could not stop his teeth from rattling in his skull.

  Must not surrender…

  Time slipped. He found himself suddenly standing in place. How long had he been frozen there? He stared ahead. The storm seemed lighter there. Was that the lamps of the city? Or was it merely the setting sun?

  He moved again.

  One boot…then another.

  Then he was on his knees. He never remembered slipping down.

  He craned up. Snow fell everywhere. The world was gone. Maybe it never existed. He coughed, wracking and loud, falling to one arm. Blood splattered the ice.

  Trembling all over, he pushed up. A glow in the storm wobbled ahead.

  He thought maybe he heard a noise that wasn’t the wind. He reached up and pulled down his hood.

  “…this way!”

  Brant blinked his frozen lashes.

  “Braaaant! Ock, Master Brant! Where are you?”

  Hope surged. He tried to answer, but another bout of coughing shook through him, taking him to his knees again.

  But someone heard him.

  “Over here, Dral!” a voice to the left called.

  Brant sank to the ice. Two dark figures appeared out of the storm. They held lamps aloft, swinging from raised pikes.

  The twin giants.

  Malthumalbaen and Dralmarfillneer.

  Brant closed his eyes with grateful relief. He sank around himself. Against his belly, two hearts beat. The Way had never been an easy path.

  But it was the right one.

  “Preposterous,” Liannora said under her breath. “Daemons in the snow…”

  The next morning, Brant sat in the High Wing’s common room, sipping a healer’s draught of bitter herbs and warming alchemies. Thick drabs of honey failed to mask the acrid tang, and the swirl of complex Graces made his vision swim. He was under orders to drink it with every ring of the day’s bell. It was his second draught since being released from the healer’s ward.

  His breathing remained pained, his voice hoarse, but the sputum no longer bled. Still, deep in his chest, he felt some sharpness if he inhaled too quickly, as if a few shards of ice still remained in his lungs. But the draughts slowly helped-as had a night buried under furs with bladders of heated water tucked against him. He felt almost himself again.

  He warmed his palms on the hot stone mug.

  By now, other Hands had gathered. By order of Lord Jessup. The god of Oldenbrook would be arriving shortly. All had heard Brant’s tale of some dread force cloaked in the heart of the past day’s storm. Doubt could be seen in their eyes and heard behind their whispers. Especially since the storm had blown itself out by morning, moving south and away, leaving in its wake a frigid cold and a world blanketed in windswept drifts of snow. The sky remained low and misted. Sunrise was more a pale effort at the start of a day, seemingly defeated before it had begun.

  But nothing worse was revealed.

  Just another winter’s day.

  Talk of Dark Graces that stole through the forest, cloaked in a freezing snow, killing with ice, was little believed in the light of day, as meager as that light might be.

  “How many winters have you spent up here?” Liannora persisted. She wore a resplendent morning dress of silver adorned with iridescent blue shells.

  “This is my first full winter here,” Brant said hoarsely. “But I spent another three in Chrismferry, even farther north than Oldenbrook.”

  Liannora scoffed, “Those are city winters, sheltered by towers, spent indoors, never more than a step or two from the nearest hearth. This is a wild winter. A true winter.”

  Brant stared at her, wondering how many winters it had been since Liannora had stepped more than ten paces from the closest hearth. Or mirror, for that matter. He could not picture her traipsing a winter forest. But he stayed silent. He did not have the patience or the breath to confront her.

  “Raised in the hot lands of the far south,” Liannora expounded, “you were simply ill-prepared for the savagery of our winters here. Imagining daemons behind every snowflake. I recommend you dress warmer next time. What were you doing out in that storm anyway?”

  A pair of fellow Hands chuckled: the wide-hipped Mistress Ryndia and the skeletally thin Master Khar, Hands of seed and sweat, respectively. They were ever at Liannora’s bidding.

  Brant felt heat rise inside him that had nothing to do with the healing draught.

  Across the table, an older man cleared his throat, stirring from his seat with a creak of wood and bones. His intrusion was welcome. Brant respected the elderly Hand, though he represented the least of the humours: black bile. Master Lothbren was near the end of his duty here, bent and aged by his years of handling a god’s Grace. As much as it was an honor to serve, there was a cost. A god’s Grace burnt its bearers, setting flame to the candles of their lives, flaring them brightly but consuming them just as quickly.

  The old man stared at Brant with eyes still sharp. “You rescued a pair of wolf cubbies, I heard,” he said.

  Brant nodded. He had left them with the giant brothers, who had promised to deliver them to the castillion’s kennels, to get them warmed and fed. Brant had left his coat with the cubbies, the better to let them feel secure, to accustom themselves to his scent. He was planning on visiting them once he was finished with Lord Jessup’s summoning, to see how they were faring.

  “For dogs!” Liannora spat with another roll of eyes. “He risks his life, his station for a couple of spitting curs. I daresay such an act smacks of disrespect toward Lord Jessup-to so wantonly jeopardize oneself when one is in service to a god.” She shook her head in disbelief and mild outrage.

  Brant had heard enough. “Those dogs,” he said through clenched teeth, “were whelpings of the she-wolf your most glorious Sten slaughtered with razor wire and cowardly spear, while full to the brim with ale. He knew she had cubbies on her teat, yet he left them to starve and freeze.”

  The shocked look on Liannora’s face almost made his outburst worth it. For too long he had bitten his tongue at her slights. No longer. Still, he saw her surprise fade into angry cunning, a flash of wickedness, a promise that this was far from over.

  She waved his words away with a flip of a hand, keeping her tone even, as if his angry ou
tburst were a rudeness beyond her. “I thought a skilled hunter like yourself would be well aware of life’s cruel necessity. Some die so others might live.”

  “Or so others might wear pretty coats…”

  She shrugged. “Strange words from someone who traipses out into our forests with bow and arrow. I don’t see you starving and needing to grace our board here with your scrawny hares and rabbits. I’d say you hunt more for pleasure than necessity. At least I’ll put my coat to good use.”

  Master Lothbren lifted a placating hand. “What are your plans for the cubbies, Master Brant?”

  He tempered his voice, breathing through his nose to calm himself. “Once they are well-weaned and fleshed, I hope to gain a boon from Lord Jessup to return them to Mistdale whence they came.”

  “So again you plan to forsake your duty here, to further slight our lord-”

  “Thank you, Liannora, but I believe I can withstand such an insult.”

  All eyes turned to find Lord Jessup at the door to the commons, dressed casually in loose leggings and a simple shirt of stitched sailcloth. He entered with a ghost of a smile, like a kindly father coming upon a squabbling set of his children. He settled to a seat at the head of the long table.

  A few words were exchanged, morning pleasantries; then Lord Jessup settled his gaze upon Brant. He noted the slight glow of warm Grace behind the god’s eyes.

  “How are you faring this morning?”

  “Fine, my lord. Much stronger.”

  “You look it,” Jessup said with a nod. “I daresay you arrived as pale as Liannora here when those giants carried you home. But your color is returning nicely.”

  “The healers know their craft.”

  “I shall certainly pass on my own gratitude.” Jessup leaned back into his seat. “Now, if you’re able, I’d like to hear more about what you saw out in that storm.”

  Brant nodded. “It wasn’t so much saw as felt.”

  Liannora opened her mouth, sitting straighter, ready to offer her thoughts, but Lord Jessup waved her down. She sank back into her chair.

  Brant slowly but firmly reported all he experienced: the unnatural cold, snow that burnt with ice, the panicked flight of the beasts of the field, their sudden and inexplicable deaths, frozen where they fell.