Iron Winter

17

It was Mago who spotted the first cracked pane in the roof.

By now it was the dead of night. Nelo had been working flat out, like everybody else, since he’d first come here to the Hall of Annids, and he had no precise idea of the time. Doctor Ontin had got his emergency hospital running pretty quickly. Mago and Nelo had been used as spare muscle in Ontin’s scheme to sort out the continuing trickle of injured and ill as they kept arriving through the night. Ontin himself, with other surgeons and nurses, was working hard on the more serious injuries, the broken limbs and crushing wounds, the frostbite, the cases of exhaustion, even a couple of heart attacks.

Things had got steadily worse. The heating had been off for hours, and the running hot water. Then even the cold water supply had failed, then the gas supply that fed the lanterns. Ontin, bossy, exasperated, had coped with all this as it had unfolded, barking out commands to anybody who would listen, including Ywa Annid of Annids, who made sure that what he wanted got done. Soon the Hall was studded with candles, and open fires blazed in antique hearths unused for a century. Clogged chimneys trapped smoke and the ash, and there wasn’t much to burn save smashed-up furniture — it was very expensive firewood — but the fires gave out enough heat to keep them all from freezing altogether.

But all through the night Nelo and Mago, remembering their adventure with the awning, had kept an eye on that roof, a great glass lid over them all, that had been covered with snow thick enough to block out the daylight even before the sun had set. In the dark it was easy to forget about, you couldn’t even see it in the flickering light of the candles. Nelo had tried a couple of times to warn Ywa about the problem, but she hadn’t really listened, and he understood; you couldn’t deal with everything at once. But the two of them had kept watching, and listening.

It was Mago who heard the first pane crack, even over the noise of the hospital, the cries of the injured, the squalls of babies, the general susurrus of conversation. He grabbed Nelo’s arm, almost making the Northlander drop the bundle of blankets he’d been carrying. ‘Look,’ he snapped in Greek. ‘Up there. . near the centre. .’

The roof was barely visible in the candlelight. But Nelo, squinting, made out the latticework of iron strips that held the panes in place, and the panes themselves grey with snow. And there, yes, in the centre, he saw a spiderweb of cracks.

‘I don’t know what’s holding it up,’ Mago said. ‘If one pane fails-’

‘The rest will follow.’

‘It’s just like that accursed awning again.’ He shook Nelo’s shoulder. ‘Come on, Northlander. These are your people. Make them listen!’

And then another pane cracked, more loudly. All around them people looked up.

Nelo dropped his blankets and ran to Ywa. His urgency finally got through. She barked out commands, and with impressive speed the evacuation of the makeshift hospital began. All the doors were flung open, including the big ceremonial entrance through which the Annids would process into the room for the Water Council meetings and other great occasions of state. Soon folk were streaming out into the corridors outside, tunnels dug through the ancient growstone of the Wall.

Then that first pane collapsed. A column of snow fell vertically, with a tinkle of glass from the window fragments that came with it. Around the Hall people stopped what they were doing and peered up at the roof. More panes cracked and failed, dumping more snow. Then the iron structure as a whole started to sag like a bulging, overloaded net. As the frames holding them distorted out of shape, more panes shattered with brief pops, and glass and snow showered. As Mago had suggested, Nelo saw, once one pane failed the integrity of the roof as a whole was lost. People, wary, backed off towards the walls.

The roof gave way completely. Amid a hail of glass and bits of iron the snow roared down in a single massive load, falling all at once. People screamed, and ran if they could, but many were overwhelmed by the snowfall as it covered the pallets and operating tables and heaps of blankets and medicine chests. It even washed into the fires in the old hearths, dousing them immediately, Nelo saw.

It was over in a moment. Then came the first groans, the first cries for help. Nelo hurled himself into the drift, digging with his bare hands.

Fresh snow fell, the flakes gliding down from the sky and through the smashed roof, visible in the dim light of the surviving lanterns, fresh snow still falling thick after all these hours and settling on the heaped masses on the floor.

Too fast, Alxa thought. After half the night not moving at all, now we’re going too fast.

Anxious, bundled up, she peered out of the window of her cabin. She could see nothing but flakes of snow, still falling, in the light of her candle. The door was admitting a chill draught, even though she’d tried to stop up the cracks with bits of her own clothing. She had no idea where they were. On the Wall, of course, but the Wall spanned the whole northern coast of Northland. She had no idea how close to Etxelur itself she was, how close to home.

But she did feel that the caravan was rattling along too fast — too fast! After all the trouble the crew had had, all the stops, the times they had to stop to knock ice off the snowblade or to dig out drifts, you would think they would have had more sense than to go plummeting into the dark now. But then, she supposed, the crew themselves were exhausted. They too must be longing to get this nightmare journey over with.

The caravan leaned sideways, to her right, as if taking a bend in the track. For a horrible moment it hovered, as if it might tip over. Then the cabin settled back on its rail with a jolt.

She breathed again. The caravan rattled on.

But the cabin tipped again, once more to the right. This time it was a sickening lean that went on and on, with a squeal of metal on metal. Still holding the candle she hung on to her seat, or she would have fallen against the wall. This is it. . this is it. The cabin was tipping over the seaward face of the Wall. She wondered what would kill her first — the crash itself, the fall into the water, or the ocean’s chill? And what had the final accident been — a frozen point, a rail bent from contracting in the cold? She supposed she would never know-

A fresh jolt knocked her out of her seat, spilling her to the tilted floor. She lost her candle at last, which flickered out. The ride became much rougher, the squeal of metal deafening. Had the cabin jumped the track?

She had to get out.

She scrambled up the sloping roof to the door, and grabbed for its handle. The door, damaged by the officer, fell inwards easily, and the bits of clothing she’d used to stop the gaps fell around her. She grabbed the door frame. One big effort, Alxa. One heave. Don’t think about it. .

She pulled her head and upper body out into the lashing snow. The night was wild, the wind blasting, the noise of the caravan on the track insanely loud. By the few working carriage lights she could see the caravan ahead, scraping along the track with a spark of metal on metal. And the cabins were peeling off the track, one by one, falling into the ocean almost gracefully. Soon it would be her cabin’s turn.

Don’t think about it.

She jumped into the dark.

Fell through the air.

Landed in snow, a deep, soft drift, powdery and uncompacted, but still she hit hard, and the cold stuff filled her mouth and eyes and ears with a rush.

But she was not yet dead.