Snow-Walker

Nineteen

Fumes reek, into flames burst,

The sky itself is scorched with fire.

The volcano probably saved their lives.

Jessa realized that, standing knee-deep in the gray, bubbling mud, the incredible warmth thawing her toes and legs. It was wonderful.

All around her the ground bubbled and heaved, puffing up globules that burst with strange, popping sounds; insects whined around them. The air stank of sulphur and unknown, steamy gases, but it was warm, even hot in places. Bizarre plants grew here, things she’d never seen before, and birds too flew in flocks over the warm land.

Standing next to her like a long-legged stork, his boots around his neck, Skapti was studying the map.

“Not much marked. We could be here, I suppose.” His finger touched a faded rune in the sealskin, on the far side of the mountains. Neither of them could read it.

Jessa looked at the emptiness above it. The great gash of Gunningagap was all that was left.

“We’re getting close,” she said.

“We need to.” Skapti rolled the map. “Time’s going on.” He sighed blissfully, as if he was wriggling his invisible toes in the volcanic heat. “Flame tongue, Loki-land, dwarves’ furnace. Matter for poetry.”

“It would be if we had something to eat.”

“Animals will come here. We’ll set snares.”

They had made camp on the edge of the lava field; the rock there was contorted and twisted, forced from the earth hot. Cinders littered the soil; tiny plants sprouted between them. On the opposite side of the valley the snow still lay.

Kari sat by the fire, his coat off, watching the steams and mists churn from the mud. Hakon lay beside him, eyes closed.

Skapti took one look at Brochael and said, “What’s wrong?” The big man sat wrathfully cleaning his ax with a lump of pumice, each stroke a slice of anger. It was Kari who answered.

“Moongarm has gone hunting.”

“Good! So?”

Kari nudged the gray man’s pack with his foot. They saw the hilt of the sword jutting out—Moongarm’s only weapon.

“Without that?” Then Jessa understood. She sat down thoughtfully.

“He said we needed food and that he would get it. Then he was gone, into the smoke.”

“If he thinks I’ll eat any of that … filth,” Brochael burst out.

“You must.” Skapti sat down, his knees pulled up. “Signi and Wulfgar—all of them—are depending on us. We eat, Brochael. Even wolf carrion.”

Brochael spit, but said nothing.

“While he’s gone,” Jessa said, “we should talk. Has he said anything to any of you? About what he wants?”

They all shook their heads. Hakon opened his eyes and propped himself on one elbow. “Is he safe?”

Kari shook his head. “Not altogether. He becomes an animal, in body, perhaps in mind. There are sudden surges of wildness about him.”

“And that means sorcery,” Skapti put in.

“No.” Kari shook his head. “Not of his own.”

“Well, I don’t care whose!” Brochael said fiercely. “We watch him! All the time!”

It was late, just before dawn, when Moongarm reappeared. Hakon was awake, and he saw the lean figure stride suddenly out of the sulphurous fogs and rumbling red glows of the lava field.

Moongarm squatted by the fire. His eyes were bright, with a wild, satisfied look in them that Hakon avoided. When he spoke, his voice was rasping and hoarse.

“Cook this. Wake the others when it’s ready.”

He flung down a dripping carcass, already skinned and gutted. What it was Hakon wasn’t sure—it looked like goat. Feeling briefly like a thrall again, he prepared it. For a while the werebeast stayed there and watched him lazily, by the fire. Finally it made Hakon uneasy.

“Stop staring at me,” he muttered.

Moongarm grinned. “Bothers you, doesn’t it.”

Spitting the meat, Hakon glanced up. The man’s lips were drawn back; his sharp teeth gleamed. Blood was on his hands and clothing.

Hakon put his hand on his sword.

Moongarm laughed then, and stood up. “Don’t wake me,” he murmured. “I’ve already eaten.”

The smell of the cooking meat woke Jessa; once she realized what it was, she sat up quickly and stared across. Hakon was turning it on a rough spit; the fat dripped into the flames, crackling and hissing. She hurried over.

“Wake the others,” he muttered. “It’s ready.”

“Moongarm’s?”

“Yes.” He frowned at her. “The gods know how he got it, Jessa.”

“I don’t care,” she said firmly.

They all ate hungrily, even Brochael, though he was unhappy and silent. It was goat, or some wild relative, although they’d seen no sign of any animals.

Behind them Moongarm slept easily under his blanket.

Kari threw scraps to the ravens; they swooped out of the dusk and tore them up and gobbled them.

“Those birds don’t look as scrawny as they did,” Skapti remarked.

“They went after Moongarm,” Kari said. “Ate his leftovers.”

“And he was in wolf shape?” Jessa asked quietly.

“Yes. A great gray wolf, the ravens say. His body slept and it rose from him like a wraith.”

Everyone touched their amulets; Brochael grasped the thorshammer at his neck. But no one said anything. They didn’t know what to say.

Before the weak sun rose, they were moving on, trudging over the lava field, picking out a way. To their left the ground bubbled and steamed; yellow, flung splashes of sulphur seared the rocks. The air was dry, full of fumes; it made Jessa cough.

Coming over a small rise they felt the ground tremble; they stopped, alarmed. It vibrated under their feet, as if huge pressures were building up.

“It’s erupting!” Jessa hissed.

Brochael grabbed her. “Run!”

But the floor shook, toppling them all; the noise rose to a hiss and a whistle and a scream, and suddenly it was released, and a scalding fountain of water shot straight up out of the mud into the sky. Astonished, they picked themselves up and gazed at it; their faces wet with the steam and hot droplets. Then it was gone, instantly. Far off another burst out.

“What are those?” Brochael marveled.

“Waterspouts,” Skapti said, unpoetic for once. “That much is clear. It must build up underneath. It’s a steaming cauldron down there; the earth forge, Hel’s anvil. The crust we walk on is weak; in places it breaks.”

Crossing the lava field took almost all day; the ground was ashen, choked with cinders, and fumes and plumes of smoke drifted from it. In places it had cracked and fallen away, and they saw in deep ravines below them the slow red magma, flowing and curling and hardening in dark, crusted clots.

Gradually, late in the afternoon, the air became cooler; they came to soil of black cinders. The rocks here were bigger; their surfaces pulverized and pitted with holes, riddled with tiny lava tunnels. Leaning against one for breath, Skapti said, “Look there.”

It was a small circular pool of water, clear as glass. The weak sun gleamed on it, making its surface glitter.

They were all thirsty, so they scrambled toward it over the rocks. Jessa’s foot slid into a crack and wedged. Kari waited for her while she tugged it out.

“I feel filthy,” she said irritably. “Covered with dust.”

“It hangs in the air,” he said, looking up.

They hurried after the others, who had reached the pool and were bending over it.

A raven squawked above them; it flapped past, brushing their faces with the draft of its wings.

Kari stopped dead.

She bumped against him.

“Look,” he murmured.

Astonished, she gazed over his shoulder. Skapti and Hakon were lying still, sprawled; as she watched, Brochael crumpled and fell, the water spilling from the leather sack in his hand onto the dry rocks. Moongarm lay beyond him.

Jessa clenched her fists. “It’s poisoned!”

“I don’t think so.” He nodded. “Over there.”

Jessa stared into the smoke. Slowly she made out a shape standing among its drifts and swirls; a woman, a young woman, her black hair tied back. She came forward, picking her way over and staring down at the sprawled men. Then she bent; when she stood up, she had Hakon’s sword in her hand. She stood over him, considering.

“No!” Jessa stepped forward. The woman turned, like an animal turns. She said something, moved her hand in some gesture, but Kari ignored it and came on, jumping down among the lava. Jessa followed.

Up close, the woman was strange. Her skin was shining with grease rubbed into it; her eyes were narrow and slanting. She wore thick furs, right up to her neck, and boots of the same, enviably warm. She stared at them both curiously.

“It won’t work on me,” Kari said.

“So I see.” The woman looked down at Skapti and laughed. “Pity. Three of my goats have been stolen. These are the thieves, I thought.” She looked back at him. “Do you pursue them?”

“They’re our friends.”

“Are they? And why has one of the Snow-walkers crossed the rainbow?”

Kari looked at her, unmoving. The words of the wraith soldier in the wood flickered into his mind, a glimmer of colors, a warning, a long fall into the dark.

Jessa glanced at him, then at the woman. “Have you killed them?”

“No. I can wake them. Or your friend can.”

“We didn’t mean to steal,” Kari said quietly. “We’ve come a long way. We’re looking for the land of the Snow-walkers.”

For a moment she looked at him, puzzled. Then she snapped her fingers; the sprawled sleepers stirred and she looked down at them scornfully.

“Get them up,” she said. “Bring them.”