CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Kai had waited longer than a night and a day.

Course, he’d known he would if Erlan hadn’t emerged by then. But it was well on in the third day, and still no sign.

If Sviggar’s scouts were worth their salt they shouldn’t be far away. Though he doubted even the best huntsmen could’ve followed their tracks after that snowfall. Unless they’d found their markers, which he supposed was some hope.

Anyway, if Erlan was gone, what did he care if Sviggar got his revenge?

So he went on waiting. And with a bloody raw arm into the bargain, and ever the chance some other wild beasty would come and have another go at him. But after the wolf – or man, or whatever the Hel it was – and after he’d rounded up the horses. . . well, the truth of it was he was bored out of his skull.

He’d sat staring at the icefall for three days now, under grey skies and drifting mists, thinking there couldn’t be a more miserable place in all the world. He’d waited, buried under furs, moving only to chuck more wood on the fire, and dreaming up snatches of songs about the shapes in the ice. And above all, he watched that dark hole, hoping for something. . . anything to happen.

While he waited, he got to thinking. Supposing there was a whole pack of murderous creatures down that hole – was Erlan likely to chop ’em all to bits on his own? He might get out – maybe with the princess if she was lucky – but there’d still be plenty of ’em left to cause a heap more trouble.

If someone blocked their way out, they’d be corked down there like flies in a bottle. That’d be the end of their trouble-making, eh? They’d have to stay down there for ever. Although he guessed the king still wanted his ‘red day’ or whatever he called it. He could hardly have that if he couldn’t get at them. Even so, it seemed a happy solution.

So long as Erlan got out.

And looking at the icefall, he wondered – supposing it was the best thing that should be done, could it be done?

The entrance was maybe fifteen feet high, top to bottom. And you could only squeeze two men at a time through the gap at most. So it was hardly a big hole to fill.

Either side of the icefall stood two cliffs of black sandstone. In the last three days, his eyes had scaled them a hundred times. Each went straight up, more or less, but there were jags and cracks and ledges all the way to the top.

On the morning of the third day he’d noticed a crack on the right-hand cliff that was long and deep and – far as he could see – uninterrupted. The cliff looked steady enough, but he’d picked out a slab the size of a small hall that seemed hardly attached to the rest. It was a wonder it hadn’t fallen already, by his reckoning.

The slab was mostly all of a piece; except right at the bottom, where the crack emerged, the last few feet splintered into smaller fragments. These appeared to act as a sort of foundation, holding the slab in place.

What if someone knocked that away? It was only a collection of little rocks, after all. If you knocked any of ’em away. . . Why, wouldn’t the whole cliff come down?

He smiled at the thought. He’d like to see that!

Wouldn’t be much of a hole after that, he chuckled. There wouldn’t be much icefall left either.

He shrugged. It might work. And looking at the cliff, he set about figuring a way up to the bottom of the slab. By late afternoon, he reckoned he had a route. And so on to his next problem. It was one thing to drop an enormous rock onto the gap. Another thing entirely to get the Hel out of the way.

He’d just begun thinking this one through, when there was a noise from the crack.

His eyes darted to the darkness. He listened. This time he was certain, and then he was throwing off his furs, pulling his sword from its sheath, and heaving through the powder fast as he could. He reached the crack and leaned inside.

‘Hello!’ he yelled. ‘Erlan!’

He pricked an ear. No answer. He listened again. Another noise.

‘Erlan? Is that you?’

This time, there was a reply, muffled and smothered by echoes.

‘Erlan!’ he cried again. ‘I’m coming!’ He made to go in, then realized he had no light. ‘Hel take me for a fool!’ Three days to make a torch and he’d never even thought of it. He went inside, tried to grope forward, but it was no good. The back of the cavern was black as pitch.

The fire – of course!

He waded through the snow a second time, pulled a half-burned branch from the fire, then turned back. He was still a dozen yards from the icefall when he heard footsteps and two ragged figures tumbled out of the gap.

‘Erlan!’

‘Kai!’ cried his master, gasping at the cold air. His face was black with dirt and blood; his hair matted red; the arm of his mailshirt cut, with a blood-soaked flap hanging loose; and his eyes wild. But it was certainly him.

Beside him, the princess was shielding her eyes from the blinding glare looking like some spectral handmaiden of Hel, face streaked with grime.

Kai dropped the burning stick and ran to his friend. ‘You’re alive!’

‘Aye – for now – but we’ve no time to lose.’ Suddenly a terrible shriek rose up out of the depths of the cavern.

‘They’re coming!’ cried Lilla. ‘They were hard behind us in the caves.’

‘Where’s the king?’ said Erlan. ‘His men – are they here?’

‘No. Just me. How many are following?’

‘Many,’ said Erlan, grimly. As if to seal his words, another howl rose up from the darkness, and then another, nearer now. ‘Quick! Fetch the shields – we’ll need them.’

Only now did Kai notice the long-spear in Lilla’s hand, blood crusting half its length. ‘If we must die, at least it’ll be breathing the clean air of this world,’ she said.

‘But master – we don’t need to face them! There’s another way. I can seal them inside. All of them.’ Seemed like as good a time as any to make a bold claim.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘This entrance – I can close it.’

‘How?’

Kai threw down his sword and clapped his hands in delight – then regretted it. His left arm was still mighty tender. ‘Just watch, master!’ And seeing the doubt on Lilla’s face, he cried, ‘Fear not, my lady – I can stop them!’

Not waiting for an answer, Kai set himself at the cliff. He looked up and gave a low whistle, his hand going to the back of his belt where his hand-axe was safely tucked. ‘Ain’t much in this world a bit of hammering can’t fix,’ he muttered, then put his hands to the wall.

The rock was ice cold to the touch.

‘What the Hel are you doing?’ asked Erlan, caught between curiosity and impatience. ‘We need you here with us – with a sword in your hand!’

‘You’ll see.’

His fingers were strong and well used to the cold, but as soon as he gripped the rock, he felt a twinge deep in his forearm. All right then – this was going to be unpleasant. He gritted his teeth and took his weight anyway and found he could keep his grip. In his head, he rehearsed the sequence of holds he’d mapped out from the comfort of his furs. And up he went.

He soon discovered some holds were better than he’d figured; others a good deal worse. But, the pain in his arm notwithstanding, he reckoned he could get there. After all, hadn’t he climbed a thousand trees as a kid? He’d never come close to falling, though his mother always said one day he would.

Not me, I’m as agile as a squirr—

Suddenly his foothold gave and he found himself dangling twenty-five feet up with his fingers wedged liked pegs in a crack. He winced as his knuckles tore.

‘Hey!’ yelled Erlan. ‘Be careful up there!’

Kai released a long breath. ‘Aye – the thought had occurred to me.’ Maybe squirrels do fall after all, just no one’s around to see it.

He looked up. Maybe ten feet to go. He drew up his legs and found another toehold. Ten feet. And then? There was a yell from below. ‘They’re here! Kai – hurry – for all our sakes, hurry!’

He glanced down as another shriek burst from the darkness, and with it figures appearing into the open. Two of them – then a third.

Dirty little tykes, he thought, watching Erlan lift his sword and the princess brace her spear. ‘Guess we’re all in now.’

He was out of time. Already the shouts and yells of combat carried to his perch. He shinned up the last ten feet like a cat up a tree, at last within reach of the shattered rocks he reckoned held up the big slab.

Satisfied with his grip, he reached behind and pulled out his little axe.

He heard Lilla scream below and glanced down. There were a couple of darker shapes motionless in the snow, then more creatures emerging from the icefall.

‘Kai! Kai!’ cried Lilla, sounding desperate. ‘Do it now!’

He looked up and grunted. Aye, this was the weakest part of his plan. Getting out of the way of a falling rock the size of a house. Still, he reckoned the main weight of it was off to the left. Once it started to go, he could scoot right and be out of the way. He scanned that way and noted two or three good handholds and a decent ledge for his feet.

I’ll be fine. It’s all about timing. Knowing when the thing’s about to go.

He started hammering at the rocks with the butt of his axe. Below him, Erlan was bellowing like a bull. Chips of stone skittered off down the cliff. His arm was burning. He had to use his left arm, of course, so he could escape to the right, and he wasn’t sure that wolf hadn’t cracked his bloody bone. Still, he went at it busily, chunks of rock flaking and falling away, and then a lump the size of his fist cracked and broke off.

He grinned at his progress, but it still wasn’t fast enough for them below. Suddenly a bigger piece of rock swivelled, leaving the end jutting out. He leaned away to give himself more room, and with a backhanded blow sent it sailing into the air.

Now he was getting somewhere.

But before he took another hit, there was a cracking noise as the rocks above began to give. And then the noise grew louder, rippling up the long deep crevice above him as the ice fractured.

He looked up and suddenly it seemed like the whole cliff had started to shift.

‘Shit.’

He flung away his axe and lunged for the handhold to his right. But suddenly everything looked the same. His ears filled with the roar of shearing rock, loud as thunder, bursting on him from above. He snatched for a handhold – any one would do. Then he had it and he looked up and the sky was collapsing on his head.

There was no time.

Jump! Did he shout the word or only think it?

The cliff face rumbled under his hands. He felt the ledge under his toes, sucked in a breath and then leaped as far and high as his legs would send him.

The whole world was crashing down in a cascade of ice and thunder. And him with it. He felt a beautiful moment of weightlessness – falling, falling into the white abyss below.

So this is what it is to fly!

And then there was a shock of cold – and after that, nothing.

Erlan pulled Wrathling from the last of the Nefelung. There were bodies all around. Pathetic things now. Each one the stain of a life that used to be. But was death so much worse for them than the life he’d seen them lead?

He was breathing hard. Too tired to feel any pain. He looked across at Lilla. She was on her knees, head hanging, blood splattered across the rags of her dress. But alive.

Whatever Kai had done had worked.

Snow dust was still falling in glittering sparkles all around. But there were no more Nefelung to fight. And they were alive.

The roar had filled the sky. But when the worst of the shattered ice and rock had settled, it revealed a great heap of stone and scree and smashed icicles sloping from the foot of the icefall to the cliff nearly twenty feet above them. Higher still, there was a large smooth hole where the huge slab had fallen away.

The gateway to Niflagard was gone.

And so was Kai.

There’s the justice of the gods for you – I sought death, yet I’m alive. Kai sought life and he’s dead. For all his wounds, nothing hurt so much as his heart just then. Somehow the lad had weaselled his way in there.

He grimaced, wiping his sword on his filthy breeches, and turned back to the princess. Her face was a mask of exhaustion. ‘I saw him,’ she said, voice hardly a whisper.

‘Who?’

‘Kai.’

Erlan shook his head in confusion. ‘What? Where?’

‘Over there.’ She pointed to a deep drift of snow a little way right of the heap of fallen rocks. ‘He fell clear.’

But Erlan was already lumbering through the snow, wading into the drift, heart in mouth. And there, in the deeper snow, was the perfect outline of a body. He dragged himself over to it and peered down.

There was Kai, face down, unmoving.

Erlan reached in, grabbed his belt and hauled him out of the hole. He turned him over. The boy’s hair and scraggy stubble were plastered with snow. His mouth was contorted with pain, but his eyes were peaceful as a slumbering babe.

‘Kai!’ Erlan shook him. ‘Kai!’

Nothing. He shook him again, harder this time. ‘Kai!’

The boy groaned and rolled his head.

‘Hahaah!’ cried Erlan. ‘Kai – you mad little bugger! You’re alive!’

‘Am I?’ the lad moaned, blinking. ‘Keep saying that till I believe it.’

‘You’re alive – you lucky son of a bitch!’

‘My face. It smarts like Hel. . .’

Erlan could hardly contain his delight. ‘If it’s your face you’re worried about, I’m afraid you’re as ugly as ever.’

‘Since when did you grow a sense of humour?’ said Kai, gingerly brushing the ice off his chin.

‘About when you grew a pair of bloody wings! By the hanged – you must have fallen forty feet!’

‘Did it work?’

Erlan grabbed his scruff and hauled him to a sitting position. ‘See for yourself.’

For a while Kai sat there, admiring his work, a grin slowly working across his mouth. ‘That. Is. Fine. . . Yep – just fine!’

Lilla had waded over to them. She looked gaunt as a ghost, her eyes wide with shock. ‘Is he all right?’

‘His body’s in one piece,’ answered Erlan, ‘but his mind’s clearly cracked.’

Kai sat in the snow, blinking artlessly, but alive, his hair a crazy splay of white spikes, his tunic caked with powder.

‘That’s a rare kind of courage you have,’ said Lilla, seeming truly bewildered by what Kai had just done. ‘Some might say a rare kind of madness.’ She gave his shoulder a squeeze. ‘I’ll be sure to tell my father what you did.’ She turned to the jagged debris. Her voice hardened. ‘That place is full of evil.’

She glared at where the entrance used to be, then closed her eyes tight and stretched out her arms.

The others watched.

Suddenly words came pouring out of her mouth, words flooding in an undulating stream of sound, words far beyond their understanding.

They listened, absorbed, until she gave a sudden shriek, clenched her fists and thrust them at the debris. She stood like that a while, perfectly still, until, very slowly, she let her arms drop.

At last, her face relaxed and she opened her eyes.

‘What the Hel are you doing?’ asked Kai, bemused.

‘It’s a telling my mother taught me. For sealing things.’

‘So they’re stuck down there now?’

‘I’d say a few thousand marks of rock would keep them in there just fine,’ said Erlan, irritably. ‘I don’t see the need for all this jabber in some witch’s tongue.’

‘It’s not jabber,’ she protested. ‘It’s a language my mother taught me that she learned from the spirit world. It has power beyond the understanding of men. Beyond what I understand myself.’

‘Then what fucking use is it?’ snarled Erlan.

‘The telling is to seal in the things unseen,’ she snapped back. ‘You saw the evil down there.’

‘Come on, master,’ said Kai. ‘You know, she means—’

‘You did the same down there, didn’t you?’ Erlan’s eyes flashed fiercely. ‘Spewing up your witch’s prattle all over me.’

‘And it saved your life!’ she exclaimed. ‘You should be grateful.’

‘I’ll be grateful if you keep your damned sorcery away from me. Spells and curses – I’ve had a bellyful of ’em.’

‘My tellings speak only to heal or protect. I never speak to anyone’s harm. My mother—’

‘Your mother is dead. Dead!’ cried Erlan. ‘You understand? I don’t care what she taught you.’

‘How dare you speak to me like that?’ Lilla’s blood-streaked features hardened into anger. ‘Anyway, you know nothing of the realm of the dead.’

‘So people keep telling me. But I know this much. I know the dead don’t come back.’ He turned away and added in a whisper. ‘The dead will never come back.’

She shook her head in frustration. ‘Just take me to my father. I’m sure he will reward you richly. Isn’t that why you’re here?’

‘Think whatever you will,’ murmured Erlan, looking away down the hill.

‘Well,’ broke in Kai, clapping his hands. ‘Those ugly little brutes are shut up in there good and proper, one way or t’other! And aren’t we all bloody heroes, eh?’ He looked eagerly between the princess and Erlan. ‘You too, my lady! So then – what now, master?’

Erlan turned. Lifted his sword and swept it wearily over the bodies strewn about them. ‘We burn them. And then. . . we take her home.’