The boy woke with a start. Oily, delicious smelling smoke was tickling around his nose and throat. He blinked blearily. With the blanket wrapped about his thin shoulders, he poked his head outside.
The sky above was casting bold blue-grey light into the woods.
“What?” he said, confused, not fully remembering where he was at first. His head was muzzy. Then he saw the young woman sitting across the fire. She was cutting slices off a slab of bacon into an iron skillet. That was where the pleasant frying smell was coming from. The bacon was popping and hissing.
He yawned and looked around. The strange horse was nowhere to be seen.
“Where’s your… the horse-creature?”
“Dapplegrim?” She shrugged. “Went off to find a stream and get a drink. He’ll be back. Dapplegrim can look after himself.” She raised her eyebrows, and her voice toyed with humour. “Quite happily.” A smile. “Anyway, he needs a break now and then. Watched us all through the nights. He doesn’t need much sleep, you see.”
“He doesn’t sleep?”
“Oh, no. That’s not what I meant. He doesn’t need much sleep. He enjoys sleeping as much as anyone. But he doesn’t need it, or not as much of it. It’s more of an indulgence for him. Far as I can tell, anyway.”
He thought this over. The world was full of weird and wondrous things. Listening to stories beside the hearth at the old Wurmgloath drink-house had taught him that much. So, perhaps it was not so odd that there were creatures who did not need sleep. And creatures that looked like talking horses. Who could say? He hadn’t seen enough of the world to know.
Maybe in the cities and towns there were a lot of such things, wandering around, chatting away, barely worth remarking on?
He supposed it was good enough to learn things as they came along. Right now, the bacon smelled very good.
He started to hurriedly pull on clothing.
-oOo-
It was about an hour later that Dapplegrim returned. He trotted up through the woods, snorting and huffing as he came.
The boy was–by this time–full of bacon and bread that he’d dipped in the grease. He couldn’t remember when he’d last eaten so well.
The morning air was still cool enough that Dapplegrim’s breath made white ghosts every time it heaved out of his lungs. “Hur. Some Sorthelanders on the road. A ranging party maybe? They had bows and were riding those big mountain deer they like so much. I don’t think they saw me, but one of them noticed our tracks from a few days ago. He spent a long time looking at the tracks, but they rode off south eventually. I suppose we weren’t interesting enough.”
“And the other things? The unseen things?”
“Still unseen. Hurm. I don’t have a sense of them any longer. I suspect they passed us by and went up the road northwards. They’ll double back when they realise we aren’t ahead of them any longer, no doubt.”
“No doubt,” said Caewen. “I wonder about those Sorthelanders though? Were they armed and dressed for war?”
He shook his head. “More of a scouting party. They probably just decided our tracks were too old or the trail too uninteresting. You and I might look like strange creatures in these lands, but all we leave behind is a pair of boots and hooves. Hurm.”
“Or they had other more urgent business elsewhere.” Caewen stood and stretched. “I don’t like it. I don’t like any of this at all. More and more riders every day. They’re making ready for war, I swear it. I can taste it like blood from a bit tongue.”
“Hur. Agreed. We should keep off the roads. Travel by wood and by fen, if we have to. We can’t chance anyone else noticing that we’re sniffing around.” He cast a glance at the boy. His black-and-red eyes shone. “And what about you? Are you still determined to come with us? It’s a dangerous path ahead.”
Caewen answered before he could. “If the child still wants to join us, then yes, of course. So, do you?” she asked.
He couldn’t quite form words but he nodded.
Whilst sitting beside the fire, talking quietly with Caewen, eating a good breakfast: he’d started to feel that maybe he had found one of the kindly people of the roads that Keezer had suggested he look out for. Someone to watch you back, while you watch theirs.
“Oh”, he said, “wait, yes. I forgot to say. You were talking of fighting. There is going to be a war. The slave-takers said so.”
“What was that?” asked Caewen.
“There were Sorthe slave-takers who came to the village. They wanted men and boys for iron-work and smithing. They told everyone that it’s on cause of there being a war coming. They said the whole north is preparing for fighting.”
“That’s interesting,” added Dapplegrim.
“You see. The child is already useful.” Caewen smiled. “Thank you. That’s useful to know. If the Sorthe are freely telling people south of the mountains that there is a war coming, then they must be sufficiently prepared to no longer care if Brae catches word of it, or any other southern kingdom.”
Dapplegrim snorted. “Worrying.”
“A little,” agreed Caewen. “A little.” She arched a look at the boy. “Is that why you were running away? Afraid they were going to take you?”
He nodded and looked down. “My Da had already sold me. He’s a smith, or was. I never got much trained though. I mean, look at me.” He held out his arms. They were knobby-elbowed sticks.
There was a bit of quiet then. Caewen stared into the fire, and poked at it with a stick. The end of the stick was getting red and ashy, gradually smouldering.
The boy wondered how he could help this woman on her travels? He could do some things, at least. Even if it was just cooking rabbits or fetching water. Maybe she might find a sword for him, or a large knife anyway, which might be more to his size. His mind was running away to daydreams now. He could be like an armiger, which he’d heard of in stories. Warriors had armigers. He dimly understood it to be a sort of apprentice warrior.
He watched as she got to her feet, dusted off bits of fern and leaf, then packed the camp and tidied up the bags. She started to make ready to saddle Dapplegrim, but paused, and lay the saddle down again.
“Caewen…” said the horse. “What are you thinking? Hurm.”
“I should lay hands on the idol.”
“No. Absolutely not. Hur! The one time you touched that cursed thing, you were spied out immediately. What if they are waiting? You’d be snatched away in spirit, and your body would just fall dead. And I can’t even imagine what they would do to your ghost. Twist it and torture it to get all you know out of you.”
“I think we must risk it. I haven’t looked into the idol since the Wizard’s Moot. That was months ago. If they were watchful, they would have long since given up. Surely?” She didn’t sound very convinced.
“Don’t. Please.”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Dapple. Needs must. The things that were following us have passed on northwards. Even if they could sense the idol’s presence, they couldn’t reach us before we shut the box.”
The boy was confused. “I don’t follow.”
Caewen undid some straps on a saddle bag and pulled out a small box. It was made of a sort of yellowed material that looked like shiny bone to him, and carved with thorns and roses. It was about large enough to hold a decent cob of bread. She laid it down gently on a patch of mossy ground. “This,” she said, “is a lockbox made by the Nibelungr. They are a clan of the Dwerrow-folk. They are clever with potions and root and bone and the making of charmed things. This little box has the property of hiding whatever is inside. You can’t see it with mage’s sight, or scrying or even the cunning nose of a dragon.”
“As we discovered,” said Dapplegrim, rolling his eyes. “That was fun. I must, say, life with Caewen has been much more eventful than my previous hundred years or so.”
Caewen smiled. “Inside is an object of power that is special to the Winter King. It allows a person to see across vast distances and walk within the mind–right into the heart of his kingdom.”
Dapplegrim performed a sort of rippling movement of his flanks. It gave the overall impression of a shrug. “We think it was a device for some spy or servant. A way to speak directly with the king himself. We think.”
“What do you mean by winterking? Old winterking is singing right now.”
“Sorry?” Caewen looked genuinely confused.
The boy waved a hand in the direction of the willow-choked wet gully. “Down there. You can hear him. He’s the only bird that sings all winter. Old winterking.”
They listened.
“A wren?” said Dapplegrim.
“A wren,’ said Caewen, more thoughtfully. I wonder if that’s a coincidence or not? Interesting.” She waved a hand. “You would know him by another name, perhaps? He is an old power of the north; rumoured to be one of the first children of Old Night and Chaos herself. We’ve heard him called the King of Ice and Ashes. The Lord of the Snowbound. The Voice in Winter’s Storm.”
The boy shook his head. “I’ve not heard any of those names.”
“No matter.” She looked down at the box. “The matter at hand is that we need to know what there is to see in his lands.” A glance at Dapplegrim. “I’ll be quick.”
“You’re not going to listen to me, are you?”
“No.”
He turned and stalked a few paces away, shaking his head from side to side. “Stupid, foolish… urh. Hurm. Hur.”
“Well, here we go then.” She lifted the catch and eased the lid open. She unwrapped some cloth. Inside was a small statue. It wasn’t magical looking, or even very big. There was plenty of room to put something else in the box, if needed. She drew the statue out, being careful to only touch it using the cloth, then set it upright. An old man, bent and bearded, carrying a bundle, and with an array of small objects at his feet. Caewen took a deep breath and touched the fingertips of her right hand to the whiteness of the man’s head.
He couldn’t help it. The boy jumped up, and gave a yelp of surprise. “Her eyes,” he said.
Dapplegrim walked over. “She’s in the otherplaces now. Her mind is wandering where spirits walk, and demons too, and sometimes gods. Don’t disturb her. It would be dangerous.
Caewen’s eyes had turned a blue that was the colour of robin eggs. Not just the iris… the whole eye was blue. She was perfectly still except for the drift of her hair, caught now and then on a rise and fall of the forest breeze.
“Now what?” said the boy.
“Hurm. We wait.”
The boy spent an uncomfortable half-minute staring at Caewen. “Do we need to do anything?” He looked around. “The camp is mostly packed.”
“We can’t exactly play skittles, can we?”
“You have a set of skittles?”
Dapplegrim shook his head. “No. It was a joke.” He lifted a hoof to make it more clearly visible. Ah well. My humour is wasted on Caewen. It might as well be wasted on you too.” With a huff, he folded he legs under him and sat. “If you really are going to come with us, then I should explain some things. Maybe not everything, mind you. But some things. There are some things that I can explain only if you ask the right question.”
“What if I ask the right question?”
“You won’t.”
“I’m confused.”
“Naturally. Hur. Hur. Hurumth. Now, where to begin? Caewen and I have lately been to the Wizard’s Moot at Sorcery Tor. It was a charming little fair. Folks tried to murder us several times, and then there was that whole business with the dragon.”
The boy’s eyes went wide. “Did you fight a dragon?”
Dapplegrim let free a low rolling laugh. “No. Not even Caewen is that much of an idiot. What we found out there, was that the north is readying for war. Or, I suppose we already knew that, but it needed confirming. Also, we wanted to know why. There hasn’t been a great war between the lands of night and day for a thousand years. Why now? And why would they be so incautious. Hurm. Hur. The last great war near enough destroyed the world.”
“Did you find out?”
“Here’s the thing. All the sorcerers and magicians of winter and night that we spoke to claimed that it was the south who had amassed great armies. They had seen it in their oracular visions and whatnot. Hurm. We’ve seen no evidence of armies amassing in the sunlit lands.”
“So… what’s going on then?”
“Excellent question. We have no idea. Our plan–as much as anything Caewen and I ever do can be called such a thing–is to sneak about, look here and then, and then visit a sage who has a house on the Great Grey Mountain. She is in service to neither goddess, but lives close enough to the twilight lands that she may be able to see clearly into those shadowed places. Hopefully, we will have answers out of her. Past that, there are some other matters that I won’t speak of here. Even if you are not an agent of the Winter King, there might be spies in the woods: flitting birds and creatures that scurry about.” He was casting a suspicious eye at the canopy, when Caewen gulped and breathed in a deep, hard breath. Her eyes changed back to their normal colour with the speed of a cloud chased off the sun.
She wrenched her hand from the white idol, and sort of half-lurched, half-collapsed to one side. The boy jumped up to grab her, and pull her upright, but Dapplegrim said, “No, no, no! Put the statue away. But don’t touch it. Use the cloth. Put it away at once, and close the lid. Now!”
He let Caewen slide to the ground. Then careful as careful, he picked up the old man. Even through the cloth, it felt tingling and unpleasant.
The moment the lid was closed, Dapplegrim visibly relaxed. He had already moved to be near Caewen. Sniffing at her, he whispered, “And how are you, young friend? How was your jaunt in the world of those without flesh?”
Her reply was a whisper in return, but laboured and harsh. “It’s worse than we guessed.”