Unsurprisingly perhaps, the boy had difficulty finding sleep. Eventually, accepting that he was simply awake, he got up with the intention of creeping outside and talking with Dapplegrim. He had to walk around the moss-covered frozen visage of the imposture-witch–in the darkness and shadows it truly looked as if she might come back to life at any moment, clutching and grabbing for him. He tiptoed past her as quick as he could, and was relieved to breath the fresh air of the outside world the moment he had the door open. Dapplegrim was sitting across the doorway, with his feet folded underneath him very much in the way a horse usually sits, though his head was very erect and there was a glow of hard, watchful intelligence in his eyes. His nostrils flared as he sniffed deeply at the air, snorting now and then.
The boy stepped around Dapplegrim, and out into the starlight. “Smell anything?”
“Yes and no. Hurm. Night things and other, strange smells–but nothing very near. All of it is a long way off.” He took another draught of air. “I smell people too, and fire,” he added, absently.
“Where? Who?”
“Too far off to tell. Though we’ll know about it if they are coming this way. A lot of people. Stinking. Sweaty. And smells of pitch and resin. Torches in the night, I suppose.”
The boy said just, “Oh,” and sat down on the wooden steps. “Will Caewen get better do you think? She looks so ill. She’s grey in the face.”
The big horse stirred and murmured his reply, “She’ll recover, assuming she doesn’t go and do anything foolish like work more spells and cunjurings. Hurm.”
“I’ll try to remind her of that.”
“Good luck. I hope you have better success than I’ve had.” Dapplegrim’s sharp smile shone in the cold light of stars and moon. “Now what are you doing up? It’ll be yawns-up before long, and you’ll regret skipping sleep then.”
“I tried to sleep. I couldn’t. I was thinking about the Old Great Spell. About the Winter King. About everything, I suppose.”
“Yes, the world-making spell.” Dapplegrim’s tone wasn’t far off the tone a farmer might use for rats in the barn. “If the great and mighty want it so badly, then… well, it seems to me that we shall have to take it out their reach. Nothing good comes of giving the powerful yet more power.”
“I suppose not.”
“Very much not, hur.”
“I was wondering: the seer’s shade, she never said to destroy the thing, did she? She said only that the Winter King wants it, and the Sortheland Prince has half of it. Maybe the Winter King wants it because it’s something that could defeat him. Or kill him?”
“Hur. Maybe, but I don’t think so. Why not just destroy the half of the spell they already have?”
“The seeress said that the four princes of Sorthe are chaffing under the Witch King’s gaze. Maybe they want to send him back to the Night Lands themselves? Maybe they haven’t destroyed it, cause they want to use it against him?”
“Again, maybe. That said–hur, hurm–the Princedom of Sorthe is not known for its charity. Those are harsh men with grey steel in their hearts, and in their eyes, and their souls. They might think to usurp the power of the Winter King somehow,” and he performed a sort of rolling shrug. “But then we would have four bleak lords in the north, not one. Sorthe has always had an eye to marching south. They will, sooner or later, with or without the Winter King standing at their shoulders.”
The boy let himself be silent for a time. He listened to the rhythmic breathing of Dapplegrim. At last he said, “We shouldn’t let Caewen try to cast the Old Great Spell herself, should we? It’ll kill her won’t it?”
“She can’t work the spell without the other half, and thankfully, it sounds as if the other half of the broken horn is well and truly hidden a long way off. But, yes, you’re right. If she were to try and work a magic like that… killing her might be the best outcome. Hur. The magic might change her so much that she isn’t even herself any longer. The Old Great Spells… they are world-changing spells. They give rise to things. They are… how do I put it? They are like living things, curled up and waiting to be released into the world. Hurm. No one can cast magic like that by just muttering a few utterances and words, and drawing on a little bit of power. And really, a person doesn’t cast powerful old spells anyway–not exactly–it’s more like that sort of thing will cast itself through you. And then what? Who knows. Old stories say whole lands were raised out of the sea by such spells. They say that the race of dragons and worms were brought into existence by a magician who tried to use an Old Great Spell to create a thing to guard his treasure room. Certainly, if that is true, he got what he wanted, but no doubt the dragon guarded the treasure against the magician too, and probably thought the fellow was a nice morsel alongside. World-making spells are dangerous, ancient, unpredictable. Such a spell is not even the plaything of cautious gods.” He snorted. “Such a magic should not be attempted by any mortal being, least of all someone who has no particular power to draw on. It would be beyond dangerous. Maybe more dangerous than the Winter King even. Certainly, it would be more dangerous than the petty Witchling-Princes of Sorthe.”
Just as he finished speaking, Dapplegrim lowered his head and nodded towards the southeast. “There. Look.”
A thin thread of flame had appeared and was weaving a path out of the north. Though the lay of the land was night-shrouded, and there were small wooded hills in the way, it was still clear to see that the line of fire was winding its way down from the northern mountains. Some of the torchlight columns broke away, and seemed to gather for a time, then vanished into murky mist-hung forests. They dwindled to tiny flecks of light, and were gone. The rest of the torchlight line made a long, slow trek south, and then bent westwards. After about an hour, it was possible to see a mass of black figures–hundreds and hundreds of them–maybe thousands–marching west. Some looked to be on foot, some were on horse. There were a few lumbering shadows towards the front that looked too large to be human, and in places there were other things that had a wrongness in their shape and movement: they seemed feral and animal-like, though they walked on two legs.
“Soldiers marching west,” said Dapplegrim, considering this. “They’ll miss us by a league at least. Probably a good thing we’ve no lights burning.”
“But not south?” said the boy. “They’re aren’t taking the Old Northgait southward?”
“No.” Dapplegrim considered this. “There are plenty of small, petty kingdoms in the mountains to the west. If Sorthe were to march south, they would be fools not to settle their western borders first, and put a few of those robber-kings under the heel. Or into a noose. It would be a sensible first move in a war.”
“That’s troubling,” said the boy.
“Hur.” Dapplegrim snorted. “Troubling is not the half of it.”