Shadowplay

“Back and forth across the great icy field upon which stands Everfrost the gods give battle, the light unto the dark, Perin and his brothers against Khors and the spawn of Old Mother Night, and ever hangs the balance on the cast of a spear, the flight of an arrow, the thrust of a sword, even the blink of a bloodspattered eye.

“White-Handed Uvis is wounded by a blow of Kernios’ great spear, but Birin, Lord of the Evening Mist, meets his doom when the arrows of the Onyenai pierce his throat. The car of courageous Volios is thrown down by the bullish strength of Zmeos the horned one, and the war-god is trapped beneath it, his bones broken, his voice crying out to his uncles for vengeance. Even the great river Rimetrail is thrown from its banks by the force of their fighting, and flows brokenly in many directions.”

She was following the deer track now. It was wider than it had looked, as though not deer but herds of cattle had made it, just as they had scraped the wide drover’s roads across the valleys and hills of Southmarch from the farmlands into the city’s markets. The relative ease of passage lifted her heart, although the rain was still falling and her face and hands were still numb. If there were wolves near her, then her proclaiming of the Lay of Everfrost was keeping them well at bay.

“In the forest, virgin Zoria is lost in the snow,” Briony bellowed, but the wet trees swallowed most of the echoes, “the Almond Princess pulled away from the aiding hand of Zosim by the wrath of Old Winter, so that she cannot see her fingers before her eyes, and can hear only the shriek of the snowy winds. Only a short distance away her family fights and dies for her honor, and everywhere else the screams of gods overtop even the storm.

“Lost, her eyes shut against the wailing winds, her face bloodied by sleet, she stumbles. Lost, she wanders in howling darkness, and does not know that on the other side of the darkly sheltering, confounding wood, all is war, all is death, as her cousins murder her cousins and the endless snows cover all...”

Briony fell silent, not because she had forgotten the words, the touching words that described how Zoria began her long wandering even as the Great War of the Gods blazed in earnest, but because something was definitely moving on the path ahead of her. The late afternoon light was beginning to weaken, but she could think of nothing but that shape just at the edge of sight, something dark that walked upright.

She smothered her first impulse to shout to the figure for help. After all, who would live in such a place? A kind woodsman, who would take her to his cottage and give her soup, like something in the stories of her childhood? More likely it was some half-savage madman who would ravage her or worse. She drew the longer of her knives and held it in her hand. The shape was moving away from her, so perhaps whoever or whatever it was hadn’t heard her. But how could that be possible? She had been shouting loud enough to knock the leaves off the trees. Perhaps he was deaf.

A deaf madman. The prospects only get better and better, she thought sourly. Briony did not quite notice it, but something of her old self had come back to her as she stumbled through the trees crying old lines of poetry.

She walked a little faster, ignoring the ache in her legs, and she called out no more of Zoria’s tale. Gregor’s famous words may have kept her going but the time for them was over, at least for a while.

Another few hundred paces and she caught sight of the shape again, and this time could see it a little more clearly: it was manlike, walking on two legs, but seemed strangely bent, humped on its back beyond even the deformities of age, and she felt a thrill of superstitious fear run along her spine. What was it? Some half-human thing, part man, part animal? As the darkness came on would it tilt forward and run on all fours?

Despite her terror, she knew she must have food and shelter soon, even at risk that she was chasing some forest demon. She hurried on, moving as quickly and quietly as she could, trying to get a better look at whatever walked the path ahead of her.

At last, when she had closed the distance to only a hundred paces or so, she saw that the shape was not as unnatural as she’d feared: whatever walked before her in a dark cloak and hood carried a bundle of wood on its back. Her heart, which had been a stone in her chest, now lightened.

A person, at least—not something with teeth and claws.

She thought it might be good to call now, with enough room between them to allow an escape if the other seemed dangerous. She stopped and shouted, “Halloo! Halloo, there! Can you help me? I’m lost!”

The dark figure slowed and stopped, then turned. For a moment she saw a hint of the face in the deep hood, of white hair and bright eyes as the wood carrier stared back at her, then the shape turned back to the path and hurried on.

“Gods’ curses!” Briony screamed hoarsely. “I mean you no harm!” And she began to trot after the shape as fast as her tremblingly weary legs would carry her. But although the figure before her seemed to move no faster than she would expect of an aged woodcutter carrying a heavy burden, she could not seem to close the distance. She dug ahead as hard as she could, but still she could get no closer to the dark shape. “Wait! I don’t want to hurt you! I’m hungry and I’m lost!”

The wide path looped between the trees, rising and falling, and the figure appeared and disappeared in the growing shadows. Briony’s mind was full of old stories again, about malevolent fairies and will-o’-the-wisps who led travelers from their rightful path to their doom in the forest or marsh.

But I’m already lost! she thought miserably. Where would the glory be in that? She even shouted it, but the silent shape before her seemed to pay no attention.

At last, just before she was about to drop to her knees in surrender, give up on the mysterious figure and resign herself to another night alone in cold, rain-spattered despair, the dark-cloaked shape turned from the path— slowly, as if determined that Briony should take notice— and disappeared through the undergrowth into the thickest part of the wood. When she reached that spot on the path, Briony looked carefully but could see nothing unusual. If she had not seen the figure turn, she would have had no idea where it had gone.

Trap, a part of her warned, but that part was not strong enough to rule a mind so hungry and lonely and distraught. She turned off the track into the deep woods, her knife held out before her. Within a few steps she found herself on a steep slope, and after a few more paces stepped down out of the trees into a quiet, grassy dell. A campsite stood at the foot of the hollow—a rickety wagon, a sway-backed horse tied beside it cropping grass, and a fire. Standing beside the fire was the dark-cloaked shape she had trailed, the bundle of firewood lying on the ground at its feet.

The figure threw back the hood of the wet cloak, revealing a tangle of white hair and a face so old and so lined that at first Briony could not be sure if it was male or female.

“You took long enough, daughter,” the ancient creature said. The voice marked her as a woman, although just barely, a throaty rasp halfway between a chuckle and a growl. “I thought I would have to lie down and have a nap to give you time to catch up.”

Briony still had the knife out, but it seemed more important to bend double and keep her hands on her knees instead while she struggled to catch her breath. This was followed by a coughing fit that made her whimper at the pain in her chest. At last she straightened up. “I...couldn’t...catch you...”

The old, old woman shook her head. “I fear for the breed,” was all she said, then began laying new faggots on the fire. “Sit down, child. I can see you’re ill—I’ll have to do something about that. Are you hungry, too?”

“Who...who are you? I mean, yes—Oh, gods, yes, I’m starving.”

“Good. We’ll make you work for your supper, but I suppose you should rest and recover a bit first.” The old woman gave her a sharp look. It was like being stared at by a wild beast. Briony’s heart tripped again. The woman’s eyes were not blue or green or even brown, but black and shiny as volcano glass. “One thing we won’t ask you to do is sing. We’ve had quite enough of that tuneless caterwauling.”

Even in the midst of all these unexpected happenings, Briony was stung. “I was just trying to keep myself going.”

She slumped to the ground and tucked the knife back into its sheath, still finding it hard to get her breath. The old woman was scarcely as high as Briony’s own shoulder and looked to weigh no more than a roast Orphanstide duck.

“Maybe it was the song, then, daughter,” said the old woman as she bent to rummage in a sack that hung from the front of the wagon. “I’ve never cared much for that Gregor. Too full of himself, and a dreadful man for a stretched rhyme. I told him so, too.”

Briony, recovering her strength a little, shook her head. Perhaps this ancient was a little mad—surely she’d