liked.
Ranald turned and looked back. ‘Aye.’
It was afternoon by the time they came out of the bottom of the clouds and could see, through gaps in the rain curtain, another valley of lochs. It was oriented differently – in this one the lochs grew smaller as the valley rose to the east and north, into high crags.
The Keeper reached the first ford, marked again with a cairn of stones that leaped to the eye in the naked, empty landscape of green grass and rock and water.
‘Water’s high,’ he shouted.
The captain leaned out and watched it for a long minute. They could hear rocks being rolled under the water.
The stream rushed down a narrow gorge above them, gathered power between two enormous rocks, and shot into the loch on their right – a sheet of water perhaps three hundred paces long and very deep.
Bad Tom laughed. He roared, ‘Follow me,’ and turned his horse’s head south. He seemed to ride straight out into the loch, yet his horse was virtually dry-shod as he rode a half circle a few paces out from the shoreline.
The captain followed, as did Ranald. Looking down into the water, he could see a bank of rocks and pebbles just under the water.
‘In the spring run-off,’ Ranald said, ‘the force of water pushes all the rock out of the mouth of the stream. Makes a bank – like yon.’ He laughed. ‘Any hillman knows.’
Tom looked back at the Keeper. ‘Aye. Any
The Keeper shot him a look, but Tom was immune to looks.
They started up the valley, wet and feeling surly.
The trail followed the stream past a magnificent waterfall, and then they climbed the cliff – the trail was just wide enough for an experienced rider to stay mounted, and it cut back and back – nine switchbacks to climb a few hundred feet. Ser Alcaeus’s war horse balked, and would not climb until Ser Alcaeus dismounted, walked back, and fetched him.
Mag dismounted at a switchback and looked at the captain.
He understood. She was not going to
‘Thanks,’ she said.
She began to walk up the track.
He led her horse.
At the top of the cliff there was another loch. It was smaller, deeper, trapped in narrow cleft and dammed off by the ridge of rock that made the cliff. Above the loch was a long, grassy ridge that rose and rose. Above it all towered a mighty crag, covered in snow – but the snow line was still as far above them as they had come in two days.
The trail ran along the banks of the loch, in deep grass.
There were sheep high on the hillsides.
The only sound was the muted roar of the waterfall coming off the loch behind them, and the distant babble of the stream off the glaciers running into the top of the loch.
There was a gravel beach at the top of the loch. The captain caught the Keeper and pointed to it. ‘Camp?’ he said.
The Keeper shook his head. ‘He’s telling us to go away. This weather’s unnatural.’ He shrugged. ‘We’re in for a bad night.’
The captain was looking through the rain at the distant beach. ‘I see wood there.’
Mag nodded. ‘I saw rowans up in the highest valleys,’ she said.
‘Rowan, alder, and older things,’ agreed the Keeper. ‘We can’t have a fire, this close to the Wyrm.’
‘Why not?’ the captain asked.
‘The Wyrm has rules.’ The Keeper shrugged.
The captain shook his head. ‘Taking living wood might incur the wrath of a Power,’ he said. ‘Dead wood on a beach, however-’ He managed a smile and shrugged off the rain. ‘There’s an overhang there. Gather all the horses against it to break the wind.’
The Keeper shrugged. ‘On your head be it. If we turn back now, we can have better weather before sunset.’
Gawin rubbed water out of his moustache. ‘Tell me why we didn’t camp by a loch with fish?’ he asked.
The captain looked out over the rain-swept sheet of water. ‘I’d bet a golden leopard to a copper there’s salmon in this water,’ he said. ‘But I wouldn’t be the man to catch one.’
Gawin smiled. ‘You don’t know much about salmon, brother, if you think they can climb a hundred foot of falls.’
‘My bet stands,’ the captain said. ‘But to catch one would be a deadly insult to our host, and as the Keeper has noted, he’s not in love with us at the moment.’
Mag cackled. ‘So worried about a bit of wet. I’m twice the age of most of you, and I can roll up in a wet cloak and sleep. My joints will cry in the morning, but what of it? I saw a dragon fly in the dawn.’ She looked at them. ‘I’m not turning back, gentles.’
They constructed a shelter from spear poles and heavy wool blankets, pinned down with the biggest rocks on the beach. The wind tested it for a while, but didn’t seem interested in a real contest.
The captain rode off with Ser Alcaeus, and together they roamed the long beach and picked up every stick on it – it made a respectable woodpile.
‘And where’d it come from, I’d like to know?’ asked the Keeper.
The captain shrugged. ‘Our host put it out for us to find, I expect.’
Gawin, a practised hunter, took a fire kit from his pack and looked at his brother across the fire pit. ‘Like being boys again,’ he said.
‘We never tried to light a fire in a storm like this,’ the captain said.
‘We did, too,’ said Gawin. ‘I couldn’t get it lit, you used power, and Pater cursed you.’
‘You’re making this up,’ the captain said, shaking his head.
Gawin gave him the oddest look. ‘No,’ he said. He used his body and his soaking cloak to cover the fire pit, and the captain’s quick hands laid a bed of twigs – damp, but dry as drift wood ever is. Gawin put a bed of dry tow from his fire kit inside a nest of birch bark.
‘Bark from home,’ he said.
The captain shrugged.
Gawin laid charred linen deep in the tow, and then struck his fire steel against a small shard of flint until spark flew. The char-cloth lit, he dropped it into the nest in his hand, and blew. Smoke billowed out. He blew a second time, a long, slow breath, and more smoke came.
The captain leaned over and blew.
Before his breath was out, Gawin blew, and the whole nest burst into flame. Gawin dropped it onto the waiting twigs, and both men added more, and more – speed and accuracy embodied.
In two cracks of lightning, they had a fire.
Maggie laughed. ‘You could have just magicked it,’ she said. ‘Instead of showing off with your woodcraft.’
Gawin frowned.
The captain smiled. ‘I avoided the use of power for many years.’ He shrugged. ‘Why waste it?’
She nodded, understanding.
They made tea from the water of the loch, ate cold meat, and curled up to sleep. The stones of the beach were cold and wet, but the wool tent and the warmth of the horses won out in the end.
They took watches in turns. The captain took the mid watch, and he sat high above the beach on a rock. The wind was gone, and with it the rain, and he watched a thousand thousand stars and the moon.
