Runemarks

in shadow.

Daniel Hetherset, who had fallen beneath the Outlander’s blow, was recovering. The mindsword had not cut him badly, and now he began to struggle to his feet, blood still flowing from the ugly scratch across his cheek.

One-Eye’s gaze had dropped fractionally; Matt was standing directly in front, and the man who had blindsided him-it was Jan Goodchild, a father of two from one of the most right-thinking families in the valley-now swung out his staff and struck at One-Eye’s head as hard as he could.

If the blow had connected properly, the fight would have been over there and then. But Jan was excited, and his strike went wild, hitting One-Eye on the shoulder and knocking him off balance into the group of possemen.

There followed a messy scuffle, with weapons flailing wildly, Matt Law calling for order, and the Outlander, T yr in hand, swiping and feinting just as cleverly as if it had been a real short-sword and not just a glamour held in place by nothing but the force of his own will.

One-Eye, unlike Loki, had always been a natural with weapons. Even so, he could feel his glam weakening; it takes a great deal of power to use a mindsword, and his time was running short. Jan swiped at him again, hitting his right arm with sickening force; the strike that would have speared Jan went astray and hit Matt Law instead, a messy blow right in the midsection.

One-Eye followed up with another strike, this time spearing Jan through the ribs, a clean thrust, and One-Eye had time for a single thought-You’ve killed him, you fool-before T yr guttered and died in his hand.

Then they were on him, seven men with staves, moving together like reapers in the corn.

A blow to the stomach doubled him up. Another to the head sent him sprawling across the western road. And as the blows fell-too many to count, far too many for the crooked fingerings of yr and Naudr to disperse-One-Eye had time for one more thought-This is what you get for helping the Folk-before one final crashing blow fell across the back of his head and pain and darkness swallowed him whole.

5

Meanwhile, Loki was not finding his task quite as straightforward as he’d hoped. It had been many years since he had approached the Sleepers by this route, and by the time he reached the mountains it was dark. Beneath him the slopes were blank and featureless in the starlight. A waning moon was rising; small clouds flirted across it from time to time, painting the sky silver.

He flew onto a spar of rock that jutted out above a broad belt of scree. Here he regained his Aspect and rested-his shift to hawk guise had stolen more of his glam than he had expected.

Above him the Sleepers were icebound and forbidding; below were scree and stark rock. Down in the foothills, narrow paths crisscrossed the scrubby brushland; blackthorn trees grew; wildcats had their lairs here and sometimes fed on the small brown goats that ran freely across the heather. Afew huts had been built on the slopes of these foothills-mostly by goatherds-but as the land grew bare, even these few signs of habitation ceased.

He stood and looked up at the Sleepers. The entrance was maybe two hundred feet above him, a deep, narrow crevasse buried in snow. He’d been through once but would not have chosen to take the same route again if there had been any other choice.

There was not, and now he stood shivering on his spar of rock and quickly considered his position. The great disadvantage of his type of shapeshifting was that he took nothing with him but his skin-no weapons, no food, and more importantly, no clothes. Already the bitter cold had begun to work on him; much more of it and it would finish him quick.

He thought of shifting to his fiery Aspect but dismissed the idea almost at once. There was nothing to burn above the snow line, and besides, a fire on the mountain would attract far too much of the wrong sort of attention.

Of course, he could always fly up to the crevasse, sparing himself a long, exhausting struggle up into the icy regions. However, he was aware that his hawk guise made him vulnerable-for a hawk can speak no cantrips, and a hawk’s claws are useless if fingerings are required. Loki did not relish the thought of flying blind-not to mention naked-into the Sleepers and whatever ambush might be waiting.

Well, whatever he did, it would have to be fast. He was too exposed out on the blank rock, his colors visible for miles. He might as well have written LOKI WAS HERE across the open mountainside.

And so he regained his bird form and flew to the nearest goatherd’s hut. It was abandoned, but in it he managed to find some clothes-little more than rags, but they’d do-and skins to bind around his feet. The skins smelled of goat and were a poor substitute for the boots he had left behind, but there was a sheepskin jacket, rough but warm, which should keep out the worst of the cold.

Thus attired, he began to climb. It was slow, but it was safe, and over the last five hundred years Loki had learned to value safety more than ever.

He had been climbing for nearly an hour when he met the cat. The moon had risen, scything over the frozen peaks and throwing every rock, every spur into sharp relief. He had passed the snow line. Now his feet crunched against the skirt of a glacier, which looked frilly white from a distance, but which closer inspection revealed to be a grim hardpack of snow, stones, and ancient ice.

Loki was tired. He was also aching with cold; the skins and rags he had stolen from the goatherd’s hut might have served him well enough on the lower slopes but did little against the bitter cold of the glacier. He had tucked his hands into his armpits for warmth, but even so they ached viciously; his face was sore; his feet in their skin bindings had long since lost all sensation, and he stumbled drunkenly across the crust of snow, hiding his trail as best he could.

Once more he considered reverting to his fiery Aspect, but the cold was already too intense. Shifting to his fire form would simply burn up his glam all the faster, leaving him helpless.

He needed rest. He needed warmth. He had already fallen half a dozen times and found it harder on each occasion to struggle to his feet. At last he fell and could not stand up again, and he realized that he no longer had a choice: the possibility of his freezing to death by far surpassed the risk of his being seen.

He cast Sol but clumsily and winced at the pain in his frozen fingers. Shifting to hawk guise was no longer an option; his strength was gone, and he was down to his last cantrips. The rune lit up but gave little heat.

Loki cursed and tried again. This time the warmth was more focused, a glowing ball the size of a small apple that shone against the dull snow. He held the fireball close, and little by little he felt the life return to his crippled hands. Pain came with it. Loki yelped: it felt like hot needles.

Perhaps it was this cry that alerted the cat, perhaps the glow; in any case it came, and it was large-five times larger than a common wildcat and brindled brown as mountain stone. Its eyes were yellow and hungry, its claws soft-sheathed steel in the shaggy pads of its feet.

Further down the slopes, where prey was plentiful, it would most likely have given Loki a wide berth. But here on the glacier prey was scarce. This human-helpless, on his knees in the snow-seemed like a gift.

The cat moved closer. Loki, who could feel the sensation returning to his feet as well as his fingers, tried to stand up, then fell once more, cursing.

The cat moved closer still, wary of the fireball between Loki’s hands, wondering in its dim fashion if this were a weapon that might harm it if it sprang. Loki did not see it and continued to curse as Sol sent its knives into his fingers.

He might be big, the cat thought, but he was slow, he was tired, and more importantly, he was on the ground, where his size would be of no advantage to him.

All in all, it fancied its chances.

The cat had never attacked a human before. If it had, it would have gone for the face and would most likely have killed him with a single bite. Instead it leaped onto Loki’s back, caught him by the scruff of his neck, and tried to roll him over.

He acted fast. Surprisingly fast for a human-though Loki was not precisely human, the cat sensed-and rather than try to grapple with his attacker, the man hauled himself upright, ignoring the claws that gouged into his ribs, and deliberately flung himself as hard as he could onto his back.

For a second the cat was stunned. Its jaws loosened and Loki broke free, boosting himself away and onto his knees so that now he faced the creature head to head, his fire green eyes reflecting its yellow ones, his teeth bared.

The cat squalled, a terrible, ratcheting sound of rage and frustration. It faced him, ready to spring if he made the smallest move. Such battles of will could last for hours among the cat’s own kind, but it sensed that the human’s strength would fail him before long.

Loki knew it too. Numbed as he was with cold, it was hard for him to judge the damage done by the cat’s claws, but he could feel warmth flowing down his back and knew he might collapse at any time. He had to act-and quickly.

Eyes still locked on those of the cat, he held out his hand. In it shone Sol, fading a little but still alight. Very gently Loki moved from his knees to the balls of his feet, so that now he was squatting on his haunches, the sun rune outstretched. The cat squalled and bristled, ready to pounce.

But Loki pounced first. With an effort he sprang to his feet, and at the same time, gathering the last of his glamour, he flung Sol-now a white-hot firebrand-at the snarling creature.

The cat fled. Loki saw it go, a streak against the glacier’s breadth, and heard its cry of defiance as it went. It did not go as far as he would have liked, however, but settled at a distance of about three hundred yards, where the edge of the glacier met a nest of rock.

Here it waited, immobile. It could smell blood-and that made it growl softly with frustrated hunger-but more importantly, it could smell weakness. The human was wounded. At some point soon he would relax his guard.

And so it watched, and when Loki began once more to climb, slowly and laboriously, toward the dim blue cleft between the Sleepers, the cat climbed with him, keeping its distance but gradually closing as his steps faltered, his shoulders slumped, and at last he fell, headfirst and senseless, into the moonlit snow.

6

The face was buried deep, half obscured by tiny rosettes of white frost. But it was unmistakably a woman’s face, white and remote beneath the ice.

“Who is she?” said Maddy at last. With her hands she had managed to clear some of the frost. Underneath, the ice was dark and clear, like lake water. Beneath it the woman lay, slim as a sword, hands crossed against her breast, her pale, cropped hair fanning out into ice crystals around her.