Web of the Norns

Aker Amen had also felt the terror of that last wail. He pulled his sword from the snow, and cursed eloquently as he wiped the blade dry. Grant walked to where he had dropped his pack and collapsed against it. Without interrupting his stream of invective, Aker aimed it at Grant.

"You misbegotten, worm-fingered, stew-brained, rock-headed civilian. . if you hadn't made all that fuss with the Berl-Cat those Al'kahar maniacs might never have heard us. Not only that, but with your lousy shooting I had to use up that good climean spell I Urrrgh. ." The vituperation tapered off into a growl of anger as he buckled on his armour. As soon as all his equipment was secured, he started to leave, but turned to glare at Grant tugging tiredly and halfheartedly at the pack. "Rouse up and lean into that pack — we have to be out of these woods by sunset."

He did not say why, but Grant needed no urging. He had his fill of the things that lurked in this forest.

He lifted the hand clutching the bow and arrow, nodding questioningly at the encircling forest.

"Keep 'em," Aker growled. "You're supposed to have won them." He started moving again.

With a certain confidence at having a weapon at last, Grant unstrung the bow and shoved it and the arrows into a strap of the pack and shrugged the giant burden onto his shoulders. By the time Aker reached the edge of the clearing, Grant was a pace behind, settling the burden into position as he went.

Suddenly he was aware that Grayf was missing, and had been missing through the entire affair. Between shifts of the pack he wheezed, "Where's Grayf?"

"We were down the trail when I heard your noise. I came back. He should have gone ahead and waited." And Aker Amen added like a grim prayer, " If he went far enough away he'll be out of the way of them."

Five minutes later a turn of the trail gave them the answer. Grayf lay there face down, his arms extended and his fingers hooked into the ground. He was like a monstrous pincushion full of monstrous red pins. From his back and legs there projected at least two dozen arrows.

"The fool must have tried to run." Aker passed the body in a wide circle, dragging Grant after him. Don't go near him, or you'll look the same. The dead are sacred to the Al'kahar." He added in a fierce rumble, "That's what they eat."

As soon as they were out of sight of the riddled corpse Grant leaned against a tree and tried to lose his breakfast.

VI

They continued the next hours at a slower pace. Aker grumbled and prodded Grant on with word and toe, but eventually gave up and adapted his long stride to that of the slower man, frequently ranging ahead silently to scout the trail.

At dusk they came to the end of the forest. The trees ended abruptly at the edge, a vertical escarpment, a granite wall with a thread of trail meandering down the face of it, widening out once into a green tree-grown shelf, then narrowing again. At the foot was a pleasant valley, with fields and meadows, and far away a smudge of smoke rising from some kind of habitation.

As they went down the path they left the forest of the "holy men" of Al'kahar.

The path was less difficult than it had looked from above; it had been hand carved many ages ago, to judge from the weathering, but it was still usable and steps had been hacked out for the worst descents. The brisk wind swept the path free of snow. Grant concentrated on balancing his pack and staying away from the sheer drop on his left.

There was a shallow grotto where the trail levelled out halfway down, and the smoke-blackened wall and lumps of charcoal under the snow showed that travellers had stopped here before. As Grant groaned out of his pack, Aker ranged ahead onto the shelf with its overgrowth and the sound of wood being hacked rang back. The long sword had more than one use.

Now that they had stopped, Grant's hard-earned warmth seeped away. He hopped from one foot to another and blew on his numbed fingers.

Aker was back after a time with a load of dead branches. He stamped a clear spot at the base of the stone wall, where the stones before it would, cut off the light of the tire, and made a conical pile of broken sections of tree limb. Then he shredded a mound of splinters under them. From the depths of his wallet he dragged out a small metal box. Grant tried to guess what it contained — a fire bow, or perhaps flint and steel. He was taken aback when Aker shook a little orange lizard out onto his hand. The lizard, sluggish from the cold, slowly drew the nictitating membrane from one eye. Obviously unhappy at the frigid world, it closed the membrane and tried to curl up. Aker stirred it to life with a blunt finger and proffered a few splinters picked from the freshly cut wood. This unlikely food seemed to please the little reptile; its eyes flew open and it gulped the splinters down. It chewed voraciously when Aker produced some larger splinters about the size of toothpicks.