Chapter 66
a bruise which does not heal
a yellow-eyed dog
the sound of oystercatchers before the storm
—Collected Ill Omens, Anon
‘Visitors, my lord.’ Said in almost perfect unison.
Kinghammer levers himself up. The Deadsingers watch him impassively, their eyes flat as snakes, bracelets clacking gently as they straighten their hair and hems.
He grabs a shirt from the floor, glances down at the mess of legs and brown curls beside him. ‘Out. I’ll see you later.’
The woman in the bed flees with haste, clothes pressed to her chest. The Deadsingers’ heads pivot slowly to watch her leave.
Kinghammer pours water into a bowl, knuckles his eyes, runs a hand through his hair, turns. ‘It’s them, isn’t it?’ There’s resignation in his tone.
The Deadsingers incline their heads. ‘The sailor,’ the left hisses. ‘The binder,’ the right adds.
Kinghammer swirls water, spits, and looks at them wryly. ‘What would I do without you both?’
The pair don’t reply, but tilt their heads upwards like a cat watching a bird. Distantly a bell begins to toll, gathering strength as it echoes down into the depths of the mountain. He hasn’t heard these particular chimes for almost twenty years.
‘My little daughter’s safe?’ Another nod.
He lets out a breath. ‘And my other daughter?’
The pair turn to look behind them as raucous laughter fills the antechamber.
Sly smiles flick across their lips, as they glide to one side.
The brown-haired woman’s shriek punctuates the space they leave.
Icecaller strides in not long after, a grin sloping across her face.
‘Morning, Dad,’ she says. She glances back over her shoulder. ‘Nice choice.’
Kinghammer grunts, laces up his breeches. Above, the bell tolls again.
His daughter skips to his side, ruffles his hair. ‘Listen, Dad. They’re playing our song.’
And the song is iron and motion.
The song is iron and ice.
The song is iron and air.
Elsewhere in the mountain, Roofkeeper raises his head as the bell tolls again. ‘What’s that?’
Quickfish turns to him, fuzzy from sleep. ‘Who cares? This entire mountain never stops ringing.’ He burrows deeper into the blankets.
Roofkeeper puts a hand on his chest, pushes himself into a sitting position. He can see feet by the entranceway. Men and women slipping from beds. Buckles, belts, blades. ‘No, Quick. We have to get up. Something’s happening.’ An edge to his voice.
Roofkeeper pulls on his boots, buttons his shirt. Reaching under the covers he finds his axe. Solid wood in his hands calms him a little, but not much. He readjusts his grip, his palms sweaty. ‘I’ll be by the door. Come on love. Move.’
Quickfish takes a while yet to come to. He’s been caught in the shreds of a dream.
Something was pushing insistently against his hand.
The scorched heart of a city stretching around him.
The taste of smoke on his tongue and the rhythm of a small heart drumming rapid and insistent against his fingers.
For a second, he could have sworn that his mother was there.
The sound of movement pushes him awake, shouts, feet, the persistent clatter of preparation. Roofkeeper stands by the doorway, his jaw set, an axe loose in one hand.
Quickfish dresses quickly, awkwardly. His palm aches. ‘So, what is it?’
Roofkeeper shrugs. ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was war. But there’s no way Crowkisser can be here yet.’ He pauses. ‘Can she?’
A twist of the lips as Quickfish wriggles into his trousers. ‘Depends who you talk to. My dad always said she had to drag herself across the land like any other snake. I’ve heard others say she rides the wind. Moves on whispers, lies.’
He cinches the belt. Roofkeeper grins. ‘Plenty of both around here.’ Quickfish smiles nervously. ‘Maybe, but I don’t buy it.’
Another clot of soldiers hammers past, buckling helmets under loose swung chins. Roofkeeper catches one of them by the shoulder. ‘What’s happening?’
The young man smiles, laughs nervously. ‘Visitors out of the Barrowlands. We’re the welcoming committee.’ He looks over Roofkeeper’s shoulder, as he backs up and turns. ‘Ask her!’ he shouts, before he’s lost in the throng.
Roofkeeper pivots to see Icecaller striding through the crowds, slick as a scalpel, the bulk of her father looming behind her. The Deadsingers flutter on the edge of his footsteps, fingers weaving in arcane anxiety.
Icecaller grins when she sees the axe. ‘Wood-chopper! I like a boy who’s prepared.’
Roofkeeper smiles, turns and catches Quick’s wrist. ‘Come on. We’re safest with them.
’ Quickfish says nothing, but his expression speaks volumes.
Still, they slip into the press and keep pace.
The spear blades bob as they weave their way through low tunnels, more and more soldiers joining them from side passages.
Whoever’s drawing near, Thell is turning out for them, and the city is nervous.
The entire throng moves like a chattering steel snake to the high battlements that overlook the Barrowlands, and the gate into the mountain.
Quickfish can feel the weight of Kinghammer behind him as they run upwards. The Deadsingers are quiet and slight in his shadow. Bone charms, polished amber, yellow teeth.
He glances at Icecaller and watches her tattoos move, pulled between arm and shoulder, ‘Is it Crowkisser?’ He hates how his voice sounds.
She looks across, shoves him with an elbow. ‘Chill out spunk, you’re not fucked yet. But, we do have guests.’
He lets out a tight breath. ‘Who then?’
The Deadsingers hum and click their tongues. ‘The debt-collector. The thread-weaver. Render. God-builder.’ Their necks sway, their fingers wide in the body-cut light. ‘Promise-taker. Voice-holder. Opener. Heart-binder. And his salt-eyed slut.’ Their laughter scurries like rats in a hold.
‘People we owe a great debt,’ Kinghammer interrupts as they reach the upper galleries.
As Thell opens out to the air, sunlight hits Quickfish’s face. In front of him, steel upon steel, held against a bright blue sky – the people of Thell painted, armoured, and waiting.
Roofkeeper nudges him. ‘We never got any of this.’
Icecaller shoves her face between them. Her skin smells fresh, clean and cold.
‘Of course not, pups. We’re not nearly as scared of you.
You didn’t save half the people in this mountain.
’ She winks. ‘Now be good. Watch the sky, watch the ground. Fall into the hush.’ She turns to go, then moves back to Quickfish, taking his wrists in her hands.
‘If you see anything strange. Anything wrong, you tell me.’ A hand against his cheek, ‘Nigh’s down below with Steel. If anything comes for them, kill it.’
Her eyes flick to Roofkeeper. Her fingers tracing a line to his axe blade. ‘That means you, hot stuff. Anything moves towards my sis, put that fucking axe in its teeth until it chokes on them.’
Roofkeeper grins. ‘If she doesn’t get to them first.’
Icecaller bites down on a laugh, and turns to take her place beside her father. Kinghammer nods at them, gazing down to the stretch of the Barrowlands below.
The bell tolls again. The blue air swallows it.
Hushed chatter falls away to the clink and shuffle of restless armour.
Quickfish presses himself up against the parapet, Roofkeeper’s arm light around his waist. A thrill of excitement pulses in his chest.
The flanks of the Stump lurch down to the ground impossibly far below, two hundred feet or more.
The grass shows green beneath the fading frost, the brief shadows of hawks and the familiar slender splints of the cairn flags.
The outbuildings are empty now, their population drawn up and into the mountain like a startled breath.
Approaching between the abandoned walls, shrunk by distance, come two figures.
Hand in hand, one broad-shouldered, walking with a slow, steady roll, blonde hair pulled by the wind.
The other leans against her, slight as a shadow, hands loose at his sides, red thread trailing in the wind.
Quickfish’s heart lurches. He hasn’t seen them since he was a child.
He remembers those strong hands bouncing him on a toy horse, remembers the soft voice behind the blonde hair and the gentle, quiet man who talked to him as if he was already twenty years grown. Shipwright and Shroudweaver.
The bell tolls again.
The wind drops. The flags hang slack. He can hear the breath of the people next to him, watches it frost in the empty air.
A spear is dropped. Someone’s clumsy, nervous fingers. The sound rings out, down, down and down.
The pair draw closer, slowly, slowly.
He can make out their faces now. She is stoic, the blunt lines of her face set against the mountain. His lips are tight, his eyes closed. Perhaps that’s why he’s holding her hand so tightly.
Roofkeeper leans forwards, murmurs in his ear. ‘They look …’
‘Terrified,’ Quickfish finishes.
The bell tolls. The air thick with its echoes. The clouds drag against the sharp blue of the sky.
There is moss growing in the parapet stone, sprouting thin bright alpine flowers. Quickfish picks one, twists it anxiously. He feels Roof’s ribs press against his back as he breathes and leans into the soft scratch of his shirt, the smell of his neck. His heart hammers a little quieter.
The bell tolls.
A figure leaves Thell. Skinpainter, alone, their rags hanging slack and lifeless in the still air. The pair stop. Quickfish watches them. Shipwright says something terse, makes a few economical gestures.
In response, Skinpainter stretches their arms wide. Turns to face the mountain.
Shipwright glances upwards, seems about to speak again before Shroudweaver puts his hand on her shoulder. He steps forwards into the space between the two of them, raising his red ribboned right hand.
Slowly, so slowly, he unpicks the threads.
They fall carefully, lazily.
The bell is still.
The air is still.
Thell is still.
The red binding uncoils from his fingers. The grass takes it. The cairns take it.
Soon enough, it’s done.
He holds his bare hand to the mountain, fingers spread wide, steady for the briefest moment, before he staggers, curling in on himself like he’s taken a punch in the gut. He straightens eventually, but slowly, like a dry leaf uncurling.
Shipwright moves to stand behind him, her feet planted square, her hands on his shoulders. Quickfish recognises the gesture and kisses Roofkeeper’s hand appreciatively.
Below, Skinpainter steps towards the pair. Their rags flare, though the air remains hollow and still.
When the trio embrace, Quickfish feels his breath fall through his lungs. He almost drops over the side as the mountain erupts with deafening cheers.
The sky fills with them.
The barrows roil with them.
As the noise swells, Icecaller threads her way through faces mad with relief. She slings her arms around Quickfish, palms wet with sweat.
A long sick laugh slides out of her.
Quickfish looks at her in confusion. He’s not quite sure what he’s witnessed, but he felt a weight leaving these people. A great fear evaporating, like mist under morning sun. He can read it on Icecaller’s face as she collects herself, and grins at him,
‘Shipwright and Shroudweaver come to Thell. Fuck me. Never thought I’d live to see that.’