Witch King

1. Howl Hill

1. Howl Hill

AndarHobbe stepped into the blur of the snowstorm. The wind from the north cut through him despite all the fur and cloth he'd muffled himself in. The hard, cold air took his breath away, hurt his lungs. The first true blast of winter. The mountain peaks around him were invisible, their lines wiped away by slanting snow. Even Howl Hill, its bulk towering behind his ramshackle hut, was gone.

He waded rather than walked through the snowfall. It was already up to his knees. He'd known for months a hard winter was coming. You didn't live in the wilds of the north without getting a feel for the place. Summers were dazzling in their beauty, but winters were brutal. They were the price you paid. A price he'd met happily for many years, enjoying his solitude. He could sit for a whole day and watch the shifting light washing across the waters of the An, and no one would disturb him. He could wander the woods for hours and see only fleeing deer, hear only the racketing, chattering birds in the treetops.

But winters, now. Winters were to be endured. When the light faded and the cold came, his old bones ached. Sometimes, when he tried to rise in the morning, he felt like he'd frozen solid overnight. He hoped he'd collected enough provisions to last through to spring. He'd gathered twigs and sticks from the evergreen woods all summer, as he always did. Enough to keep his log fire smouldering through winter days and nights.

Water, at least, would be plentiful.

If he stayed healthy, and didn't slip on the ice and smash leg or arm, the only problem he had was finding enough to eat. Again, over the years, he'd learned to stock up during the long, warm weeks of summer, the brief fruitful days of autumn. He had a barrel full of apples plucked from his stunted little orchard. He had a larder hung with salted meat: fish pulled from the An and even a few rabbits or martens caught in the woods. He'd cooked up cauldrons of bilberries and hurtleberries to make a sticky purple paste. A precious taste of sweetness for the darkest days. He had honey and roots and even some hardy green vegetables that could grow through the winter if he kept the worst of the snow off them.

Yes, he was well-stocked. But he couldn't afford to take chances. It only took an extra month of cold weather to make all the difference between surviving and dying a lonely death. He was old. Some day he'd have to leave the log cabin he'd built with his own hands. Leave his little garden and his orchard and the place he sat to look out over the waters. Put it all behind him and head south to civilisation. To Guilden, most likely, the city he'd been born in. Teeming, troublesome Guilden that he'd fled as a young man, vowing never to return.

Once a year he had visitors from the city. Three bearded and bedraped mancers would drift up the An, their boat moving against the current without sail or oar to propel it. They always came ashore near his little hut, and set up their brass telescopes and astrolabes on the flat table of land at the foot of Howl Hill. Despite his love of solitude, and despite the pang of alarm that still rang through him when he saw them coming, he'd grown to look forward to those brief visits. The mancers were stern and talked little, but he could get news from them, find out what was occurring in the wide world. He found it pleasing to know that the hubbub of life was going on and that he was isolated from it, safe from it. That no one cared, also, who or what he was.

There'd been a young mancer this year who'd been unusually talkative. He'd stood apart while the two older men – and they were all men of course – took their careful readings of the advancing snow line on the slopes and consulted their battered black books of charts and tables. Hobbe and the young mancer – Ash? Ashen? – had fallen into a halting conversation while the older mancers bickered over something in their observations.

“Why do they argue?” Hobbe had asked.

The young mancer was tall and spindly beneath his robes and cloaks. His long hair was wild, like a dandelion's seed-head. His expression was amused as he replied. “They can't agree what their readings mean.”

Hobbe had glanced up at the peak. Howl Hill was a constant presence in his life and he'd grown used to its moods. In the old days only the triangular peak was dusted with white at the autumn equinox. This time half the mountain was under snow. He'd already seen two or three avalanches exploding off distant slopes.

“The weather is changing,” said Hobbe. “A hard winter is coming. Don't need to consult charts to see that.”

“How hard do you think?” asked the young mancer. A clear note of concern coloured his voice.

“Hard enough to freeze the An for miles out. Each year I have to walk farther and farther to reach open water.”

The young mancer looked thoughtful for a moment. “Perhaps you should come south with us. Come to Guilden for the winter at least. There's room enough on the boat.”

Hobbe shrugged. “I like it up here.”

“But how do you even survive? The winter must be cruel.”

For a moment, Hobbe nearly explained. A part of him longed to tell someone what he'd done, why he'd fled the world. He'd been about the same age as this young mancer, studying, like him, the arcane arts. But Hobbe had done terrible things. Everyone knew the ancient tales of the necromancers of Angere and what they'd achieved. As a boy Hobbe had been fascinated by old tales of the creatures walking across the ice in the high north. Ignoring the sternest warnings of his elders, he'd researched the ancient magics. Dabbled.

There were said to be many old books kept at the Witches' Isle that might have helped, but he had no access to them. Instead he'd pieced together what few scraps of lore he could, filling in the gaps for himself. His attempts to reproduce Ilminion's work had gone hideously wrong. The young woman he'd worked on hadn't died by his hand, but the screaming, bloody creature that returned to life, begging for release from her agonies, had been his doing. Even now, decades later, he woke from nightmares, soaked with sweat, panting as if he were being chased.

But in that moment he'd seen himself through her eyes. Felt the horror, the hate. In disgust at what he'd done he'd turned away from it. Given the poor girl the release she begged for. Burned his notes and books. Then fled north for a life of solitude. An exile, a punishment.

All this he very nearly confessed to the young mancer. Instead, looking away, Hobbe simply said, “I like the peace.”

The young mancer nodded, a thoughtful look on his face, but didn't reply.

Of course, the mancers only came to discover whether the winter would be cold enough for an Ice Fair on the river at Guilden. Once the ritual had served another purpose, a more serious purpose. The people had needed to know if they'd be safe from nightmares creeping south in the dead of winter. Now the mancers' ceremony was merely a part of the Midwinter festivities. They came and took their readings and, if it were cold enough, they'd announce to the cheering people that there would be a fair.

Hobbe well remembered the festivities from when he was a boy: those magical few days when arenas and stalls and games and races were set up on the ice and people set aside their old lives for a time. Heady, wild days when laws didn't apply because they celebrated in a place that wasn't a place – the river – and in a time that wasn't a time – the gap between the end of the old year and the start of the new. One year, an uncle had been voted the Lord of Misrule, and Hobbe and his cousins had been at the head of the bonfire procession, assigned a series of jokes and tricks to play on people over the three days. And then, when it was over, the good folk of Guilden went back to their lives and became the people they were for the rest of the year.

Shaking his head at these memories, Hobbe worked his way down the slope to the river bank. In the summer it was alive with the chirrup of invisible insects. Sometimes a bright purple butterfly would flit around, sipping at the tiny yellow flowers. That was gone. The slope was a sheet of snow, treacherous to descend. He took it slowly. If he broke a leg here he'd struggle to crawl back to his hut. He had his stoutest fishing-pole with him. These days it was as much a staff, a crook, to keep him upright as he worked his way forward. Once out onto the ice he would head for open water. Fish caught now meant a day or two more he wouldn't have to dip into his supplies.

He reached the edge of the river without mishap. This was the place the mancers had left after their fortnight of observations, climbing into their miraculous boat to float back to Guilden. Only the young one had looked troubled, constantly glancing around him as if expecting attack, peering into the frozen north or westward across the An. Hobbe had watched them leave with something like regret. If his life had gone differently, if he hadn't made the mistakes he'd made, this might have been him. A wise, revered mancer of Guilden, bearing glad tidings to the rapturous crowds that there would be an Ice Fair. But it could never be. That bridge had been swept away a long time ago.

He stepped onto the ice, adopting the foot-sliding walk he always used on frozen ground. He'd find the water and see if he could pluck out a fish or two. He slid along for an hour without coming to the edge. Occasionally he reached out with his pole to tap, terrified of stepping onto thin ice and crashing through into the An. The river remained as solid as stone. How far out was he? How deep was the water beneath his feet? He tried not to think about it.

There were serpents in the depths. Colossal creatures that would drag down any boat attempting the crossing. Even the mancers, when they sailed from Guilden, clung to the banks, following the line of each inlet and headland so they could stay in shallow waters. Were the monsters there now, rolling through the depths beneath his feet? The thought sent a shudder through him. Still there was no end in sight to the ice. He kept sliding forward, part of him wanting to turn around, part of him hating wasting all that effort for no gain.

He walked for three hours before finally deciding to turn back. There was no sign of open water. Numbness had crept through his toes and turned his legs to ice. He wasn't going to find any fish. He suddenly felt very exposed, very alone. A cold, old man alone on the frozen waters of the An, many miles from the safety of land.

He turned around, and it was then he slipped. His frozen limbs, refusing to work properly, locked into place, overbalancing him. There was a moment of disorientation as he fell. A sickening thud of pain thumped through him, and ice filled his brain.

When he woke it was dark. How long had he lain on the ice? Panicking that he might be frozen into place he pushed himself upward. His head swam for a moment at the effort. A patch of darkness marred the place where his head had rested. He touched his temple and found the wound. The blood had frozen solid.

As he struggled it came to him that he'd had enough. He should have given up and gone south with the mancers when he had the chance. He was too old and frail for such a hard life. Next year, if he survived the winter, he would sail with them to Guilden where it was safe and warm. Perhaps he would admit his crimes. There wasn't much they could do to him now. But, one way or another, he would find some peace. He'd paid for what he'd done, even if he'd punished himself. Surely that counted for something.

He stood. A full moon hung low in the western sky, lighting the ice with a misty silver glow. He breathed more mist when he exhaled. The mountains of Andar were visible in the distance behind him, a faint saw-edge line of peaks against the hard stars. How far had he come? The ice stretched westward as far as he could see, moonlight reflecting dully off it. It didn't seem possible. There would be no more fish this winter.

He was about to turn away, begin the long trudge back to the banks of Andar, when he caught a glimpse of something out on the ice. A faint light from the west, flickering yellow. How could that be? No one else would be out there on the frozen river in the middle of the night.

Hobbe stood and watched as more lights twinkled into existence. A line of them, stretching upriver and downriver as far as he could see, countless in number. The lights bobbed and flickered.

Torches. Behind them, rank upon rank, came more torches, and yet more.

Panicky now, half-running and half-sliding, Hobbe headed for Andar. But he knew it was useless. In a few moments he could hear them: the clanking metal, the huffing breaths, the stomp, stomp of their feet. The ice shook to the sound of their passing. He glanced over his shoulder and saw them. This was no Midwinter tale, no legend from the old days. The undain of Angere were coming. An army of them. A vast, wide army.

He stopped. He was already exhausted. He would never reach the banks before they overtook him. He would never set foot in the beautiful woods of Andar again. Perhaps it was justice after all this time. Retribution for his ancient crime. It occurred to him that maybe this was what he'd been seeking all along. Perhaps he'd simply sought judgement from the sorcerous creatures that he'd tried, in his vanity, to create.

Hobbe slumped to the ice and waited for them to reach him, knowing he would be the first of many to die in the invasion of Andar.