Irritably she nodded, tugging out the long sharp knives from her belt. “I know. Go to sleep, worrier.”
The fire was low, the mist smothering it. She fed it carefully, squatting with her back to the others. The horses tugged restlessly at their ropes, their ears flickering as a murmur of sound came from the wood. Jessa crouched, listening. She wondered where Kari’s birds were. There was no sign of them, but they might be roosting above, invisible in the black branches.
It took about half an hour for the kindling to run out.
Finally she stood up, brushing dead leaves from her knees. Gripping the knives tight, she ventured out cautiously into the trees and looked around.
The wood was a dim gloom, mist drifting round the dark trunks. She crouched quickly, snatching up anything that would burn—pinecones, snapped twigs, branches. Suddenly her fingers touched something hard, and she lifted it, curious.
It was an old war helmet, rusting away. One of the cheek plates was gone; the empty eyeholes were clotted with soil. As she raised it the soil shifted and fell, as if the eyes had opened.
And something touched her.
She looked down, heart thudding.
A hand had been laid on her sleeve softly. The fingers were scarred, pale as bone. And they had claws.
Ten
Nine worlds I can reckon, nine roots of the tree,
The wonderful ash, way under the ground.
Jessa screamed, twisting sideways. She jumped back, crashing into Hakon; he caught her arm and dragged her toward the fire, her eyes wide.
“Did you see it?” She gasped.
“There was a shadow … something.”
The wood around them was silent. For a long moment they all stood listening, so tense that they barely breathed, Jessa shuddering from cold and shock.
Then Brochael hefted the ax in his hand. “Get some wood, Hakon. Plenty of it.”
They kept watch as Hakon sheathed his sword and gathered quick armfuls of kindling, Jessa picking up what he dropped. Then all of them backed to the dying fire.
“Build it up,” Brochael ordered. He stood warily, watching the dim trees. “So what was it, Jessa?”
She took a deep breath. “A hand. But the nails were long, really long. For a moment I thought…”
“What?”
She shook her head. “And there’s this.”
She held up the helmet. He spared it a glance, then looked again dubiously.
“That’s familiar. Made at the Jarlshold, or Wormshold, surely.”
Skapti took it from her. “Our people? Here?”
“Still here.” Kari was watching something, his frost gray eyes moving, scanning the trees.
They looked at him and he said, “You remember. Long ago an army from the Jarlshold marched north against the Snow-walkers. None of them ever came back, isn’t that so? Except my father. And the witch was with him.”
Jessa nodded, remembering all too clearly. “Mord told me that. He said the war band marched down into a strange white mist. No one ever knew what happened to them. Presumably they died.” She looked into the fog gathering around the trees. “It happened here?”
“Near here.”
“But the hand I saw…”
“Dead men’s nails grow,” Skapti said drily.
She looked at him in horror. But Kari said, “These are their ghosts. I can see them all around us. Gaunt, ragged men.”
“How many?” Brochael asked quietly.
“Too many.” Kari’s voice was strained; he was glad they could not see as he could. The ghost army stood in the mist; wounded, filthy, their faces hard and unremembering, as if nothing of their lives or memory were left to them. They made no move, but their eyes were cold, and he knew they meant evil.
“Keep by the fire. I don’t know what else we can do.”
Behind him the horses whinnied; they too could see. One reared, and then another, struggling frantically with their ropes. Turning, he saw the wraith men had moved in behind, closer.
“Hold them!” Brochael snarled. “If they break out, we’re in trouble.”
Hakon threw himself at the straining rope; he dragged the horses’ heads down and Jessa grabbed the leading rein of the packhorse, fighting to hang on to it. Slowly they calmed the beasts, talking to them, rubbing their long noses, but they were still terrified, Jessa knew.
“What do we do?” Brochael asked.
“Make a ring around the fire,” Kari answered. “As close as you can. Lend me your sword, Hakon.”
For a moment Hakon hesitated. Then he held it out. Kari took it and held it a moment; then he put the point to the soil and drew a great circle around them, horses and all. Where the circle joined he stabbed the blade upright into the muddy ground; it swayed but stood.
Even before he had finished, he saw the wraith army run forward, heard their hissing snarls of disappointment.
Outside the circle they stood close, bleeding from old wounds, their eyes cold. He saw rusted swords in their hands, smashed shields, helms black with old blood.
“Don’t go outside the ring,” Kari muttered. “Whatever you do, don’t break it.”
Jessa looked at his face, and the fear in it turned her cold. She stared outward but saw nothing but trees, and mist, and faint movements in the corner of her eye, so that when she focused on them they were gone. But she knew they were out there. The concentration of malice and fear was like a rank smell about them; she gave Hakon one of her long knives and he gave her a quick, grateful glance.
Then Kari spoke. “I can hear you.”
He looked outward, at one spot. “Leave us alone. These are your own people. Let them be.”
“We have no people,” the wraith voice snarled at him. “We have only the forest. We are its breath, its stirring. Our bodies feed its roots. We have waited years for you.”
“For me?” he breathed.
“A sorcerer as powerful as she was. Release us.”
There was silence. He knew the others were watching him; they had only heard his answers.
“What do they say?” Brochael growled.
Kari shook his head. Then he said, “I’ll do what I can. How will I find you?”
The ghost warrior grinned, its broken face dark. “We will show you the way, rune lord.”
“When the sun comes.”
“Now.”
“No. When the sun comes.”
Silence answered him. He clenched his fists, alert for what they might do. But slowly, they moved back and faded into mist, into nothing. He let his breath out painfully and turned.
“They’ve gone.”
“Gone? Where? Will they come back?”
Kari pushed his hair from his eyes and sat down. “They’ll be back.”
All the rest of the night they sat alert around the fire, nervous at every sound. Kari seemed weary and preoccupied; he would say little about the ghost army or what they had said to him, and soon drifted into sleep, his head on Brochael’s chest.
“He can sleep anywhere,” Skapti muttered.
“He’s lucky,” Hakon said.
None of the others could. They talked in low voices, uneasy, Skapti making bitter, defiant jokes about dead men. Slowly the wood lightened about them, the dawn glint filtering through the massed leaves, but the mist still lingered, in pockets and hollows under the dark trees. Hakon’s sword gleamed wet with dew.
Stiff, sore, and thirsty, Jessa untwisted her hair and tied it up again, tight. Somehow that made her feel better. Skapti handed out bannocks and some of the dry, crumbly cheese, and they shared the cold water.
“There must be a stream nearby,” Jessa said.
“Probably.” The skald ate quickly, his eyes on the mist. “But I’m not sure if I would care to drink from it.”
“Why not?” Hakon looked at him in alarm. “What might it do?”
Skapti gave him a sharp sideways glance. “There are streams in Ironwood that turn men to ice, make them sleep forever, drive them mad—”
“Skapti!” Brochael growled.