Winter In The Mountains Ch 08

We laid Clonk to rest under a great cairn of stones just outside the camp. The captain and squad chanted an old soldier's dirge to mark his passing, the first of our squad. I knelt before the cairn and thought about Clonk's life and death. He had crept out in the middle of the night to raid the wine store, so the devils in his life had lead to his death. But his manner of death had saved our lives; he had surprised the assassin at work preparing to kill us all. If he hadn't, at least most of us would've died.

For Clonk, the easy things had been hard, the hard things impossible, but he had certainly tried, far beyond what I had expected. I hoped that he lay in peace. He had been a considerate man, he had taken whatever I had given him as a gift he did not deserve. I remembered lying in his arms, him telling me of the little boy he had fathered, but only saw rarely, growing up in another family but still looking forward to his daddy's visits. I wept.

We were somber, shaken deeply. Not only had Clonk passed away, but also this had been a direct, deliberate assault on our camp, and that woman, an assassin of the highest skill, according to the men, had embarked on a suicide mission, along with the men that had been her guard. I wondered who would be next? How many of us, if any, would survive? What made the mountain crossing so valuable to the enemy? How would they attack us next?

The squad was very impressed with what I had done. I didn't think it was a very big deal - I had been awakened by a terrible feeling, grabbed my knife, and managed not to get killed. But only just. Only the fact that I had only a small nick and quick thinking by Scar to clean my wound had saved my life. She had made a very nasty poison from a couple of herbs in my collection. I had nearly died – I had actually stopped breathing for a few minutes, they told me, during the middle of the morning. But once I started to recover, I recovered fairly quickly. By the end of the second day I felt up to resuming my duties.

Scar took me aside quietly to talk about how I had handled the situation, as a mentor would for a student. We agreed that I was lucky, I had only been saved by my special sight. Scar didn't really know what I should've done better, but he said that he didn't want me to get over-confident.

I watched him, as he was telling me this. Was Scar filled with love for me? The symbolism in my dreams had seemed so straight forward: Clonk died. Tin Man was the terrible angles. Only the captain could be the man of flame, and Scar would certainly be the one in his shadow, filled with love for me. But in the glare of day, everything was less sure. How could someone be in the shadow of a flame? If Scar loved so much, so that it consumed his life, how could I not feel it in him? Maybe I had interpreted the dream wrong. Or maybe it had no meaning, it was just self delusion? I had already though this through lying in my bedroll recovering the first day. Oh, there was no doubt in my mind that it should be Scar, that if I did love anyone it would be Scar.

But love was such a strange concept for me. I had never loved before, nor had I ever been loved. Oh, I'd had many men who wanted my body, came back time and time again. But then I was just a body, that's all I was. My heart and soul were with the seed. Now, I had grown to like all the men. Even Tin Man was growing in my heart. I had given them my heart and soul – but love? Oh, I had started with a huge crush on the captain. I had enjoyed that, given myself to him with a passion that astounded me. I had no problem getting wet for him – though if it was a problem, I had an herb to add to oil and rub on my lips that made me wet anyway (a working girl's secret). But the depth of the captain's love, commitment and involvement with Holly had weaned me of that. I still enjoyed giving myself to him, as I did with many of them, but I no longer had a crush on him. Though I no longer had a crush on him, he was still my master, and I still felt that way about him.

Was I falling in love with Scar? I had something special with him from the start, and there was no one else I looked forward to spending time as much as Scar. I had already dreamt of marrying Scar after we left the mountains. But who was I kidding – after giving myself to all the squad, I was sure that none of them would want me afterwards. And if I ever wavered on that, there was the fact that I actually enjoyed having sex more with a couple of the other guys to remind me who I was.

So I had come to the conclusion that love had no place in my life, for now, if ever, and I had concentrated my dreams about the future on a much simpler, but still impossible dream. I dreamed that I survived the winter, and then they would decide that I had given enough, and let me free. I'd find enough money, somehow, without selling my body or soul, to go to healer's school. It was in a small town only a couple of day's walk from the capital, and I dreamed that they would accept me, and I would learn to be a real healer. As I said, a smaller dream, but I knew, in real life, there was no chance.

But my vision had shaken me to my core. It had come with such power, such vivid strength, and I had seen things in the dream that I had not known. But now they were clear. I wanted to believe that my inner sight had been able to see extra things I couldn't usually see. Take the captain, for example. Now I saw clearly the burning of the flame, his ambition, and his discipline. It was easy to miss this, he controlled it so well, but oh, how he burnt.

On the second night, we talked about my inner sight. He wanted me to see more of the mountains, but my vision stopped at the edges of the valley. For a long time I'd been able to see to the ends of the valley, but no more. We didn't know whether this was my upper limit, or just because I hadn't seen the lay of the land beyond that. The captain said, since I'd already missed two days of my duty, that now would be a great chance to take another two days and they'd show me around the mountains.

I worried about the guys, I had come back to look after them, but they assured me that they were fine. Anyway, Ferret pointed out, if I could see more of the mountain they would have an easier time though the depths of winter. Gong chimed in, saying that it was only for another two days that they were fine, any longer and he'd die on the spot.

I was nervous, the next morning, leaving the camp. I hadn't been further than the river since we got here. We paused next to Clonk's cairn, to remember him – this would be our practice always after this – and then we rode on up the valley. I was riding Clonk's horse, and wearing Clonk's coat over mine. It was cold outside the camp, and I was not used to it. There were quite a few of us, in the party. Everyone had urgently wanted to go, to help protect me. My, but did they feel strongly about that. Eventually the captain managed to restrict the group to just himself, me, Gong, Ferret and Digger. Scar was left behind in charge. He seemed far to accepting of this for my liking, surely he wanted to come with me?

Whistle had been appalled at his mistake, freeing the prisoner, and he had knelt before the captain and thrown his rank and command, which would leave him as a common soldier. The captain had refused to take his rank, but accepted his command. He told Whistle that since he had been such a good organizer, he'd sort things out with the army so that he didn't lose any pay, but he didn't want him to take command anymore. I could see that Whistle was very relieved with this, and the squad approved of the way the captain handled it.

As we headed up the valley, the river curved around so that we could no longer see the part of the valley where the camp was. I knew that I was out of my previous range, though I could still see things happening at the camp, which gave us hope. Then the valley started to climb rapidly, and the river started to get smaller and smaller. Eventually the valley came to a halt in a vast bowl shaped wall of rock. We followed a well used trail up towards the top of the bowl, a saddle between the two largest mountains I had yet seen. They were quite symmetrical, but not quite even with each other. "Nimble's Teeth" they called these mountains. I'd heard the term, but not appreciated quite what it meant. As we climbed up the bowl, I suddenly saw the similarity between the mountains and Nimble's lower front teeth. I told them how cruel they were, and they laughed and laughed.

Finally, at about mid-morning, we climbed to the sharp top of the pass. I gasped, the sheer grandeur of the sight took my breath away, and the cold wind stopped me from getting it back. I had thought that I knew the mountains, but I had known nothing. We rested the horses while they pointed out the features to me. We were standing on a thin ridge. Behind us was our valley. In front of us was another pass, which was the main way through the mountains. From where we were, we could see valleys leading away from the pass in both directions, and a clear trail leading over the top of the saddle. They told me that this was the main path through the mountains. Beyond the saddle in either direction was a towering range of mountains, hidden from us in our valley by the smaller mountains on either side of it. I was astounded by these mountains, their height and steepness. "The dragon's backbone", they were called. And I could see why.

It was a clear day, but still extremely cold. The wind was not strong, but extremely cold. Digger showed me how to wrap my face to stop it freezing in the wind. From were we were, I could look down the valley that lead to Livia and see all the way down to the plains. I could also see, vaguely in the distance, the steppes on the other side of the mountain. They were a funny blue colour. Ferret told me that it was a special grass that grew only on those steppes. I looked back and forth, we were only half way up the range of mountains. They told me that as you started climbing higher than we were, the air started to get thinner, and it became harder to breath, but that few people had ever gone higher than this. The Dragon's Backbone was a very dangerous set of mountains, impossibly steep, and completely impassable except through this pass, and one further over, though even that second pass further over was extremely dangerous, and could only be done on foot, not by horse.

They pointed out the details of the path below, their favourite ambush sites, where they had caches of arrows, where most people would camp. It was considered a 4 day journey through the mountains, as it was so hard to travel on the paths. I was surprised, given how far we had travelled in half a winter morning, through fairly deep snow, but the captain said that we had just done the easiest bit, and also they knew and travelled these paths daily.

We took a narrow difficult track down to the floor of the valley on the Livian side of the pass. The floor of the valley was tough, broken terrain. Our horses clearly knew the path well, and passed quickly across the ground. When I looked back from where we came, I didn't see any hint of a trail or even a saddle that would be worth crossing. Where we crossed over the main trail through the mountains it was in a rocky place with no snow cover, so that there was no evidence that we had passed. I wondered how there could be no snow cover, but Gong explained it – the rocks were hot here, and there was a hot springs slightly further down. The captain thought that we might use it on the way back the next day.

We travelled along the side of The Dragons Backbone all that day, through an impossible trail I would never had believed. I had known my boys were tough, but I was still surprised. Late in the day we came to another vantage point, and I saw the narrow twisting valley that was the path for the second pass. Not far from there we camped in a cave, one of three secondary camp sites they had established. The only wood we had for a fire was the small amount we had carried. We slept in the cave. For the very first time, I was bitterly cold through the night, even though we all, both humans and horses, slept huddled together.

We rose very early and it seemed as though day and night had become confused. There was a hint of light, but I could not tell where from. We headed off as soon as we could see each other, higher into the mountains, following a trail they must have known by heart since I could barely see anything. Gradually, as we climbed, the light improved, and then suddenly we burst out of the thick fog we had been in to a spectacular sunrise. It was as if The Dragon's Backbone was an island in a sea of cloud. Again, I was awestruck by the spectacle the mountains presented.

Shortly after this we arrived at a pass, and I looked over it into a second valley, also covered with cloud. Here, I was told, was the second trail through the mountains, but it was much more difficult and dangerous than the first, even in summer, let alone the depths of winter.

We travelled faster that day, though still slower than they would go without me. By the middle of the day we had arrived back at the point of the hot water springs. Both the captain and I were sure that there was no one around, so we indulged, and all went swimming naked in the hot water springs. I loved that. If hadn't been so cold, I might've got carried away and made love to them all there, an idea I stored away for future use.

So we came at last to the depths of winter. Travelling off our standard paths was getting slower and harder, and we scaled our patrols back, increasingly dependent on the falcon. It spent any fine day in the air over the mountains, but there was nothing to be seen now, no one else was stupid enough to be on the mountains. My range of vision gradually extended into the first pass and beyond, so we scaled back the patrols to one a day, which gave the men more time to care for the horses and dogs and practice their skills.

I worked to my schedule, looking after each of the men, watching as their health slowly deteriorated through winter. I was finding it difficult, myself. At least there were no colds or other sicknesses. I had been very worried about that, but Ferret, who had been born in the mountains, told me that when it got this cold the diseases died too. And when I was with Scar, I wondered, did he love me? Could I ask him? If he did, why didn't he say something?

Our talk around the fire turned away from the conduct of little pitched fights to the subject of wars, why they started, and how to win them. Or lose them. The captain said that sometimes it was hard to tell winning and losing apart, but you had to know when and how to finish them. One story sticks in my mind.

Digger told the story. King Woody was king of a great and powerful people called Freeland. Why Freeland, the rest wanted to know. He explained that the people believed that they were free, because they chose the king. They all gathered in a main town square, and the barons put a man or two forward, and the one that got the loudest cheers became king. The squad was pretty amused by that. Digger shrugged, and said that it didn't sound like freedom to him either, but that the king's men were not allowed to actually kill the people of Freeland, at least not if they had money. Money, that was the key, the people of Freeland had the best ships and merchants, and so they were all rich and nothing mattered much and the poor people went into the army, and so nearly everyone who counted was happy. Well, at least, richer and happier than in many other kingdoms.

But there were other kings who were jealous – of course - and one day some foreign looking thugs had barricaded the doors of the main trading house, and burnt it down, killing everyone inside it. King Woody had blamed it on a far distant country called Stonia which had a notoriously evil and blood thirsty King Butch, and immediately attacked it with a grand army. The captain interrupted and asked whether that was the right thing to do. The squad tossed it around for a while – they were pretty confused about why King Woody chose this particular country, no one was quite sure whether King Butch had anything to do with it, but they all agreed that he sounded worth attacking. Generally they thought that King Woody had to do something.

So King Woody invaded. They'd expected some sort of fight, King Butch had made all sorts of threats, but he ran away and the army just folded. So then King Woody had said that the system that worked in Freeland would work well in Stonia, and as soon as they had shouted for a new king, he would pull his army out. But instead, law and order collapsed, and suddenly thugs appeared from everywhere stealing, raping and killing the Stonians, and any of the Freelandian soldiers they could get their hands on. They threatened to do this until the Freelandian army left.

Hold on, Drowsy wanted to know, how did any of this make sense? Why not just have the shouting match, and then the army would leave? The squad argued about this for ages, trying to make sense of it. About the only thing I could see was that Stonians didn't think that the whole shouting system would give them any freedom, since they didn't have any money, like me, so nothing could make things better.

Eventually the captain interrupted again. He said we'd argued about that enough. Wars were like that he said, once you've started them, you have to finish them, whatever happens, even if the things that happen don't make sense. He pointed out that King Woody's real failure was that when the war didn't go how he expected, he didn't have any other plan to finish it, other than to keep waiting for his original plan to work.

What happened eventually? Digger laughed. Well, eventually the rich people in Freeland started to notice that the poor soldiers were dying and they had to start paying more tax, so they had an impromptu shouting match and picked another king. King Woody disappeared to live in the wilderness, and ever after he was known as King Woody the Dunce. And King Butch turned up again in Stonia, but he was so busy fighting the thugs there that Freeland didn't notice him anymore. Of course, it was all bad for the people of Stonia, but the squad shrugged, and said that it always worked that way for the poor.

One day, the captain and I were sitting by the fire practicing our skills, when he asked me whether I could send messages to people. I'd never tried. Intrigued, we tried sending words to each other. I tired to think of a word, and while thinking of it, imagine myself throwing the word at him. But it didn't work, in either direction. We tried all sorts of things for the whole night, but it didn't work. Eventually I thought of how I couldn't see inside the captain, how he was closed to me – maybe I was trying the wrong person? I glanced around the room, saw Sock, and imagined him naked, with his massive erection, and me riding him with abandon. I cast the picture at him. Wow, what a reaction I got! He turned to me, with a stunned look on his face. I smiled at him and called him over. He had seen exactly what I imagined, and he knew exactly where the thought came from. We had to wait to later to discuss that, I had to take Sock aside and finish what I'd started.

But this started me practicing a new skill altogether, much harder to master. It was all too easy to send an image, a picture, to anyone in the squad, but very hard to send them an image that was useful and that they could understand. But this new skill proved a real frustration for me. There was one other person in the squad that I could not send anything to, and that was Scar. Unlike the captain, there was no reason, it just wouldn't work. I hated it. The trouble with Scar was that I was so unsure where I stood with him. I was trying to work up the courage to talk to him about it, but I kept imagining it all going wrong. I tried so hard to send to him, but I could feel it inside me, he was closed to me, I wasn't allowed to do it.