Glass Winter | Chapter XX

Palina was happy for the first time since Aurora had met her. The confession had a profound effect on her peace, her lined face warmed by smiling eyes.

“You know,” she said, “I haven’t thought about my old life for a long while. And I have no reason to. It’s as if a great veil has been cast over it, and all I can do is look forward.”

While the sloughflesh no longer concerned Palina, she was not foolish enough to forget it. Her strength had rejuvenated and she was willing to brave through the storm and reach the glass castle, as many in their commune had wanted to for so long, but had, in recent days, abandoned the dream. The ashen woman saw it every time she closed her eyes now.

“But it’s still distant. I feel like I still have something to prove, like I have a debt to pay for my new found will.”

Aurora placed her hand on Palina’s, as white as death though it was.

“The debt has already been paid. That is the good news.”

“Perhaps. But there’s something else,” Palina shook her head. “Perhaps I was too harsh to Bair, and to you. Perhaps it’s the resentment towards men like Sowne that’s come back to haunt me, for ostracising those cursed by the unnatural nourishment of this place. I don’t know.”

“The debt is paid.”

And as Aurora said it, Palina’s smile would return, acknowledging the truth.

But there’s another truth that’s not so simple.

It would keep Aurora awake as she struggled to nod off. Palina’s soul was secure should her affliction, or anything else, decide to take her, and she had made peace with her past. And yet, reaching the glass castle held no promise of salvation. Nobody, not a single person in this commune with whom either of them had spoken, knew what awaited past those shimmering gates. Palina had been reborn, and had reacquired a purpose to live, but her condition could just as well damn her later as now.

I wonder who else can be saved this way?

Perhaps Aurora herself could be redeemed, if she really was cursed. It made her realise that Little Malcolm and his gang could be saved too, if they were willing to accept the gift. She had not thought much of them since her efforts to intimidate the leader, and she regretted even planning such a feat to begin with.

Aurora could not remember falling asleep, as one rarely did. But she would shudder awake and see Palina standing at the entrance of their shelter, an ice chisel in her hand and spirit in her eyes. She must have called out to the girl.

“Are we under attack?” From who or what, it did not matter. Aurora recognised the danger of both.

“That’s what I need to find out,” Palina stepped outside. “Wait here. Don’t make a sound, and don’t come after me.”

No. Don’t go. You can’t defend yourself. I can’t defend myself.

Was what Aurora would have said, if the ashen woman had stayed just a moment longer.

Don’t be brash. You’ve just got your life back.

Why was she willing to risk it so soon?

Which got her thinking. Palina’s sloughflesh would never withstand the storm. The winds had grazed and cut Aurora’s skin after emerging from the ringwoodite sea, she did not want to think what it could do to Palina.

If there was any hope of escape, it could not be achieved with their current resources and management. Something else had to be done, and fast.

Several people ran past the igloo, their feet crunching on the snow. But not all of the footfalls chose to stay. Two shadows crouched and entered the shelter, wielding snow saws.

“She’s here.”

Aurora realised it was the end. She was about to cry out for help when she recognised Wilbur’s broad, scarred face.

“You’re here to kill me, aren’t you?”

Her question threw him off-guard, but Little Malcolm answered for Wilbur.

“That you’re right.” He indicated over his shoulder, “Don’t bother calling out. Gerry and Idar are guarding the entrance. They’ll cut anyone that gets too close to the shelter.”

Wilbur, for all his conviction before, was the quietest Aurora had seen him.

“Why do you do this?” She looked to Mal, “Is there no better way?”

“If you had thought of one, you should have let us know.”

Little Mal raised his snow saw. It would be brutal. A tool like that was not intended to cut through flesh.

“Why kill me and not yourselves too?” Aurora asked. “We were all born in this place, cursed just like the adults afflicted with sloughflesh. What makes me more of a threat?”

The statement had slighted him. He would have struck, had Wilbur not interrupted.

“Because you stayed behind at the old hamlet. With the people who gave up their souls, even when they knew where they were and what it meant.”

“So if I had come along with the rest of you I’d be killing my kin too?”

Aurora could not see straight. She had never experienced rage like this before. It felt like poison in her veins.

“We’re all making choices while we’re here, girl,” said Little Malcolm, his voice as cool as ever. “That’s all we have left. Us, cursed from the day we were born by the demonic flesh of the beast our parents ate to survive. We should be dead, all of us. But some choose to fight for another day.”

“And I’m not?” Aurora turned to Wilbur, “You know better than this. I’ve told you already, you know better!”

“We don’t know what to believe.” Little Mal picked out two pieces of something white and grey from his pocket.

A broken fang.

“The very kind that Eron gave us, in exchange for ‘information’ and shelter.” The boy raised them higher for Aurora to see, “Everybody looked down on us, the blighted children, and for good reason. Except him. He placed his trust in us, and we trusted him. And for what?”

The shards were tossed at her feet. Upon closer inspection she saw how the broken ends powdered at the slightest disturbance, and the layers of erosion within. It was fake.

“Stone from the southern quarry, no doubt.” Little Malcolm rolled his shoulders.

Aurora felt her stomach sinking, her head growing light.

No. It can’t be true. He was hunting…

But the boys’ expressions were unphased. They knew it too.

“Everyone makes choices,” said Wilbur, shaking his head. “Quin made a choice. Or perhaps Eron made one for him. While we trusted in a lie.”

He spat on the floor. But despite the display, he looked lost. Fear clouded his eyes.

“No more,” said Little Mal. “We’re nothing to them, Aurora. Death to the lot. The only choice that we have is standing separate from them. It’s always been this way. And with danger encroaching on us every day, chances can no longer be taken. We’re the future now. We’re children, after all. What are they going to do, kill us?”

“You can be forgiven.”

Now is the moment. Don’t give in to the darkness. I can’t become like them.

“You can still be absolved. Confess—”

“Are you serious?”

“We’re still human. All of us. Scripture teaches us—”

“I will cut out your tongue, witch.”

Don’t give in.

“Just listen to me,” Aurora raised her hands. “Scripture teaches us that God will not let us be tempted beyond what we can bear. There is always a way out, even when it feels like we’re trapped. Please…”

Save your souls.

“…don’t give in to the beast. Anything is better than that.”

Wilbur had looked away; Little Malcolm was silent. When Wilbur turned back, he seemed to be in pain. Though from what, Aurora could not tell.

“You’re a pious girl,” said Little Mal. “And foolish. All children are born without sin. We were born from sin. Nourished and parented by it. What absolution do you think awaits us, truly? Our only hope lies in the glass castle.”

He had not even noticed Wilbur dropping his snow saw while raising his own once more. She needed to buy herself some more time.

Palina. Where have you gone?

~~~~~

Olga’s mitts turned crimson as she tried, in vain, to keep pressure on the gash in Panuk’s neck. Her voice had gone out with the scream, so that now she mourned in silence with her head against her husband’s, not caring for the accursed bruise beneath his hairline.

What did he see…?

“Sevt…” Sowne could be heard approaching from behind. “You’re breaking my heart. To think you were a man with good intentions.”

“He had no part in this.” Kyreth turned on the chief. Despite her wiry build, she spoke with as much conviction as any hardened warrior.

“Am I to believe that Panuk cut his throat voluntarily?”

The rugged men whom Sevt had seen outside Mal’s shelter once had gathered round, and with them some unknown faces. All armed. One of them, a man with unkempt hair and beard, wielded his staff. Sevt realised then just how much he had been spending underground to not recognise most of the people he saw.

He noticed Bair, stitched with cuts, as were his own men. Palina had arrived as well.

What have I missed?

The time he had spent healing might have been necessary, but now it was over.

“There is a hard truth we now have to swallow, Sowne,” said Sevt. “The commune is no longer safe.”

“Oh I don’t doubt that.” The chief was not visibly armed like the rest, but he was standing closest to Sevt.

Regardless of the cripple’s arguments, Sowne could cause enough damage before he was stopped. Kyreth might have prevented Sevt from falling before, but Sowne was a fighter, her strength would not hold against his.

“Then you will not deny the resemblance between the bruise on Panuk’s forehead and the bruise you once discovered on Quinart’s neck.”

“I will not deny?” Sowne’s mouth pursed his mouth into a mocking pout as he nodded, “Eron, check the corpse.”

That square-jawed brute of a man, with a shaven head and a long cleaver-like sword, who had stared Sevt down all those days ago from a brazier, walked over to Panuk. He encouraged Olga to move away from the body. When she refused, he lightly nudged her aside and pulled back Panuk’s hood with his blade.

“He’s telling the truth.” Eron said in a gravelly voice.

“He’s been marked,” Sevt added. “Panuk claimed it was someone named Cara. Correct me if I’m wrong but if the spirits of this plane can speak our tongue, if their forms can assume a human, then perhaps they can transform into someone we know. They are walking amongst us now, perhaps they were even responsible for seeking out Quin and—”

Sowne raised a hand, looking around at his men.

“This all sounds familiar, does it not? I’m sure that any remaining doubts have been dispelled?” Sowne put down his hand.

Eron raised his brow as he also scanned the crowd, as if asking for an objection he knew would not come.

“You will yourself notice,” continued Sowne, addressing Sevt, “that you’re the common factor in both of these deaths.”

Any decent person in that surrounding crowd had to recognise the accusation as madness, yet nobody raised their voice. Sevt remembered how Sowne had assumed, and assumed correctly, how Sevt had used Quin to cross the ringwoodite sea. And how he had misunderstood Sevt’s intentions.

If the same thing is happening now, there’s no telling what he will do.

“I did not kill—”

“Oh I’m sure you didn’t. I know that you were in one place while Quin was in another when he died, but that the same can’t be said about you and Panuk. Spare me. But you were close to both men. They’ve both been cursed because of you.”

“And how have I done that?”

“Perhaps you could enlighten us, pray tell? Prove to us exactly why you’re not a liability?

“You told us that the threat was a spiritual one, not human.” Said Bair, resting his hand on the snow saw at his hip. “That the old mushers were responsible for the recent deaths.”

“Does it matter?” Said a squinty-eyed man at his side. “Here’s the cripple. The one who brought Quin and the cursed girl to the commune in the first place. And his story never added up, just like Cara and Soren’s.”

“We ought to kill him. Nip this whole thing in the bud.” Said another.

It’s like they’re the ones possessed.

“No.” Bair held them back with his arm. “Think about what you’re saying.”

“What’s to think about?”

“That he would have killed us already or died himself if he was anything like the mushers.” Bair nodded at Sevt. “I believe his story.”

“As you’re entitled to, big Bair,” Sowne approached him. “But you two are close, aren’t you?”

“If you believe that I would defend his crimes then you are mistaken, Sowne. Is speaking to unlucky souls, to victims of pain, against your law?”

“Careful,” said Eron, “you’re on thin ice if you go on like this.”

“We are all on thin ice,” said Sevt.

The din quietened down to listen.

“We’re throwing around accusations without a care for their consequences. Weren’t you the one who labelled Quin and I as liabilities for the terrible forces we had the possibility of attracting, Sowne? We all understand what mistrust does in a community, how the very demons we are so afraid of sow these thoughts into our minds, as they did with Panuk.”

“He was speaking drivel by the end,” claimed Kyreth. “His old self was gone.”

“Panuk speaking…,” Sowne nodded, “that is a rarity. You know who I am, Sevt. You understand the difficulty of my position in trusting your word. Even if these people around me believe in your and Kyreth’s account, proving a man’s sanity is a challenging feat. There are so many chances I’m afraid to take that I can only settle on certainty.”

“Perhaps the scouts can prove their innocence,” Eron suggested, indicating to his band of rugged men. “Blood them. Let them prove that they are untainted by demonic influence, by killing Sevt and his women.”

“What barbarity is this?” A grey wizened scout stepped forward. “Sowne, you do not still believe that we are possessed or marked? That our hands can only be cleaned with more blood?”

“You would rather die yourself, is that it?” Asked a dark, bearded scout at his side.

“Theirs would be a mercy kill,” another man looked at the greybeard with a white eye. “What justice is there in killing scouts?”

Why, are they really accused as well?

“Alright enough with the lot of you.” Sowne rolled a shoulder, “Bratislav! Bring me my sword.”

The youth scurried off before anybody could stop him.

This Sowne is the new face of the commune?

But Sevt would not question him. Not yet. He would not be seen as a duplicitous usurper, as Sowne had been with Malcolm.

“You fear the unknown, and you’ve had reason to fear me since day one. But as opposed to this Cara or whoever else have I ever posed as a threat?” Were it not for his cane, Sevt would be standing tall, but he towered high all the same, “Malcolm, in his abstruse wisdom, received a revelation that not even I had considered. He confided this information in Velour, one of his sentries, and he confided it in me. I am not here as an accident, but I’m the greenest drop you’ve seen a long time. I’m not yet corrupted by these spirits because I refuse to be, because unlike many of you I still have a wish to get back home. And no better is that reflected than in the very staff that I have guided you with for so long.”

Sevt pointed to the ragged scout wielding his staff.

“How bright did it burn on your mission? How hopeful were you of its success?”

If they were hopeful at all.

“It turned night into day down in the caves,” declared the scout. “We staked our lives on the expedition, on getting out. And we still do.”

Sevt nodded, and turned back to Sowne, “You can loathe me until kingdom come. But I have not come this far to be branded a traitor or a madman. My mind is clear enough. All this is, is a question of trust.”

Sevt felt the air rush past his ear, and a thud and a groan behind him.

Everyone turned to see how a long harpoon had pinned the scout called Jerard half a foot off the ground, soaking up bursts of blood which stained his furs and darkened his teeth when he tried to speak. The wall kept holding his weight as he meekly struggled to wrench the shaft from his chest. When he finally stilled, a knife clattered from his hand and came to rest at Sevt’s remaining foot. The scout had sneaked so close to him that the right side of Sevt’s head and torso was now spattered with red.

Fortune and misfortune.

The man who had hurled the harpoon, a seven-foot-tall giant, stood undaunted and resolute.

“Enough of this, Sowne,” he said, turning on the man. “Enough with your thugs and your guidance coming before honest men.”

The chief was not afraid, though his foe stood far above him, “Tematyr. Why don’t you stand down before you do anything more stupid? I’ll remind you of where your stance once was regarding outside threats to the commune. Are we all to believe that you’ve changed on a dime?”

“Perhaps the proposed murder of half your people can change a man’s opinion on justice.”

“Half my people…. Justice?” Sowne took a step towards Tematyr.

Others were tightening or adjusting their grips on their weapons.

“You speak to me of justice after what you’ve just done?” Said Sowne. “You lumbering oaf who can’t hold back a spear when the urge to toss it arises?”

“My words aren’t poison. And neither are Sevt’s. What should happen if those you have poisoned choose to kill those you haven’t?”

Two men tried to hold Tematyr back, he shoved them aside. They shoved him back.

“You would have us tear each other apart, wouldn’t you?”

“And you aren’t?” Sowne challenged him.

Tematyr landed a blow on the chief. One of the men at his side revealed a blade and tried to shank the giant, who only caught their wrist and twisted it before another man struck the back of his knee. That man lost his ear from the axe of another.

“Eron!” Sowne yelled. “Kill this bastard traitor. Him and his defenders—”

Eron booted the chief away onto the ground, then slashed the torso and underarm of a man who rushed towards him.

“What’s the matter with you—?”

The scout impaled his victim before he could finish. Tematyr, enraged, grabbed his nearest attacker and shoved him towards Eron.

Then every armed man and woman gave in to the slaughter, and the clearing rang loud with smashing steel and stone, with the cries of fury.

The world had stopped for Sevt, as it did for Kyreth and Olga.

Eron spun his falchion with surprising ease as a warning to those that gathered around him, proceeding to cut down a brazen guard by breaking his incoming spear before opening his neck. Bair pushed Palina behind him as another hunter lunged with a harpoon, while one of his own men gutted a comrade. The snow beneath them spattered red, then spattered some more, embracing victims with arms of red mud.

A hand jolted Sevt by the shoulder. It was the staff-wielding scout.

“We can’t remain here. They’re lost. And unless we’re senseless enough to become like them, we need to run.”

All Sevt could think about was the storm, how it would tear them to shreds. About the innocents in the commune who had no part in the chaos, whom he could not defend even if he tried. He remembered his promise to Quin, and looked again at Bair and Palina fighting for their lives.

If they’re here, then where is Aurora?