The Windsingers Series: The Complete 4-Book Collection. Megan Lindholm

already, and your wagon is hours behind us over the worst part of the trail. And it is in the shadow of the Sisters. Besides, I still have my rock. Come, make the best of it, as I did when I had you over me with a knife. Do you need a boost to mount?’

      ‘Without my freight, I have no reason to wish to see the other side of this pass.’

      ‘Ah, your freight. A moment.’ Vandien opened his cloak to the cold, fished inside his shirt. He produced the leather pouch and pressed it into Ki’s hand. ‘It’s all there, if you wish to check. I would have put it in your own shirt, but I was afraid it would drop down into the snow. Your riding posture wasn’t all it could have been.’

      Ki clutched her pouch to her chest and leaned her face into Sigurd’s warm coat. He shifted, perplexed by her behavior, but did not veer away from her weight. She was silent. Behind her in the snow Vandien moved uneasily. The smile he had attempted faded from his face. She peeked back at him under her arm. He looked vaguely ashamed, but mostly weary. Last night she had thought of killing him. Today he had bashed her on the head, abandoned her wagon, and made poor jokes about it afterwards. She should have been wishing she had killed him. She found that she only wanted to make him understand.

      ‘Rom was the name of Sven’s great black horse. Rom came scarcely to Sigurd’s shoulder, but he was a stallion and bullied my grays unmercifully. Sven and I used to laugh about it at night by our fire.’

      Vandien stepped closer to her to catch her muffled words, but made no move to touch her.

      ‘The grays were Sven’s gift to me, and the wagon built by his own hands for our purposes. Within that wagon I first knew Sven as a man. Two children I birthed within it, with Sven’s great hands to steady me through it. We made our lives as the Romni do, but we were not of them. Sometimes he rode Rom next to the wagon, singing as he rode with a voice like the wind. And sometimes he would put his small daughter on the saddle in front of him, and our son would cling behind him. Then they would tease me for my team’s slowness, and race far ahead of the wagon, out of my sight for minutes, and then galloped back, shrieking and laughing to me to hurry up, that there were new lands to see just beyond the next turning. Have a care for your wagon, old snail woman!’ he called to me as they galloped past me in the trail of Khaddam past Vermintown. They all three were laughing, and their pale hair streamed behind them and tangled together. They went up a rise and over a hill. I watched them go together.’

      The silence grew, stretched, and blended with the cold. Vandien cleared his throat. ‘They never came back?’

      ‘I found the pieces of them when I topped the rise. Just the pieces, and they were only meat in the sun, Vandien, only meat in the sun. It was the work of two Harpies.’ She turned sick eyes on him, waiting to see if his face changed. But his eyes were closed. Ki swallowed. ‘I tracked them, Vandien. I climbed up to their aerie. One I killed outright, myself, and by accident,’ Ki’s voice rose higher, ‘I burned the nest and eggs and scarred the male for life. I put an end to all of them. But it didn’t help! Mine were still only meat in the sun.’ She choked, and it sounded to Vandien like the death of all laughter. ‘I buried a big black horse and a man and two children in a hole no bigger than the seat of the wagon. Harpies do not leave much when they feed, Vandien. “Have a care for your wagon, old snail woman,” he used to say. I carry my home with me. I’m going back for my wagon.’

      She grasped Sigurd’s mane and tried to pull herself up. Her body refused. Vandien took her shoulders, turned her gently.

      ‘Tomorrow, then. When we have light. The wind is rising again, and the horses are done in. You stay here. I can tramp out a place in the snow between the cliff face and the ridge of that cursed serpent. We’ll be all right.’

      Ki had not the strength to argue. She did not even watch him. She looked about, but there was little to see in the dimming light. Her wagon was far back, out of sight around some bend or wrinkle in the mountain’s face. She couldn’t see the Sisters either. The eternal cliff face reared up on one side of her; she and the horses stood on the serpent’s ridge; and down the other side cascaded the mountain. Far down in the valley there were darker specks that might have been brush pushing up through the snow. The light was nearly gone. There was no color to anything.

      She turned her sore head slowly. It throbbed, and any sudden movement was like a hammer blow. Vandien was unloading the horses. Sigmund had let him take off the sack of grain he carried and the oddly shaped bundles that Vandien had made of the worn blankets. But Sigurd was feeling spiteful. His big yellow teeth closed swiftly and harmlessly on the cloth of Sven’s cloak.

      ‘Sigurd!’ Ki rebuked him instinctively. His head dropped, abashed, and he subjected himself to Vandien’s touch. Vandien did not appear to notice Ki’s intervening. She became aware of his monologue, scarcely louder than the shushing wind.

      ‘… left the firewood to bring the grain. So no fire, and so no tea; so I didn’t bring the tea kettle. But I took the salt meat and the dried fish and the things I thought would be precious to you: a silver hair comb, a necklace with blue stones, a clean tunic – probably all the wrong things. But we’ll get the rest tomorrow. Or die trying.’ He added the last so softly that Ki was hardly sure she had heard it. He had trampled a spot in the snow. He shook out grain for the horses, twice what Ki usually gave them. He had spread the shagdeer cover out on the snow beside the rising mountain face. He came to Ki to steer her over to it. She sat down on it obediently. Her passivity seemed to trouble him. Ki could have told him that it was only pain and weariness. But that would have taken too much effort. He could be a Harpy’s man, or even a Harpy tonight. It made no difference to her. Her strength was spent.

      She refused the food he offered. She saw it distressed him and felt a vague sympathy for the guilt he felt. Ki knew guilt well. It made a sorry companion. She dropped over on the shagdeer cover, curled up. The ice ridge provided a small windbreak. The horses knew it and already had moved into its shelter. The cliff towering beside her gave Ki an illusion of shelter. She closed her eyes. She felt and heard Vandien spread the larger, heavier cloak over her. Then he was crawling under it with her, curling his body about hers, his belly to her back. ‘For the warmth,’ he whispered, but Ki couldn’t care.

      The wind swirled loose snow onto them. Ki pulled her head under the shelter of the cloak. She felt the cloak atop her grow heavier with the snow, and she grew warmer with the added insulation. Ki nuzzled into sleep like a blind puppy seeking milk.

      Her mind groped. She was awake now, so she must have been asleep. Sven called her. His voice came from far away. It was distant through the strange buzzing in her ears. But it was Sven. Doubt was swept from her mind. She knew every note of that beloved voice. She fought her way up out of sleep. She was puzzled by the warm dark to which she opened her eyes. She pushed the heavy cloak aside irritably. Snow fell coldly on her face and neck. She sputtered and sat up in a mound of it. The blanketed horses looked at her, ears sharp with surprise at seeing Ki emerge suddenly from a snowbank. She grinned at them and stood.

      ‘Ki!’ The voice was clearer now, coming closer. Sven strode toward her. The snow offered him no resistance. It did not even slow him. Little Rissa on his arm bounced happily. Lars, blue shirt flapping over his butt, was doing his best to keep up with his father’s long strides. He held tightly to one of Sven’s hands, and every now and then took a giant stride as he swung on it to gain ground.

      Ki’s hands flew to her cheeks in joyous dismay. ‘Sven, where are their cloaks? The children aren’t dressed for snow!’ She tried to wade toward them. But she sank and floundered in the loose snow. It clung to her, held her back. It was easier to stand still, to let them come to her. Joy washed her, drowning all questions.

      ‘They’re fine!’ Sven scoffed. ‘These are tough little Romni brats, these are!’ He gave Rissa a bump, and she squeaked delightedly. Ki drank in their presence, luxuriated in the familiar sound of her daughter giggling. She wondered why she had been lonely for them so long. They had been here, all the time, waiting for her. It was simple. She stood, smiling foolishly, and Sven swung Rissa down from his arms and opened his arms to Ki. She stepped toward him.

      She was slammed aside, going down into the snow, falling with