Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [17]
At which moment the prostrate figure rose up with a yell, hurling the skin that had covered him over the gentleman’s head, kicking him ferociously in the stomach, and running furiously into the distance, taking a zigzag course to avoid any speeding spears.
When he considered himself far enough away, he turned, crouching behind a grey stone, to see if he was followed. In the dull light, the sledge had already disappeared from view. There was no sign of the two gentlemen. Save for the whistle of the west wind, all was still. He was alone in the frozen waste, some hours before Freyr-rise.
A great horror came upon Yuli. After the phagors had taken his father to their underground lair, he had wandered for more days than he could count through the wilderness, dazed by cold and lack of sleep, crazed by insects. He had completely lost his way, and was close to death when he collapsed into the thorn bush.
A little rest and nourishment had quickly restored his health. He had allowed himself to be loaded onto the sledge, not because he at all trusted the two gentlemen from Pannoval, who smelt all wrong to him, but because he could not bear the old crone who insisted on touching him in a way he disliked.
Now, after that brief interlude, here he was, in the wilds again, with a sub-zero wind plucking at his ears. He thought once more of his mother, Onesa, and of her illness. The last time he had seen her, she had coughed, and blood bubbled out of her mouth. She had looked upon him in such a ghastly way as he left with Alehaw. Only now did Yuli realise what that ghastly look meant: she had never expected to see him again. It was useless seeking to get back to his mother if she were a corpse by now.
Then what?
If he was to survive, there was only one possibility.
He rose, and at a steady jog trot followed in the wake of the sledge.
Seven large horned dogs of the kind known as asokins pulled the sledge. The leader was a bitch called Gripsy. They were known collectively as Gripsy’s team. They rested for ten minutes in every hour; at every other rest period, they were fed foul-smelling dried fish from a sack. The two gentlemen took it in turn to trudge beside the sledge and to lie on it.
This was a routine Yuli soon understood. He kept well back down the trail. Even when the sledge was out of sight, as long as the air was still his keen nose could detect the stink of men and dogs running ahead. Sometimes he drew near to watch how things were done. He wanted to see how to handle a dog team for himself.
After three days’ continuous travelling, when the asokins were having to take longer rests, they reached another trapper’s post. Here the trapper had built himself a small wooden fort, decorated with horns and antlers of wild animals. Lines of skins flapped stiffly in the breeze. The gentlemen stayed here while Freyr sank from the sky, pale Batalix also died, and the brighter sentinel rose again. The two gentlemen screamed with the trapper in their drunkenness, or slept. Yuli stole some hardtack from the sledge and slept fitfully, rolled in a skin, in the sledge’s lee side.
On they went.
Two more stops were made, interspersed with several days’ journeying. Always Gripsy’s team drove roughly southward. The winds became less chill.
At last, it became apparent that they were getting close to Pannoval. The mists towards which the team pulled proved solid stone.
Mountains rose from the plain ahead, their flanks deeply covered with snow. The plain itself rose, and they were working through foothills, where both gentlemen had to walk beside the sledge, or even push it. And there were stone towers, some with sentries who challenged them. The sentries challenged Yuli too.
‘I’m following my father and my uncle,’ he called.
‘You’re lagging behind. The childrims will get you.’
‘I know, I know. Father is anxious to get home to Mother. So am I.’
They waved him on, smiling at his youth.
At last, the gentlemen called a halt. Dried