Ice Blink

47: Guide

Lumi had untethered his longboat, and it had already drifted too far from the docks for comfort when the bear charged past boats. Planks shuddered and groaned beneath its powerful paws. Iki and Nuna hung on for dear life. Her peripheral vision blurred with tears. Arrows were shooting past, all of them missing as if they were deflected by an invisible barrier.

Lumi's mouth gaped in a silent cry as they reached the end of the docks and the bear leaped. They flew, star-flecked black water rippling beneath, and landed with a shudder on the boat's long, thin deck.

As the impact rolled through Nanuq's muscles, Iki and Nuna slithered from its back and collapsed. Her cheek pressed against a cold, slimy plank.

The Vanir gathered on the docks, shouting, bellowing like an avalanche. Nuna looked up to hear the twang of bowstrings. A flaming arrow struck the deck, quivering, and as she leaped to her feet the bear knocked it into the water.

"Hvat de..." Lumi pressed himself against the bow, as far as he could get from the bear.

Nanuq really was glowing. Light did not shine from him, but his fur seemed whiter than snow, too white for the dark pallor the cloudy sky cast upon everything. He twisted and pulled the arrows from his fur with his teeth. Then he looked back at Nuna, head lowering to sniff one of her clenched hands. Only then did she realise the Jarl's stone was cutting into her palm. How had she not dropped it?

"You must hold onto that," Nanuq said, a deep, slow, gentle voice rumbling from deep inside his chest.

Around them, the Vanir were running onto their boats, swiftly untying them. Nanuq snorted, and as silver breath plumed from his nostrils the sea surged. Waves crashed against their longboat, pushing them from the docks. In an incredibly short time, they were well out of range, the Vanir shrinking to dots, the coast a mere line, and the dark sea unfolded around them. Endless. Everlasting.

"There. Now that has been taken care of, you are safe."

"What are you?" Iki whispered. "Who are you?"

"I would have thought you would know better than anyone, spirit-touched. I am a water spirit, although I enjoy using the form of a bear." Nanuq turned to Nuna. "You saved me in an act that was truly selfless. You freed me."

"Why didn't you free yourself?" Nuna whispered.

"I was weary and, I confess, weakened. But you risked your life to save mine, and this is the second time, too. Without your love and care all that time ago, I would never have grown past a cub. For that, I owe you a debt."

"Toklo." The word rose to her lips before her mind caught up. "Save him."

Sadness passed across Nanuq's face. She hadn't realised a bear could have such expressions. "Alas, you ask the one thing of me I cannot perform. Even we cannot bring people back from the dead, but we will welcome him in our world. In the Sila."

"It isn't fair. He wasn't even laid to rest." Nuna was swallowing tears. "His souls might not find it." All she'd given him were tiny splashes of ochre from her own face, she hadn't even thought to smear a mark. It wouldn't be enough.

Iki gripped her shoulder but she didn't feel it.

"I can grant you some of my own strength," Nanuq said. Waves crashed and tumbled around them, but the boat glided smoothly, almost serene, drifting north. Chunks of ice that bobbed past parted for the hull as it sliced the water.

"No." She didn't want anything. She was hollow. She had seen Toklo nearly every day for nineteen years, she'd resented his presence sometimes and been grateful at others, but always, she'd been aware of him, his energy, his life, the tremors he created in the spirit trails that webbed through the world. He couldn't just be gone. Not like that. Surely death was a more drawn-out thing, more final, not two whispered words and then an arm pulling her away.