Hexult

  Hexult

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Hexult

  by Perry Aylen

  Copyright 2011 Perry Aylen

  Smashwords Edition

  Smashwords Edition License Notes

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  Chapter 1

  ‘Keep going!’ shouted Aulf, above the icy rush of the wind.

  Ingar had never been on the narrow of the boat’s outrigger before, but she was determined to reach the end. Her eyes were streaming, the tears turning to ice, but still she edged further out. Glancing at Aulf, she saw him leaning out, only his legs from the knees hooked under the rigger. The sheet was wound round one hand, the other beckoning her on, and, behind his goggles, she was sure he was laughing. She reached the end, turned, tucked her legs in, and let her weight fall back. She pulled in the jib sheet, and the craft bucked as Aulf pulled in the main and turned closer to the wind. They rose ever higher on one keel as the boat surged on, faster than the wind. She could hardly breathe as the frozen air hit her face, but suddenly she was laughing too.

  Looking back at Aulf, Ingar could see the Dragon’s Teeth passing the stern of the boat, massive wooden posts, remnants of some bygone battle, set in a long curve, marching back to the white horizon, the only interruption in all that empty expance of frozen whiteness. Suddenly a mass of jumbled timbers and torn sail broke the symmetry of the teeth. It took a moment for Ingar to register what she was seeing. She waved frantically at Aulf to slow down, but he only laughed. She pointed down with both hands. Something in her look cut short his laughter. He dropped the sheet and they both swung in as the Aurora dropped to a level keel. Ingar pointed back down the teeth and shouted, ‘A wreck!’

  Aulf looked back. There was something in the teeth, but not a wreck, surely. Everyone knew about the teeth and they were massive. You couldn’t miss them unless you were blind! Aulf brought the skiff round and headed back up the line of stakes. Ingar was right. It looked like a fair-sized boat had hit the wooden stakes at some speed. The boat and two of the stakes had been shattered.

  Approaching the wreck, Aulf loosed the sails and threw off the anchor to slow the craft. As the Aurora came to a sliding halt, he slid the goggles from his eyes, jumped over the side and hurried across the slippery ice towards the wreck, Ingar close behind. Aulf was always amazed at the speed she could cross the ice without skates. As they approached the wreckage, Ingar gave a gasp of horror and darted forward swiftly. Behind the broken boat, partially obscured from their view by the wreckage, a man was lying on the ice.

  The man was cold. Most likely, the gaping wound to his head had killed him, but he was laid out carefully, his arms crossed on his chest and his eyes closed. So there were survivors. Or raiders. Aulf pulled his knife from its sheath and turned towards Ingar, motioning for her to do the same, but she was ahead of him, already crouched and wary, knife in hand. Beneath her huge woolly hat, her amber eyes darted in all directions. They skirted the wreck, looking for skate or runner tracks, but found none, other than the obvious ones made by the wrecked boat in front of them. Feeling more confident, they climbed through the tangle of broken spars onto the deck. It was a style of boat Aulf had not seen before. His skiff was a light craft on two runners, with outriggers, built for speed. Most boats were much larger, barges designed for carrying cargo, but this boat was neither. It was the size of a barge, but built like a racing skiff. It had a roomy cabin, still partially intact, but the rest was a crumpled mess. The mast had come down, taking out one side of the cabin, and there appeared to have been a fire. The cabin door was charred and blackened.

  Aulf gingerly pulled open the scorched door and peered cautiously inside. A tumble of junk and broken wood lay scattered across the floor, but under piles of blankets he could clearly discern two bodies. It was difficult to make out much beneath the heaped coverings, but they looked as if they might be children, and they were either asleep or dead. Aulf and Ingar clambered in. They could see now that the fire had not been a result of the crash, but a deliberate attempt to keep warm. The iron stove designed to heat the cabin had been smashed by the mast as it crashed through, but the area had been cleared and the blackened remains of a camp fire were strewn on the hearth.

  Ingar was bending over the two shapeless humps, buried beneath piles of blankets. ‘They’re breathing!’ she exclaimed, relieved. ‘They’re cold but still alive. They don’t look very old. What shall we do?’

  ‘Get back to the Aurora, get the stove as hot as you can!’

  Wasting no more precious time, Aulf got his arms around the closest body and lifted it carefully. The child’s body, if indeed it was a child, was longer than he had thought, but not very heavy, just awkward to lift in the bundled wrappings. A blanket fell back, and he saw a girl’s pale oval face, framed by waves of dark hair tumbling out of a large woollen hat, long black lashes contrasting starkly with the waxen pallor of her cheekbones.

  Ingar had already gone ahead of him as he hefted his burden with some difficulty over the side of the wrecked craft and picked a careful route across the ice to his own boat. With a grunt of relief, he laid the girl’s prone body on his own bunk in the cabin of the Aurora. Leaving Ingar to pile extra furs and blankets around her, he set off back to the broken boat.

  By the time he laid his second charge on Ingar’s bunk, in the welcome circle of heat radiating from the small iron stove, he was out of breath from his exertions. Beads of perspiration that had broken out on his face and then frozen in the icy air, now melted again in the warmth of the cabin. Drawing the blankets back, Aulf saw that this was a boy, his face ghost-like in its deathly whiteness. Like the girl, the youth was lightly built, though taller, and while he was young, he was older than the child Aulf had first imagined him to be, maybe fourteen or fifteen years old.

  Leaning his face close to the boy’s, Aulf caught the faint breeze on his cheek. At least he was still alive! Beneath the blankets, he was sensibly dressed in a long coat o
f creamy fur, and pale trousers of soft brushed leather, pushed into long fur-lined boots. He had a thick knitted hat covering his head and ears, the like of which Aulf had not seen before, decorated with rows of bright geometric patterns and several plaited woollen tassels. Aware that Ingar had crossed the cabin to get a closer look at this second survivor, Aulf wrapped the covers carefully around the boy again, and raised his eyes to Ingar’s face. She had pulled off her hat, and her wiry red hair stuck out wildly around her head. Her strange golden eyes looked very large in her narrow, freckled face. The two of them regarded each other in troubled silence for several moments, each of them aware of the echo of their own doubts in the other’s mind.

  ‘They’re not from round here, that’s for sure,’ remarked Ingar, her gaze returning to the bloodless mask of the boy’s face. ‘What are we going to do with them?’

  Aulf pursed his lips. ‘Well, we can’t leave them here. They’re just kids.’

  ‘What about the mail? We’ll be late.’

  Aulf pulled off his hat and ran his fingers through his untidy fair hair. ‘It can’t be helped. We’ll just have to do the best we can.’ He glanced at the kettle on the stove. ‘Let’s try and get something hot inside them.’

  Chapter 2

  Jacob surfaced slowly into consciousness. Welcome heat enveloped him, and the unexpected aroma of chicken stew. Despite the warmth, there was still a deep chill in the marrow of his bones, and a memory of coldness, gnawing deep, numbing his body until all he wanted to do was sleep. It crossed his mind that maybe he was dead, but then, gradually registering the blood forcing its way into his fingers and toes, making them throb, he knew that he was still alive. Pain was good. Better the pain of live toes than the numbness of frostbite.

  Someone was speaking to him. A man’s voice. With an effort, Jacob forced his eyes properly open, and focused his gaze. He was lying on a strange bunk in a strange cabin. A tall man with fair, tousled hair and a white knitted sweater was leaning over him, watching him anxiously out of eyes the blue of the clear deep ice.

  ‘You had us worried!’ he said.

  Jacob blinked and frowned. ‘Elya,’ he muttered, twisting his head.

  The fair-headed young man stepped to one side so that Jacob could see the heap of blankets on the other bunk. A girl in a drab brown fur coat, with a mane of frizzy red curls, was leaning over the shapeless mound, with a steaming mug in her hand.

  ‘Is that Elya?’ said the man. ‘She’s all right. She’s doing fine.’ He had an odd way of speaking. It took Jacob’s numbed brain several moments to work out what he had just said. 'My name’s Aulf. We found you out on the ice. Your boat was wrecked. Can you sit up? You need to drink this and get warm.’

  Aulf helped him raise his head from the pillow and held a steaming cup to his lips. Jacob sipped gratefully at the hot tea and felt the welcome heat warming him from the inside.

  ‘Thanks,’ he muttered.

  His gaze followed Aulf as he crossed the small space to a neat little iron stove, to stir the contents of a pot, simmering on the top, then flicked back to the other bunk. Anxiety made him restless. He struggled to sit up, hindered by the copious layers of wool and fur enveloping him, feeling inexplicably exhausted by the smallest effort.

  ‘Take it easy,’ urged Aulf, returning to his side, this time with a bowl of thick stew in his hand. ‘Let me help you.’

  As Jacob scraped the last remnants of food from his bowl, the heat from the stove and the warmth of the food in his stomach combined to dispel the lethargy that had threatened to overwhelm him before. He pulled off his hat. Short-cropped blond hair stood up brush-like all over his head. Movements on the other side of the cabin distracted his attention. The freckled girl was helping Elya into a sitting position and offering her a bowl of stew. His sister looked as white and fragile as the mist that crept over the ice. Even her lips were pale. Feeling stronger, Jacob swung his legs carefully over the side of the bunk, wincing as he put his weight on his thawing toes. Aulf hovered solicitously at his elbow as he hobbled the short distance across the cabin to sit beside his sister and put his arm around her shoulder so she could lean against him as she ate.

  For the first time, Jacob looked properly at his rescuer. Aulf had a clear, pleasant face, browned by sun and wind, with a wide mouth made for smiling, and eyes so intensely blue they might have been cold were it not for the lines that laughter had etched around them. Over his sweater of creamy wool, he wore straps of leather, crossing his body, and more leather around his neck, a wide band, set with something polished, reflecting the light of the oil lamps.

  ‘I’m the mail man,’ said Aulf. ‘This is my skiff, the Aurora. And this is Ingar, my crew.’

  Ingar turned her head away from the lamplight, almost shyly, but Jacob thought he noticed her strange yellow eyes shining before the shadow obscured them.

  ‘I’m Jacob,’ he replied. ‘This is my sister, Elya.’ Elya lifted her gaze and Aulf was startled to find himself regarded steadily from two pairs of the same intensely green eyes, set in faces so similar they might have been the male and female incarnation of the same person.

  ‘What happened to your boat? How did you crash?’

  Brother and sister looked at each other. Neither spoke yet Aulf had the distinct impression they were communicating. Jacob took a deep breath.

  ‘We’ve been sailing for twenty days across the Skymirror. We had to leave home in a hurry, and when our food and fuel ran out, our father decided to keep sailing through the night in the hope we’d reach land before we all froze to death. Elya and I were asleep when we hit the posts.’ Jacob paused. A small spasm contorted his thin pale face. Elya lowered her gaze and turned her face into her brother’s shoulder.

  ‘Skymirror?’ queried Aulf. ‘Do you mean the Ice Plain?’ He shook his head in disbelief. ‘Twenty days on the open ice! You can’t have done. Nobody goes that far out onto the Ice Plain. How did you find your way? The glare from the low mists blinds you, and the sun could be in any direction.’

  Jacob looked at him in surprise. Aulf gave every impression of being a seasoned sailor.

  ‘We used our lodestones, of course.’

  Aulf gave him a blank stare. ‘Your what?’

  Jacob reached inside the collar of his coat and tugged at a leather cord around his neck, dragging out a small, dark, pitted stone hanging from a metal spinner. The top had been polished flat to allow the engraving of an arrow that passed across the small hole at its centre. He drew it over his head and handed it to Aulf. Aulf took it and inspected it carefully, still at a loss.

  ‘Surely you’ve seen a lodestone before,’ said Jacob, surprised that a sailor did not recognise it. ‘Look at that arrow engraved on the top. Now turn round slowly. The arrow keeps pointing in the same direction, see?’

  Aulf turned slowly, his eyes widening. ‘A magic hand!’ he exclaimed. ‘How do you tell it where you want to go?’

  ‘It’s not magic,’ replied Jacob. ‘It doesn’t point to places, just to the sun. Or to where the sun would be at midday,’ he corrected himself.

  ‘So it knows where the sun will be at midday, every day?’ Aulf was still turning round slowly, his eyes fastened on the small stone in his hand. Ingar, drawn by his fascination, had also got up to take a closer look at the magic stone.

  ‘Can I try it tomorrow?’ asked Aulf, as eager as a child with a new toy.

  A shadow crossed Jacob’s face. ‘It was a present from my father.’

  ‘Oh!’ Aulf passed the lodestone back hastily. ‘I’m sorry.’

  There was an awkward pause. Jacob thought how much they owed Aulf. His face brightened. ‘We have a bigger one on our boat. You’re welcome to try that. It’s the least we can do after all you’ve done for us. I mean, you saved our lives, for certain.’

  Aulf regarded them both curiously. They were an odd looking pair; Jacob with his blond hair, so pale it was almost white, standing in little spikes, all over his head, and Elya with a thick sheen of ebony wa
ves spilling over her shoulders from under her enormous woollen hat. Yet, beneath their hair, their features and appearance were strikingly similar. Their clothes were almost identical. They had the same wide set, green eyes, the same finely carved cheekbones, clearly visible beneath the delicate, pale skin, the same long, slight frames, and there was the way they each seemed to understand what the other was thinking without the need for speech. Realisation dawned.

  ‘You’re twins, aren’t you?’

  Jacob and Elya nodded. ‘Yes,’ they said together, as if to confirm their unity.

  After a moment, Jacob asked, ‘Do you think Gem can be mended?’

  ‘Gem? Your boat?’ Aulf shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. There’s too much damage.’

  Jacob’s arm tightened once more around his sister.

  ‘Our father...’ he began, but the words caught in his throat. He stopped, took a deep breath and tried again.

  ‘Our father’s dead,’ he told Aulf.

  ‘I know.’ Aulf’s mouth tightened. ‘We saw.’

  ‘We didn’t know what to do,’ Jacob went on, an edge of despair to his voice. ‘Elya and I were asleep, and then there was a terrible groaning and splintering, and the mast came crashing through the cabin roof. Everything came down around us. We managed to scramble out, but it was pitch black, and there was debris everywhere. We were shouting for him, but we couldn’t find him in the dark. We called and called, but he didn’t answer.’

  Shuffling his feet, Aulf looked down, avoiding Jacob’s eyes. Elya started to cry silently, her waxen face crumpling as though her tears were melting it.

  Jacob’s voice trembled as he recalled. ‘Eventually we found him, almost under the boat, but he wasn’t breathing. We tried everything we could, really we did! In the end, we had to leave him there on the ice. We didn’t know what else to do.’ He scrubbed at his eyes with the heels of his palms, but the tears he was trying to prevent spilled over in spite of his efforts.