Shaithis let his gaze wander to and fro, from one to the other, finally allowing it to settle on Arkis’s dark and twitching countenance, his coarse lips and the yellow ivory of his tusks. ‘So how about it, Arkis?’ he said. ‘You’ve had a little less freedom than Fess, it’s true, but still you’ve managed to explore a few ice-castles. Well, the Ferenc has told us his tale of the horror in the cone, so now I reckon it’s your turn. What of the ice-aeries, eh? What of these ancient, exiled, ice-encysted Wamphyri Lords?’
Arkis scowled at him. ‘You want to know about the frozen ones?’
‘The sooner all is known,’ said Shaithis, nodding, ‘the sooner we may proceed.’
Arkis shrugged, however grudgingly. ‘I have no problem with that,’ he said. ‘So … you want to know what I’ve seen, done, discovered? It won’t take long in the telling, I promise you!’
Tell us anyway,’ said Shaithis, ‘and we’ll see what we make of it.’
Again Arkis’s shrug. ‘So be it,’ he said.
4
The Frozen Lords
‘After the mayhem in The Dweller’s garden,’ (Arkis commenced), ‘when it was seen how The Dweller and his helllander father had destroyed our armies, shattered our centuried stacks and brought our aeries crashing down, there seemed no alternative but flight. The Dweller had our measure; the Wamphyri were fallen; to remain in the ruins of Starside would surely bring these Great Enemies down upon us one last time in a final venting of their furious might.
‘However, it is the immemorial right of the fallen to quit Starside and forge for the Ice lands. Thus, in the lull which followed on the destruction of our aeries, those survivors who had the means for flight forsook their ancient territories and headed north. Aye, and I was one such survivor.
‘Along with a pair of aspiring lieutenants – ex-Traveller thralls of mine, twin brothers named Goram and Belart Largazi, who vied with each other for my egg – I cleared away the debris of my fallen stack from the deeply buried entrance to subterranean workshops, so freeing one flyer and one warrior kept aside and safe against the event of just such a calamity as The Dweller’s victory. These beasts we saddled and mounted (I myself took the warrior, an ill-tempered creature personally trained to my tastes), finally fleeing on a course roughly northward from the wrack and ruin of the aeries.
‘Our heading was not true north – perhaps a little west of north – what odds? The roof of the world is the roof of the world; to left or right it is still the roof. We paused only once, where a shoal of great blue fishes had got themselves trapped in the formation of a shallow ice-lake, and there glutted ourselves before proceeding further.
‘Not long after that the Largazi brothers’ flyer, burdened as it was with two riders, became exhausted. It went down at the rim of a shallow sea and left its riders floundering. I landed on the frozen strand, sent my warrior back to the Largazis to let down its launching limbs and tow them ashore.
‘And then it was that we found ourselves in a very curious place. Hot blowholes turned the snow yellow; bubbling geysers made warm pools in the ageless ice; sea birds came down to feed on the froth of small fishes where they spawned at the ocean’s rim. It was the furthest reach of these selfsame volcanic mountains, which are active still in those weird western extremes.
‘After the Largazis were dragged ashore and while they dried themselves out, I looked for a launching place and discovered a glacier where it sloped oceanward. There I ordered my creature down on to the ice; aye, for by now that warrior mount of mine was likewise sore weary – its valiant efforts in saving the twins from drowning had scarcely buttressed its vitality. They need to kill and devour a deal of red meat, warriors, else rapidly fade away to nothing. And so I thought to myself: which will prove most useful to me in the Icelands? A powerful warrior, or a pair of bickering, unimportant and ever-hungry thralls? Hah! No contest.