Chapter Twenty: Bandits in the Marsh

 

They eventually left the mountains behind and dropped down into Mel Iorn, a hilly, wet country at the best of times. Now, in the winter, it was frigidly cold and humid. The usually green vegetation was gray and brown, blanketing the ground in an icy, soggy mass. Many of the streams were already frozen over or dried up, but several rivers still rushed down through the hills. On one memorable occasion, the four of them even had to cross a freezing river.

The rivers, Kyosti knew, came down from the mountains to the east, the tallest in the world as far as he knew. Enclosed in this mountain range was a glacier the size of Leonella. The Chith called it Ella’s Glacier, after a former Chith general. Ella’s Glacier was the place where the Chith had first encountered the Innis, who lived on this endlessly shifting ice country all year round.

Kyosti saw none of Mel Iorn with his own eyes, of course, but Sanji was more than willing to describe the scenery until he was tired of it. Her first glimpse of Ella’s Glacier through the mountains was certainly entertaining. According to her, it sloped down through a break in the peaks, an overflow that would have taken many days to climb.

“But where does all the ice come from??” she wanted to know.

Anglorae snickered. “It’s just frozen water. That’s what ice is.”

“But how did it get there?”

She simply wouldn’t let it go. She knew what rain was, but they simply didn’t have snow and ice in the north.

The way the days were growing even shorter was also fascinating to her. She kept on pausing and looking back, tugging on Kyosti’s arm.

“I’m sure you’ve seen it many times,” she whispered to him, “but there is a wall of night following us, down in the mountains. It gets closer every day.”

Kyosti knew that night well. The south pole itself never saw the sun, even in the summer, but as winter set into the south, that darkness crept north, a wall of instantly freezing cold.

“I miss it,” he told her. “The night.”

She didn’t understand that either.

They passed north, and the wall of night fell far behind them. To reach the ocean, they came close to Ella’s Glacier.

One morning, as they finally came close to the sea, Kyosti stopped. They were being watched.

“Look!” Sanji called. “Someone on the hill!”

Kyosti turned to look.

“It’s been so long since we’ve seen another human,” Sanji sighed. “They’re to our right, on top of that white hill, the---uh, what did you call it---the glacier?”

“They’re Innis,” Anglorae said, her voice lower than usual.

“What?” Sanji said, her arm twisting in Kyosti’s. “How can you tell?”

“I can tell,” was all Anglorae said, then stomped away. John made a noise of confusion and followed her.

“Seriously, how can she tell?” Sanji asked, not moving.

“Uh,” Kyosti said. “Probably the clothes? But then again, maybe she’s just stereotyping. Someone standing on a glacier? It’s not necessarily an Innis.”

It was definitely an Innis; Kyosti didn’t even have to see them to know, but he tugged at Sanji’s arm and she led him away.

From ahead of them, Anglorae and John both screamed. Sanji’s hand squeezed tight around Kyosti’s arm. “Your bow, quick!” she cried. “Bandits!”

“Help!” Anglorae yelled.

Instinctively, Kyosti did grab his bow, stringing it without thought. It wasn’t until he was notching an arrow that he realized how ridiculous this was. He could hear the bandits in front of them of course, could even pinpoint where some people were standing to shoot them---but how to know where Anglorae and John were?

For a precious second he wavered, frozen. He was not good enough with a sword to fight while blind.

Anglorae screamed again. “Do something!!” Sanji begged, yanking on his arm.

“I---what can I do??” he demanded.

Helplessly, he pulled his sword from the scabbard. “I---take me to where they are---”

Sanji shoved him away. Kyosti stumbled over a rock, almost dropping his sword. Sanji bellowed, “Anglorae! John! Close your eyes!”

Both relief and fear filled Kyosti when he realized what she was doing. She was going to blind the bandits. For a moment he considered stopping her, but what else could they do? It was either this or be killed or enslaved.

He knew the moment Sanji’s headscarf dropped away. For days now, his vision had been whited out, a brightness that obscured everything he saw. But now, as the light of her headscarf fell away, his vision cleared, and in that flash of light he saw the scene clearly.

Anglorae cowered on the icy ground, John thrown over her back to shield her. Seven people surrounded them, many of them screaming and clutching their eyes.

Sanji stood just a foot from him, her headscarf clutched in her hand. Her hair rose in a halo around her, a mass of waving locks like sunrays. She looked like---like all the paintings Kyosti had ever seen of Rokolo the sun god.

Kyosti turned away from her, picked up his bow and arrow, and shot.

Within just a few minutes, the bandits were dead, contorted in pain and fear on the ground. Anglorae still screamed, even as everything else grew quiet. Kyosti returned his sword to the scabbard and started toward her, but his vision winked out again, returning to the formless white. In a moment, Sanji grabbed his arm and unceremoniously dragged him forward.

He tried to pull away, but she wouldn’t let him. Her grip was stronger than he had ever felt, and she pulled him to a stop next to Anglorae and John, deposited John into his arms, and then began loudly soothing Anglorae in a way that told Kyosti she had never tried it before.

Kyosti took a moment to regain his breath, grounding himself with his hands on John’s arms, the smell of the ice, and Sanji’s voice.

And the memory of her floating hair, like the sun come down to earth.