Snow was thick on the ground as I trudged on. The thick cloak that I had been provided with wasn't as good at holding off the cold as the AM-LS5 armour had been, but I had already decided that I would be leaving behind anything to do with the empire. The fauns had offered to provide a fire for me to dispose of it, but with the number of noxious materials inside it, not to mention the ammo feed, it was simpler just to ask Aslan to dispose of it back in Charn.

I now knew the name of the place that I had tried to die. A vast and powerful empire, destroyed in a war where the queen of the losing side had spoken the Deplorable Word rather than surrender, and in the process obliterated her entire world. That Jardis had escaped Charn and come to this world, and more to the point was responsible for what I was informed was a century of winter, didn't exactly please me. Still, it was a mission.

Not that I needed to worry about Jardis yet. Aslan had tried to explain it to me, and I still wasn't entirely clear on the facts, but basically it turned out that actually I wasn't meant to be there. Charn, Narnia, Boxen... All were worlds under the dominion of the Emperor Over The Sea, Aslan's father. But I came from beyond that dominion. Technically, that made me a free agent and meant that I could do whatever I liked. In practise it made me a liability, since I could upset the natural order of... Well, of everything really, without too much effort.

So my mission was to facilitate. To make sure that the correct people turned up in the correct places. Then to keep out of the way and let things happen. Which was fine by me.

For now, being in the correct place meant finding out where Jardis was at present, finding four Human children (they should at least be easy to spot since the only other Humans were away South in Archenland and Calormen), and ensuring that the secret police didn't intercept them, then following them to the Stone Table when Aslan showed up.

It was going to be a busy few days in other words.

Beside me walked Mossguard, shivering more than I was in my leather and woollen clothing, in spite of his fur. He was the companion Aslan had promised, and at least to begin with I couldn't work out who was meant to be companion to whom. I decided after about the first hour that I had been given a secondary project to keep me occupied between times; Mossguard was disgruntled and somewhat surly, and while not as actively suicidal as I had been he did seem to be on the verge of boiling over and trying to attack Jardis, or at least the secret police, directly. Which amounted to suicide.

So keeping him alive was my secondary objective. To start with that looked like it would mean providing food and warmth, because while I'd just had a good meal before setting out and could efficiently process that meal over several days if necessary, Mossguard insisted that he hadn't eaten for two days.

"Tell me about the secret police," I said, looking around and trying to work out whether this would be a good place to stop. There was a bank nearby, not quite a small hill, with a gully in it. Not ideal, but at least we would be out of the wind. I picked up a few bits of fallen wood as we diverted over that way.

"What's to tell? Most of the talking wolves work for the Witch. There are others who are part of it, or just work for them. Sometimes for pay, sometimes just to be left alone. They don't seem to do much, but occasionally someone will vanish and everyone will know that it's the secret police that were behind it."

"So most wolves..." I paused, breaking some of the sticks up into kindling and then starting to pile it up. "Are the other wolves friendly?"

"Some of them. Some of them get treated badly because they might be part of the secret police. Some of them treat other people badly by pretending to be." He shivered. "You realise a fire is going to draw attention to us."

"Yes," I admitted. "So if we run across a lone wolf who is thinking fairly evil thoughts about us, we can assume that they're part of the secret police."

Mossguard seemed to consider this. "I'm not sure how you would define evil in that context, but they'll either be secret police or trouble in some other way. Why?"

"Just wondering," I said idly, before setting to action, pulling the combat knife from my belt and spinning, the knife coming up and over in a single gesture that saw it vanishing off into the distance and stopping accompanied by a sharply curtailed whimpering sound. "That's dinner sorted out at least."

Mossguard followed me through the snow, retracting some of the way along our tracks before we diverted off somewhat and came upon the body of the wolf. The combat knife had gone through its right eye and lodged there, killing it almost instantly. I looked at it critically for a moment, then picked up the body and started carrying it back to our temporary home.

"You can't just go around killing members of the secret police," Mossguard objected, scurrying alongside me.

"I thought you were all for attacking them," I objected.

"Attacking them, yes. I want them stopped," he insisted. "I didn't mean eating them in the meantime. I don't know what Aslan would say about this..."

I paused, pulling the combat knife out and holding it up. It was a Shaltou blade, composed of some kind of silksteel body with a nanothorn edge to the blade and a suitably bulky grip to make holding it easy in or out of armour. There was a guarantee that went with these blades: Shaltou were cutlery makers to the emperor himself, and most of the Consorts. By definition any blade that they made had to be of exceptional quality, even if it was intended for use by a ground pounder.

I'd been issued this blade... The day I was conscripted I suppose. Thirty years ago, at the same time as I got the blocker. I'd kept it in good condition; keeping your equipment in good condition had been what passed for our idea of a good evening's entertainment when the ship's Consort wasn't able to pay us attention properly and the training facilities were busy. It was in perfect condition, despite everything that had been thrown at it over three decades.

I'd used it to kill... Dozens.? Hundreds, easily. Pulse rifles came equipped with a universal mount for bayonets, and a knife like this wasn't even special issue. When a fel-storm came at you and you didn't have time to aim... Could it be over a thousand? I knew I had been one of the lucky ones; my ability to heal was above normal, even for the citizens of the empire, and I'd seen a lot of action in my thirty years of war.

I frowned at the blade. I'd so casually slain an enemy... I didn't think that was like me. It hadn't been anyway. When I'd first started out I'd been in all sorts of trouble because I refused to kill, a trait that didn't sit well with the army. I'd learnt to since then; I'd got quite good at it when the situation warranted it. I'd never taken it casually though. Never this casually anyway.

I got myself moving again, stripping the wolf down with the kind of mechanical exactitude that comes from long experience; I didn't normally do this to talking wolves, but everyone has to eat, and it wouldn't be the most peculiar meal I'd had. With a bit of luck, even allowing for how skinny the wolf was, I'd be able to get a good few meals out of it. If I was going to kill something this abruptly, I might as well at least make full use of it.

Mossguard kept worrying about the whole thing as the meat cooked and the skin dried. I was also worried, but more from a sense of confusion about how I got into the state where killing like that could be normal. At some point I would need to sit down and think this through carefully, but in the mean time I decided that I would have things to do.

"Eat up," I told Mossguard once the meat was cooked. "I'm sorry it isn't more interesting, but it'll have to do for now."

The badger considered it for a moment, clearly not taken with the idea of eating something that had once been capable of talking. "I don't know... It's just..."

"What do you normally eat?" I asked, gesturing around. "There's been snow on the ground for a hundred years, you can't be growing anything..."

"Fish are always around," Mossguard declared. "And away south in Archenland they can still grow things. We are good at making do."

"Even so..."

"The Witch doesn't want everyone dead," Mossguard insisted. "Individuals, yes. But even she couldn't simply wipe out everyone. And even she must have to eat sooner or later."

"I wouldn't count on it," I said guardedly. "She wiped out Charn with the Deplorable Word. That's not a small feat of magic. Compared to that being able to keep yourself alive with minimal food..." I shrugged. "Hasn't anyone tried to stop her? Apart from you I mean."

Mossguard glared at me over the haunch that he was still fingering nervously, then bit into it. "Some try. She has spies everywhere, and not just the secret police. Some of the trees are on her side..." He glared at the trees around us, as if expecting them to answer him or call down trouble on us. "The Humans in the south can't help. The route is too long through the snow; they would never make it in secret, with all of the supplies and provisions that they would need. The last ones to try... Were about fifty or sixty years ago," he declared. "Well prepared, well provisioned. They got as far as the Great River that flows to Cair Paravel ."

"What happened to them?"

"No one knows for sure," he admitted. "We get reminded of it occasionally. I went to the site once, if you can call it a site. Nearly two miles the remains are spread over. Armour and weapons were stripped a long time ago; industry like that is something that we have a hard time maintaining. Any weapons that you run into in Narnia have been imported, or robbed from battlefields. The Witch has been quite good for trade in that regard." He sighed. "I keep hoping that..."

I allowed him a pause, then prompted. "That what?"

"The prophesy," Mossguard explained. "When two sons of Adam and two daughters of Eve sit in Cair Paravel, the Witch's power will be broken once and for all. That's what kept the Southerners coming for a while, because they thought that they could get in and claim the throne back easily."

"Only the Witch kept them out," I supplied. "Combined with the fact that they're actually the children of Frank and Helen rather than Adam and Eve, that rather scuppers their plans."

Mossguard gave me a slightly confused look, then shrugged. "They might have decided that as well," he admitted. "Either that or they just decided that it wasn't worth the effort. Once Aslan returns and spring comes back we'll be open for the taking if they want us."

"Unless there's someone in power here right from the start," I pointed out. "How much did Aslan tell you about what we're up to?"

"He said I had to keep you alive, and that you'd be helping to stop the Witch," Mossguard replied. "Presumably he told you more."

I nodded, glancing around. There was no one nearby, but I was still wary about that comment about the trees and other spies. Thirty years of having dire-midges several metres overhead, potentially listening in on every comment, tends to warp your thinking somewhat. "If what I've been told is to be believed, you've got your two sons and two daughters in Narnia already. Our job is to make sure that they make it as far as the Stone Table. From there, Aslan should be able to take over."

Mossguard looked startled. "But with them on the thrones in Cair Paravel and Aslan back in Narnia-"

"The long winter ends, and you have your ruling force to keep the Southerners from simply coming in and taking over." I nodded. "We've got to make sure that they get there though. And I'm guessing that the Witch will know to look out for them. And I'm a Human, in Narnia when I shouldn't be... Technically I could take the place of one of those Sons. But since I'm from beyond the Emperor's dominion that might make things worse. Likewise, I don't exactly have a place in this world. So I can't be too directly involved. Letting them know that I even exist could ruin things." I shrugged. "They won't be holding victory parades in our honour," I warned.

Mossguard considered this. "But the Witch will be gone," he insisted.

"That's the plan," I admitted. "How it happens... Aslan only knows..."


We started moving again once the fire had died down enough that we could bury it. The wolf meat and skin we took with us; I aimed to have a go at tidying up the skin and making a coat of some kind for Mossguard.

Winter had well and truly settled. It amazed me though how much power Jardis must be pouring into this to keep it going. Holding off Spring was no mean feat. I've seen it done with magic before, but normally as a kind of Armageddon move, intending to wipe everything out. This was bigger, not just holding everything in Winter, but keeping everything alive. The trees that we passed weren't dead, despite a hundred years of snow, they were just resting.

The kind of scale of power that this all represented, particularly if Jardis wasn't doing things like relying on sacrificial victims to power it like most people did, was frankly scary.

Our going was slower than I would have liked; Mossguard trudged slowly through the snow, his mood jumping between joy at the thought of Aslan's return, and being aggrieved at the necessity of traipsing through the snow like this. I know that he would have preferred to go a different route, or at a slower pace. Or both. Somehow that didn't feel right to me. Back to the Empire and their trick of not letting soldiers sleep; genuine forty eight hour route marches followed by six hours in the trenches repelling hordes of fel-storms hadn't been normal, but also weren't unexpected.

We compromised in the end, with Mossguard keeping to his pace and me wearing myself out scouting ahead and dodging back and forth across the nominally straight-line path that he was following.

We didn't pick up any more signs of the secret police as we went, which was a relief. Looking back I realise that I had slipped into old, and very bad, habits. I do this occasionally when I've been hanging around places where I have an edge in terms of senses. I'm a telepath, with the ability to see heat, electricity and a sense of touch that I can stretch out to about seventy metres if I focus it tightly. I'd spent the last thirty years in a place where this gave me a serious edge over other soldiers around me, but also where the enemies tended to fairly obvious. Fel-storms didn't bother sneaking up on you too much.

As such, I later realised, I'd ignored the possibilities inherent in Narnia for things like the trees being hostile spies, or things that I couldn't see with those extra senses. I was damaged goods in more ways than one.

We found the river that I had been told about only on our second go. The snow was deep enough that I missed it the first time, and we had to double back when we went uphill and saw that we had overshot. We followed it upstream from there, keeping to the bank in case the ice went thin too abruptly; it seemed silly to worry about there being flowing water down there after a century of winter, but Mossguard assured me that there was. Another sign of Jardis' power at work.

Eventually, after three hours of following the river, we came across our target.

It was a dam. As dams go it was both crude and impressive. Crude, because obviously it had been put together out of sticks and mud, and so there were serious limits on it. Impressive because, to judge from the lodge built onto it, it had been made by beavers using local materials. That in itself didn't sound impressive, since beavers do that sort of thing all the time. The impressive part was the sluice, the carefully constructed overflow channels, and the other parts that you would have assumed to be too sophisticated for such a setting.

"We're here," I announced, hunkering down in the shadow of some bushes. It had gone dark during the last short while, and the only really useful light nearby was inside the lodge, probably from some kind of fish oil lantern.

"This is it?" Mossguard sounded almost disappointed at the possibility.

"Five minds inside," I informed him. "Two... Can't tell, but I'm guessing that they're beavers. The other three are... One male, two female, all Human."

"The sons of Adam and daughters of Eve?"

"Son of Adam," I corrected. "I think that we missed one of them... Either that or he's gone missing. The others..." I frowned at a sudden wave of consternation from inside the lodge. "They just noticed that he's gone."

The pair of us got down lower as the light through the windows of the lodge changed as people began moving around. It was another ten minutes before five figures appeared out of the lodge's door (and it was a door rather than a curtain or bung made of sticks), turning off the light and setting off across the snow. The three children were wrapped up against the cold, disguising their heat signatures somewhat, while the beavers went without additional layers, but did carry packs on their backs. They all still stood out fairly clearly though.

"That's them is it?" Mossguard enquired.

"That's them... Now we just need to make sure that they make it to the Stone Table."


It was worryingly easy to follow the five as they worked their way across the snow. They went single-file, with one of the beavers bringing up the rear to try and disrupt their footprints with her tail. But when Mossguard and I came across the trail, both of us cursed under our breaths; even to Mossguard, there was a clear trail through the snow.

"The only good part is that they're keeping to the low ground by the trees," he commented as we made some effort to further disguise the trail, while also covering up our own. "The Witch goes around on a sledge, and she wouldn't be able to bring it down here."

"I hope that does them some good," I replied. "Because I can see the wolves having it easy chasing them across any ground, let alone ground like this. We might need to do some more killing before this part of the journey is over." I was aware, even as I said that, of the casual, business-like tone I had slipped into, and I shuddered as I realised that the training from the empire had become so ingrained that I didn't even think about trying to sound casual about it; my thoughts had just fallen into the old pattern too easily.

Mossguard gave me a look, but didn't comment openly. I could see the disapproval in his mind though, and it occurred to me that we might both be intended to be a reality check for each other. Mossguard had admitted that insofar as Narnia had an army (aside from that controlled by the Witch) he was a member. They trained sometimes, kept in touch, and occasionally waylaid the forces of the Witch. I'd been part of real armies, and so I was, on some level, a warning to Mossguard about what he might become.

At the same time, Mossguard was a warning to me about what I had become already. I knew that I shouldn't be treating killing that casually, that I had lost something vital in the last thirty years. For that matter I'd lost a lot over the last nine thousand years, since I was pulled out of a normal life.

It alarmed me how easy it was to follow the children and beavers. They kept to a determined line, never deviating from their course more than necessary. I could guess their plan: they were relying on speed and the terrain to keep them safe from Jardis, who wouldn't submit easily to the idea of walking when she could ride. It worried me though how they were taking account of no other possibilities.

"If the secret police find their trail," Mossguard muttered as we paused to obliterate a particularly blatant set of tracks, "they won't stand a chance."

"Which is why we're here," I reminded him. Even I was starting to feel weary of it though; both Mossguard and I could have moved at twice the speed that the children and beavers kept up, and done so more stealthily. I had been considering the proverb about fools being protected by greater fools, and was in the process of reprimanding myself for such uncharitable thinking (though having a hard time of it as the cold was starting to bite a bit more than I liked), when I realised that we might have more to worry about than the secret police.

Three minds had appeared somewhere behind us, and from the sense of them had stumbled onto what little was left of our trail. I wasn't particularly happy about how easily they had done that, until I picked up on the sense-shapes inside one of the minds; creatures that have a primarily vision-based sense system like Humans tend to be have a different mental layout to those with hearing or smell based senses. In this case two of the minds were vision based, and getting on roughly okay in the relative light of the moon. One of the minds though had caught our scent, and now the game was afoot.

"Trouble," I warned Mossguard. "Three of them, just picked up our scent."

"What do we do?"

"Be ready to fight," I said, perhaps a bit too bluntly. Hastily I modified that. "I'll try talking, you stay out of sight. They don't feel particularly friendly though," I added, wincing at the taste of one thought that I picked up; I'd seen similar shapes in the minds of sadists and monsters before now, and it hadn't been pleasant to deal with.

Mossguard hid himself as well as he could; he carried on along the trail, then dodged off to the side, coming around silently through the bushes until he was roughly level with where the three would probably stop.

I kept moving around as I waited, not bothering to hide my presence from them; I can burn my body fat and stimulate my body to generate extra heat, so I don't suffer from being cold very easily. But even I need something to keep me going sometimes, and I couldn't afford to let my muscles get a chill if there might be a fight.

When the three appeared, it was fairly clear that they weren't going to be friendly. Call me a cynic, but something about them didn't seem right. I've met enough people who "seemed fairer and felt fouler" in my time not to trust appearances, but something told me that Narnia was one place that such complications were kept to a minimum.

The closest, apparently their tracker, was a wolf, though I saw in his mind that he wasn't merely a wolf. A wer-wolf then, and a dangerous one if he could change at will like that. About the only good thing there was that it seemed Narnian wer-wolves didn't get super-size or super-strength to go with their shapeshifting. He paused and snarled as he spotted me, not uncertainly, but weighing up options.

The second was swathed in rags and tatters. Her face was pale, ghostly grey in the moonlight, and her nose and chin stuck out determinedly, arching as if trying to meet each other. She moved in a constant hunch, as if ready to duck away and avoid some blow. It gave her an almost pitiable appearance, which was belied by the glint in her eye and the way that the lines on her face didn't seem to suggest a need for pity; cruelty and malice burnt in her mind, and I sensed that hers was an ingrained evil.

The third figure was perhaps the most obviously dangerous. He had the general form of a faun, with a goat's legs and horns sprouting from his head. What kind of faun he was though eluded me; the ones I had heard about generally didn't come in at nearly two metres tall, with a somewhat goat-like face, horns that were more like a ram's and which curved back over his skull. They also didn't tend to have muscles like a heavy-gravity combat expert, or armour.

The armour was an odd design. The basic layer had a somewhat Arabian look to it, with fine chainmail covering a layer of cloth. But this had then been covered with some kind of very solidly designed pauldron, adorned with some interesting symbols. A bandolier had been worked into the design as well, with knives stowed in it.

It was the third figure who came forward when he saw me. He didn't speak immediately, but watched me for a moment as if weighing me up. "What manner of creature are you?" he asked, his voice low and hushed, not as if worried about being heard, but almost as a challenge to me. "You are not one of the talking beasts, and you are too tall for a Dwarf. Nor are you a man of Calormen or Archenland. That does not leave many things that you can be."

"I'm Human," I admitted, largely because it's easier to tell that much of the truth than explain the whole genetically-engineered thing. "But I'm not exactly local to this place."

Alarmingly, that turn of phrase seemed to mean more to him than it should have done, and he nodded slowly. "What is your purpose here? Do you side with the Queen? With the Lion? Or with the Vulture?"

I paused to consider that one. I knew roughly what each of those would mean, but his manner of listing them was peculiar. "I would have to say the Lion," I admitted. I relaxed my stance marginally, a focusing of muscle tension in preparation to move, and I was alarmed to see almost the same change of stance from the faun. "You?"

The faun gave a half shrug. "I serve two masters," he informed me. He then nodded in the direction of the tracks that I had yet to obliterate. "There are more up there. More of your kind?"

"A son of Adam and two daughters of Eve," I said with a shrug of my own, as if it was of no consequence.

His eyes narrowed. "Adam's flesh and Adam's bone have come at last then," he said. "We were right to follow these tracks. Stand aside, or you will be slain along with them."

I didn't bother answering that one directly; I simply drew my sword and fell into a ready stand. The sword is a nice design. It didn't come from the empire like the combat knife did, but from before my time there. It's a katana, a couple of centimetres longer than usual, made of dulled metal that was almost invisible in the moonlight except as a shadow in the air. In the right light you could see deeper shadows in it where runes had been carved into it. Thurisaz, Eihwaz, Algiz, and Teiwaz were overlaid and intertwined down its length, charged by my will, once I found the right mental balance.

The ragged woman took a couple of steps back at the sight of my sword, though I didn't dismiss her from my mind; if anything she gained a higher priority, because she moved with a hint of purpose, which suggested she had some kind of supporting role in mind. The wolf skittered to the side, while the faun drew his own sword. It was a curved affair, a kind of scimitar, but with a heavier look to it, and a serrated edge.

The faun and I stood there, both watching each other, both waiting for an opening. It worried me slightly, because there was no way that someone trained in Narnia or Calormen should be this good. Certainly nothing I had heard suggested any kind of martial traditions beyond the basic army that would be maintained and the elite squads that would be present in such an army.

The wer-wolf clearly wasn't of the same material though, and after only a couple of seconds leapt at me, not even snarling as his jaws went wide.

There's only a certain amount that a wolf can do in mid-air. It can twist, it can stretch... Dodging a sword isn't really an option.

I side-stepped and swung in a single move, drawing the blade across the wer-wolf's flank. He whimpered as he landed, though I think it was in shock at how easily I'd done that rather than anything else. I didn't get a chance to continue with it though, because the faun drove at me, taking the opening that had been created.

I continued my move, diving sideways, aware as I did of Mossguard leaping out of the bushes to attack the ragged woman. I dived under the blade, rolling in the snow and coming up with the faun adjusting his grip and swinging at me, fully extended. I leaned back enough to avoid it, then...

Things get complicated in a fight. Having to opponents, one of whom was alarmingly skilled, kept me busy. I lose track of what exactly happened for most of the fight, but I can remember what happened to end it.

The wer-wolf had just tried to jump me again, without much luck, when the faun came in at me once more. His style had been remarkably fluid, not going into anything specific that I could recognise. This time though he came in with a flowing mento-marva block-and-disarm, with a textbook execution that spun my sword out of my hands and into the air, while throwing me backwards.

I came up rolling, the combat knife coming out before I was even standing again, and was slashing at the wer-wolf as it passed once more. The faun had grabbed the sword, but I had no intention of letting it go, so I came in swiftly with a slip-thrust that would have got me thrown out of some schools for inappropriate use of the point of a knife.

The faun dodged, which I wasn't entirely unhappy about later on, and I failed to actually gut him. What I did manage was to slice through his waist, the chain-mail parting under the nanothorn edge of the blade. He had managed to back out of range by the time I spun back, clutching at his side and scowling ferociously.

"Enough!" he hissed. Both the wer-wolf and ragged woman fell back to join him as he began to move down the path, back the way that they had come. "We have not finished this," he warned me. "Shadrin, shroud us."

The ragged woman muttered something complicated sounding, and threw a bag of what looked like glitter at the ground. The snow billowed and a fog grew up in front of them, obscuring all of my senses at once. When it faded a few seconds later, the three of them were vanishing into the trees in the distance, too far and too fast for me to catch up with them.