Before long, they started reaching for arrows. Their formidable bows outranged the ones Raumsdalians and Bizogots carried. That wasn’t the worry uppermost in Hamnet’s thoughts, though. “Have they got a wizard with them?” he called to Marcovefa.
“What?” she shouted back.
“Have-they-got-a-wizard-with-them?”
“Oh,” Marcovefa said, and then, “I don’t think so.”
Hamnet had to be content-or rather, discontented-with that. He strung his own bow and nocked an arrow. The Rulers began to shoot first. Even loosing arrows backward, they could hit from a distance their foes found impossible to match. A Bizogot swore when a shaft pierced the palm of his hand.
But, because horses were faster than riding deer, the Bizogots and Raumsdalians soon started shooting back with some hope of success. A wounded deer bounded away from the rest of the troop, its rider unable to control it. Another deer crashed to the ground. With luck, the Ruler it carried wouldn’t come through that unscathed. And an invader, hit in the neck as he turned back to shoot, slid off his mount and lay motionless.
Marcovefa began to sing in the saddle. Not so very long before, she wouldn’t have tried that. She was a better, more confident rider than she had been. And no wonder-till she came down from the top of the Glacier, she’d never imagined animals like horses and riding deer, let alone mounted ones.
The shaman pointed in the Rulers’ direction. She might not have known anything about riding deer till she came down onto the Bizogot steppe, but her magic now was plenty to send them mad. They started bucking and bounding over the dreary landscape, regardless of what the men on them wanted. The Rulers couldn’t get away, and they couldn’t fight back-the worst of both worlds.
But they wouldn’t give up. Several of the men who’d been bucked off their deer drew swords and stood back-to-back, ready to make the best fight they could. A couple of warriors who’d managed to hang on to their bows went on shooting at the Bizogots and Raumsdalians as if nothing were wrong.
“They’re tough buggers,” Ulric Skakki said, not without admiration, as he shot an enemy bowman from behind. He was not a sporting fighter, but he was a very effective one. “Almost makes you wish they were on our side.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Hamnet Thyssen growled. “It only makes me wish they were all back on the far side of the Gap where they belong.”
“Don’t hold your breath. Even if we somehow beat them down here, don’t hold your breath,” Ulric said. “They’re part of the mix now, I’m afraid. And the Gap won’t be what it is now for very much longer, either.”
“Huh?” Hamnet didn’t get an answer right away. He urged his horse up into a gallop so he could cut down an embattled warrior of the Rulers. But Ulric’s odd comment stayed in his mind. He asked the adventurer about it again after the fighting ended.
“What? D’you think I’m wrong?” Ulric said.
“How can I tell? I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hamnet replied.
“No, eh? You’re dense today, aren’t you?” As usual, Ulric had charm.
“I must be,” Hamnet said. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t waste time on you.”
That won him a grin. “You say the sweetest things,” Ulric Skakki told him. “Well, think about it a little. The Glacier is melting. That’s why we’ve got the Gap at all. What happens when the Glacier melts some more? The Gap won’t be this little thing where you can pee from one side to the other.” He exaggerated, but not enormously. “Pretty soon, it’ll be ten miles wide. Before too long, it’ll be a hundred miles wide. And when it is, we might as well call it the Highway instead of the Gap, because we won’t have a God-cursed chance of keeping anything from the other side out.”
“Oh,” Hamnet said. He plunged his sword into the soft loam to get more blood off the blade. That made much too much sense. He’d had the same thought himself, but he hadn’t followed it to see where it might lead. “Maybe the Golden Shrine is under the Glacier somewhere, and it’ll come out once the ice melts some more.”
“Maybe you’re an idiot, but I hadn’t thought so till now,” Ulric said cheerfully. “Don’t hold your breath waiting for the Golden Shrine to show up. There. That’s the best advice you ever got, unless somebody was smart enough to tell you to keep away from Gudrid before it was too late.”
“Leave Gudrid out of this.” As always, anger filled Count Hamnet’s voice when he talked about his former wife.
This time, Ulric gave the anger nothing to light on. “All right,” he said. He didn’t even add that, if this ragtag army with the strange sorceress beat the Rulers, it would prop up not only Gudrid but also Sigvat II. Why mention it, when Hamnet could figure it out for himself? Hamnet not only could, he dutifully did. Ulric sent him a benign smile, watching him do it. The adventurer could be dangerous all kinds of ways.
Trasamund walked by, carrying the head of a dead Ruler by the curly beard. None of the invaders had surrendered. They had the courage of their convictions-and much good it had done them. Trasamund seemed happy enough. He wasn’t dangerous in so many ways as Ulric Skakki was, which didn’t mean he wasn’t a dangerous man.
“Well, we whipped this bunch of them, anyway,” he said, pausing for a moment.
“So we did,” Ulric agreed. “Now-how many more bunches do we have to whip before we’re done?”
“How am I supposed to know?” Trasamund asked suspiciously.
“Somebody should, don’t you think?” Ulric asked.
“Don’t bait him,” Hamnet Thyssen said.
“Who, me?” The adventurer was the picture of innocence. That had to mean he was most likely to be guilty. Hamnet didn’t know how he knew that, but know it he did.
IX
The Bizogots and Raumsdalians rode through the fertile farmland that had been the bed of Hevring Lake till its ice dam melted through and spilled its waters over the scabrous badlands farther west. Hamnet Thyssen sighed. “I don’t know if I want to see sacked Nidaros or not,” he said.
“Sigvat’s the one who ought to see it,” Ulric Skakki said. “We ought to rub his nose in it, so he gets some idea of how many mistakes he made and how big they were.”
Count Hamnet laughed at him. “Sigvat’s more likely to get pregnant than to get an idea.”
“That hurts too much to be funny,” Ulric said, but he laughed anyhow.
“Things don’t look so bad here,” Trasamund remarked.
A few houses and barns had been burned. Hamnet supposed those were places where the locals showed fight against the Rulers. He didn’t see much in the way of livestock. Either Raumsdalians had escaped with their horses and cattle and sheep or the invaders had stolen or slaughtered them. But grain still ripened in the fields. Hardly any fruit trees had been cut down. Trasamund might not be the best judge of what the Raumsdalian countryside was supposed to look like, but he didn’t sound like a crazy man, either.
Local farmers, the ones who still survived, had learned their lesson. As soon as they saw armed men in the distance, they fled. They didn’t wait around to find out whose side the warriors were on. As far as they were concerned, no warriors were on their side. Hamnet would have had a demon of a time persuading them they were wrong.
“You got rich. You got fat. You got lazy.” Marcovefa sounded like a judge passing sentence. “You Bizogots, you Raumsdalians. Fat and lazy.”
“Us, rich?” Trasamund said. “Honh! Not likely!”
But his bluster lacked its usual passionate conviction. He’d seen what things were like up on top of the Glacier and in the mountain refuges that stuck up above the ice. By Marcovefa’s standards, even the poorest Bizogots on the frozen steppe were rich beyond the dreams of avarice.
“How much of Nidaros is left, do you think?” Audun Gilli said. “Can we go around the place, or do we need to go through?”
Some small part of Hamnet did want to see the capital in ruins. Nidaros was Sigvat’s city, and Gudrid’s, not his. Back when he was living in his own castle down
in the southeast, he wouldn’t have minded if something horrible happened to the place. So he’d told himself then, anyhow. As he’d found before in other ways, getting what you thought you wanted didn’t always make you happy.
Hamnet wondered if anything would ever make him happy. His former wife and the Emperor groveling at his feet? A slow, sour smile crossed his face, like sunshine briefly breaking through on a drizzly day. He might not win lasting happiness from that, but it would do for a little while.
“Well?” Audun persisted. “Do we have to go through Nidaros?”
“We’ll decide when we get closer,” Hamnet said. “We’ll see how things are around the place-that’ll tell us whether we need to go in.”
The wizard nodded. “All right. Good enough. It’s not as if I’ve got family there to worry about.” His mouth twisted. Hamnet remembered that he himself wasn’t the only one to know hard times. Audun had lost house and wife and children in a fire, and spent years after that drinking so he didn’t have to think about it.
Per Anders pointed ahead. “Is that serai still open, or did the Rulers sack it?”
“No smoke from the chimney,” Ulric Skakki said. “That’s never a good sign.”
Sure enough, the serai was deserted. The stench of death lingered in the taproom. A corpse, mostly skeletal, lay behind the bar. “Looks like we’re on our own for supper and drinks,” Hamnet observed.
“Does kind of, doesn’t it?” Ulric said. “Unless this poor bugger died of old age waiting to get served. I’ve known a few serais like that.”
“So have I-but this isn’t one of them.” Hamnet Thyssen pointed to the skull. It bore a dreadful wound, most likely from an axe but perhaps from a sword. The fellow who’d owned it-the tapman?-didn’t die of starvation.
“Yes, that’s a splitting headache, all right,” Ulric agreed. Then he stooped and lifted a couple of stoppered jars the man’s corpse had partly covered. “And the Rulers really are a pack of barbarians from the back of beyond. They don’t even know how to do a proper job of plundering.”
He scraped away at the pitch sealing one stopper with the tip of his dagger. Once he could wiggle the stopper, he worked it free with the dagger and his thumb and forefinger. “What have you got?” Audun Gilli sounded more than a little interested.
Ulric sniffed, then swigged. “Yes, that’s mead, all right. Pretty good mead, too.” He swigged again, as if to make certain. Audun also looked more than a little interested. He looked thirsty, as a matter of fact. Ulric passed him the jar.
He drank, then drank some more, then drank some more after that, and finally delivered his verdict: “You’re right. That is pretty good mead.” He took another swig, just to make sure . . . or just because he wanted to.
“Save some for the rest of us,” Ulric said, snatching the jar back.
“You might want to be able to walk when you’re done, too,” Hamnet said.
“Mm-I might.” By the way Audun Gilli said it, he wasn’t even close to sure he’d care about walking.
“Let me try some of that,” Trasamund said. Looking resigned, Ulric Skakki gave him the jar. The Bizogot raised it to his lips. His larynx worked. He made at least as big a dent in the mead as Audun had. When he finally lowered the jar, he nodded. “Not bad at all.”
“Do I get to try it, too?” Hamnet Thyssen asked pointedly.
“If there’s any left.” Trasamund shook the jar and listened to the slosh inside. “Still some, anyhow.” He held it out to Hamnet.
The Raumsdalian noble shook it, too, and hefted it. “Not bloody much. You’re a pig, Your Ferocity-and so are you, Gilli.” He drank. The mead was as advertised-and there wasn’t bloody much of it. He drained the jar.
“You’ve called me plenty worse than that,” Audun said.
Count Hamnet threw the jar down on the floor, not quite at the wizard’s feet. It smashed, even though the floor was only rammed earth. Audun Gilli sidestepped smartly to dodge one flying sherd. “You deserved what I called you, and more besides,” Hamnet said in the flat voice of formal hostility.
“We’ve been round this barn before-too often.” Ulric Skakki worked at the stopper on the other jar. “We don’t need to hear it all again.” He sniffed. “Besides, this one’s wine.” He thrust it at Count Hamnet. “Here-you go first.”
“Bribing me, are you?” Hamnet said. The adventurer gave back a bland smile and a nod. Instead of making something of it, Hamnet drank. Sweet and strong, the wine ran down his throat. He took his fair share or a little more, then lowered the jar. “Pretty good wine,” he reported, deadpan.
“You-! Give me that!” Trasamund started to snatch the jar out of his hands. So did Ulric. They glared at each other. They didn’t quite square off, but they left the feeling that they would if somebody didn’t do something in the next few heartbeats. Hamnet did something: he gave Audun Gilli the jar.
Trasamund and Ulric both glared at him. Audun looked astonished. Count Hamnet was astonished, at himself. This was the first time he’d done anything for Audun since the wizard took Liv away from him. He hadn’t meant to; all he’d meant to do was annoy Ulric and Trasamund. Well, he’d managed that.
Audun wasted no time before sampling the wine. As Trasamund’s had not long before, his larynx bobbed up and down. “Not bad at all,” he allowed after reluctantly lowering the jar.
Ulric grabbed faster than Trasamund. He drank, and made as if to go on drinking. Trasamund growled deep in his throat, like a lion warning a dire wolf it had better clear off from a carcass. Ulric was not a man to be intimidated like that, but he was a man who would share . . . when he felt like it.
He passed Trasamund the wine jar a bare instant before the jarl would have stolen it from him and perhaps started a real fight. “Ahh!” Trasamund said after his first gulp. “Those grapes died happy, by God!”
“They probably died when pretty girls squashed them with bare feet,” Ulric Skakki said. He raised a more or less leering eyebrow. “Worse ways to go, I daresay. Ugly girls squashing you with bare feet, for instance.”
Trasamund was drinking again, and almost choked. When he stopped spluttering, he said, “Is that really how they smash grapes? Women stepping on them? Or are you making it up to fool a Bizogot who doesn’t know anything about wine except that it tastes good?”
“By God, Your Ferocity, in the fall there are women with purple toes down in the south where the grapes grow,” Ulric said gravely, holding up his hand as if taking an oath. “They have big wooden vats full of grapes, and the women get in there and hike up their skirts and-”
“Trample out the vintage,” Audun Gilli finished for him. “Sometimes the men will do it, too, but it’s mostly women.”
He pointed at the wine jar Trasamund was holding and murmured a charm. The jar grew a face: a pretty, spoiled-looking face. In a squeaky voice, it said, “And you can just quit thinking about looking up my skirt, too, you-you man, you. There I am, working my feet as purple as your nose, and you’ve got your mind in a cesspit!” Animating such things was Audun’s favorite magical sport.
“My nose isn’t purple!” Trasamund might have been answering a woman, not an enchanted jug.
Ulric Skakki looked artfully astonished. “You mean that isn’t a plum stuck on to the front of your face?”
Like a lot of Bizogots, Trasamund had been down in Raumsdalia often enough to know what a plum was. His whole face turned red, if not purple. “One day you will talk too bloody much, Skakki. You’ll be sorry for it when you are-you’d best believe you will.”
“People keep telling me so,” the adventurer said. “It hasn’t happened yet, though. One day I’m going to get tired of waiting.”
Trasamund muttered into his beard. Whatever he said, he didn’t say it loud enough to get through the facial shrubbery. Trading insults with Ulric was a losing game; he gave worse than he got. As Count Hamnet had seen-and discovered, painfully, for himself-fighting Ulric was also a losing game. Which left . . . what? Loving him, mayb
e? Hamnet Thyssen scowled. That also struck him as an unappetizing choice.
Hamnet found himself looking east as he rode across what had been Hevring Lake’s bottomland. He saw Per Anders doing the same thing. Catching Sigvat’s courier at it made him realize he was doing it, too. A little sheepishly, he said, “If the Rulers sacked Nidaros, not much point looking for the city smoke rising from it, is there?”
Per blinked. “No, I guess not,” he answered, also sounding sheepish. “Force of habit.”
“I know. I was doing the same thing,” Hamnet said. “And I’ll probably start doing it six or eight more times, till I get it through my thick head that that smoke cursed well won’t be there.”
He did, too. Late the next afternoon, they came close enough to Nidaros to get a good look at what the Rulers had done to the Raumsdalian capital. Hamnet could have done without it. It was almost as hard on him as seeing Gudrid’s naked corpse would have been. And Nidaros itself hadn’t betrayed him, even if important people inside the city had.
Nidaros’ gray granite walls could have held out every Bizogot ever born for a thousand years. So Raumsdalians said, anyhow, and Hamnet Thyssen wasn’t inclined to argue with the conventional wisdom there. Those stout walls had held out the Rulers . . . for a little while. Not for long enough.
The granite blocks didn’t seem to have been overthrown. No: what happened to them was worse. It looked as if they’d been melted back into the lava from which they’d formed. Stone had flowed and run like hot fat, if not quite like water. What had happened to the men up on those walls when the granite melted? Nothing good-Count Hamnet was sure of that.
“Do we want to go in there?” Trasamund wondered aloud.
“Depends,” Ulric answered. “If only a few people lived through the sack, if only a few people are back, then we can scrounge as much as we need. There’ll be plenty of food and the like. But if a lot of the vultures that walk on two legs are prowling around in there, we’re just wasting our time. Your choice, Your Ferocity.”
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