Ian’s brow wrinkled. “ ‘What don’t owe me no money’?”
“Old expression. From World War Two—Bill Mauldin did a cartoon of a sergeant saying something like ‘I need a coupla guys what don’t owe me no money for a little routine patrol.’ ”
Ivar del Hival’s face split in a grin. “It should be worn away by now, shouldn’t it? Mortar being such a weak thing, and all.” He produced a short piece of metal: a wire tent peg. “Give it a try,” he said. “It’s my turn to carry.”
Gratefully, Ian set his end of the stretcher down and scratched at the mortar between a pair of flattened stones. Nothing.
It wasn’t the hardest metal, granted, but it should have left some mark. He scratched harder, and the point of the peg came away blunt, leaving a dark streak behind that lay on top of the mortar. Ian tried stabbing down at it, but only succeeded in bending the peg.
“The ancients knew how to build, eh?” Ivar del Hival had taken Arnie’s place at the rear of the stretcher, while Arnie squatted in front and gripped the poles before counting to three and standing.
A man Arnie’s age shouldn’t have been able to do that so easily, but Ian was getting used to things not being the way they were supposed to be. Shit, he’d had years of practice with it—his father had been a good teacher of how things weren’t as they should be—but he was used to it being a curse, not a blessing.
Ivar del Hival nodded. “Your turn on point. We take this road for most of the rest of the day.” He looked down at Hosea. “I’d rather stay clear of Bóinn’s Hill, Orfindel, but if you insist…”
“I do.”
The sun lay on the horizon, the darkling western sky splattered with apricot and crimson, a casual finger painting by a baby god.
Ian sat, leaning back against an upthrust column of rock. He shivered, and gathered his cloak about himself, not sure whether the shivering was caused by the cold or the oncoming dark.
Or misgivings.
The trail had exited the forest a couple of miles back, and ran up a shallow saddle between two hills. At Hosea’s direction, they had left the trail, and made their way up the tall grassy side of the larger hill, up to the summit, where a row of four ancient stone pillars poked their way out of the grass and the brush. They reminded him of an ancient British menhir, a megalith he had seen in some book, a long time ago, but these seemed too irregular to be carved, perhaps too regular to be natural.
From a distance they had looked like the fingers of some fossilized giant reaching out of the bowels of the earth. Close up, they were just big rocks.
It was cold on the top of the hill, but a fire would have been a bad idea while they were still in Vandescard.
“Tomorrow,” Hosea said, huddled in his own cloak and blankets. “Tomorrow night we may well make Harbard’s Landing. If not, we’ll be close. Close enough to risk a fire.”
Arnie Selmo had already turned in. He lay sleeping on a bed of grass sheaves he’d cut.
Ivar del Hival coughed politely off in the distance, announcing his return. He had a small shovel in one hand, and a roll of toilet paper in a ziplock bag in the other.
“I’ll take first watch, if you’d like,” he said.
“Nervous about sleeping here?” Ian asked.
Ivar del Hival shrugged. “When you reach my age, young Ian, you’ll understand that there’s a difference between cautious, nervous, and scared. In fact, I’m all three.” His grin gave the lie to his words, or perhaps the grin itself was a lie. Hard to say. “I’ll wake you,” he said.
As a child, Ian had been subject to insomnia, but he had managed to ruthlessly purge that problem during his last semester in high school, after his father had kicked him out with nothing more than a suitcase and a gear bag. When you were working full-time and going to school full-time, insomnia was a luxury. Ian couldn’t afford many luxuries, not until recently.
He lay back and closed his eyes, and willed himself to sleep.
He sat up suddenly, his muscles tense, reaching for Giantkiller. His fingers couldn’t find the hilt of his sword, and when he looked down, it was gone.
“Be easy, Ian Silverstone,” came a whisper somewhere off in the night. “There’s nothing to fear.”
The others lay sleeping under the canopy of stars. Or at least motionless.
Where was Giantkiller?
“It’s not here.” A distant chuckle. “I’d not like to see what that could do to me, even… here. But worry not, young one; you will find it lying by your side when you awake.”
The air in front of him seemed to gather substance, weaving the flickering starlight into wisps of white and red light. The wisps gathered themselves into threads, and the threads wove themselves into a dim, airy fabric that took form, an outline of a woman, slim and erect. She was wrapped in a gauzy fabric that covered her body from just below the arms to just above the knees, leaving long, slim arms bare to the shoulder, tiny feet with toes pointed, just barely touching the grass. One of the feet was bent in at the ankle at a funny angle. Her left arm lay folded across her chest, the hand concealed under her right forearm.
“Let me guess,” he said, surprising himself with his own calm. “The ghost of Christmas past, perhaps?”
“No.” Her face was masked in shadow, but he could hear her smile as she spoke. “Ah, to be that young again,” she said. “It has been a long time.”
“And it has been a long time since other things, as well.” Ian hadn’t heard him move, but Hosea was standing next to him. “How are you, Bóinn?”
“Well enough, I suppose, my love.” Her form did something halfway between a waver and a bow, perhaps. “Old. Tired,” she said. “Though not lonely, by and large. The rocks, trees, and grasses are good company, even if the rocks tend to the taciturn, and the grasses to chattering.”
Hosea smiled again. “I’ve always preferred to talk to trees, myself. They’re very good listeners.” He clasped his hands together, and stretched them out in front of him.
Her image wavered for a moment, like a distant mirage on a hot road, then solidified into that of a young woman, the left side of her face brightly lit, the right hidden in black shadow. Her pixyish face was framed with curls of blood-red hair and covered with freckles. Her shift was of clouds woven with light, and her bare feet, toes pointed like a ballerina, still didn’t quite touch the ground.
Her expression grew somber. “Have you brought a gift for me?” she asked.
Ian was waiting for Hosea’s answer when he realized that both Hosea and Bóinn were looking at him.
A gift? Er—
Check the cuffs of your jeans, said a distant, directionless contralto.
He bent to do so, and found nothing in them except for a some dirt, a few strands of grass, and an acorn.
Acorn?
He was about to toss it aside when she spoke. “And will you plant it for me, come the morning?”
Ian nodded. “That I will. And water it.”
She nodded somberly. “A fine gift, indeed; it will be a lovely tree.” She waved her hand, and a huge oak tree stood in front of the megaliths, its gnarled branches spread wide, an aged grandmother watching over a beloved grandchild. “Perhaps you or your children shall someday sleep beneath it, for you shall always be welcome in its shade. Now what is it that you ask of me?”
Ian didn’t know quite what to say.
“Sleep,” Hosea put in, “and safe rest, for all of us. That’s all.”
She nodded. “That much I can do. For tonight.” She shook her head and sighed. “And it’s little enough.”
“Bóinn,” Hosea said, stepping forward, resting one hand not quite on her shoulder. “Thank you.”
It finally hit Ian. Hosea’s lisp was gone, and he was standing upright easily, no trace of a limp. The hand near her shoulder was Hosea’s right hand, the one that barely worked, the one Hosea would never have used.
“It’s all I can find the… desire to do, these days,” she said. “There was a time…”
>
“Yes,” Hosea said, “there was, Bóinn.” He touched two fingers to his lips, then held it near hers. “And I miss them, too.”
She turned to Ian. “All I can offer you is rest,” she said. “Safe rest.”
She stood silently, as did Hosea, until Ian decided that some response must be required. “I’d … like a night’s rest, at that,” he said.
“And that would be fair recompense for your gift of such a fine tree?” She didn’t sound puzzled; it was more like this was a formal question, like Do you understand these rights that I’ve explained to you?
“Er, sure. Yeah,” Ian said.
“Then so be it.” She passed her hand across his eyes, and the world spun away into a deep blackness that was filled with nothing but warmth and ease.
He sat up suddenly, his muscles tensing, his right hand reaching for Giantkiller, as though with a mind of its own. His fingers found the hilt of his sword, and he sprang out of his blankets and to his feet, a shout coming to his lips as he freed the sword with a quick flick of the arm that sent the scabbard tumbling through the crisp morning air, only to bounce off the nearest of the megaliths, and then fall, silently, to the grass.
Ian found himself standing, barefoot and cold, on the dewy-wet grass in the dawning light.
Bóinn was gone, and so was the oak tree.
While Arnie Selmo was tugging on his boots, Ivar del Hival, his hair mussed from sleep, was already on his feet, his own sword drawn, his other hand clutching a forked dagger. “By the brass balls of Benizir!” he said. “What is it?”
“Be still; all is well.” Hosea sat leaning against the nearest of the megaliths, wrapped in his blankets like a mummy, only his head peeking out. The slur was back in his voice, and his right hand lay limp in his lap. “Ian simply woke up a trifle suddenly. Did you sleep well?”
That was a silly question, but—well, yes, he had slept well; he was more rested than he had felt in years. Ian was more embarrassed than anything else as he looked around. The sun was just peeking over the crest of a hill in the distance. Above, the blue sky was dotted with cottony clouds.
Just a normal, peaceful morning.
Had it been a dream? Or was it something else?
He stooped to pick up his scabbard, and slid Giant-killer back in, then reached for his jeans. Could it—?
His left cuff had unrolled somehow or other, but his right one contained dirt, some strands of grass, and an acorn.
He stood, squinting at the acorn in his hand, when he realized that there was no early morning muzziness in his head, and the adrenaline shock of his awakening faded into a feeling of eagerness to be about the business of the day.
“Well, as long as we’re all up, we ought to be going,” Arnie Selmo said, as he started to roll up his bedding. “No need to waste daylight. A quick piss and let’s be on our way.”
Ian nodded. “Just as soon as I plant and water this.”
Arnie probably would have argued, but Ivar del Hival nodded.
As did Hosea. “That would seem fair enough.”
Chapter Six
Harbard’s Landing
The golden light of early morning gave way to the brighter light of midmorning; mid-morning surrendered to the warmth of the noonday sun; noon submitted to the afternoon; and afternoon was starting to face the inevitability of sundown when the road crossed a saddle along a ridge-line, and started down the road to Harbard’s Landing.
Ian half-suspected that the road had been laid out deliberately to dump travelers out onto a view of the panorama below, where the gray river Gilfi twisted through the patchwork valley floor, the fast-moving waters catching and shimmering in the golden light like the scales of a writhing fish.
It was all in green and black and gold: The green of the forested land that rimmed most of the valley, broken only in places where roads cut through and wound their way down toward the river, as though they were streams of brown that had been frozen; black, where the inky soil spoke of fresh plantings; and golden, where fields of grain rippled in the breeze, like lakes of gold.
“Well,” Arnie said, setting the front of the stretcher down in now-practiced timing with Ivar del Hival at the other end, “I’d have to say that was worth looking at, all things considered,” he said, nodding in agreement with himself. “And I’d also have to say that it looks a bit clearer, a little brighter than colors ought to be.” He ran stubby fingers through his thinning gray hair, his mouth twisted into a frown.
Perhaps a mile down the slope, the river curved around an outcropping where several log buildings stood, like something made from a Lincoln Logs set—the old, good wooden kind, not the modern plastic ones.
One of the buildings stood almost at the water’s edge, and from it a dock projected out to where the flat barge rocked gently, held by its hawsers against the current; to one side, the corral, with its horse-drawn windlass, stood empty.
Ian almost fancied he could see the ferry’s cable that ran across the river to the far shore, but probably not.
“And why are you smiling so?” Ivar del Hival asked. He rubbed his thick hands together, as though to clean his palms.
“I’m… rather fond of the ferryman’s wife, Frida,” Ian said.
“Ah,” Ivar del Hival said, and made a sound halfway between a grunt and a groan. “Ah, to be young again, and to have no greater concern than seeking a quick dance in the bedding with a ferryman’s young wife.”
“It’s not that.”
Her name wasn’t really Frida; it was Freya. It was her gift that had given him the courage to face off against the Fire Duke, and her blessing that had given Ian the clue as to how to beat him. And it was Freya to whom he had entrusted the Brisingamen ruby.
But he couldn’t say that. You didn’t just go and bare your soul in front of people.
“She makes a great stew,” Ian finally said, “and a better pie.”
Arnie Selmo kept his rucksack on his back while Ian knocked again on the old oak door, this time more loudly.
No answer. Arnie shook his head. There was something about this place that he just plain didn’t like, and he couldn’t put his finger on it.
Shit, boy, he thought, you’re just getting old. That wasn’t it, though. Truth to tell, he felt younger than he had in twenty, thirty years. He had woken in the morning with little stiffness and no pain, and he couldn’t remember how long it had been since he had felt that way. He could remember not caring on those mornings when he would wake up next to Ephie during her last months, watching her toss and turn in what little sleep the Demerol/Vistoril cocktail could give her. His pain just plain didn’t matter then.
But here, it didn’t just not matter; it was gone.
Here, he had slept on a couple of blankets on the cold ground all night, and then walked for hours, more than half the time carrying half of Hosea’s stretcher, and he felt…
Just fine. Shit, he hadn’t even thought about how much he missed Ephie for a couple of minutes after waking. That thought made him feel vaguely guilty.
“Hello,” Ian called out. “Anybody home?”
No answer.
“Could try the door, I suppose,” Arnie said, only half-seriously. He wouldn’t have opened that door uninvited for anything.
“No.” Ian shook his head.
Back home, no answer at a closed door might mean there was a problem. Back home, he would stick his head in and shout, “Anybody home?”
Different place. This wasn’t Hardwood, where almost nobody ever locked their doors—what if a neighbor needed to get in? “I guess that wouldn’t be a good idea,” he said.
Ivar del Hival nodded in quick agreement. “Enter a house of an Old One without permission? Surely there are cleaner ways to kill oneself.”
He had finished unstrapping Hosea from the stretcher, and helped him to his feet. Hosea stood unsteadily, rocking gently, as though he was compensating for the ground moving underneath him. He reached out his good hand, rested it against the wall of th
e cottage.
“No,” he said. “There’s no one home.” His eyes seemed to have trouble focusing. “Ian—please check the corral; you can see if Silvertop and Sleipnir are there.”
“Sleipnir?” Arnie grinned. Now, that was funny. “You mean this Harbard guy named his horse after Odin’s horse?”
“Not exactly.” Ian said, grinning. “But close.”
“This I’ve got to see.”
He followed Ian as they took the path from the house, downslope to where the arc of corral curved against the riverbank.
“Pretty silly thing—open on the river?” he said.
“It wouldn’t stop either Silvertop or Sleipnir from escaping by river, but, then again, it’s not there to keep either of them in. Not that it could.”
The ground inside the corral was hard-chewed by dinner-plate-sized hoofprints, except for one area near the river’s edge that looked freshly raked but for a few hoofprints and a few piles of suspiciously large pieces of horse shit that were drawing flies.
No horse was visible, but there was a cave down the shoreline, hidden by the riverbank; perhaps—
“Silvertop, Sleipnir!” Ian called out, rewarded almost immediately by a chorus of clopping hooves that sounded like a stampede.
But it wasn’t a herd of horses. It was just one animal, huge, easily larger than a Percheron or Clydesdale. Its coat was dark gray mottled with darker gray, and its long mane was uncombed and uneven, knotted beyond combing.
And it had eight legs. They should have been all tangled up with each other, but somehow or other, they all seemed to work together, in a funny four-staged rhythm. It cantered towards them, coming to a stop just feet away from the corral fence.
Arnie had already taken one step back; he took another. “Holy mother of Christ,” Arnie said.
“Yeah.” Ian turned to the horse. Its huge eyes weren’t gentle and soft, the way a horse’s eyes were supposed to be. They were too active, too cold, too knowing.
“Hello, Sleipnir,” Ian said, trying to sound more relaxed and confident than he felt. “We’ve come to see her—and him, too. But mainly her.”
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