The Lady of the Snowmist (War of the Gods on Earth Book 3)

by Andrew J Offutt

  With one hand on Handeth, without looking up, the man in the dark mailcoat put back a hand. “Give me a clean dagger.”

  “Dagger!” Handeth burst out. He tried to lunge up, groaned, and fell back. The arrow stood from his thigh and quivered with his movements.

  “You wear a dagger, Jarik,” Delath Berserker said.

  “You mange-ridden silly jack,” Oak snarled, “I am not Jarik, and don’t call me that! My name is Oak. Oak! Jarik kills! Oak heals!” And, while Kirrensark stayed Delath, who lurched angrily forward reaching for his hilt: “Handeth. Listen. If the arrow is pulled out you will lose too much blood and perhaps die of it. Its head is caught in the muscle. If it stays in, you will lose this leg to the flesh-rot that stinks. We must break off the shaft and cut out the arrowhead, Handeth, and it will hurt a lot.”

  Silence draped itself over Seadancer. Into it another wounded man moaned. Men exchanged glances and stared nervously, with Jilain, at him they knew as the stranger Jarik who had come to their wark from nowhere, in time to save Kirrensark from attack by ambush, who almost immediately had attracted the attention of the god who had come down from the mountain above their wark, and taken him up into it with Her: the Lady of the Snowmist.

  He returned wearing her seamless bracers of silver-that-was-not-silver but some unscratchable, unremovable god-metal — and he and Kirrensark had led them on this mission. For Her. Now — now … who was he? Could he heal? Why did he behave so?

  “You — how do you know this?” Handeth the Hounder’s voice was plaintive; the voice of a patient who liked none of his alternatives.

  Blue eyes gone hard as perisine gemstones stared into his. “Do not mistake me for Jarik, Handeth. I know.”

  “Jarik — ” a man began, and Kirrensark took his hand from Delath’s chest to wave it for silence. He did not twitch his gaze from Jarik — or Oak.

  “Use … use my dagger,” the Hounder said, and he fell back.

  “Two men hold his arms. Two hold his legs. At knee and ankle, now. Move!” Oak had Handeth’s dagger as he spoke, and was holding it up, squinting at it while he turned it in the sunlight. Sharp metal flashed. “Kiddensok — is there ale left?”

  “Uh … yes … ”

  “Ale!” And Oak broke off the arrow, making Handeth grit and grind his teeth and gleam suddenly with sweat. Then Oak cut.

  As it turned out, more than four men were required to hold Handeth the Hounder. There was much blood. No one mentioned a stuck pig. All stared tensely and in silence, save those who turned away, unable to look. Eventually Oak showed the unconscious man the arrowhead. It dripped. When Oak poured ale over the bloody thigh, Handeth jerked even though he was unconscious.

  “Bind this up.”

  Oak moved to another wounded man. This was he who had cried out, and could not prevent his own moaning though he strove to keep his mouth tight.

  “Oh,” Oak said low and fervent, “shit.” And he went to work.

  Seadancer fled over the water. Oak worked. As Jarik was the consummate compelled fighter, Oak was the compulsively dedicated worker-at-healing. Men exchanged glances and said little. Understanding even less, Jilain moved close and aided Oak, all in silence. She looked frequently into his face, into his eyes. And she did as he bade and said nothing when he railed at her. None could be more impatient than this man! Somehow Jarik had become a healer. Somehow he knew. With the role, he took on the eternal arrogance of the healer.

  Jilain accepted, adapted more swiftly than could any of the men, and made herself his assistant. The tradition of the nurse-servant was born, there on the sea when the gods dwelt upon the earth.

  The sea formed a shallow bowl so that the horizon was at a higher level on every side than line of sight. Eventually Kerosyr vanished and there was only water and sky. A great shallow round depression, sea-girt, with Seadancer at its center. The ship strode confidently over it in foam that seemed crystal and snow.

  Most of his companions stared at Jarik, who avowed — with such vicious anger and militancy — that he was not Jarik, but someone with the name of a tree. The word was already old, in their language; the word was “Oak.” His name — Jarik’s name — might mean “sea-gift” or “beach-found,” depending on interpretation and pronunciation. He was after all not of Lokusta whence plied the hawk-prowed ships that had slain his parents … except that they were not his parents.

  The roll and sway of the ship hardly bothered Oak. Neither did the sun, or the sky blushing its way toward sunset. He thought only of his patients. Men obeyed his injunctions to rig shade over them.

  Many men slept that night, once the sun-chariot had been overtaken and gone to rest. Oak did not sleep. Jilain knew that Jarik had not slept on the previous night save for that little time before she had to wake him. He had been busy arranging the succor and escape of all these men. She knew he must be weary. She was determined to remain awake with him. She who had challenged him, and fought him with sharp blades, and cut him and been cut by him, and nearly bested him until she was bested by him after long combat, and who now joined the weave and pattern of her life with his. So the weavers wove their yam of life. That he was a healer, that he knew, was manifest. She adapted cleverly — or womanly — and called him Oak. And she fell asleep.

  Oak did not sleep and he did not touch her. He tended Handeth. He tended poor Shranshule Beartooth, who had an arrow in the arm that did much damage, and he tended Hanish, who protested at having the Kerosyran arrowhead cut out of his chest. Seramshule came quietly over to stand over Oak and gaze down upon the sleeping Jilain. She was sprawled naked or may as well have been, wearing what Guardians wore. The squirrel tail adorned as much as it covered. Oak looked up at him.

  “Take those thoughts and those bright hot eyes over there and go to sleep.”

  Seramshule blinked, and after a few seconds he swallowed, and after a few seconds more he went elsewhere. Somehow one obeyed Oak when one might have challenged Jarik. Oak worked on, and Seadancer slipped on through the sea, over the nighted sea. Kirrensark fell asleep. Oak hovered, and brooded, and worked. Sea-dancer fled before the unnaturally constant breeze.

  Chapter Two

  Yesterday this day’s madness did prepare:

  Tomorrow’s silence, triumph, or despair.

  Drink! For you know not whence you came, or why.

  — Omar Khayyam

  On the morrow men awoke to find that a nearly naked woman slept among them, and they felt lust. They saw also that Oak had not slept. Or Jarik, for the two were one. It was not possible; it was. Already his eyes were rimmed with the hue of slate. All the night he had tended the wounded he made his responsibility, and it was strange to see him so, still wearing the chaincoat he — or rather, Jarik — had of the Iron Lords. Men looked about and saw that there was only Seadancer now, alone on the vast plain of the sea. There was no there, the opposite of here; no land within sight.

  Some nervousness, though hardly all, was allayed when a silver-grey dove flew in from nowhere. It came gently to light on the shoulder of Jarik-who-was-Oak, and they knew that the bird was from Her.

  “I am busy,” Oak said to the bird. “Go to Kiddensok. I am busy.”

  All had noted that Oak pronounced Kirrensark’s name as Jarik did, giving the letter r even less pronunciation than they. (How could one man be two; how could two men occupy one body? His head was not so big. How could it contain two brains?) No one failed to note that after a little while the dove jumped from Jarik-Oak’s shoulder and fluttered, lifting. It alit on the armless shoulder of Kirrensark. A Her-sent gull had guided them here. Now some wondered only that this was a dove, not a gull, for men were adjusting of necessity to god-sorcery. The other bird had guided them all the way to the isle, and to the Temple of Osyr. None of these men had seen dove or gull in the village of the Guardians. (Jarik had.) Every man felt a bit of shame about his gullibility and willing lust and his activities in that forest-bound wark; about his use. Nothing much was said of it. Men muttered of th
e sun, and the sea, and Jarik and Oak, and the shamelessly naked woman aboard their ship. Men checked over blades unused on the island. Only Jarik’s Black Sword had drawn blood.

  The Man Who Was Two Men attended the wounded and he issued commands in a most peremptory manner. Amid so much other strangeness, men of weapons somehow accepted that. He told Hanish that he would be hale. He told Handeth that he thought he would be fine, so long as he remained absolutely still and “thought good thoughts” about his future. Handeth blinked at that; could this weird healer know that he had been despairing in his mind?

  “It is Jarik,” Delath at last said. He was talking as much for his own understanding as to the others, rubbing and rubbing his hand over his leather leggings that had once been that yellowish-tan which was the color of doeskin. They were far darker, now. “It is Jarik,” he said again. “And it is not Jarik. It is Oak. I call him Oak.” He glowered about, he who went morbrin, berserk, and was better at fighting with sharp blades than any two or five others. His eyes were the color of an inch of rainwater in a silver pan. “Call him Oak.”

  The chainmailed figure squatting beside Shranshule turned and stared at Delath. His slate-rimmed eyes were terribly bright. They seemed to burn, like the eyes of a man with a fever.

  “Who are you?”

  Delath stared, for a long while, into almost glassily staring eyes. Jarik’s eyes?

  “You know me, Oak, healer. My name is Delath, Barranath’s son of Kirrensark-wark.”

  “Ah yes. Delath. Another superb killer. Yet no friend of Jarik’s. Well — friend of mine, Delath. I may need you. This man is bad off. I fear for his arm.”

  “Fear?”

  “Yes. Fear.” The blue eyes stared. They seemed cold, yet burning. Flame and ice. “And do you do the same, man of weapons; fear! For his arm is in danger. If it has to come off, you will be needed.”

  “How can it be that Hanish took an arrow in the body and Shranshule was struck only in the arm, and it is he who is in such danger?”

  Oak raised his eyebrows. He seemed to consider. “I have decided to answer you,” he said, and such words surprised everyone. “The arrow that took Hanish in the chest struck at a slant because he was moving at the time. Now strike your own chest with your fist, Delath. We are padded there — and the plate of bone is very hard. It is designed to protect the lungs and the heart, and it does well. Human armor, you see. You must have … experienced some trouble some time, in trying to strike into an enemy’s chest.” Oak’s eyes seemed to commence burning at that thought of Delath’s experience and expertise, and he paused for a few moments. “The arrow sent into Shranshule struck his arm directly. It tore through skin and muscle and nerves and imbedded itself in the bone. The boney and it was hard to draw and cut out. Hanish’s chest was hit, and hurt, by an arrow that was almost glancing. Shranshule’s arm was wrecked.”

  Coon turned away toward the rail. He was pale, for he was young and he had not seen such wounds, or heard such talk. Combat was supposed to be glorious, with glorious camaraderie after, and everybody being men together. Coon, who had been called that so long and so often that some did not know his proper name, had been thrilled to come on this expedition. Now he wished he were at home. Where was the beauty in fearful men and burning sun, in endless sea and moans, and the talking of slicing off a man’s arm to save his life?

  Jilain squeezed more water from her cloth, onto Shranshule’s forehead.

  “Must — you talk … about me … so?” Shranshule demanded, and Oak turned to look down upon him. Only

  Delath and Jilain saw the drawing of his face and the compassion in his eyes.

  “You are a brave tough bear, aren’t you, Shranshule Beartooth! You were misnamed, man. They should have called you after the whole bear.”

  “Uh,” Shranshule said, wincing. “Well, if you — going to have to — take off my … arm, do it and get it — uh! — done with. May be it won’t hurt so … so much then. Just … uh! Blight but it hurts! — just don’t talk about it. I have a weak stomach.”

  Someone chuckled and clamped his own mouth; Oak stared down at the fallen man, and shook his head. “You do not have a weak anything, Shranshule Bear, save perhaps a head!”

  “How,” Delath began, and paused. “How can you know these things about his body, and about our bodies, J — Oak?”

  For a long while Oak stared at the morbriner, while Seadancer skidded over the water under a luminous postdawn sky. “No one has ever asked me, that, Delath.” And he was silent again for a time. His eyes were not pleasant, this healer with patience only for the injured. “I cannot tell you. I … know. I see. I am Oak. It is what Oak does. I … come, when Jarik — when someone Jarik cares about is sore hurt, or Jarik thinks so. I know. I just know how. Men of your ilk slay and wound. I heal, and mop up your spilt blood. My kind is needed.”

  “Aye,” Kirrensark murmured. “More than mine.”

  After a nerve-fraying silence, Delath asked, “And my kind?”

  Oak stared at him. “No one will ever know, Delath. Your kind, Jarik’s kind — the poor bloody damned killer! — will always prevail. My kind must exist because your kind does. I must exist because you do. I must labor because you will not stop your bloody labor: Our kind — humans, I mean, Delath — is not sane. Be ready, though. Shranshule is in trouble, and I may need you.” He looked at another man, his greasy old belt pulled through the loop in front and dangling down almost obscenely. “Shranshule needs some ale, now.”

  Delath gazed reflectively on Oak, and his water-grey eyes rolled so that he was looking at his old friend Kirrensark. The firstman seemed now only an aged man with one arm and many many memories. A god commanded them. A gull had led them and now a dove shipped with them. A very young man had directed their expedition for the god on the earth, and accomplished its mission. He had the White Rod of Osyr, taken from the very hand of the statue. And now a very young and eerie healer ruled the ship and Kirrensark did as he bade. Now there was a naked woman aboard — aboard a hawkship! She served the healer and men could not look at her without swallowing. Kirrensark could but observe. He could but abide, and wait, and be. And think about his accomplishments of the past, perhaps. He had been ruler and hawker and killer, this man Jarik had come to slay and had saved instead, with the Black Sword and his awful competence.

  Jilain had long since put aside her bow. Now and again the sun flashed off its plackets of bone, gleamed dully on its campion-hued grip. A man picked it up to examine it, in its great differentness. When he sought to pull its recurved length, he gave the woman a shocked look. That slim girl … no vertebrae showed on her. Her back must be overlaid by solid muscle! And below that — he swallowed and tried to think about the bow.

  “I would bid you remember yourself and eat … Oak,” Kirrensark said, pausing over the name. He was a big man with a big head.

  “I would bid you see that a better canopy is rigged to shade Shranshule,” Oak said. He considered, looking at the canopies over the others. Cloaks and whaleskins. “Eat. Yes. It is a good idea, for from food comes energy. Yes. And to drink, as well. I am not used to considering the needs of this body.” He looked down at himself. “Is this heavy iron coat necessary?” He looked down at it deprecatingly, his warcoat of linked circles of the god-metal that was mightier than iron as a man was mightier than a boy.

  Gane the Dogged looked all around before he chuckled, a bit nervously. “We are all alone on the sea,” he said.

  Suddenly Jilain of the dark blue hair extended an arm. She pressed Oak’s wrist in her long-fingered hand. “Please keep on the chaincoat, Oak.”

  He looked surprisedly at her. Studied her. “Bargain. You are on a ship full of men. I shall keep this body covered if you will cover yours.”

  Jilain frowned a little, and looked around. She did not blush; she had no social conditioning that told her to do. “Oh. What — ”

  “Wear my … my good coat of leather bossed w — with bronze,” Shranshule said, not easily.
He tapped her thigh with the knuckles on the hand of his good arm. The thigh was tighter than his own. “It will … please me. And … peradventure I shall not — be needing it … more.”

  She stroked his forehead. “That is kind, Shranshule. But it will not fit.”

  “Not fit! Healer — help me up! I must show this tender girl I am no small boy!”

  “That ‘tender girl,’” Oak said, “very nearly defeated Jarik and his Black Sword, Bear. He bears a wound of her — two, on thigh and forehead. Best you call her elye: lady!”

  “Jilain will do,” Jilain said, ignoring the mutters elicited by Oak’s words. This … woman had nearly bested Jarik!? “And what one meant, Shranshule, is that your leather garment is far too big.”

  The supine Shranshule rolled his cloudy-sky eyes. “I think you have chest enough to fill it,” he said, without a gasp.

  Sudden laughter swept the ship to whelm the sound of water gurgling past the hull. It was too loud, that laughter, and went on too long, for there was much tension to relieve, on Seadancer. Too, not a man aboard but was aware of Jilain’s unmanly chest, and of the ruby bonded to its one lobe. The gem flashed every time she moved that arm. All were aware — unless perhaps Oak was unaware or not noticing, but Oak was after all a creature apart.

  Shranshule chuckled, and then went pale and groaned, for he was capable of no movement without pain.

  “Jilain,” Oak said dourly, laying a comforting hand on his patient. “Cover yourself in this bear’s bearhide.”

  “I am not cold,” Jilain said.

  *

  The arm had to come off. Oak spoke quietly to Kirrensark. Oak’s eyes were terribly bright, within their dark-rimmed sockets. Seadancer bore wood-working tools, for a ship might need repair or even so much as a new mast or oars. When Oak asked for a saw and the help of several men, Kirrensark paled.