Prince of the North

by Turtledove, Harry

  Gerin was part of the first small group forward. When he got close to the dead doe, Van pointed to a patch of bare, soft dirt by the animal. The footprints there were like none the Fox had ever seen. At first he thought they might be a man’s, then a bear’s—they had claw marks in front of the ends of their toes. But they didn’t really resemble either. They were—something new.

  “So this is the spoor we have to look for, is it?” he said grimly.

  “Either that or someone’s magicking our eyes,” Van answered. “And I don’t think anybody is.”

  The Fox didn’t think so, either. He waited till all his men had seen the new footprints, then said, “They have claws on their hands, too. Now that we know what their tracks look like, let’s get moving and see if we can’t hunt down a few.”

  The warriors were quiet as they trooped back to the campsite. Now they had real evidence that Gerin and Van hadn’t made up the tale about the monsters. They’d believed them already, likely enough, in an abstract way, but hearing about something new and terrible wasn’t the same as seeing proof it was really there.

  A couple of hours after they started tramping west, Gerin detached another band of men from his force to scour the area where they were. The rest slogged on; grumbles about aching feet got louder.

  Around noon, Rihwin said, “Lord Gerin, something which may be of import occurs to me.”

  “And what is that?” Gerin asked warily. You never could tell with Rihwin. Some of his notions were brilliant, others crackbrained, and knowing the one bunch from the other wasn’t always easy.

  Now he said, “My thought, lord prince, is that these may in sooth be creatures of the night, wherein we heard the two of them giving cry. For does it not stand to reason that, having lived an existence troglodytic lo these many years, perhaps even ages, their eyes, accustomed as they must be to darkness perpetual, will necessarily fail when facing the bright and beaming rays of the sun?”

  “Troglo—what?” Van said incredulously, no doubt speaking for a good many of the Fox’s warriors.

  Gerin was well-read and used to Rihwin’s elaborate southern speech patterns, so he at least understood what his fellow Fox was talking about. “Means ‘living in caves,’” he explained for those who hadn’t followed. To Rihwin, he said, “It’s a pretty piece of logic; the only flaw is that it’s not so. Van and I saw the things fighting the temple guards in broad daylight the morning of the earthquake, and heard one behind us coming out of Ikos later that same day. Their eyes work perfectly well in sunlight.”

  “Oh, a pox!” Rihwin cried. “How dreadful to see such a lovely edifice of thought torn down by hard, brute fact.” He sulked for the next couple of hours.

  The Fox detached another team late that afternoon, and camped with his remaining two teams not long afterwards. The night passed quietly, much to his relief. Standing first watch was not so onerous—better that than being torn from sleep by a horrible screech, at any rate.

  Early the next morning, he gave Rihwin’s team their area to patrol. “Good hunting,” he said, clapping his ekename sake on the shoulder.

  “I thank you, lord Gerin,” Rihwin answered, and then, “Do you know, there are times when I wonder how wise I was to cast aside my life of wealth and indolence in the southlands for an adventurous career with you.”

  “There are times when I wonder about that, too,” Gerin said. “A lot of them, as a matter of fact. What you’re saying now is that your heart wouldn’t break if you didn’t happen to run across any monsters?”

  “Something like that, yes.”

  “I feel the same way, believe me,” Gerin said, “but if we don’t go after them, they’ll end up coming after us. I’d sooner make the fight on my terms, and as far from my keep as I can.”

  “I understand the logic, I assure you,” Rihwin said. “The argument takes on a different color, however, when it moves from the realm of ideas to the point of affecting one personally. Logicians who cling to abstract concepts seldom run the risk of being devoured.”

  “No matter how much they may deserve it,” Gerin added, which won him a glare. He gave Rihwin another encouraging swat. For all the southerner’s talk, Gerin didn’t worry about his courage. His common sense was another matter, or would have been if he’d had any to speak of.

  The Fox led his own team westward. Alarmed at their advance, a young stag bounded out of a thicket. Van pulled an arrow from his quiver, nocked, and let fly, all in close to the same instant. “That’s a hit!” he shouted, and hurried forward to where the stag had been. Sure enough, blood splashed the grass. “Come on, you lugs,” the outlander said to his companions. “With a trail like this to follow, a blind man’d be eating venison steaks tonight.”

  They ran the deer down about a quarter of an hour later. It lay panting on the ground, too weak to run any further; Van’s arrow stood in its side, just back of the heart. It tried to struggle to its feet, but could not. Its large brown eyes stared reproachfully at the warriors. Van stooped beside it. With one swift motion, he jerked up its head and cut its throat.

  Together, Van and Gerin tackled the gory job of butchering the stag. “Next stream we come to, I wash,” Gerin declared.

  “You may not need to wait for a stream, Captain,” the outlander answered, pointing west. The weather had been fine, but clouds were beginning to roll in off the distant Orynian Ocean. “That could be rain.”

  “So it could.” The Fox glowered at the clouds, as if he could hold them back by sheer force of will. “If it starts raining, how are we supposed to track anything? By the gods, how are we even going to keep fires going to help hold the ghosts at arm’s length?” His rising bad temper even extended to Van. “And why couldn’t you have killed this deer closer to sunset, so we could use its blood as an offering to the spirits?”

  Van stood tall and glared down at him. “Are you going to complain that the grass is green instead of blue, too, or will you help me get the meat off this beast?” As usual, his comrade’s bluntness showed Gerin where he’d stepped over the line from gloomy to carping. He nodded shamefacedly and fell to work.

  Raffo said, “I have a thought, lord Gerin.” He waited for the Fox to grunt before he went on, “What say we post ourselves in hiding around the offal there and see if it doesn’t lure one of the creatures we’re seeking? The stink of blood might draw ’em.”

  “We’re already farther west than any of the other teams,” Gerin said musingly. “It would mean pushing on a ways further tomorrow, but why not? As you say, the lure is good: might as well be a grub on a fish hook. Aye, we’ll try it—but I still want to go and find water.”

  “And I,” Van agreed. His arms were bloody to the elbows.

  “We’ll be back as soon as we may,” Gerin said. “Set your ambush, but remember to know what you’re shooting at before you let fly.”

  He and Van found a creek a couple of furlongs west of where the stag had fallen. Just as they came up to the bank, a kingfisher dove into the water, to emerge a moment later with a minnow in its bill. Something else—a frog or a turtle, Gerin didn’t notice which—splashed into the creek from a mossy rock and didn’t come out again.

  The stag’s blood had already started to dry; scrubbing it off wasn’t easy. “We need some of the soap they make from fat and ashes south of the High Kirs,” Gerin said, scraping one arm more or less clean with the nails of his other hand. “Maybe I’ll try cooking a batch myself when we get home to Fox Keep.”

  “The stuff’s too harsh for my liking,” Van answered. “It takes off the top layer of your hide along with the dirt.” He looked at Gerin. “You have a splash of blood by your nose, Fox.… No, on the other side. There, you got it.”

  “Good.” Gerin gave a theatrical shiver. “That water’s cold.” He glanced westward again. The dirty gray clouds were piled higher there. “And before too long, more than my arms’ll get wet. That does look like rain coming. The serfs will be glad of it, but I wish it would have held off till we were u
nder a roof again.”

  “Weather won’t listen, any more’n a woman will,” Van said. “Let’s head back and see if Raffo’s brainstorm came to anything.”

  “We’d have heard if it did,” Gerin answered. But he followed Van back toward the rest of their team. They could hold their ambush till it was time to set up camp for the night, he decided. Turning to his friend, he added, “It occurs to me now—too late, of course—that pile of guts might draw something besides monsters. If a longtooth decides it wants a meal, I hope they have sense enough to let it eat its fill.”

  “You’re right,” Van said. “I’m just glad Rihwin’s not with us. He’s a fine chap, mind you, but he hasn’t the sense you need to cart guts to a bear, so why should a longtooth be any different? If you ask me—”

  Gerin didn’t have the chance to ask Van anything. A racket broke out ahead, the shouts of men and the hideous shriek they’d heard in the night. He jerked his sword out of its sheath, Van pulled the mace from the loop at his belt on which it hung, and the two of them pounded toward the tumult as fast as their legs would carry them.

  “It’s us!” Gerin yelled as he ran. “Don’t shoot—we’re not monsters.” Whether any of the men was cool-headed enough to note and heed his cry was an open question.

  Because he thought that way, the arrow that hissed between him and Van neither surprised nor infuriated him. He had a moment to be glad it had missed them both, then burst through the bushes into the little open space where the stag had died and been butchered.

  Several of his men had already emerged from cover, too. “The thing went that way,” Raffo exclaimed, pointing south. “We all shot at it, and hit it atleast twice, maybe three times.” What he’d seen suddenly seemed to sink in. His eyes went wide and staring. “Lord Gerin, forgive me that I ever doubted your words, I pray you. The creature is all you said it was, and more and worse besides.”

  “Yes, yes,” Gerin said impatiently. “Enough jabbering—let’s catch it and kill it. Lead on, Raffo, since you know the way.”

  Looking imperfectly delighted with the privilege he’d been granted, Raffo plunged into the woods. The trail was easy to follow, blood and tracks both. Before long, Gerin could hear the monster crashing through the undergrowth ahead. “The things have weaknesses after all,” Van panted. “They aren’t woodswise like proper beasts, and they aren’t what you’d call fast, either.”

  “You don’t know about that,” Gerin answered. “How fast and careful would you be with two or three arrows in you?” Van didn’t answer, from which Gerin concluded he’d made his point.

  With a roar, the monster sprang out from behind an elm tree. Four men shot arrows at it. Two of those missed; excitement could ruin anybody’s aim. The creature screamed when the other two struck. But despite them, and despite the other shafts that pierced it, it rushed at its pursuers.

  Its claws scraped against the bronze scales of Gerin’s corselet. He could feel the force behind them, even if they did not wound; as he’d guessed, the monster was stronger than a man. He slashed with his sword. The thing screamed again.

  Van clouted it with his mace. The blow would have crushed the skull of any man. It knocked the monster to the ground, but it got up again, blood streaming from the dreadful wound to the side of its head. Cursing in half a dozen languages, Van smote it again, even harder than before. This time it fell and did not rise again.

  “Father Dyaus above,” said a warrior named Parol and called Chickpea after a wart by his nose. Gerin’s heart pounded in his chest. He felt as if he’d fought against a Trokmê rather than hunted a beast. The monster’s strength, even badly wounded, accounted for some of that. More, though, came from how much the thing resembled a man.

  “Will you look at it?” Raffo said in wondering tones. “Take the ugliest scoundrel you’ve ever seen—old Wolfar, for instance—and make him five times as ugly as he really was, every which way, I mean, and you’ve just about got this thing here.”

  “Oh, not quite everything,” Parol said. “I wouldn’t mind being hung so good, and that’s no lie.”

  That comment aside, Raffo’s remark was to the point. Gerin had noted how manlike the monsters were from the moment he set eyes on them. Then, though, he hadn’t had the leisure to examine one closely; he’d been more concerned about getting away from Ikos with his life and Van’s and the Sibyl’s.

  Squat, muscular, hairy—the thing did resemble Wolfar, he thought, unkind to his old enemy though he’d killed him five years earlier. But Wolfar, except when he turned werebeast, had not been armed with claws on hands and feet both, and even as a werebeast his teeth had hardly matched the ones filling the monster’s long, formidable jaws.

  Above those jaws, its features were also a vicious parody of mankind’s: a low nose with slit nostrils; large eyes set deep under heavy ridges of bone; thick hair, almost fur, rising to a crest on top of its head and nearly disguising how little forehead it had.

  “There it is,” Gerin said. “Dyaus above only knows how many of these things are spreading over the northlands.”

  “Are they all of the same sort as this one?” Raffo asked.

  “Some of ’em are likely to be females or bitches or woman monsters or whatever the right name is,” Parol put in.

  “They’re ugly enough so it’d only matter to another monster.” Raffo made a gesture of distaste. “What I meant was, is this one pretty much like the others? You’d get a different notion of what people were like from Van’s corpse and the one I’d like to make out of that weedy little jeweler who may have run off with Duren.”

  “Otes.” Gerin heard the growl in his own voice as he supplied the name. How could he properly search for his son when catastrophe was overtaking all the northlands? More and more, he feared he’d never again see Duren alive. But Raffo’s question raised a serious point. “I haven’t had enough experience with them to answer that, though Ricolf’s man said some seemed smarter than others,” he said. “One way or another, we’ll all find out before long.”

  The warriors trooped back to where they had slain the deer, leaving the monster’s body where it lay. “We may as well camp, as Raffo said,” Van remarked. “No point in pushing further in the little daylight left.”

  When evening fell, the ghosts were very quiet. “Likely gorging on the creature’s blood,” Gerin said. He looked up to the sky. Math should have been at first quarter, with Tiwaz and Elleb rising in the early hours after sunset, but he saw only clouds. The wind was picking up. “We’ll have trouble gauging watches tonight, and it feels like rain, to boot.”

  “I’m not looking forward to tramping along through the mud,” Van said. “We won’t be able to do much in the way of looking for monsters, either, not with rain making it hard for us to see our hands when we stretch our arms out at full length.”

  “Aye, you’re right,” Gerin said morosely. “I hadn’t thought so far ahead yet.” The gobbet of venison on which he was gnawing suddenly lost a good deal of its flavor. How was he supposed to set a perimeter to keep the monsters out of his holding if they could shamble past fifty paces away without getting noticed?

  For that matter, if other nobles in the northlands didn’t fight them as hard as he would himself, how was he supposed to keep the monsters out of his holding at all? The most obvious answer to that was depressing: maybe he couldn’t. He hadn’t had much hope of besting Balamung, either, but he’d persisted and come through. He had to believe he could do the same again.

  He stood an early watch, then rolled himself in his blanket and fell asleep at once in spite of his worries. When he woke, he looked around in confusion—why was everything still dark? Then a raindrop landed on the end of his nose, and another in his hair.

  The rain started pattering down in earnest a few minutes later. Men swore sleepily and rigged makeshift tents from their blankets and saplings pressed into service as tent poles. In spite of those, the rest of the night was chilly, wet, and miserable.

  Day came with
rain falling steadily from a leaden sky. The fire had gone out. Some of the venison from the night before had been cooked; along with hard bread, it made a decent enough breakfast, but not as good as it would have been, hot and juicy from the flames.

  The warriors donned their armor and squelched off westward. Gerin felt as if he were moving inside a circle perhaps a bowshot across; the rain curtained away everything beyond that distance. Every so often, he or one of his comrades would slip in the mud and get up covered with it. Little by little, the rain would wash him clean once more—until he slipped again.

  Echoing what Van had said the night before, Raffo grumbled, “How are we supposed to search in this? We’ll be lucky if we can keep track of ourselves, let alone the cursed monsters.”

  Gerin did not answer, for he feared his driver was right. With rain and clouds concealing sun and landmarks, he wasn’t even altogether sure he was still heading west. “Have to wait to see which half of the sky gets dark first,” Van said. “Then we’ll have a notion of how to head back toward the Elabon Way, anyhow, if not just where we’ll strike it.”

  Raffo said, “Poor old Rihwin. He could be sitting under one of those red tile roofs south of the High Kirs that he never gets tired of talking about, with wenches to fetch him meat and grapes and wine. And he was silly enough to trade all that for this life of luxury.” He shook himself like a wet dog to show what he meant.

  Just thinking of being dry made Gerin wish he were somewhere other than tramping through the mud. He said, “May the next puddle you step in be over your head.” As if to turn his words into a magic-powered curse, he waggled his hands in mock passes.

  He’d almost stopped paying attention to the circle of relatively clear vision in which he moved: one piece of damp, dreary ground seemed much like the next. Looking where he put his feet so he wouldn’t go into a puddle over his head himself struck him as more important than anything else.

  Then Raffo gasped, half in horror and half in amazement. The sound was plenty to jerk Gerin’s head up. Splashing through the wet grass and mud came a band of eight or ten monsters.