King of the North

by Harry Turtledove

  But the Gradi were a certainty—they were loose in the northlands now. The monsters were only a possibility. Gerin said, “Very well. Here are the terms of the bargain I propose: we will leave this breach in the wards open until I return to Fox Keep and summon Baivers once more. Then you and he will fight the Gradi gods, doing your best to defeat them.”

  He waited for the monsters’ powers to demand access to the surface in exchange for their help. With the breach in the wards down, they could hardly be deprived of it—not by him, at any rate, although Biton might have something to say in that regard. If the powers dwelling down here were on good terms with him, though, he dared hope the monsters might not prove so vicious as they had on their first eruption from the caves.

  None of those sometimes agreeing, sometimes arguing voices said anything about that. Instead, speaking all together, they rumbled, “It is a bargain.”

  Gerin stared, though in complete darkness that had no point. Maybe Van had had the right of it after all, and the powers here wanted nothing more than a good brawl. Still, with Bitons verses fresh in his memory, he asked, “How shall we seal this bargain, so we know both sides can be sure it is good?”

  That brought on more silence, the silence, Gerin judged, of surprise. When the monsters’ gods answered, it was again in chorus: “Bargains have only one seal, the seal of blood and bone.”

  “Now wait a minute,” Gerin said in some alarm. If he agreed to that without defining its limits, the underground powers were free to seize and rend him or any and all of his companions.

  But he was too late. Somewhere in the darkness close by, a harsh, hoarse scream rang out. “The seal of blood and bone,” the powers repeated. “What we agreed, we will do. It is sealed.”

  “My tooth!” someone groaned: Geroge, the Fox realized after a moment. “They tore out my tooth.”

  “Blood and bone,” the subterranean gods said yet again. “That one is blood of our blood, but he is bone of your bone, for you raised him and his sister. That we take from him is fitting. And while we take, we also give.”

  Something was pressed into Gerin’s hand, which closed around it. All at once, Lamissio’s torch began to burn once more. The Fox looked down. He discovered he was holding the last two joints of a hairy, clawed finger, the blood from which stained his own hand. He almost threw the severed digit away with a cry of disgust, but in the end tucked it into a pouch on his belt instead, as security that the underground gods would live up to the bargain they had made.

  That done, he went to see Geroge, who had both hands clutched to his muzzle. The monster’s blood ran between his fingers and dripped to the floor. “Let me look at you,” Gerin told him, and gently separated Geroge’s hands. “Come on, open your mouth.”

  Moaning, Geroge obeyed. Sure enough, only a bloody socket showed where his right top fang had been. It hurts,” he said—almost unintelligibly, because he kept his mouth wide open all the time so the Fox could see.

  “I’m sure it does,” Gerin said, patting him on the shoulder. “When we get back to the inn, you can have all the ale you like. That will help dull the pain. And after we get back to Fox Keep and you’re healed, I’ll get you a new fang, all of gold, and have it fixed with wires to the teeth on either side. It won’t be as good as the one you gave to the gods here, but it should be better than nothing.”

  “A gold tooth?” Tharma said, plainly trying to picture that in her mind. She nodded approval. You’ll look fine with a gold tooth, Geroge. You’ll look splendid.”

  “Do you think so?” he asked. He was trying to adjust to the idea, too. Suddenly, absurdly, he began to preen. “Well, maybe I will.”

  Gerin turned to Lamissio. “Take us up now. We’re done here.” He pointed to the magical wards he’d disturbed. “And leave those down. You may be able to trap the monsters’ gods down below if you restore them, but I know the northlands will have bad luck if you do, and I don’t think the shrine and the valley would long be better for it, either.”

  “Lord prince, there I think you have nothing but reason,” the eunuch priest answered. “It shall be as you say, I promise. And now, again as you say, let us return to the realm of light.” He propelled his bulky frame up the path at a better pace than the Fox had thought ne had in him.

  Temple guards crowded Biton’s shrine. They peered down anxiously into the rift in the earth leading down into the caves. When Lamissio called to them, their exclamations of relief were loud and voluble. “No monsters at your heels?” the captain in the gilded helm asked.

  “Only the two who accompanied us,” the priest replied. “The underground gods tore a tooth from one, which he bore bravely.” It was, so far as Gerin could remember, the first good thing he’d had to say about Geroge and Tharma.

  “Let us by, if you please,” Gerin said, and the guards did step aside, though they kept watching the cave’s mouth as if fearing surprise attack. The Fox did not suppose he could blame them for that.

  More guards—and a bewildered suppliant—crowded the precinct outside the shrine itself. Lamissio asked, “Lord prince, with the wards down, do you think it safe for the Sibyl to return to her chamber and deliver the words of the god to those who come seeking them?”

  Gerin shrugged. “Ask Biton. If he doesn’t know, what point in worshipping him?”

  “A point,” Lamissio said. “A distinct point” He stopped at the entranceway set into the white marble fence around the temple precinct. “One of the more … unusual mornings in my years of service to the god.”

  “‘Unusual.’ That’s a word as good as any, and better than most. I do thank you for your help there,” Gerin said, politely failing to mention that Lamissio had needed to have his god order him to help before he got moving and did it.

  On the way back to the village, Selatre said, “Biton spoke through me again—he spoke through me.” She said it several times, as if thing to convince herself. Gerin kept quiet. If Biton had spoken through her once now, would he do it again … and again? If he did, would Selatre decide she preferred him to the Fox? And if she did that, what could he do about it? Nothing, as he knew perfectly well. If you fought a god straight out, you lost.

  Why are you worrying? he asked himself, but here, for once, he knew the answer. When a woman you’ve loved runs off with a horseleech, you’re less inclined to take the world on trust than you used to he.

  Alongside having Biton speak through her, Selatre had a gift for fathoming Gerin’s silences. After a while, she said, “You don’t need to fear for me on account of Biton. I know where I want to be, and why,” and set a hand on his arm. He set his own hand on hers for a moment, then walked on.

  When he and his companions got back into the town of Ikos, the warriors he’d brought with him crowded round, wanting to know every detail of their visit to the Sibyls shrine. They made much of Geroge and the courage with which he bore the loss of his fang. “Wouldn’t want one of my teeth yanked out like that,” Drungo Drago’s son declared, “and they aren’t near as big as yours.”

  As Gerin had promised, he let the monster have all the ale he could drink. Geroge grew boisterous in a friendly sort of way, made hideous attempts at singing, and eventually fell asleep at the table. Van and Drungo, who had also both had a good deal of ale, carried him upstairs to bed.

  When Gerin and Selatre went up to their own chambers a little later, she barred the door, something he usually did. Then, quickly and with obvious determination, she got out of her clothes. “Come to bed,” she said, and come to bed he did. Most times, making love solved nothing; it just meant you didn’t think about things for a while. Drifting toward sleep afterwards, Gerin was glad to have found an exception to the rule.

  The Fox and his comrades entered with imperfect enthusiasm the holding that had belonged to Ricolf. Gerin would have been happiest scooting through that holding, seeing no one, and getting back to lands where he was suzerain. As he had discovered a good many times in life—Selatre being the splendid exception�
��what made him happiest was not commonly what he got.

  A good-sized force of chariotry, quite a bit larger than his own, waited for him not far south of Ricolf’s keep. At its head was Authari Broken-Tooth. Gerin nodded, unsurprised. “We have no quarrel with you and yours, Authari,” he called when he recognized the baron who had been Ricolf’s leading vassal. “Get out of our way and let us pass.”

  “I think not,” Authari answered.

  “Don’t be foolish,” the Fox told him. “Remember the oath you and your fellow barons swore.”

  “Like chicken or fish, oaths go stale quickly,” Authari said.

  What with the indolence of the Elabonian gods, Authari had a point, however much Gerin wished he didn’t. But the Elabonian gods weren’t the only ones loose in the land these days. Gerin pointed to the west, where thick gray clouds, nothing like those usually seen in summer, were building up. He feared Stribog had at last recovered from what Mavrix had done to him. “If you get rid of me, the only ones who will thank you are the Gradi and their gods.”

  “I’ll take that chance, too,” Authari said easily. “With you out of the way, I can afford to worry about them next.”

  “No,” Duren said, not to that last comment, but to everything Authari had said: one comprehensive word of rejection. “Even if your men win a fight here, you will not follow my grandfather as baron to this holding.”

  “Oh? Why is that, pup?” Authari asked, still with mild amusement.

  “Because all the men here will make straight for your car, Authari,” Duren answered. Tour men may win, as I say, but you will not live to enjoy it.”

  The mild smile slipped from Autnari’s face. He did not have enough warriors with him to make it certain that Gerin’s men could not live up to the threat. He could not hang back from the fighting, either, not unless he wanted his own soldiers to turn on him as soon as it was over.

  “Stand aside and let us go,” Gerin told him. At the same time, he sent his son an admiring glance. He couldn’t have come up with—and hadn’t come up with—a better way to throw Authari off-balance.

  Off-balance the baron certainly was. Had he ordered a hard charge the moment he spotted Gerin’s little force, he could have crushed them before they’d hit on that way of fighting back. But he’d hesitated, as he had the earlier time when the Fox and Duren entered his territory. Now he licked his lips, trying to make a choice that would have come naturally to a more ruthless man.

  Van pointed to the west, too, but not to the building clouds. “Whose friends are those, I wonder?” he said: chariots were heading cross-country toward the Elabon Way, and toward the brewing trouble on it.

  “Wacho has his holding in mat direction,” Gerin said. “So does Ratios Bronzecaster, I think.” He smiled over at Authari. “Isn’t that interesting?”

  Authari didn’t answer. He didn’t smile, either. He set his jaw and looked grim—but, again, not grim enough to order combat before the newcomers, whoever they were, arrived. If they were Wacho’s men, he’d roll over Germ’s small band all the more easily. If they weren’t …

  They weren’t. Heading up enough chariots to counterbalance Authari’s force, Ratkis approached the standoff. He waved to Gerin. “I didn’t hear from Ricrod you’d passed through till day before yesterday,” he said. “I thought it would be good to see you on your way back.”

  “I think it’s good to see you,” Gerin said. He smiled again at Authari. “Don’t you think it’s good to see him, too?”

  “I can think of people I’d rather have seen,” Authari growled. He clapped his driver on the shoulder. The fellow flicked the reins. The horses strode a couple of paces forward. Gerin grabbed for his bow. Then the driver swung the team into a turn. They started rolling away. Authari shouted angrily to his men. They followed.

  “Hello, there,” Gerin said to Ratkis. “If you’d turned out to be Wacho, I’d have been very embarrassed.”

  Ratkis shook his head. “I doubt it, lord prince. Hard to embarrass a dead man.”

  “A point. A distinct point,” Gerin said, as Lamissio had earlier. He looked westward, wondering if he would see Wacho and his warriors riding up—like Wacho to be late, he thought. No new army was coming. But the clouds piled there were getting thicker and darker and spreading over more of the sky. That probably did mean Stribog was feeling chipper again, and probably also meant the Gradi and their gods were ready for another push against the Trokmoi and the Elabonians.

  Ratkis said, “An oath is an oath. Once you’ve sworn it, you can’t go forgetting it.” He held up a hand. “No, I take that back. You can, but you’d better not. The gods don’t like it.”

  He had more faith in the gods than Gerin did, which probably meant he had less knowledge about their present condition. The more fervent believers the Elabonian gods had, the likelier they were to take a more active part in the world. A year earlier, Gerin would have thought that: a disaster. At the moment, it looked distinctly attractive.

  Ratkis said, “Shall we ride with you a little ways?”

  “I wouldn’t mind that,” Gerin allowed. Together, the two groups passed by the keep that had been Ricolf’s without stopping. Not fully trusting Ricrod any more, Gerin preferred to shelter in a peasant village for the night.

  The sun was sinking into that thick bank of building clouds when the Fox spotted a fair-sized force of chariotry approaching the Elabon Way from the east. Whoever was leading that force—Hildic was a good bet, he thought—saw the size of his contingent, too, and turned around and rode back in the direction from which he’d come.

  “Another scavenger out to see what dead meat he could find,” Ratkis remarked, and leaned out over the rail of his chariot to spit down onto the paving stone of the Elabon Way.

  “You’re probably right,” Gerin said. “No, you’re certainly right. We’ve gone past Wacho’s keep, and he doesn’t live east of the road, anyhow. Besides, I didn’t get the idea that Wacho picked up news in a hurry, or was likely to figure out what to do about it if he did hear something.”

  “Right on both counts, lord prince,” Ratkis said with a chuckle. He rode on in silence for a little while, then asked, “Why are you watching me out of the corner of your eye?”

  Gerin’s cheeks heated “You weren’t supposed to notice,” he muttered. That wasn’t answer enough, though, and he knew it. He sighed. “You have more men here than I do, Ratkis. I want to make sure you’re not going to try to get me all cozy and then jump on me like a starving longtooth.”

  “I thought that was it,” Ratkis answered. “But, like I said, I swore an oath to your son, so you’ve got nothing to worry about there.”

  “Duren will be lucky to have you for a vassal,” Gerin said. He did not tell Ricolf’s former vassal that he always worried, whether he seemed to need to or not. If Ratkis got to know him better, he’d find that out for himself.

  Here, though, for once, he did not need to worry. By the time they made camp, he was close to lands that recognized his suzerainty. And all Ratios’ men did that night was drink ale along with his and leer at the good-looking young women of the peasant village where they lay over. After fear going down below the shrine at Ikos to call on the underground powers, after more fear on the road earlier in the day, with still more fear ahead, the Fox treasured that small stretch of peace of mind. He wondered when—or if—he would find another.

  Cold rain drummed down on the canvas cover of the wagon and soaked Gerin as he drove up to Fox Keep. The wind out of the west had a bite. It wasn’t the blizzard Stribog and the other Gradi gods had blown up against the army he and Adiatunnus led against them, but it didn’t feel like an ordinary summer storm, either. He scowled. Some rain now was fine, normal. Too much rain and he’d have a disaster on his hands even if the Gradi stayed at home.

  He and his comrades had to come close to the keep and shout up to the men on the walls so those warriors could recognize their voices before the drawbridge came down with a wet, squelching slap. “Welco
me back, lord prince,” Rihwin the Fox called as Gerin came in. “Sorry we were so slow, but we couldn’t be sure you weren’t Gradi trying a sneak in the rain.”

  “I’m not angry,” Gerin said. “The opposite, in fact.” Any small bits of caution Rihwin showed were to be encouraged, nurtured, praised, in the hope they would grow. The longer Gerin knew Rihwin, the less likely that was: he knew as much, but had never been a man to give up easily.

  . “What luck had you, lord prince?” Rihwin asked.

  “Geroge and Tharma’s kind have gods,” Gerin answered, which produced startled exclamations from several men who heard him. “They say they’ll fight alongside Baivers and us. We’ll know more tomorrow.”

  “Why tomorrow?” Rihwin said.

  “Because that’s when I intend to get magicking again,” Gerin said. Rihwin gaped at him. He ignored that, continuing, “I’d do it today, but after we get the horses stabled, I’m going to have to spend the rest of the day readying what I’ll need and studying the spells I intend to try.” Rihwin was still gaping. Gerin condescended to notice him: “Aye, Rihwin, for once I’m as headlong as you. This storm tells me we have no time to waste. It’s too much like what we saw west of the Venien. The Gradi are all too likely to use it as a cloak to hide whatever they intend to do till they’re set to do it.”

  “Whatever you say, lord prince,” Rihwin assured him, though his fellow Fox still looked somewhat dazed. Gerin had no time to worry about that, either. He jumped down from the wagon, then had to grab at it when he slipped in the mud. Once his own footing was secure, he handed Selatre down.

  Their children came running out of the keep to greet them. Gerin hugged Dagref, Clotild, and Blestar in turn. So did Selatre, but then she said, “Now get back indoors this instant, before you catch cold.” That led to noisy protests from all three children, and what looked suspiciously like deliberate falls in the mud by Dagref and Blestar. Dagref declared his innocence before the world when Selatre shouted at him; Blestar, as yet unpracticed in deceit, merely got up and ran, dripping, into the castle.