Werenight

by Turtledove, Harry

  As usual, the southerner was quick to fit action to thought. He rummaged through his gear, producing a packet of grayish powder and a minor grimoire. Gerin was relieved to see him checking the spell before he used it, but still felt a gnawing sense of unease. Things were moving too fast, and out of his control.

  Rihwin fed tinder to the nearly dead embers of the fire, coaxing them back into flame. He sprinkled a few drops of the turned wine onto the fire, chanting an invocation in Sithonian. The gray powder followed. It produced an aromatic cloud of smoke. Rihwin chanted on: “… and to thee, O great Mavrix—”

  Gerin’s unease became alarm, but too late. With a whistling hiss, the summoned god, in all his effeminate finery, stood before Rihwin. “So!” Mavrix screeched, bouncing with wrath. “You are in league with this miscreant, and have the gall to seek my aid?” The furious deity pointed a finger at Gerin; somethow it did not seem strange that the digit should lengthen till it thumped the baron’s chest.

  “I will never help you, wizard! Never! Never!” Mavrix shouted, dancing around the little fire in a sort of war-dance. “And you shall never have the chance to ask my aid again. Mortal wretch, now and forever-more you have forfeited your right to work sorcery, and be thankful I leave you the remainder of your pustulent life!

  “Take that, ox-goad!” the god added for Gerin’s benefit. He stuck out a long pink tongue like a frog’s, made a gesture street urchins often used in the capital, and vanished.

  “What was all that in aid of?” Rihwin asked, white-faced.

  “I told you before, the god and I had a disagreement not long ago.”

  “Disagreement forsooth! The next time you have a disagreement with a god, my dear Gerin, please let me know in advance so I can take myself elsewhere—far elsewhere.” Rihwin tried to resume his interrupted spell, stopped in confusion. “A pox! The pestilential godlet did it! I still know every spell I ever knew, but I can’t use them. No wine, no magic …” He seemed ready to burst into tears.

  So, for the moment, was Gerin. He had gone south with high hopes, and returned with—what? A suddenly useless wizard and some sour wine. No, fool, wait, he told himself before his mood altogether blackened—there’s Elise, and she’s worth troubles a dozen times worse than these. His gloomy side added: or she will be, if troubles no worse than these at all don’t kill you first.

  The Elabon Way continued packed with refugees. They fled south toward a safety that no longer existed, carrying on their backs or in handcarts such pitiful belongings as they had salvaged. Pushing north against them was so slow that at last, much against his will, Gerin decided to leave the highway and travel on back roads. Though less direct, he hoped they would also be less traveled.

  His hopes were justified most of that day. He made better progress than he had since he’d first seen that accursed imperial courier. But as the first cool evening breezes began to blow, what must have been the whole population of two or three farming villages jammed the narrow track on which he was traveling.

  The peasants had their women, children, and meager possessions in ramshackle carts driven by oxen or asses. They drove their flocks of cattle and sheep before them. When the baron tried to tell them the way through the Kirs was blocked, they listened in dull incomprehension, as if he were speaking some foreign tongue, and continued on their way.

  The same thing happened three more times in the next two days. Gerin’s pace slowed to a crawl. Once more he had the feeling the whole world was against him. He was brusque even with Elise, and so churlish toward Rihwin and Van that the outlander finally growled, “Captain, why don’t you shut up and do us all a favor?” Shame-faced, the Fox apologized.

  Later that day, Gerin heard a commotion ahead, but thick woods and winding road kept its nature hidden. He, Van, and Rihwin reached for their weapons. But when the path opened out into a clearing, they put them down—there would be no fighting here. Instead of Trokmoi, they had come upon yet another group of peasants taking flight and the local lordlet trying to talk them out of it. Or so Gerin thought at first. A moment’s listening showed him the noble had given up on that and was telling them what he thought of them for going.

  “You cheese-faced, goat-buggering, arse-licking whores’ get—” The noble’s command of invective was marvelous; even Van listened in wide-eyed admiration. The fellow’s appearance complemented his delivery. He was a solidly made man of about thirty-five; he had a fierce red face with one eye covered by a leather patch, thick brows, and a tangled black beard. He wore a bearskin cape over broad shoulders and massive chest, and carried a brace of scabbardless swords on his belt. “Lizard-livered, grave-robbing sodomites—”

  The abuse rolled off his tenants like water from oiled leather. They were going whether he liked it or not. Despite the three troopers and two chariots he had at his back, there were at least twenty men in the exodus, each with scythe, mattock, or pitchfork close at hand. Gerin wished they would have been as ready to take up arms against the Trokmoi.

  As the peasants began to move, the minor baron noticed Gerin. “Who in the five hells are you?” he growled. “Why aren’t you on the run like these pissweeds here?”

  Gerin named himself and his friends. He asked, “Are the woodsrunners so close, then, to send your villeins flying?”

  “Close? I’ve yet to see one of the pox-ridden bandits, for all they’ve sent these dungheaded clods a-flying, aye, and most of my fighting men too. I’ve seen partridges with more heart in ’em than they showed.” He spat in utter contempt and slowly began to calm. “I’m Nordric One-Eye, in case you’re wondering—lord hereabouts, not that I look to have much left to be lord over.”

  “Friend Nordric,” Rihwin said, “would it please you to fare north with us and take vengeance on the barbarians who have caused such chaos?”

  Nordric lifted an eyebrow at the southerner’s phrasing, but the notion of hitting back at the Trokmoi was too tempting for him to resist. “Please me? Great Dyaus above, I’d like nothing better! Those sheep-futtering, louse-bitten woodsrunning robbers—”

  He rumbled on for another couple of angry sentences. Then he and one of his men climbed aboard one chariot and the other two soldiers into the second. His driver, Gerin learned as they began to travel, was Amgath Andar’s son; one of the last pair was Effo and the other Cleph, but the Fox was not sure which was which. Neither of them said much. Nor, for that matter, did Amgath.

  That did not surprise Gerin. Nordric talked enough for four. Not only that, he kept peppering his speech, even on the most innocuous subjects, with fluent, explosive profanity.

  Rihwin steered close to Gerin. “It’s as well for him he’s short an eye—otherwise they’d surely style him Nordric Swillmouth.”

  The baron grinned and nodded. He was still glad to have Nordric along. He did not think the foul-mouthed baron would shrink from a fight, or his men either. Facing Trokmoi in battle had to be less terrifying than confronting an angry Nordric afterwards.

  Though armed, Nordric and his men carried few provisions. Gerin had resupplied from imperial stores at the pass, but he knew what he had would not feed eight people long. The food would go even faster if he gathered more followers. That meant spending time hunting instead of traveling, something he resented but whose necessity he recognized.

  More companions, though, also meant more men to stand watch. Freed from the need to break his sleep with a watch in three, Gerin spent the early evening sitting by the fire with Rihwin. He studied the southerner’s grimoires with a desperate intensity that he knew was almost surely futile. Still, he persisted. The vengeful Mavrix had taken Rihwin’s power to work magic, but not, it seemed, his ability to pass on what he knew.

  “Here.” Rihwin pointed to an incantation written in the sinuous Kizzuwatnan script. “This is another spell for the destruction of one’s enemies when a bit of their spittle, hair, or nail parings is in one’s possession.”

  “How does it differ from the more usual one, the one I would have set
on the fair Namarra?”

  “It has the advantage of needing no elaborate preparation, but is more dangerous to the caster. Unless perfectly performed, it will fall on his head rather than the intended victim’s.”

  “Hmm.” The spell looked simple enough, involving only a couple of genuflections and some easy passes with the left hand. But as Gerin studied its verbal element, his first enthusiasm faded: the Kizzuwatnan text was one long tongue-twister, full of puns, subtle allusions to gods he barely knew, constantly shifting patterns of rhyme and rhythm. He almost passed at once to the next charm. Then, stung by the challenge and artistry of the ancient versicle, he stopped and read it again and again, until it was fairly well lodged in his mind.

  “I have it,” he said at last, adding, “I think. What’s next?”

  “Here is one I’ve always found useful. It keeps horses’ hooves sound and strong, and helps prevent all sorts of lameness.”

  “Yes, I can see where that would be a good thing to know. Ah, good, it’s in Sithonian, too. Let me have a closer look—” And soon the veterinary magic was also stored in the baron’s capacious memory.

  The next day dawned luminously clear. The sun leaped into a sky of almost southern clarity and brilliance. The fine weather pleased Gerin less than it might have under other circumstances. In such heat, armor became an itchy, sweaty torment, but trouble was too close to chance removing it.

  Thus the baron, longing for relief from the sweltering day, was glad to hear the rush of river water ahead. But almost at the same instant, he became aware of other sounds rising above the stream’s plashing: the clash of bronze on bronze, the deep battle cries of Elabonian fighting men, and the higher, wilder yells of the Trokmoi.

  Van was driving Rihwin’s chariot. When he caught the noise of combat, his head jerked up like that of a dog suddenly taking a scent. “A fight!” he shouted, his voice pure glee. “The gods beshrew me, a fight!”

  He sent the light car bounding forward with such a rush that he almost pitched the startled Rihwin into the roadway. Nordric and his driver were right behind, the stocky baron swearing sulfurously. On his heels were his liegemen, leaving Gerin to bring up the rear.

  The Fox cursed as fervently as Nordric, but for a different reason. The last thing he wanted was to expose Elise to the risks of war, but he had no choice. “For Dyaus’ sake, stay in the wagon and don’t draw attention to yourself.” He handed her his bow and quiver. “Use them only if you have to.”

  Black willows grew along the riverbank. Under their low spreading branches a grim drama was under way, with seven southerners battling twice as many Trokmoi. The Elabonians had accounted for four woods-runners, but three of their own number were down and the survivors desperately fighting back to back at the water’s edge when unexpected rescue arrived.

  The Trokmoi shouted in dismay as Gerin’s band leaped from chariots and wagons and loosed murder among them. Van was a thunderstorm, Gerin and Rihwin a pair of deadly snakes, striking and flickering away before being struck in return. Nordric’s men fought with dour competence, but the petty baron himself brought the worst terror to the barbarians.

  At last come to grips with the foes who had turned his life upside down, he went berserker-mad, his ruddy features darkening to purple, incoherent cries of raw rage roaring from his throat, spittle flecking his beard with white. Swinging a sword in each meaty hand, he rampaged through the Trokmoi, oblivious to his own safety as long as he felt flesh cleave and bones shatter beneath his hammerstrokes. The Trokmoi broke and ran after half of them had fallen. All but one were cut down from behind by the vengeful Elabonians. An arrow from the wagon brought down the last of them, who had outdistanced his pursuers—Elise once more proving her worth.

  The onslaught was so sudden and fierce that Nordric’s man Cleph was the only Elabonian badly hurt. He had a great gash in his thigh. Gerin washed it with wine and styptics and bound it up, but the bleeding would not stop. Cleph was pale and clammy, and seemed partly out of his wits.

  “You’re going to have to tie off his leg,” Van said.

  “I hate to,” Gerin answered. “If I leave the tie on for more than a few hours the leg may go gangrenous, and if I take it off he’ll probably start bleeding again.”

  “Look at him, though. He’ll damn well bleed out on you right now if you don’t do something in a hurry,” Van said. Shaking his head, Gerin applied the tourniquet. The flow of blood slowed to a trickle, but Cleph remained semi-conscious, muttering curses under his breath against demons only he could see.

  Nordric’s battle-demon, on the other hand, deserted him after the fight was done. A man in a daze, he wandered across the small field of combat, staring at the results of his own butchery. “Dip me in dung and fry me for a chicken,” he grunted, apparently not much believing what he saw.

  “Friend Nordric, must your every phrase have an oath in it?” Rihwin asked.

  “That’s not so—” Nordric began, but his driver Amgath interrupted him.

  “I fear it is, my lord,” he said. “Remember what happened when Holgar the Raven bet you a goldpiece you couldn’t go a day without saying something vile? ‘You son of a whore, you’re on!’ you said, and forfeited on the spot.”

  The four footsoldiers Gerin and his comrades had saved were glad to take service with him. Two of them had lost brothers to the Trokmoi and another a cousin. They were all burning to retaliate. “The worst thing about dying here,” said one, “would have been knowing we’d only taken a woodsrunner apiece with us.”

  Elise found herself less troubled over the Trokmê she’d slain than she had been at Ikos, which in turn troubled her. That evening she said to Gerin, “I don’t understand it. He was only running away, and the driver back at the Sibyl’s shrine was trying to kill us, but the first death left me sick for days, and now I feel almost nothing: only that I did what I had to do.”

  “Which is nothing less than true,” the Fox said, though he knew it did not help much.

  He stood a late watch, and a strange one in that no moons were in the sky: Tiwaz was new that night, Elleb a thin crescent, golden Math a fatter one, and pale, slow-moving Nothos just past first quarter. By an hour past midnight it was cool, quiet, and amazingly dark. Countless dim stars the baron had never seen before powdered the sky with silver, their light for once not drowned by the moons.

  Cleph died early the next day. He had never really come to himself after the shock of the wound, and whenever the tourniquet was loosened it began to bleed again. They hastily buried him and pressed on.

  Two men joined them that day, half a dozen more on the next, footsoldiers all. Of necessity, Gerin was reduced to a pace a walking man could keep. He wondered it the added numbers were worth the delay, and considered moving ahead with chariots alone. Van and Nordric were all for it. Rihwin advised caution. Events soon proved him right.

  The baron’s fighting tail was emerging from forest into cleared fields when a wild shout from ahead made them all grab for weapons. Just out of bowshot waited a force of Trokmoi of nearly the same makeup as their own: four chariots and a double handful of retainers afoot. About half the northerners wore plundered Elabonian armor. The others were in their native tunics and trousers, except for one tall, gaunt barbarian who was naked but for shield and weapons.

  Gerin heard a growl go up behind him. He knew the men at his back were wild to hurl themselves against the Trokmoi. But he did not want to fight at this moment, against this foe. The little armies were too evenly matched. Even if he won the battle, he would be defenseless against the next band of woods-runners he happened across.

  The Trokmê seemed to have similar thoughts, which puzzled the baron. Most northerners fought first and questioned later. He watched, bemused, as the chief winded a long, straight horn. He was no trumpeter, but Gerin recognized the call he had blown: parley.

  He waved an agreement, got down from the wagon, and walked alone into the field. He ignored the scandalized murmurs of his men. Those stopped
abruptly when Van announced, “The next one of you who carps will be carp stew.” His huge right fist, fingers tight round the sweat-stained leather grip of his mace, was a persuasive argument.

  The northerner met Gerin halfway between theirmen, empty hands outstretched before him. Plump for a woodsrunner but cat-courteous, the Trokmê bowed low and said, “I am Dagdogma the son of Iucharba, who was the son of Amergin the great cattle-thief, who was the son of Laeg the smith, who was …” Gerin composed himself to wait out the genealogy, which, if it was like most others, would go back ten or twelve generations to a god.

  Sure enough, Dagdogma finished, “… who was the son of great Fomor himself.” He waited in turn.

  Gerin did not think it wise to reveal his true name to the barbarian. “Call me Tevis,” he said, picking the first name he thought of. Like Dagdogma, he spoke in Elabonian.

  “The son of—?” Dagdogma prompted politely.

  “Nobody, I fear.”

  “Ah well, a man’s a man for all he’s a bastard, and a fine crew you have with you. Not that we couldn’t deal with them, but I’m thinking ’twould be a shame and a waste of my lads and yours both to be fighting the now.”

  Gerin studied Dagdogma, suspecting a trick. Things he had not noticed at first began to register: the Elabonian women’s rings the Trokmê had jammed onto his little fingers, the gleaming soft leather boots he wore instead of the woodsrunners’ usual rawhide, the booty piled high in his chariots. The baron suddenly understood. This was no northern wolf, just a jackal out to scavenge what he could with as little effort as possible.

  The Fox was filled with relief and contempt at the same time. His talk with Dagdogma went quickly and well since, each for his own reasons, neither man had any stomach for fighting. The Trokmê trotted back to his men. He moved them off along a forest track running west, clearing the way north for Gerin and his troop.

  But Gerin’s own warriors were unhappy he had talked his way past the Trokmoi instead of hewing through them. “I came in with you to kill the whoresons, not pat ’em on the fanny as they go by,” said one of the men who had joined just that day. “If you’re going to fight your fool war like that, count me out. I’d sooner do it right.”