He stopped about twenty feet in front of Trasamund and said something. "I don't understand you," the Bizogot jarl said.
Hamnet Thyssen didn't understand him, either, but he had a pretty good notion of what the stranger was saying. If it wasn't something like Who are you and what the demon are you doing on my land? he would have been very surprised.
The stranger paused and scowled. He looked as if he hated everyone in the world, but especially Trasamund. He said the same thing over again, louder this time. He seemed to think everybody ought to understand his language, and ought to speak it, too.
"I still don't understand you," Trasamund told him.
This time, the noises the stranger made were different. They seemed angrier-no mean feat, when his whole vocabulary sounded angry. Either he was calling the jarl several different kinds of idiot or he was swearing at him-maybe both at once.
Audun Gilli rode forward a few paces. The stranger snarled something that sounded vile at him, too, and jumped back and drew a long, straight sword. Its highly polished edge glittered in the sunlight. He stood ready to fight and kill, ready to attack, even though Audun was surely the most inoffensive-looking of the travelers.
"No, no." Audun even sounded inoffensive, which Trasamund might not have. "You misunderstand, my friend. I come in peace." He held up his right hand, palm open-a gesture anyone on the far side of the Glacier, from the Bizogots to the folk who dwelt in the hot countries well south of the Raumsdalian Empire, would have understood.
If this stranger understood it, he didn't want to let on. He growled something that sounded unflattering. He brandished the sword again, but didn't rush the wizard. He looked even more scornful than he had when he was snarling at Trasamund. Maybe that was because Audun seemed so inoffensive; the Bizogot, at least, pretty plainly knew how to take care of himself.
Then Audun said, "I am a sorcerer." If Hamnet Thyssen had known he was going to do that, he would have tried to stop him-he didn't want to show these people too much (or anything at all) before he had to. He was briefly relieved to remember that the stranger seemed to know no Raumsdalian. "Maybe I can find a spell to let us understand each other," Audun went on, as if doing his best to give Count Hamnet heart failure.
Hamnet wasn't the only one who wished Audun would keep his mouth shut. "He's a trusting soul, isn't he?" Ulric Skakki whispered.
"He's a trusting fool, is what he is." Hamnet didn't bother keeping his voice down.
If Audun Gilli heard him, he paid no attention. That the mammoth-riding strangers could be dangerous didn't seem to cross the wizard's mind.
He just saw them as people with whom he couldn't speak-and maybe as a way to let him seem important to his comrades.
"I'm a sorcerer," he repeated. This time, he showed the bad-tempered barbarian-so Hamnet reckoned the man, anyhow-just what he meant. "Behold, I shall become invisible," he said, as if the stranger could understand him (and Hamnet had no sure proof the man could not).
Audun reached into his belt pouch and drew forth an opal. The stone sparkled in the sun, showing glints of red and blue and silver. The wizard began to chant. The opal seemed to draw more and more sunlight to itself as the spell went on. It sparkled brighter and brighter. Before long, it grew too dazzling for Hamnet Thyssen to look at. He had to turn away. And, since he could not look at the stone, he could not look at the man who held it, either. Audun was effectively, if not actually, invisible.
Looking away from Audun Gilli, Count Hamnet looked toward Liv. She watched the Raumsdalian wizard with avid interest. Her lips moved silently, perhaps in a charm of her own that let her go on looking at Audun and the opal after Hamnet Thyssen and the others close by had to avert their gaze.
Then Hamnet glanced in the strangers direction. He screwed up his face and squinted at Audun-better that, he seemed to say, than to admit he was dazzled. But at last narrowed eyes availed him no more. He had to turn away.
When he did, he shouted back toward his comrades, who still sat on their mammoths. One of them stirred. They were more than a bowshot away, so Hamnet Thyssen could not tell exactly what their wizard or shaman or whatever he was did. Whatever it was, it served his purpose. The opal in Audun Gilli s hand shattered into fragments. The dazzling, coruscating light that flowed from it died.
"You see?" the stranger said in the Bizogot tongue. "You think you are so high and mighty, but in truth you are only a maggot like all your foul kind."
Audun Gilli stared at his hand, and at the tiny bits of opal still left in it. The mammoth-rider's speech meant nothing to him, because he did not speak the Bizogots' language.
But it meant something to Trasamund. "Who do you call maggot, dog?" the jarl demanded. "I asked if you knew my speech, and you would not give me a yes or a no."
"I give you nothing," the stranger said. "It is what you deserve. Soon enough, it is what the Rulers will give all who are not men."
Trasamund turned red. "You say I am no man?" he growled. The stranger nodded. "What am I, then?" Trasamund asked, his voice suggesting bloodshed would follow if he didn't like the answer.
The stranger only yawned. If he was trying to be offensive-and no doubt he was-he was succeeding. "Vermin," he said.
"Why, you flyblown son of a mammoth turd!" Trasamund shouted. He started to climb down from his horse. "By God, I'll kill you for that!"
"Wait, both of you," Eyvind Torfinn said in the Bizogot tongue. "We are newly met. We should not war. There is no quarrel between our folk."
"There is a quarrel between this wretch and me," Trasamund said.
"No, there is no quarrel," the stranger said. "The Rulers do not quarrel with lesser breeds. How could we? We do not quarrel with dogs, either. I, Parsh"-he jabbed a thumb at his own broad chest-"say this, and I speak the truth. We do not waste our time lying to lesser breeds, either."
"And I, Eyvind Torfinn, say you are provoking us on purpose."
Parsh yawned in his face. "I care nothing for what you say. Soon enough, your folk, whoever they are, will bend the knee before the Rulers. If they do not, we will destroy them as easily as Samoth there destroyed your silly wizard's stone."
"These are the people who hold the Golden Shrine?" Ulric Skakki whispered to Count Hamnet. Not much bothered Ulric-or if it did, he didn't let it show-but he sounded scandalized now. Hamnet wasn't surprised; the notion horrified him, too.
"Maybe they don't," he whispered back. "We don't know where the Golden Shrine is, and we don't know how much land these, uh, Rulers rule. Maybe they just talk big."
Talk big they did. "You will come to our encampment," Parsh said. "My chief will want to see what manner of lesser men you are."
"And if we don't care to come with you?" Eyvind Torfinn asked.
"However you please." Parsh shrugged broad shoulders. "But in that case, we will have to kill you here." Now he didn't sound boastful. He sounded matter-of-fact, like a man who had to talk about getting rid of mice.
Hamnet Thyssen eyed the mammoths and the men riding them. He didn't like the idea of fighting warriors aboard such immense animals. They outnumbered the travelers from the far side of the Glacier. And . . . "Audun!" Hamnet called in Raumsdalian. "How good is their sorcerer?"
"I heard you have more than one kind of animal grunts," Parsh said in the Bizogot tongue. "Well, that won't do you any good, either."
"He … is not weak," Audun Gilli answered reluctantly.
That would have been Hamnet's guess. But he didn't want to have to go with a guess here. He wanted to be sure. Now that he was, he said, "Let's go with them. We need to learn more about them before we decide what to do."
"When we get to wherever they camp, I will take care of this Parsh," Trasamund said-in Raumsdalian.
The man from the Rulers caught his name, even if he didn't understand the words surrounding it. His grin displayed strong white teeth. Hamnet Thyssen couldn't decide whether his canines were uncommonly sharp on their own or they'd been filed to points. Neither notion seemed
attractive to contemplate.
"We will go with you to your camp," Eyvind Torfinn told Parsh.
"Oh, what an honor!" Parsh said. "The vole consents to travel with the-" The last word was one in his language. He bowed mockingly. "Thank you, most gracious and generous vole."
Hamnet Thyssen had disliked Parsh on first sight. The more he saw of the stranger, the more he despised him. He was sure that was exactly the impression Parsh was trying to create. Well, Parsh knew how to get what he wanted, all right.
"To travel with the what?" Earl Eyvind asked.
"With the tiger," Parsh repeated. "The big, striped cat. Are you too ignorant to know of tigers? By the gods, you must be fools indeed!"
"Fools for putting up with your noise," Trasamund said. He might have been less enamored of Parsh than Count Hamnet was.
"Come," the man of the Rulers said. "Come now, or be killed where you stand."
They came.
The camp was not like anything Hamnet Thyssen expected. He'd looked for the same sort of dirt and disorder that always marked a Bizogot encampment. He didn't find them. Tents stood in neat rows. Mammoths and deer were tethered in neat lines. Some of the deer had saddles and reins. The Rulers didn't seem to ride horses. Come to think of it, Hamnet hadn't seen any horses except for the ones with his party since traveling beyond the Glacier. Parsh hadn't shown any curiosity about them, but Parsh didn't seem to show curiosity. The only thing he showed was arrogance.
That irked Count Hamnet. It infuriated Trasamund. As soon as he got down from his horse, he roared, "Parsh! Where are you, Parsh, you bastard child of a rabid fox and a palsied rabbit? Come get what you deserve!"
He didn't have long to wait. Parsh marched up to him and bowed. "Here I am, creature. How do you care to die? Name your pleasure, and I will oblige you."
"Bizogot stand-down," Trasamund said at once.
"I do not know what foolish games barbarians play," Parsh said scornfully. "Tell me what this is, so I know whether it is fitting."
"We stand here," Trasamund said. "One of us hits the other in the face. Then it's the second man's turn. Last one who can still get up and swing wins."
For the first time since Hamnet set eyes on him, Parsh actually looked pleased. "This is good sport-very good sport for a savage. How generous of you to give me the chance to amuse myself so." He shouted in his own guttural language. His countrymen sounded interested and approving, even if Hamnet couldn't understand a word they said. Parsh returned to the Bizogot tongue to ask, "How do we decide who goes first?"
"Go ahead," Trasamund said as men of the Rulers gathered to watch the stand-down. Hamnet Thyssen saw no women in the encampment. "Do your worst, hound, and then you will see what a nothing it is."
Hamnet wouldn't have said that, not against a foe as plainly powerful as Parsh. He would have tried to claim the first blow, or at least an even chance at it. Parsh actually smiled. "Your funeral," he said, and likely meant that in the most literal way.
"Talk is cheap," Trasamund said. "What do you do to back it up?"
Parsh hit him. Hamnet thought that blow might have felled a mammoth, let alone a man. Blood poured from Trasamund's nose. He swayed, but quickly straightened. "Well, when will you begin?" he asked.
"You fool! I did," Parsh said.
"Oh, that? I thought you sneezed," the Bizogot jarl said. Samoth the wizard or shaman or whatever he was turned Trasamund's words into the language of the Rulers. The strangers buzzed among themselves. They clearly weren't used to outsiders as proud as themselves. Trasamund went on, "Well, then, I'll just have to hit you back."
Parsh didn't flinch from the blow. He did stagger. He bled from the nose, too; his seemed to have changed shape. But he managed a laugh. "A mosquito bit me," he said.
"Any that did would sick you up afterwards," Trasamund jeered. Parsh hit him again. His head snapped back. He spat blood, and a tooth. "Keep at it," he told Parsh. "You may wake me yet."
He slugged the man from beyond the Glacier. Parsh lurched and blinked a couple of times. "A love pat," he said thickly, and then he too spat red.
"You dream," Trasamund said, "for I love you not."
"Then love-this." Parsh threw another right. Trasamund went to one knee. Slowly, he got to his feet. He shook his head, as if to clear it. Parsh looked quite humanly surprised-he hadn't thought the Bizogot would be able to stand up.
Trasamund shook his head. "I love it so well, I'll give you one like it." He shook his head again. "No, I'll give you one better." He smashed his fist into Parsh's face. The man from the Rulers swayed but stayed upright. Even so, the nasty light in his eyes went out. He wasn't enjoying the game any more, only hoping to get through it-as Trasamund was.
It went on for a long, painful, miserable time. Both Trasamund and Parsh went down repeatedly; each man struggled to his feet each time. Parsh kept punching with his right hand. After a while, Trasamund switched to his left.
Trasamund's traveling companions stayed quiet through the contest. The men of the Rulers cheered Parsh at first. As it became clear the victory wouldn't be easy if it came at all, they subsided into uneasy silence, too.
One of Trasamund's eyes was swollen shut. He could open the other one a little. He peered through what had to be a blurry slit at Parsh, who was in no better shape. "Here," the Bizogot mumbled through pulped and puffy lips. "This time . . ." He cocked his left fist.
Parsh watched it with fearful concentration. Maybe he saw that Trasamund was putting everything he had left into this one blow, for as the Bizogot's left fist shot forward Parsh started to duck. He wasn't quick enough, not after the punishment he'd already taken. The blow caught him square on the point of the chin. He crumpled and lay motionless.
"Aii!" Trasamund groaned. "I think I've gone and broken my other hand now."
That would have mattered had the fight gone on. But Parsh could not get up. For a moment, Hamnet Thyssen wondered if he was dead. Only the slow rise and fall of his chest said life still smoldered in him.
Trasamund turned away. "Wait!" the wizard from the Rulers-his name was Samoth-said in the Bizogot tongue.
"What for?" Trasamund could hardly stand on his own feet, let alone talk. His wits had to be scrambled. He'd taken a fearful beating. That he'd given a worse one seemed almost beside the point.
"You beat him," Samoth said. "Now kill him."
"What the demon for?" Trasamund said. "This wasn't to the death. It was last man standing. Here I am. God knows how, but here I am. He almost knocked my head off a couple of times there." Now that he'd won, he could pay tribute to a formidable foe.
But Samoth shook his head. "When we fight, we fight to the death. Anything less is a disgrace. He would have killed you. You would do him a favor by killing him. That he should lose to a lesser breed . . ." He translated his words into the gutturals his own folk used. Their fierce faces somber, the men of the Rulers nodded.
"No." Trasamund shook his head-and almost fell over on account of it. "That's his worry, not mine. I don't want his blood now. I just want to wash mine off my face and to tie up my hands. Where have you got some water, and maybe some cloth or some leather lashings?"
"I will take you," Samoth said, reluctant respect in his voice. "Come with me."
Trasamund walked with the rolling, lurching gait of a drunk. That he walked at all amazed Hamnet Thyssen. After what the Bizogot jarl had taken, his being alive amazed Count Hamnet. "Maybe I'd better go along," Ulric Skakki remarked, "just to make sure everything is on the up and up."
"Not a bad idea," Hamnet said. Silent as a snowy owl, Ulric slipped away.
Hamnet waited by Parsh, curious to see what would happen when the savage woke up and found he had lost. After a quarter of an hour, one of the Rulers poured a mammoth-hide bucket of water over Parsh's head. Parsh moaned and spluttered and jerked. His eyes came open. He looked around and realized he was lying on the ground.
Horror on his smashed face, he did his best to stand. He needed three tries b
efore making it to his feet. Even then, he swayed like a tall tree in a storm. "Where is the Bizogot?" he asked blurrily. "Did he fall? If he didn't, I will hit him again."
No one answered when he spoke the Bizogot tongue. Increasing alarm in his voice, he asked what was probably the same question in his own language. One of his countrymen gave back a few scornful words.
Parsh shook his head. He said something else. The other man of the Rulers turned his back on him. Parsh swung toward Hamnet Thyssen. "Is it so? Can it be so?" he asked in the Bizogot language. "Did he beat me? How could he beat me?"
"He beat you," Hamnet answered. "Your chin was strong, but his was stronger."
"One of the lesser breeds cannot beat a man of the Rulers. It cannot be done," Parsh said. His own battered state was proof positive that it could be done, but he seemed to be talking about laws of nature, not particular cases. He shook his head, then grimaced; after the beating he’d taken, he had to wish he were dead. Hamnet Thyssen had reason to remember that thought. "It cannot be done," Parsh repeated.
"It was," Count Hamnet said.
Instead of answering, Parsh looked at his countryman, who kept on giving him his back. That seemed to make up his mind for him. "It cannot be done," he said for the third time. "I must make amends." He pulled his belt knife from its sheath and stared at the blade.
If he’d tried to go after Trasamund, Count Hamnet would have stopped him. Hamnet didn't think that would be hard; Parsh could barely walk and speak, let alone fight. But the man of the Rulers did nothing of the sort. He spat between his own feet, a gesture of vast contempt. Then he looked up into the sky-and then, before Hamnet or anyone else could stop him, he slashed the knife across his throat.
Blood spurted, scarlet in the afternoon sun. Parsh crumpled. No one could hope to stanch that wound. The man of the Rulers thrashed on the ground for a little while, then lay still in death.
Only after he died did his comrade deign to turn around and acknowledge him again. The other man of the Rulers closed the dead and staring eyes. He said something in his own language.
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