1633880583 (F)

by Chris Willrich

  “The method was not mine—”

  “Is it better that you trusted in the wiles of slavers? They tricked us. Playing on our feelings for children. When we tried to save a boy and girl in trouble, we were ambushed.” Gaunt laughed. “So glorious. I know there are songs about you, Muninn. Songs of Sure-Hand’s valor. They will be completely forgotten, buried under the song of Muninn Fartsnore.”

  “I can silence the voice that sings it.”

  “You could try,” she said, grateful for her leather armor and the roundshield at her back. “Except that I have already transcribed a dozen copies, and hired many singers, and left instructions that it be performed if I do not appear again tomorrow in Gullvik. And believe me, it is a catchy tune.”

  Muninn was silent. His wife began hectoring him in Kantentongue and he snarled in response. Weapons were dropped into the snow. Gaunt lowered the bow, a little.

  In the stillness that followed, Muninn said, “You must want something.”

  “I want my husband. You will help him escape.”

  “What? You must know they were going to sell him to the Gull-Jarl! I would rather be known as Fartsnore than as that one’s foe.”

  “I am not so sure. The Gull-Jarl is away now, and the man in charge is the honorless Skalagrim the Red.”

  “An honorless axe kills as well as a famed one.”

  “You spoke of a straw death before. That is surely what you’re headed for. I don’t think you wanted to hurt us, half so much as you wanted a place on a foamreaving ship. I think you hear death coming on the wind, and you don’t fear it half as much as you fear the empty days that herald it, a whistling wind spinning the ashes of the fire.” Gaunt took a chance, taking one hand from her bow, raising it to hail him. “You were somebody once. You could be again. You could be a man who raided the house of Skalagrim, who in old age walked into an adventure involving strange magics, and warriors of the distant East, and vessels that fly like ships of the old gods.”

  “Lies,” said Muninn. But he wet his lips.

  “Lies or not,” Gaunt said, “you know I can sing the songs.”

  Once there’d been a moment when Gaunt told the bards she would rather be exiled than submit to their rules. . . .

  Or when she’d seen her newborn son and spoken his name for the first time. . . .

  Or when she’d told Imago Bone she would marry him after all. . . .

  In none of those moments did the silence stretch farther than now, in the snow of the Bladed Isles.

  “Wait here,” said Muninn Crowbeard.

  “This is madness,” Muninn said for the third time under the moonlit boughs at the forest’s edge, the third day after he’d joined her. “There are five guards at this farm, many more in the other farms and in the great hall above. This is a job for a berserker, not an old man with palsy and a madwoman.”

  “This madwoman also spies much snow swirling about this night,” Gaunt said. “The guards will have difficulty seeing us.”

  “Did you witch it up somehow?”

  Gaunt just smiled, for truly, what else could she do? “We’ll leave the supplies here,” she said, setting down her bow and removing her pack. “This is the best path into the woods, and this big tree the best . . .” she paused.

  “What?”

  “. . . hiding spot. There’s something else here, Muninn.”

  The old man muttered and joined her. He peered at four dark pairs of wooden planks. Each pair was accompanied by two long, straight, broken branches.

  “A firewood pile?” Gaunt asked.

  “Skis.” Magnus spat into the snow.

  “What are skis?”

  “What hole did you crawl out of?”

  “I fell out of the sky, remember?”

  “They’re skis. You put them on your feet and, ah, Torden’s breath, never mind. They’re probably supplies for a hunting party. Someone from the great hall might come this way.”

  “If these whatevers are from the hall, why do they look like junk?”

  “Who can understand Skalagrim’s ilk? The rescue’s too risky now.”

  “No, this is confirmation we have a good path. We can’t abandon the plan now.”

  “I can hardly believe we are calling this lunacy a plan. Or that I am here.”

  “I can, Muninn the foamreaver.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Moving the wood-things so pursuers won’t find them.”

  “They are called skis, woman.”

  “Is this how it is in Kantenjord? Women do all the work and men correct their vocabulary?”

  Muninn shared more of his vocabulary, but he helped. Then they set out.

  They’d spied Bone from afar and knew which barn was his. It was near a midden and a stable. Gaunt led them toward the first, until she was within range of the second, able to see dry straw through an upper window.

  She removed a set of special arrows and set them upon the snow. Next she removed a flask containing the foulest alcohol she’d found in Gullvik. The hard part was kindling it, but she had an ingenious fire-starting device from Qiangguo that served her well.

  “Magic,” muttered Crowbeard.

  “Civilization,” answered Gaunt, as her first fire arrow lit up. “You should try it sometime.”

  Her first shot missed and landed uselessly in the snow. The next four found their target. The stable was alight.

  Shouts of alarm and quivering firelight echoed and flared in the night.

  “Move,” Gaunt said.

  Someone in the barn had already opened the door to investigate. A wispy-haired man younger than Muninn but with a face more weathered looked out at the fire. Gaunt was surprised to see no guards but was not about to argue.

  The young-old man shouted and bellowed orders into the barn. Soon, a group of thralls departed, rushing toward a group exiting the farmhouse.

  The young-old man watched them go, murmuring something to someone back in the barn.

  “You are mine,” came a cold voice behind Gaunt.

  She whirled and beheld an immense, red-bearded man in a byrnie and crimson robe, spiked mace raised.

  “Skalagrim,” hissed Muninn. “This witch-woman ensorcelled me. She has powers of fire and ice—”

  “Oh shut up,” Gaunt said, and loosed an arrow at Skalagrim the Bloody.

  It pierced him in the shoulder, but the byrnie blunted the blow. Skalagrim roared and staggered, but in another moment he was upon her.

  Even forewarned, his ferocity amazed her. She brought the bow up instinctively to block him, and he swatted it aside. With a twang it arced out of sight.

  She dove sideways into the snow (away from Fartsnore) and drew Crypttongue. She rose just in time for Skalagrim’s fresh lunge. She blocked the mace and edged backward, losing her footing and falling to one knee.

  “Where are your powers now?” said Skalagrim, raising the mace.

  “Don’t believe anything Crowbeard says,” Gaunt answered, drawing and throwing a dagger.

  Skalagrim had good reflexes; her clear shot only grazed his cheek.

  The seeping wound seemed to make him see her clearly for the first time. “You . . . you are not the one in my dreams.”

  “I should hope not,” she muttered, scrambling backward and searching for her bow.

  Listen, came the voice of Floki, the slaver whose spirit was imprisoned within Crypttongue. I mean to pay back my former associates, who cared nothing for my blood-price. Skalagrim has a weakness. He can’t abide being mocked.

  Suddenly Skalagrim staggered, for an unexpected foe had appeared.

  Muninn Crowbeard stood shivering, his quivering hands gripping a bloodied axe.

  Skalagrim whirled. His mace knocked Muninn aside like an old chess piece. But now Gaunt had her bow, battered but still worthy. She sheathed Crypttongue, found another arrow, and shot Skalagrim in the back.

  “You!” he bellowed, spinning. “You must know about her. Tell me who she is, where she is. Is she laughing
at me?”

  “I should think so,” Gaunt said, her cold hands seeking a new arrow. “I would.”

  Bellowing curses, he lunged, wild, heedless—but now a third foe leapt upon him from the barn roof.

  “You!” roared Skalagrim.

  “Is my name so forgettable?” the newcomer said.

  “Bone!” Gaunt called out.

  “That’s more like it.” Bone grabbed Skalagrim’s beard and yanked. Gaunt did not think she dared hit Skalagrim under these circumstances, at least not with the bow. And Crypttongue would take time to redraw.

  She dropped the bow and clutched the arrow, rushing forward to poke at Skalagrim’s eyes.

  “You!” Skalagrim told them. “Both! Will! Die!”

  “They’re never very original are they, Bone?”

  “Not when their backs are against the wall, Gaunt.”

  Skalagrim roared backward and slammed himself against the barn.

  “Why don’t I learn to shut up?” Bone moaned from where he’d fallen off Skalagrim’s back.

  Skalagrim laughed and raised the mace.

  Gaunt had her third surprise of the fight. The young-old thrall appeared and whacked Skalagrim with a wooden bucket from the barn. Two more thralls joined him, striking with timber and shovel. Muninn was there too, for all that his hands shook, and he shouted bloodcurdling oaths.

  Skalagrim shoved them all aside and buried his mace in the stomach of the young-old thrall.

  “Go!” gasped the rescuer as he fell, coughing up blood. “I regain my family’s glory. . . .”

  “Come,” said one of the newcomers, a tall, deep-voiced man. “I will get your bow.”

  Gaunt was not even sure how he could have seen the bow in the moonlit snow, but she gripped her arrow in one hand and took Bone’s in the other. They ran like rabbits into the snow.

  “I expected—” Gaunt gasped as they reached the woods, “more guards.”

  “Skalagrim wasn’t enough, woman?” panted Muninn.

  “You shut up,” she told him. “You almost betrayed us—”

  “I saved you.”

  “That’s why you’re still alive.”

  “We didn’t count on Skalagrim,” Bone interrupted with heaving breaths. “But they didn’t count, ugh, on my putting dung in the stew. The guards were, uh, indisposed.”

  “You had your own plan,” Gaunt realized.

  “Oh, it wouldn’t have worked. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “It may still not work,” said a short Swanislander with bandaged hands. “Vuk, the skis are gone.”

  “The whats?” Bone said.

  “You had your ploy,” said the tall man, handing Gaunt her bow and joining the Swanislander beside the great tree. “We had ours. But someone has moved our gear and added their own.”

  “I stand guilty!” Gaunt said. “Let me show you.”

  Soon they had possession of two sets of gear. Gaunt got her pack on, after lightening it by giving Bone the armor pieces she’d gotten with Roisin’s guilt-money, a breastplate and guards for elbows and knees.

  “Thank you,” he said, sounding truly impressed. “They swing heavy weapons in this country.”

  “Let’s hear no more quibbling on how I spend our money,” she said, tightening his last knot. “Or about extra weight.” On that note she gave him Muninn’s pack, as the Kantening had been battered by the fight.

  “We have four sets,” said the tall fellow named Vuk. “But Havtor has sacrificed himself. I am quick-footed and used to snow. The rest of you will ski.”

  “Uh,” Bone said. “What will we see?”

  “No, no, you will ski. You will use two planks, each attached to one foot, to slide along in the snow.”

  “This is so we will look especially ridiculous to Skalagrim’s men when they catch us. Yes?”

  “No,” Vuk said, “this is so they won’t catch us. Trust me.”

  “How do you steer?”

  Muninn grabbed a pair of the long, straight branches and waved them at Bone’s face. “With these.”

  “Ah.” Bone rolled his eyes. “Gods help us, more sticks!”

  “I’ll show you the uses of a stick—”

  “Enough,” Gaunt said. “I’ll try it, if you’re so dubious, Bone.”

  “Wait,” Bone said, and he glared at Muninn. “I haven’t even had time to ask what the hell he’s doing here.”

  “I’m here because your wife is most persuasive,” Muninn said, throwing her a hard look. “I will share your adventure, to repay any debt to you.”

  “You will travel with us?” Bone exclaimed. “What of your wife, your wards?”

  “They will get along fine without me,” said Muninn. He chuckled, though it sounded rather like a gag. “Indeed, I once caught my wife getting along fine with the elder ward in the barn.”

  “Oh,” Gaunt said.

  “Ah, how can a foamreaver blame her? Her blood’s still hot, and I am a palsied waste. She loves me still, I think. But when she wants me, it’s a desire mixed with pity, as satisfying as cheap spirits. You like it at the hour, but it poisons you over the days. Let it rest. Let me roam.”

  “Indeed,” Bone murmured. “Let’s go.”

  Into the tall, deep Kantenjord woods they went.

  CHAPTER 13

  TORFA

  Mother Earth and Father Sky, thought Lady Steelfox of the Karvak Realm, I wander a place so dim I cannot tell black from white. I cannot distinguish colors on the horses I must ride. Help your daughter find her way.

  Steelfox had attended state gatherings before, representing her particular khanate and the Karvaks at large. She’d shared wine with the gold-bedecked Oirpata, taken tea with proud warriors of the Five Islands, broken bread in Kantening trading forts beside the Mirrored Sea. She had her power base in the taiga forest realm of the True People, whom Karvaks named the Reindeer People. She was no stranger to peculiar customs and new foods, and prided herself on a diplomatic tongue.

  None of that had prepared her for the bleak, volcanic shores of Oxiland. Oxiland was mad.

  The Oxilanders were even now screaming at each other like children.

  “You’ve betrayed us, Huginn!”

  “Nonsense, I’ve created an opportunity!”

  “Did you know of this, Jokull?”

  “No, Gissur. Huginn said he’d solve the mystery of the Orb Dragons.”

  “And have I not done so?”

  “I would wipe that smile from your face with a sword-edge, Huginn, were you not under my roof.”

  Steelfox either had to watch them snarl or nibble at the carcass in front of her, the fermented remains of some gigantic toothy fish. There was alcohol of course, green stuff that burned the mouth. That was surely part of the problem, but she kept drinking it anyway. She wanted to skulk off to a tent.

  She’d been given to believe this Jokull Loftsson was some manner of king and could treat with Steelfox on behalf of his people. Now, four days after her arrival, as she sat serenely beside him in her best blue deel, her dark hair bundled high and coated with fat, Jokull still bellowed angrily like a drunken bravo, arguing with the men named Ylur, Styr, Gissur, and Huginn—the last now revealed as one of Jewelwolf’s agents. The one who was supposed to smooth everything over.

  “Consider the advantages, Jokull!” Huginn was saying. “The Karvak Realm is so expansive, you could drop all of Oxiland into it and it would be lost in the grasses. With their balloons and Wind-Tamers they’ll set up a trade network to beggar the routes to the Mirrored Sea or Amberhorn. No more will there be a Braid of Spice, but a Braid of Clouds! We can sell them our meats and cheeses, our walrus and narwhal ivory . . . and in return we’ll have the luxuries of the East! Muslin, spices, jade, even ironsilk!”

  Steelfox cleared her throat. “Gentlemen. What Huginn says is true. The world is changing. We now command the skies. The Karvaks would be glad to add Oxiland as an ally. We will be visiting these islands often.”

  “Don
’t listen to the witch-woman!” said the bellicose, red-bearded chief named Styr. “I have seen her familiar, a falcon that even now circles this steading.”

  At his words, Steelfox couldn’t help but stretch her mind to where her bond-animal flew, keeping an eye on Innocence Gaunt.

  The boy was not party to this meeting; Huginn had bidden him wait outside the great hall, in case a scribe was wanted. The falcon Qurca whirled high above Jokull’s steading, watching the lad, who paced back and forth beside the wall. Light snow was falling, whirling between the pillars as Innocence scowled and trod. Steelfox did not know his mind, but she could sympathize with his mood. Important matters were being discussed, and he had no part of it.

  Yet soon enough, when she could arrange it, he would be in an important talk of his own. She’d been surprised to see him here, but perhaps the hands of the gods were in it. Soon she must make her offer.

  “She is under my protection as well,” Jokull was saying, reminding her that dividing her attention in this way was dangerous. “Lady Steelfox. You say your people will be ‘visiting.’ You and your party have behaved courteously. But I’ve heard from our cousins along the Mirrored Sea that your people are ruthless conquerors.”

  “We have a reputation for bloodthirstiness,” Steelfox said. She did not so much as glance at the two warriors who stood behind her in their conical helmets and armor coats, staring over the seated nobles at two of Loftsson’s men, bareheaded but protected by mail shirts. “Though the same,” she added, “could be said for your own people.”

  “Point taken. What will you do if we reject you?”

  “That is not truly my decision. My sister Jewelwolf is in charge of our venture in these islands. Where conquest is the goal, she commands. Where diplomacy is desired, I will act.” She tried to keep the bitterness from her voice. Steelfox was one of the best archers in the realm, but she was never accounted a war-leader, nor a baatar, a courageous combatant.

  “You are refreshingly blunt,” said the youngest chief, a yellow-haired man named Gissur.

  “We are strange to each other,” Steelfox said. “There will be much misunderstanding, even if we strive to be honest.”