1633880583 (F)

by Chris Willrich

  “Eh?” called out Crowbeard.

  “Would a ‘dimensional portal’ look like an opening to a moonlit sea?” said Vuk. “If so the answer is yes.”

  “There is a new plan!” Gaunt said. “That’s where we’re going!”

  They scrambled downstairs, and Muninn and Vuk joined them in regarding an opening to a bizarre body of water. Inexplicably, there seemed to be a stone church rising from the waves. Farther off lay a small, rocky island, and beyond that, a large one.

  “Once we are through the portal,” Gaunt said, “swim for that church.”

  “May we get an explanation?” Alder said.

  “Gaunt said so,” Bone said. “That is adequate explanation for anything. Now, who will be first?”

  There was a moment of hesitation. Bone coughed. “Very well, I . . .”

  The portal vanished. In its place was carven wood. The church again became ancient and dusty, and the ruddy light became bright and clear.

  “I take it back!” Alder said. “I don’t need an explanation!”

  The doors burst open, and in came Skalagrim, Rafnar, Arngrimur, and Einar.

  “Enough witchery!” Skalagrim yelled. “Our day is dawning, when we carve the isles between us, trolls and nomads at our side! But first we carve you!”

  Alder muttered and raised his hands.

  Muggur Barrow-Friend strode down the aisle. “Too late to surrender, slave.”

  But it was not a gesture of surrender. The wave in the ground returned, this time rushing through the structure of the church.

  Everyone toppled, as did the altar, some statuary, and a few rafters. The light changed; aside from the fresh damage, the church again looked new. And the portal was open.

  “The Straits of Tid,” Muggur said, rising.

  Vuk ran to him and hacked away with his old sword. It bit deep, but Rafnar countered with a blow that savaged Vuk, leaving a red trail in the sunset light.

  “Go!” Vuk gasped. “Escape!”

  “Move, gentlemen!” Gaunt said. “I’ll get Vuk!” She drew Crypttongue, offering her other arm to Vuk. Skalagrim had reason to fear the blade, but Muggur had no knowledge of it. Thus he was startled to find Gaunt’s sword jabbing at him everywhere he turned. He stepped back. Losing composure, he swung his axe wildly and destroyed a pew.

  Bone shoved Alder through the portal, hoping the man could swim. He threw a dagger at Muggur, and it found a home in the man’s ample gut.

  “That tickles, fool,” said Muggur. His fellows were advancing behind him. Bone knew a lost cause when he saw one.

  “Let’s be gone, Gaunt—”

  “Come on, Vuk!” said Gaunt. “I’ve got you.”

  “Too late for me . . .” said Vuk. Yet some final strength took hold of the Wagonlord, and he lunged out of Gaunt’s grasp and charged the Wolves.

  Muggur and Skalagrim hit him with axes simultaneously, and Vuk fell.

  “No!” Gaunt yelled.

  “Go!” Bone said, tugging her toward the portal. Together with Crowbeard they stepped forward—

  —and collided with the wooden wall.

  “That’s not good,” Bone said, in the renewed dawn.

  Skalagrim began chuckling.

  “No,” Crowbeard said. “No—laughing!”

  He never could have managed the attack, Bone thought later, except that he’d caught them completely by surprise.

  Crowbeard grabbed Crypttongue from Gaunt’s grasp and rushed the Wolves. Screaming something about Torden’s foul breath he drove the saber into Muggur’s massive form. For all that the result was of benefit, it was sickening to see the powerful man fall dead from a single blow, a look of astonishment upon his face. Muggur fell backward into Skalagrim, and the Wolves’ bulk worked against them as they stumbled against the pews and each other.

  “Hahaha!” Crowbeard said, as he raced along the side of the sanctuary for the front door.

  “Best we follow,” Bone said, taking his own advice, stopping only to grab the old sword poor Vuk had carried.

  “Absolutely!” Gaunt agreed, close behind. “The bastard took my sword!”

  “I thought you were ambivalent about the thing!”

  “Not when Crowbeard steals it!”

  They exited the stave church. In the snowy dawn they ran for the treeline. Bone hoped they could stay ahead of the Wolves. Or that at least they could run faster than mad Crowbeard.

  “Crowbeard, come back here!” Gaunt shouted.

  “No!” Crowbeard called over his shoulder. “Muggur, Floki, the Charstalker, and I, we are going to escape to glory!”

  “Charstalker?” Bone asked.

  The four surviving Wolves burst out of the church.

  Free of obstacles, their speed was obscene. Crowbeard, the old foamreaver freshly invigorated by the influence of Crypttongue, reached the treeline, but Gaunt and Bone found themselves cut off by Skalagrim the Bloody, Rafnar Dragon-Axe, Arngrimur Townflayer, and Einar Bringer of Wailing. At least, Bone thought, their last moments would have made a good song.

  “Gaunt—sword!” He tossed her the old, mundane blade, suspecting she’d make better use of it. He got a dagger in each hand.

  “Thanks!”

  “It’s been fun—”

  “Likewise—”

  They began the fight. Bone expected them to last whole seconds.

  Out of nowhere, Muninn Crowbeard returned, screaming, waving Crypttongue. This distracted the Wolves. They had come to respect the sword.

  At the same time a shaking commenced, and the world changed.

  Dawn turned to sunset, the clearing grew flat and well cleared, the ruined windmill rose whole and spinning, and a thunderous rumbling emerged from the church, amid a flight of startled crows.

  Bone could not help but spin, as all the Wolves were staring that way.

  Alder ran out, snarling, “Die, foamreavers!”

  The church collapsed behind him, and as he gestured a wave of shaped ground rose ahead of him.

  Gaunt and Bone dove to either side.

  The wave hit the Wolves and shoved them, like a vast hand, deep into the woods.

  Gaunt recovered her wits first, Crypttongue second. Bone helped Crowbeard up.

  “I . . . was . . . magnificent,” Crowbeard murmured.

  “Of course you were.” Bone led him on behind Gaunt to where Alder had fallen.

  “Had to come back,” the Swanlander was saying, shaking and pale. “The girl on the narwhal, the Chooser of the Slain . . . said if I turned back I belonged in the hall of heroes. Sounded like a turn of good luck. . . .”

  “Alder?” Gaunt said.

  “He’s gone.” Bone closed the eyes of the man whose life he’d once helped save, and who had now saved theirs. He made a fist. It shook like Crowbeard’s.

  “We must go,” Crowbeard said, his voice subdued. “The Wolves.”

  “We should at least move Alder’s body into the church,” Gaunt said. Together she and Bone got the unlucky magic-worker and settled him amid the wreckage, beside the bell. Now Vuk had a companion here.

  The light returned to dawn, and the windmill joined the church in looking ruined.

  “Now may we go?”

  “Yes, Crowbeard,” Bone said.

  “Don’t suppose you could loan me that blade?” After a pause: “I mean the other one.”

  “No, Crowbeard,” Gaunt said.

  They recovered enough skis to make their way north, sliding through long shadows.

  CHAPTER 21

  A JOURNEY TO KANTENJORD, CONTINUED

  (As told by Northwing, Shaman of the True People)

  Of the finding of the document

  There are things that happen for a reason. And there are things that simply happen. I’m not sure which of the two best describes finding one of Haytham’s notebooks lying on the floor of Skrymir’s audience cave. The trolls had ignored it as so much garbage, and just between you and me, they’re good at ignoring garbage. I knew at once what it was, howev
er, for I’d seen Haytham’s calligraphy many times. It was striking, precise, kind of fussy. Like him. But seeing it as I shuffled in the corner during the war council, feeling a trifle lonely, was like stumbling on an old friend. I snatched it up.

  And so I discovered it was really like finding two friends. Flipping through the pages adorned with Haytham’s flowing Mirabad script, I suddenly ran into words in another hand, this time using the script of Geam, which the Karvaks share. The language itself was Anokan, which I know, and there was something a bit off-kilter about the script and language, and I realized it was the work of Mad Katta, whom I’d seen scribbling aboard Al-Saqr with that noctograph thing as we flew from Svardmark to Spydbanen. I remembered him explaining his intent.

  “It’s a record of events, Northwing. What Haytham calls a ‘vessel’s timber.’”

  “Ship’s log,” Haytham called out from across the gondola.

  “Yes, that.”

  “Perhaps,” said Princess Corinna, our not-quite-accidentally kidnapped royal passenger, “it will be kept in the Royal Archives.”

  “Sure,” I said. “If you should perish in some bloodcurdling way, your family may indeed be interested.”

  “Then I hope,” Corinna said, “Katta takes down everything in excruciating detail.”

  “You remind me of my patron, Lady Steelfox,” I said. “Except that she doesn’t just have a love for adventure, she has common sense.”

  “Oh, I have far too much common sense, shaman. It has kept me bottled up in Svanstad for more years than I care to think of. I’ve been entirely too safe. In our silver mines, there’s enough unrest that people are willing to die defying the crown. Have I ever seen those mines? No. We upbraid the Gold-Jarl of Gullvik about the slave trade, but have I ever said it to his face? No. Many of our men go to Fiskegard to fish over the winter. Have I ever been there? No. I am a princess and must be safe. Such nonsense. What limited freedom I have, I maintain by keeping suitors at bay. My father, before his infirmity, trained me to fight, but I’ve never been allowed real combat. I’ve a man’s heart, but I’m trapped in a woman’s role.”

  I found her words interesting. “You say you have a ‘man’s heart.’ What does that mean? Do you think only men’s hearts crave adventure?”

  “It’s just how we speak of it. Men have one sphere, women another. But I am much more interested in the energetic—and, frankly, violent—aspects of their sphere. And I find prospective husbands pleasant enough. . . .” Here her gaze flicked to Haytham’s, and his to hers, in a way each probably thought the other didn’t notice. “. . . but I’m not much interested in marriage. Give me the hunt! The voyage! The battle! This balloon flight amazes me, and I’m prepared for the storms that will surely come.” She looked down upon miles and miles of snow-covered pine forest. The view and her words took me backward in time.

  In a forest not so unlike the one that passed below, I’d spent my girlhood. I say girlhood even though from an early age I felt uneasy being considered a girl. I didn’t particularly think I was a boy either. Both ideas were like the big bucks leading trains of reindeer. Behind the beasts named Girl and Boy, let’s say, were ones with names like Weaver, Gatherer, Hearth-keeper, Wife, Mother. Or else Hunter, Tanner, Warrior, Husband, Father. And each line of animals snorted and ran and ate in their own way, with customs peculiar to each. I didn’t particularly see why we all had to hurry to get into one line or another, but that was the expectation.

  Except among the shamans. We feared them but also respected them. And they had a strange way of living. Those of male sex would take the garb normally reserved for women and go about their duties with a feminine air. Shamans of female sex would take the clothes and manners of men. Eventually the womanish shamans might even marry an ordinary man of the tribe, or a mannish shaman might marry an ordinary woman. In rare cases two shamans might marry.

  Not all the shamans felt quite as I did—as neither man nor woman. But their society was a haven for me. I wondered if Corinna felt similarly betwixt, with her possession of “a man’s heart.” Yet when I broached the subject she seemed confused by my words.

  Life is crazy sometimes. We talk as though across a vast, snowy plain, tossing words at each other like clumps of snow. Sometimes they fall apart before they reach anybody. Sometimes they clump together all too well and hurt when they strike. Why did I imagine my experience would make any sense to Corinna? Mad Katta is my own countryman, and he studied with the shamans, and yet even he does not really understand me.

  Ah, Katta—I hope you are well. We were comrades long enough that I think of you as a friend. Though I may never say that to your face.

  Perhaps for that reason, I have taken up this document that I cannot read, adding to it my own “Secret History,” in the manner of the Karvaks, using their script. Only the world-birthing spirit knows what will become of it, or me.

  Of the beginning

  This business of writing things is exhausting. Haytham and Katta are more mad than I thought.

  Let us begin at “the beginning.”

  Not the before-time when the world-birthing spirit made the land and sea, nor the days in which the Wood-power and Blood-power made plants and animals. Not the days when the True People journeyed north and learned the ways of the reindeer and their migrations. Nor when the Karvaks took our land and named us the “Reindeer People.”

  No, by “the beginning” I mean the story Inga Peersdatter told me.

  She was close to death when I leapt off that bizarre spirit object named Deadfall, and it took all my power to save her. Having an arm hacked off spells doom for most. But not every such victim has a shaman.

  I ignored the surging mass of trolls except to exclaim now and again, “Back off! I’m saving her!” until I heard Skrymir Hollowheart say in Kantentongue, “Let it be. As she says.” Furiously I bandaged the wound he had made and, leaning in, held it tight with my hands, chanting to her essence to remain in her body, and for spirits of light to chase out any infection that might come. As I did these things, it was as if the cavern was suffused with light. The trolls were like green flames in my sight, and Inga was a fluttering fire that mixed troll-green with the more usual orange-red human flame (for in my spirit sight humans look like the natural fire they’ve aligned themselves with for so long). My song captured spirits of the fresh mountain wind, blue-lit rippling things like blazing water snakes, and sent them flashing through Inga’s body. From time to time a noxious thing like a deep-red smoky blaze sought to enter Inga’s form, but the mountain spirits flashed them back.

  I think over an hour passed. I sank into an exhausted sleep. In my dreams my own spirit floated above the mountain, and I saw the thousands of Karvak tents and the score of balloons among them. I saw pastureland in lower valleys where horses and sabercats were kept, and another valley with goats and cattle and other beasts of nomad life. I realized the Great Karvak Nation, the People of the Felt Walls, were in earnest about whatever they were about.

  Far to the north, I had a sense of bright light, concentrated energy. There was a lot of spirit activity beyond these troll-mountains, but I had no idea what it represented.

  I returned to myself when Inga shook me.

  “Hello?” she asked, her voice gruff and a little frightened. I did not like anyone to be frightened (except of me sometimes), and I forced myself to return to myself.

  “You. You’re awake. Before me.” I sat up. We were in a sort of stockade in a cave near the throne cavern. I suspected the trolls had snacked on the previous occupants. Inga was indeed awake, a little feverish but alert. I yelled at the trolls and bade them bring Khorkhog.

  “Who’s Khorkhog?” said the girl. “Do I want to know?”

  “Not who, what. It’s lamb or goat stew cooked with hot rocks. Hearty Karvak stuff.”

  “I could use hearty stuff. . . . You saved me, shaman. . . .”

  “Just call me Northwing. Take it easy, Inga. That would have been a fatal blow for most.”

/>   “Well, I am a changeling.”

  “A what?”

  “Oh, right, you’re from far away . . . I’m really a troll, who grew up as a human. I think being among humans shaped me, made me look like them, grow like them. But I’m not. I feel my stump itch. I don’t know how long it will take, but that arm’s going to grow back.”

  I have to admit, I felt a little revulsion hearing this, when I should have been happy for anyone getting to grow back an arm. We’re all narrow-visioned in our own way.

  Khorkhog proved a good choice. Inga wolfed it down. “It’s strange,” she said when she’d half-finished it, “but good.”

  “I feel that way about Kantening food. The things you do with fish . . . gah.”

  Later, when she’d belched and leaned against the wall, she said, “Thanks for saving me. And getting me food. Not sure which one I’m happier about. What are they going to do to us?”

  “I’m hoping they’ll give us to the Karvaks. If they don’t eat us soon that’s probably what will happen.”

  “Well, that’s cheerful.”

  “I’m not a very optimistic person.”

  “What happens if the Karvaks take us?”

  “Depends on who’s in charge. If my patron Steelfox is out there, we’re fine. If it’s her sister Lady Jewelwolf, we may be in for trouble.”

  “If a Karvak is your patron, what were you doing flying around in a Mirabad inventor’s balloon?”

  “That’s a long story. If you’re a troll, what were you doing growing up in a human village?”

  “That’s not a long story. Not much to tell.”

  “Then I suggest you go first. If the trolls eat us, we’re more likely to have heard a complete tale.”

  “I’m starting to hate you, Northwing.”

  “It’s a popular opinion. Talk.”

  She talked.

  THE BEGINNING

  In the beginning, the Creator took up Her brush and painted all the worlds.

  That’s the first part of Swan-scripture, one of the things we get from the People of the Brush, and it’s the start of what my mother would read to me right after she swatted me with the Godbok, every time. Which was often. I think she was trying to calm herself down with the words, as much as she was trying to turn me into a good Swanling. Word had it that my mother had lost her real daughter by failing to keep steel and salmebok beside her crib—my crib—and trolls or uldra had crept in and snatched her away, leaving little old me behind.