Steelfox nods.
Jewelwolf smiles. “Begin at dawn, General.”
And the trolls roar with satisfaction, and the Kantening barbarians shout with glee, and the Karvaks go about their business with the discipline that has shaken the world.
And I? I reach out to a natural world that will soon know much more pain and death than usual, and although I obey, I cannot celebrate. I wonder at the feelings of the many Karvak Wind-Tamers, shamans who are my almost-colleagues, who hear the roaring down in the valley and begin their own preparations. And beyond, far to the northeast, I wonder at the spirit energies I sense there, in a place no troll or Kantening has spoken of. And—
“What do you think you’re doing?” Jewelwolf says, looming above me. “You should be helping my sister . . . you impudent Reindeer People savage, are you writing what I’m saying? How dare—
(Here ends the portion of the A Journey to Kantenjord in the hand of Northwing, shaman of the True People. The bloodstain is presumed to be hers.)
CHAPTER 22
PYRES
Gaunt, Bone, and Muninn Crowbeard emerged from the shadows of the Morkskag and skied through high, snowy country, passing ruined farmhouses and copses of trees, crossing frozen streams and ridges that seemed to have strayed from their mountain parents.
“We’re in the Gamellaw now,” Crowbeard said. “The realm of the old ways. No nations up here. It’s a rough place, but if you can lie low for a year and a day, Bone, most will agree you’re free of your bonds.”
“A year and a day,” Gaunt said, the image of Innocence fresh in her mind. “We can’t hide that long. We need to find that stone church.”
“No stone churches up this way,” said Crowbeard. “Not in Laksfjord. More a bunch of farms and a marketplace than a town. The chief thereabouts is Harald the Far-Traveled, a priest of Torden. He won’t defy the Gull-Jarl, but news doesn’t get here fast. We can probably stay a day.”
At sunset they descended to a fjord with snowy white fields and farmhouses scattered throughout. They inquired at a longhouse near the green-blue waters, flanked by sentinels of bare trees. A nondescript guard let them in.
They waited upon fireside benches with other guests, for it seemed to be a time of good cheer. Someone played a fiddle, one with the same haunting sound as they’d heard in Gullvik. Soon a gray-haired man in a cloak of rich colors came to sit beside them.
“Can it be?” said the chieftain. “Muninn Sure-Hand, I am certain of it!”
“I’m glad you’re sure, Harald, because I’m sure not. I go by Crowbeard now.”
“You don’t say! You have bones in your beard, like some sort of witch-man!”
“A wise woman told me they’d wing me from trouble. I think I want my money back.”
“Ha! You were always a surly one. And who are your companions?”
“I am Lepton,” Gaunt said, “and this is my husband Osteon. We are lately of Amberhorn.”
“A long journey!”
“You have no idea,” Bone said. “But we’re glad to have arrived in such a hospitable land.”
“Courtesy! Well, Muninn, or Crowbeard, I get few visitors from my old foamreaving days. You will stay in my hall. Share tales and good cheer. Or, if you are of a Swanling mind, their church is celebrating Saint Fiametta’s night. Though I’ll warn you they’re superstitious about the Vestvinden fiddle, so you’ll hear none there!”
“Why do they fear the fiddle?” Gaunt asked.
“It’s said it attracts and enchants spirits, especially the fossegrim of the waterfalls. But then, it also attracts drunkenness and revelry, and the Swan-church dislikes such things.”
“I am no Swanling,” Crowbeard said. “I would love to hear old tales, and a fiddle.”
Gaunt saw an opportunity. “My husband and I, on the other hand, have been too long away from Mass.”
“We have?” Bone said. Gaunt stepped on his foot. “We have!”
“You will want to leave that sword,” Harald said, eyeing Crypttongue. “I don’t mind folk going armed—indeed, the All-Father’s sayings encourage it—but the priest is particular about weapons and armor in church.”
“In the days of the stave churches,” Gaunt said, “it was otherwise.”
“Are you a historian of the Swan-church?”
“Not exactly.” She and Bone shared a look.
“I give you my word,” Harald said, “no one will touch your property.”
“Very well,” she said.
Leaving the hall several bits of metal lighter, Bone said, “Mind you, I have reason to doubt the honor of Kantening chiefs.”
“I understand.” She’d already spotted the church upslope on the northern side of the fjord and led Bone there arm-in-arm. The mouth of the fjord was glowing with rosy light, and her mood lifted. She laughed.
“What is it?” Bone asked.
“Me. Despite everything I’ve done, everywhere I’ve gone, I cling to an image of myself as a well-to-do farm girl of Swanisle.” She gestured. “But the thought was occasioned by a setting my countrymen would call barbaric.”
“I wondered why you were so eager to go to the church.” He sighed. “I’ve been able to give you many things, but never normality. The demons and monsters and assassins may have gotten in the way of that.” He paused. “Demons. Crowbeard talked about a Charstalker in the sword. That’s a very particular term.”
“Yes. It’s true. There’s an Eastern demon in there, and it’s indeed the kind that nurtures hate over several incarnations. Previously it was in the body of Muggur Barrow-Friend.”
“What is it doing here?”
“Its answers are evasive,” Gaunt said, “but I gather it and eight comrades came out here because there is some sort of connection between the Heavenwalls in the East and the Chain in the West. They found the Nine Wolves congenial hosts and stayed around.”
“Strange. I suppose having such a thing in church would not be in the spirit of the proceedings.”
“No indeed. Thank you for coming along, Bone.” She laughed. “If nothing else, perhaps the next time the priestess in Gullvik takes a reading of your soul, you won’t end up with the slavers.”
“Please don’t joke about that.”
She stopped and studied him there in the dim light.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He nodded.
She said, “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Want?” He chuckled. “You know . . . I’ve been looked at with scorn, derision, and hate, Persimmon.” He put his hands around her face, as if he hoped to send the memories from his sinew directly into her bones. “But until now no one’s ever looked at me like I was a human-shaped shovel or butter churn.” He laughed, let go, turned away. “Think of people looking at you like that every day. Nothing personal, no malice, just the facts of life. Cows moo. Ducks quack. You’re a slave. It gets into your head.”
She reached out, put her arms around him. “Let me put other things into your head. If it takes a lifetime, we’ll make those memories fade.”
He said no more and followed her to the Swan-church.
This church was a much simpler affair than the old ruin in the Morkskag. There were some fifty worshippers, and Gaunt and Bone attracted stares. Of course they did. Even in Kantenjord the tattooed woman and the scarred man stuck out.
She held her head high, prepared to list their pedigree, references, and heists.
Then came the pageant, and her smile became more easy. Very small children played gingerbread men and tiny, helpful uldra. She could not follow the Kantentongue well enough to understand how these elements figured into a story about a saint who lived centuries ago and thousands of miles away. Maybe it didn’t matter. Soon came older children playing some kind of star-wizard, and she did not understand that either.
She studiously did not laugh at any incongruities, stumbles, or miscues.
At last came Saint Fiametta herself, a freckled teenaged girl with lit candles in a wreath around her head
.
“Gaunt,” Bone whispered. “This is a dangerous land indeed. The girls light their heads on fire.”
“Hush.”
The congregation sang of Saint Fiametta’s kindness, embodied as light. She could not follow the words, but she hummed the tune. She held Bone’s hand. She thought of missing friends, of Alder and Vuk. Of Innocence. Candleflames danced and shadows swirled.
They returned under starlight to Harald the Far-Traveled’s hall. They walked unspeaking at first, and it was satisfying to be silent together. Traveling with others they’d had little privacy, and much to say when they had it. She sighed, realizing she’d enjoyed the walk so much she’d forgotten her ulterior motive in taking Bone to church. “Bone. We must talk about Crowbeard.”
“Must we?”
“He’s been helpful, Bone. But.”
“He sold me into slavery. Yes, I do remember that. That does erode my trust somewhat—”
He broke off. His face became red-lit. “Gaunt—”
She spun and saw a nightmare. Harald’s hall was burning.
They ran, other men and women joining them. Fire flayed the darkness, shifting orange claws illuminating a column of smoke. Crowbeard lay sprawled before the burning entrance.
Another man raised a saber, glinting in the firelight.
It was the hall’s lone guard, the nondescript man.
“Ah! Lepton and Osteon. Or should I say, Gaunt and Bone? For my late lord, my ring-giver, did recognize the woman with the rose-and-spiderweb tattoo and the man with the two scars on his face, one from blade, one from flame. You are not the most famous people who have fared along the world’s roads, but you are hardly unknown, and Harald was indeed Far-Traveled.”
“Was?” Gaunt demanded, staring at the sword that was recently hers.
“His body lies dead and burnt behind me. But his spirit dwells within this fascinating blade. Yes, he swore an oath, but Grundi serves mightier masters.”
“Are you one of the Nine Wolves?” Bone demanded. “Did Skalagrim alert you?”
“Them?” Grundi laughed. “I care nothing for such rabble. I am an agent of the khatun Jewelwolf. She is marching even now. I was to smooth her passage, but she will understand my decision when I bring her this prize.”
“Bring her this,” Gaunt muttered, and hurled a fist-sized rock.
The man deflected it smoothly with Crypttongue, the magical blade shattering stone.
At the same moment, daggers flew from Bone’s hands, for he’d covertly carried a pair. One was similarly knocked from the air, but the second sunk into the spy’s side. Grundi snarled. “I have not yet mastered this weapon, but I shall! Kantenjord will burn!”
“I care little for Kantenjord,” Bone said, “but that’s Gaunt’s sword you have there.”
“I already know it better than she. Floki, Muggur, and the Charstalker send their regards.”
With that Grundi rushed into the night, bearing Crypttongue and Gaunt’s hate. Armed men tried to stop him. He slew two, barely breaking stride, and Gaunt’s second stone missed. He rushed into the snowy night.
“We,” Crowbeard gasped. “We must find him . . . he will leave footprints . . .” Warriors rushed off even as he spoke.
Bone knelt beside the old man. “Easy. We need to make certain you are all right.”
“You’d do that for one who betrayed you?”
“Reminding me is perhaps unwise . . .”
“Bone,” Gaunt said, her tone sharp. “Our gear. The Chart. We may need it to find Innocence.”
They raced around back, found another entrance, dove into the smoky ruin.
It was a lavishly bad idea, Bone realized. Smoke from a burning wall was coiling along the ceiling and up through the openings in the roof, but quite a bit of the miasma was stubbornly staying in the building. Bone remembered a bit of lore from dead Master Sidewinder, his old teacher in the trade. Never burn a building or be tempted to torch one. But if you find yourself in a burning structure, stay low, for smoke will rise. He followed the advice, and Gaunt did likewise. The next part was Then Get Out, and he regretted not following that part.
Their armor and his pack were a loss, but Gaunt found her bow. He snagged Gaunt’s pack. As they turned to go, Gaunt pointed to the body of Harald the Far-Traveled, dead from a thrust to the heart. It was not burned as the spy had claimed, though the night was young. Nonetheless, dead was dead.
A coldly practical assessment of a hot-tempered people made Bone take a risk. He gestured and Gaunt nodded.
They reemerged from the great hall dragging Harald’s body.
The irony, Gaunt thought as they boarded the ship a week later, bags of Laksfjord gold in hand, was that Harald’s heirs were going to burn him anyway, in a mock longship on a mound of earth. But it was the principle of the thing. Impressed by her and Bone’s heroism, they’d paid a reward and arranged passage for Oxiland with a band called the Lardermen.
Crowbeard insisted on joining them in the search for Innocence, for he’d been to Oxiland—indeed, he’d seen a majestic church there that matched the one glimpsed on the Straits of Tid—and said he still had a debt to pay.
They berthed amid crates of victuals and barrels of liquor as the carrack Raveneye sailed down Laksfjord. Aquavit, it seemed, was a spiced spirit whose production, for inscrutable reasons, required aging aboard a ship. As a result the hold had a heady atmosphere. Crowbeard excused himself, for foamreaving days were thick in his mind, and he wanted to be on deck. Once they’d spread blankets, the rocking of the boat bumped them together. Gaunt laughed, and it cheered Bone to see her relaxed. He kissed her.
“My, sir,” she said, nuzzling up to him. “You are forward.”
“Yes,” he said. He felt giddy, his desire stoked. “I realize this is no inn, but perhaps . . .”
“You do realize Crowbeard could show up at any moment?”
His hands ceased their explorations. “Damn.”
She stroked his chin with her finger. “How about some fresh air?”
“Wise,” he sighed.
On the deck, Captain Glint was studying the dawn, which had come red, illuminating a carpet of thick clouds. “I mislike this sky,” he said. Glint was lean of face and thick of beard, with a protruding jaw and an expression that warned of impending bloodshed. “Storm is in our future. If it hits while we still sail for Laksfjord, I will take it as an omen and turn back.”
Crowbeard said, tying knots, “I think it will be on the open sea, from the taste of the air.”
Glint squinted. “You know all that, from the look of it and the taste?”
“It’s only a guess, Captain. I’ve made many voyages.”
“You tie a good knot too—” Glint’s voice broke off as he saw a tremor seize Crowbeard’s hands. “All you all right?”
“It’s nothing,” said Crowbeard, and nothing was what the captain said.
The journey down Laksfjord took a full day. The open sea was choppy but manageable, and Bone had wholly forgotten the rumors of storm. But at night the moon rose crimson, with ghostly red rings around it, as though it were a spectral archery target. The sea went calm.
“Pretty,” Bone said.
But the crew murmured, and Crowbeard swore. “Not so pretty, landsman. That’s what we used to call a storm-lantern moon.”
Captain Glint shook his head. “Too many portents. I’ll not make for Smokecoast now. We’ll skirt back toward the Chained Strait and beyond that to the Meadow of Whales. I’ll drop you three at Vinderhus. I’m loath to brave a storm so close to the Draugmaw.”
“Fair enough,” said Bone. “I only want to reach Oxiland and find our son.”
“Ah,” Glint said, voice warming a little, “so you are seeking family. I wondered what would bring you to that desolate, mad place. Did your son go there seeking employment? Adventure?”
“It’s hard to say,” Gaunt said. “We parted in anger.”
“Well, I have no children, but I left my childhood home in Spydb
anen and never looked back. The usual story, youngest son, no place for me on the farm. So I suppose estrangement is not so unfamiliar to me. Couldn’t imagine my own parents come looking.”
“It’s unfinished business,” Bone said, surprising himself with his willingness to speak. “He can hate us if he wants. But he’s young yet, to be wandering the world alone.”
Glint squinted at Gaunt and Bone anew. “This boy of yours. He wouldn’t be perhaps thirteen or fourteen summers? Yea tall? With blue eyes and red hair?”
“Yes!” Gaunt said. “You have word of him?”
“Word of him? I’ve seen him!”
“Red hair and blue eyes,” Bone cautioned, “must describe thousands of youths hereabouts.”
“Nevertheless,” the captain said, “I see it in your faces. The way he walks, the way she talks. The Swan’s guided you here, or else the fate-weavers threaded us together.”
Eagerly, as Raveneye scudded for Oxiland, they pressed him for everything he could remember of the boy Erik Glint knew as Askelad.
In time they passed the Chained Straits, and Gaunt and Bone beheld the Great Chain of Unbeing. Maps had not conveyed the unnatural nature of the place. The headlands of Svardmark and Spydbanen stretched far out over the waters, looking like they must surely crumble. It was easy to imagine a supernatural origin for the islands. Immense metal chains wrapped around each extension, linking them to a small, craggy island in the midst of the straits. From miles off they could see occasional flashes of lighting traveling along the length of the Chain.
They saw something else as well.
“Bone,” Gaunt said, squinting. “Are those Karvak tents, there, and there?”
“There too. They’re everywhere the Chain is.”
“What are they doing here?”
“I wonder if Steelfox is mixed up in this,” Bone said. “She was supposed to meet us in Fiskegard, originally. I wonder if we should pay the Karvaks a visit—”
“Ware weather!” cried a lookout.
There would be no visiting the rough coasts of the Chained Straits, for a new storm billowed grim, bearing down upon them from the northeast.
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