A Handful of Men: The Complete Series

by Dave Duncan

  Leaning on his crutch, the cripple beat dust from his clothes with his free hand. He wore a homespun robe of drab brown, a woman’s garment. Real men in Nordland never covered their chests until there was ice on the buckets. The gray eyes flickered from one boy to the other.

  “Athelings? Krasnegar and Spithfrith?” The grotesque teeth blurred his speech, but there was an odd lilt to it.

  “Aye, sir.”

  “We are not being at sea now.”

  “No. I mean, yes, sir.” Gath realized that the colorless eyes were surprisingly bright and perceptive. He felt they were looking right through him.

  “And you are calling me ‘sir’ you are asking for trouble, Twist being my name. Come, then.” He set off at a fair pace, swinging wildly on his crutch so that it was impossible to walk close to him. Soon his breath was wheezing and rattling, but he did not slow down.

  Vork sneaked a hand on Gath’s arm to hold him back. He looked worried. “What happens?” he whispered.

  Gath grinned. “Wait and see!”

  Seers had reputations to keep up. He wasn’t about to admit that he did not know.

  * * *

  The streets were narrow and wound higgledy-piggledy between the low cottages. Goats grazed on the sod roofs, bleating at the passersby. Once a gaggle of children spotted Twist and jeered in chorus. He ignored them, hastening along in his painful gait.

  Here came the shielding.

  Shielding could last a long time, Gath knew. Wirax had told him of age-old buildings that had crumbled away and left their occult defenses guarding nothing but meadowland. That must be the case here, for the blankness he foresaw lay right across a street. Once he was inside, he would be able to see the future again. Perhaps in ancient times the thane’s hall had stood here.

  It didn’t work as he expected. His prescience vanished, and stayed vanished. He walked on after Twist and there was still no future, only awkward present. For a moment he almost panicked, as if he’d gone blind, then he gritted his teeth and reminded himself that other people had to live like this all the time.

  Twist’s house was one of the smallest, a hovel on the edge of the little town. The sod roof was canted at a bad angle, like its owner, as if about to collapse. The cripple plunged ahead down two steps and in through a doorway that had only a tattered old hide to cover it.

  Gath followed, stumbling down into a stuffy, earth-smelling dimness, and there was still no future. Vork came in behind him. The flap dropped over the doorway, creating darkness. Twist was bumping around somewhere.

  Gradually Gath’s eyes adapted. There was only the one tiny room, and one small window, with a covering of bladder or strips of fish skin sewn together. This was summer, so the hearth was bare. He made out a roll of furs that must be bedding, a small table, an ancient seaman’s chest, and one rickety chair. Dishes, pots, and a few books were stacked on a precariously canted shelf. On the floor by the fireplace stood a splendid harp, shining like a full moon at dusk.

  “You two had best be sitting there,” Twist said, waving at the chest, “and trying not to be too heavy. I am at making a cup of tea for visitors, and you will be telling me how the thane got his hands on the two of you.”

  Vork rolled his eyes and curled his lip, but he went over to sit on the chest. Gath stayed standing. He did not think he could sit down if he tried. He was sweating like the rowers had. A world without prescience was terrifying!

  Twist had laid out a candle on the table and was fumbling with flint and steel, balanced precariously on one foot. “Well?”

  Vork was going to leave the talking to Gath.

  “We wanted to attend the Nintor Moot. We asked Thane Drakkor to let us ship with him. We’re his kinsmen.”

  Twist’s pale eyes seemed all white in the dark, as if he were blind. “Sixth cousin in your case. Atheling Vork is being his third cousin, twice removed.”

  “How do you know that?”

  The young cripple smiled bitterly. “I am being his skald. What is a cripple good for, except being a skald? It is skalds’ business to be knowing their masters’ families. That is their main business! Shall I be reciting the lists for you?”

  “No. I believe you.”

  The tinder caught. The skald lit the candle and then snuffed the tinder with his fingers, so as not to waste it. He sniggered meanly. “So, athelings, thanes’ sons, want to go to the moot? Are you worthy, though? You will be fighting to prove it.”

  “Fighting?” York demanded warily.

  “Fighting. Many thanes are coming to visit on their way to the moot and are bringing sons with them. There will be feasting in the hall now until we leave. For entertainment, athelings will fight, much gold being wagered.” His odd speech echoed the forms of the old ballads.

  Gath should have guessed about the fighting. He wondered if his prescience would work in the hall. If it did, he had little to fear. If not — well, he would have to fight fair. Except that he did not have the arms of a real rower.

  “Fists or swords?”

  “Fists, heads, teeth, boots.”

  “Do we have to win?”

  “Indeed not,” Twist said, with a mean grin. “You had best be fighting a bigger opponent and be getting injured right away. It will be happening sooner or later, so why not sooner? Bleed bravely!”

  “What does a cripple know about fighting?” Vork snorted.

  “This cripple has been seeing many fights,” Twist said. “And knows good losers and bad winners.” He lurched over to the shelf and took down a very battered kettle.

  “This place stinks,” Vork complained. “Tell us whatever it is we’re supposed to know, and then we can leave.”

  “But I am being very honored by having two athelings my visitors! So you were asking a favor of Thane Drakkor? Are you both crazy?”

  Gath recalled the thane’s words: You’re a good lad and I’d rather not kill you, but I will if I must. “Er… Why do you think we might be crazy?” What was coming? Oh, how he missed his prescience!

  The little cripple dipped the kettle in the bucket and set it on a tripod on the table. He placed the candle underneath. “Your fathers did not negotiate this? This was being your own idea?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ah! Well, let us be considering the instance of Atheling Vork.” Twist was very cheerful. Perhaps having visitors was a very rare and welcome experience for such an outcast, but there was an ominous malice behind his amusement.

  “What about me?” Vork said grumpily, shooting alarmed glances at Gath.

  Twist adjusted himself on the chair and laid down his crutch. “Your father is being thane of Spithfrith and ambassador to Dwanish. As the first he is owner of most of this island, which Thane Drakkor feels belongs to thanedom of Gark. As the second he is being immune to challenge. Am I speaking correctness?”

  “Well, er, maybe.”

  “Is being correct. But my brother is feeling —”

  “You’re his brother?”

  Twist grinned at his guests’ surprise. “Indeed. And full brother, not half brother. Our father left us many half brothers.” He beamed proudly. “We are all athelings here.”

  Gath made a mental comparison of the two brothers and shivered. Drakkor was masculine perfection, everything a man might hope to be; Twist was a nightmare. What would it be like to have to live in such a wreck of a body — all day and every day? “But he struck you!”

  “Of course. Am being a weakling. Is correct behavior for jotnar to be mocking cripples and full of contempt for cripples. If he were not being a big softie, he would be kicking me, also, killing me perhaps. Our father, if returning from his last voyage, would have been having me drowned. Drakkor has been very kind to his puny brother. He was making me his skald.”

  The strange youth glanced from one visitor to the next, and seemed to think they disbelieved him. “Look!” he said, and fumbled inside the neck of his robe. He pulled out a string, with a glitter of gold on it. “He is a ring-giver. He was giving me t
his at Winterfest for my singing.” He smiled shyly. “He would not be liking me being seen wearing it, though.” He tucked it out of sight again.

  Unable to find anything to say, Gath walked over to the chest and sat down, elbowing Vork to give him more room. Why had he not realized that Nordland would not be just another Krasnegar? Was it wrong or just unfamiliar? If his homeland seemed more civilized to him, was that just his personal taste, or could he find an argument that might convince an independent witness? If it was more civilized, was that due to the imps there, or his parents’ rule? He had a lot to think about. These were things a man had to decide for himself.

  “So Thane Drakkor has feud with Thane Kragthong,” Twist said, pale eyes sparkling with amusement. “But diplomats are being immune. Cannot make war against ambassadors or challenge to Reckonings. Now he has the thane’s son?”

  “I am his kinsman!” Vork shouted, alarmed.

  “Third cousin. He has killed three brothers. Lost count of cousins.”

  “I am his guest!”

  “Is true.” Twist glanced at the silent kettle and sighed, as if eager for his hot tea. “But if Thane Drakkor is deciding to blind you, or neuter you and sell you as slave to the djinns, then what will Thane Kragthong be doing?”

  Vork made a horrible strangled noise. All the color drained out of his fair-skinned face, leaving only red hair and terrified green eyes, and freckles like sand on white china. Twist obviously found that transformation amusing, and Gath was ashamed to realize that he did, too.

  “Would that be honorable behavior toward a guest?” he asked warily.

  “Honor is decided at Reckonings.”

  “You’re lying!” Vork screamed.

  “Oh, surely! I am a runt, and probably being soft in the head, also.”

  “His father is not coming to the moot,” Gath said.

  “This year!” Twist smiled his tangle of teeth meanly. “And there are brothers. But Thane Kragthong will have to come next year and challenge for revenge, is not correct? Must be waiving diplomatic immunity then. Or if he is sending up older sons first, then Drakkor is killing them off one by one.” He clapped his little hands. “Is no one better with an ax at a Reckoning than my brother, not since Thane Kalkor, our father, many years ago.” He smirked proudly.

  God of Horrors!

  Vork whimpered. “Will he? I mean, blind me? Or cut off… do what you said?”

  Twist chuckled. “Is depending how much your father is valuing you. Good son or not-much-good son? He is aware you are here?”

  “Yes!”

  “Then am hoping for your sake Thane Kragthong is now sending message, offering much land and peoples for return of son in good condition.”

  Vork uttered a long wail. He doubled over and buried his face in his hands. He made muffled sobbing noises.

  I did warn him this might be dangerous, Gath thought uneasily. And if Thane Kragthong did ransom his son at some incredible cost, what would he do to that wayward son when he got him back?

  “And what about me?” This unforeseen living was very hard on the nerves.

  “Ah.” Twist eased his crooked body on the chair as if he hurt. “You are thane of Krasnegar!”

  Gath’s world lurched. “No, I’m not! My mother is thane of Krasnegar!” Thanes got challenged to Reckonings!

  With axes. Against Drakkor? Oh, God of Slaughter!

  The silver-faced cripple shook his head. “Holindam was. Women cannot be thanes. Whether they are able to pass on titles to sons… is being argument usually settled at the moot.”

  Gath should have thought of this! If Dad were still alive — but he had not reported on the magic scrolls for months, so he couldn’t be. And to expect the thanes to accept that a faun could ever be a thane was beyond the limits of Gath’s imagination anyway. Suppose Drakkor demanded that he surrender Krasnegar to him? He wondered if he’d turned the same milk color as Vork.

  This journey had obviously been the worst error of Gath’s life, since he was not likely to have time to make many more.

  “Vork,” he said — and his voice sounded painfully hoarse, “how well can you swim?”

  Twist laughed shrilly and passed into a painful fit of raspy coughing. There could not be much room in that shrunken chest for lungs. What a nasty specimen he was! “You are also,” he said when he caught his breath — “you are also son of Rap Thaneslayer.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You are not knowing? Your father killed our father at a Reckoning, in Hub.”

  Vork raised his head and stole a horrified look at Gath, who wondered why the little hovel had suddenly become so cold. His feet felt as if the floor was deep in ice-water.

  “That was a formal Reckoning! Your father claimed to be rightwise-born ruler of my mother’s realm. My father was her champion, and he won!” Somehow that argument did not sound as convincing as he had expected it to.

  Twist rubbed his hands in glee. “But Reckonings do not set precedents! My brother can repeat my father’s claim anytime — only now it will be against you!”

  Gath met the spiteful smirk as steadily as he could. “Then obviously he will kill me. I hope it gives him great satisfaction and wins him great honor.”

  Twist pouted, as if disappointed by the reaction. “He does not need a Reckoning. The matter is being a blood feud. Your father is sorcerer and was using sorcery to kill ours!”

  Gath straightened up. “Oh, no! If my dad killed yours, then he did not cheat!”

  “You were there?” Mockery gleamed in the ice-pale eyes.

  “No. But the wardens would have condemned him for using sorcery against a jotunn raider. Warlock Raspnex told me that your father was a sorcerer, also, and it was he who tried to cheat with sorcery and the Gods struck him down!”

  “Oh, you talk with warlocks?”

  “Yes I do. Besides,” Gath shouted, “I knew my dad! He never cheated!”

  Twist smiled. “Even to save his life?”

  Hateful, warped little runt! “No. Never! He never cheated!”

  “You speak in past tenses?”

  Something took hold of Gath’s heart and wrenched.

  “I fear my father is dead!” he whispered.

  The skald’s head moved. His neck was so bent that a nod was hard to distinguish from a shake. It seemed to be a shake.

  Hope? Could this agony be hope? “You’re a sorcerer!” Gath shouted.

  Twist’s youthful face contorted in horror and he threw up his hands. “If you are saying outside this house that Thane Drakkor keeps a tame sorcerer, then he will be required to kill you! Or kill you if you are saying our father was, even.”

  Unbearable hope! Gath could barely spit out the words.

  “That’s not shielding, you’re blocking my prescience! You sing with a harp when you can hardly breathe because your chest is so twisted — you are a sorcerer and you are saying my dad is still alive?” Gath leaped across the little room and fell on his knees before the cripple’s chair. “Dad’s alive? Really? You are telling me this truly?”

  Vork shrieked in alarm. “Gath, you’re crazy! If he was a sorcerer he wouldn’t go round looking like that!”

  “Yes, he is!” Gath said. “Aren’t you. Twist? You’re a real sorcerer and you know about my dad? Please, Twist, please!” He was almost crawling into the skald’s lap.

  Twist reached out a hand no larger than a child’s and playfully ruffled Gath’s unruly hair. “King Rap is alive, Thane Gath. He is leading the war against the evil usurper.”

  The candle winked out of its own accord and the kettle began to boil furiously.

  3

  Gath had come to Nordland to ask the Thanes to hunt down sorcerers, and he had found an actual sorcerer already. Truly the Gods were with him!

  And Dad was alive! Gath never seriously considered that the skald might be lying when he told of Warlock Olybino and dragons. Sorcerers had no need to lie. Two or three days later, Twist commented on that.

  The pai
r of them were back in his hovel and Twist himself was kneeling by his water bucket, washing. Undressed, he looked as if he had been stamped on by a giant in his childhood and ground underfoot. Gath sprawled on the roll of bedding, nursing a very unbalanced stomach and the worst hammering headache of his life. Skuas had been nesting in his mouth.

  “You, Atheling,” the skald said, “are a most unusual mundane.”

  Gath groaned, detecting a lecture coming. “Because I’m dead and can’t stop suffering?” The backs of his eyes hurt the worst.

  “Because you are probably the world’s greatest expert on sorcerers! No, I am being serious! You saw Atheling Vork. His teeth were chattering when he learned about me, and yet his own sister is a sorceress. Mundanes are never knowing what you know.” Twist grinned, drooling and showing his awful bird’s nest of teeth.

  “What do I know?”

  “How sorcery works. How the sorcerous think. I have been watching. I drop a hint on the water and you yank out a trout every time.”

  “But I traveled for months in a wagon train with five sorcerers. There were six on board Gurx.”

  The skald chuckled. “And how many mundanes have ever done that? You are without guile, yet keep your own counsel, which is being a most unusual combination! You are having a slight talent of your own. You invite confidences. I say you are the greatest mundane authority on sorcery the world has ever seen!”

  Phooey! “When are you going to restore my prescience?” Gath asked grumpily.

  “I am sorcerer here,” Twist said shrewishly. “I do not like competition. Besides, you are not wanting it back at the moment, Son of Rap. You are much happier not knowing how long you’re going to feel like you are feeling now.”

  * * *

  Time seemed to stop moving while Gath was in Gark. The sun rolled around the sky without ever setting. Longships came and longships went; the feasting in the mead hall never stopped. Men ate when they felt hungry, drank all the time, and slept when they did not mean to.

  By the time Gath and Vork reached the hall, that first day, greasy carcasses sparked and smoked on creaking spits, Thane Trakrog and the crew of Seadragon were already two-thirds drunk, and the great sunlit chamber rocked with mirth and boasting. Gulls soared through, riding the wind. Swallows jabbered angrily but unheard from the high rafters. A few goats wandered unnoticed within the crowd, but there were no dogs. Jotnar hated dogs.