A Handful of Men: The Complete Series

by Dave Duncan

  By the Powers! He knew that one! He really had grown lately, hadn’t he? No beard yet, but… well, getting there. Hey, not bad! He would rather have breeches on, though.

  “Now!” Atheling Twist said. He had been chosen leader, because he was as strong as any, also brother to the thane who was certainly going to be war leader of the Nordland Host and how did Gath know all these things? A mighty fist punched upward and the roof of the Commonplace dissolved in a spray of flying dirt and boulders.

  Was that real?

  There were many things to see then.

  The Moot Stow. Drakkor had been raised on a platform of shields held by a dozen husky jotnar. He was haranguing the mob, promising blood and loot and rape, and the warriors were cheering their lungs out for him, thanes and churls…

  The Commonplace from the outside, apparently undamaged.

  All of Nintor, as if seen by a bird soaring at cloud height.

  Sixty-odd sorcerers racing over the grass, heading for the longships drawn up on the beach — not running, for crippled Twist was moving as fast as any, but traveling faster than a hunting hawk.

  A roiling dark evil… Eyes. Huge, hateful dwarvish eyes filling the sky and staring contempt right at him.

  A voice, booming: “The faun’s son! So there you are! Got you at last!”

  There was no doubt who that was.

  “Go puke yourself, you squat-eyed gray horror!” Gath roared, and registered laughter and approval all around him. “My dad squashed you once and he’s going to squash you again!”

  Fury boiled in the sky. “Die, stripling!”

  A fiery foot descended.

  The meld of sorcerers slid sideways, evading that giant stamp. The ground erupted in flame where it struck.

  That was not real. That was only an image, perhaps invoked by something Jaurg had said earlier. The reality behind it was something else but just as dangerous.

  At the Moot Stow the crowd stilled and turned to see where the noise had come from…

  Voices all around him, the melded mind of the sorcerers:

  “To the ships — is the boy with us? — where can we go?”

  Another fiery stamp. Another explosion of dirt and rock, high in the air. And another dodge. Another blast from the Covin, another fast evasion. Pillars of smoke rose above Nintor.

  The horde at the Moot Stow dissolving in panic —

  The beach. A ship. Any ship. When in danger take to the sea.

  Thane Afgirk’s Raven Feast…

  “It will do — all aboard — lift her now —”

  Sorcerers poured aboard. The longship leaped from her berth a moment before blasts of fire smote the shingle where she had lain. Her former neighbors exploded in red flame and a blizzard of pebbles. She hit the sea with a shower of spray and was a league away before the Covin’s next bolt struck in steam and boiling eradication. Southward. No time to set sail. No time to run out the oars. Leap. Impact. Leap again. Like a giant marlin. Raven Feast vaulted over the face of the ocean while the Covin’s strokes exploded the green sea behind her in white breakers and clouds of mist.

  Nothing was real except perhaps the longship itself and the fierce grips on Gath’s wrists. The voices of the meld roared in his ears.

  “We can’t keep this up forever — he’s sure to catch us eventually. Where can we go — where is King Rap?”

  The Covin’s volleys were closing in, pillars of steam bursting all around.

  “Atheling!” Twist bellowed in Gath’s ear. “Where is your father?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “Find him for us! We need sanctuary! Call him! He will recognize you!”

  Call him?

  Gath saw the shiny sea and the sky and the distant peaks of Nordland. He saw the evil of the Covin and its blasts of power. He saw sixty-four sorcerers and a mundane boy.

  They were appealing to him?

  Call Dad?

  The last news of Dad had been months ago, when he had been somewhere down near the Mosweeps, about as far from Nordland as it was possible to be. These maniacs expected Gath to call to him?

  A near miss showered Raven Feast with icy seawater, half swamping her. The shock and cold almost jerked Gath out of the meld. He was sprawled on the gratings with Twist hanging on one arm and Jaurg on the other, tearing him apart. Overhead the bare mast whirled against blue sky.

  “Try, Atheling!” Twist howled. “Or we are being undone!”

  “Give him power, everyone!” Jaurg shouted. “Give him all you can!”

  “Save us, Atheling! Call on your father!”

  The world swelled.

  The world was round.

  Nordland shrank to a cluster of barren islands, swathed in pack ice to the north. Land swam into view to the south — that would be Guwush, and the shimmer of silver beyond that the Morning Sea and the green to the west must be the Impire, shadows of night still rushing away to the southwest. The sun was white and hot at his side.

  There was the Winter Ocean, and if he tried he could probably see all the way to Krasnegar, but he mustn’t waste time looking there. Dad wouldn’t be in Krasnegar. People — more than the land itself he could see the teeming millions of people. Imps, gnomes, many races. Mountains to the south, sparkling with snow and ice but very tiny, and the sky trees of Ilrane that Kadie had talked of, little crystal pinecones against the deep blue of the Summer Seas. That black fire roaring in the middle of the world was the evil of the Covin and ignore those hateful eyes and think where Dad might be…

  “Dad!” he howled.

  No response.

  “Dad, it’s me, Gath!”

  Contact?

  “Dad!”

  A tiny whisper, very far away…

  “Gath?”

  Dad’s voice!

  “Dad? King Rap? It’s Gath! I’ve got some sorcerers for you!”

  “Gath? Is that you? Where are you?”

  “Dad, I’m here! In Nordland!”

  Near miss — the sea exploded. Raven Feast rolled below a vast green wave. Icy surf sucked at the crew, sweeping oars and baggage overboard. Gath had water in his eyes, up his nose. For a moment the longship seemed ready to turn turtle. Slowly she fought to straighten herself. The meld shimmered and began to break up. Gath felt power draining away. The craft was swamped. One more blast would do it.

  “Dad! Save us!”

  “Got you!” The whisper swelled into command; “Gath! Here! Come now!”

  Rolling drums:

  Thy voice is heard thro’ rolling drums,

  That beat to battle where he stands;

  Thy face across his fancy comes,

  And gives the battle to his hands.

  Tennyson, The Princess, vi

  TWELVE

  God at war

  1

  On being wakened by a howl of alarm from Kadie, Inos had realized that Rap was not in bed at her side, where he belonged. When she had calmed her daughter, she learned that he had gone, returned, and then disappeared again by sorcery. On this ominous day, she was disinclined to go back to sleep after that news.

  Breakfast presented a problem, as there was no food in the cabin and no resident sorcerer to produce any. Mother and daughter set out for the Commons. They found nobody there, which was definitely odd. Had the entire College been abandoned? Something vital must be happening, somewhere.

  “We’ll try the Meeting Place!” Inos said firmly, and they set off through the woods again.

  In a few minutes Kadie exclaimed, “That sounds like the sea!”

  The Meeting Place was nowhere near the sea. There was certainly something noisy ahead, though. “Or a large crowd?”

  Kadie jumped and uttered another howl, the second of the day. The poor girl’s nerves were in terrible shape, Inos thought, and then stifled a scream of her own. A monstrous mushroom-colored giant was grinning at her from the bushes. It was browsing on a banana tree and it had no clothes on. It… she… mumbled something incomprehensible through a mouthful of
juicy leaf.

  “Er, good morning to you, too,” Inos said politely, and walked quickly past, towing Kadie by the hand. “Only a troll,” she whispered airily, as if trolls had always been commonplace in her life. Trolls in Thume? Behold the millennium! She sniffed. “And there are gnomes around somewhere. Come on! This is becoming exciting!”

  “Exciting? I don’t want anything else exciting!”

  “History being made? Would you rather call it ‘romantic,’ then?”

  Kadie smiled wistfully. “I think I would rather be at home in Krasnegar and never have another adventure as long as I live.”

  “Now you are making sense!” Inos said, but it was not the sort of sense a fourteen-year-old should make. She was sickened by the change in her daughter. The old Kadie would never have made such a remark.

  Hand in hand, they emerged into the Meeting Place. It was full of people, all the way from the encircling woods down to the little lake in the center — pixies, of course, but also clumps of bright-clad folk, clumps of drab-clad folk, and groups showing much bare skin.

  “See?” Inos said with a calm that belied her thumping heart. “I expect they’re all sorcerers. Your father has been collecting allies. Elves over there? And imps, of course…”

  “Inos!” Shandie came running through the crowd in a resplendent doublet of imperial purple, bedecked with several jeweled orders and strewn with chivalrous sashes. He swept her into a hug. “And Princess Kadolan!”

  Kadie curtseyed low. The imperor pulled her up and hugged her, too. He put an arm around both mother and daughter, laughing and trying to speak at the same time. His excitement was much at odds with his very formal dress. “Rap told me you were here, and my wife, too, I understand, and of course old Raspnex —”

  “Things are going well, obviously?” Inos said. Those brown bushy-haired people must be the anthropophagi Rap had mentioned. They seemed to be wearing nothing but paint and bones.

  “Things are going marvelously!” Shandie said. “I was worried about you, but Raspnex swore you’d be safe enough with the caliph.” His eyes were asking questions his mouth wasn’t.

  Inos would not inform Shandie of her experiences with Azak, even were Kadie not present. Raspnex ought to lose his warlocking license. “I assume that Rap is busy at the moment?”

  “Very! This is a historic occasion! There are sorcerers here from all over the world, all gathered to combat the Covin.”

  “Fauns? And goblins?” There were more pixies than anyone else, of course. They must be terrified by this invasion.

  Then Inos located the center of the action, halfway around the clearing, with Rap himself towering over a group of assorted races, probably the leaders of the various factions. Certainly that was Warlock Lith’rian at his side, looking no older than he had twenty years ago. The male troll was even taller than Rap and twice the width, and there was a brown man with a bone through his nose. Another anthropophagus? That small, white-cowled figure was probably the Keeper, but fortunately Kadie had not noticed her yet.

  “I don’t see any jotnar,” Inos remarked. “Except Jarga.” She returned a smile and a wave from the big sailor, who was conspicuous within a group of two or three dozen dwarves.

  “No, she’s the only jotunn,” Shandie said.

  “Mama!” Kadie cried. “Down by the lake — those are merfolk!”

  “Where? Good Gods! Shandie, are those… Kadie, how do you know about merfolk?”

  “Don’t worry about them,” the imperor said confidently. “They’re sorcerers, so there’ll be no trouble.”

  “I’ve never seen merfolk before!”

  Shandie scowled. “Remember Ythbane? He was part merman.”

  Inos decided that merfolk were odd-looking fish, with their pale skins and blue hair. She did not think she could ever find any merman attractive, whatever the legends said. She was still staring at them, and hence at the little lake, when a Nordland longship materialized upon it with a crack of thunder. Waves leaped shoreward, crashed into the banks, drenched the closer bystanders with silver sheets of water — merfolk and djinns, mostly. Others, all the way from the elves to the dwarves, were sprayed. Cries of alarm echoed through the glade, and half the pixies winked out of existence.

  “Recent information,” the imperor said, “hints that the Nordland contingent may have just reported for duty.”

  Kadie screamed for the third time that morning, but this time she was indicating joy. The sinister craft was packed with oversize fair-haired, fair-skinned people, men and women both, but there was no doubt which one mattered to her. A lanky young man had leaped up on the gunwale and was balancing there, windmilling his arms as the longship rolled. He wore leather breeches like all the other men aboard, but he was the only member of the crew whose hair did not lie flat and he was grotesquely lank. He yelled, “Dad! Dad! I brought you some sorcerers!” and took a flying leap to shore.

  He slipped on the muddy bank and disappeared amid the rushes with another violent splash.

  Kadie squealed piercingly. “Gath! That’s Gath!” She vanished into the crowd like an arrow from a bow.

  As a sodden Gath emerged and scrambled out. Rap came plowing through sorcerers and archons and warlocks. The two of them crashed into an embrace.

  “Inos?” Shandie said reprovingly. “You’re weeping!”

  True! The Meeting Place had disappeared in crystal mist and the pain in her throat was unbearable. She turned to the imperor and hugged him, burying her face in his velvet collar. “Rap safe, Kadie safe, and now Gath safe! Just a week ago I thought I’d never see any of them again!” She could hardly force the words out — sentimental idiot! This was becoming a habit. She stepped back, wiping away tears. Then she saw that Rap was holding his son at arm’s length with one arm, studying him, and his other hand was surreptitiously wiping his eyes, also. It was catching.

  Shandie regarded her with fond amusement. “Well, from now on, you can brag about that boy of yours. He seems to have succeeded where you and I dared not even try! Congratulations!”

  “Thank you.” Gath was taller than his father!

  “If he ever wants a job, just send him to me.”

  “I plan to leave him mine.” How strange! Inos recalled that not so very long ago, she and Rap had seriously doubted Gath’s talents and prospects for future kingship. Not assertive enough, they had thought. So now the lad had taken off on his own to the Nintor Moot — and that exploit alone would guarantee him the lifelong worship of all the jotnar in her kingdom — and come wandering back from the market with a few dozen sorcerers in tow…

  “He must have been incredibly lucky!” she said.

  “In my experience, luck is more output than input,” Shandie said dryly. “I understand my wife and daughter are safe, also?”

  How much had Rap told him? “Yes, they’re well,” Inos said, intently watching her son and husband’s reunion, Kadie’s frantic progress around the lake, the jotnar disembarking, the panicky pixies’ efforts to distance themselves from those ultimate terrors, the white-haired demons.

  “But not Ylo?”

  “No,” she said, “not Ylo.” She glanced cautiously at Shandie.

  His expression was bleak. The glint in his eye was a challenge to their friendship. “I must stay here. Can you bring my wife to me?” It was as close as he could ever come to pleading.

  Kadie had reached her twin. Gath lifted her bodily into the air and whirled her around, the two of them screaming with excitement. Rap was grinning like a maniac. The jotnar crowded in around them, hiding the family reunion from view.

  Things were under control there. Inos was not needed there. She would congratulate her son in due course. The imperor needed her more.

  “Yes, I can fetch Eshiala here, Shandie,” she said. “But first let’s find somewhere to sit and talk. I have some things to tell you.”

  2

  “This is the leader of the Nordland sorcerers,” Gath said proudly, “Atheling Twist, son of Kalkor.”


  Rap could not tear his eyes away from this astonishing young man who had replaced the boy he remembered. So tall already! Then the name penetrated… His heart missed a beat. He swung around to look at the little youth on his crutch. “Son of Kalkor?” And a sorcerer? Jotnar were addicted to blood feuds.

  Twist leered up at him with a grotesque mouthful of crooked teeth. “Also brother of Drakkor, the war leader, a sturdy man with an ax — but we come in peace, Thaneslayer.” The cripple’s very pale eyes twinkled as he registered Rap’s apprehension.

  “I am delighted to hear it, and you are all most welcome. The Keeper…” Rap glanced around. Where was Thaïle? And why had the jotnar chosen this unfortunate runt to lead them?

  “We are having already done homage to you as leader of the righteous, Thane.”

  “You have?”

  “I accepted their oaths on your behalf, Father,” Gath said, obviously enduring agony from his efforts to appear humble. “But some of them preferred to swear to me personally. Of course my vassals and I are at your command! Did I do wrong?”

  “I don’t recall delegating such powers to you, but under the circumstances I shall waive the usual death penalty for exceeding authority. How many of you. Sorcerer?”

  “Sixty-four, Thane. Is this all of your army, though?”

  Many of the pixies had departed but were now returning.

  “Most of it,” Rap said. He had just realized that several of the jotnar contingent were women, and very few of them seemed to be sailors.

  “How many?”

  “With you, we must have almost five hundred.”

  “Ah!” Twist sighed. “Jaurg?”

  A blind youth at the back said, “Leader?”

  “How many in the Covin?”

  “Something over two thousand.”

  Rap staggered. “What? You’re joking! How do you know this?”

  “Because I was one of them. Several of us were enthralled. Athelings Gath and Twist contrived our release, but I know there were at least twenty-two hundred sorcerers in the Covin, and that was some weeks ago.”