by Dave Duncan
The little man’s bland smile did not waver. Nobody but Dantio would sense his internal torment. He shifted his ground—slightly. “If brave Hero Orlad is adamant on taking the risk, I will happily finance his expedition. But Fabia will not go with him. She will be returning to Skjar with me.”
“No!” Fabia pushed between two Werists to reach him.
He looked up with bland stubbornness. “Frena, my dear child! The journey is a ridiculous risk, and the war in Florengia is a worse one. Why go there, for the gods’s sake? Your parents are nothing to you now, nor you to them. Here I can give you anything you can possibly want. What can Celebre offer you that Skjar cannot?”
Seers knew how deceptive some people’s appearance could be, but even Dantio marveled that such a predator hid behind Horth’s ovine exterior. His protest was logical, and it hurt Fabia. (love—pity—sorrow—anger—determination) She truly loved him. He was her father in all but blood, and to wound him in any way must be the worst sort of ingratitude. He was old and unwell. He had no one but her. He could reasonably demand her company until she married.
Alas, he was fighting destiny. Fabia knew about seasoning. She could see, as well as any mortal could, how the gods had set the House of Celebre against the House of Hrag. Horold and Therek were gone. Benard and Dantio had played their parts. Only Orlad and Fabia were left, against Saltaja and Stralg. Why else had she been Chosen, if not for this purpose? She probably could not resist her own grim goddess; it would be great folly to try.
“If I stay, will that make you happy, Father?”
Oh, brutal! Horth recoiled in dismay. Happiness was his corban. Nothing in the world could ever make Horth Wigson happy.
He rallied. “I am sorry, my dear, but I insist. An unmarried woman is subject to her father, or foster father in your case. If you do not believe me, ask the Speaker. I cannot possibly let you embark on such a perilous journey.”
“Very well, I will ask him,” Fabia said angrily. She called through the crowd. “Speaker Ardial? If a woman is unmarried and her true parents are unavailable, who has authority over her—her guardian or her brothers?”
“Guardian?” The Speaker made the word roll like a carillon. “Was she given into the keeping of this guardian by her father according to procedures set forth in the Arcana, chapter six, clause eighty-two?”
Of course not, she had been stolen. Only males over the age of ten could legally be taken hostage. With a few deft quotes and citations, Ardial Berkson decreed that under the third duty and various obscure clauses, Fabia belonged to Benard Celebre—not her eldest brother, to Dantio’s relief, because he had forsaken the world when he joined the Witnesses.
Dantio would not gamble a stale crust on Fabia being any more obedient to Benard than she was to Horth.
Benard clearly thought the same. “You want to go with Orlad?”
“Yes, I do.”
The Hand grinned. “Then I put you under his authority. Put that in formal language, Speaker. Good luck, brother.”
Fabia grabbed Orlad in a hug. He lifted her and spun her around.
But Pathfinder Hermesk promptly hurled another rock into the emotional pond, sending ripples surging. “I still want to know my fee! What am I offered to risk my neck traveling upcountry at this time of year with a bunch of crazy children?”
“You could keep it unbroken,” Waels muttered on the sidelines, but even he must realize that violence was not an option when the Pathfinder was a close friend of Hostleader Nils.
The room fell quiet. Pathfinders could not be bribed.
Fabia detached her Werist brother and returned to Horth. She took his hands in hers.
“Father? You have given me so much! Will you not grant me this last gift of freedom? That is a parent’s last sacrifice. Let me grow up and fly away?”
She might be using chthonic powers to change his mind, but all Dantio detected was rank ingratitude. He felt the entire room squirm. If she had learned her ruthlessness from the Ucrist, the pupil now surpassed the teacher. Horth had met his match.
(resignation) “Name your price, Master Hermesk.”
(surprise—greed) “Another ten years on Yeti Pass.”
All that meant to Dantio was that Pathfinders could apparently be bribed after all.
The Ucrist understood, though. “Agreed.”
“So we can leave at dawn?” Orlad shouted. (jubilation) “Fabia and Dantio and Waels and me? You won’t mind if I put a guard on your canoe overnight, Pathfinder, will you? You will provide supplies for us, my lord?”
Excepting Waels, his Werists started shouting that they wanted to come, too.
“No room in the canoe,” Orlad said. “But I can suggest honorable employment for all of you now. The new state consort of Kosord is not a Hero, but he is worthy of Heroes’ service. Lord Benard, can you use some tried and true, well-blooded young warriors?”
Benard had been gazing blissfully into his wife’s eyes. He looked around and said, “What? Oh, I’m sure we can. I have to win back my wife’s city, my lords. The odds will be at least two sixty to one, none of this easy stuff Orlad has been giving you.” He grinned, showing his shattered teeth. “As consort of Kosord, I hereby appoint Guthlag Guthlagson my hordeleader. Speaker, will you administer whatever oath he has to swear? Then he can start recruiting.”
“Told you it wasn’t difficult, dearest,” Ingeld said.
HETH THEREKSON
had not slept all night. That was not unusual for him on the eve of a caravan departure, but it was poor preparation when he would be leading the caravan himself and would need all his wits in the day ahead. Obviously an elderly woman could not be expected to keep up with young Heroes trained to razor sharpness for the ordeal, so the addition of Saltaja to the roster had required innumerable changes and additions—a prefabricated carrying chair, a stove to warm her tent, and so on. Around midnight a runner from Halfway Hall reported rebel troops moving up from Tryfors, so Nardalborg would probably come under attack very shortly. Having appointed Frath his own replacement and Zarpan leader of white pack, Heth had been forced to spend time instructing them in their duties, stressing the need to defend the fortress. As if all those worries were not enough, Femund had gone into screaming hysterics when she learned that Filukena was to go along as Saltaja’s lady’s maid. In the end Heth had been forced to order her confined.
Now dawn was near. When he rapped on Saltaja’s door, it was opened by Filukena herself, already dressed. She blinked uncertainly at her father, as if she barely remembered him.
“You’re up early!” he whispered. He had assumed she was fast asleep in her own room.
She smiled uncertainly. “I sleep on a mat on the floor beside her ladyship now, so I will be within call whenever she needs me. And I must never tell anyone anything I see or overhear. Not even you.”
He swallowed an inexplicable lump in his throat. “It’s a great honor to serve her! You must try very hard to please.”
“Yes, I know.” Filukena lowered her voice. “Father, what’s a guitha?”
“I have no idea. Why?”
“Her ladyship calls me that. I am to be Guitha from now on.”
“Well … that’s a pretty name. Good morning, Guitha! Is her ladyship awake also?”
“Yes she is!” said another voice. The door was hauled wide, revealing Cutrath Horoldson, unarmed, barefoot, with his pall untidily wound around him like a blanket, as if he had just awakened. “Do come in—cousin!” He smirked.
Heth noted the insolence for later adjustment and walked past him. Saltaja sat on the edge of the platform, fully dressed and eating from a loaded tray beside her. She had insisted on a ground floor room, which in Nardalborg meant a very small one, with little space for more than a narrow sleeping platform. If all three of them had spent the night in there, two must have slept on the floor and would have been crowded even so.
She looked at Heth with very little interest. “Good morning, Huntleader.”
Heth bowed.
He told her of the news from Halfway Hall.
“So when do we leave?”
“In about a pot-boiling, my lady. We have started loading the mammoths, as you can probably hear.”
She nodded. “Ah, yes, the mammoths. Cutrath was telling me about the mammoths. How many do you have? How many will we take with us?”
Cutrath’s stubbled face looked inexcusably smug. If that young prig thought he could appoint himself military adviser to lady Saltaja, he was going to meet a painful lesson very soon. The fact that she had two nephews in Nardalborg did not make them equals.
“We will take almost all of them, my lady. You will ride on a howdah, of course, but the rest of us will walk, except when we have to ford rivers and cross boggy patches. Wading through shoulder-deep ice water will kill a man very quickly. Mammoths also carry victuals and the clothing we will need for the Ice itself.”
“What else do they carry? How far do they take us?”
Again Heth glanced at his cousin, but this time the young oaf kept his face respectful. Heth had been running these caravans for ten years now. All Cutrath knew about crossing the Edge he had learned in the orientation lecture that Heth gave the transients when they arrived. He had not noticed young Horoldson being particularly attentive.
“They mostly carry their own fodder, my lady.” Had Cutrath remembered that detail? “This late in the season, they have stripped the grazing all along the road. Each night we feed them and stockpile enough for their return. If the weather holds, the fifth night will see us at First Ice. That is where we have to leave the mammoths. The going is too steep for them beyond that.”
Saltaja looked expectantly at her other nephew.
“If we took all the mammoths and less fodder, couldn’t we get there faster …” The word cousin hung in the air unsaid. “… my lord?”
“Perhaps, but they would not have enough to eat on the way back.”
Cutrath’s eyes glinted. Heth’s confidence wavered under a strong suspicion that he had just stepped in something even nastier than mammoth dung.
“And if you had not stockpiled any fodder on the road home,” the boy said, “what would the mammoths do?”
“They would scatter to find fresh grazing, of course. The Nastrarians would bring them in eventually.”
“And if they had no Nastrarians to guide them?”
Heth gasped, as if at a physical pain. It had taken years to build up that herd. “They would just wander.” He admitted. “Go feral.”
Cutrath shot his aunt a triumphant, I-told-you-so smile. “Without the burden of return-journey fodder, the brutes could get us there faster and carry additional equipment, as well?”
“What sort of additional equipment?”
“Axes to destroy the bridges. Oil to burn the shelters and food stores.”
Heth’s life’s work …
Cutrath shone with joy. “And the river crossings would go faster if the mammoths were less burdened?”
“What is the purpose of this harangue?” Heth barked.
“We don’t want to leave anything for the traitors, do we—my lord? Surely your duty is not just to see her ladyship safely over the Edge, but also to make certain her enemies do not pursue her?”
Of course. This murderous scheme was probably a mixture of Saltaja’s ruthlessness and the boy’s local knowledge, but it did make sense. No cost was too great to secure the lady’s safety. “You are right. We can release those we don’t take with us. They will likely follow for a while and then scatter. We destroy everything we can on the road. And at the Ice …” He had to stop and swallow a few times.
“We kill all the Nastrarians, my lord? Is that what my lord was planning to say?”
Heth nodded miserably. Nastrarians were cold fish, unable to befriend other people, responsive only to their animal charges. Nardalborg employed fifteen of them, men and women. He knew every one of them and he cared, even if they did not. So there was another task to do—delegate some assassins. They would have to be newcomers, not Nardalborg men. “Yes.”
“My lord is kind.”
“Please attend to it, Huntleader,” Saltaja said. “I think warrior Cutrath deserves a promotion for offering this insight, don’t you?”
Cutrath had evidently not expected that, because he flushed. The idea was ridiculous. From what Heth had seen of his nephew so far, he would rather promote one of the kitchen roaches. But he must not offend the Fist’s sister.
“If it was his doing, he certainly does, my lady.” He forced himself to offer Cutrath the customary handshake. “You are advanced to flankleader.” He could not resist asking, “Do you have any special flank in mind?” Is there one that will tolerate you?
The boy pouted, hearing the silent insult. “Couldn’t I just be your military attaché, Aunt?”
That would save him from pulling his weight in the grunt work. It might even keep him from being hassled to death.
“An excellent idea!” Saltaja said.
If he must play such games, Heth would make it obvious that games they were. “Then you are promoted two ranks, to packleader, and assigned as special aide to her ladyship. Inform your previous flankleader of your new posting. Draw a red sash from the quartermaster’s.”
Cutrath’s smile was a leer. “My lord is kind.”
“Huntleader,” Saltaja said, nibbling a roll, “how long can the men you leave behind here defend the pass?”
“Depends on the size of the attacking force, my lady.”
“You have instructed the garrison that they must fight to the last drop of blood?”
Heth nodded, throat suddenly dry.
“Good. Another little pep talk will not hurt, though. Send the packleaders to me now. One at a time.”
ORLAD CELEBRE
so distrusted the grumpy Pathfinder that he borrowed Namberson and Snerfrik back from Guthlag and set them to guarding Hermesk’s canoe. He did not doubt that canoes, like river boats, could launch themselves in the dark.
Far from objecting, the Pathfinder promptly put all three Heroes—and also Waels, who never left Orlad’s side—to work unloading his personal goods and moving them to safekeeping, then requisitioning and loading supplies needed for the journey. He agreed with them when they grumbled that common porters could do such labor, but pointed out that one ballast stone dropped through the canoe’s fragile bark skin would force time-consuming repair. Orlad was in a hurry, wasn’t he?
Yes, he was, and quite prepared to drag people off their sleeping mats and keep them working all night if necessary. At first light the wayfarers were ready to go. With luck they would steal a head start on Saltaja.
Having never experienced farewells, Orlad found the cold predawn parting much sadder than he had expected. The rivals he had defeated in the testing half a year ago had become his team, then his friends, and finally his battle-tested brother warriors. Several of them wept; he had to blink a lot. Benard openly sobbed, that amiable bear who had seemed such a puffball when they first met, yet had turned out to be a man of suicidal courage. How could long-lost brothers have become so close in so little time? Orlad even felt moved just watching the Ucrist taking leave of his foster daughter. The greedy little man would have to find consolation in his farms and houses and his sacks of gold. Fabia was still weeping when she stepped into the canoe. So was Dantio, steeped in the others’ emotions as well as his own.
The canoe was narrow enough for each paddler to work both sides, but not quite long enough for five people and the baggage. Hermesk repeatedly stressed how fragile it was. It must be lifted in and out of the water, he said, never allowed to touch the shore. Tipping it over in the wilds would result in them all freezing, drowning, or starving to death. He put himself in the bow, then Waels, Fabia in the middle—she promised to take a turn with the work if the men wanted her to—followed by Orlad, and finally Dantio in the stern because he had canoed before and could help with the steering.
By the time the sun was fully up, the tyros had
stopped soaking everyone with every stroke and Orlad was confident he would enjoy the next few days. Paddling was pleasant exercise. The Milky ran lovat green under the trees and ultramarine under the sky. Strings of noisy birds flew seaward, to lands where the winter would be warmer, if no shorter.
By the time the sun cleared the peak of Mount Varakats he was starting to consider blisters, the uncomfortable bundle he was sitting on, and how cramped his legs were getting—not to mention what a whole day of this was going to do to his arms and shoulders. No one had spoken for some time, except when Hermesk shouted “Change!” and they switched their paddles to the other side. The Pathfinder looked old enough to be a grandfather, but he had been doing this sort of thing all his life. He flapped along like a home-bound crow, never tiring.
It was going to be a long day.
Fabia peered around and said, “¿Co sofo lattie par tenziale paludio u Florezou?”
“Huh?”
“Co!” She shrugged. “¿Sofo?” She pointed at herself. “Lattie.” She waggled her tongue …
“Can’t you just tell me what the words mean to start with?”
“Nyb!” Head shake. Her eyes gleamed with amusement.
He sighed. “How do I say, ‘Start again!’?”
With both hands busy he could not even seek help in gestures and he must keep paddling in time with the others. It was going to be a very long day.
Soon the forest disappeared. Then the river wound in dizzying loops across bogs and wetlands, among reeds and groves of bulrushes, in and out of ponds. The Pathfinder never hesitated and never had to backtrack. Ahead, the glint of the Ice grew brighter, the sky above it a deeper, darker, richer blue. Mount Varakats swelled larger and closer, but never became impressively high and probably never would. In the thin air of the Edge, another conical blister showed very far away to the north. The Face was flat, after all. It was only because rivers flowed inward to Ocean that people spoke of going “up” to the Edge or the “High” Ice. The sun burned ever hotter, until about noon. After that rain and clouds and wind came to cool the sweating paddlers.