Without comment, the men moved off, their need for vengeance filling the shadowed passageways. Swords drawn, Válde and Gáral reached a pair of matched doors. Gáral handed Válde the torch. A memory of their Avr flashed before his eyes. His recounting of the old story of “The Farmer and the Three Doors” came to mind.
“Be bold,” Válde said, repeating the Avr’s words now. “Death awaits us, whatever door we choose.”
Gáral looked up, surprised. A slow grin split his brooding face. He pushed open the door, and Válde entered, fending off the room’s inky darkness with the light of his torch.
The smooth edges of a table came into view. In its center sat a wooden box filigreed with bone. Gáral picked it up, and hearing the sound of clinking coinage, he said mockingly, “The gods thank you.”
“As I thank the gods,” Válde replied, bowing. With a sweep of his arm, he cast the stacked books and vellum into a corner, then drove his torch into the nest of papers, enjoying the crackle of the dry parchment.
Gáral broke open the box with the pommel of his sword, scattering coin and crude jewelry. He scooped the contents, then tossed the box onto the growing fire that had begun to lick up the fissured walls.
“What are you doing?” a panicked voice cried out.
Gáral swung around, the point of his sword aimed at the gaping man’s throat. The figure, dressed in a sleep tunic with a fur about his shoulders, trembled in the doorway, despite the heat of the growing fire.
Gáral’s blade dug into the man’s flesh as he pushed him out into the hall.
“Are you the temple priest?” he snarled.
Válde brought the torch near the man’s face. His eyes were wide with fright.
“Are you the only one in the temple?” Válde pressed.
The man made a sound somewhere between a whimper and a sneeze that made Válde think the man had said, “Yes.”
“Move,” Gáral motioned. The priest shuffled, his tunic held unflatteringly above his boney knees. “Run and I will kill you,” Gáral added menacingly.
Válde set his torch to the straw mattress in the next room.
“I will have nothing. Nothing at all,” the man whined, shielding his face from the flash of intense heat.
“You will still have your gods,” Válde said, rejoining the pair in the hall.
Gáral nudged the priest, keeping the sharp point of his blade at the man’s back to remind him of what would happen should he run. “Let’s go,” he said.
The sound of approaching footfalls met the trio as they neared the kitchen. Válde turned ready to engage but relaxed when Edo turned the corner with Herko on his heels, wearing a grin on his face and a bulging pouch at his belt.
Válde eyed the pouch wordlessly.
“Nothing that the gods can’t spare,” Herko answered without being asked.
“You should have seen the tapestry light up,” Mures laughed, bringing up the rear.
“No!” the priest moaned, his knees giving way before the blade at his back made him straighten with a sharp intake of air.
“Save your laments for the Vijns,” Gáral said, pushing him through the kitchen and into the stables beyond.
“You are not going to kill me?” the priest stammered in disbelief as they emerged into the snow-blanketed night.
“If I killed you, how would the Vijns learn that the Brethren of Hunters send their regards?” Gáral smirked, then turned serious. “But I also can’t have you running to the soldiers until we are long clear of here.”
The priest crumpled to the ground, crying out in agony, blood spurting from the back of his unshod heel where Gáral had cut him to the bone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
NIILÁN RODE WITH THE vanguard of his chuoði, leaving Jonsá and Joret to mind the regiment’s rearguard. He reasoned that if he were first to hear the news, then he would likely be hearing the truth and not some version meant to garner favor or hide culpability. However, he also kept Matti and Osku with him, to ensure his orders would reach the rearguard intact.
Niilán pulled his cloak tighter about himself as they rode north into the day’s increasing darkness. He wished he had full furs to keep warm, but no one had full furs. It seemed the Believers’ army did not need furs when they had the gods to protect against frostbite. Niilán believed in the gods just as much as any man, but he also believed he would have been warmer in furs. Who cares if they hide the army’s emblems and rank? he silently complained. Still, he could not deny that there were advantages to promotion. He was thoroughly grateful to be astride a horse instead of on foot. But there were drawbacks which the Vijns’s agent, Áigin, had neglected to mention. The reality of the simple assignment was proving to be far more complicated.
Niilán was at pains to simultaneously track down the last of the rogue Piijkij as he traveled between temple outposts, bolstering their ranks and warning them against desperate acts. The two tasks were not necessarily at odds, but the slow, circuitous route hampered his chance for success in the first directive. Niilán wished he could have a fully mounted unit, but there were not enough horses to spare for the entire regiment. He knew that he could set a much more demanding pace, but he took pity on the foot soldiers, having once been in their place. It would not serve him to devastate his forces in the initial push. They would make it north when they made it north, and he would track down the rogue Piijkij eventually. Time and superior forces were ultimately on his side. If fortune favored him, then Niilán would soon capture the remaining Brethren. If fortune merely turned a blind eye to him, then he had to hope the Vijns might find a little patience. Niilán doubted either outcome. But for the moment, at least, he had one master, which was better than the three he’d had as a foot soldier.
A scout rode toward him, bringing his horse around, steam rising from the rider’s mount.
“We have reached the next village,” he reported.
“What is this one called?” Niilán asked, resignation taking hold of him.
“Ullmea.”
“Small or large?”
The scout snorted. “Small enough to have only one travelers’ hut, but large enough to have a temple.”
Niilán acknowledged the soldier’s scorn with a quick nod and a crooked smile. He knew he should reprimand the man for his slight to the Order of Believers. However, as a new commander he was more interested in garnering his regiment’s loyalty. The Believers would not be here to defend him in an attack. This man would be.
Niilán resumed his reserve. “How far?”
“A league at most,” said the scout.
“Excellent,” Niilán said, truly glad for the news. “Ride by my side for a moment.”
“Osku,” he called out.
The stout soldier on a sturdy light bay horse appeared beside him.
“Sir?”
“Gather the men to be stationed at this garrison. We will ride ahead and perhaps avoid a lengthy stay. Have Matti ride to the rearguard and prepare them to travel through Ullmea without stopping.”
With a silent nod, Osku and his horse broke to the right.
Niilán heard the roll call of men’s names, recognizing a couple. Both were seasoned men and a loss to their dwindling force.
Osku circled back to his side, trailing a half-dozen men.
Niilán looked at the scout, “Lead on.”
Approaching the outskirts of Ullmea, Niilán was dismayed to discover his scout had described the village accurately. He had held out hope it would be better than a cow stop in the middle of a cart path. It wasn’t. Fortunately, they need only go to the garrison, deposit the men, and share their news. With the grace of the gods, they would be done before the foot soldiers broke through the woods, providing the scribe was readily available and the outpost commander was not drunk.
The lack of village fortifications suggested that Ullmea had few, if any, resources to protect. Still, they had managed to erect some semblance of a gate. Rough-cut logs were guarded by a pair of dirt-smattered
sentries. Above their heads hung the Vijns’s ten-star shield next to a crudely carved symbol of the local temple, which was either a crescent moon or a bull’s horns. Niilán could not tell. The angle made it hard to know. At least we have a greeting party, he thought.
At the makeshift gate, Niilán’s horse shied, filling the air with black wings and a crow’s accusatory chorus. His men waved off the crows, looking like ungainly birds themselves. In place of the scavengers was a woman’s head, impaled upon a pike. Her flesh, mottled by violence and the cold, had been pecked down to the bone in places. Niilán had seen enough death that it should have held no fascination and yet he gawked. A slow-dawning awareness took hold of him as he stared at her broad brow and the one eye that remained.
A skinny soldier with mud up to his knees grinned ear to ear.
“We got another one of them,” he said. His crooked teeth whistled mockingly.
“What is this?” Niilán demanded, guiding his mount forward to tower over the sentries.
“They won’t come here again when they see her,” the other sentry said.
Not even old enough to have been there, Niilán thought. These guards were pups—runts. He swallowed down his distaste. It was one thing to kill Jápmea warriors on a battlefield, but to kill their women when the Immortals were already defeated was an insult to all those who had died. Niilán wanted to wipe the grins from their idiot faces, but there was nothing to be gained by it. The sooner he could dispatch his duty in this wretched village, the better it would be for all of them.
“Your bravery was truly missed in the Great Valley,” he said, then asked, “where is your garrison?”
While his companion tried to parse Niilán’s meaning, Crooked Teeth pointed to the east.
Garrison is too grand a name for this outpost, Niilán thought as the icy snow mixed with rain to make him more miserable. The palisade, such that it was, would not keep out a determined moose. And the moat was hardly more than a shallow ditch. But that was the commander’s problem, not his. Once he presented the Vijns’s orders and deposited the needed men, he would leave without a moment’s regret. Niilán dismounted, noting the warped planks across what was a natural bog and not any man’s effort at a defensive ditch.
He handed his reins to the scout. “Stay with the horses. Make sure they are fed and watered, but do not unsaddle them. I want to leave as soon as we have conducted business.”
The scout took the reins without comment. His bedraggled horse pawed the mud that stuck to everything.
“Bring the men,” Niilán said to Osku.
Osku dismounted, motioning to the others to follow. The men tethered their horses together with curious regard for their new circumstance. Niilán marked their disappointment, but their morale was no longer his concern. Leading his party across the sagging planks, he hoped there would be at least a warm fire inside.
“I bring word from the High Priest and men for your camp,” he called to the hunched sentries.
The guards shifted. They eyed Niilán and his men before opening the gate. The outpost, because Niilán refused to think of it as anything else, was hardly more than a few huts arranged within a wooden palisade. The defense tower sat on a hillock that was little more than a sloping mound. Saddle-sore, Niilán limped up the incline with a pessimistic, plodding step, his mood only slightly improved at the sight of rising smoke. At the top, he stopped before a pair of puffed-up guards.
“Niilán of the Vijns’s personal regiment. Orders from the High Priest and men to bolster these ranks,” he said, waiting for these soft-bellied louts to step aside. Their slow recognition fueled his foul temper.
“I will speak to your commander,” he said. “Now.”
The men stepped aside. Niilán strode up to the defense tower, determined to be done with this task. At that door he repeated himself. This time the guard acted with haste to usher him along.
Scarred and balding, the outpost commander scowled when Niilán entered.
“Orders and men from the Vijn,” Niilán stated without pleasantries, walking directly toward the fire. He was damned if he would stand in the drafts.
“About time,” the commander said, then appeared to reconsider his smugness by holding out his arm in the accepted greeting of equals. Niilán grasped the man’s arm, relaying his information.
“I have farm boys and failed acolytes,” the commander said, pulling a ewer out from under his chair. “I could use some men.”
Niilán held up his hand to stave off the pouring of whatever festered in the pitcher. “The men I bring are experienced. They are not many, but they are driven and all that we can spare. We are heading north on reports there have been Brethren attacks.”
The commander gulped down his drink. “Brethren? I thought they’d been routed.”
Niilán shrugged. “The survivors have begun a . . .” And here he faltered, unsure of what to say. He settled on the weakest response, “They have begun a resistance.”
The commander swallowed the contents of his cup with a grimace. “They always were a brazen bunch,” he said.
“The Vijns’s orders are to stay alert for danger and protect the temple and village,” Niilán replied, intent again on his purpose.
“Not much to protect,” the commander sniffed.
Niilán did not waste time agreeing. “Your scribe?” he asked. “I want to put these orders in writing and enlist these men in your roll.”
The commander poured from the ewer and shouted, “Selen!”
A soldier appeared.
“Get the scribe.”
The soldier turned and left.
“Experienced men you say?” the commander asked, picking up on their earlier exchange as he eyed Niilán. “You look experienced yourself. Were you in the Great Valley?”
Niilán nodded. “I was fortunate to make it out.”
“We all were,” the commander said.
Niilán considered the man. Just a soldier caught up in saving himself, he thought, then wondered how many more were like him.
The outpost commander held out his cup to Niilán in a salute.
Niilán held up his hand once again to decline the offer, adding silently, Far too many men.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
THE NOAIDI STOOD BEFORE all those who remained to honor Darkest Day. Once their kind had gathered outside in the hushed snow because no walls could contain their numbers. Now they all sat within the confines of the gathering hall. Einár bowed his head in remembrance. A weary sadness had taken root within him.
In the past, the ritual centered on faith, on hope, on the sun which would choose the Jápmemeahttun over the gods and return to shine upon them once again. Even now, when so much had been lost, Einár believed the sun would eventually return, as it always had, season upon season. But he feared that the same could not be said for their kind.
One by one, the Elders came forward to join him. Candles cast a soft glow across their faces, and Einár prayed that his own misery would remain hidden. He held up the ancient, deerskin drum in his hand, then closed his eyes and began to chant, drumming in a rhythm that matched the beat of his heart.
We are the Jápmemeahttun.
We are the guardians of the world.
Our memory stretches back to the start of days.
Our vision reaches beyond all tomorrows.
We sing together as one, so that our one may always survive.
Einár listened to the swelling sound in the room, his drumming like the binna sweeping across the land. Then he sought the voices within him. The shifting melodies of the Song of All greeted him with a comforting familiarity. Einár wanted to lose himself within their splendor, but his duty to those who relied upon him for guidance remained forefront in his mind.
The chanting fell away to a hum as the drum beat grew in strength.
On cue, Einár began the story of their kind. “We entered this world creatures of the gods. We embraced the world and were grateful for its beauty and its bounty.
And we flourished.”
Guovassonásti had shined upon Einár longer than any. More than two hundred seasons of snow. Yet, these opening lines still held meaning because the very essence of the Jápmemeahttun was woven into them.
He changed the drum’s tempo, the timbre softening.
“We flourished and our wellbeing blinded us to action and consequence until we stood upon the dark abyss.” Einár instinctively inhaled, readying himself to repeat their history, their faults, their travails, then found himself questioning the need. They were facing their end. Why not embrace hope? he thought. As the first to witness the miracle had.
Those gathered became restive as Einár made his decision to reprise the story close to its end, his drumming the soft patter of spring rain.
“We are reminded of our past in these dark days,” he said, “But, in darkness there is light. We yearn for the return of the sun just as we once begged the gods for the chance to live. Let us remember that tomorrow and each day beyond is part of our journey into the light. Let us offer thanks for the gift of darkness.”
The candles in the room flickered out until only one remained aglow. Einár laid down his drum. He took the last lit candle and walked slowly through those gathered. For the first time in his long life, the Noaidi was glad the deep shadows veiled the faces turned toward him. He could neither bear witness to their hope nor could he endure seeing their despair. As he walked out of the gathering hall, Einár kept his gaze forward, intent on the flame.
Okta followed the Noaidi at a courteous distance. He did not wish to intrude on the last moments of Darkest Day, but the Elder’s deviation in the story fed his uncertainty. As Okta wrestled with his doubt, Einár opened the door to his chamber, then closed it with a soft thump.
Okta hesitated before the door. He placed his ear to its polished surface like a curious mánná, listening for some sound that would tell him whether his visit would be welcomed. Then he chided himself for his silliness and knocked loudly.
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