Ghort told him, “It’s from Kelam. Letters to the Toscans.”
“I missed that, I guess.”
“Most people do who don’t spend some time in the seminary.” Else did not have a clue, now. Doneto chuckled. “I suspect that Brother Hecht had very little opportunity to acquire a solid religious foundation growing up on the verges of the Grand Marshes.”
Else grabbed that straw. “My family was never particularly devout. So don’t expect me to have anything memorized.” Doneto said, “That is of no consequence. Survival and the work of the Lord is.”
“Sir?”
“God has given me a calling. I didn’t see that at first. I went to the Connec full of arrogance. Those assassins failed to waken me. Our Lord was forbearing. He sent you. He brought me out of the Connec. He saw me through the Ownvidian Knot. And now I’m ready to hear Him. I’m prepared to do His work.” Doneto was intense. He continued, “All right. I didn’t expect you would experience the same epiphany. But I do want to talk about what our situation means.”
“It means we’re out of work,” Ghort said. “We can’t protect you here. They chunk you in the dungeon, you don’t need us anymore. Even if they don’t, you couldn’t pay us.”
“Possibly. Johannes wouldn’t be that bold, though. He’ll just put me under house arrest until Sublime ransoms me by acknowledging the Emperor’s claims somewhere. It’ll all be handled quietly. Then I’ll be on my way to Brothe again, with a need for lifeguards.”
Else considered Doneto. He had arrived too late to experience the old Doneto but he had heard plenty from survivors of Doneto’s original bodyguard. He did not believe that men changed their basic nature. They just pretended for tactical reasons.
“I’m trying to tell you that I want you to stay with me, despite this setback.”
Else grunted. There could not be a more advantageous position than that of officer in the lifeguard of a member of the Collegium. “I’ll stay.”
Doneto nodded. “We’ll see how onerous the Emperor makes our captivity. You may not miss a payday.”
***
PLEMENZA WAS ONE OF THE WEALTHIER CITIES OF FIRALDIA.” Nominally, it was a republic. An independent city-state. In truth, as with most Firaldian cities, the real rulers were a handful of families. Here, however, those had less influence than elsewhere because here there was a bigger dog.
The Grail Emperor had ancestral ties with the House of Truncella, the noble family whose firstborn sons were the Counts of Plemenza but who no longer much mattered locally. Johannes had been a minor noble himself when the Electors chose him Emperor as a compromise candidate who could be manipulated easily and pushed aside shortly. But Johannes Ege revealed a potent personality, was passionate in his convictions and persuasive in his arguments. The grasping cupidity of recent Patriarchs made Johannes particularly appealing to Firaldian nobles eager to slip the squeeze of the Church.
The Grail Emperor was staying in the Dimmel Palace with his son and two daughters. The Dimmel Palace had been the seat of the Truncella Counts for centuries. His stay had no stated date of termination.
Johannes’s presence underscored his abiding interest in Firaldia. His expansionist interest, his enemies would say. Though Hansel himself insisted that he had come to Plemenza only to establish his daughters there, in a city where they could avail themselves of cultural and educational opportunities absent in the bleak agricultural lowlands of the Kretien Electorate.
The daughters were of interest for their political value. No match had been made for either, yet. Johannes’s reluctance to entertain suits was causing strain amongst the Electors — some of whom secretly hoped to become Hansel’s successor.
Johannes was looking for sons-in-law — if he had to tolerate such beasts at all — who would bring him treasure and soldiers and, most of all, enthusiasm for his struggle with the Patriarchy. There were few suitors of sufficient stature who shared his abiding loathing of the Patriarchy. And those matches all wanted bequest of the Empire itself. Because Johannes had only the one sickly son, Lothar.
Lothar’s sisters and nurses doted on him, mainly because he was not expected to survive to succeed his father. Hansel himself loved Lothar with an unreasonable fervor but could not deceive himself about the boy’s prospects.
Else learned most of that from Doneto on the road to Plemenza.
Pinkus Ghort fell in beside Else. “Pipe, do we really want to stick with this weasel?” Else chuckled. “I can be a weasel, too. I plan to gouge him for a better deal.” Ghort snickered but nodded. “When you make decisions, don’t forget you’re making them for more than just you.”
“Excuse me?”
“Wherever you go now, for reasons they couldn’t explain themselves, Bo, Joe, and Pig Iron are likely going to follow. You’re just one of those kind of guys. That Pig Iron is a good soldier. But the rest...”
Pig Iron was a good soldier. The mule did more than his share of the work. He never complained, unlike Joe and Bo. Pig Iron was content just to go where Joe went.
Else had no trouble imagining schemers like er-Rashal al-Dhulquarnen trying to breed a race of warriors as placid and pliable as Joe’s favorite mule.
Ah. The Sha-lug were not that way? The ideal Sha-lug. Not those Sha-lug like Else Tage, with a regrettable tendency to think for himself. “Pinkus, here’s an original notion. Instead of worrying about that stuff, how about we concentrate on getting out of this alive?”
“Shit, we got no worries, Pipe. Things are so ugly right now that I guarantee you everything’s going to turn out all right. That’s the way the Pinkus Ghort story gets told.”
16. Andorayans and the Black Mountain Massacre
Blood and murder swirled around the Andorayans. The Connecten attack had caught them off guard. But they were shambling along through an alien time, unready for much of anything but being amazed.
The Andorayans could no longer refuse to believe that they had fallen into a world where the grandsons of the men they had pursued were long dead of old age. That truth hammered them constantly.
They were never a part of that army. Their presence was tolerated but to the Arnhanders they were less than remoras to sharks. Unpleasantness had hounded them since that day at the bridge in the Haunted Hills.
In the matter of the murder of Erief Erealsson Shagot grew ever more suspicious of the gods themselves. The murder served them too well. He did not share his suspicions. Words spoken were words sure to be overheard by the Instrumentalities of the Night. Shagot had no idea what they wanted him doing knew only that he was supposed to recognize the moment when it arrived. Shagot was doubtful of any convictions he discovered when he explored his own inner landscape. Or was amazed at the depth of his own cynicism.
The rest of the band were deeper in the dark. All they could do was stick, protect him, and hope that a time would come when everyone would understand what they had to do. But there was no enthusiasm for the task.
When the Arnhander army entered the pass below the Black Mountain of the Steigfeit Range, Shagot’s companions were beyond complaining. They no longer talked to their leader much, either. They just trudged along, bent to the Will of the Gods, indifferent to a world that betrayed no interest in them.
Thus, because of their self-involvement, they responded slowly when the attack came. Shagot said, “They don’t see us.” Indeed. The attackers paid them no heed at all. Until they began to run toward those same trees whence the attack had come. Then a couple of infantrymen came at them. Svavar and Finnboga dispatched the two almost casually.
“Don’t anybody move,” Shagot said. More attackers were headed their way. The Connectens lost interest. “Like old Trygg,” Hallgrim said. “He was always forgetting what he was going to do.”
Shagot said, “Let’s move. They aren’t looking, now.”
They covered maybe eighty feet before a lone horseman in heavy armor charged them. Sigurjon flung an axe. While the rider fended it Shagot dropped his mount with a two-han
ded sword stroke to its forelegs. The others murdered the rider before he hit the ground.
Trial and error showed them that short bursts, a dozen yards at a time, followed by a minute of inactivity, let them travel without attracting attackers.
“Pretty damned feeble magic if you ask me, Grim,” Svavar said.
“It’s keeping your stinky ass alive, ain’t it? Once we get to them rocks over there we’ll lay up until this shit is over and the survivors go away.”
It was clear who the victors would be. Already it was all over but the butchery.
***
THE BATTLEFIELD WAS QUIET. THE CONNECTENS HAD GIVEN UP looting the dead and murdering the wounded. Now they were coping with the enormity of what they had done. It was more difficult for them than for men of Shagot’s land and time. The Connec’s only acquaintance with war was through those few adventurous sons who went to fight in the Holy Lands.
Svavar asked, “What do we do next, Grim?”
Shagot had no idea. This disaster was nothing that the gods had foreseen. “I need to sleep on it. I’ll let you know in the morning.” The others did not question that. They were all weird men.
They had been to heaven and back.
Or maybe they had gone somewhere else.
But in this world all beliefs were true. In this world the gods came first, then men re-created them in images they preferred.
In time the victors went away. The surviving Arnhanders and Grolsachers were long gone by then. Shagot and his friends took the opportunity to scavenge what they could.
They did not find much.
***
“SO WHERE ARE WE HEADED, GRIM?”
“Back the way we came. Staying away from people.”
After Shagot explained what he had learned in his dreams, Hallgrim wanted to know, “Who is this Godslayer?”
“I don’t know.”
“So how’re we supposed to recognize him when we find him?”
“I don’t know.”
“This whole thing is turning into a cluster fuck, Grim.”
“I know.”
“And the answers are all in this place called Brothe?”
“Unless the Old Ones change their minds. Now shut the fuck up. We’ve got a long walk ahead. And most of the time we’ll need to stay out of sight of the natives.”
“Why?”
“The Old Ones don’t want us noticed. They didn’t say why. Same old shit. We’re supposed to be thrilled to be used like a pack of dogs.”
Each hour left the six less sympathetic toward their gods.
***
THE GODS OF THE ANDORAYANS REFLECTED THE NORTHERN folk themselves. Which meant that they were rowdy, drunken, not too bright, drunken, violent, drunken, and short-sighted. While often drunk.
Those were values their culture had accreted over the ages.
They were not the values of anyone in the world where the Andorayans found themselves now. “We’ll find the man.” The others scowled but readied themselves for travel. With less enthusiasm than ever.
The serious grumbling started a week later, as Shagot tried to sneak past Antieux unnoticed. Finnboga snapped, “What the fuck are we doing, Grim? We were supposed to catch some assholes that killed Erief. But I ain’t heard Erief s name come up in a month.”
Sigurdur grumbled, “I’m ready to go home.”
Shagot reminded him, “Home ain’t there anymore.”
“Whatever is there, it’ll be a lot more like home than this is.” Even Asgrimmur was restive. “I’m thinking maybe it’s time the gods looked out for themselves.”
Shagot drew a deep breath, released it. He did not know how to fight this creeping defeatism. He had trouble enough motivating himself.
He slept longer now than he had while they were part of the Arnhander army. He could not help it. He wanted to pursue a normal waking cycle. He wanted his band out of this country where they could be held accountable for the bad behavior of their former Arnhander companions.
That was the worst. The sneaking. The creeping along, trying to get by unnoticed.
Hallgrim wanted to know, “Why the hell are we doing this, Grim? These people don’t know who we are. We should get down on the regular road. Just be some guys headed east.”
Hallgrim’s argument made sense. But the god voices inside Shagot would not let him acquiesce. “This is bullshit,” Finnboga insisted. “I’m about ready to take off on my own.”
“It’ll get easier once we get to the country they call Ormienden.”
It seemed to take forever to get there, though, because Shagot spent so much time asleep. And, after they reached Ormienden, Shagot still refused to travel normally.
Svavar, Hallgrim, and the others became increasingly mutinous. While Shagot became more and more unable to be anything but “a huldrin mouthpiece for a gang of lunatic gods who ain’t relevant no more,” according to Shagot’s own brother, Svavar.
A week into Ormienden, Shagot wakened to find himself alone except for his brother. The way Svavar hunched as he cooked told Shagot that something was seriously wrong.
Horses were missing. “They left, Grim. They couldn’t take it no more. But they left all the stuff.” Shagot could not get an emotional handle on what had happened. “I don’t understand.”
“You won’t listen, will you? They been telling you and telling you.”
“You’re still here.”
“I’m your brother. But if I thought you could keep yourself alive on your own for a week, I’d be gone, too.”
Shagot did not resume traveling that day or the next, sure the others would recover their senses and return. Svavar did not push. Svavar no longer believed in any mission from the gods. But Shagot was family. Svavar had concluded, after all he had been through since Erief’s murder, that it might not be a bad thing if a few gods died, too. In time, Shagot pulled himself together enough to get up on his hind legs and start traveling again. “Where are we headed, big brother?” Svavar wanted to know.
“For now, the Old City. Brothe. I don’t know why. That’s where they want us to go.”
Shagot was puzzled with himself. He had no drive left. But for the nagging of the god voices in the back of his brain he would have headed home himself.
Asgrimmur, for his part, began to see his brother as a holy madman. Those were rare in northern tradition but the notion of the insane having been touched by the gods was entrenched. In Shagot’s case there was no doubt.
***
THE GODS OF THE NORTH WERE SPITEFUL, CHILDISH, AND PETTY. A great many gods, across the earth, went way long on the famine, pestilence, and war, but came up short on characteristics their worshipers would find congenial.
Finnboga and Hallgrim, Sigurdur and Sigurjon, encountered the malice of the Instrumentalities of the Night just two evenings after abandoning Shagot and Svavar.
They were sheltering for the night beneath an old stone bridge spanning a stream less than six yards wide. The river was low because of the season. It had snowed that afternoon. Now a brisk and bitter wind muttered around the old bridge. Gusts whipped their little fire, threatening to kill it.
This shelter had served travelers for centuries. Numerous fires had burned on the same spot, surrounded by the same blackened stones. Another fire burned on the north side of the stream, where half a dozen southbound travelers huddled against the cold.
Hallgrim grumbled, “I’m getting old. Ten years ago this would’ve been a spring breeze. Now I’m thinking about emigrating to Iceland.”
His companions grunted. None had visited Iceland but they had heard about the geysers and hot springs and magical vents that defeated the most ferocious winters. When the cliffs of ice crossed the Ormo Strait to begin devouring the New Brothen Empire, Iceland would still be warm.
Sigurjon observed, “Things could be different out there, though. If it’s part of one big kingdom and those black crow priests run things.”
Finnboga inquired, “How hard could it be to kill
a few priests?”
“How hard?” Sigurdur snapped. “Look at us.” Sigurjon said, “It must be harder than it looks. Otherwise, why would those lilies be in power?”
Sigurdur said, “You’re right. They are in charge in these parts. And it don’t look like there’s much chance of that changing. Shit!”
“What?”
“I’ve got to crap again.” It was the sixth time that day. Sigurdur had begun to worry. A man who lost control of his bowels could end up shitting himself to death.
Sigurjon told him, “Well, take it downwind. That last load was so foul the flies dropped dead.” Stomach cramping, Sigurdur stumbled away, headed for a spot he had scouted before darkness fell, anticipating this emergency. He located the twin stones, fumbled with his trousers, urgently willing them out of the way before the explosion came while dreading me crude bite of the wind on his buttocks.
He managed in time, voided the first nasty charge. He indulged in a little self-congratulation even as he bent over a fresh, more ferocious set of cramps.
As that departed in a rumbling gush Sigurdur realized that he was not alone. And that whoever was there was not one of his traveling companions. He could see his brother, Hallgrim, and Finnboga huddling close to the fire, making jokes at his expense.
He eased a hand toward his knife.
A shadow drifted nearer. The campfires cast just enough light to show him a woman wearing a hooded black cloak. The cloak’s hem dragged the ground.
He could see nothing but her face. It was a beautiful face, much like his mother’s must have looked when she was young.
Sigurdur thought, you heard about this sort of thing all your life but you were never ready when it happened. You never believed you would attract the interest of the Instrumentalities of the Night.
The woman opened her cloak. She wore nothing beneath. Her body was perfection. It exuded warmth. It could not be resisted. It was too late even for the wary.
***
SIGURJON BEGAN TO WORRY. “WHAT’S TAKING HIM SO LONG? He’s always been full of shit, but... gods.”
“Maybe he’s trying to get it all worked out in one grand-daddy load.”