How many Norns are on the hilltop? Have we been tricked? Is it some sort of ambush?
As he reached the greatest concentration of his own men, a milling, confused mass of shouting shadows, he found Kenrick the captain marshal standing in his stirrups, trying to form the nearest soldiers into a more orderly troop. Arrows were whizzing past, not in great volume, but with terrible accuracy. A man fell just a few feet from Simon, then Kenrick’s horse shrieked, reared, and toppled with a clash of armor, flattening the undergrowth so that Simon lost sight of Kenrick entirely in the chaos of the horse’s flailing legs and terrified sounds. Men were running both toward the hill and away from it, but far too many soldiers already lay arrow-pierced and limb-tangled on the ground, like dolls strewn by an angry child. Only a few of them were still moving.
“Simon? Simon!”
To his horror, he recognized his wife’s voice. “Miri!” he shouted. “Away! Get back to the camp.” He couldn’t see her, but he could hear that she was far too close. Everything around him seemed to be falling apart. “Back to the camp!”
He had to go and find her, get her out of harm’s way, but he couldn’t leave the wounded harper lying helpless on the ground in the middle of this madness where he might be crushed by one of the horses, many of which were riderless and half-mad with fear. Staring about in desperation, Simon spotted a bit of bright cloth, then saw Jeremias crouching behind a wagon wheel some twenty paces away, his fine clothes in muddy tatters, his hat half-covering his face.
“Help me!” Simon shouted. “Jeremias, help me! It’s young Rinan—he’s been shot!”
Jeremias’s round face turned toward them, and what Simon could see of his friend’s features looked as bloodless as a split apple. Simon dragged Rinan in the chamberlain’s direction, but before he could cross the distance a group of strange, small riders leaped past him, almost knocking him sprawling, then went bounding up the hill—riders not on horses, but on bounding, long-legged sheep.
Something nudged the back of his neck. Simon spun, almost letting go of the wounded harper. A nightmarish, grinning beast face leered at him out of the darkness. The king had a moment of terror before he recognized the white wolf.
“Friend Simon!” Binabik bent down from his perch atop Vaqana. “Daughter of the Mountains, I am so happy you are still being alive! I feared for you!”
“This young man has been shot with a Norn arrow.”
Binabik slid down the wolf’s back and dropped to his knees beside Rinan. The harper’s face was so pale and slack that Simon was certain he was beyond hope, but Binabik pressed his head to the youth’s chest, then probed with his fingers at the wound around the arrow’s shaft.
“He has breath still,” the troll said, but before he could say more a ram came leaping back down the hillside and skidded to a stop beside him. Binabik’s daughter Qina had her hood pulled low over her face and a spear in her hand.
“Ninit-e, Afa!” she cried.
“A moment, daughter.” Binabik turned to Simon. “She is fearing for her mother and Little Snenneq, who are already up the hill and at helping your men.” The troll said something brisk and guttural to Qina in their own tongue. She scowled horribly, but turned her ram away from the hill and rode swiftly through the mêlée of soldiers pulling back from the slope. “She is now going to find you help. She is not happy with this. Like her mother she is fierce as windblown ice. Now, I go to help my wife and Little Snenneq. Be safe, friend Simon! Wait for Qina!”
He and Vaqana bounded away; within a matter of two or three heartbeats the troll and his mount had become only a fast moving shadow in the undergrowth.
The torches that still burned on the hillside had re-formed into a shaky noose of light that was slowly moving toward the summit. It had only reached the halfway point, yet there seemed less than half as many torches now. Simon wondered how many of his men had already fallen, and how strong the enemy truly was. He and Kenrick and the others had been too careless, and he cursed himself for it. What if they had bearded an entire Norn army?
Still, why would they be here if not to attack us? he told himself. Better we found them before we were surprised.
“Simon? Majesty? Are you still there?”
“Jeremias? Yes, I’m still here, with the harper. Come and help me.”
“I’m trying—my cloak is caught under the wheel of this wagon.” Jeremias’s voice was shrill, as if he had been plunged straight back into the horrors of his youth. Simon had suffered terribly in the Storm King’s War, but so had Jeremias, without the same measure of glory that had come for his friend.
Something had slowed the Erkynguards’ stumbling retreat from the center of the line; Simon heard shouting and cursing as voices from the darkness behind him tried to drive the soldiers back into place. But just as he was about to call to Jeremias again, another chorus of ragged cries rose from the hillside above, then a single, dreadful shriek split the thickening night. It was nothing so terribly ordinary as a soldier’s death cry, a thing made of pain and finality, it was the helpless screeching of a man seeing something in waking life that had previously been locked in the vaults of nightmare.
The scream lifted, grew ragged, and then was swallowed by a roar so loud and thunderously deep it might have come from the mountain itself; a moment later the hillside erupted in terrified cries accompanied by the drum-cracks of breaking trees. Even in a dark night lit only by torches, Simon could see a broad ripple moving down the hill as great trees fell, singly and in clumps, and as the ripple sped downward as a wave of screams raced before it. Simon could only imagine that somehow the entire crest of the hill had broken loose and was rolling or sliding down the tree-covered slope, sweeping all before it. He bent to pick up the wounded harper, hoping to drag him at least a little farther away from danger, then remembered his friend Jeremias, only a short distance away and just as helpless.
Simon didn’t see the shadow fly down from the hillside until it struck the ground before him. It was only luck that it landed well short of where he cradled the unmoving Rinan, because whatever it was seemed as big as a man. The great projectile, flung out of the darkness toward him like a sling stone, skidded with an odd, flailing motion until it stopped just before him. Simon saw a dim gleam of chain armor and a white hand thrust out at an illogical angle. It was man-sized because it had been a man.
The dead Erkynguardsman had been hit so hard that he had nearly broken in half; the body was folded on itself so that soldier’s legs were above the place where his head had once been—a head that was now only a bloody knob of raw skin, bone, and broken teeth. At the sight of it, for a long moment, Simon could pull no air into his lungs.
The sound of snapping trees grew even louder, and with it rose that deep, rumbling roar again: Simon felt it shaking his legs and arms and teeth, and thought it would turn his insides to jelly. This was not the first time he had heard such a sound so close by, and it terrified him.
Most of the torches were now gone from the hill above, the remaining few wildly scattered and moving erratically. Simon had just managed to lift the wounded youth off the muddy ground when something huge came tearing through the trees only a hundred cubits away from him, smashing its way through full-grown ashes and even oaks like a madman kicking through a pile of kindling.
Rinan’s unmoving form dropped from Simon’s suddenly nerveless fingers as the vast, manlike shape broke out from the edge of the forest, trunks splintering and leaping before it as if shot from bombards. For a moment the world seemed to spin, and he was plunged back into that terrible moment in the past, lost in the hills behind Naglimund, with Binabik dying and Simon and Miriamele caught between a desperate, wounded giant and its escape. It was as though time had turned and devoured its own tail.
Blessed Aedon, take care of Miri and be with me now, was all he had time to think.
The giant crashing down the slope toward him was the bigge
st one Simon had ever seen, a vast gray shadow that seemed taller than a house, its fanged jaws open and bellowing. It held an uprooted tree in one hand as a club, and when it saw Simon standing over the harper’s body it turned and lurched toward him. Its legs were stumpy and thick, but each was nearly as long as Simon was tall, and the rest of the creature towered above it, the muscles of its huge chest and arms knotting beneath pale fur as it lifted the trunk to smash Simon like a fly.
Then another shape came stumbling into the open space between Simon and the giant, an Erkynlandish soldier so dazed and bloody he did not even see the monster, but stopped, swaying, to peer at Simon as though he recognized him. Simon did not even have a chance to shout a warning before the giant swung the great tree, obliterating the upper half of the soldier in a wet burst of blood and flesh.
Simon placed himself between the monster and the wounded harper and lifted his sword. The blade trembled like a mariner’s compass too close to a lodestone, but that did not matter: Simon knew that no sword was going to stop such a thing, or even slow it. The giant thundered toward him, each flat-footed step making the ground shake so that Simon could barely stand. The sounds of terrified men, the many small fires blossoming on the wooded hillside, even the great, bone-shaking roars of the thing itself all faded away until he could hear nothing and see only the great shadow bearing down on him.
Like the dragon. His thoughts were swirls of dust, blown feathers. Like the dragon all over again. Again and again fighting, and never to rest . . . !
He lifted his sword. Better to die fighting, that was all—he and his blade would make no other difference. Everything that was him, that was Simon, would fly into bits before he could even pink the creature.
The great trunk swung toward him, a storm cloud, a whistling darkness. Simon was thrown sideways, and instead of a blow that would knock his bones to powder, felt only the blast of great wind. He fell down, down.
Is this what it feels like to die? Am I dead?
He was lying on something that was neither soft nor hard. He opened his eyes, and saw that he had tumbled across the body of Rinan. Although he still had no idea what had happened, he tried to scramble back so that he did not crush the harper. Something was holding his legs. Something . . .
Another thundering noise, that of hoofbeats this time, and then a flurry of pale shapes burst out of the darkness of the hillside and galloped past him, swift and unexpected. He rolled onto his side to watch the white horses as they rushed away, following in the track of the giant. The creature’s great back was toward Simon now as it led the Norns toward the road. The White Foxes galloped after him, their hair whipping like pennants as they sped toward freedom, toward escape. Simon was stunned to count no more than half a dozen Norn riders—so few to cause so much horror, so few—!
“But I’m . . . I’m not dead.” He realized he had said it out loud. He could not understand how the giant had failed to kill him. He tried to move his legs again, but couldn’t. A panicky moment ended when he saw that someone was clinging to him.
“Jeremias?” he asked. Jeremias had his arms wrapped tight around Simon’s knees. It seemed so unlikely—like another part of the dream: the king’s oldest friend had grabbed him and dragged him down so that the giant’s blow had missed. “God’s Blood, Jeremias! You saved my life.”
His friend stared back at him for a moment, his bloodless, shocked face covered in dirt and ashes, then Jeremias Chandler, Lord Chamberlain of the Hayholt, burst into helpless tears.
Count Eolair knew that the gods had gifted him with life and vitality beyond many, and he was grateful for that. At an age when most men were dead or doddering, he still moved among the greatest and the most powerful of all lands, and had responsibilities that any ambitious man would envy. Instead of sitting in the sun or playing with grandchildren before the hearth, he spent his days in the saddle with the young men, and worried at night about the fate of entire kingdoms. But in this hour he felt truly old—older than he had ever felt. It was as though the previous night had hollowed him out, leaving nothing but a fragile shell, as if any sharp blow or even a hard breeze might crumble him into flakes and powder.
“Just tell us the worst of it.” Queen Miriamele was composed, the only sign of her misery in the redness of her eyes. For an instant, he thought he saw in that sharp, stubborn face what her father Elias might have been had he not been lured by the priest Pryrates, had he not fallen into madness and shadows. “How many dead?”
“It makes my heart ache to tell you, Majesty. Twenty-three men dead, but with several others not likely to last the day. Twice that number hurt. Colfer will lose his arm, but he was lucky—the man beside him was crushed like a rotten fruit—” Eolair shook his head. “Forgive me, Majesties. You do not need to know all the horrors this day has seen.”
“Of course we do,” she said. “In fact, I will go visiting with you when we have finished here. The king has been wounded, so he can wait to go among them until tomorrow.”
“That’s foolish. I’m scarcely hurt, Miri,” Simon said, but to Eolair he seemed worse than hurt. If the queen looked like she had been crying, Simon looked like someone who could not even remember how to cry, as though something important inside him had collapsed and might never be rebuilt. He could certainly understand why the queen didn’t want Simon going out among the men yet. Still, there was no way he could tell that to the king.
“Rest and let the queen visit the men, sire,” he said. “I will bring your commanders here, and you can take stock with them.”
“Take stock? What is there to discuss? A handful of White Foxes just killed two dozen of our people, one of them right in front of me. Right in front of me.” Simon took a long time before speaking again. “An innocent, God save us all.”
“We must discuss whether we send a troop of men after the enemy, for one thing,” Eolair said.
“Pointless.” The king shook his head. “They would be hard enough to catch on foot, but on those tireless Stormspike horses . . . there is no sense in even following. Believe me, if I thought otherwise, I’d be leading the way myself.”
“No you wouldn’t,” his wife said. “Do not even speak that way.”
“Why?” The king grimaced and rolled into a more comfortable position on the cot. “I took no real injuries.” Simon pointed at Tiamak, who was rolling his cutting instruments back into their oilcloth wrapping, preparing to go out among the wounded again. “Ask him.”
Tiamak turned and nodded wearily. “The king is bruised and scraped and his ribs are tender—but, yes, his Majesty is largely correct.” He shared a quick glance with Eolair before turning to the king. “Still, you are terribly weary, Simon.”
“I’ve already slept. The rest of you haven’t.” The king had been all but tricked into an hour’s worth of rest around dawn after Tiamak—at Eolair’s quiet suggestion—had insisted that the shocked, heartsick monarch down a cup of strong Perdruinese brandy. “I can’t lie around any longer when the men are hurt and frightened, and many are dead. You already stopped me from going among them once.”
“They didn’t need to see you like that, husband,” the queen said. “You would have brought them no comfort. Bleeding and filthy—you looked like some monster yourself.”
The king was now almost sulking. “Only because Jeremias pulled me down into the muck. When he saved me, of course—saved my life! I don’t want to sound ungrateful. Bless him and keep him, I couldn’t believe it when I looked down and—” Simon trailed off and looked around. Eolair politely waited for him to catch up. “Your pardon,” he said. “What else is there? Why were those creatures here, so far south?”
Eolair could only shake his head. “At this point we can but guess, Majesty. No, I do not think we are even ready to do that.”
“And has anyone found evidence of how many of the evil things there were?” Miriamele asked. “Did we kill any?”
 
; “If we did,” said Tiamak, quietly as was his usual way, but with unusual firmness, “I would very much like to see the body.”
“None.” Eolair spread his hands. “We found no fallen but our own. Apparently the five we saw—and the giant, of course—were all.”
“They are terrible, fierce fighters,” said Simon. “Cold and difficult to kill as snakes. I’d truly hoped we would never have to face them again.”
A herald appeared in the doorway of the tent and announced Sir Kenrick, the burly, bearded young captain marshal, who held one hand close to his side. Eolair stirred, wondering if the captain was injured. The way he kept the hand out of sight made Eolair anxious, and he took a few steps closer to Kenrick and let his hand fall discreetly to his sword hilt, wondering if he still had enough of his old speed should something be badly amiss. “Captain, what do you have there for us?” he asked.
“Any sign of the bastards?” the king called from his cot.
“Gone, sire,” said Kenrick. “Melted into the open lands on the other side of the road. You’d think the Hunë would leave an easy track to follow, but there are a lot of rocky stretches in the grassland here—I’d warrant they’re on their way back to Stormspike, heading due north.” He raised his hand to his chest. “But, I beg your pardon, Majesties, as the lord steward noticed, I have something else to show you. I sent men sweeping both ways up and down the road, looking for other enemies. I told them especially to look for any sign of recent activity, something that might suggest another ambush. They saw nothing of that, but they did come across this a short way down the road to the south, sticking right out of the mud—the man who found it said it looked at first like a spring flower.” He carefully offered the thing he had been cradling to the queen.