“Someone or something is following us,” Makho announced as they ate a sparse meal one morning. “When the wind is right, I can smell animal fat and animal skins and the stink of mortals.”
“No mortal would be fool enough to let us catch him,” said Kemme, then looked at Jarnulf with a grin that was nothing more than bared teeth.
“Surely even the Hikeda’ya are not foolish enough to think themselves unkillable,” Jarnulf said. “It might be a good idea to learn who is following us.”
“It is not one, it is many,” said Goh Gam Gar. As usual, the giant sat at a distance from the rest of them—Makho, as master of the collar that kept the monster docile, was always careful to stay beyond the reach of those long arms. Goh Gam Gar was eating the carcass of a frozen elk he’d found, tearing the icy mass into pieces and devouring it bones and all with, Nezeru thought, the righteous pleasure of a Hikeda’ya nobleman eating slices from a still-wriggling Lake Rumiya salmon. The giant largely foraged for himself, devouring huge quantities of berries and leafy plants when he couldn’t get meat. But when he did have the chance to hunt, he nearly always succeeded: Nezeru had seen him snatch a live squirrel off a branch and throw it into his mouth with a single motion, then swallow it in one gulp, like a fur-covered berry.
“Many?” Nezeru asked. “Many what?”
“Many mortals. They are too far away to count their numbers, but their stink has been with us for a while.” Goh Gam Gar let out a deep, rumbling laugh. “I doubt they are fewer than this company, however. What small party of mortals would follow the Hikeda’ya?”
“But who could it be?” Nezeru asked.
“These lands are mostly empty of settlements,” Jarnulf said. “But there are bandits who prey on travelers and merchant convoys all the way down to the Erkynlandish border. They find these empty lands a convenient base. There is also the Skalijar.”
Nezeru heard Skolli-yar, a word she did not know. “And who or what is that?”
“Bandits, but of a different sort. They came from the remnants of the Rimmersgarders who fought for you Hikeda’ya in the war, although they did not understand that was what they did. They were crushed by your Zida’ya cousins in Hernystir and their leader, a man named Skali, was killed. After that, many of the survivors turned their backs on their own people and the newer Aedonite faith, returning to the gods of their forefathers. But do not think them allies. They believe both the Hikeda’ya and the Zida’ya to be demons and will kill them when they can.”
Makho was staring out at the northern horizon, where the snows still covered the meadows and the distant hills. “It is interesting that you chose to bring us this way, and now we are followed, mortal. It is also interesting you know so much about these outlaw Rimmersmen.”
“I helped you escape from goblins, Hand Chieftain Makho, when otherwise you all would have died. I brought you safely through the Springmarsh and found river fords for you. And also I led you through the edges of the Dimmerskog without harm, where there are creatures uglier and more unpleasant to meet even than our friend Goh Gam Gar. Still you treat me with distrust, though you have traveled twice as fast as you would have without me.”
“Yes. Just as we traveled swiftly toward the mortal ruler and his mortal army not so long ago.”
Jarnulf’s face remained cold, his eyes unblinking. “That mistake was not mine, as you well know. I grow tired of hearing that foolish accusation.”
Now Saomeji, who had been looking east, contemplating the foothills of Urmsheim, said, “It still is not clear to me why you do help us, mortal. You have had many opportunities to escape.”
“Escape?” Jarnulf laughed. “Why should I escape? I am no Rimmersman, whatever I look like. I was raised among the Hikeda’ya. You made me what I am. If I am not one of the most important servants of the Mother of All, I am still one of her huntsmen. Why should I not do what I can to aid her Talons?”
“You make a fair point,” said Saomeji, lacing his fingers together and performing a bow that even Jarnulf must have recognized as mocking. “We Hikeda’ya are a suspicious race, of course, having so often found ourselves betrayed by mortals. Forgive me for questioning your motives, Huntsman.”
For a moment, as he turned from the Singer in disgust, Jarnulf’s icy blue eyes met Nezeru’s. She had no idea what the mortal was thinking, and that by itself was intriguing—in her small experience of his race, they were guileless as cattle. She did not fully believe him about his motives, but for some reason she could not quite name, she also did not believe he meant to betray them.
I have never met a creature I understood less, Nezeru thought. Not even the giant.
• • •
Within days they reached the foothills the Northmen called Urmsbakkir, and began the slow ascent toward Urmsheim itself, which jutted like a wolf’s fang above the smaller peaks on either side. Farther south the world enjoyed the full coming of spring: Nezeru knew that despite the snow on the ground, the slaves and Bound workers outside Nakkiga would be crawling out of their hovels to spend as much time as they could in the sun. But here at the northern edge of the world it was still winter, as it almost always was.
As the cold mists rose, the slopes became steeper; climbing became steadily more difficult. The Hikeda’ya were more and more often forced to lead their horses. Sometimes the giant had to lift the terrified animals over an obstacle; Nezeru found it almost painful to watch the usually stolid Nakkiga steeds’ eye-rolling panic at the monster’s touch. Other tracks were too narrow for Goh Gam Gar himself, forcing him to find a different way up. Makho would always keep him in sight, the crystal goad clutched firmly in his hand until the giant had rejoined the procession.
Unless he was giving orders, Makho hardly talked with any of the company but the Singer Saomeji during these days which made Nezeru uneasy. She did not understand exactly what had happened at Bitter Moon Castle, but it was clear Akhenabi’s intervention had changed things profoundly, and even Makho himself seemed uneasy with their new mission.
• • •
They were near the base of Urmsheim itself, working their way up a difficult hill when the attack came.
The slope was scree spotted with drifts of snow—an accumulation of loose rock and boulders that the horses, if led, could just manage to climb. Because of the danger to whoever was below, they took the horses up one at a time.
Kemme had already reached the crest, and Saomeji had climbed it behind him. Nezeru watched from the bottom of the hill as Jarnulf led his own horse up over the loose rock. The mortal was almost as light and precise of foot as the Hikeda’ya, but that did not prevent both man and mount nearly tumbling when an errant hoof started a small avalanche beneath them. Nezeru moved quickly to the side to avoid stones as big as her head tumbling toward her. Jarnulf spread his arms for a moment before regaining his balance. He examined his horse, which had toppled onto its side, then urged the shaken beast onto its feet again and began to lead it up the last few steps to the crest.
It had become clear earlier that the giant would not be able to make it up this loose slope without causing a much larger rockfall, so the great beast and Makho were taking a longer but less steep way, a gully strewn with boulders so large that the giant often had to put Makho’s horse under his arm and carry it, like a Nakkiga noblewoman with a pet lynx. The horse occasionally wriggled and kicked in fear at being held by the monster, but it had been raised in the stables deep beneath the mountain and stayed silent.
As Nezeru stood, poised to begin her own climb as soon as Jarnulf was off the dangerous slope, she saw Makho turn abruptly, as though someone had shouted to him. A moment later he staggered. Nezeru thought the usually sure-footed Makho had simply put a foot wrong until she saw the arrow quivering in his shoulder. Then the chieftain slipped from the tall rock and tumbled out of her sight.
A moment later loud, hoarse cries tore the air as a troop of bearded men
came swarming across the hilltop toward Kemme and Saomeji from both sides, loosing arrows. The first flights missed, which gave the two Hikeda’ya a chance to find shelter behind an outcropping near the brow of the hill, but it was clear that in moments they would be surrounded and cut down. Nezeru counted something near two dozen attackers, all mortal men in ragged clothing. Only a few had drawn their bows; the rest hurried forward with axes and swords raised.
There was no time to force her horse to climb the slope. She scrambled upward as quickly as she could, using her hands almost as frequently as her feet. Arrows began to snap past her head: the enemies atop the hill had seen her.
Trying to move swiftly over the loose stones was like a bad dream but Nezeru knew she had no choice, since the slope offered nowhere to hide. An arrow ripped through her hood where it lay against her back, but she kept scrambling upward on all fours. An instant later, just as she reached the top, another shaft broke against a stone not an arm’s-length from her face. She threw herself down and lay with half her body still on the slope until she spotted her shaggy mortal attacker hurrying forward to finish her. Her bow was caught beneath her, so she pulled her knife and, after a split-instant to locate the balance, threw it with as much strength as she could muster. The blade whirled end over end, and though she did not manage to lodge it in his throat, the pommel broke the man’s nose, dropping him face-first to the ground with blood sheeting down his face.
Safe for a moment, Nezeru turned to where Kemme and Saomeji still huddled against the tall stone on the crest even as a half dozen or more of the bearded men drew closer with every heartbeat. The Northmen’s excited shouts were as incomprehensible to her ears as the barking of hounds. She scrambled off the slope onto a snowy patch of dirty snow and dead grasses, then took her bow from her shoulder. Her first arrow missed, but her second took one of the attackers in the thigh. He stumbled and fell, then got to his feet to pluck the arrow from his leg. As he did, Nezeru nocked another arrow and sent it whistling through his chain mail and into his chest.
The rest of the attackers were nearly on top of Saomeji and Kemme, and some now split off from the main group to charge downhill toward Nezeru and Jarnulf, who stood only a little distance above her. She thought the mortals made an ugly collection, bearded men much bigger than herself wearing ill-matched armor, slavering and howling like wild dogs.
Jarnulf had thrown down his bow and pulled out his sword, and now he waded into the first pair to reach him, his blade so swift it seemed almost ghostly in the misty air. As Nezeru climbed back to her feet she saw three more attackers sprinting toward her. She managed to knock one down with an arrow to the body, but couldn’t tell whether the shot had been fatal. Then, as the other two rushed at her, one with sword drawn and the other swinging a heavy two-handed ax, she threw herself forward, swinging her bow, and hit the ax-wielder in the face with it. He stumbled and fell to his knees, bleeding from the nose and eyes, but she had won only a momentary respite because his companion was still coming.
Nezeru threw down the bow and drew her sword from its belt ring in time to guide the weight of the man’s swinging blade to one side, but the bearded mortal was strong and the point of his blade still hit her shoulder. Her witchwood armor took most of the force, but her arm went numb and for a moment she could only hold her sword with the other hand as her attacker turned, teeth bared and eyes wild, and rushed at her once more, blade swinging for her head. Behind him, the ax-wielding man whose nose she had broken was climbing to his feet. She had only moments before he came to help the swordsman.
Rock Serpent retreat, she told herself. Grass Blade to take the force. A kick to keep him going.
She parried. Her opponent stumbled past as she whirled away and then helped him along with her foot. But even as he staggered and lost his footing, stopping himself only by putting his sword hand and blade flat on the snowy ground, the ax-man was on her, his face streaming with blood, the whites of his eyes staring out of the scarlet smear as bright as candleflames. He had clearly decided that she was no easy victim, and began to move her backward with swift but skillful swings of his ax. She dared not try to take the blows on her sword: the blade might survive the clash, but her shoulder was still tingling from the swordsman’s strike and she was afraid she might lose all sense in it if it was hit hard again. But she could hear the man with the sword getting up behind her, his boots scuffling in loose stones. She located Jarnulf, barely visible in the mist and still occupied with his own attackers. She could not even guess what Kemme and the Singer were doing.
The Dance! she reminded herself. Think only of the Dance of Sacrifice.
Nezeru had spent hour after hour in the Blood Yards as her teachers sent armed men and women against her, some of them already trained Sacrifices, but far more often criminals and slaves who had tried to escape and were now forced into the role of unwilling soldiers, with no hope of living out the day unless they killed her. In just one of the grueling sessions at the Yards she had fought from the third hour of the clock until the ninth, facing twenty-two opponents in all. The last, as Nezeru was staggering with weariness, had been a trained killer named Summer Ice, one of the Order of Sacrifice’s most deadly graduates but under sentence of death for being found drunk on duty.
I beat him, she reminded herself, though I was half-dead when I fought him. I killed them all. That is why I am here.
“I stand for the Queen!” she shouted. Her enemies could not understand her, of course, but the swordsman shouted something back and charged her.
The first surprise of the attack over, she reminded herself what her sword-mentors had taught her and began to take control, planning ahead as if she were playing shent with her father. She angled herself so that she could retreat toward the spot where Jarnulf fought, then did her best to even the odds by not letting her opponents get onto either side of her.
She was startled by a sudden loud crack like thunder, then another, but although she could see flashes of light at the corner of her eye, she dared not look. The Dance, she told herself. Only the Dance. But that did not mean she could not pretend to look. At the next loud thundercrack from nearby, she swiveled her eyes for an instant; the swordsman took the bait, swinging for her neck. She dropped to her knees and gutted him with a swift, two-handed thrust of her own blade, then was back up again before her other foe could take advantage.
Now she could hear the noises of sword on sword very close behind her. “Mortal, I am here!” she called.
“I can see you, queenswoman,” Jarnulf said. “Stay where you are—I have a little trick I’ve been saving.”
Her own moment came as he was speaking. Her opponent swung his heavy ax again, but though she had to move quickly to avoid it, she could see he was tired and starting to slow, so as he pulled it back again she leaped toward him and stabbed downward, shoving her light, narrow blade through his foot so that he shrieked and stumbled backward. She held onto her blade, widened her stance, bent and yanked hard. The man went over on his back in a puff of snow, losing his ax as he fell. She tried to free her sword to finish him, but the blade would not come completely free of his boot, so she scooped up the man’s own ax and crashed it through his forehead before he could do more than rise onto his elbows. He fell back, his already unlovely, broken-nosed face now a scarlet ruin.
She turned in time to see the end of Jarnulf’s “trick.” He was whirling his sword above his head with only one hand on the hilt—Nezeru could not tell whether it was to be attack or defense. The lone mortal facing him could not understand it either, and with a shout of frustration, threw himself forward just as Jarnulf let go of the sword, which flew well over the man’s head and disappeared behind him. As the man gaped at this bizarre ploy, Jarnulf ducked under the man’s swinging cut, then seemed to clutch at the bearded fighter’s waist. A moment later they both went down in a confusing roil of furs and limbs.
Jarnulf was the one who stood up, howeve
r, his unusually long knife gripped in his hand. Not even Nezeru had seen him draw it, but it was bloodied almost to the guard.
“You fight like a Sacrifice,” she said.
“I told you. The great Xoka himself taught me.”
The mist was streaming past them now, caught by a sudden wind from the heights. Nezeru found she could see across the hillcrest, which was littered with the bodies of their enemies. Makho had been knocked to the ground by a huge man with an eyepatch, who stood over the chieftain, ready to finish him. She scrambled up the slope, but knew she would never reach them in time.
The one-eyed man brought his sword up to stab Makho, but just before the killing blow fell, the mortal looked in Nezeru’s direction and his lone eye opened wide with surprise, as if she were a long-lost daughter, some child he had thought never to see again.
“You . . . ?” was all he said, then an arrow sprouted from his chest, shivering among his furs like the branch of a leafless tree. His mouth gaped in his thick, dark beard, and Nezeru saw blood run down his chest like a black river, then another arrow took him in the forehead and threw him backward to the ground.
Only then did Nezeru turn to see Jarnulf, who had scrambled back to his discarded bow. Only then did she realize that it must have been him, not her, who had so surprised the one-eyed man.
Nezeru’s legs were still moving, but now without purpose. She stumbled to a stop. Nothing else stirred except Jarnulf as he crunched across the snowy gravel toward her.
“He was a big one,” he said, but she thought she heard something beneath his words, something that gave the lie to his offhand tone. “But still I think Makho will not thank me.”
“The mortal seemed to recognize you,” Nezeru said, then immediately wished she hadn’t spoken. Never give what you know away until it is useful to reveal it. That was what her father had taught her, and her mother too, both in their own ways, and it had been the root of many of her teachers’ lessons in the Order of Sacrifice.