“Regards?” Vorzheva sat up. “What sort of word is that from a man, from a husband? Regards?”
“Oh, Elysia, Mother of Mercy,” Gutrun said in disgust. “You know that he cares for you, Vorzheva. Let it go.”
The Thrithings-woman sank back, her hair spreading against the pillow like a shining dark cloth. “It is only because I cannot do anything. Tomorrow I will be stronger. Tomorrow I will walk to where I can see the battle.”
“Only if you can drag me that far,” said the duchess. “You should have seen her, Aditu—she couldn’t stand this morning, the pains were so dreadful. If I had not caught her, she would have fallen down right on the stone floor.”
“If she is strong enough,” Aditu said, “then for her to walk is certainly good—but carefully, and not too great a distance.” She paused, looking at the Thrithings-woman carefully. “I think perhaps you are too excitable to look at the battle, Vorzheva.”
“Hah.” Vorzheva’s disgust was plain. “You said your people hardly ever have children. Why are you now so wise about what I should do?”
“Since our birthings are so infrequent, we take them all the more seriously.” Aditu smiled regretfully. “I would greatly love to bear a child one day. It has been a privilege to be with you while you carry yours.” She leaned forward and pulled back the coverlet. “Let me listen.”
“You will only say that the baby is too unhappy to go walking tomorrow,” Vorzheva complained, but she did not prevent Aditu from laying a golden cheek against her tautly rounded stomach.
Aditu shut her upturned eyes as though she were falling asleep. For a long moment, her thin face seemed set in almost perfect repose. Then her eyes opened wide, a flashing of brilliant amber. “Venyha s’ahn!” she hissed in surprise. She lifted her head for a moment, then placed her ear back against Vorzheva’s belly.
“What?” Gutrun was out of her chair in a heartbeat, stitchery tumbling to the floor. “The child! Is the child … is something wrong?”
“Tell me, Aditu.” Vorzheva was lying perfectly still, but her voice cracked at the edges. “Do not spare me.”
The Sitha began to laugh.
“Are you mad?” Gutrun demanded. “What is it?”
Aditu sat up. “I am sorry. I was marveling at the continuing astonishment I feel around you mortals. And when I think that my own people count themselves lucky if we birth a handful of children in a hundred years!”
“What are you talking about?” Gutrun snapped. Vorzheva looked too frightened to ask any more questions.
“I am talking about mortals, about the gifts you have that you do not know.” She laughed again, but more quietly. “There are two heartbeats.”
The duchess stared. “What …?”
“Two heartbeats,” Aditu said evenly. “Two children are growing inside of Vorzheva.”
38
Sleepless in Darkness
Simon’s disappointment was an emptiness deep and hollow as the barrow in which they stood. “It’s gone,” he whispered. “Bright-Nail isn’t here.”
“Of that there is being little doubt,” In the torchlight, Binabik’s face was grim. “Qinkipa of the Snows! I almost am wishing we did not find out until we had come here with Prince Josua’s army. I do not wish to take him such news.”
“But what could have happened to it?” Simon stared down at the waxen face of Prester John as though the king might wake from his deathly sleep to give an answer.
“It seems plain to me that Elias knew its value and took it away. I am not doubting it is sitting in the Hayholt now.” The troll shrugged; his voice was heavy. “Well, we knew always that we must be taking Sorrow from him. Two swords or one seems to me a small difference only.”
“But Elias couldn’t have taken it! There was no hole until we dug one!”
“Perhaps he was taking it out shortly after John was buried. The marks would be gone after such a time passing.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Simon stubbornly insisted. “He could have kept it in the first place if he wanted it. Towser said that Elias hated it—that he couldn’t wait to get rid of it.”
“I have no certain answers, Simon. It is being possible that King Elias did not know its value then, but heard of it later. Perhaps Pryrates was discovering its power and so had it removed. There are many things possible.” The troll passed his torch to Simon, then crawled off the wale of Prester John’s boat and began to clamber back up toward the hole they had made. The twilit sky shone through, blue-gray and muddy with clouds.
“I don’t believe it.” Simon’s hands, weary with digging, painfully sore still from the ordeal in Hasu Vale, hung limply in his lap. “I don’t want to believe it.”
“The second, I am afraid, is the truer thing,” Binabik said kindly. “Come, friend Simon, we will see if Miriamele has made a fire. Some hot soup will be making the situation a little easier for thinking about.” He climbed to the lip of the hole and wriggled out, then turned. “Hand the torches to me, then I will be helping you out.”
Simon barely heard the troll’s words. His attention abruptly caught by something, he held both torches higher, leaning out over the boat once more to stare at the base of the barrow’s far wall.
“Simon, what are you seeking still?” Binabik called. “We have already nearly turned the poor king’s body overside-up in searching.”
“There’s something on the other side of the mound. Something dark.”
“Oh?” A trace of alarm crept into Binabik’s tone. “What dark something are you seeing?” He leaned farther in through the entrance they had dug, blocking the view of the sky.
Simon took both torches in one hand, then slid along the wale of Sea-Arrow until he could get close enough to confirm his suspicions. “It’s a hole!”
“That does not seem to me surprising,” the troll said.
“But it’s a big one—right into the side of the mound. Maybe it’s the one they used to get in.”
Binabik stared at the spot where he pointed, then suddenly vanished from the opening. Simon inched closer. The ragged hole in the side of the barrow was as wide as an ale cask.
The troll reappeared. “I see nothing on the outer side that matches,” he called. “If they were making their hole there they covered it with great care, or they were doing it long ago; the grass is untouched.”
Simon made his way carefully around to the narrow stern. He let himself down from the wale into Sea-Arrow and moved as carefully as he could to the other railing, then clambered up. There was a space little more than a cubit wide between the outside of the hull and the barrow’s wall of mud and timber. He slid down to the floor so that he could examine the hole more closely, bringing the torch close to the shadowed gap. Surprise set his neck tingling. “Aedon,” he said quietly. “It goes down.”
“What?” Binabik’s voice reflected some impatience. “Simon, there are things to do before the darkness is becoming full.”
“It goes down, Binabik! The tunnel beyond this hole goes down!” He thrust his torches into the opening and leaned as close as he dared. There was nothing to see but a few gleaming, hair-thin roots; beyond them the torchlight faded as the tunnel wound down and away into blackness.
After a moment, the troll said: “Then we will be examining it more tomorrow, after we have had a chance for thinking and sleeping. Come up, Simon.”
“I will,” said Simon. “Go ahead.” He moved closer. He knew he should be more frightened than he was—anything that made a hole this large, animal or human, was nothing to sneer at—but he felt an unmistakable certainty that this gaping rent in the earth had something to do with Bright-Nail’s disappearance. He stared into the empty hole, then lifted the torch out of the way and squinted.
There was a gleam down in the darkness—some object that reflected the torchlight.
“Something’s in there,” he called.
“Something of what sort?” Binabik said worriedly. “Some animal?”
“No, somethi
ng like metal.” He leaned into the hole. He smelled no animal spoor, only a faint acridity like sweat. The gleaming thing seemed to lie a short way down the tunnel, just where it bent out of sight. “I can’t reach it without going in.”
“We will be looking for it in the morning, then,” Binabik said firmly. “Come now.”
Simon edged a little way into the hole. Maybe it was closer than it looked—it was hard to tell by torchlight. He held the burning brands before him and moved forward on his elbows and knees until he was entirely into the tunnel. If he could just extend himself to full length, it should be almost within his grasp. …
The soil beneath him abruptly gave way and Simon was flailing in loose dirt. He grabbed at the tunnel wall, which crumbled but held for a moment as he braced himself with arms outstretched. His legs continued to slip downward through the oddly soft earth until he was buried waist-deep in the tunnel floor. One of the torches had fallen from his grip and lay sizzling against the damp soil just a few handbreadths from his ribs. The other was pinioned by his palm, rammed against the tunnel wall; he could not have dropped it even if he wished. He felt strangely empty, unafraid.
“Binabik!” he shouted. “I’ve fallen through!”
Even as he struggled to work himself free, he felt the soil shifting beneath him in a very strange way, unstable as sand beneath a retreating wave.
The troll stared, eyes so wide the whites gleamed. “Kikkasut!” he swore, then shouted: “Miriamele! Come here quickly!” Binabik scrambled down the incline into the barrow, working his way around the broad hull of the boat.
“Don’t come too close,” Simon cautioned him. “The dirt feels strange. You might fall through, too.”
“Then do not be moving.” The little man gripped the protruding edge of the boat’s buried keel and stretched his arm toward Simon, but his reach was short by more than a cubit. “Miriamele will bring our rope.” The troll’s voice was quiet and calm, but Simon knew that Binabik was frightened.
“And there’s something … something moving down there,” Simon said anxiously. It was a dreadful sensation, a compression and relaxation of the soil that held him, as though some great serpent twisted its coils in the depths. Simon’s dreamlike sense of calm evaporated, replaced by mounting horror. “B—Bin … Binabik!” He could not get his breath.
“Do not be moving!” his friend said urgently. “If you can but …”
Simon never heard the rest of what the troll meant to say. There was a sharp stinging around his ankles as though they had been suddenly wrapped in nettles, then the earth twitched again beneath him and he was swallowed. He barely had time to close his mouth before the clotted soil rose up and closed over his head like an angry sea.
Miriamele saw Binabik emerge from the hole. As she stacked the brambles and twigs she had gathered, she watched him hover beside the entrance they had dug into the mound, talking to Simon, who was still inside the barrow. She wondered dully what they had found. It seemed so pointless, somehow. How could all the swords in the world, magical or not, put a stop to the runaway wagon that her father’s maddened grief had set in motion? Only Elias himself could cry halt, and no threat of magical weapons would make him do that. Miriamele knew her father only too well, knew the stubbornness that ran through him just as his blood did. And the Storm King, the shuddersome demon glimpsed in dreams, the master of the Norns? Well, her father had invited the undead thing into the land of mortals. Miriamele knew enough old stories to feel sure that only Elias could send Ineluki away again and bar the door behind him.
But she knew that her friends were set on their plan, just as she was on hers, and she would not stand in their way. Still, she had not for a moment wished to descend with them into the grave. These were strange days, yes, but not strange enough that she wished to discover what two years in the disrespectful earth had done to her grandfather John.
It had been difficult enough to go to the burial and watch his body lowered into the ground. She had never been close to him, but in his distant way, he had loved her and been kind to her. She had never been able to imagine him young, since he had already been ancient when she was a small girl, but she had once or twice seen a glint in his eye or a hint in his stooped posture that suggested the bold, world-conquering man he must have been. She did not want even those few memories to be sullied by …
“Miriamele! Come here quickly!”
She looked up, startled by the fearful urgency in Binabik’s tone. Despite his call the little man did not look back to her, but slid into the gouge in the barrow’s side and vanished, quick as a mole. Miriamele leaped to her feet, knocking over her pile of gathered brush, and hurried across the hilltop. The sun had died in the west; the sky was turning plum-red.
Simon. Something has happened to Simon.
It seemed to take forever to cross the intervening distance. She was out of breath when she reached the grave, and as she dropped to her knees dizziness swept over her. When she leaned into the hole, she could see nothing.
“Simon has …” Binabik shouted, “Simon has … No!”
“What is it? I can’t see you!”
“Qantaqa!” the troll shrieked. “Qantaqa sosa!”
“What’s wrong!?” Miriamele was frantic. “What is it!”
Binabik’s words came in ragged bursts. “Get … torch! Rope! Sosa, Qantaqa!” The troll suddenly let out a cry of pain. Miriamele kneeled in the opening, terrified and confused. Something dreadful was happening—Binabik clearly needed her. But he had told her to get the torch and the rope, and every instant she delayed might help doom the troll and Simon both.
Something huge pushed her aside, bowling her over as though she were an infant. Qantaqa’s gray hindquarters disappeared down the incline and into the shadows; a moment later the wolf’s furious snarl rumbled up from the depths. Miriamele turned and ran back toward the place where she had begun her fire, then stopped, remembering that the rest of their belongings were somewhere closer to Prester John’s mound. She looked around in desperation until she saw them lying on the far side of the half-circle of graves.
Panting, her hands shaking so badly that it was difficult even to hold the flint and steel in her hands, Miriamele worked frantically until the torch caught. She grabbed a second brand; as she searched in desperation for rope, she set this torch alight with the first.
The rope was not among their belongings. She let out a string of Meremund river-rider curses as she hurried back to the mound.
The coil of rope lay half-buried in the dirt Simon and the troll had excavated. Miriamele wrapped it loosely about her so she could keep her hands free, then scrambled down into the barrow.
The inside of the grave was as strange as a dream. Qantaqa’s low growling filled the space like the hum of an angry beehive, but there was another sound, too—a strange, insistent piping. At first, as her eyes became used to the darkness, the flickering torchlight showed her only the long, broad curve of Sea-Arrow and the sagging timbers jutting through the barrow’s earthen roof like ribs. Then she saw movement—Qantaqa’s agitated tail and back legs, all that was visible of her past the stern of the boat. The earth around the wolf was aboil with small dark shapes—rats?
“Binabik!” she screamed. “Simon!”
The troll’s voice, when it came, was hoarse and tattered with fright. “No, run away! This place is being … full of boghanik! Run!”
Terrified for her companions, Miriamele scrambled around the side of the boat. Something small and chittering leaped down from the wale above her head, raking her face with its claws. She shrieked and knocked it away, then pinned it to the ground with the torch. For a horrifying instant she saw a wizened little manlike thing writhing beneath the burning brand, matted hair sizzling, sharp-toothed mouth stretched in a shrill of agony. Miriamele screamed again, pulling the torch away as she kicked the dying thing into the shadows.
Her pulse beating in her temples until she felt her head would burst, she forced her way forward. Severa
l more of the spidery things swarmed toward her, but she swiped at them with the twin torches and they danced back. She was close enough now to touch Qantaqa, but felt no urge to do so: the wolf was hard at work, moving swiftly in the confined space, breaking necks and tearing small bodies.
“Binabik!” she cried. “Simon! I’m here! Come toward the light!”
Her call brought another cluster of the chittering terrors toward her. She hit two with her torch, but the second almost pulled the brand from her grasp before it fell to the earth, squealing. A moment later she saw a shadow above her and jumped back, raising the torch again.
“It is me, Princess,” Binabik gasped. He had climbed up onto Sea-Arrow’s railing. He stooped for a moment and vanished, then reemerged, only his eyes clearly visible in the blood and earth that smeared his face. He thrust the butt of a long spear down for her to grasp. “Take this. Do not let them become close!”
She grasped the spear, then was forced to turn and sweep a half dozen of the things against the barrow wall. She dropped one of the torches. As she bent, another of the shriveled creatures pranced toward her; she speared it as a fisherman might. It wriggled on the spearhead, slow to die.
“Simon!” she shouted. “Where is he?” She picked up the second torch and held it toward Binabik, who had ducked down into the boat once more, and now stood with an ax clutched in his hands, a weapon nearly as long as the troll was tall.
“I cannot be holding the torch,” Binabik said breathlessly. “Push it into the wall.” He raised the ax over his head and then jumped down beside her.
Miriamele did as he said, jamming the butt of the torch into the crumbling earth.
“Hinik Aia!” Binabik shouted. Qantaqa backed up, but the wolf seemed reluctant to disengage; she made several snarling rushes back toward the chirping creatures. While she was engaged on one such sortie, another swarm of the things scurried around her. Binabik swept several into bloody ruin with the ax and Miriamele fended off others with jabs of the spear. Qantaqa finished her engagement and swept in to finish off the raiding party. The rest of the crowding creatures sputtered angrily, their white eyes gleaming like a hundred tiny moons, but they did not seem anxious to follow Miriamele and her companions as they backed toward the hole.