1633880583 (F) (40 page)

Skrymir laughed like a little kid before grabbing a monk and crushing him like a clump of snow.

This was too much.

I’ve long wandered the southern lands, the Karvak Realm, Qiangguo, the trading cities of the Braid of Spice, and now the Bladed Isles. And what I’ve seen everywhere is a disregard for life. You all see yourselves as so distinct from one another, but spilling blood is the sport you all share. My own people fear us shamans, because we remind them so much of blood and death. But among our own people we are reserved, even gentle. Down in the south I have cultivated a certain gruffness, acting as though I didn’t care about the violence around me.

But this casual slaughter isn’t the way we were meant to live. When my people hunt, we offer up prayers to the wild creature who has consented to be caught and eaten, so that when its spirit returns to its source, it will think well of us and come again. When a person dies we are careful to honor the essence as well.

Skrymir Hollowheart understood none of that.

When I became a shaman, I had a vision of climbing a tree around which the stars wheeled, going up and up to the place where the tree pierced the skin of the sky. Out of that gap roared spirits of power, shapeless and shining, and they slew spirit-me, cut me to pieces like a game animal. Down they brought a cauldron made of night and boiled me up. Out of the cauldron my spirit arose again, a thing of speed and cunning, like a waterbird of the northern seas, able to survive in two realms, water and air. So, too, I knew both the realms of flesh and spirit.

I was the shaman Northwing.

It is sometimes the burden of the shaman to speak to the mighty and say “enough.”

“Enough!”

And my voice brought the troll-eagles to us.

They had no hope of slaying the troll-king, but Skrymir clearly did not enjoy the pain.

“Northwing, enough!” said Steelfox. “I need your power beside me! Skrymir is our ally!”

That was it. I obeyed.

“No!” yelled Inga. She rushed at me, killing one of Steelfox’s guards.

Innocence was yelling at her to stop, while Walking Stick pleaded for him to come away.

“Enough!” I said, and told Innocence it was time to choose sides.

He chose the Karvaks.

Skrymir had destroyed the eagles. I might have felt guilty about that, but they’d been corrupted by crystalline troll-splinters already. Skrymir made a grab for Walking Stick, but the wulin warrior leapt from the tunnel into the high mountain air. He’d already magicked his companions—and Inga too—into the scroll. He dropped out of sight.

And so there I was, and there Innocence was, choosing one faction of a great struggle. I didn’t like having some friends on one side and some on another, and I didn’t think he would enjoy it either. But war is like that.

Of the War Council

And so I was alone, or might as well have been. My traveling companions were gone. Innocence Gaunt was busy being morose, stalking here and there among the caves. I had all the trolls and troll-twisted animals I could ever hope to talk to, of course. Ha. I glowered by myself in a corner of Skrymir’s audience hall. I was back in Steelfox’s service, but she was completely preoccupied with war plans.

It’s been a long War Council. The Easterners are bad enough—the princesses Steelfox and Jewelwolf, the Karvak general Ironhorn, the crazy warrior Dolma (who seems to have glued herself to Innocence), all talking, talking, talking. And then there are the Kantenings—yes, Kantenings, ready to sell out their fellows, the chieftains of places called Langfjord and Grawik and Jegerhall, northern lords with long grudges against Oxiland and Svardmark. Those three are of monstrous proportions, big as any men I’ve ever seen. In the jabbering of the trolls, they’re called three of the
Nine Wolves
, and they’re supposedly more than human, something I’ll have to investigate later.

Ah, the trolls! There must be thousands of them. You’d think they could overrun the Bladed Isles all by themselves. But I gather they’re limited in some ways. They’re none too happy with bright sunlight, and in some way I don’t understand they’re stronger on Spydbanen than elsewhere. Skrymir needs human help to fulfill his plan of claiming the Chained Straits. He’d like to slaughter as many humans as possible, naturally, but the Great Chain is what he really wants.

“Our riders have already secured the strait, great ones,” General Ironhorn reported. “We’ve met no real opposition. We had to eradicate one village, but once the survivors fled with their tale, the others capitulated. We have encampments on both sides of the gap, and on the island in the middle. The Chain is ours.”

“Mine, you mean,” Skrymir said easily. It must be very comfortable to talk to your allies when they’re human and you’re big as a hill. “You Karvaks and hangers-on, you can have the land, as long as my trolls can ravage a bit. I want the magic.”

“As long as I and our wizardly colleagues have access to it,” Jewelwolf told him. She was ever a striking woman, both like and unlike my patron—younger, fiercer, more commanding. I understood that in their childhoods, Jewelwolf had earned her conquering father’s respect. Steelfox had merely earned his love.

“Of course,” Skrymir said impatiently. “If not for our association in sorcerous circles, Jewelwolf, this whole alliance would be impossible. You and the others may tap the power for your own purposes. There is plenty for all.”

I kept my eyes low, scribbling. I would have to investigate that matter for myself.

“Tomorrow,” Jewelwolf said, “we move the main force. Innocence will accompany us, so that at the right time he may master the Chain.”

“I could take one of those balloons,” Innocence said. “Isn’t it true we could be there right away? Why wait?”

Dolma said, “Patience, great one.”

“Indeed,” said Jewelwolf. “It is good fortune we have you now, but there are those who might seek to snatch you away.”

The lord of Jegerhall, a huge, fierce-eyed man named Arnulf Pyre-Maker, spoke up. “You’re really planning to move a whole army down Spydbanen in the dead of winter?”

The equally big, many-scarred Ottmar Bloodslake of Grawik shot back, “We’ve sparred plenty of winters, we three.”

“Skirmishes!” mocked mighty Kolli the Cackling of Langfjord. “With war-bands of twenty or less! That’s a
real
army down there in Jotuncrown, with hungry stomachs.”

General Ironhorn laughed. “You have no experience with us. On the steppe we learned to campaign in winter, bringing what food we needed on the hoof. We know how to use frozen rivers as roads. We know how to use snowfall to disguise our movements. Winter is our friend.”

Steelfox said, “Nevertheless I fear we are overconfident. This is alien ground. And we campaign without a clear path home. My father never put himself in that position.”

“I am not our father,” Jewelwolf said. “And although a great strategist, he respected boldness above all else.”

“We will use all our craft,” the general said, seeming to appreciate his awkward position between contentious royals. “We have every expectation of victory, but we will not underestimate the Kantenings. Give the order, great ones.”

I have caught up now, with the present time.

Jewelwolf looks across the gulf before the throne of Skrymir, into the eyes of Steelfox. Jewelwolf is khatun, the chief wife of the Grand Khan back on the steppe. This is truly her expedition, but she has chosen to involve Steelfox, whether as punishment or peace offering, it’s hard to say.

It matters now, that the sisters agree.

Steelfox nods.

Jewelwolf smiles. “Begin at dawn, General.”

And the trolls roar with satisfaction, and the Kantening barbarians shout with glee, and the Karvaks go about their business with the discipline that has shaken the world.

And I? I reach out to a natural world that will soon know much more pain and death than usual, and although I obey, I cannot celebrate. I wonder at the feelings of the many Karvak Wind-Tamers, shamans who are my almost-colleagues, who hear the roaring down in the valley and begin their own preparations. And beyond, far to the northeast, I wonder at the spirit energies I sense there, in a place no troll or Kantening has spoken of. And—

“What do you think you’re doing?” Jewelwolf says, looming above me. “You should be helping my sister . . . you impudent Reindeer People savage, are you writing what I’m saying? How dare—

(
Here ends the portion of the
A Journey to Kantenjord
in the hand of Northwing, shaman of the True People. The bloodstain is presumed to be hers.
)

CHAPTER 22

PYRES

Gaunt, Bone, and Muninn Crowbeard emerged from the shadows of the Morkskag and skied through high, snowy country, passing ruined farmhouses and copses of trees, crossing frozen streams and ridges that seemed to have strayed from their mountain parents.

“We’re in the Gamellaw now,” Crowbeard said. “The realm of the old ways. No nations up here. It’s a rough place, but if you can lie low for a year and a day, Bone, most will agree you’re free of your bonds.”

“A year and a day,” Gaunt said, the image of Innocence fresh in her mind. “We can’t hide that long. We need to find that stone church.”

“No stone churches up this way,” said Crowbeard. “Not in Laksfjord. More a bunch of farms and a marketplace than a town. The chief thereabouts is Harald the Far-Traveled, a priest of Torden. He won’t defy the Gull-Jarl, but news doesn’t get here fast. We can probably stay a day.”

At sunset they descended to a fjord with snowy white fields and farmhouses scattered throughout. They inquired at a longhouse near the green-blue waters, flanked by sentinels of bare trees. A nondescript guard let them in.

They waited upon fireside benches with other guests, for it seemed to be a time of good cheer. Someone played a fiddle, one with the same haunting sound as they’d heard in Gullvik. Soon a gray-haired man in a cloak of rich colors came to sit beside them.

“Can it be?” said the chieftain. “Muninn Sure-Hand, I am certain of it!”

“I’m glad you’re sure, Harald, because I’m sure not. I go by Crowbeard now.”

“You don’t say! You have bones in your beard, like some sort of witch-man!”

“A wise woman told me they’d wing me from trouble. I think I want my money back.”

“Ha! You were always a surly one. And who are your companions?”

“I am Lepton,” Gaunt said, “and this is my husband Osteon. We are lately of Amberhorn.”

“A long journey!”

“You have no idea,” Bone said. “But we’re glad to have arrived in such a hospitable land.”

“Courtesy! Well, Muninn, or Crowbeard, I get few visitors from my old foamreaving days. You will stay in my hall. Share tales and good cheer. Or, if you are of a Swanling mind, their church is celebrating Saint Fiametta’s night. Though I’ll warn you they’re superstitious about the Vestvinden fiddle, so you’ll hear none there!”

“Why do they fear the fiddle?” Gaunt asked.

“It’s said it attracts and enchants spirits, especially the fossegrim of the waterfalls. But then, it also attracts drunkenness and revelry, and the Swan-church dislikes such things.”

“I am no Swanling,” Crowbeard said. “I would love to hear old tales, and a fiddle.”

Gaunt saw an opportunity. “My husband and I, on the other hand, have been too long away from Mass.”

“We have?” Bone said. Gaunt stepped on his foot. “We have!”

“You will want to leave that sword,” Harald said, eyeing Crypttongue. “I don’t mind folk going armed—indeed, the All-Father’s sayings encourage it—but the priest is particular about weapons and armor in church.”

“In the days of the stave churches,” Gaunt said, “it was otherwise.”

“Are you a historian of the Swan-church?”

“Not exactly.” She and Bone shared a look.

“I give you my word,” Harald said, “no one will touch your property.”

“Very well,” she said.

Leaving the hall several bits of metal lighter, Bone said, “Mind you, I have reason to doubt the honor of Kantening chiefs.”

“I understand.” She’d already spotted the church upslope on the northern side of the fjord and led Bone there arm-in-arm. The mouth of the fjord was glowing with rosy light, and her mood lifted. She laughed.

“What is it?” Bone asked.

“Me. Despite everything I’ve done, everywhere I’ve gone, I cling to an image of myself as a well-to-do farm girl of Swanisle.” She gestured. “But the thought was occasioned by a setting my countrymen would call barbaric.”

“I wondered why you were so eager to go to the church.” He sighed. “I’ve been able to give you many things, but never normality. The demons and monsters and assassins may have gotten in the way of that.” He paused. “Demons. Crowbeard talked about a Charstalker in the sword. That’s a very
particular
term.”

“Yes. It’s true. There’s an Eastern demon in there, and it’s indeed the kind that nurtures hate over several incarnations. Previously it was in the body of Muggur Barrow-Friend.”

“What is it doing here?”

“Its answers are evasive,” Gaunt said, “but I gather it and eight comrades came out here because there is some sort of connection between the Heavenwalls in the East and the Chain in the West. They found the Nine Wolves congenial hosts and stayed around.”