The Wizard (19 page)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN TOOLS

"I feel the call of Skai every time we do this," I muttered. "What about you, Gylf? Don't you feel it?" Gylf glanced up. "Yep." "You've never been there. Not since you were small." He did not speak. "You could've come after me. But I suppose you didn't know where I'd gone. You thought I was dead." "Yep." "Now I'm back, no nearer Disiri, but nearer Skai than I ever was when I was with her. I just want to keep riding up and up too, closer and closer 'til I see the castle. I want to unsaddle Cloud there, and fill her manger until the corn runs over. Then I want to go into the hall and show you off, have a drink, and tell good lies about all we did down here." "Are we?" "No. But you'd like Skai. Love it, in fact. It's all plains and wild hills, and always changing. Look." Fusing in my saddle, I pointed. "There's Utgard, black against the stars. See it?" "Bad." "I'm sure. But oh Thyr and Tyr, just look at the size of it! If ever I've doubted that our Angrborn are true sons of Bergelmir, I'd believe it now." Prompted by my thoughts, Cloud began her descent. "I swore I wouldn't use the power I was given there when I came back, but" "No?" "You think I'm using it, don't you? Whenever we travel like this." "Yep." "I'm not. This is Cloud's talent, one of them. If I were to dismount, I'd fall." "I don't," Gylf panted. "No, but you can't ride." I reined up. "Look over there, the red light. That's a forge, I'll be bound, and they're still working. Why don't we hear the hammers?" "I'll find out." Gylf loped off. Faint and far, I heard the wind rise; snow stirred at the feet of a group between Gylf and the glow of the charcoal. When he returned he said, "Man and a girl." "At the forge?" "Yep." I nodded. "The men have stopped work to talk to them? They're probably telling her to get to bed. Kids shouldn't be up this late." "Not much of a fighter." The slave called Vil declared. "Where's your stick?" He had been feeling Toug's arms. "I haven't got one," Toug explained. "I couldn't carry Etela and a stick, too." The slave grunted. His face was thin, but his arms were thick with muscle. The hands that pinched and squeezed Toug felt as hard as iron. "I should get back to my master," Toug said. Without looking at her, another slave addressed Etela. "You goin' to bed like a good girl?" "Uh-huh." "Your ma's sleepin', or she'd been here botherin' us about you." Etela looked doubtful. "Well, I hope." Vil said, "We've got to make more." Toug cleared his throat. "I've been wondering about that. What do you make here? Horseshoes?" "It's mattocks now," Vil said. "Want to get the feel of one?" "Yes, I'd like to find out what they're like." Toug sensed that the more eager to stay and talk he appeared, the more willing Logi's slaves would be that he go. "Come along," Vil told him; and indeed Vil's grip on his arm left him no choice. The forge was every bit as lofty as the house to which it was attached, dirt-floored and open at the side opposite the house, presumably so that horses could be led into it. There were no lights save the ruddy glow of burning charcoal, but a hundred candles could not have lit it as well. "Right there," the slave said. "You like it? How'd you like to swing that all day?" It was huge. Toug drew his hand back hurriedly. "It's still hot." "Not all that hot." Effortlessly, the slave picked it up. "Hold out your hands." "No," Toug said. All three laughed. "How you goin' to know how big it is if you don't feel of it?" "Your hands are tougher than mine," Toug said. "If you say it's big, I'll take your word for it." "Wait. I'll get you a cold one." Walking slowly but confidently, Vil went to the back of the forge and returned carrying a mattock whose blade was as long as Etela was tall, and whose handle had not long ago been a considerable tree. Toug took it, but quickly let its head fall to the ground. "Think you could swing that?" "He's real strong, Vil," Etela declared loyally. "I'm not," Toug told her, "and not nearly as strong as your friends here. I wish I were." "You come work with us," Vil said. "I'm glad I don't have to. Is Etela's mother here? I'd like to talk to her." "Inside. I'll take you." He led Toug and Etela to the back of the forge, past stacks of enormous picks and spades, and opened a door big enough for the largest Angrborn. As they went through Toug said, "You're working late." "Got to." The slave closed the door behind them and offered his hand. "Name's Vil." "Toug." Toug took it, telling himself that any pain he suffered in Vil's grasp would be pain deserved, that a future knight should be as strong as any smith. "Stout lad. You might swing a hammer yet." Toug thanked him. Vil's voice fell. "Got eyes, don't you?" Here it was. "Yes," Toug said. "The Angrborn have never enslaved me. I can see." "Tried to fool us." "Yes," Toug repeated. "I should've known better." "He's from the castle," Etela put in. "One of King Arnthor's men?" "I've never seen him," Toug confessed, "but I am." "We were his people. All of us." Vil's empty sockets stared at something to the left of Toug's face, and a trifle lower, but his hand found Toug's shoulder. "I was born in Glennidam," Toug told him. "Never heard of it." "It's smaller than lots of villages." Toug paused. "We kept the secrets of the Free Companiesgave them food and and beer and anything else they wanted, because they promised to protect us. Sometimes they just took it." "You revered us," a new voice said, "because Disiri was kind to you, offering to hide your children when the Angrborn came." "Baki?" Someone stepped from a dark corner, in form a human woman with hair so red it seemed to glow in the dim light, and now and then leaped like a flame. "This is aa friend of mine, Etela." Toug gulped, drew a deep breath, and plowed on. "She'll be a friend of yours, too, I'm sure. Baki, this girl is Etela, and I've been taking her back to her mother. I'm going to bring her to the castle and feed her if her mother lets me. And this is Vil. He works here, and I'm sure he's a very good smith. Don't you like smiths?" Etela said, "How come she hasn't got clothes?" "I'm Baki's sister, and I love smiths." She was running her fingers down Vil's arm. "Smiths as hard as their anvils. Do you make swords, Vil?" "Not" His voice cracked. "Not good ones." "I can teach you to forge a sword that will cleave the head of the hammer." Toug drew Etela to one side. "Where's your mother?" "Well, I think she's in the next room listening." "Really? What makes you think so?" "I just do." Toug nodded. "Let's find out." Leaving Uri in Vil's embrace, they hurried through the kitchen. There was a fireplace in the next room, a little, niggardly fireplace by the standards of the castle Toug had left, but a large one just the same. The coals of a fire smoldered there, and two slave women slept in its ashes. A third, a white-faced black-haired woman in a dress of black rags, sat bolt upright on a tall stool. In the firelight her wide eyes seemed as dark as sloes. "That's Mama," Etela announced. Toug cleared his throat. "I'm pleased to meet you, ma'am. I'm Squire Toug." The seated woman did not move or speak. "I found Etela in Utgardin the town, I mean, all alone. Something might have happened to her." Not knowing whether the seated woman heard him, he stopped talking; she said nothing. Etela filled the silence: "Well, something 'bout did." Toug nodded. "So I brought her back. But she was cold and she's hungry, and if it's all right with you I'd like to take her to the castle and feed her." It seemed to Toug that the angle of the seated woman's head had altered by a hair. "To your king?" Toug plowed on. "To King Gilling's. Maybe I can find some food for her and warmer clothes." One hand stirred as the feathers of a dead dove might stir in a draft, and Etela hurried over. The woman seemed to whisper urgently, her whispers punctuated by Etela's I wills and Yes, Mamas. Etela returned to Toug. "Well, she says we can, only we better go now 'n quick." Toug agreed. He averted his eyes from the impassioned couple in the kitchen and tried to hurry Etela. Behind them, something had awakened; the timbers of the barnlike house creaked and groaned. In the smithy two slaves were shaping a mattock, one gripping the red-hot iron with tongs while the other hammered it, sensing its shape (it seemed to Toug) with light taps of the hammer. Toug and Etela dashed past; and if the pair at the anvil heard them, they gave no sign of it. "What did you mother say to you?" Toug asked when they were trotting down the street. "Go fast!" "I know, but what else?" "Master's up," Etela panted. "If he heard you" The rest was lost in an earthshaking roar from behind. Toug turned long enough to catch sight of an Angrborn as wide as he was high, with three arms. Scooping up Etela like a puppy, Toug ran for all he was worth but was jerked off his feet by his cloak. For a moment that seemed an eternity, he struggled to withdraw his arms from the slits and prayed that it would tear and free him. Two more hands closed about his waist. The Angrborn spoke. (Or might have believed he spoke.) All Toug heard was the voice of a beast, snarls that would have sent the biggest bear that ever walked into panicked flight. He shrieked, and could no more have repeated what he had said afterwardwhat he had promised Org or any Overcyn who would send Orgthan he could have repeated what Logi had said to him. It was effectual, whatever it was. A black shape left a shadow less dark and took Logi from behind. Toug was dropped or thrown or both, and struck the snow-covered ground with force enough to leave him stunned. When he had recovered sufficiently to get to his feet, Org and Logi were grappling, Logi with a dagger as long as a sword, and Org with a scaly hand locked on Logi's wrist. Toug had never seen Org's face clearly before that moment; he saw it then and would have recoiled in horror if he had not known it for the face of their defender. "Run!" Etela was tugging his arm. He shook his head as the point of the dagger crept nearer Org's throat. "Run! We gotta run!" "I'm a knight. I can't run." He brushed Etela aside and threw himself at Logi, wrestling with a leg, then heaving at the ankle as a man would struggle to uproot a tree. Org was struggling too, his free hand raking Logi's back and side so that blood and flesh rained down. A moment more, and Logi fell. He and Org rolled through snow, and though all Logi's hands circled Org's neck, so thick was that bull neck with muscle that Org fought on. Until Toug drove the sword-long dagger he had snatched up into Logi's left eye. Cloud and I might have cantered down to the top of one Utgard's towers. The thought amused me and for a moment I considered it. Cloud would have been safe there, but a less comfortable spot could scarcely be imagined. Coming to earth outside the town and riding through it was liable to be dangerous; but I was tempted to do that as well. The safest course was probably to touch ground just beyond the moat and trot through the open gate, around the bailey, and so to the stables I had seen behind the keep. Rejecting that, we cantered a long bowshot above the highest spires, and down to the cobbles. The rattle of Cloud's hooves awakened no dutiful groom. I dismounted and went in search of a clean stall. A horse nickered at my step. I found itthe white stallion I had been given in a time that seemed long ago. The grooms, blind slaves, were sleeping behind the tack room. I woke them with the flat of my sword, filling the place with phantoms they sensed but could not see. When they were cowering in a corner, I addressed them. "There's not a horse in this stable that has water or corn, save one. That one horsehe belongs to an old friendhas water and corn because I watered and fed him. When I saw the way you'd treated him, I wanted to kill you. I still do." They moaned. "Your king is barricaded in Utgard. Is that right?" "Y-yes." "Thus you have felt yourselves at liberty to do as you wished, and what you wished has been to neglect the animals. Filthy stalls and empty mangers. Horses, mules, and oxen half dead of thirst. I'd pity you if you hadn't proved that you deserve blindness and worse. I'm going into the keep. You'll find my mount and my hound outside. Unsaddle my mount and care for her. Feed my hound and see that he has water. Is that understood?" The slaves muttered assent. "You're to clean every stall, and feed and water all the animals. I can't say how long my business with King Gilling will take. An hour, maybe. Maybe longer. No more than half the night though, and when I come back I'll check every stall to see if my orders have been carried out." Leaving the stable I began the long walk around Utgard to the main entrance; then, finding the broad arch of a sally port sized for Angrborn, I entered its pitch black passage and pounded the iron door. The archer who opened it looked at me with surprise. "Sir Able! I was expectin' Squire Toug." "You really wanta hear what Mama said?" Etela asked as they hurried through the town. "Yes," Toug told her. "I want to ask you about her too. Why she wouldn't talk to me and some other things." "That's good, 'cause I wanna ask ever so much 'bout your face 'n the castle. You're going to tell me, aren't you?" "I'll try," Toug promised. He had taken Logi's dagger and its sheath, and was carrying them over his shoulder. " 'Bout Org, too. Will you answer 'bout him?" "If I know the answer." "All right, after Master was dead, you 'n Org talked. Only I was scared to get close. What'd you say?" "He wanted to know if it was all right for him to feed from your master's body," Toug explained. "I said it was, but he'd have to look out for the Angrborn because they would kill him if they saw him. He said he'd take it someplace and hide it, and that way he could come back later and have some more. I said that was fine." "He's not with us no more?" Toug shrugged. "I don't see how he could be." "S'pose somebody wants to hurt us?" "I'll do what I can. I have this now." He indicated Logi's dagger. "So we're better off than we were. I got one of these before. It wasn't nearly as nice as this, and when my horse finally got to Utgard I stuck that one under the bed and forgot it. I won't forget this, ever." "It's awfully big," Etela said practically. "It's too big for me to hold right," Toug admitted, "but I think this handle's bone, maybe from one of the Angrborn or just from a big animal. Whichever, I ought to be able to cut it down and sand it smooth. It'll take work, but it'll be worth it. Now tell me, what did your mother say to you?" "All of it? There's lots." Toug nodded. "Yes, everything." "Well, she said to go to the castle with you, only not to come back ever at all. To do whatever I had to, to stay with you. 'Cause you were my own kind of folks 'n the closer I got to my own kind the better it was going to be for me. She said get cleaned up 'n get pretty clothes