The Golden Shrine Read online

  The Bizogots should have dismounted and run when their horses faltered. They just sat there instead. The spell must have seized them, too. It didn’t seem like baby magic to Hamnet Thyssen, but Marcovefa had different standards.

  Her face wore a foxy look of intense concentration. Hamnet peered out toward the Rulers. They were in easy archery range, close enough for him to see their grins. One of them nodded toward the two Bizogots. They all laughed. The laughs sounded nasty to Hamnet. Maybe that was his imagination. Maybe not, too.

  They seemed to have no idea his troop was anywhere nearby. Marcovefa’s masking spell was working, anyhow.

  When things happened, they happened all at once. One instant, the Rulers’ wizard was laughing and joking with his friends. The next, his riding deer’s antlers caught fire. Hamnet heard his startled squawk and the animal’s screech of pain.

  At the same time, the magic holding the Bizogots and their horses dissolved. They galloped for the cover of the woods.

  “Loose!” Hamnet called. His men’s bowstrings thrummed. Several ordinary Rulers tumbled off their riding deer. The ones who didn’t fall turned and raced south as fast as their mounts would go. “Charge!” Hamnet bellowed at the top of his lungs.

  Horses were faster than riding deer—not much, but enough. None of the Rulers made it into the trees from which they’d emerged. Some went down fighting. Others, seeing themselves about to be captured, cut their own throats or plunged daggers into their chests.

  Their wizard had somehow suppressed the flames that sprang from his riding deer’s antlers. Like a short-faced bear at bay, he turned to face Marcovefa and the Raumsdalians with her. He yammered something in his unintelligible language.

  Marcovefa only laughed. That seemed to infuriate him more than anything else she might have done. Instead of aiming a spell at her, he drew his sword and charged. The riding deer obeyed him as if it were unhurt. That impressed Hamnet more than he wanted to admit.

  It did the wizard no good at all. Bows twanged. His magic turned a few arrows, but it couldn’t turn them all—not when Marcovefa worked against him, it couldn’t. He and the riding deer went down together. Their blood steamed in the snow.

  “Too bad, in a way,” Hamnet said. “We might have got some interesting answers if we’d been able to question him.”

  “He’s dead. That is interesting enough,” Marcovefa said. “They are all dead. Let the Rulers worry about them. Let the Rulers try to guess what happened to them. Yes, let the Rulers worry.”

  Count Hamnet might have liked it better had one enemy warrior got away to tell his friends exactly what had happened. Then, he could hope, they would stop trying to pick off sentries. But leaving them in the dark about their fellows’ fate wasn’t the worst thing in the world, either.

  “Look!” A lancer pointed up into the sky. “The ravens are already circling, waiting for us to leave.”

  “And the vultures,” Hamnet said, and then he spotted a truly enormous bird high in the air. “And a teratorn.”

  “Cursed scavengers,” the trooper said. “Don’t want them gnawing my bones when I’m gone.”

  “What difference does it make then?” Marcovefa asked. “Better that the scavengers eat you than that the enemy does.” The lancer stared at her, no doubt thinking she was joking. She smiled back, knowing she wasn’t.

  XV

  EVEN WELL SOUTH of Nidaros, the Breath of God pressed hard. Hamnet Thyssen had expected nothing else. The Glacier might fall back. One day, it might vanish altogether. But it still ruled the weather through most of Raumsdalia.

  Life went on. So did the war against the Rulers. Raumsdalians and Bizogots knew how to handle themselves in blizzards. The invaders from beyond the Gap did, too. Bands of curly-bearded men on riding deer appeared out of the swirling snow. When they met Marcovefa, they soon regretted it. When they didn’t, their warriors were a fair match for Hamnet’s men and their wizards had more strength than Liv and Audun and the handful of other sorcerers who’d joined them.

  Hamnet found his army getting forced north no matter what he did. He—and, more to the point, Marcovefa—could only be in one place at one time. If the Rulers struck in two or three places at once, they were bound to break through somewhere. They were bound to, and they did.

  He hated going north. Not only did it mean the Rulers had retaken the initiative, it also made the weather worse. Every mile seemed to mean more snow, thicker clouds, and worse cold. And every mile farther north also seemed to mean worse foraging. He got tired of listening to his belly growl.

  “Everything will turn out all right. This is still rich country,” Marcovefa said.

  “To you, maybe,” Count Hamnet said irritably—yes, he was hungry, all right. “You’re happy if you can charm mice out from under the snow.”

  “Why not? Meat is meat,” Marcovefa said. She’d done that more than once. She ate mouse stew and toasted mouse with every sign of enjoyment. She’d eaten voles and pikas up on top of the Glacier, and mice and rabbits weren’t much different. Raumsdalians and Bizogots caught rabbits, but they drew the line at mice. If they got too much hungrier, though, they might have to undraw it. Marcovefa went on, “Up on the Glacier, not so much snow to hide under. Animals here have it easy. People here have it easy, too.”

  “Yes, yes.” Hamnet had heard that, too, often enough to get tired of it. “But what seems easy for you doesn’t always seem easy to us. You don’t seem to have figured that out yet.”

  “As long as everything will be all right, what difference does it make?” Marcovefa said.

  “As long as!” Hamnet drummed his fingers on his thigh. “Things don’t look all right to me, by God.”

  “You don’t see far enough,” said the shaman from atop the Glacier.

  “Well, how am I supposed to?” Hamnet Thyssen waved a mittened hand through the blowing snow. “I’m lucky if I can see the nose in front of my face.” As a matter of fact, he couldn’t see it right now. A woolen scarf helped—some—to keep it from freezing.

  Marcovefa (who also covered her nose and mouth) laughed at him. “That is not what I meant. I am talking about time.”

  “If I’m going to live happily ever after, God’s hidden it from me mighty well,” Hamnet agreed.

  She looked at him. All he could see were her eyes, and eyes by themselves showed surprisingly little expression. Even so, he guessed he’d disappointed her. Sure enough, she said, “No one lives happily ever after. Living hurts. Dying hurts. If you are lucky enough to find someone to love, you die or the other person dies, and that hurts, too. That hurts maybe worse than anything.”

  “Or you stop loving each other,” Hamnet said harshly.

  “Yes. Or that,” Marcovefa agreed. “So why talk nonsense about happily ever after?”

  “You always do know how to cheer me up,” Hamnet told her. “I think I’ll go fall on my sword now.”

  If he was looking for sympathy—and he was—he didn’t get much. Marcovefa shook her head. “Not yet,” she said. “You still have too many things to do first. Later, if you want to, but not yet.”

  “No, eh?” Nothing made Hamnet more intent on doing something than being told he couldn’t. “Who the demon would stop me? Who the demon would care?”

  I would! That was what he wanted to hear. Marcovefa only shrugged and said, “Go ahead and try. You see then.”

  “Demons take me if I don’t!” Hamnet was suddenly sick of carrying the world around on his shoulders. He tramped away, kicked at the snow till he found some rocks, and propped his sword up in them, point uppermost. It would hurt for a little while, but not long if he fell properly. Then the rest of the fools could bollix things up to their blundering hearts’ content. No one would be able to blame him any more. He positioned himself with great care—he didn’t want this to last any longer than it had to.

  Disgusted with the world, disgusted with himself, he fell forward. Instead of piercing him, the blade went with him, and he measured the length in
the snow. One of the rocks that had held up the hilt caught him in the pit of the stomach.

  “Oof!” he said—a most undignified noise. He spent the next couple of minutes fighting for breath. When he finally got it back, he climbed to his feet, rubbing the sore spot.

  Someone less determined—someone less pigheaded—would have given up there. Hamnet Thyssen had always prided himself on his stubbornness. He brushed snow off himself, then started to laugh. Why was he bothering? Methodically, he set up the sword again. He braced it more firmly this time and threw himself down as hard as he could.

  The sword snapped.

  A rock—maybe the same one as last time—got him in the pit of the stomach once more. “Oof!” he repeated. This time, it really hurt. For a moment, he thought he’d killed himself even if he hadn’t stabbed himself. At last, though, he managed to suck in a shuddering breath, and then another. He wouldn’t perish for lack of air.

  He wouldn’t perish from falling on that sword, either. He picked up the nub with the hilt. He’d had no idea the blade was flawed. Maybe one of the blows he’d exchanged with the Rulers had cracked it. If he’d gone on fighting a little longer, suddenly he would have been most embarrassed.

  Or maybe God just didn’t intend to let him die right now.

  He looked at the broken sword for a long time. Then he muttered an obscenity and threw the hilt and nub away, as hard as he could. Snow puffed up where the fragment landed.

  After another oath, he brushed more snow off himself. He started back toward camp. He was perhaps halfway there when he realized he still had his dagger, and could slash it across his throat or slit his wrist. He didn’t suppose it would break in his hand. But the black moment had passed. He went on walking.

  “ANYONE HAVE A spare sword?” Hamnet asked.

  “I do,” Ulric Skakki said. “What happened to yours?”

  “Broke.” Hamnet mimed snapping a stick with his hands.

  “Just like that?” One of the adventurer’s eyebrows rose. “What were you doing with it?”

  “Trying to kill myself,” Hamnet said.

  Ulric laughed. “Ask a stupid question, you deserve the answer you get.” He rummaged in the leather sack that held his worldly goods, then handed Hamnet a sword in a battered leather sheath. “Here you go. It’ll probably suit you better than me, anyhow. A little long and clumsy for my taste, but you’re bigger than I am.”

  “Thanks.” Count Hamnet drew it. He tried a few cuts. “Kind of point-heavy,” he remarked. “Better for slashing than for thrusting.”

  “That’s what you want if you’re fighting from horseback,” Ulric said.

  “I hope I will be,” Hamnet said. Foot soldiers were at a grim disadvantage against mounted men who could strike from above—and who could leave infantry behind in a matter of minutes.

  Trasamund had been trimming his nails with a clasp knife that must have come from inside the Empire. Finishing the job, he looked up and asked, “Why did you want to kill yourself this time?”

  The time before, Hamnet had warned that he wouldn’t let himself live if anyone tried to make him Emperor. Now . . . Now he only shrugged. The impulse had passed, and seemed to have belonged to someone else. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  “Kill Rulers instead,” the jarl said. “When they’re gone, you can do whatever you want to yourself. Till then, you have more important things to worry about.”

  “Thank you so much.” Hamnet Thyssen bowed. “I don’t know what I’d do with my life if I didn’t have someone to run it for me.”

  “Not my job.” Trasamund shook his head. “You want someone to run your life, you need a woman. Since you have a woman, she has to do it.” He seemed as pleased with himself as a geometer with a new proof.

  Reminded of Marcovefa, Hamnet was already reminded why and how he’d broken his sword. He didn’t like to think about that. He would probably go through it again and again in his nightmares. But which would be the more terrifying dream? The one where the sword snapped, or the one where it didn’t?

  “What are we going to do to keep the Rulers from pushing us back farther?” Ulric asked. “If Marcovefa could lay eggs, if she hatched out twenty more like her, we’d have a pretty good chance. Or if she could be in four places at once . . .”

  “She can’t,” Hamnet said bleakly. “We’re lucky she can be one place at once, by God.”

  “I know what we need to do.” Ulric Skakki’s bright, assured tone made Hamnet certain that, whatever he proposed, it wouldn’t be anything they could actually manage. And it wasn’t: “We need to go back to the Glacier, climb it again, and bring back some more shamans like her.”

  “Go ahead,” Hamnet said. “Hurry back. I’ll see you here in three or four days, right?”

  “But of course.” Ulric grinned at him. They were both spouting nonsense, and they both knew it. The difference was, it amused Ulric and didn’t come close to amusing Count Hamnet.

  “Wouldn’t help, anyhow,” Trasamund said. “The other shamans would come from different clans. They’d likelier go after Marcovefa or one another than the Rulers. Why should they care about a bunch of people they’ve never seen before?”

  “If you’re going to complain about every little thing . . .” Ulric said. Trasamund snorted. After a moment, Ulric went on, “Well, all right. How about this? Instead of these shamans, we set all the short-faced bears moving against the Rulers. They mostly don’t sleep through the winter, the way black bears do.”

  “That’s . . .” Hamnet’s voice trailed away. He’d started to say it was ridiculous, but it wasn’t. What came out of his mouth was, “That’s not a half-bad notion.”

  “It isn’t, by God,” Trasamund agreed. “Bears are trouble. If they’d go after the Rulers, that would give those miserable mammoth foreskins all kinds of grief.”

  “Have mammoths got foreskins?” Ulric sounded intrigued.

  “It only matters to another mammoth,” Hamnet assured him. “Now we need to see whether Marcovefa laughs at us for coming up with a foolish notion or whether she thinks she can make a magic like that.”

  “I meant it for a joke, you know,” Ulric Skakki said.

  “So what?” Count Hamnet answered. “A shipwright means a mast to hold the sails. That doesn’t mean a drowning man won’t hang on to it to keep his head above water. Let’s go talk to Marcovefa.”

  “Yes. Let’s.” Trasamund started away from the fire.

  Not long before, Hamnet Thyssen had wished he were dead and done his best to make his wish come true. Now he was going off to find Marcovefa with a new scheme to bedev il the invaders. That was very strange—just how strange, he didn’t think about till much later.

  MARCOVEFA’S EYES GLINTED when she saw Hamnet. “You see?” she said. “It is not so easy after all.”

  “Never mind that,” he answered, and she laughed out loud. He and Trasamund and Ulric Skakki took turns explaining what they had in mind. Hamnet finished with an eager question: “Can you do that?”

  “It is a thought of weight. It may be a thought of merit.” Marcovefa’s gaze went far away as she weighed possibilities—or, for all Hamnet knew, impossibilities. After a long pause, she said, “It may be, yes. Have we here men of the bear clan? Have we men whose spirit animal is the short-faced bear?”

  Raumsdalians didn’t define themselves in those terms. Bizogots did. Marcovefa, whose people sprang from Bizogot stock, must have known as much. “I will ask among the folk who come from the free plains,” Trasamund said. Then his blunt-featured face clouded. “The plains that once were free, I should say.”

  If Marcovefa noticed the amendment, she paid no attention to it. “Find one of them,” she said. “Bring him to me. I will see what I can do. I promise nothing. But I will try.”

  Off Trasamund went. He came back half an hour later with a scarred Bizogot he introduced as Grimoald. “He is of the Bear Claws clan,” he said. Sure enough, Grimoald wore a necklace of claws.

 
“Good,” Marcovefa said. “These are the claws of the short-faced bear?” She sounded like—and was—someone making sure.

  “They are,” Grimoald said.

  “Those are the only bears in the Bizogot country,” Trasamund said. “They have others down here, and we saw still others beyond the Glacier. But if a man is of the Bear Claws clan, they are the claws of the short-faced bear.”

  “All right. Fine,” Marcovefa said. “Shall we move these bears against our foes?”

  “If you know how, shaman, I would like to do that,” Grimoald said. “If I can help you do it, I will.”

  “You can,” Marcovefa told him. “Are you allowed to take off those claws? May I hold them?”

  “You may.” Grimoald lifted the necklace off over his head and handed it to her. “I would not do this for any stranger, but for a foe of the Rulers I will do anything I can.”

  “I am a foe of the Rulers,” Marcovefa said. “You may doubt many things, but you should not doubt that.”

  She gave the bear claws an oddly tender look as she held them in her hand. She might almost have been holding a newborn baby, not these souvenirs of one of the most dangerous beasts the world knew. Of course, a baby would grow up to be a creature that made a souvenir of short-faced bear claws. Hamnet scowled, wishing that hadn’t crossed his mind.

  The song Marcovefa crooned was also oddly tender. It sounded more like a lullaby than a charm. Off in the distance, though, Hamnet heard growls and snarls that didn’t seem at all soothing.

  “You’re sure this spell is aimed at the Rulers?” Grimoald asked, so Hamnet wasn’t the only one that chorus alarmed.

  Marcovefa gave the man from the Bear Claws clan a bright-eyed, almost carnivorous smile. “I am almost sure,” she said.

  “Almost?” Now Grimoald sounded genuinely frightened. “That’s not good enough. If they come after us—”

  “She’s having you on,” Count Hamnet told him.

  “Are you sure?” The Bizogot sounded anything but convinced. Then he took a long look at Marcovefa’s face. Her smile, plainly, was hiding a laugh. Grimoald saw as much. He looked as sheepish as a Bizogot was ever likely to. “Well, I guess you are,” he said to Hamnet.