The Golden Shrine Read online

  Don’t be foolish, he thought. You did that to yourself years ago.

  Before he could even wonder what he meant, Liv started a spell. It was in a dialect of the Bizogot language so old-fashioned, he could hardly follow it. He would rather have tried to gallop away, though he had no guarantee his horse could outrun a thing half made of gale.

  Then Liv switched to urgent Raumsdalian: “Quick! Shoot it again!”

  “What good will that do? What good will anything do?” Yes, the snow dev il had done its best to freeze Hamnet’s heart, and its best was better than he’d dreamt possible.

  “Shoot it!” Liv slapped his face.

  His shocked bellow wasn’t so loud or so shrill as the war mammoth’s had been when he shot it, but was no less startled, no less outraged. He almost shot Liv. But instead he drove another arrow through the snow devil—easy now, when it was so close.

  As chunks of ice broke to start an avalanche, did they scream? If they did, they surely let out a cry like the one that ripped from the snow dev il when Hamnet’s second arrow struck. This shaft, unlike the one that had gone before it, wounded the sorcerous apparition. No—it slew.

  Wind had made the snow dev il coalesce. And wind tore it to pieces in the blink of an eye. One heartbeat, it was about to lay hold of Count Hamnet. What would have happened then, he didn’t know: only that it would have been nothing good. But the snow dev il was gone the next heartbeat, gone as if it never existed.

  “Well shot!” Liv yelled.

  “Well spelled!” Hamnet yelled back.

  Somewhere among the Rulers, a shriek almost as full of torment as the snow dev il’s burst from a man’s throat. Maybe the snow dev il’s throat was meant for such sounds; a man’s assuredly wasn’t. How much of himself had the enemy wizard poured into his sorcerous creation? Enough to ruin him—worse than ruin him—when it was all lost at once.

  But for that shriek, Hamnet might have kissed Liv, or she him. With it still echoing inside them, they both fought shy of that. The torment it held put out passion the same way a brass candle-snuffer dampened flame.

  A nod sufficed Hamnet, then. “You did what you needed to do,” he told her. She nodded, her face half proud, half horrified at what she’d unwittingly inflicted on the Rulers’ sorcerer.

  “I wouldn’t want to do that to anyone—not even one of those people,” Liv said with shudder.

  Count Hamnet grunted. “He wouldn’t waste any grief on you.”

  “Even so,” Liv insisted. Remembering what the other wizard sounded like after the snow dev il perished, Hamnet decided she had a point.

  Another arrow snarled through the air between him and Liv. Maybe the archer who loosed it couldn’t decide which of them he would sooner have killed. Maybe the next bowman wouldn’t have any trouble making up his mind. Or maybe he’d just turn out to be a better shot. “Do you think we’ve given the main force enough time to get away?” Hamnet Thyssen asked.

  “Yes. And I think you had better get away,” Liv answered. “That snow fiend or whatever you want to call it only makes things plainer—the Rulers want you dead, and they don’t care what they do to get you that way.”

  Hamnet grunted again. He didn’t think he was important in the grand scheme of things, and resented that anyone should think so when he didn’t. Ordering the Raumsdalians and Bizogots with him to fall back meant he didn’t have to dwell on what anybody else thought.

  The Rulers came after the rear guard, but less enthusiastically than they’d attacked at first. A wounded war mammoth and a wizard dreadfully disabled if not dead gave them pause. They were men like any others, no matter how they tried to disguise it with ferocity. Getting reminded of that reassured Hamnet . . . a little.

  “They’re going to let us get away.” One of the Raumsdalians sounded even more relieved—and even more surprised—than Hamnet was.

  Somewhere ahead of him, the main force would be heading . . . where? Up onto the Bizogot plains? Where else were they likely to go? And not nearly far enough behind him, the Rulers were getting ready to pursue them. Somehow or other, his friends would have to take along the still-unconscious Marcovefa.

  That brought something else to the top of Hamnet Thyssen’s mind. “Ask you a question?” he said to Liv.

  “It’s hard to ask anything else,” she replied, as if she were Ulric Skakki. Then she nodded. “Go ahead.”

  He gave her Trasamund’s suggestion, finishing, “Has that got any chance of working, or is it as disgusting as it sounds to me?”

  He expected it would disgust her even more, not least because she was a woman. To be taken unawares, so to speak . . . But she gave it her usual careful consideration. At last, she said, “Well, I don’t see how it could hurt. What’s the worst thing that could happen? You get her with child. You might do that when she’s awake, too.”

  “But—But—” Hamnet had to work to make himself quit sputtering. “But do you think it would do any good?”

  “I don’t know. It might connect her to this world again—or, of course, it might not,” Liv answered. “Maybe it’s worth a try. Who can say? If she knew why you were doing it, I think she’d forgive you, if that makes you feel any better.” It didn’t, or not much. Hamnet rode on, wishing he’d kept his mouth shut.

  XVIII

  THE BIZOGOT STEPPE. Again. Hamnet Thyssen could imagine no gloomier words, no gloomier setting. But his being here had nothing to do with his imagination. For better or worse—as things seemed, mostly for worse—here he was in truth.

  He could see a long way. Except for the south, where the woods that marked Raumsdalia’s frontier still lingered on the horizon, he might have been able to see forever. He knew he couldn’t, but the illusion was very strong.

  It felt all the stronger because he’d come out from among the trees so recently. They didn’t simply cut down how far you could see. They also made the eye focus more clearly than it had to here on the plain.

  Hamnet didn’t see any war mammoths coming after the battered remnant of the force that still resisted the Rulers. He didn’t see any of the invaders on their riding deer. He didn’t miss them, either. If he never saw them again, he wouldn’t have shed a tear.

  When he said as much to Ulric Skakki, the adventurer shrugged an elaborate shrug. “Well, neither would I,” Ulric said. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t expect to see them before long.”

  “I know.” Hamnet bared his teeth in something that wished it were a smile. “They’ll be along sooner than we wish they would. I never thought the rear guard would be able to do as much to them as we did.”

  “Good for you, by God,” Ulric said.

  “Good for Liv,” Count Hamnet said. “She deserves the credit. If not for her, that snow dev il would have slaughtered the lot of us—starting with me.” He shuddered at the memory. Had those frozen arms closed on him . . . He didn’t know what would have happened. The only thing he knew was, it would have been about as bad as anything could be.

  Ulric raised an amused eyebrow. “If you listen to her tell it, Your Grace, you’re the hero.”

  “Me?” Hamnet snorted. “That’s ridiculous! All I did was stay alive, and I didn’t think I’d manage that.”

  “Ridiculous, eh?” Ulric’s eyebrow climbed higher yet; Hamnet hadn’t thought it could. “Audun Gilli doesn’t think so. The way he’s moping around, he thinks Liv’s going back to you any minute now.”

  “He may think so. I don’t,” Hamnet said.

  “Yes. I know.” Ulric Skakki. “But then, you’ve always been blind to what women are really thinking, haven’t you?”

  Hamnet opened his mouth to deny that indignantly. Then he closed it without saying anything. When he opened it again after some thought, what came out was, “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  “No, no. You’re always surprised—that’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Ulric said. Count Hamnet made as if to hit him. Laughing, Ulric ducked.

  “You know what I meant. You’re being diffic
ult on purpose,” Hamnet Thyssen said. Ulric doffed his fur cap, as if at a compliment. Hamnet might have know he would, but continued anyhow: “Besides, not only is Liv not my woman any more, I’ve got another one.”

  “Well, so you do,” Ulric allowed. “But does it still count when she’s gone into hibernation?”

  “I . . . don’t know,” Hamnet said slowly. Then he told the adventurer what Trasamund had suggested.

  Ulric never wasted time making up his mind. “You ought to try it,” he said at once. “Even if it doesn’t work, how are you worse off? How are any of us worse off, eh?”

  “The idea’s disgusting,” Hamnet said.

  “I don’t see how,” Ulric Skakki answered. “No more than bedding a woman after she’s had too much to drink. If you tell me you’ve never done that, I’ll call you a liar to your face. And if she cares for you to begin with, she won’t mind—not as long as you don’t make a habit of it, anyhow.”

  “Mmpf,” Hamnet said. Ulric could be much more persuasive than Trasamund was. “I still don’t think it’d do us any good.”

  “How are you worse off if it doesn’t?” Ulric repeated. “It won’t hurt you to try. I’ve heard some people even enjoy it.” Hamnet made as if to hit him again. Ulric had to duck faster this time. As he did, he added, “It won’t hurt Marcovefa, either, not unless you’re even clumsier than I think you—Ow!” Hamnet did hit him that time.

  “You deserved it,” Hamnet said.

  “That’s what you think,” Ulric said. “Did you ask Liv about this? What did she tell you?”

  “She told me I should,” Hamnet answered reluctantly.

  “Well, then, you ought to listen to her,” Ulric Skakki said.

  Count Hamnet scowled. “It’s like forcing a woman. By God, it is forcing a woman. That’s never been my notion of a good time. Besides, any man who forces a woman who’s also a wizard will probably end up a eunuch. Or if he doesn’t, he’ll wish he did, because something worse will happen to him.”

  “I could point out that you’re a stiff-necked idiot,” Ulric said.

  “You don’t need to. I already know that,” Hamnet told him.

  “I’m so glad. But that isn’t what I was going to say.” Ulric looked and sounded exasperated. “I was going to say that you force a woman you don’t know, or maybe a woman you hate. You and Gudrid, now . . .”

  “Leave Gudrid out of this,” Hamnet said in a voice that might have blown straight off the Glacier. It wasn’t that he hadn’t thought of forcing her and then cutting her throat, or maybe his own. He had. One of the things that held him back was the conviction she’d be laughing at him even while one of them or the other gurgled toward death.

  Ulric made placating motions. “I was, I was. Here’s what I was trying to tell you. You don’t hate Marcovefa, right?”

  “You know I don’t. You’d better know I don’t,” Hamnet said.

  “Yes, yes. Fine. Wonderful,” the adventurer said. “If you love her, if you do this with love—or with something as close to love as your wizened little soul has in it—you won’t be forcing her. If it works, if she wakes up, she’ll thank you.”

  “And I thank you for your sweet and generous compliment,” Hamnet Thyssen said.

  Ulric doffed his cap again. “I am your servant, Your Grace.”

  “You’re the south end of a northbound horse, is what you are,” Hamnet said.

  The cap came off once more. “You say the kindest things. But kindly let me finish. If it doesn’t work, if you don’t rouse her, the Rulers will kill all of us—you, her, me, everybody—pretty soon anyhow. It won’t matter. So either you’ll do some good or you won’t, but I don’t see you hurting anything much.”

  That made much more sense than Hamnet wished it did. It made so much sense, he couldn’t think of a thing to say in reply. Instead of saying anything, he turned his back and walked away from Ulric Skakki. The adventurer called his name. Count Hamnet kept walking. If Ulric had laughed, Hamnet might have turned back . . . with murder in his heart. But Ulric, for a wonder, had the sense to keep his mouth shut.

  Tramping along staring down at his own feet, his head full of unhappy thoughts, Hamnet almost bumped into someone. That made him look up—and wish he hadn’t. “You might say, ‘Excuse me,’ ” Gudrid told him.

  She was the last person he wanted to have anything to do with then, which only proved God didn’t pay attention to what he wanted. As if I didn’t know, he thought sourly. Aloud, he said, “I might do all kinds of things. None of them has anything to do with you.”

  “Oh, I know that. You might screw the blond savage, for instance, when she isn’t awake to tell you what a miserable—”

  Count Hamnet knocked her down. It wasn’t quite a punch, but she landed in the snow suddenly enough to startle a squawk out of her. Breathing hard, Hamnet said, “I’ve listened to everyone else about that. I don’t have to listen to you—and I don’t intend to, either.”

  Gudrid got to her feet. She was ready to say something more: Hamnet could read it in her eyes. But whatever she read in his eyes made her shut her mouth with a snap. After a cautious pause, all she did say was, “Well, if you’re going to be that way about it . . .”

  “You’d best believe I am,” Hamnet growled. He strode away from her as he had from Ulric Skakki. Like Ulric, Gudrid realized her usual mockery wouldn’t be a good idea now.

  This time, Hamnet tramped along with his head up. If he kept an eye out for trouble, maybe he could steer clear of it. He walked away from Runolf Skallagrim. Runolf hadn’t given him advice about Marcovefa, but that didn’t mean the other Raumsdalian wouldn’t.

  And he walked away from Trasamund. The jarl had already told him what he thought. That wouldn’t stop Trasamund from doing it again. Trasamund liked to hear himself talk, and he was stubbornly convinced he was right all the time. A whole great swarm of mistakes he’d made weren’t enough to convince him otherwise.

  But was he making a mistake this time?

  “Whatever I do, it will be wrong. Everybody will blame me for it, whatever it turns out to be,” Hamnet muttered. But that wasn’t the worst. He knew what the worst was. “Whatever it turns out to be, I’ll blame myself for it.”

  Did he want to blame himself for doing nothing or for doing something? Either one might be wrong. If he did nothing, things wouldn’t change. That seemed obvious. If he did something . . . his suspicion was that things wouldn’t change anyway. Then he would have done something he would much rather not have, and would have done it for no reason.

  His mittened hands folded into fists. “It will be wrong,” he said again.

  Marcovefa would have laughed at his dithering. He could hear her inside his mind. She never seemed to have doubts. Yes, and look what not having them got her, Hamnet thought.

  Stamping along by himself didn’t do him any good. He went back to the camp. Liv was feeding Marcovefa bits of broiled hare and giving her sips of water melted from snow. If Marcovefa couldn’t chew and swallow, she would have starved by now. As things were, she’d lost flesh; her skin stretched tight across her cheekbones. They’d all done the best they could to give her enough, but feeding her as much as she would have eaten on her own wasn’t easy.

  “Any change?” Hamnet asked.

  Liv shook her head. “None I can find.” She might have said more—Hamnet could see that. She might have, but she sensibly didn’t. She understood Hamnet well enough to know that trying to push him toward something was more likely to make him go away from it.

  Trasamund and Ulric Skakki had never figured that out. Actually, Hamnet wasn’t so sure about Ulric. Say what you would about the adventurer, but he was a clever fellow. Chances were he knew how Hamnet worked. Sometimes, though, he used what he knew for his own amusement, not for what others might think of as the general good.

  Count Hamnet brought himself back to what lay before him. “Is she wet?” he asked.

  “Let me see.” Liv reached under the waistband of Marco
vefa’s trousers, as she might have with a toddler. She shook her head again. “No, she’s still dry. I changed her not long ago.” She paused. “She’s eaten about as much as it looks like she’s going to, too.”

  “All right. I’ll take her to my tent for the night.” Hamnet bent and lifted Marcovefa. Yes, she’d lost weight since the mistletoe arrowhead struck her down. Her lips shaped a smile as Hamnet straightened with her in his arms. Her eyelids fluttered, but her eyes didn’t open. Not for the first time, Hamnet wondered how much went on inside her head. And, not for the first time, he owned himself baffled—he had no way to know.

  Keeping Marcovefa from freezing while the Breath of God blew was hardly easier than keeping her fed. They swaddled her in furs and blankets and hoped for the best. So far, the best had been good enough. She hadn’t even got frostbitten fingers or toes. Raumsdalians knew a lot about fighting cold. Bizogots knew even more.

  Hamnet’s tent had thick mammoth-hide walls, with the long, dark hair still on the outside. It was crowded for two, but that was all right; it let their body heat warm the air inside faster.

  No one but he would know what went on inside the tent. Well, Marcovefa might, but he didn’t really believe she would. That was what had held him back ever since Trasamund suggested . . . what he suggested. The idea reminded Hamnet too much of lying with a corpse.

  But if he tried it once, after it failed he could tell Trasamund . . . and Ulric Skakki . . . and Liv . . . and Gudrid . . . and Runolf Skallagrim . . . and anyone else who asked him that it had failed. Then maybe people would leave him alone. He could hope so, anyhow. Of course, the odds were that after it failed the Rulers would overrun them pretty soon. In that case, he would be too dead to need to justify himself to anybody.

  He looked at Marcovefa, there in the gloom barely pushed back by one sputtering, fat-stinking lamp. She might have lain peacefully asleep—but he knew too well she didn’t.