Breath of God g-2 Read online

  “Fly north, hunting owl,” Odovacar sang in a loud, unmelodious voice. He thumped the drum. “Fly north, fly north. Spy out our foes.” He went on dancing, as Liv went on flapping. If she was the arrow, he was the bow that loosed her.

  Audun Gilli stood ready just inside the ward circle. He was still completely human, and completely alert, too. If Liv was arrow and Odovacar bow, he was the shield protecting them both.The shield that’s supposed to protect them, anyhow, Hamnet Thyssen thought uneasily. Audun had been the first to admit that the Rulers’ magic was stronger than any known on this side of the Glacier.

  “I fly,” Liv said again. “Like the snowy owl, I fly.”

  “Fly north, hunting owl. Spy out our foes,” Odovacar sang to her. “What do you see, hunting owl? Tell us what you see.”

  “I see the lands of the Three Tusk clan, the grandest grazing and hunting lands in all the Bizogot country,” Liv answered. In calling them that, owl-Liv saw with her heart, not with her head. The lands hard by the Glacier were poor even by the sorry standards of the frozen steppe.

  “Tell us more, tell us more,” Odovacar sang. “Spy out our foes. Fly north, fly north. Spy out our foes.”

  “I see herds.” Liv sounded dreamlike, or perhaps owllike, as her spirit soared far from her body. “I see herds of musk oxen. I see herds of mammoths. The herds seem large. I see herds of… deer?” All at once, doubt came into her voice. Those riding deer had traveled down through the Gap with the Rulers. They weren’t native to the Bizogot country.

  “You begin to find the foe,” Odovacar assured her. “Tell us what you see, before the foe finds you.”

  “I see an encampment,” Liv said. “It is wide. It is broad. All the tents are laid out in square array.” That surely marked it for a camp of the Rulers. The Bizogots were not an orderly folk. They scattered their tents every which way across the ground. The Rulers, as Count Hamnet had seen beyond the Glacier, had far more discipline.

  “Tell us more, tell us more, before the foe finds you.” Even if they understood Odovacar in a Raumsdalian tavern, they would have thrown things at him. But he wasn’t singing to entertain; he worked with the charm to remind Liv what to do.

  “I see men of the Rulers tending to mammoths. Some of the mammoths must be theirs. Some are stolen from the Bizogots.” Though her spirit had flown far, anger still fired her voice. She went on, “I see women of the Rulers. They are ugly bitches.” That wasn’t anger – it was scorn.

  “Does the foe ride to war? Does he mount mammoths and ride to war?” Odovacar sounded more urgent now. He probably couldn’t hear her answers, but he was bound to know others could.

  “I see … I see … I think I see . ..” For the first time, Liv hesitated. Were the Rulers’ wizards working to thwart her? Her arms flapped faster, as if she was flying away from the encampment. Her eyes widened. “I do see them. By God, I do! They ready their host! Mammoths and deer without number. Soon they will sweep down on the Red Dire Wolves! How did they bring so much through the Gap?”

  “Tell us more!” Odovacar sang. “More! We must hear more!” He thumped the drum harder, as if to pull words from Liv.

  “They are in a place we always called the Four Breasts because of the big frost heaves there,” she said. “That is a fine place to move south from – the forage is always good there. Even horses have no trouble finding grass under the snow in winter. It is easy for mammoths and musk oxen – and I see it is easy for the riding deer the Rulers use, too.”

  Then she gasped. Her body twisted. She might have been banking in flight. She let out an angry cry, a cry that might have burst from a true owl’s throat. Her hands stretched into what were plainly meant for talons, visible even through her mittens.

  Audun Gilli gasped at the same time. “Spirit hawks!” he said in Raumsdalian, and then, “Drum her home, Odovacar! Quick!”

  The Red Dire Wolves’ shaman spoke no Raumsdalian. Even if he had, he wouldn’t have been able to hear Audun. But he too could sense what needed doing. The rhythm of his drumming changed. So did his chant. “Back to safety!” he sang. “Back to the tents of your folk! Evade all evil! Back to the tents you know so well!”

  How well did Liv know the Red Dire Wolves’ tents? Well enough to home on them? Hamnet Thyssen watched in an agony of suspense, that being the only thing he could do. Liv twisted again, as if sliding away from something. Spirit hawks, Audun called whatever the Rulers were mustering against her. What did that mean? No wizard himself, Hamnet didn’t know.

  Then, without warning, Liv reached out and grabbed with the claws that were really fingers. “Ha!” she cried. “That one will trouble me no more!”

  Audun Gilli’s face twisted in pain. Whatever shed done, he felt it. “They might as well slay that wizard’s carcass, for his soul is dead,” he said somberly. Hamnet remembered what he’d asked Liv before her spirit flew. One of the things she’d feared most for herself, she’d just visited upon the Rulers. Good, Hamnet thought. Do it again!

  But, by the way she moved, she went back to trying to escape. How many enemy sorcerers were flying against her, riding the winds of the world and whatever equivalents the spirit world knew? Defeating one might be – was – bold and brave, but a shaman flying alone surely couldn’t hope to outfly and outfight a flock of foes.

  “Here is the circle! Come back to the circle!” Audun, for once, had the sense to speak the Bizogot language, not his own. Odovacar’s drumming also – Count Hamnet hoped – helped guide Liv’s spirit back towards her body.

  “Fly like the Breath of God,” Hamnet whispered harshly. “Fly straight, fly hard, fly fast. Oh, fly fast!”

  And then Liv came back to her body once more. No more than a couple of heartbeats after she sprang to her feet, reason on her face once more and all owlishness banished from it, two of the wardstones in Audun’s circle flared to brilliant life. Liv winced, but stood steady. Odovacar lurched in his dance, though he also stayed on his feet. Audun Gilli grunted as if he’d taken a punch in the belly. But the circle held.

  “I saw – enough,” Liv said, panting as if she’d run – or flown – a long way.

  “Can they strike you even with your spirit back in your body?” Count Hamnet asked, still anxious for her.

  “I don’t see how,” she answered. “I know we couldn’t. They were trying to hold my body and spirit apart. Now that I’ve returned to myself, they’ve failed.”

  No sooner were the words out of her mouth than she staggered. Odovacar cried out and dropped to one knee. Audun Gilli shouted, too, in what seemed to Hamnet mixed pain and surprise. Liv’s left hand shaped a Bizogot gesture against evil. Audun pulled out an amulet he wore under his fur jacket and brandished it like a sword.

  Hamnet Thyssen did draw his sword. He slashed the air all around Liv, hoping to cut any influence lingering close by. He had no idea whether that did any good. He didn’t see how it could hurt, though.

  “Begone!” Liv said, and her hand twisted into that sign again. “Begone, by God!” She sounded fierce and frightened at the same time. Hamnet had heard a lot of soldiers going into battle sound the same way.

  Odovacar barked and snarled and bared his teeth. They always seemed long and sharp for a mere man’s. Now they looked more than halfway wolfly. Hamnet Thyssen didn’t think he was imagining that.

  He was sure he wasn’t imagining things when the tension broke, as quickly and cleanly as if he had severed it with his sword. Odovacar nodded and grinned, and his teeth went back to normal again, or as normal as they ever were. Audun Gilli breathed a noisy sigh of relief. He returned the amulet to its hiding place.

  Liv sighed, too, and shook her head. “Every time I say what the Rulers can’t do, I turn out to be wrong. I won’t say anything like that anymore.”

  “They did strike you, then – the, uh, spirit hawks?” Hamnet asked.

  “Oh, yes.” Now she nodded, shakily. “They chased me here, and they struck me – they struck me hard. I don’t know how they did, b
ut I do know I came off lucky to get away with nothing worse than scrapes and scratches on my spirit.” She paused, visibly reconsidering that. “No, not just lucky. I had good friends and comrades who came to my aid.” She bowed to Odovacar, to Audun, and to Hamnet. “I thank you all.”

  “I don’t think I did anything to be thanked for.” Hamnet wished he knew more of magic. Loving a shaman made him feel foolish and ignorant.

  But Liv squeezed him hard enough to make the air leave his lungs in a startled Oof! “You did! You did!” she said, and her eyes glowed. “Couldn’t you feel your blade cutting through the links between me and my pursuers? What wise shaman taught you to do that?”

  “I couldn’t feel anything. Nobody taught me. I didn’t even know if I was helping,” he answered honestly. “I wanted to do something, that’s all.”

  She kissed him. “You were wonderful!” Then she smiled at Audun Gilli and Odovacar. “And so were you, both of you.”

  You were wonderful. Had Gudrid ever said anything like that to him, in all the time they spent together? If she had, he couldn’t remember it. That made him wonder why he’d loved her so fiercely, and why he’d felt so lost and damned when she played him false. Only one thing occurred to him: I was a fool, and I didn’t know any better.

  “Now – what I saw,” Liv said in tones that brooked no argument. Hamnet Thyssen saluted her with clenched fist over his heart, as if she were a Raumsdalian general. He wasn’t sure she understood precisely the honor he was giving her, but she did understand it was an honor. With a smile aimed his way, she went on, “The Rulers muster for war. They have a host of mammoths and those riding deer they used gathered together at the place we call the Four Breasts.”

  “Yes, you said so as you, uh, flew,” Hamnet reminded her. He wondered how she’d recognized it before the thaw set in and exposed the landscape beneath the blanket of snow. He supposed Bizogots marveled that Raumsdalians could find their way through Nidaros’ winding streets and alleys. All what you’re used to, he thought.

  “The Four Breasts aren’t far north of the Red Dire Wolves’ grazing grounds,” Liv said. To Hamnet and Audun, she added, “We went almost that far before we found out the Rulers had set on the Three Tusk clan. So it seems likely they plan to come south, and the Red Dire Wolves stand in their way.”

  “What’s that?” Odovacar asked. Liv repeated it louder, then louder still. At last, the shaman nodded, though Count Hamnet still wasn’t sure he understood.

  “How many warriors do the Rulers have?” Hamnet asked. “A Bizogot clan’s worth? Three? Ten? Could you tell?”

  Liv frowned. “I’m not sure, not when you put it like that. They had many mammoths and many deer – more, I think, than we could keep in one place for very long.”

  “Did they have men there, too, to move straight to the attack?” Hamnet persisted.

  “Some, at least,” Liv replied. “I’m not sure how many. Their magic tried to keep me from seeing anything at all, but it failed, it failed. That is my land, and it knew me.” Pride filled her voice, and with reason – she’d defied the enemy and got away with it.

  “What do we do now?” Audun Gilli asked.

  “Talk to Totila.” That wasn’t Liv – it was Odovacar. Somehow or other, he’d understood Audun just fine. And he seemed to have found the right answer, too.

  The jarl ofthe Red Dire Wolves plucked at his graying beard. “They muster in great numbers, you say?” Totila asked Liv.

  “They do, Your Ferocity,” she said.

  “We have no great numbers here. How could we?” Totila said. “The Red Dire Wolves are what we are – one clan. We also have some of your Three Tusk Bizogots, but not many – and even those we have trouble feeding.

  How can we hope to stand against a great host of foes, with strong magic? Would we not be wiser to move aside and let these enemies pass through?”

  “This is a coward’s counsel!” Trasamund cried.

  Totila eyed him. “You are in a poor position to tell me what is best for my clan when you think on what happened to yours.”

  Trasamund turned red. “We were taken unawares. We would not have been if I were with the clansfolk and not down in the Empire.”

  “And whose fault was that? Did someone steal you and drag you down to Nidaros?” Totila could be as sarcastic as a Raumsdalian.

  To Hamnet Thyssen’s mind, though, the Red Dire Wolves’ jarl asked the wrong question. The right one was,Even if you were there, even if the Three Tusk Bizogots were alert, how much difference would it have made? Hamnet feared he knew the answer, which wouldn’t have gladdened Trasamund’s heart. Not much. Not much at all.

  “I was trying to get help for us,” Trasamund said. “I did my best to bring the Bizogots together and warn them there was danger coming down out of the north. We stopped here on our way to the southlands, by God. Did you want to listen?” He laughed. “Not likely!”

  “Well, who would have listened to a mad, wild tale like the one you were spinning?” Totila retorted. “I thought you were lying through your teeth. Anybody else in his right mind would have, too.”

  “And he would have been wrong, and he would have paid for it,” Trasamund said. “And you were wrong, and you are wrong, and you cursed well will pay for it. So what the demon is being in your right mind worth?”

  They scowled at each other. They both squared off into positions from which they could easily grab for their swords. With Bizogots, quarrels often ended in blood, not words. A fight here, though, would throw the Red Dire Wolves against what was left of the Three Tusk Bizogots and the Raums-dalians who’d ridden north to help them. Neither Trasamund nor Totila seemed to care.

  “Have they both gone crazy?” Ulric Skakki whispered to Count Hamnet. “Crazier, I mean? They sure act like it.”

  “They do,” Hamnet agreed. Then he raised his voice to a shout: “Hold, both of you! I can tell this is the Rulers’ deviltry, not your own will. This is one of the things they try to do. They pit our leaders against each other, and then swarm through after our quarrels leave no one who can stand up against them.”

  “By God, he’s right,” Liv said. “Despite all we can do, their wizards must be working on you. Why else would you fight when danger to both of you and to all your folk builds just to the north?”

  Ulric translated in a low voice for Audun Gilli. The Raumsdalian wizard said, “I feel no enemy magic.” Ulric kicked him in the ankle. For a wonder, Audun caught on. Hastily, he continued, “That only proves how subtle the spell is. Will you let it seduce you?”

  Trasamund and Totila looked at each other. Then they both looked shamefaced, and a shamefaced Bizogot was as rare as a white woolly mammoth. “No!” they said loudly. Trasamund drew his sword, but only to brandish it in the direction of the Rulers. Totila shook his big, hard fist towards the north.

  “We fight together!” he cried.

  “Side by side, till we slay them all!” Trasamund roared. They embraced each other like brothers. All the watching Bizogots cheered. They too aimed weapons and clenched fists at the invaders from beyond the Glacier.

  In a low voice, Ulric Skakki said, “You’re sneakier than I gave you credit for, Thyssen.”

  “Nothing sneaky about it,” Hamnet answered. “For all I know, I was telling the truth. Even for Bizogots, that fight between Trasamund and Totila was stupid.”

  “Even for Bizogots.” An ironic smile played across Ulric’s lips. “Well, you said it – I didn’t. But don’t expect me to tell you you’re wrong.”

  “I’m just glad Liv and Audun went along with me,” Count Hamnet said. “And thanks for giving Audun a hand – er, a foot. I saw, even if neither jarl did.”

  “Sometimes he’s too innocent for his own good. I helped him along a little,” Ulric said. “And now all we have to do is beat the Rulers. Should be easy, right?” He laughed. So did Hamnet Thyssen. A moment later, he wondered why.

  III

  The sun shonewarm in a bright blue sky – not mere
ly above freezing, but warm. Just as the Breath of God could reach past Nidaros in the wintertime, southerly breezes came up onto the Bizogot steppe, even up to the edge of the Glacier itself, when days lengthened. After only a few hours of such weather, the snow started looking threadbare. Drips and puddles were everywhere.

  “Mosquitoes any day now,” Ulric Skakki said mournfully. “We go straight from the scratching season to the slapping season. Isn’t it grand?”

  “Maybe, but maybe not,” Hamnet Thyssen said. “There’ll be another blizzard or two before winter says good-bye for the year. And the birds are coming north to eat the bugs.”

  He was right about that. Even so early in the season, the air was murmurous with the sound of fluttering wings. Birds of every size, from larkspurs and flycatchers up to swans, came to the Bizogot plains to breed and to feast upon the brief bounty they offered when they thawed out.

  Ulric Skakki only shrugged. “They don’t eat all the bugs. They don’t even eat enough of them. Plenty of bloodsuckers left alive. Anybody who comes up here when the sun shines has reason to know about that.” He mimed smacking at himself.

  Count Hamnet nodded. “Not just bloodsuckers on the plains these days,” he said. “We’ve got bloodspillers, too.” As usual, his gaze turned to the north.

  “We’ve done everything we could,” Ulric said. “We’ve got scouts out. They’ll warn us when the Rulers move. The Red Dire Wolves are as ready to fight as they ever will be. And we’ve sent messengers to the clans close by. Maybe we’ll get reinforcements.”

  “Yes, maybe we will.” Hamnet didn’t sound as if he believed it. And he didn’t. “We can’t make the other Bizogots join us. Since we can’t, chances are they won’t.”

  “Well, why should they?” As it often did, acid rode Ulric Skakki’s voice. “They’re free. If you don’t believe me, just ask them. They can do whatever they choose, whatever they please – no matter how idiotic it is.”