Age does not always weaken its victims, Viyeki thought. Sometimes, as with Lord Akhenabi, it made them more cruel, more dangerous, and more powerful. “These are deadly times,” was what he said to Naji. “Our master gives his all. We can do no less.” Viyeki felt the hypocrisy of his words even as he uttered them and abruptly changed the subject. “And what of the fighting outside the mountain? What do you hear from the Order of Sacrifice?”
Naji shook his head. “Grim things, I fear. The Marshal and General Suno’ku must conserve their forces in case we fail and the gate is breached. So the numbers of those fighting the Northmen are small, yet more of them fall every day, though we can ill-afford to lose even one Sacrifice. But Suno’ku inspires them to keep fighting, and the gates have held for far longer than most thought they would.”
“What do you think of her? Of the general?”
For the first time, Naji’s mask of formality slipped entirely. “I think she is the greatest of us—saving only the Mother of All, of course. We are blessed by the Garden to have her in this dark time. Such courage! But even more, it is a courage that she can lend to others when their own has fled.”
“She is brave, yes. And fierce. I saw her at Tangleroot Castle. And at Three Ravens Tower.” There were moments when Viyeki remembered the bright-haired warrior as he had first seen her there, and he could almost believe that she could save them all. But they were only moments. “I must go now. I dare not leave my governors in charge too long.”
“I know what you mean,” said Naji. “The unsaddled goat quickly begins to bite.” And then he did a strange thing, extending his arm and hand for the other to clasp. “May we both bring credit on our order in this evil time, Host Foreman Viyeki. Who knows when we will see each other again?”
And Viyeki, who had spoken truthfully but spitefully about Naji’s shortcomings many times of late, was shamed. He put out his own hand and clasped Naji’s arm just below the elbow. “Yes, order-brother. May we both make our master proud. And if we do not see each other again in this world, we will meet in the Garden.”
They parted, Naji to his other business, Viyeki back to the depths and his workmen who would not work. And if the High Magister’s wisdom was not available to him, he knew he must solve the problem himself. He owed it to his queen and his people.
As he walked down the front steps of the order-house, the iron ram crashed against the outside of the gates once more, shaking all that was not solid bedrock. Even the bells of the temple towers swayed from the shock and uttered softly, like the moans of frightened children.
Isgrimnur never slept well in the field. Part of it was the absence of Gutrun, of course, of his wife’s familiar, soothing shape in the bed next to him, of her voice that calmed him in the night and reminded him that there was more to life than his worries. On this night he had been slipping in and out of thin sleep for hours, and also in and out of a dream in which Isorn his eldest son—his dead son—rushed at a gate that broke and gave way. Behind it lay the darkness of an endless pit. As Isorn struggled at the edge of this terrible fall, his father tried to call to him but could not make any kind of warning cry. Then, as his dream-self flailed, speechless and helpless, something hit the side of Isgrimnur’s tent with a loud enough noise to send him tumbling out of the dream and onto the floor.
He shouted for his house-carls as he scrabbled in the darkness for his sword. “Haddi—Kár! To me!” Again something struck the tent, this time scratching and clawing so that the wall bulged first in one place, then another. Some heavy shape was trying to rip its way in—a bear, perhaps, or worse, a troop of murderous, white-skinned Norns. “To me!” he shouted. “Where are you all?” At last he found Kvalnir. His fingers closed on the sword’s hilt, and in a moment, he had worked it out of the scabbard.
“Duke Isgrimnur!” Haddi was just outside the tent. He sounded like a terrified child. “We are . . . there are . . . !”
Isgrimnur kicked off the blankets still tangling his legs and staggered upright, then pushed his way out the tent flap. He had only a moment to stare at Haddi, a trained killer who looked like a terrified child, then the bustling, thumping noise started again behind him, but this time the tent yawed and then collapsed beneath the assault. Isgrimnur could see only the dim outlines of something struggling in the midst of the poles and bunched hides. “What in the Holy Name of the Aedon is happening?” the duke bellowed.
Haddi, bizarrely, had fallen to his knees on the snowy ground and was now praying. All around, other shapes moved between the tents of the duke’s commanders, some running, others limping or even crawling. Isgrimnur could make no sense of what had happened, only that it must be some terrible disaster. Had the earth shaken? Had a great tree fallen?
A muted noise of something being torn dragged his attention back to his fallen tent, where a dark shape rose from the wreckage. For a brief moment the duke thought he had been right in his first guess, that it was a bear or some other large animaclass="underline" the thing was crouched and hard to make out except for a gleam of broken teeth. Then it struggled upright and he could see it full in the starlight. It was man-shaped, draped in rags dusted with snow and tattered until they were little more than cobwebs, but the eyes above the grinning jaws were empty black holes.
Duke Isgrimnur had only a moment to gape at this incomprehensible apparition before it lurched toward him, muddy hand grabbing at the empty air. The duke lifted Kvalnir and moved crabways, keeping the great blade between him and the dismal thing. The night was full of despairing cries, but when Isgrimnur called he heard no answering shouts, and he felt a moment of utter terror thinking all his men might have been attacked and killed in their sleep.
The thing with no eyes stumbled toward him like a drunkard, head wagging, jaws snapping loosely. Only as Isgrimnur drew back his sword to ward it off did he see and recognize the bracelet on the thing’s clawing hand. It was gold that Isgrimnur himself had given out as war-booty after the battle for the Hayholt, a reward to his brave soldiers. This dead thing had been one of his own men.
The creature moved as crookedly as a wagon with a broken wheel but showed little fear of his sword, so instead of poking at it Isgrimnur strode forward, swinging Kvalnir in a broad arc to take the thing high in the neck. He felt the blow land, felt the bones beneath the rags snap, then the thing staggered to one side and toppled.
“Haddi! To me, curse you!” Isgrimnur called, but before he could find Haddi or any of his other liegemen, the thing the duke had just killed dragged itself back onto its feet.
“Damnation,” was all Isgrimnur could say.
With its neck cut mostly through, the dead man’s head hung limply to one side, bobbing and swinging as it staggered toward him. The duke cursed again and kept cursing as he lifted his sword and shoved it into the thing’s guts, or at least where its guts should be, then put all his weight into it so he could drive the living corpse back into the wreckage of the tent.
Even tangled in the tent’s hides, the eyeless thing still did not stop trying to get up, but by luck the duke had sliced through its backbone with his last thrust; now the struggling figure looked like two men huddled in a single costume for some holiday merriment, neither half able to get the other to cooperate. Isgrimnur swore again and hacked with broad Kvalnir until the head finally came off and the dead thing stopped moving.
Haddi had vanished, and none of Isgrimnur’s other servants were close by. The camp was in chaos, and now that his eyes had adjusted to the dark, the duke was unsettled to see how many of the shadowy shapes around him were not his living soldiers but corpses animated by witchcraft. He began shouting again for his men, but before any of them reached him he had to kill two more of the terrible things, including one that had only one leg but still hopped slowly after him with intent to murder. Using Kvalnir more like an axe than a sword, he managed to take off the heads of both revenants while sustaining only a few scratches, but already he was winded and seeing sparks at the edge of his vision. Terror was stealing his breath, making him feel as though he fought uphill at a fierce angle. Some terrible Norn magicks were at work, that seemed certain. How many of these creatures were there?