“Get me a helmet with a low front,” the big man concluded. He turned to Ethan as the table dissolved in a buzz of conversation.
“Listen, young feller-me-lad. There’s no need for you to take part in this. It’s going to be the middle of the night out there. The temperature will be down in the Pit’s own level and cold enough to sear the skin off your face if your heater breaks down. If someone got blown away on a night like that we’d never find him again.”
Ethan considered. The last night-expedition he’d been on had been in the company of a delightful young lady on the colony world of Gestalt. She’d spent a balmy moonlit night introducing him to certain exquisite variants on Church theologies. Her conversion of him was short, but ecstatic.
Now there was the bare clean surface of a different sort of world. A man would freeze to death in seconds without special defenses. The cold bit into your teeth like an old dentist’s probe.
“I’m going.”
“On your own head be it, young feller.”
“I’m going, too,” came a voice from the back of the hall. Everyone turned quietly. Ethan stood to see over the wide shoulders of one of the nobles.
Darmuka Brownoak, prefect of Wannome, walked slowly toward them, patiently buckling on his silver-inlaid armor.
At night the open icefield seemed more than ever like a white desert. They’d gone over the mountain pass and arrived at a deserted little icefront town on the south side of Sofold. Hopefully, no enemy sentry had seen them depart from the single tiny pier.
Ethan lay on his stomach, the odd-shaped armor digging uncomfortably into his ribs, and dug his gloved fingers into the rough wood of the sled. The splendid barbarian helmet jounced awkwardly on his head, held there by facemask and straps. Goggles protected his eyeballs from freezing.
Ten Sofoldian soldiers pulled the sled, set in waist harness five on either side. The wind was almost directly behind them and they’d shot off at a speed that literally pulled the breath from Ethan’s lungs. Even the wind seemed stronger than usual tonight. At least the flared helmet gave him some protection. Now if it would only stop chafing.
Laboriously he turned his head, the fur-lined metal scraping against the wood, and managed a glimpse of the lights shining within the magical castle of Wannome. It rode the sheer south cliff of the island like a dream.
But they were running for other lights, a thousand times as many lights, scattered among the barbarians’ unending expanse of camp. It made an endless gleaming parade to south and east.
“Now remember, lad,” September had explained to him, “if anyone speaks to you, play like you’re deaf and dumb. Let Hunnar and his two knights do all the talking.” Ethan had barely managed a half-frozen nod.
If they were intercepted, their story was to be that they’d been one of the small patrols which had been raiding the deserted towns and villages in hope of uncovering some forgotten cache of foodstuffs, utensils, or anything else worth carrying off. They’d broken into an underground warehouse half full of supplies—barrels of vol oil, for example—and had spent too much time guzzling the small stock of good liquor they’d found. Before they knew it, the ice-that-ate-the-sun had performed its ugly act. Now they were trying to sneak back to camp before captain-killer Slattunved could discover their absence.
As the official surveyor of shifty stories, Ethan had picked over the plot and pronounced it at least plausible. He knew a decent sales pitch when he heard one.
Still, one wrong gesture, one word out of place, and they’d go down under ten thousand aroused nomads.
“There, I think I can see it, young feller.”
Ethan looked up, squinted through his goggles. Sure enough, a black silhouette loomed against the speckled sky. There was no mistaking the outline of the great catapult. All of a sudden, then, they began to slow.
One of the unharnessed knights dropped his right wing a little, skated close to the sled.
“Careful now. A patrol comes.”
Below the howl of the wind—at least 60 kph, he thought, shivering—he could make out Hunnar and the other knights scraping ice as they strove to brake to a halt. He lowered the helmet over his facemask, pulled his arms tight up against his sides, and tucked his hands under his chest, flattening himself to the cold wood.
Up ahead he could hear Hunnar speaking in gruff tones to someone unseen, explaining the provisioning party’s strange luck in turning up a great supply of oil for the Scourge’s tent, but no food to speak of.
Then he heard one of the barbarians ask, in a strange dialect, “What about those two?”
He could imagine the feet coming closer, a hand lifting off the helmet. Then a cry of shocked surprise at the sight of his alien face… and surely their presence was known to the enemy after yesterday’s battle on the wall. A sudden swift descent of the sharp blade, cries, spurting blood…
“Oh, them?” countered Hunnar smoothly. “Well, the dwarf there is so ashamed of his small size that he tried to down twice the reedle of any of us. Even dipping him in fresh melt had no effect. The other one had just enough to make him think he was a gutorrbyn. He tried to fly off the roof of some dirtgrubber’s barn. He flew all right—straight down.”
There was a tense pause. Then the patrol leader let loose a hoarse series of jerking laughs.
Eventually he managed to contain himself. “Tis best you get them back to camp, then,” he finally snorted, “before your captain does find them, or he’ll skin them alive. If Death-Treader should breach the walls of the Insane Ones, we will attack tomorrow.”
“Truly,” replied Hunnar, “they would be forever sorrowful should they miss the Sack.”
There was another short exchange of pleasantries, too low for Ethan to hear. Then they were moving forward once more, though much slower this time. He raised his head just slightly, saw that they were alone on the ice again. The patrol had evidently continued on its way westward, tacking into the wind.
“Everything linear?” whispered September so sharply that Ethan nearly lost his grip on the sled. He’d completely forgotten about his big companion. September had lain like a dead man throughout the entire exchange.
“You wouldn’t think to have any trouble talking,” he replied, “but my stomach’s halfway up into my throat.” September chuckled. “For a minute there, when he asked about ‘those two,’ I saw myself spread across the ice like bread-dough.”
“You’re lucky,” replied September, “I was so busy organizing things before we pushed off that I forgot to go to the john.”
The meeting with the patrol must have been an omen, for they didn’t encounter another soul the rest of the way. An attack by night was apparently as unthinkable to the nomads as it had been to the cultured coterie of knights back in the castle.
All but one of the guards at the great siege-engine were enjoying a deep sleep in the several tents at its base. These were pegged into the ice and benefited from the windbreak the catapult provided.
The one duty guard observed their approach and chivaned over, completely unsuspecting. He was probably curious as to what a group of his fellows were doing out on the ice so late at night with a raft full of barrels and two unmoving bodies.
Hunnar met him. He offered him the same explanation he’d given the patrol leader, explaining their partly successful raid. Then he presented the other with a “stolen” sweet-stick. The guard accepted it with thanks.
“Death-Treader did well today,” Hunnar said conversationally. “Would that I had been closer, to better see the fear on the faces of those stupid towndwellers.” The last word Hunnar uttered in the contemptuous tone the barbarians held for anyone fool enough to live in one place instead of moving free with the wind.