“No, we have not,” Kuroyi agreed. “Since we were driven from the land at a time when we considered it better policy not to interfere, and to let the mortals build where they wished, we have unanswered questions still about this place.”
“And we need those questions answered now, Count Eolair,” Likimeya broke in. “So tell us: this place you call Naglimund—is it known among mortals for strangeness of any kind? Apparitions? Odd happenings? Is it reputed a haunt of spirits of the dead?”
The count frowned as he considered. “I must say that I have never heard anything like that. There are other places, many others, some within a league of my birth-place, of which I could tell you a whole night’s worth of tales. But not Naglimund. And Prince Josua was always a lover of odd lore—I feel sure that if there were such stories, it would have been his pleasure to relate them.” He shook his head. “I am sorry to force you to tell such a long tale yourself for so little result.”
“We still think it likely that this place is an A-Genay‘asu,” Jiriki said. “We have thought so since long before Asu’a fell. Here, Count Eolair, you look thirsty. Let me pour for you.”
The Hernystirman gratefully accepted another cup of mulled ... something; whatever it was, it tasted of flowers and warmed him very nicely. “In any case,” he said after he had taken a few sips, “what does it mean if Naglimund is such a place?”
“We are not certain. That is one of the things that worries us.” Jiriki sat down across from Eolair and raised a slim hand. “We had hoped that the Hikeda‘ya came here only to pay their part of the bargain with Elias, and that they had remained here because it was a way station between Stormspike and the castle that stands on Asu’a’s bones.”
“But you do not think that any longer.” It was a statement, not a question.
“No. Our cousins have fought too hard, long past the time when they could have gained anything from resisting. This is not the final confrontation. However much Utuk‘ku has reason to hate us, it is not a blind anger: she would not throw away the lives of so many Cloud Children to hold a useless ruin.”
Eolair had not heard much about the Norn Queen, Utuk‘ku, but what he had was shuddersome. “So what does she want? What do they want?”
Jiriki shook his head. “They want to remain in Naglimund. That is all we know for certain. And it will be dreadful work to drive them out. I fear for you and your remaining soldiers, Count Eolair. I fear for all of us.”
A horrible thought occurred to the Hernystirman. “Forgive me, since I know little of these things—although perhaps more now than I would have wished—but you said that these Beyonding places had something to do with the secrets of ... of death?”
“All mysteries are one mystery until they are solved,” said Kuroyi. “We have tried to learn more about Death and Unbeing from the A-Genay‘asu’e, yes.”
“These Norns we are fighting are living creatures—but their master is not. Could they be trying to bring the Storm King ... back to life?”
Eolair’s question brought neither derisive laughter nor shocked silence.
“We have thought on this.” Likimeya was blunt. “It cannot happen.”
“Ineluki is dead.” Kuroyi spoke more softly, but with equal firmness. “There are some things we know about only little, but death we know very well.” His lips twitched in a tiny, dry smile. “Very well, indeed. Ineluki is dead. He cannot return to this world.”
“But you told me he was in Stormspike,” Eolair said to Jiriki. “You said that the Norns do as he bids. Are we at war against something imaginary?”
“It is indeed confusing, Count Eolair,” Jiriki replied. “Ineluki—although he is not truly Ineluki any more—has no more existence than a sort of dream. He is an evil and vengeful dream, one that possesses all the craftiness that the Storm King had in life, as well as knowledge of the ultimate darknesses no living thing has ever had ... but he is only a dream, for all of that. Trust that I speak truly. As we can travel on the Road of Dreams, and see and feel things there, so Ineluki can speak to his followers in Nakkiga through the Breathing Harp, which is one of the greatest of the Master Witnesses—although I would guess that Utuk‘ku alone has the skill even to understand him. So he is not a thing, Eolair, with an existence in this world.” He gestured to the walls of the tent. “He is not real, like this cloth is real, like the ground is real beneath our feet. But that does not mean he cannot do great evil ... and Utuk’ku and her servitors are more than real enough.”
“Forgive me if I seem stubborn,” Eolair said, “but I have heard much tonight that is still confused in my head. If Ineluki cannot return, then why are the Norns so eager to hold Naglimund?”
“That is the question we must answer,” said Jiriki. “Perhaps they hope to use the A-Genay‘asu to make their master’s voice clearer. Perhaps they intend to tap its force in some other way. But it is clear that they want this place very much. One of the Red Hand is here.”
“The Red Hand? The Storm King’s servants?”
“His greatest servants, since like him they have passed through death and into the outer realms. But they cannot exist in this world without an immense expenditure of power by him every moment they are embodied, for they are almost as much of a deadly contradiction as he is. That is why when one of them attacked us in our fastness at Jao é-Tinukai‘i, we knew that the time had come to take up arms. Ineluki and Utuk’ku must have been desperate to expend so much force to silence Amerasu.” He paused. Eolair stared, bewildered by the unfamiliar names. “I will explain this to you at a later time, Count Eolair.” Jiriki stood. “I am sure you are weary, and we have talked much of your sleeping time away.”
“But this Red Hand creature is here? Have you seen it?”
Jiriki pointed at the campfire. “Do you have to touch the flames to know that the fire is hot? He is here, and that is why we have not been able to overcome their most important defenses, why we must instead knock down stone walls and struggle with sword and spear. A large portion of Ineluki’s power is burning down in the heart of Naglimund’s keep. But for all his might, the Storm King has limits. He is spread thin ... so there must be some reason he wishes this place to remain in the hands of the Hikeda’ ya.”
Eolair stood, too. The blur of strange ideas and names had begun to tell on him: he was indeed feeling the need for sleep. “Perhaps the Norns’ task is something to do with the Red Hand, then,” the count said. “Perhaps ...”
Jiriki’s smile was sad. “We have cursed you with our own plague of ‘perhaps,’ Count Eolair. We had hoped you would give us answers, but instead we have weighed you down with questions.”
“I have not been free of them since old King John died.” He stifled a yawn. “So this is nothing strange.” He laughed. “What a thing to say! It is maddeningly strange. But not unusual. Not in these times.”
“Not in these times,” agreed Jiriki.
Eolair bowed to Likimeya, then nodded a farewell to stone-faced Kuroyi before walking out into the cold wind. Thoughts were buzzing in his head like flies, but he knew that nothing useful could be done about any of them. Sleep was what he needed. Perhaps, if he was lucky, he would sleep right through the remainder of this gods-cursed siege.
Maegwin had quietly left her tent while the weary guard—he seemed a sad and ragged sort to have received Heaven’s favor, but who was she to question the gods?—gossiped by the fire with one of his fellows. Now she stood in the deep shadows of a copse of trees, not a hundred cubits downslope from the tumbled walls of Naglimund. Above her loomed the silhouette of the blocky stone keep. As she stared at it, wind sifted snow across her boots.
Scadach, she thought. It is the Hole in Heaven. But what lies beyond?
She had seen the demons that had come swarming through from the Outer Darkness—horrible corpse-white things and shaggy, monstrous ogres—and had watched the gods and a few dead mortal heroes fight with them. It was clear that the gods wished this wound in heaven’s flesh healed so that no more
evil could creep in. For a while it had seemed that the gods would win easily. Now she was not so sure.
There was ... something inside Scadach. Something dark and hideously strong, something that was empty as a flame is empty, but that nevertheless had a kind of brooding life. She could feel it, could almost hear its dreadful ruminations; even the faint part of its brooding that licked against her mind cast her into despair. But at the same time, there was something oddly familiar about the thoughts of whatever lurked in Scadach, whatever godsbane burned so angrily in the deeps. She felt strangely drawn, as to a darkly fascinating sibling: that horrid something ... was much like her.
But what could that mean? What a mad thought! What could there be in that gnawing, spiteful heat that was anything like her, a mortal woman, king’s daughter, slain beloved of the gods now privileged to ride with them across the fields of heaven?
Maegwin stood in the snow, silent, motionless, and let the incomprehensible thoughts of the thing within Scadach wash over her. She felt its turmoil. Hatred, that was what it felt ... and something more. A hatred of the living coupled with an agonized longing for quietude and death.
She shivered. How could heaven be so cold, even in this black outer fringe?
But I don’t long for death! Perhaps I did when I was alive, for a time. But now that is behind me. Because I died—I died—and the gods lifted me up to their country. Why should I still feel that so strongly? I am dead. I am no longer afraid, as I once was. I did my duty and brought the gods to save my people—no one can say I did not. I no longer mourn for my brother and father. I am dead, and nothing can harm me. I have nothing in common with that ... thing out there in the darkness, beyond those walls of heaven-stone.
A sudden thought came to her. But where is my father? And where is Gwythinn? Didn’t they both die heroes? Surely the gods have lifted them up and carried them away after their deaths, just as they did me. And surely they would have demanded to be allowed to fight here, at the side of the Masters of Heaven. Where are they?
Maegwin stood, dumbfounded. She shivered again. It was wretchedly cold here. Were the gods playing some trick on her? Was there still some test she had yet to pass before she could be reunited with her father and brother, with her long-dead mother Penemhwye? How could that be?
Troubled, Maegwin turned and hurried back down the slope toward the lights of the other homeless souls.
More than five hundred pikemen of Metessa stood shoulder to shoulder in the neck of the Onestrine Pass, shields lifted above their heads so that it seemed some great centipede had lodged in the narrows between the cliffs. The baron’s men wore boiled leather cuirasses and iron helms, armor that was nicked and abraded from long use. The Crane banner of their House waved above the serried pikes.
Nabbanai bowmen along the canyon walls filled the sky with a swarm of arrows. Most bounced harmlessly from the shield roof, but some found their way through the locked shields. Wherever a Metessan fell, though, his fellows drew together.
“The bowmen cannot move them!” Sludig enthused. “Varellan must charge! By the Aedon, the baron’s men are proud bastards!” He turned to Isgrimnur with a look of glee on his face. “Josua has chosen his allies well!”
The duke nodded, but could not match Sludig’s excitement. As he stood with the elite of Josua’s forces, what was now being called the prince’s household guard—a curious phrase Isgrimnur thought, considering the prince had no house—the duke only wanted the fighting to end. He was tired of war.
As he stared out across the narrowing valley, he was struck by how the ridged hills on both sides resembled a cage of ribs, the Anitullean Road its breastbone. When Prester John had fought his way through to victory in this same Frasilis Valley more than fifty years before, it was said that so many had died that the bodies were not all buried for months. The pass and the open land to the north of the valley had been littered with bones, the sky black with carrion birds for days.
And to what purpose? Isgrimnur wondered. Less than a man’s lifetime has passed and here we are again, making more feasts for the vultures. Over and over and over. I am sick with it.
He sat uncomfortably in the saddle, looking down the length of the pass. Below him stood the waiting ranks of the prince’s newest allies, their house banners bright in the noon sun, an aviary of Goose, Pheasant, Tern, and Grouse. Seriddan’s neighboring barons had not been slow to follow his lead: none seemed happy with Duke Benigaris, and the resurrected Camaris was difficult to ignore.
Isgrimnur was struck by the circularity of the situation. Josua’s forces were led by a man thought long-dead, and they were fighting a crucial battle in the very place where Prester John, Josua’s father and Camaris’ closest friend, had won his greatest triumph. It should have been a good omen, Isgrimnur thought ... but instead he felt the past reaching up to squeeze the life out of the present, as though History was some great and jealous monster that wished to force all that followed after into unhappy mimicry.
This is no life for an old man. The duke sighed. Sludig, watching raptly as the battle developed, was oblivious. To fight a war, you must believe it can accomplish something. We fight this one to save John’s kingdom, or perhaps even to save all of mankind... but isn’t that what we always think? That all wars are useless—except the one we’re fighting now?
He fingered his reins. His back was stiff, sore already, and he had not even put it to any hard work. Kvalnir hung sheathed at his side, untouched since he had sharpened it and polished it in the sleepless hours last night.
I’m just tired, he thought. I want Elvritshalla back. I want to see my grandchildren. I want to walk with my wife by the Gratuvask when the ice is breaking up. But I can have none of those things until this damnable fighting is over.
And that is why we do it, he decided. Because we hope it will bring us peace. But it never, never does....
Sludig cried out. Isgrimnur looked up, startled, but his carl’s shout had been one of glee.
“Look! Camaris and the horsemen are coming down on them!”
When it had become clear that bowshot would not dislodge Seriddan’s Metessan shield wall from the center of the pass, Varellan of Nabban had ordered another charge by his knights. Now that Varellan’s forces had committed themselves to pushing the prince’s troops back down the valley, Camaris and Hotvig’s Thrithings-men had come down from the hillroads and thrown themselves into the side of Varellan’s larger force.
“Where is Camaris?” Sludig said. “Ah! There! I see his helm!”
Isgrimnur could see it, too. The sea-dragon was little more than a flaming smear of gold from this distance, but its wearer stood tall in his stirrups, a visible circle of dismay spreading around him as the Nabbanai knights struggled to stay out of Thorn’s black reach.
Prince Josua, who had been watching the battle from a point about a hundred cubits downslope from Isgrimnur and Sludig, now turned Vinyafod toward them. “Sludig!” he called. “Tell Freosel I want his troop to wait until he counts his fingers ten times after I give the sign for the rest of us to charge.”
“Yes, Highness.” Sludig wheeled his steed around and jogged toward where Freosel and the rest of Josua’s household troop stood in fretting anticipation.
The prince continued upslope until he was at Isgrimnur’s side. “Varellan’s youth is finally beginning to show. He has proved himself overeager.”
“There are worse faults in a commander,” Isgrimnur replied, “but you’re right. He should have been content to hold the mouth of the pass.”
“But he thought he saw a weakness when he threw us back yesterday.” Josua squinted up at the sky. “Now he is committed to pushing us back. We are lucky. Benigaris, for all his rashness in other matters, would never have taken such a risk.”
“Then why did he take the chance of sending little brother in the first place?”
Josua shrugged. “Who knows? Perhaps he underestimated us. Remember also that Benigaris does not rule alone in Nabban.”
Isgrimnur grunted. “Poor Leobardis. What did he do to deserve such a wife and son?”
“Again, who knows? But perhaps there is some end that we cannot see to all this.”
The duke shrugged.
The prince was watching the flow of the battle critically, eyes shadowed in the depths of his helm. He had drawn Naidel, which lay across his saddle and knee. “Almost time,” he said. “Almost time.”
“They are still many more than us, Josua.” Isgrimnur pulled Kvalnir from its sheath. There remained a momentary pleasure in this: the blade had stood him well in many a contest, witnessed by the fact that he was still here, still alive, with aching back and chafing armor and doubts and all.
“But we have Camaris—and you, old friend.” Josua grinned tightly. “We can ask for no better odds.” His gaze had not left the neck of the pass. “May Usires the Ransomer preserve us.” The prince solemnly made the sign of the Tree on his breast, then lifted his hand. Naidel caught the sunlight, and for a moment Isgrimnur found it hard to breathe. “To me, men!” Josua cried.
A horn sounded on the slopes above him. From the narrows of the pass, Cellian blared back an answer.
As the prince’s troops and the rebel barons and their men charged up the road, Isgrimnur could not help marveling. They had become a real army at last, several thousand strong. When he remembered how it had begun, Josua and a dozen other bedraggled survivors slipping out of Naglimund through a back door, he felt heartened. Surely God the Merciful could not bring them so far only to dash their hopes!
The Metessans had held firm. Josua and his army swirled around and past them; the pikemen, freed from their deadly chore, dragged their wounded back down the road. The prince’s forces flung themselves on Varellan’s knights, whose superior numbers and heavy armor had been overwhelming even the ferocity of Camaris and the Thrithings-men.
Isgrimnur held back at first, lending aid where he could, but unwilling to throw himself into the thick, where lives seemed to be measured in instants. He spotted one of Hotvig’s men unhorsed, standing over his dying steed and warding off the pike of a mounted knight. Isgrimnur rode forward, bellowing a challenge; when the Nabbanai knight heard him and turned, the Thrithings-man leapt forward and shoved his sword in beneath the man’s arm where there was no shielding metal on his leather coat. As the knight toppled, bleeding, Isgrimnur felt a twitch of fury at his ally’s dishonorable tactic, but when the rescued man shouted his thanks and legged down the slope, back into the heart of the struggle, the duke did not know any longer what to think. Should the Thrithings-man have died to preserve the lie that war could be honorable? But did another man deserve death because he believed that lie?