Jeremias hesitated a moment longer, then vanished from the prince’s sight. Josua crawled the short distance to where his torch lay sputtering on a muddy outcropping, then clambered down the slope to the beach. He quickly made his way to the place where Camaris had disappeared and found a cave mouth little different than any of the others along the cliff. Josua grabbed several stones and piled them next to the opening, then stepped in, holding the torch before him.
Isgrimnur stared at the soldiers. “What do you mean, gone?”
The man looked back at him, half-apologetic and half-defensive. “Just that, Duke Isgrimnur. The hole splits off, goes different ways. We thought we saw some marks, like from a torch-end, up on the walls, but we didn’t find anybody that way. We searched the other passages, too. It’s like wormholes in there, tunnels everywhere.”
“And you shouted?”
“Called the prince’s name loud as we could. Nobody called back.”
Isgrimnur stared at the gap in the cliff wall, then looked at Sludig. “Ransomer preserve us,” he groaned. “Both gone. We’ll have to get the Sithi after them now.” He turned to the soldier. “I’ll be back before sunrise. Until then, keep looking and calling.”
The man nodded. “Yes, sire.”
Isgrimnur pulled at his beard for a moment, then began making his way back along the beach. “Oh, Josua,” he said quietly. “You fool. And me, too. We’ve all been fools.”
28
Abandoned Ways
Binabik touched her arm. “Miriamele, what are you thinking?”
“I’m trying to think of what we can do.” Her head was pounding. The shadowed cavern seemed to be closing in. “We have to get out, somehow. We have to. I don’t want to be trapped in here.” She caught her breath and looked at Cadrach huddled against the wall on the far side of the cavern. “How could he do such things, Binabik? How could he betray us all that way?”
“He was not knowing you then,” the troll pointed out. “So he could not be thinking that it was you he was betraying.”
“But he didn’t tell us afterward! He didn’t tell us anything! All that time we were together.”
Binabik lowered his head. “It is done. Now we must be thinking on other things.” He gestured to the dwarrows, who were seated in a circle, singing quietly. “They are thinking the Norns come soon, they have said to me. Already the ward is crumbling. The door will not hold for a much lengthier time.”
“And they’re just going to sit and wait,” said Miriamele bitterly. “I can’t understand them any more than I can understand Cadrach.” She stood and walked past the troll. “Yis-fidri! Why are you mooning around like this when the Norns are outside? Don’t you understand what will happen to us?” She heard her voice rising shrilly, but she did not care.
The dwarrows stared up apprehensively, mouths agape. Miriamele thought they looked like a nestful of baby birds. “We are waiting ...” he began.
“Waiting! That’s just it, you’re waiting.” She quivered with anger. They were all waiting for those fishbelly white things to come in and take them—take her and the troll, too. “Then let’s open the door now. Why put it off any longer? Binabik and I will fight to win free and probably be killed—killed because you brought us here to this trap against our will—and you will sit and be slaughtered. So there is no sense waiting any longer.”
Yis-fidri goggled. “But ... perhaps they will go....”
“You don’t believe that! Come, open the door!” Her fear beat higher, rising like storm-tossed waves. She leaned down and grabbed the dwarrow’s long wrist in her hand and tugged. He was as unmovable as stone. “Get up, damn you!” she shouted, and yanked as hard as she could. Alarmed, the dwarrows burbled at each other. Yis-fidri’s eyes widened in consternation; with a flick of his powerful arm he dislodged Miriamele’s grip. She fell back on the cavern floor, breathless.
“Miriamele!” Binabik hurried to her side. “Are you hurt?”
She shook off the troll’s helping hand and sat up. “There!” she said triumphantly. “Yis-fidri, you didn’t tell the truth.”
The dwarrow stared at her as though she had begun to foam at the mouth. He curled his flat fingers protectively against his chest.
“You didn‘t,” she said, and stood. “You will push me away to keep me from forcing you against your will, so why not the Norns? Do you want to die, then? Because the Norns will certainly kill you, kill me, kill us all. Or perhaps they will make you slaves again—is that what you are hoping for? Why do you resist me and not resist them?”
Yis-fidri turned briefly to his wife; she stared back at him, silent and solemn-eyed. “But there is naught we can do.” The dwarrow seemed to be pleading for Miriamele’s understanding.
“There is always something you can do,” she snapped. “It may not change anything, but you will have tried. You are strong, Yis-fidri—you dwarrow-folk are very strong, and you can do many things: I watched your wife shaping stone. Maybe you have always run away before, but now there is nowhere left to hide. Stand with us, damn you!”
Yis-hadra said something in the dwarrow tongue, which brought a murmuring but swift reply from others in the group. Yis-fidri entered in, then for a long time the dwarrows argued among themselves, voices rushing and burbling like water chiming on stone.
At last Yis-hadra rose. “I will stand with you,” she said. “You speak rightly. There is nowhere left to run, and we are almost the last of our kind. If we die, no one then will be left to tend and harvest the stone, no one to find the beautiful things in the earth. That would be a shame.” She turned to her husband and again spoke rapidly to him. After a moment, Yis-fidri lidded his huge eyes.
“I will do as my wife does,” he said with obvious reluctance. “But we do not speak for our fellow Tinukeda‘ya.”
“Then speak to them,” Miriamele urged. “There is so little time!”
Yis-fidri hesitated, then nodded. The other dwarrows looked on, their strange faces fearful.
Miriamele crouched in blackness, her heart thudding. She could see nothing at all, but apparently enough light was still bleeding from the crystal batons to allow the dwarrows to see: Miriamele could hear them padding back and forth across the cavern as unhesitatingly as she herself would walk through a lamplit room.
She reached out to touch the small but reassuring shape of Binabik crouched beside her. “I’m frightened,” she whispered.
“As who is not?” She felt him pat her hand.
Miriamele had opened her mouth to say something else when a slight sensation of movement passed through the stone behind her. At first she thought it was the strange shifting she had felt earlier, the thing that had so frightened Yis-hadra and the other dwarrows, but then a faint blue glow sprang up in the empty black where the door stood. It was not like any light she had seen, for it illuminated nothing else; it was only a pulsing sky-blue streak hanging in the darkness.
“They’re coming,” she gurgled. Her heart raced even more swiftly. All her brave words now seemed foolish. On the far side of Binabik, she heard Cadrach’s harsh breathing grow louder. She half-expected him to cry out, to try to shout a warning to the Norns. She did not believe his claim that he had no Art that would help them against the Norns, nor even the strength left now to use those few skills he retained.
The blue line lengthened. A warm wind pushed through the chamber, tangible as a slap to her heightened senses. For the dozenth time since the dwarrows had darkened the cavern she tugged at the straps of her pack and wiped sweat from the handle of her dagger. She also clutched Simon’s White Arrow; if the Norns grabbed her, she would stab at them with both hands. A shudder ran through her. The Norns. The White Foxes. They were only moments away....
Yis-fidri said something quiet but emphatic in the dwarrow tongue. Yis-hadra replied in the same tone from somewhere across the cavern. The sound of moving dwarrows ceased. The chamber was silent as a grave.
The blue gleam grew in a rough oval until one end of the line met
the other. For a moment the heat became greater, then the glow faded. Something scraped and then fell heavily. A rush of cold air swept into the chamber, but if the door had opened, no light came through.
Curse them! Despair swept over her. They are too clever to come in with torches. She clutched her knife tighter: she was shaking so violently she feared she might drop it.
Suddenly there was a booming rumble like thunder and a high-pitched shout that came from no human throat. Miriamele’s heart leaped. The great stones the dwarrows had loosened above the cavern door were tumbling down—she could hear the Norns’ high-pitched, angry wailing. Another crash was followed by a scraping, grinding noise, then many voices were shouting, none of them in human languages. After a moment Miriamele felt her eyes begin to sting. She took a breath and felt it burn all the way down.
“Up!” Binabik cried. “It is poison-smoke!”
Miriamele struggled to her feet, lost in the dark and feeling as though her insides were on fire. A powerful hand gripped her and led her stumbling through the blackness. The cavern was raucous with strange cries and shrieks and the sound of smashing stone.
The next moments were blind madness. She felt herself pulled through into chilly air; within moments she could breathe again, although she still could not see. The hand that held her let go, and a moment later she caught her foot on something and crashed to the ground.
“Binabik!” she shouted. She tried to rise, but something had entangled her. “Where are you!?”
Miriamele was seized again, but this time was lifted bodily and carried swiftly through the noisy darkness. Something struck her a glancing blow. For a moment whoever was carrying her stopped and put her down; there was a succession of strange noises, some of them grunts or gasps of pain, then a moment later she was snatched up again.
At last she touched down again on the hard stone. The darkness was absolute. “Binabik?” she called.
There was a spark nearby, then a flash. For a moment she saw the troll standing beside a cavern wall in the midst of darkness with his hand full of flame. Then he flung whatever he held outward, and it scattered in a shower of sputtering sparks. Tiny flames burned everywhere. Frozen as if painted on a tapestry were Binabik, several dwarrows, and almost a dozen other shadowy figures, all scattered about a long, high-ceilinged cavern. The stone door that had protected them lay in pieces behind her at the far end of this outer cavern.
She had scarcely an instant to marvel at the effect of the troll’s fire-starting powder before a pale-faced shape raced toward her, long knife held high. Miriamele lifted her own blade, but her ankles seemed bound somehow and she could not get her feet beneath her. The knife lashed toward Miriamele’s face, but the blade stopped abruptly a hand’s length from her eyes.
The dwarrow that had caught the creature’s arm jerked upward. There was a sound of something snapping; a moment later the Norn was pitched headfirst across the chamber.
“Go that way,” Yis-fidri gasped, pointing toward a dark hole at the near end of the cavern. In the faint, flickering light he looked even more grotesque than the enemy he had dispatched: one of his arms hung limply, and the broken shaft of an arrow wagged in his shoulder. The dwarrow flinched as another arrow shattered against the cavern wall beside him.
Miriamele reached down and disentangled her feet from what had held them—a Norn bow. Its owner lay a few paces away, just inside the entrance to the dwarrow’s hiding place; a thick shard of rock jutted from his crushed chest.
“Move quickly, quickly,” said Yis-fidri. “We have surprised them, but there may be more coming.” His brisk tones could not hide his terror; his saucer eyes seemed to bulge. One of the other dwarrows threw a stone at the Norn archer. The motion was awkward, but the missile flew so swiftly that the white-faced immortal staggered backward before the dwarrow’s arm had finished moving, then crumpled to the cavern floor.
“Run!” Binabik called. “Before more archers are coming!”
Miriamele rushed after him into the tunnel mouth, still clutching the bow. She stooped on the run to pick up a few scattered Norn arrows. She put Simon’s arrow through her belt for safekeeping, and nocked one of the black arrows; as she did so, she looked back. Yis-fidri and the other dwarrows were backing after her, keeping their frightened eyes fixed on the Norns. These inched along behind them, staying out of the dwarrows’ long reach, but obviously not intending to let them escape so easily. Despite the carnage, the half-dozen bodies lying scattered in the outer chamber and the breached doorway, the Norns seemed as calm and unhurried as hunting insects.
Miriamele turned and hastened her pace. Binabik had lit a torch, and she followed its light down the uneven tunnel.
“They’re still following!” she panted.
“Run, then, until we find a better place for fighting,” the troll called back. “Where is the monk Cadrach?”
“Don’t know,” Miriamele said.
And maybe it would be better for everyone if he died back there. The thought felt cruel but just. Better for everyone.
She raced along after the bobbing torch.
“Josua is gone?” Isorn was stunned. “But how could he risk himself, even for Camaris?”
Isgrimnur did not know how to answer his son’s question. He tugged fiercely at his beard, trying to think clearly. “Still, there it is,” he said. He stared around the tent at the rest of the unhappy faces. “I have had soldiers hunting all through the caves for hours with no luck. The Sithi are preparing to go after the two of them, and Tiamak will accompany them. There is nothing more we can do about it.” He blew out, fluttering his mustache. “Yes, damn me, Josua has hamstrung us, but now more than ever we must make sure we distract Elias. We can’t waste tears.”
Sludig peered out through the door flap. “It is nearly dawn, Duke Isgrimnur. And snowing again. The men know something strange has happened—they are growing restless. We should decide what to do, my lord.”
The duke nodded. Inwardly he cursed the fate that had dropped Josua’s command into his lap. “We will do what we planned. All that has changed from yesterday’s council is that Josua is gone. So we will need not one mimic, but two.”
“I am ready,” Isorn said. “I have Camaris’ surcoat, and see,” he pulled his sword from its scabbard: blade and hilt were shiny black, “a little paint and it becomes Thorn.” He caught Isgrimnur’s discomfited look. “Father, you agreed to this and nothing has changed. Of all who can be trusted with the secret, only I am nearly tall enough to pass as Camaris.”
The duke frowned. “It is so. But because you pretend to be Camaris, don’t believe you are Camaris: you need to stay alive and on your horse so you can be seen. Take no foolish chances.”
Isorn flashed him an unhappy glance, angry after all his experiences to be treated like a child. Isgrimnur almost regretted his fatherly worry—almost, but not quite. “So then. Who shall mime Josua?”
“Are there any that can fight with their left hands?” Sludig asked.
“S‘right,” said Freosel. “None’ll believe Josua with a right hand.”
Isgrimnur felt his frustration growing. This was madness—like choosing courtiers to act in the Tunath’s Day pageant. “He need only be seen, not fight,” Isgrimnur growled.
“But he must be somewhere in the fighting,” Sludig insisted, “or no one will see him.”
“I will do it,” said Hotvig. The scarred Thrithings-man lifted his arm and his bracelets jangled. “I can fight with either hand.”
“But ... but he does not look like Josua,” said Strangyeard apologetically, “... does he?” He had sobered since the duke had seen him earlier, but still seemed distracted. “Hotvig, you are ... you are very broad in the chest. And your hair is too light.”
“He will be wearing a helm,” Sludig pointed out.
“The harper Sangfugol looks much like the prince,” Strangyeard offered. “At least he is slender and dark-haired.”
“Ha.” Isgrimnur barked a laugh. “I woul
d not send a singer into the middle of such a bloodletting. Even if he need not fight, he must sit his horse in the clamor of fierce fighting.” He shook his head. “But I cannot spare you, either, Hotvig. We need your Thrithings-men—you are our fastest horsemen, and we must be ready in case the king’s knights make a sally from the gate. Who else?” He turned to Seriddan. The Nabbanai captains had been silent, stunned by Josua’s disappearance. “Have you any ideas, Baron?”
Before Seriddan could reply, his brother Brindalles stood. “I am close to the prince’s size. And I can ride.”
“No, that is foolish,” Seriddan began, but Brindalles halted him with a raised hand.
“I am not a fighter like you, my brother, but this is something I can do. Prince Josua and these folk have risked much for us. They faced imprisonment or even death at our hands to bring us the truth, and then helped us to drive Benigaris from the throne.” He looked around the tent somberly. “But what good is that to us if we do not survive to enjoy it, if our children are unhomed by Elias and his allies? I am still somewhat baffled by all this talk of swords and strange magics, but if this stratagem is truly necessary, then it is the least I can do.”
Isgrimnur saw his calm resolve and nodded. “It is done, then. Thank you, Brindalles, and may Aedon give you good luck. Isorn, get him into things of Josua’s as will fit, then you can take whatever else of Camaris’ that you need. From what Jeremias said, I doubt he took his helm with him. Freosel?”
“Yes, Duke Isgrimnur?”
“Tell the engineers to make ready. Everyone else, go to your men and make ready. God’s grace on us all.”
“Yes,” Strangyeard said suddenly. “Yes, of course—God’s grace on us all.”