1633880583 (F) (47 page)

They had better allies—two hundred Oxiland warriors, including some who still wore the bear-shirts, the sign of men who could enter a ritualistic battle frenzy; a hundred doughty men from rustic Ostoland, good with axes; five hundred well-trained militia from Garmstad Town.

They’d taken a position beneath Hel’s Tooth, a promontory extending from the otherwise sheer granite wall of the pass’s western side. As sunset gave its intimation of carnage to come, and campfires filled the pass, Ragnar ate beside the warleaders in a sheltered hollow beneath the Tooth.

With them was a portly but hardy old man attached to Loftsson’s band, Huginn Sharpspear. The man was too garrulous for Ragnar’s liking, but he told good stories—tales of blood-feuds in Oxiland, high-minded quests in Svardmark, encounters with the gods in Spydbanen. Ragnar detected a theme of meeting difficult odds.

“You must be a skald of old,” Ragnar said, with a lift of his mug.

“I’m old, to be sure, young man,” Huginn said with a wink, earning laughter.

“You,” Ragnar said seriously. “I hereby charge you with observing all and making a song of it. I relieve you of all burden to stay and fight. If you feel it necessary, flee, so the song can survive us.”

Ylur, a white-bearded Oxilander chieftain, spoke. “Our foes seem to command the winter. They’ve left this pass clear of snow, which proves they are coming. Do you have a premonition? Do you foresee death?” The notion lived in Oxiland that those on death’s door gained powers of foresight.

“No,” Ragnar said, knowing he should quell such thinking. The Oxilanders might enjoy a good doom, but his Soderlanders, at least, wanted encouragement. “Quite the opposite. After seeing this position I anticipate battle eagerly. A clear pass helps us more than the Karvaks. From Hel’s Tooth the archers can spot and shoot anything coming through the pass, and once softened, the invaders can be ravaged by the horsemen. The horsemen can withdraw at need to the narrowest part, where the warriors on foot can hold the line. Here is a place where a few can hold out against a force of any size. No, I merely like the assurance of knowing we’ll have our song.”

“Even though Oxilanders bow to no prince,” said Huginn, the mischief gone from his voice, “I respect your command of the army. You have some sense. But in this matter I am beyond your edict. I came out of debt to my benefactor, Jokull Loftsson. He had cause before to take my life. It is his.”

“But Huginn,” said Jokull, “Ragnar speaks true. There is none better than you to make sure this fight is remembered. I don’t mock your service, or your valor. But perhaps you should face battle with the bowmen so you can watch from a height.”

“I’ll do as you ask, old friend.”

Another Oxilander cleared his throat, a young chieftain named Gissur. “What of these balloons, Ragnar?”

“And the rumors of trolls?” said his big, red-bearded colleague Styr. The Oxilanders were garrulous tonight.

“For balloons we have the Runewalkers,” Ragnar said, “who can change the weather. And for trolls we have priests, for accounts agree they fear the Swan and flee even from the mere sound of church bells.” He smiled. “Thus our mutually antagonistic friends in robes are united in helping us.”

“Well,” Huginn said. “What now then?”

“Now we wait.”

He’d been waiting all his life. Born illegitimate but called to serve, he’d needed patience. Options for honorable combat had dwindled since Grandfather Hakon’s day. Soderland’s neighbors had accepted the White Swan, and his family grew loath to slay Swanlings without severe cause. And the plague that had taken his mother and Corinna’s mother both, and rendered their father a babbling madman, had left the countries nearby too depleted for conflict. Grandfather Hakon, his own mind shattered in a different way by the losses of war, would not reclaim the crown, and their grandmother was in the ground. Corinna had done what she could.

Ragnar had sought war among the Ursine Guard of distant Amberhorn. He’d fought pirates and nomad raiders and even his own cousins in the Ayl Corps across the Midnight Sea, and in between he’d sipped muscat wine and irony. He begrudged his half-sister nothing; what he hated were the mutterings that as a bastard, he was unworthy of his blood.

At last he was earning glory in his own land.

He just had to wait.

They waited two days, as scouts and travelers brought word of a fantastically vast force of alien horsemen that congealed and dispersed like smoke. None could be sure how many, for the Karvak horde seemed able to march and encamp across a wide area and yet maintain its discipline. But it was said the cookfires that appeared briefly in the gray after sunset were like the scattered stars. The Karvaks appeared true to their agreement with the Five Fjords, and the few Fjordland villages down in that rugged lowland between Gullvik’s domain and Garmstad’s went unharmed.

At dawn on the second day, Ragnar woke from a nightmare. He had dreamed that a falcon menaced a bear, and though the bear had seemed ferocious and unconquerable, the falcon, too fast for the bear’s claws, slowly and patiently and beginning with the eyes pecked and clawed the beast to death.

Nothing in the pass justified his cold sweat. The sky overhead was a blue-gray to match the mountain rock, while southward there was blue and sunlight that illuminated the pass’s few trees, making them green beacons against the gray. Ragnar had an urge to paint the scene. He kept it to himself. One had strange thoughts before battle sometimes.

Then he saw it: a dark circular shape in the gray sky to the northeast. Two, and three. Far off but unmistakable, for he had himself seen the fallen craft of Haytham ibn Zakwan.

“Awake!” he cried, and the heralds took up the command. But he also ordered that ale be given to those who wanted it, and likewise blessings from the priests.

Once armed and armored, and ready with reports from the lookouts, he saw his army ready, their murmurs conveying eagerness. The bowmen were up on the Tooth, Huginn among them. He spoke to his key warleaders, Klarvik, Stormhamn, Jokull, and Garm.

“We are ready,” Ragnar said without preamble. “And we are fortunate, for the lookouts report a force of only three thousand.”

“Heh,” said Lord Klarvik. “Only.”

“Nevertheless, our chances are less dire than rumored. I think our Karvaks are skilled at braggery. And I think our own ability to come together will have surprised them. Let’s be ready to welcome them.”

Two hours later the strange army arrived. Ragnar had never before seen a force that was entirely cavalry. Were they all nobles, then, and so many? And all bowmen? He marveled at these strange men in their tasseled helmets and their coats blue as a cloudless winter sky. All had swords, and some in the middle of the line wore armor, and in this they were like and yet unlike his own force. (Indeed, some of their horses looked of Kantenjord breed.) The swords were curved, and the armor was unlike either chain or plate, being a cuirass of rectangular metal strips. The saddles were more complex than the Kantenings’ and possessed extensions to anchor the feet.

The Karvaks advanced with impressive discipline, each man keeping true to signalmen waving colored flags. Ragnar wished he could question one of these warriors as to their methods.

After he had slain or routed all that one’s fellows, of course.

The Kantenings took first blood. The hidden longbowmen on Hel’s Tooth loosed their arrows when the Karvaks were within a quarter mile.

Warriors died. A cheer rose up from the Kantenings.

Landwaster held high, Ragnar bellowed, “Hold! Do not advance!” The order was repeated, and his own horsemen kept discipline.

The Karvaks were in confusion for a short time, during which Ragnar wondered if he’d missed an opportunity. Many of them shot arrows in response to Ragnar’s longbowmen. Their smaller bows and lower ground put them at the disadvantage; none of their arrows found the mark.

The confusion did not last, and the Karvaks pulled back and regrouped with admirable unity. Their loss of some twenty men and horses was more symbolic than meaningful, but first blood mattered. Ragnar smiled.

Now. What would I do in their place?

He saw signal flags waving, and answering flags from the distant balloons. The “Orb Dragons” advanced.
Of course
.

“Runewalkers!” he called out. “It is time!”

Jokull said, “I don’t like using heathen spells. The Church forbids it.”

“You are quite accommodating to heathen worship up in Oxiland.”

“It’s different, what people do in their own homes,” Jokull said. “This is magic.”

Ragnar frowned, watching gray-robed men and women behind his lines, bedecked in gold rings and bird-bone necklaces. They paced out broad designs upon the stone of the pass. Each one cradled under one arm a bladder made from the guts of a pig or goat, each filled with what Ragnar devoutly hoped was animal blood. The Runewalkers left red trails behind them.

“If we don’t use it,” Ragnar said, pointing to the Karvak balloons, “then our foe owns the sky.”

Minutes passed and red runes filled the pass. They were the elder
hagalaz
rune, associated with hail.

Clouds rolled in, lighting flashed, thunder cracked. The balloons were obscured.

Now came another crackle, this time from the Karvak side of the pass. Ragnar could not see the cause, but smoke filled the gap, turning the enemy horsemen into shadowy ghosts.

The Karvaks again advanced, new crackles accompanying bursts of smoke as they went.

“Magic?” Loftsson said.

“I don’t know,” Ragnar admitted, as a first bit of hail iced his cheek, and then another. “The hail may disperse it.”

“If the timing is right—”

“We can’t rely on the longbowmen,” Ragnar decided. “We will blunt their advance, before they can aim through that smoke. Horsemen!” he shouted, waving Landwaster. “Knights! Men of Soderland! Garmstad! Ostoland! Oxiland! Kantenings all! Men of ice and fire! Heroes of Garmsmaw! This is our moment! A day of hail and steel! All with horse ride forth! We will bloody them and return to our line! Ride!” He gave Landwaster to his herald, readied his spear, and joined the charge.

His instincts were correct. The Karvaks had meant by their smoke to evade his longbowmen and reach a range where their own bows could rain death. But it left them briefly vulnerable to a charge. Ragnar had noted a lack of spears or lances, or even shields.

It seemed that good fortune, the Swan, and even the old powers were with him. For even as the Kantenings rushed upon the foe, hailstones fell, dispersing the smoke. Visibility came too late to help the Karvak archers, but just in time to aid Ragnar’s men. Fighting through hail wasn’t easy, but at least they could see their foes.

Scores of Karvaks fell before that onslaught, and Ragnar’s heart hammered, for his was blood of conquerors, foamreavers, and berserkers.

In what seemed in one sense moments and in another hours, the charge was done. The Karvaks pulled back, galloping down the pass toward the Fjordlanders’ lowlands. Ragnar grinned and raised his sword, and beckoned his herald lift Landwaster high. He was glad Huginn could see all this.

Jokull Loftsson, crying, “Vengeance!” kicked his horse and gave chase, and all the Oxilanders followed. The knights of Saint Fiametta would not be outdone, and in the knights’ wake other horsemen followed too. Battle-fury was upon them all. Ragnar was in danger of being left alone in the pass.

Perhaps it was the hail that cooled his rage, or perhaps it was that a leader instinctively mistrusts the excitement of his people. Something nagged at Ragnar. There were many Karvak dead, but not so many as to constitute a slaughter, not from a force of three thousand. And their retreat had been swift, but had it truly been a rout? Thinking back, it seemed as though the steppe warriors had fled all in one body, like a withdrawing wave.

“Stop!” he called out, ice taking his heart. Riding to his herald he snatched Landwaster and rode after the main body of horsemen. “Do not leave our strongpoint!” He shouted behind him, to any who would listen, “Keep the footmen there! I command it!”

He could not put a name to his fear, but the image of the bear and the falcon stayed with him. Riding as fast as he dared, he still could not see the horsemen up ahead through the hail. They were already dangerously far from their encampment, a mile now, a mile and a quarter . . .