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The others were more than happy to visit the tavern. The chill nipped them as they left Ruvsa’s home, for the respite in the hothouse had lulled Gaunt into thinking the weather had changed.

“I don’t like this snow,” Freidar said.

“No argument here,” Gaunt said, shivering, not saying how Skrymir had bid Innocence bring on the legendary Fimbulwinter, the final snow.

“It’s more than that. I sense the North Wind’s been riled up by something. This is unnatural. Troll-work.”

“
Can
you rile up the North Wind?” Bone mused.

“A farm lad could, in Eventyr Seven,” said Malin, looking at all the swings and ropes and even slides tucked here and there around the town.

Freidar noticed what she was studying. “Yes, Malin, this place has many youths. It’s a safe place for the Lardermen to leave their offspring while on voyages. They will also bring orphans here, or abandoned children, for their adventuring often brings them to desolate places.”

“I am not a child,” said Malin.

“No, but you were one not so long ago. Brambletop, perhaps you could show Malin places where a young person can enjoy herself. I know my way to the tavern.”

“Gladly,” said Brambletop. “Come with me, Malin? I can send my brother, Taper Tom, to guide these worthies. Come with me.”

“With me,” said Malin, a little hesitantly.

“Is this a good idea, Freidar?” Gaunt asked, looking at Bone, for her memory of Brambletop’s father was fresh.

“It is all right,” Freidar said. “No harm comes to children here. I swear it.”

Gaunt watched Malin and Brambletop head off toward the great tree.

Bone looked down upon swinging youngsters, tree-climbing youngsters, even youngsters diving into the icy water. “Looks like fun.”

“Yes,” said Gaunt.

The moment was so fresh, crisp, and pleasant, at first he disbelieved what he heard: Gaunt was crying.

“What,” he said, “what—what—what—”

He had faced (as he often said to others) sorcerers, assassins, cannibals, demons, and supernatural swarms of bees. He had never been carefree about doing these things, had often been terrified, but he hadn’t been at a loss. But Persimmon Gaunt’s tears left him at sea. He did not know what to do. He could not throw a dagger at them.

He took her in his arms, tentatively.

Freidar and Katta gently informed them they were in search of beer, and left them alone.

Gaunt gripped Bone almost savagely, head against his shoulder.

“Persimmon,” he told her, “it will be all right. Whatever it is. Tell me and I will loot its lair and stab it through the eyes.”

A laugh cut through the sobbing. “Bone. Imago. It . . . it all became real for a moment. The absurd . . . the mad truth of our lives. Children. Over there. Playing. Laughing. So ordinary a sight. No? And we’ve crossed the continent twice, to know such things.”

He did not know what to say. They stayed that way a long time.

A boy ran up to them, and Bone clenched his fist, for this gangly seven-year-old with unruly dark hair, a red cap, and a slingshot, was none other than Yngvarr’s son.

“Ah,” the boy said, “I remember you two. Well, I’m here to guide you.”

“We tried to save you,” Bone began.

“Taper Tom never needs saving!” the boy said cheerfully.

“It’s not worth it, Imago,” said Gaunt. “Boy, take us to the tavern. I need a drink.”

When they got there, a brawl was raging inside. As they watched, Freidar was thrown out beside a pair of
Bison
’s crew.

“Fight!” yelled Taper Tom in joy and raced inside.

Helping the old Runewalker up, Gaunt said, “What happened?”

“There’s a bit of a dispute between Erik’s crew and Yngvarr’s.”

Bone clenched his fist. “You don’t say.”

Freidar said, “They say the Nine Wolves have declared themselves Skrymir Hollowheart’s men.”

“That should be Eight Wolves, by the way,” Gaunt said.

“And they said many insulting things about the men of Soderland, Garmstad, Ostoland, the Five Fjords, and Oxiland.”

“All
Bison
’s crew, in other words,” Gaunt said.

Freidar said, “They were on the verge of blows when Katta tried to mediate. That was when Yngvarr backhanded Katta with a mug! Well, by now all in the tavern knew Katta was a blind man. Times may have changed in Kantenjord, but honest folk know you don’t bring battle to the helpless.”

“Katta’s a long way from helpless,” Bone noted.

“Shh,” said Gaunt.

They slipped within, sizing up the brawl.

It was a fine venue for a fight, with three broad oaken tables to battle upon, weapons and shields hung on the walls, bottles of spirits to be grabbed from the bar, and a blazing fireplace to illuminate the manic scene. Upon the center table, Mad Katta swung this way and that with his staff, connecting with a familiar, massively built, thick-headed foamreaver with a scar on one cheek. Taper Tom was rushing to and fro, launching rocks from his slingshot at Katta. Somehow Katta was always somewhere the stones were not.

Leaping Bison
’s crew battled
Ironbeard
’s, and Bone wouldn’t have been able to tell them apart if he hadn’t sailed with
Bison
this long. The northerners, perhaps, wore more scars and furs.

“Enough!” rang out a voice.

Flanked by Malin and Brambletop, followed by some twenty Likedealers, was Tlepolemus, his face twisted in fury. “You break the peace of Larderland and your oaths!” He grabbed two combatants and knocked them together. As they fell in a heap, Tlepolemus bellowed, “Stand down!”

The crewmen seemed ready to settle down, and both parties hesitated. Yet Yngvarr seemed eager to finish Katta, and Katta was focused entirely on the foamreaver.

“You’d side with that nithing Glint?” Taper Tom shouted at Brambletop. “Against your own father?”

“You always take Father’s side,” she shouted back, “even when he beats you!”

“He made me strong!” said Taper Tom.

“You’re no blind man!” Yngvarr said to Katta. “I say you’re a liar!”

“Your stench fully compensates for my blindness!” said Katta good-naturedly, to the laughter of the tavern.

Erik Glint now burst in, followed by Ruvsa the Rose herself. “Well!” said Erik. “Yngvarr so fears me he must waylay my crew behind my back? Even one who is blind?”

“I will not speak to the nithing who’d cuckold me,” said Yngvarr, still giving battle, still blocked by Katta’s staff.

“Husband, cease!” roared Ruvsa, with a voice in her throat Gaunt could only envy. “Not in twenty years has Larderland been so upended! Cease! Or by the founding law your ship is forfeit!”

Now Yngvarr backed away from Katta. “You would not,” the foamreaver said.

Tlepolemus broke in. “Is it ever said of Ruvsa the Rose that she speaks idle words?”

“No,” Yngvarr spat, “it is not.” And he threw down his sword. “If she chooses Erik Glint for her bed, I cannot stop her. But I demand satisfaction from him, for his men have broken the peace and wantonly attacked ours.”

“We attacked?” sputtered Freidar.

“You are an idiot, Yngvarr,” Ruvsa said. “We are estranged, but I keep my vows better than you keep yours—”

“I demand holmgang!” Yngvarr said. “Erik and I will duel upon the Holmgangway. Or else he must forfeit captaincy, by your precious law.”

“We’re to leave tomorrow,” Erik said, eyes sizing up the younger, larger man. “By tradition a holmgang is fought three days after the challenge or more. I accept if we ignore tradition and fight at midnight.”

Yngvarr smiled. “I agree. Midnight then.”

Ruvsa said, “Very well.”

Tlepolemus said, “On behalf of the Likedealers, I declare this agreed.”

“Hold,” said Katta. “I would take this challenge, on behalf of the captain.”

“What is this?” said Yngvarr.

“Explain yourself!” said Erik.

Katta smiled. “I find this opponent fascinating. I do not fully understand him, and I do not like leaving mysteries behind me. Besides,
Bison
needs its captain. Do you know of one fit to replace you? I would act in your stead.”

Gaunt said, “Katta, do you know what you’re doing?”

“Usually not,” the monk said. “But this time, I believe so . . .”

“I cannot gainsay your argument,” Erik said, pounding the table. “If Yngvarr agrees.”

“I do not!” snarled the slaver.

“So you fear to fight a blind man?” Katta said gently. “All of
Leaping Bison
’s crew will swear to my condition, having observed me over many days. It will be well known, thanks to the poet Gaunt over there, that Captain Yngvarr Thrall-Taker is afraid of fighting one so infirm. Even a self-proclaimed ‘wolf’ may not live that down.”

“Let it be, then!” snapped Yngvarr. “You die at midnight!” He stalked back to
Ironbeard
.

“You are mad,” Erik said, shaking his head.

“I come as advertised,” Katta said.

CHAPTER 31

A JOURNEY TO KANTENJORD, CONTINUED

(As told by Haytham ibn Zakwan, gentleman-scholar of Mirabad)

I had eagerly accepted the commissions of Princess Corinna, both in preparing balloons for her use and in piloting one to the land of Swanisle in search of aid for her cause. Thus I spent considerable time in the company of Haboob the efrit, giving me cause time and again to prove I was a gentleman of great patience. Also accompanying me was the Runewalker Nan, who seemed rather constrained pacing out weather-runes in my craft
Rukh
’s gondola, and as man-at-arms a barbaric hairy seventeen-year-old Oxilander named Rolf, whose lord had perished at Garmsmaw Pass.

I would like to claim we made a happy crew, but I am a better inventor than a liar.

On the day I came again into possession of this document, we were descending into Svanstad Fjord, just out of arrow-shot of a blockading fleet of longships fitted with red-and-white sails. Grim weather surrounded Svanstad proper in a shroud of mist, but out here the waters reflected a clear blue sky and white-capped stone heights. It was beautiful. It also afforded me a look at an unexpected sight.

A Kantening longship had pulled up beside the grand, but assiduously neutral, Kpalamaa galleon of Captain Nonyemeko. I stepped carefully around Haboob’s brazier, out of the path of Nan as she paced out a rune, through the stacks of yew longbows that were a gift from Swanisle’s King Rainjoy, and beside the glowering Rolf, that I might look out the ger’s window with a spyglass.

“What is going on?” the young man said. “Have King Rainjoy’s ships preceded us to Svanstad?”

“They are days away,” Nan said, “and we were lucky to get them at all.”

“Thanks to the king’s respect for you,” I said, tightening the focus. “There. On the longship’s deck I see the bandit-warrior of Qiangguo, Snow Pine. And there is Liron Flint the treasure-hunter. And a small crew of Kantenings. Also . . . Eshe, the Kpalamaa spy.”

“She is a Swan priestess,” Nan said.

“Did I deny it? There is something peculiar here. Snow Pine and Flint are wearing strange masks with flexible tubes resembling reeds . . . these are connected to some apparatus aboard the longship, which Eshe guards. Snow Pine and Flint are jumping overboard! It must be some manner of breathing device, allowing underwater exploration!”

“Do try not to drool over the longbows, O great ibn Zakwan,” said the glowering, smoky presence of the efrit.

“That is what Princess Corinna will do,” I murmured, knowing well how much Corinna prized these weapons, the only ones to sting the Karvaks at Garmsmaw. I swung the spyglass to peer at the surrounding waters.

“Do not speak that way of a Kantening princess,” Rolf said, “infidel.”

“Infidel,” I said, now scanning the steep rocky shore. “Heathen. Pagan. Enemy. Corinna, whom I greatly admire, has never used those words of me, for she can appreciate the world beyond her nose. Which, I may add, is quite a lovely nose. Hold on, now . . .”

“Perhaps you admire her,” Rolf said, “but you speak far too casually of her. I might challenge you for it, were you not essential to the working of this craft.”

“I would accept your challenge, oaf, were you not essential to our amusement.” It was a mistake to say this, but I was annoyed by the distraction, for I was focused upon three figures on the slopes. Shockingly, I thought they looked familiar.

“Enough!” Rolf drew a sword (a fine one from Corinna’s armory, Tancimoor steel, or I’m a Swanling) “Runewalker, how long must we bear his mockery?”

“
His
mockery?” said Haboob. “You wound Haboob of the Horrid Harangues. Have I labored in vain?”

“Young man,” snapped Nan. “If you cannot tell by now who deserves your sword-point, there’s no help for you. Put that thing away before you hurt yourself. Inventor, what has you so preoccupied?”

I could barely say it. “Lady Steelfox of the Karvaks is on that shore, with her shaman Northwing and one guard.”

Rolf said, “Good! We can slay them!” His enthusiasm for killing the nearer infidel seemed to be forgotten.

But I said, “Stop and think! What is their purpose, away from their main force? They must be interested in whatever Snow Pine and Flint are doing. And Steelfox would not endanger herself recklessly. Her shaman will be well-prepared with magics. No, we must press on, deliver our weapons and our news.”