The Breath of God (18 page)

But for its eyes and nose, the fox was white. Down on the Bizogot steppe,
the animals had turned brown. There wasn't enough dirt up here to make that worthwhile.

“We can drink ourselves through every tavern in Nidaros with this tale, and never once touch our own money,” Ulric said.

“If we get back,” Hamnet Thyssen said.

“Well, yes, there is that,” the adventurer allowed, “though you didn't hear me being rude enough to talk about it.”

“I'd like to drink my way through a tavern or two,” Audun Gilli said wistfully.

He'd spent a lot of time in Nidaros drinking—mourning his family, lost in a fire. He'd had his head stuck in the ale vat for three years, but he'd done well enough and stayed sober enough since Ulric Skakki hauled him from the gutter and made him dry out. One thing seemed plain: he wouldn't have a chance to do much drinking up here.

No matter how far Count Hamnet and the other refugees walked, the mountaintop seemed no closer. Hamnet had heard the air in the southwestern deserts was clear enough to make things seem closer than they really were. God knew what air there was up here was achingly transparent.

“We should have brought some horses up the avalanche,” Trasamund said.

For a moment, Hamnet thought he meant it. That only proved he wasn't getting enough air to keep his own wits working. Vulfolaic needed longer to realize it was a joke than he did, which made him feel a little better. The other Bizogot did a splendid double take, then sent Trasamund a dirty look. “You could have strapped three or four of them on your back and carried them up that way,” Vulfolaic said.

“Don't be foolish.” Trasamund shook his head. “The wizards could have shrunk them, and we'd each have one in our belt pouches.”

“Why not?” Hamnet asked Liv. “If the Rulers' wizards can turn themselves into owls, why couldn't you do something like that?”

“Easier to work magic on yourself than on something else,” she answered. Audun Gilli nodded. She went on, “We were a little rushed before we started climbing, too, or more than a little.”

“If you're going to complain about every little thing . . .” Trasamund said.

“I ought to clout you with something,” Liv said, “but I haven't got anything handy and I'm too tired to do a proper job of it.”

On they went. Suddenly, the mountaintop seemed to loom just ahead of
them. Hamnet wasn't sure how it had got so close without his noticing—probably because he'd been trudging along with his head down. It looked less inviting now that he could examine it better . . . but then, what didn't? The green that had drawn them from afar wasn't the green of rich upland meadows, as he'd hoped it would be. It was thin and patchy, with gray rock showing through here and there, or perhaps more often than that.

But it was undoubtedly a more hopeful place than the vast solitude of the Glacier all around it. Some of the plants had flowers. Some even had berries already. And if mosquitoes buzzed . . . well, they were life, too.

Something that looked like a rabbit with short hind legs and short, round ears stared at the newcomers from little black eyes. “Funny-looking creature,” Trasamund remarked.

“It probably thinks the same of you,” Ulric Skakki answered. Trasamund rewarded him with a glare. Ignoring it, the adventurer went on, “I do believe that's what they call a pika. They live up in the mountains south of the Glacier, too.”

“I wonder if it tastes like rabbit,” Vulfolaic said.

Before he could do more than wonder, the pika, if that was what it was, disappeared into a hole in the ground. “
That's
interesting,” Liv said.

“Why?” Count Hamnet asked. “The hole can't be very deep. Chances are we can get the beast out.”

She shook her head. “Not what I meant. Why would it be afraid of us if it never saw people before?”

“Because we're large and noisy and we smell bad?” he suggested.

Liv's grin was crooked enough to suit even Ulric Skakki. “Well, God knows that's all true,” she said.

A few buntings and longspurs fluttered about, as they might have on the Bizogot plains. Hamnet Thyssen wouldn't have thought they could find enough seeds to eat up here, but they didn't seem to care what he thought.

They were meat, too, if the Bizogots and Raumsdalians could figure out some way to catch them.

A spring bubbled up out of the rock. Hamnet had been chipping off bits of ice and putting them in his mouth when he got thirsty. The spring water wasn't much warmer, but it tasted far better. He sprawled down not far away. “God, I'm tired!” he groaned.

The others rested, too. The rock, again, wasn't much warmer than the Glacier surrounding it, but it seemed so. The sun shone down brightly. “We have a refuge—for a while,” Arnora said.

“How's your face?” Ulric asked her.

Her hand went to the moss covering her wound. “Sore,” she answered. “The scar will make me lose my looks.” She shrugged. “I'm still alive. I may stay alive a while longer, anyhow.”

“You still look fine to me, sweetheart,” Ulric Skakki said.

“You say that because you want to screw me and you have no other women handy,” Arnora said with a wry, one-sided smile. “Tell me I'm wrong. I know men. I know how they work.”

“No man in his right mind would say he knew how women worked,” Ulric said.

“Of course not. But men are simple,” Arnora replied.

“I feel pretty simple right now,” Ulric said. “I won't argue with you there. I need food, and I need sleep. The more of each, the better. After that . . . well, my dear, after that I'll still think you look good.”

“You tell me so now,” Arnora said. “When we get down again . . . If we get down again . . . Well, if we get down again, that will be a miracle. Maybe I can look for another miracle afterwards.”

Liv was methodically gathering dead plants. She eyed them none too happily. “They'll burn fast—they won't give a good, long-lasting fire the way musk-ox dung would. But maybe we'll be able to cook a little, anyhow.”

Even getting a fire going proved harder than it would have down on the Bizogot plain. The air was so thin, sparks didn't want to form and the fuel didn't want to catch. Finally, though, they could cook, or at least sear, chunks of meat.

Chewing—and chewing, and chewing—Ulric Skakki said, “No matter what you do to this stuff, I don't think we'll see it at fancy eateries in Nidaros any time soon.”

“Odds are against it,” Count Hamnet agreed. The odds were against their ever seeing anything in Nidaros again, but he didn't dwell on that. Dwelling on it wouldn't have done him any good, anyhow.

While the sun shone, the mountaintop stayed warm enough. But they'd come to the eastern side of the mountain, and its bulk made the sun set for them earlier than it would have otherwise. They could watch the mountain's shadow stretch west across the Glacier. They could—but they didn't spend much time doing it. They spread across the rocks and screen, all of them looking for anything that would burn.

“We might as well be sleeping on ice,” Hamnet grumbled as a frigid wind began to blow.

“As long as we're sleeping someplace where our enemies can't get at us, I'll worry about everything else later,” Liv said. “Cold is only cold. It gets much worse than this in winter down on the plain.”

Since she was right, Hamnet left it there. He spread out his bedroll behind a boulder that shielded him from the worst of the breeze. Liv lay down beside him. He looked around for Audun Gilli, but didn't see the wizard anywhere close by. That suited him fine.

“I never imagined anyone could come up here,” Liv said.

Now that they were here, the mountaintop gave new meaning to the phrase
cold comfort.
Hamnet Thyssen tried not to dwell on that, either. Twisting to escape a pebble that was digging into his ribs, he said, “If it weren't for the avalanche, we couldn't have done it. We never would have made the climb straight up the side of the Glacier.”

“No.” Liv shook her head. “We barely got here as it was.”

“I'm sorry things didn't work out better,” Hamnet said. “Maybe if you and Trasamund had stayed up in the north . . .”

She shook her head again. “It wouldn't have made much difference. The Rulers would have beaten the Three Tusk clan anyhow. They are stronger than we are.” She grimaced. Though the sun was down, twilight lingered long, as it did in these parts; Hamnet could watch her lips twist. “Strange to say something like that. Strange to have to say it. But it is true. Do you think they are stronger than the Empire, too?”

“They may well be,” Hamnet said slowly. “Their wizards seem able to do things we can't match.”

“It's true.” Liv's voice was sleepy and sad. “Audun's had no better luck against them than any Bizogot shaman.”

“You've spent a lot of time talking with him lately,” Hamnet remarked, not casually enough.

“Magic,” Liv answered. “Too much magic going on these days. He knows things I don't. I know some things he doesn't, too.” She sighed. “Doesn't seem either one of us knows enough. Doesn't seem anyone does. Would we be here if we did?”

Count Hamnet didn't know where they'd be. “
Just
magic?” He knew he shouldn't ask the question, knew he especially shouldn't ask it like that, and asked it anyway.

Liv leaned up on an elbow. She searched his face. “Not just magic, no,” she said. “We talk about things any people would talk about. Why? Is something wrong with that?”

In the wintertime, the Bizogots had a devilish way to kill dire wolves. They would skewer a chunk of meat with several long bone needles, then leave it out on the snow. A dire wolf would swallow it whole—would have to, because it froze hard as stone. But when it thawed out inside the belly of the beast, the needles would skewer from the inside out. Liv's counterquestion seemed just as dangerous.

“Well, I don't know,” Hamnet Thyssen said, cautious now—cautious too late, the way people usually are cautious. “Is there?”

“You're jealous,” Liv said. “Aren't you?”

“No,” he answered, the way anyone asked that question would answer. And that question, answered that way, was almost always a lie. He knew it was here. As if to prove as much, he added, “Of course not.”

“Uh-
huh,
” Liv said, which could have meant anything at all—anything that wasn't good for the two of them. She went on, “Don't you think we have more important things to worry about right now?”

“Yes,” he said, which couldn't—and didn't—mean anything but no.

“Staying alive, for instance,” Liv said, as if he hadn't spoken. “Seeing if we can find a way down from the Glacier—with or without magic—that doesn't get us killed.”

“I said yes,” Hamnet reminded her. He needed to remind himself, too.

“I know you did.” Liv sighed again. “I'm going to sleep—or I'm going to try to go to sleep, anyhow. Good night.”

“Good night.” He set a hand on her shoulder. She didn't shake it off. She just acted as if it weren't there. That might have been worse. He took it away himself, marveling that it wasn't charred to the wrist.

Before long, she started breathing deeply and regularly. If she wasn't asleep, she had a promising future on the stage—if any of them had a promising future anywhere, which seemed unlikely.

Hamnet Thyssen wondered whether sleep would find him. No matter how weary he was, he was also upset—with himself, for charging out onto thin ice and falling through; and with Liv, for not giving him the reassurance he craved. But, no matter how upset he was, he was also weary. He went from wondering how he could have put things better to complete unconsciousness without even noticing.

When he woke in the middle of the night, he was startled to find how dark and cold it had got and how many stars crowded the sky—even more than had on the way up the Glacier. And he was even more startled to hear several foxes yowl and yip out on the ice, not far from the base of
the mountain. He opened his eyes to see Trasamund feeding the fire. Then he closed them and stopped thinking altogether.

He woke up again a little before sunup. Twilight already brightened the eastern sky, and would for some little while before the sun actually rose. He looked over at Liv. Had she been awake, they could have taken up where they'd left off the night before. That would have been a mistake, which wouldn't have stopped Count Hamnet from doing it.

Luck, or something like it, was with him, though he didn't think so at the time: Liv went on snoring. The longer Hamnet listened to her, the slower and more regular his own breathing got. Pretty soon, he was asleep again.
Why not?
he thought as he dozed off. It wasn't as if the refugees were going anywhere very far today.

He woke with the sun shining in his face. But sunshine wasn't what woke him. A kick in the ribs was. He started to grab for his sword, then froze when he saw that the man who'd kicked him had an arrow aimed at his chest from a stride away and couldn't possibly miss if he let fly.

Very slowly, Hamnet raised his hands. His captor recognized the gesture and nodded. A glance told Hamnet the whole camp was overrun. The fugitives hadn't imagined they needed to set sentries here atop the Glacier. That only proved their imaginations weren't so good as they might have been.

These weren't the Rulers. These men plainly lived on the Glacier all the time. They were short and stocky, with great barrel chests to take in all the thin air they could. They wore clothes pieced together from hare and fox hides. Their arrowheads and knives were of stone, which was primitive but would serve. Fear pierced Hamnet like an arrow. Would they think strangers in their frigid domain were anything but meat?