“I thought the Seatts were squat and brown.”
“Some were. The name includes all of the ancient tribes of the farthest north. These people… It doesn’t matter. Their ancestors were entirely surrendered to the Will of the Night. Their sorcery served the Windwalker and his kin. They lost their lands and gods when the Andorayans came. This crew amounts to little. They have no sorcery.”
“Let’s see what they can tell us.”
Bluntnose left her seat on the cargo hatch, joined Februaren and the ascendant. Februaren wondered how he knew the Aelen Kofer was female. What cue had he caught? He could not find it consciously. She said, “These people are desperate to cooperate. They understand their situation. We’ve fed them. They know we could stop. Also, they lost many friends and relations because of the Windwalker.”
Februaren asked, “Do you know who I am, Bluntnose?”
“Yes.” With a certain reserved disdain for even the most lethal of middle-worlders.
The Ninth Unknown winked. “Then tell them who I am, sweetheart.” While she did, he told the ascendant, “They don’t look much recovered.”
“They were in bad shape to begin. I didn’t think they’d make it. The Aelen Kofer worked some deep magic but you can tell from the missing bits that frostbite was too far along for even dwarf magic.”
The ascendant related what the Seatts had reported so far. Which was that the Windwalker was angry and hungry. “Pretty much his normal state, though maybe more so now because he knows what we’re doing.”
Bluntnose said, “I told them, wizard. Your name failed to strike terror.”
“That’s a pity.” Using Bluntnose to translate, he interrogated the Seatts.
From the barge Februaren could see the cliffs of ice away toward Andoray. He saw shapes and shadows atop them. The ascendant followed his gaze, captured his thought. “He’s getting close. We have to try a new tack. Soon.”
“Something is being done. To buy some time.”
Bluntnose said, “They want to know how long we intend to hold them. They don’t want to be here when the Windwalker comes.”
“They won’t be. One way or another.”
“What?” Bluntnose turned to see what had the others’ jaws dropping.
A fishing smack had appeared outside the gateway. It headed in.
The ascendant said, “Get Iron Eyes. Tell him to bring everybody he can. It’ll take some serious artificing to handle this.”
Februaren saw nothing worth excitement. Other than that the smack’s approach was deliberate.
Typically, in myth, visitors to the Realm of the Gods did not arrive of their own accord. Not until recently. But lately a rush had developed.
Korban Jarneyn and a dozen weighty henchdwarves turned up implausibly fast. Iron Eyes explained, “We felt them cross over.”
The Ninth Unknown could now distinguish the “them.” “I’ve heard of these things. Though never of more than one in one place at a time.”
The boat was filled with Krepnights, the Elect. Februaren got a different count each time he tried a census. The average was a dozen. So many that the boat had almost no freeboard. Februaren could not imagine how it had made the crossing without swamping.
Aelen Kofer kept turning up, each as heavily armed as an individual dwarf could be. They brought along all the magic they could manage, too.
There were a surprising number of dwarves. Many more than had made the climb with Februaren and Iron Eyes.
They were getting ready for something.
Likewise, the ascendant. He had backed off to have more room as he experimented with several ferocious shapes.
An unpleasant animal musk preceded the smack. It reminded Februaren of the den of something large and filthy. A bear, perhaps.
“No fooling around here,” Iron Eyes said, apparently to himself. He rattled orders in a language Februaren did not understand.
The boat lurched up out of the water. It continued landward at the same steady pace but climbed higher and higher.
Iron Eyes barked a command that had to be, “Now!”
The boat fell. From eighty feet, it plunged to the quay. Pieces and things were still scattering when the Aelen Kofer swarmed the impact site.
Februaren said, “Try to save a couple for questioning.”
“Go teach your grandmother to suck eggs, mortal.”
The butchery did not last long. Nine hairless, tiger striped things ended up dismembered and, before long, consigned to a bonfire built special to accommodate them. Three captives suffered hamstringing. They could neither flee nor fight.
They would not talk. It was unclear whether they could if they wanted.
“This is a puzzle beyond me,” Iron Eyes said. “These things are constructs. Not unlike a number of mythical creatures the gods made to amuse themselves. Only, these are deadly tools. They have no feelings, no fears, no insides, nothing but an obsessed determination to execute the will of the Windwalker. Who breathed just enough of himself into each to give it the strength to do what he wants done.”
Februaren went to the ascendant, who seemed determined to turn into a giant jumping crab. He had not participated in the reduction of the striped creatures. “Any way you could look inside those things?”
The ascendant seemed surprised by the question, then irked. “Why would you ask that?”
“Because you’re what you are. With bits of god packed up inside. Your god stuff might be able to burglarize their god stuff.”
“I don’t get anything but cold. And a fair certainty that they’d tear me apart if they could just get at me.”
Februaren said, “I may have another tool. But I’ll have to take one of them somewhere else.”
“More time,” Iron Eyes grumped.
“More time, Mr. Gjoresson. You’re going to get it. I have something going. It will buy us a lot of time.” But he was uneasy. In fact, he was damned worried and getting more so by the hour.
It should have happened already.
Cloven Februaren was in a state approaching panic, more frayed than he had been in centuries. His schemes were coming unraveled. Heris should have done her part three days ago. He had to get out of the Realm of the Gods. He had to find out what had gone wrong. What had happened to Heris.
He should not have listened when she volunteered.
He had to check in on Piper. Piper ought to be in Alten Weinberg by now.
Maybe that was why Heris was running late. Piper might have gotten into deep trouble and she was digging him out.
The old man was on the quay, staring over the Seatt boat, out the gateway into the middle world. Korban Jarneyn joined him. “Not much to see out there.”
Exactly. Just haze and a bleak dark sea where waves had begun to run high in anticipation of an approaching storm. As true winter closed in it became ever more difficult to see all the way to the land of always winter, with its monster denizens, now drawn so close.
When the old man did not respond, Iron Eyes asked, “Why so dour and distant of late, friend?”
“The Night may have chosen to instruct me in the matter of hubris.”
“Interesting. I don’t know what you mean, but that’s interesting nonetheless. I’m here to report that the Aelen Kofer have come to a wall. There’s nothing more we can do.”
“What?”
“We’ve taken our part to the point where we can’t do anything more till you do your part.”
Cloven Februaren said, “I thought too much of my own skills as a teacher.” Which did not fit.
