The Manches and other tribes in the far southwest practiced that shot and made it deadly. They would have laughed themselves sick at how little use the Bizogots got from it.
When a mammoth caught up with a horse, by contrast, the Rulers knew just what to do. They speared one Bizogot out of the saddle, then another. And they went on laughing while they did it.
'Now!' Trasamund bellowed. The Bizogots and Raumsdalians concealed by the musk-ox herd and by Audun Gilli's magic thundered forward.
Bowstrings thrummed. These archers weren't making an unaccustomed shot, but one they used all the time. They aimed for the mammoths' eyes and ears and trunks—the sensitive spots where wounds would pain even those gigantic beasts. And they aimed for the warriors atop them.
One thing mammoths couldn't do was turn as quickly as horses. The Rulers cried out in surprise and dismay at the unexpected flank assault. Their enormous mounts went wild when wounded, just as horses would have. One plucked a rider off its back with its trunk, dashed him to the ground, and stepped on him. His scream cut off abruptly. Red stained the snow.
With shouts of rage, men of the Rulers on deer tried to close with the horsemen. The deer lowered their heads and charged, ready to use their antlers as secondary weapons. But ferocious archery kept most of them at a distance, and the horses overbore those that did manage to close. Hamnet and Ulric and the Bizogots chopped down at the enemy riders with their swords.
'Revenge!' Trasamund shouted over and over again. 'The Three Tusk clan! Revenge!'
Ulric Skakki made a lucky shot: he hit a mammoth not just near the eye but in it. No, Hamnet decided—it was a great shot, not lucky; Ulric had done that before. The arrow must have pierced the thin, fragile bone behind the eyeball and reached the brain, for the mammoth crashed to the ground, stone dead. One of the men atop it survived the tumble, but not for long. A Bizogot ran up and dashed out his brains with a hatchet.
'Revenge!' Trasamund yelled once more, and all the Bizogots took up the cry.
Seeing the mammoth topple seemed to suck the spirit from the Rulers. They still outnumbered their foes, but they lost stomach for a fight that wasn't a walkover. The ones who could rode back toward the east as fast as they could go.
'They don't look like such heroes when you see their arses, do they?' Ulric Skakki remarked.
'Not a bit of it,' Hamnet Thyssen answered, thrusting his blade into the snow to get blood off it. 'We ought to round up the ones who are still breathing but couldn't get away.'
'Yes, the Bizogots will have fun with them, won't they?' Ulric said.
Count Hamnet's mouth twisted. The adventurer was bound to be right about that, and what happened then wouldn't be pretty.
'Who knows what kind of noises they'll make by the time the Bizogots get through with them?' Ulric said. 'Do you want to be the one to tell Trasamund he can't have all the revenge he craves?'
'I'll do it.' After a moment, Count Hamnet amended that: 'I'll see if he wants to listen, anyhow.'
Trasamund wasn't paying much attention to captives when Hamnet came up to him. He was directing the butchery of the mammoth Ulric had slain, and of the deer and horses that had fallen in the fight. 'When we go off to join up with another clan, by God, we won't come empty-handed,' he shouted. 'We'll have meat for their larders, so much meat that they'll want us worse than we want them.'
That was bravado. He had to know as much, too. But it was a bravado the surviving Three Tusk clansfolk needed. Along with the fallen men of the Rulers, Bizogots lay in the snow, cold and dead and rapidly getting stiff. The ones who yet lived had to be convinced the others didn't die for nothing.
The Bizogots were already starting to abuse the prisoners they'd taken. 'We should question them, not torment them,' Hamnet said.
Trasamund looked as if he hated him. 'Easy for you to talk like that,' the jarl growled. 'They didn't wreck your clan.'
'Not yet,' Hamnet Thyssen answered, which brought the Bizogot up short. He went on, 'If we learn all we can, we'll save other Bizogot clans, too. Or we can hope we will. Would you rather waste them? Think of them as food—for the sword.'
That got home to Trasamund. Considering how the Bizogots ate every bit of every animal they killed, from snout to tail, Count Hamnet had hoped it would. The jarl went on scowling at him, but then turned aside and started bellowing orders.
And he needed to bellow. Having started in on some of their captives, the Bizogots had the rest trussed and waiting and watching. They didn't want to be deprived of the pleasures of vengeance.
Trasamund said, 'If they tell us the truth, maybe we let them live, or at least give them a quick end. That will give them a reason to talk to us. If we catch them lying, then we do as we please.'
'Some of them don't know any of our tongue,' Gelimer said. 'We might as well slay them—we can't talk to them.'
'Keep them breathing for now,' Trasamund said. 'Maybe we can ransom them or make the Rulers do something to keep us from hurting them.'
'You've spent too much time in the south,' Gelimer said. 'You're getting soft.'
Trasamund hit him in the face. The jarl's mitten cushioned the blow, but it knocked Gelimer down even so. He got up smiling—Trasamund had proved himself still ferocious. Hamnet Thyssen would have thought that a perfect Bizogot attitude if he hadn't known Raumsdalians who worked the same way.
He went over and squatted down by one of the captives. 'Tell me your name,' he said in the Bizogot tongue.
'I am a dead man,' the warrior of the Rulers answered in the same language.
Count Hamnet drew back a fist. 'Tell me your name, I said.' He wouldn't take nonsense from the prisoner no matter what.
Wearily, the shaggy, hatchet-faced warrior replied, 'You can call me Karassops.'
That wasn't quite the same as telling Hamnet Thyssen his name. But Hamnet accepted it; Karassops likely feared his real name, if he gave it, would be used in magic against him. 'Why did you invade this land, Karassops?' Hamnet asked.
Wounded, battered, and captive though he was, Karassops eyed the Raumsdalian as he would have eyed any other fool. 'Because we could, of course.'
'It doesn't belong to you.'
'Some of it does now. All of it will.' The warrior spoke with frightening confidence.
'Much good coming here did you. You will die here,' Hamnet said.
'I told you—I am already dead. All of us you captured are dead. You surprised us. You caught us. You disgraced us. We are dead. We cannot show our faces around the fires of our folk ever again. Give me a weapon, and I will end myself now.' Karassops sounded eager for the chance.
'If you are dead, you won't mind answering my questions,' Count Hamnet said. 'What harm can answering do the dead?'
Karassops made an argumentative corpse. Eyeing Hamnet, he said,
'Who are you? You are no Bizogot. You must be one from that other herd.'
'Never mind who I am. You don't ask questions. You answer them,' Hamnet said.
'One from that other herd . . .' Karassops followed his own line of thought. 'Which one? We knew some of you were stupid enough to come back and stir up more trouble.' He laughed. 'I know! You must be the one who kept mooning over the woman he couldn't have any more.'
Hamnet Thyssen hit him two or three times before even realizing what he was doing. Blood ran from Karassops's nose and started freezing in his mustache and beard. Hamnet looked at his hands in some surprise. They seemed to have minds of their own.
'My women are none of your business,' he growled.
'I got the idea.' Karassops turned his head and spat red into the snow. 'And you were the one who didn't want to torture us.'
'I didn't want you mouthing off, either,' Hamnet said. 'You'd better remember who won this fight and who lost.'
