Beyong the Gap

'I am not likely to forget. I am disgraced forever.' Karassops couldn't have looked any more forlorn. 'I am outcast. I am outlawed. I can never take my place among the Rulers again. I am dead.'

Now Hamnet wished he hadn't lost his temper and hit the man. If Karassops was dead to the Rulers, he might decide he could be alive and have a place among the Bizogots. But as things were, Hamnet didn't try to turn him. Even if Karassops said he would join the folk who'd defeated and captured him, how far could he be trusted? Not far enough, not now, the Raumsdalian thought regretfully. Maybe he or the Bizogots would have better luck with some of the other men from the Rulers.

Meanwhile, though, Hamnet could still learn from Karassops, even if he didn't try to get him to turn his coat. 'How many of your folk came through the Gap?' he asked.

Despite the blood on his face, Karassops bared his teeth in a saucy grin. 'Enough.'

When Count Hamnet made as if to hit him again, he didn't flinch. He had courage. The Rulers seemed to. They were enemies, but far from cowards. 'How many of your folk still dwell off to the north?'

Karassops's grin got wider. 'More than enough. We are tigers. You are prey.'

'It could be,' Hamnet Thyssen said. That startled the warrior from beyond the Glacier. Hamnet went on, 'We can build tiger traps, though.

Would you be here if we couldn't? You would be trying to squeeze answers out of me instead.'

'You got lucky this time,' Karassops said. Hamnet Thyssen feared he was right, but didn't say so. Karassops added, 'How long do you think you can go on being lucky?'

'How long do you think it will be before the Bizogots join together and hurl you out through the Gap?' Hamnet returned. The warrior from the Rulers laughed in his face.

Shrugging, Count Hamnet got to his feet. Startled again, Karassops asked, 'Aren't you going to kill me?'

Hamnet thought of Parsh after he lost the stand-down with Trasamund. He had killed himself to efface the shame of losing to a foreigner, to someone who didn't belong to the Rulers. The Raumsdalian noble grinned, too, as unpleasantly as he could. 'Live,' he said. 'Live with knowing how you failed. What worse thing could we do to you? Live long, and brood on what you should have done.'

That struck home where nothing else had. The Rulers might disdain physical torment, but Hamnet knew he'd found a vulnerable spot even so. Karassops yammered at him in his own harsh, guttural language. Hamnet didn't understand him, but knew rage and fear when he heard them.

'You don't deserve to use that tongue any more, do you?' Hamnet said sweetly.

He thought he was only mocking the warrior, but Karassops took him literally. The captive bit down hard. He groaned in agony, then spat something pink and red into the snow. Blood poured out of his mouth. He gulped frantically, swallowing more so he wouldn't drown.

'You idiot!' Hamnet Thyssen cried.

You could bandage and close off a gash on an arm or a leg, maybe in the neck, maybe even, if you were very lucky, in the chest or belly. But on the tongue? How? Count Hamnet stared helplessly as Karassops's face went gray. The warrior slumped over. His eyes sagged shut. In a few minutes, he'd bled to death.

Ulric Skakki eyed the corpse, and the chunk of meat next to it. 'I don't think I could make myself do that,' he said, shaking his head. 'Why did he?' After Hamnet explained, Ulric shook his head. 'If you'd just told him to watch his tongue, he'd still be here?'

'Who knows?' Hamnet pointed to the severed organ. 'He died watching it.'

'Heh,' Ulric Skakki said. 'Either I laugh or I heave. And you were the one who said to go easy on the Rulers we'd caught.'

'I thought I was,' Hamnet Thyssen answered. 'I didn't mean for him to do ... that.' His stomach wanted to turn over, too. He'd never been seasick, but this helpless nausea had to come close to that feeling.

'Well, we're rid of him now,' Ulric said. Was that callousness, practicality, or, most likely, both at once? The adventurer went on, 'If he was the kind who would do something like that, he was the kind who would have caused us all sorts of trouble. Meanwhile, we can take the prisoners we do have and head on down to the Red Dire Wolves. They'll prove the invasion is real, and they'll make Totila get off his backside and fight the Rulers.'

That was pure practicality. Count Hamnet found himself nodding. 'Good enough. And we’d better use Audun's magic to cover our tracks again, or we'll have lancers on mammoths right behind us. They won't be so easy to surprise twice.'

'I wasn't sure we could surprise them once,' Ulric Skakki said. 'But it turns out they can be overconfident fools just like anybody else. That's good news, of a sort.'

'Huzzah,' Hamnet said, and Ulric laughed. But it was worth remembering. The Rulers were powerful and dangerous, but they were also human. They made mistakes. They could be made to make mistakes.

So could Trasamund. He was wild to storm to the attack after his small victory. He didn't want to wait and gather strength before hitting back. He didn't want to listen to Count Hamnet, either. Then Liv said, 'Your Ferocity, this is bigger than the Three Tusk clan.'

'Nothing is bigger than the clan! Nothing!' the jarl shouted.

'The Bizogot folk is. The Empire is. All the lands on this side of the Glacier are,' Liv said. 'Hamnet does not tell you not to fight back. He tells you to pick your time.'

Trasamund snorted. 'He worries more about Gudrid and Eyvind Torfinn and Sigvat more than he does about us.'

'For better or worse—for better and worse—they are my folk. So are the rest of the Raumsdalians,' Hamnet Thyssen said steadily. 'No matter what Sigvat thinks, they'll join this fight before too long. They'll have to.'

'So you say,' the Bizogot rumbled. After a moment, though, he gave a grudging nod. 'To the Red Dire Wolves, then. We will. . . pick our moment.' He made it sound like picking his nose. But when he said, 'The fight goes on,' Liv and Hamnet Thyssen both nodded with him.