Breath of God

into a trot. It might have been saying, You can’t really mean that, can you? But he could. He did. The horse might fall over dead if it had to work too hard. It would die, and so would he, if the Rulers caught up to them.

By the nature of things, the horse couldn’t understand that. Count Hamnet couldn’t explain it to the animal. All he could do was command. The poor horse, not understanding, had to obey.

Hamnet Thyssen waited for the shout from the rearguard, the shout that said the Rulers were in sight. The skin, even the muscles, between his shoulder blades tensed, as if anticipating an arrow. As if? he wondered. What else was he waiting for from those implacable pursuers?

He looked around, trying to gauge what kind of fight the Bizogots could make if – when – the Rulers attacked in earnest. He didn’t like what he saw. A few men, Trasamund chief among them in spirit as well as rank, still had fight in them. Most of the Bizogots, though, were all too plainly beaten. They’d lost too many battles. They’d fled too much and too long. If – when – the Rulers hit them, they would break … or die.

“We’re a jolly crew, aren’t we?” As happened too often for comfort, Ulric Skakki divined what he was thinking.

“Oh, of course,” Count Hamnet said in a hollow voice. He pointed ahead, towards some of the ice boulders from the avalanche that had bounced and bounded farthest across the Bizogot steppe. “The dance is just past those big rocks, isn’t it?”

Ulric laughed as merrily as if they really were riding towards viols and a drum and plenty of beer and smiling, pretty girls. “It would be a better dance than the one we’ve been making, wouldn’t it?”

“Couldn’t be much worse.” Hamnet looked around again, this time for his pretty girl, even if she had nothing to smile about right now. Liv rode beside Audun Gilli, earnestly talking about something sorcerous. Audun’s hands shaped a pass. Liv tried to imitate it. He corrected her, with a little extra emphasis on the motion she’d missed. She tried again. He nodded.

Had Ulric Skakki not been riding beside him, Hamnet would have done some muttering. He misliked the tenor of his thoughts. Defeat ruined everything, even things that should have had nothing to do with it. But the last thing he wanted was for Ulric to know he had any worries like that. The adventurer might not say anything; he had to know Hamnet would ignite if he did. He would think whatever he didn’t say, though, and that would be bad enough.

Worse than bad enough.

“The Rulers!” There it was, the cry Count Hamnet had waited for. He hunched down in the saddle to make himself a smaller target. He didn’t realize he’d done it till he saw Ulric doing the same thing.

“How many arrows have you got left?” he asked Ulric.

“Some,” the adventurer answered, reaching over his shoulder to feel what was in his quiver. “How about you?”

“Some,” Hamnet Thyssen agreed. “They don’t grow on trees, you know.”

Again, Ulric Skakki produced a cheery laugh from nowhere in particular. “Even if they did, much good it would do us. What could we harvest here? Toothpicks, by God!” That made Count Hamnet smile, too. The birches and willows and other would-be trees that grew on the frozen steppe never got bigger than calf-high bushes.

Setting a hand on his sword, Hamnet said, “This doesn’t shrink.”

“It had better not,” Ulric said. “But can we get close enough to cut up the Rulers, or will they shoot us before we do?”

“We’ll find out,” Count Hamnet said, and not even his argumentative countryman could disagree with that.

More and more riding deer and war mammoths came up over the horizon.

Closer and closer they drew. Till now, they’d seemed content to chase the Bizogots. By the way they came on, they had more than that in mind today.

“Can you summon the voles and lemmings?” Hamnet Thyssen called to Liv. “We’ll have a better chance if they’ve got to fight without their mammoths.”

“We can try,” Liv answered – and then she turned to speak to Audun Gilli. Count Hamnet knew they were only planning their magic together. All the same, he frowned and looked away. That wasn’t what he wanted to see right now.

It turned out not to matter. Liv and Audun had barely started their spell when whatever wizards the Rulers had with them struck first. It wasn’t the spell they’d used before; bugs didn’t choke the Bizogots and torment their animals. Instead, hawks and falcons and owls dove out of the sky, slashing at horses and riders alike. Wounded horses screamed in pain and surprise. A Bizogot not far from Hamnet Thyssen shrieked and clapped his hands to his face. Blood poured out between his fingers. Had cruel talons robbed him of an eye? Hamnet couldn’t be sure, but feared the worst.

Were some of those wheeling, hurtling owls wizards in sorcerous disguise? He had no way to be sure, but he feared the worst there, too. Trasamund actually caught a hawk out of the air, wrung its neck, and flung the corpse to the ground. Hamnet marveled at the feat without imagining for a moment that he could imitate it.

Ulric Skakki slashed a falcon out of the sky. Hamnet thought he might do that, but had no time to dwell on the possibilities. The birds of prey flew off as abruptly as they’d appeared, leaving the Bizogots in disarray and confusion. Then, shouting their harsh war cries, the Rulers rode in for the kill.

Archers shooting from atop a war mammoth pincushioned the Bizogot with the bloodied face. An arrow hissed past Hamnet Thyssen’s head, so close that he felt the fletching brush his beard. He shot at one of the men up there. The warrior of the Rulers jeered as the arrow went wide. Then one from Ulric Skakki caught him in the forehead. He crumpled, a look of absurd surprise the last expression he would ever wear.

Hamnet cut at another warrior on a riding deer. The fighter turned his first stroke, but the second one got home. When the Rulers were wounded, they cried out like any lesser breed. The warrior tried to fight on, but Count Hamnet cut him down.

He looked around again. Some of the Bizogots were still fighting fiercely. Others, though, streamed away from the Rulers as fast as they could. Riding deer trotted after horses. Seeing riding deer get past him sent a chill through Hamnet, a chill more frigid than any winter on the frozen steppe could bring. Surrounded, cut off. ..

“We’ve got to get out of this!” he called to Ulric.

“Well, yes,” the adventurer said. His sword had blood on it. “But how? Do you want to cut and run?”

Yes! Count Hamnet thought. Then he saw Trasamund pull his horse’s head around and ride off towards the northwest. “We can’t stay anymore,” Hamnet said, and pointed after the jarl.

“By God!” Ulric Skakki exclaimed. “What is this world coming to?”

“An end, I think,” Hamnet answered grimly. “When the Gap melted through, when the Rulers invaded . .. Everything we knew before is gone. It’s all different now. Even if we win, even if we find the Golden Shrine, it will never be the same.”

“I didn’t expect a philosophy lesson – which doesn’t mean you’re wrong,” Ulric said. “I’d better go look for Arnora, and you’ll want to find Liv. We’ll make for where the avalanche came down. I’ll meet you there – or I hope I will.”

“Luck,” Count Hamnet said. Ulric Skakki nodded.

Do I need to look for Liv? Won’t Audun take care of that? Hamnet swore at himself. Yes, he was letting defeat poison everything in his life. Before he could even think of finding the Three Tusk clan’s shaman, he needed to fight off another warrior of the Rulers. He wanted to kill the curly-bearded fighting man, but had to content himself with driving him off with a bleeding forearm.

There was Audun Gilli. And, sure enough, not far away was Liv. She wasn’t working wizardry against the Rulers now. She had a bow in her hands, and used it with as much skill if perhaps without quite the same strength as a man might have.

Neither she nor Audun saw the warrior riding up from behind them. Hamnet Thyssen shouted to distract him, then plucked out a dagger and threw it at the enemy. It wasn’t a proper throwing knife; it didn’t pierce him. But the thump against his side made him slow up and look around, which gave Hamnet time to engage him. Metal belled on metal as their swords clashed together.

“You are that one!” the warrior of the Rulers said in the Bizogot language. “They want you bad!”

“Well, they can’t have me,” Hamnet answered. His foe made as if to shout, but Hamnet’s sword went home then. The warrior looked amazed. He slowly crumpled from his riding deer.