Breath of God

a nervous little boy. The jarl of the Three Tusk clan muttered something that probably wasn’t a compliment. Marcovefa ignored him. She began a crooning chant, one that made Liv prick up her ears. “We use that tune for summoning spells,” she said.

“The men of the Glacier spring from Bizogots,” Hamnet Thyssen said. “Should you be surprised they still share some things with you?”

“When you put it that way, I guess not. I -” Liv broke off. The larger male lion trotted towards Marcovefa.

Hamnet Thyssen started to string his bow, then cut off the move before it was well begun. An arrow seemed more likely to enrage the big cat than to kill it outright. And Marcovefa had a way of knowing what she was doing. Of course, if she turned out not to this time, it would be the wrong moment for a mistake. . .

Down in the Empire, lions had manes not much more than stubble. This one boasted a full, luxuriant growth. Its coat was thinning with summer, but still far heavier than any the beasts in the south grew. It needed all the help it could get against the ferocious winter weather in these parts.

When the lion drew near to the shaman from atop the Glacier, it flopped down on the ground and rolled with its paws in the air, for all the world like a pampered house cat. But these paws could rip the guts out of a man – or, for that matter, a horse. Marcovefa scratched the lion under its chin. A deep, rasping purr rewarded her. The beast yawned, exposing fangs that wouldn’t match a sabertooth’s but that were more than savage enough for all ordinary use. She rubbed its belly, and the purr got louder.

“By God, I wouldn’t want to do that,” Ulric Skakki muttered.

“I’d want to,” Trasamund said, “but I wouldn’t dare.” From the fierce Bizogot, that was no small admission.

When Marcovefa had seen as much of the lion as she cared to, she chanted a new song. The great murderous beast stopped acting like a happy kitten. It got to its feet and trotted away from her. Only when it got back to the rest of the pride did the spell suddenly seem to wear off. The lion began washing and washing, going over its hide with its large, rough tongue.

“Cleaning the stink of us off it,” Ulric said, amusement in his voice. “It doesn’t think we’re fit to associate with.”

“It must have met people before, then,” Count Hamnet said, and the bitterness in his voice made everyone who heard him either stare or else look away from him in embarrassment.

What kind of embarrassment? he wondered. That I made a fool of myself? Or that I told a truth that hurts but that they can’t deny? He shrugged. What difference did it make? Anyone who still took a sunny view of human nature after what the Rulers visited upon the Rock Ptarmigans was too big a fool to deserve to wander the Bizogot plains alone, anyhow.

Marcovefa pointed out towards the lion and spoke. “She says we’re lucky to live in a land that has such beasts,” Ulric said. “She says they give us something to measure ourselves against.”

“Measuring myself against a lion is easy,” Audun Gilli said. “I am less than a lion, and I hope I have sense enough to know it.”

When Ulric Skakki translated, Marcovefa shook her head. “Could the lion have called you away from other men and made you come to it?” she asked through the adventurer.

“I hope not, by God!” Audun blurted, which struck Count Hamnet as the truth wrapped in a joke. The wizard went on, “I wouldn’t have called it here, either. Maybe I could have – maybe – but I wouldn’t.”

“Why not?” Marcovefa asked.

“For fear something would go wrong with my magic, that’s why,” Audun said.

“Never fear,” the shaman from atop the Glacier said seriously. “Never. When you fear, it makes your magic small.”

“Well, yours isn’t. We’ve noticed that,” Audun Gilli said.

“You see?” Even with Ulric Skakki translating for her, Marcovefa sounded sure of herself.

“I think she is of our blood,” Trasamund said. “Bizogots know better than to fear.”

“Not fearing isn’t always good, either,” Hamnet Thyssen pointed out. “Sometimes you can run straight into something you would have stayed away from if only you’d had the sense to fear it.”

“I don’t believe that,” Trasamund said.

What about your clan? Hamnet thought. If they’d kept proper watch at the Gap, they might have kept the Rulers from getting through for a long time. But they hadn’t known enough to fear the mammoth-riders. They’d found out soon enough: too soon, in fact.

He knew Trasamund would quarrel with him if he pointed that out. Life was too short. They bickered often enough as things were, sometimes over things that might actually get fixed. They were stuck with the past, though, however little either one of them liked it.

Instead of chaffing the jarl, Hamnet asked, “What will we do if we run into the enemy on our road south?”

“What will we do when we run into the enemy? That’s what you mean.” Ulric Skakki was rarely shy about throwing oil on the fire.

But Count Hamnet shook his head. “I said if. I meant if. We’re trying to stay out of the paths the Rulers are likely to take.”

“The answer is the same any which way,” Trasamund said. “If we find them – if they find us – we fight them.” He reached back over his shoulder to touch the hilt of his great two-handed sword. “They can die. We can kill them. We have killed a good many of them – not enough, but a good many.” He scowled. “Unless we kill them all, it is not enough. I don’t know how to do that. I wish I did.”

“We can kill them, yes. But they can kill us, too, and they’re rather better at that than we are at the other.” Ulric enjoyed irritating Trasamund, where Hamnet Thyssen didn’t. “Wouldn’t we do better staying away from them than fighting where we can’t win?”

“If you are afraid -” Trasamund began: a Bizogot’s automatic retort. But then he shook his big head. “I know you too well. You are not afraid. You are only annoying me, like any other gnat. Well, I don’t feel like letting you bite today. If we run into the Rulers, do whatever you please. You will anyhow.”

Hamnet looked down at the ground so Ulric wouldn’t see him smile. When he had his features under control, he raised his head once more. Ulric Skakki was using the edge of a blade of grass to rout out something stuck between his teeth. If Trasamund’s thrust bothered him, he didn’t show it. But, to those who knew him, his very nonchalance said he knew he’d lost the exchange.

“How does it feel to be a gnat?” Hamnet asked.

“Natural enough,” Ulric replied easily. Hamnet started to nod. Then he grimaced and found something else to do. If Ulric had lost the exchange to the Bizogot jarl, he’d just lost it to Ulric, and the adventurer needed only two words to make him do it.

He wasn’t sorry to take sentry duty when the sun finally went down. A few stars came out, but only a few. Twilight lingered long in the north, and the moon filled the southern sky with pale light. Everything was grayish, colors muted and distances confused. Even motion seemed indistinct. It was like watching half in dreamland.

Sounds, though, were somehow magnified. A dire wolf that howled far off to the south might almost have been sniffing at Hamnet’s boots. An owl’s hoot made his hand drop to his swordhilt. The Rulers’ wizards flew through the night – and sometimes through the day – as owls. He needed another hoot or two to realize how distant this bird was. Real or sorcerous, it would not come across the travelers’ encampment.

And a footfall that sounded as if it came from right behind him was much farther away than that. For a moment, there in the uncertain light, he wasn’t sure who was coming out to him. But Liv was impossible not to recognize. The way she moved spoke to him in his blood, at a level below words.

“Is it all right?” she asked as she came up.

“It seems to be,” Hamnet answered. “Why aren’t you sleeping?”

She shrugged. “With the sun in the sky so long, I don’t seem to need as much.” Hamnet found himself nodding. He’d noticed the same thing. When he had to, he could go longer without sleep here than he could have down in the Empire. The long, deep winter darkness in the north made him want to curl up and hibernate like a bear, though.

“I heard an owl not long ago,” he said.

“Yes, I heard it, too,” Liv said. “I think it was only an owl. I hope it was only an owl.” She looked around. The twilight was deepening, but almost imperceptibly. “This stretch of days makes up for the