that dam up the end and hold the water in the lakebed. Tell her they’re leftovers from the days when the Glacier came this far south.”
Ulric did. Hamnet could follow bits and pieces of what he said to Marcovefa, and of what she said to him. That meant he was braced when Ulric translated another question from her: “What would happen if the dam gave way?”
The idea was plenty to make him shudder. “The biggest flood anybody ever saw. You know about the badlands west of Nidaros, where Hevring Lake flooded and tore everything to pieces. Tell her about those, and tell her we’d have more just like them up here if Sudertorp Lake broke the dam.”
Ulric did, with gestures. Marcovefa seemed suitably impressed, but Hamnet wondered how much she really understood. How much
“Where’s the closest ford?” he asked Ulric.
The adventurer pointed west. “About an hour’s ride that way, I think. There’s a closer one we could use if the water were lower, but I don’t think we could get away with it now.” He knew the steppe like a Bizogot – knew it better than a lot of Bizogots, in fact, for he’d ranged it widely while they stayed on their clan’s grazing grounds most of the time.
Dire wolves drank by the river. Their heads rose when they saw or heard or smelled the riders coming. They peered towards the approaching Bizogots and Raumsdalians, as if wondering whether to stand their ground and fight. One of them let out a querulous whine. That must have been the signal for all of them to leave. They trotted away, tails held high as if to say they weren’t really afraid.
“Big foxes,” Marcovefa remarked. “Friendly foxes. They go in bunches, like the musk oxen.” Yes, she was learning the regular Bizogot tongue.
“Packs. We call them packs,” Trasamund said. “And you wouldn’t think they were so friendly if you ran into them by yourself.”
Count Hamnet wondered about that. If anyone could stay safe in the company of hungry dire wolves, the shaman from atop the Glacier seemed a likely candidate. But she hadn’t meant they were friendly to people; she was talking about how they behaved with one another.
Rocks sticking up out of the water showed where the first possible ford lay. Seeing the white water churning around them, Hamnet shook his head. “I don’t think we want to try to get across there,” he said. “Looks like a good way to drown.”
“I told you it wouldn’t be good with this much water in the river,” Ulric Skakki said.
“You tell me all kinds of things,” Hamnet replied. “Some of them are true. Some . . .”
“I’m so insulted.” Ulric laughed out loud.
They reached the real ford a little later. The water there didn’t get up past the horses’ bellies. It was cold, but that was no great surprise. Marcovefa watched with eyes as wide as a child’s as the horse carried her across to the southern bank. Up above the Glacier, were any streams big enough to make such a thing possible, even if they’d had horses up there? Hamnet didn’t think so.
“Is this still Leaping Lynx country?” he asked after splashing up onto the far bank.
“I think so. Or maybe their lands end farther east,” Ulric Skakki answered. “Either way, they’ll be in trouble when the Rulers get this far south.”
Hamnet Thyssen nodded. The Leaping Lynx clan were rarities: semi-sedentary Bizogots. In winter they roamed like any other mammoth-herders. But in the warm season they lived in stone houses near the eastern edge of Sudertorp Lake. The swarms of waterfowl that bred in the reeds and marshes there gave them so much food, they didn’t have to roam. They wouldn’t even be a moving target when the invaders swept down on them.
“Hard to feel real sorry for the Leaping Lynxes,” Trasamund said. “They aren’t really proper Bizogots at all.”
“Set against the Rulers, everybody from this side of the Glacier is proper,” Hamnet Thyssen said. “If we lose sight of that, we lose, and there’s the end of it.”
The Bizogot jarl grunted. He didn’t want to lose his particularism – it suited him too well. Anything bigger than a clan had to feel artificial to him. “People across the steppe are saying, ‘Well, the Three Tusk clan can’t be proper Bizogots, because they lost a battle and lost their grazing lands,’ “ Ulric Skakki said. “Are they right?”
“No, by God!” Trasamund shouted.
But he couldn’t or wouldn’t see that that had anything to do with the way he looked at the Leaping Lynxes. Ulric sighed but didn’t seem surprised. Hamnet Thyssen wasn’t surprised, either – saddened, yes, but not surprised. Trasamund always had trouble seeing that he’d made a mistake, or even that he could.
There wasn’t really time to worry about it or time to quarrel about it. Audun Gilli asked, “Are the Rulers over this river yet?” That was the burning question.
“If they are, we may find out about it soon,” Hamnet said. “Sudertorp Lake will have pushed them either this way or off to the east. If it is to the east, God help the Leaping Lynxes.”
“This land is so rich,” Marcovefa said. “It can hold so many. Such a shame to need to fight over it.”
Hamnet and Ulric looked at each other. She saw the land was richer than the mountaintop sticking up through the Glacier. But she didn’t see how very poor that was. Rich by comparison didn’t mean truly rich – not even close.
Trasamund pointed. “There are mammoths,” he said.
In the days before the Gap melted through, the Bizogots and Raumsdalians would have welcomed that news. It would have meant more mammoth-herders were close by. Now it might mean mammoth-riders were near. The difference sounded small, but was even bigger than the one between Marcovefa’s homeland and the Bizogot steppe. It was the difference between safety and disaster.
They approached the mammoths with as much caution as they could muster. If the great beasts belonged to the Rulers, what could Trasamund and those with him do but flee? And what kind of chance would they have if they did?
But they breathed easier when the man who rode out to see who they were and what they were up to rode a horse, not a deer. The hair under his fur hat was Bizogot yellow, not the shiny black of the Rulers. Even his brand of bluster sounded familiar: “Who the demon are you, and what the demon do you think you’re doing here?”
“You’re Marcomer, aren’t you?” Hamnet Thyssen shouted back, pleased he remembered the fellow’s name. “We met when I guested with the Leaping Lynxes last year.”
“Thyssen?” Marcomer called, and Hamnet nodded. The Bizogot barely waited for that before he went on, “What in blazes is going on farther north? We’ve had more people coming down through our grazing grounds than anybody in his right mind would believe. . . And that’s Trasamund with you again, isn’t it?”
“It’s me, all right.” Trasamund was never shy about speaking for himself. He and Count Hamnet took turns talking about the arrival of the Rulers. The jarl of the Three Tusk clan finished, “It’s even worse than we thought it would be when we came through going north last winter.”
“We’ve heard some of this from others,” Marcomer said. “We didn’t know how much to believe. Men riding mammoths. . Mad sorceries . . But I’ve got to believe you when you tell me you went to the top of the Glacier. Nobody would be daft enough to make that up and expect the folk who heard him to listen.”
Marcovefa stirred but held her tongue. She must have realized the Bizogot with the name that sounded like hers wasn’t trying to offend.
“Will you let us pass on?” Ulric Skakki, as usual, went straight to the point.
“You ought to go back to the stone houses and talk to the jarl,” Marcomer answered.
“If we go back to the stone houses, we’re liable to run into folk we don’t want to meet,” Hamnet said. “I hope not, but we don’t care to take the chance.”
“Folk you don’t want to meet? What are you talking about?” Marcomer might have heard what the travelers told him, but he hadn’t really listened.
“I don’t know whether the Rulers have come this far south, but I wouldn’t be surprised,” Hamnet said. “I do know they haven’t come west of Sudertorp Lake, because we would have met them instead of you if they had. But if they have come this far and they’ve gone east of Sudertorp Lake, where are they likely to be?”
