Breath of God

later, to Marcovefa. “Ride with me,” he told them. He raised his voice and called “Hold up!” to the rest of his force.

He and his handful of companions trotted towards the challenge. He wasn’t overwhelmingly surprised to find a party coming out from the other host to see who he was. An officer wearing the hame of a dire wolf as a headpiece shouted, “What do you think you’re doing, interfering with His Majesty’s army?”

“I told you – we’re His Majesty’s army!” Hamnet produced the orders he had from Sigvat II and thrust them at the other man. “Here. Do you read?”

“Yes,” the officer in the wolfskin said angrily. He snatched the parchment away from Count Hamnet. Then fear filled Hamnet for a moment. What if Sigvat had reneged on his promises? What if this force had orders to ignore one Hamnet Thyssen, or to clap him in irons? If Gudrid had been working to get her way with the Emperor, it wasn’t impossible. It wasn’t even unlikely, as Hamnet knew all too well.

But, by the way the other officer’s eyes widened, it hadn’t happened. Hamnet blew out a fog-filled sigh of relief. “You see?” he said.

“I see,” the other officer said unhappily. “You’d better come with me and show this . . this thing to Count Endil.”

“Endil Gris?” Hamnet asked.

“That’s right,” the officer said. “You know him, uh, Your Grace?”

“We’ve met,” Hamnet answered. Endil Gris was a warrior with a considerable reputation for his wars against the savages who raided Raumsdalia’s southwestern frontier. So far as Hamnet knew, Endil had never fought in the north before. Sigvat must have figured a capable general on one border would prove just as capable on another. Maybe the Emperor was right. On the other hand, maybe he wasn’t.

“Come with me, then,” the officer said, “you and your, ah, friends.” His gaze lingered longest on Trasamund and Marcovefa when he said that. After a moment, though, he added, “You have some experience against these new barbarians, I’ve heard. Is that right?”

“Yes, it is,” Hamnet answered. “Not happy experience, not a lot of wins, but experience. I gather that puts me one up on Count Endil?”

Instead of answering, the man in the wolf-hame only grunted. Endil Gris’ army put him one up, or more than one, on Count Hamnet. Endil had more soldiers than Hamnet did, many more, and they were men with the look of regulars, tough and composed and ready – they thought – for whatever lay ahead of them. Quite a few of Endil’s men also had suntans that said they’d come up from the south with him. They couldn’t have turned so brown on northern duty, anyhow.

Endil himself wore a black leather patch over his left eye. “Thyssen, by God!” he said. “What are you doing here?” Even in mittens, his handclasp felt odd; along with his eye, he was also missing his right middle finger.

“Show him what I’m doing here,” Hamnet told the officer in the wolf-hame, who still carried his orders. Reluctantly, the man passed the parchment to Endil Gris.

Count Endil held it out at arm’s length to read it. Count Hamnet had to do more and more of that himself. When Endil finished, one of his bushy eyebrows leaped. “How the demon did you get the Emperor to appoint you god of the north? That’s what this amounts to.”

“Hamnet always did have a charming smile,” Ulric Skakki said.

Endil glanced at him. “Skakki, isn’t it?” As Ulric nodded, the veteran soldier went on, “I’ve heard of you, for good and for … well, for not so good.”

Ulric Skakki nodded again, unembarrassed. “That’s what life is all about, don’t you think? I could say the same thing about you.”

“I wouldn’t doubt it.” But Endil Gris gave his attention back to Hamnet. “You’ve got all the authority you need, don’t you?” Before Hamnet could answer, Endil continued, “You’ve got it if I say you’ve got it, anyway. Otherwise, you’re just a beggar with a bowl, looking for a handout anywhere you can.”

How to answer that? If Hamnet tried to bluff here, he reckoned he would lose his man. Endil was not a man who gave way to bluffs; if anything, they enraged him. And so Count Hamnet shrugged and said, “Yes, that’s about the size of it. His Majesty’s right about one thing – I know more about the Rulers and how they fight than you do.”

“You couldn’t very well know less. I’ve never seen one of the buggers, not yet,” Count Endil replied. “All I’ve heard about ‘em is from people who ran away from them. So I was going to do the best I could, but. .. .” He shrugged and spread his mittened hands.

“I’ve seen them. I’ve talked with them. I’ve fought them. I’ve run from them, too. It’s what you do when you lose,” Hamnet Thyssen said. “But some of the forces I was with almost won, and I think we’ve got a wizard now who can stand up to anything they throw at us.” He gestured towards Marcovefa.

“The Rulers, they are not so much of a much,” she said in her curiously accented Raumsdalian.

Endil Gris’ long, somber, mutilated face crinkled into an unexpected grin. “Nice to know somebody thinks so, anyway,” he rumbled. “Everybody down in Nidaros was shrieking about how they ate us up without salt.” He swung his good eye back towards Count Hamnet. “I’ll serve under you, Thyssen. I think you’ve got a better chance of making this come out right than I do, and what else matters?”

Plenty of other officers would have made that question anything but rhetorical. To them, their chance for fame and glory came ahead of anything else. Hamnet thought Endil Gris was a man of a different, sterner, school. He hoped Endil was. If the one-eyed noble claimed he was, Hamnet couldn’t afford to do anything but take him at his word. “Thanks,” he said. “As long as we’ve got that settled, let’s go after the barbarians and give them what they deserve.”

“Sounds good to me,” Endil said.

One of his aides had been listening with more and more agitation. “But, Your Grace!” the junior officer burst out. “This is your army! Are you going to let some … some stranger take it away from you?”

“Thyssen’s no stranger,” Endil Gris replied. “Why did we come up here, Dalk? To whip these Rulers right out of their boots, yes? If Count Hamnet can do that, I’ll stand behind him, because I’m not sure I can.”

“But – ” Dalk didn’t want to let it drop.

“Would you like to take it up with His Majesty?” Endil asked. “Would you like to go back to Nidaros and take it up with His Majesty?”

His aide recognized danger when it blew his way. “Uh, no, Your Grace.”

“Very good. Very good.” Count Endil was ponderously sarcastic. “In that case, would you like to salute Count Hamnet Thyssen and do everything you can to help him against these barbarians? That’s what I aim to do, by God.” He did it.

After a moment, so did Dalk. But rebellion still glittered in his eyes as he said, “May you lead us to victory, Your Grace.”

Count Hamnet knew what that meant. He gave the unhappy Dalk a thin smile. “Don’t worry about telling tales to the Emperor if I lose. He’ll hear them from better men than you, I promise. And he pulled me out of the dungeon to do this. If he throws me in again, what have I lost? What has he lost?”

Dalk’s eyes went big and round. “He … pulled you out of the dungeon?”

“I’d heard that,” Endil Gris said. “I hoped it wasn’t true. You’re not the kind of man who ends up in one, except maybe for telling the truth.”

“Well, you got the crime right the first time,” Ulric Skakki said. “Such men are dangerous – and if you don’t believe me, ask Sigvat.”

“Enough.” Hamnet held up a hand. “Only the Rulers get anything if we start slanging each other.”

“You’re right, by God,” Trasamund said. “We Bizogots did that, and we paid for it.” Dalk and Endil Gris both eyed him as if to say, So what? They didn’t want to listen to a Bizogot. Do they really want to listen to me? Hamnet Thyssen wondered. I’ll find out.

Then he realized Marcovefa had told him he would get a real army before he got it. How the demon had she known? How could she have known? She’s a shaman, that’s how, Hamnet thought. A strong one, too, by God. Maybe we’ve got a chance in spite of everything.