He was the one who would retain every memory of every horror of their sojourn in the Great Sky Fortress.
Shagot spent a while longer collecting himself. 'We should be in the country of the Arnhanders, near a city called Rhecale, in some hills that are still fat with old magic from a time when tribes who worshiped our gods ambushed a big Brothen army. In that valley down there. In those days this country was all forest. There was an altar here. Which is why the gods put us here. This was the closest they could send us to where we need to go.'
'Which would be where?' Svavar wanted to know.
'We have to figure that out. We're looking for a man. We'll know him when we find him.' Shagot felt bad. He was lying. But the Old Ones compelled him.
'We have to wait here. An army is coming. We'll join it and stay with it till we find our man. He's with another army this one will be joining.'
Hallgrim asked, 'How come this guy is so high on the god's shit list that they snatched us to kill him for them?'
That was not quite the mission. 'He might've found a way to fight them. They want to get rid of him before he figures that out.' Shagot frowned. There must be more to it than that 'Meantime, while we're waiting, we have to dig up some holy relics. We'll need them later.'
Weapons, tools, armor, foodstuffs, anything the gods thought might prove useful, remained scattered all over the slope. Shagot said, 'Get all that shit together. Turn this into a fucking camp.' He glanced northward. There was a chill in the air. There was a hint of rain as well. 'There should be some kind of tent in that mess. Get it set up. Unless you like sleeping in the rain.'
They did have a fire burning. He did not need to think of that
Shagot ambled around the hillside, muttering. His meanderings made no sense to the others. They made little sense to him, either, except that he knew the pattern he was supposed to walk. He kept rehearsing it under his breath. Each time he paused, visions of another time filled his mind. He saw strange, wildly hairy men in wolf and bear skins fighting and drinking and sacrificing Brothen captives to their gods. At first, Shagot did not understand their speech, though it shared some sounds and rhythms with his own. They were angry, bitter men, as content to butcher one another in brawls and blood feuds as to massacre the enemy for whom they were waiting.
The ancient language gradually assumed meaning. And Shagot began to understand why these men, dead fifteen hundred years, had gathered to battle the legions of Brothe.
Where Brothens went Brothen culture followed, along with Brothen ideals and Brothen prosperity. Brothens welcomed all gods into their community of deities. Brothens were at peace with the Instrumentalities of the Night. Where Brothens went the old ways and the Old Gods became diminished and softened and, too often, subsumed or, at best, paled into extreme obscurity, recalled only as demons or night gaunts.
Shagot did not understand that this battle had happened centuries before the births of the founding apostles of the Chaldarean creed. He did know that his gods believed that only their meddling in the middle realm kept them strong.
All Shagot knew of the ancient battle were snippets the gods had given him. There were things he did not see. Such as me fact that the tribal priests saw him as clearly as he saw them. He would never know that the biggest factor in the barbarians' victory was their conviction that one of their gods walked among them.
Svavar brought Shagot out of his reverie. 'Come on, Grim. Get something to eat'
As he gnawed dried meat, Shagot muttered, 'The trouble was, there was always another Brothen army.'
Svavar said, 'I'm worried, Grim. It ain't like you to do so much thinking.'
Hallgrim wanted to know, 'What was all that stalking around, mumbling and staring at nothing, Grim?'
'I was figuring out where we were going to have to dig. We'll take care of that tomorrow. Build the fire up. I'm cold to the bone.'
The others eyed him strangely but Finnboga tossed more brush on the fire.
Once he finished eating, Shagot crawled into the tent and began snoring almost immediately. The others worried a while but, as twilight gathered, they retreated into the tent themselves. They felt the power of the night. It was strong here. This was a place where ghosts would walk and might even talk if a man was fool enough to put himself at risk of having to listen.
Shagot slept a sleep close to sleep of death. He would not remember it in the morning but his spirit returned to the Great Sky Fortress. His companions did not rest well. Strange lights moved around outside. Weird shadows played on the walls of the tent. No one had the nerve to go look.
You did not prosper by tempting the Instrumentalities of the Night
Shagot knew everything that needed knowing.It took just half a day to recover the necessary treasures from the graves of ancient priests. Despite the fact that Shagot had slept in. Despite the icy drizzle that fell all day.
'Hang that stuff where the rain can wash the mud off. Good. There's one more grave that we have to find. The most important one.'
Shagot knew where to dig. The work went fast — until the others saw what lay under the earth.
Time had shrunk and shriveled it but it had not decayed.
'What is that thing?' Finnboga asked.
'It ain't human,' Svavar declared.
'It looks like a giant dwarf without a beard,' Sigurjon said.
It was as tall as a man and shaped like a man but it was wider and much more muscular.
Shagot said, 'Get the grave goods out. I need to go through them.' As the others did that, Shagot jumped into the grave and took the corpse's head.
Svavar asked, 'Grim, what the hell is that thing?'
'I don't know what he was. Something like a man but not a man. A powerful mage. The last of his kind.' Shagot mounted the head on the tip of a spear taken from the creature's grave, so the drizzle could wash the dirt away. 'We'll need him in order to complete our mission.'
'What mission, Grim? The old folks told us to catch those pansy priests that murdered Erief.'
'Those priests didn't kill Erief.'
'What?'
'I have that from the gods themselves.'
'Who did, then?'
Shagot found that he could not say. And it was not that important, anyway. That had nothing to do with their mission.
Shagot retired early, again, and slept for an abnormally long time.
Shagot indicated a turn in the road onto a stone bridge over a nameless creek. 'We'll wait there.'
The band moved to the point indicated, weighted down by the stuff that had arrived with them and the relics they had recovered. Shagot carried the head in a sack. An hour later an old man on a donkey appeared, coming from the south. He spied them as he was about to cross the bridge, which did not speak well for his eyes. He halted. He stared. His mouth fell open. He stared some more. Then he headed back south, spanking his donkey.
Hallgrim said, 'He must've thought we were robbers.'
Svavar said, 'We might ought to keep an eye out for bandits. There's been almost no traffic the last two days.'
One reason was that, though modern maps labeled the area the White Hills, those who lived in their shadow called them the Haunted Hills. The tyranny of the night remained in full sway in the Haunted Hills. And, lately, travelers reported that the hills had become more active.
There were, as well, rumors of war, coming out of Arnhand, as did the road itself.
Another hour passed. A pair of riders appeared, coming down from the north. Two more pairs trailed them by a hundred yards, out on either side of the road. The lead riders stopped. They gawked.
The Andorayans gawked back. Those soldiers were like none they had ever seen.
The outriders eased closer carefully.
The Andorayans had placed themselves beside the road rather than in it. Shagot thought that should make it
