Bo Biogna observed, 'You got to figure a kid like that is gonna be a survivor.'
Ghort whispered. 'We might want to set our own watch and keep ready for anything, Pipe. I didn't think they'd go this far. That captain must be damned sure Hansel will back him up.'
By morning everyone had heard the catamite explain that the bishop, stubbornly refusing to go any further into the mountains, had tried to escape back the way he had come. His horse had lost its footing on a patch of ice. Bishop and beast had gone down the side of the mountain, mostly with the horse on top of its rider.
The Imperial soldiers noted that ice had been spreading throughout the Ownvidian Knot for half a century, never fading during the summers.
'This guy is slick,' Ghort said of the Braunsknecht captain, whose name they had not been able to discover. 'Getting somebody else to tell his story for him.'
Else wondered. Osa claimed to be an agent of the Emperor. Maybe he thought that his association with Bishop Serifs had outlived its usefulness.
Breakfast was thin. The Imperials had consumed most of their own rations while waiting to spring their trap. The Principatл's party had expected to reach another Episcopal stronghold late that afternoon.
Else asked, 'What'll happen when we don't turn up at Dominagua tonight?'
'They'll send somebody out to look around. When they don't find us, they'll go back and panic. What's the matter? You're shaking.'
'I'm cold. I hope I'm just cold, not coming down with something.' He had been lucky so far. His only brush with illness, this mission, had been seasickness aboard Vivia Infanti.
After repeating his story several times, Osa Stile joined the rest of the prisoners. Else managed a slow, cautious, conversation. 'What really happened out there?'
'Almost what I said. Though the bishop's horse might have had help wandering onto the ice. We weren't alone, just the three of us. There were things you couldn't see. They're all around us now. The Night is very interested in us.'
The Ownvidian Knot was wild and uninhabited and not much visited since the ice began to creep down from the highest peaks. It was the kind of country where the creatures of night fled when civilization pressed. The road had markers each hundred paces, every one charmed, but those spells were old and limited in how much protection they could extend.
Else continued to suffer bouts of the chills. He was relieved when he heard they would stop early. He contributed his share of labor, then bundled up and crowded as close to the prisoners' fire as he could.
Supper was spare again.
Just Plain Joe did not take kindly to a suggestion that Pig Iron volunteer to become the main ingredient in a mule goulash.
'That's enough,' Else said when tempers started to heat. 'Bo, you're a hill country boy.' So Biogna had claimed, when he was not telling one of several other tall tales about his origins. 'Suppose you ask our hosts to join you in a nighttime goat hunt?' Else had seen wild goats during the day. 'The moon should rise early tonight.'
'Hate to disappoint you, Pipe,' Biogna replied. 'But my ass is gonna starve before I go out there in the dark. Anyways, by the time moonrise comes, it's gonna be snowin'.'
'I see. And, no doubt, those goats would be too tough to eat, anyway.'
'Hell, no. They's probably tastier 'n shit. But it's a fact. It's gonna be as dark and cold as a whore's heart and this ain't country where you wanna be wanderin' away from camp after the sun goes down.'
'You're probably right.' He stroked the invisible thing on his wrist and wondered if its presence had dulled his thinking.
'In that case, make noises like a nanny in heat and wait for some stupid billy to come running.'
'That wouldn't work, Pipe.' Sometimes Bo's thinking was too literal.
Else studied his captors. They were a little larger, a little healthier, and a lot more professional than the mob he had accompanied to Antieux. Still, they joked and grumbled and bitched around their own fire, and generally agreed that the natural order was all wrong because, obviously, the farther you had your head up your own ass the higher you soared in the chain of command.
Another bout of shivering took Else. He wriggled closer to the fire.
Else did not dream often.Not that he remembered. But that night he did. And remembered.
He dreamed that trouble was coming. Major trouble, down from the ice, out of the night so cold. The Instrumentalities of the Night had become focused upon the Ownvidian Knot Something old was awakening out there. And its attention was focused on the Braunsknechts' camp.
Else awakened. His wrist ached. His amulet felt hot. He felt terribly cold himself. Everyone else was asleep. His own sentry, the Braunsknechts sentries, all were sound asleep. The fires had burned low. The warding posts put out to protect the encampment leaned drunkenly or had fallen.
Even Pig Iron snored like a mule.
Not good. Not good at all.
Ignoring his pain, Else crept across a dusting of snow to shake Principatл Doneto. He could not imagine anyone else who offered any hope against what was coming. This night resembled the one in Esther's Wood, amongst the Wells of Ihrian. But now he had no falcon, no treasure chest, and no inspiration.
Bronte Doneto did not want to wake up. Else shook and shook. His wrist hurt worse and worse. The Principatл groaned but remained asleep. And now he began to sense a second something, possibly even more terrible than the darkness close at hand.
Else pinched Doneto vigorously, in tender places, still to no effect. Grinding his thumb into the sensitive spot between left hand middle and ring finger finally got results.
The Principal leapt to his feet, instantly awake and immediately sensing wrongness. 'Go away.'
Else stole away, found a place where snow had collected. He crushed that against his wrist, hugged his stomach, folded up around the pain. Which became the center of his being. Then, gradually, it began to go away. Reason crept back into his mind.
Still clutching his wrist, Else got up onto his knees and looked around. Little had changed. The snow was falling more heavily. Doneto was on his hands and knees, but staggering anyway, heaving his guts up like a man who had tried to chug a gallon of cheap wine.
The sense of a great dread gathering had begun to fade away. Reluctantly. Powerfully angry at having been thwarted. And behind and beyond, afar, something faintly smug and satisfied.
As was often the case in encounters with the things of the night, at no time was there ever anything to be seen.
The nameless Braunsknecht captain was first to waken. He discovered his sentries snoring and his protective charms down, saw the state of Doneto and Else. Groggily, he kicked his men awake.
The sense of presence beyond the rim of firelight continued to fade.
Vaguely, Else heard the captain muttering, 'What happened to our wards? There shouldn't be anything strong enough to overcome our wards. Not in this part of the world.'
Soldiers and prisoners all had suffered nightmares like Else's, consisting of an overpowering impression of approaching menace, with an added certainty that escape was impossible.
'But you woke up,' Pinkus Ghort said. Ghort remained disoriented.
Struggling to reclaim his dignity, Bronte Doneto leaned on Just Plain Joe and said, 'You woke up, Hecht. In time. How did you manage that?'
'I don't know. It was the stomach cramps, I guess. The pain … It was instinct, mostly. Once I was awake enough I knew something supernatural was going on and I didn't know what to do. So I woke you up. How did you make it go away?'
'I prayed.' Doneto's tone suggested that he did not expect to be taken seriously. The fact that he belonged to the Collegium was no secret. Many members of the Collegium were accomplished sorcerers.
The Braunsknecht captain invited himself into the conversation. 'Principatл. Can you explain what just happened?'
'Something from the dawn of time woke up. Something that must have been put to sleep before the old
