After sliding down from his horse, Count Hamnet bowed with ironic precision. "You are welcome to try, of course. And after you have tried, the demons will take you in truth." He was not afraid of the Bizogot. Trasamund was big and strong and brave but not, from everything Hamnet had seen, particularly skillful. And even if he were . . . Hamnet Thyssen would not have been afraid, because whether he lived or died was a matter of complete indifference to him.
Trasamund also dismounted. He drew his sword, a two-handed blade that could have severed the great bear's head from its shoulders. A blade like that could cut a man in half—if it bit. Hamnet s own sword was smaller and lighter, but he was much quicker with it.
Ulric Skakki rode between them. "Gentlemen, this is absurd," he said. "You are quarreling over the shadow of an ass."
"By no means," Hamnet Thyssen said. He intended to add that he saw the ass before him. The more furious Trasamund got, the more careless he would act. He was proud of being a Bizogot like any other. That a Raumsdalian might goad him into foolishness because he was so typical never once crossed his mind.
It crossed Ulric Skakki's, though. "That will be enough from you," he snapped before Hamnet could speak. Then he rounded on Trasamund. "And as for you, your Ferocity, you owe his Grace an apology."
"I will apologize with steel." The jarl swung his sword in a whirring, whirling, glittering circle of death.
"You are a bloody fool," Ulric said.
"Shall I kill you, too?" Trasamund asked. "I do not mind. Take your place behind that other wretch, and I will dispose of you one at a time."
"If I have to, I will," Ulric Skakki said. "Personally, I don't think you'll get past Count Hamnet. If by some accident you should, I know you won't get past me. Count Hamnet, I believe, fights fair. I promise you, your Ferocity, I don't waste time on such foolishness."
"Do you want to die?" Trasamund sounded genuinely curious. "If you do, I promise I can arrange it."
"Get out of the way, Ulric," Hamnet Thyssen said. "Believe me, I can take care of myself." He had no intention of backing down—or of dying. Surprises happened, accidents happened, but he didn't think any would this time.
Trasamund seemed to realize for the first time that he was not only serious but murderous, that he wasn't just fighting to save his honor or to keep from seeming a coward but because he expected to win. "You are making a mistake, Raumsdalian," the Bizogot jarl warned.
"I don't think so," Hamnet answered. "And there's been too much talk already." He trotted toward Trasamund, ready to dodge around Ulric Skakki's horse.
"Hold!" That cry didn't come from Ulric—it came from Liv. The shaman pointed one forefinger at Hamnet, the other at Trasamund. They might have been drawn bows. "You are both behaving like men who have lost their wits. Either you are mad, or some sorcery in this country has struck you daft. Whichever it is, you shall not fight."
"No one tells me what to do. No one, by God!" Trasamund growled. He set himself to meet Hamnet Thyssen's onslaught, or perhaps to charge himself.
"I will curse the man who strikes the first blow. I will doubly curse the man who draws the first blood. And I will triply curse the man who slays." Liv sounded as determined as the jarl. Bizogots didn't commonly do things by halves.
Eyvind Torfinn was murmuring a translation for Audun Gilli. The Raumsdalian wizard said, "My curse also on anyone who fights here. We need to stick together."
"I fear no curses," Trasamund said, but the wobble in his voice belied his words.
Hamnet Thyssen really did fear no curses. He was already living under a curse, and shed chosen to travel with him to the land beyond the Glacier. But Ulric Skakki guided his mount between Hamnet and the Bizogot again. "I think Liv is right. I think this land must be ensorceled," he said. "Otherwise his Ferocity would see he needlessly insulted a man who was only trying to do what he thought right—would see that and make amends for it."
He looked toward Trasamund. So did Hamnet Thyssen, who didn't care whether the Bizogot apologized or not. One way or another, Hamnet would go forward. All paths felt the same to him, and all had only darkness at the end.
The Bizogots had a word for that, where Raumsdalian didn't. The mammoth-herders called it fey. Maybe that word was in Trasamund s mind when he said, "This Hamnet dares to offer himself to my sword, to let it drink his blood. That being so, he cannot be such a spineless wretch after all. If I said something hasty, my tongue was running faster than it should have, and I am sorry for that."
"Your Grace?" Ulric said.
Part of Count Hamnet wanted to fight in spite of everything. But hearing Trasamund back down was startling, almost shocking. It shocked him enough to make him ground his sword. "That will do," he said with poor grace, and turned away.
"Good!" Eyvind Torfinn beamed. "Very good!"
Was it? Hamnet wasn't convinced. He wondered whether he'd stopped a fight with Trasamund or just put it off for another day. Trasamund muttered to himself as he slid his sword back into its sheath. Was he wondering the same thing?
They went on, but not so far, not so fast. It was as if the quarrel about whether to go on or turn back had wounded the urge to advance without quite killing it. The plodding pace left Hamnet Thyssen less happy than either a forthright advance or a retreat would have.
"We'll never find the Golden Shrine at this rate," he said to Eyvind Torfinn.
"I don't know if it will matter whether we go fast or slow, if we go north or south or east or west," Earl Eyvind said.
"What's that supposed to mean, your Splendor?" Hamnet asked. "It sounds . . . mystical." He didn't feel like trying to penetrate another man's mysticism. To him, mysticism was even more opaque than magic, which after all had practical uses.
Eyvind Torfinn didn't help when he went on, "The Golden Shrine will be found when it is ready to be found. Till then, we can search as hard as we please, but we will pass it by. When we are ready, when it is ready, we will know, and it will be found."
"Wait," Count Hamnet said, scratching his head. "Wait. The Glacier has blocked the way north for how many thousand years?"
"I don't know. For a good many," Eyvind said calmly. "What of it?"
"Well, how could the Golden Shrine know anything about us?" Hamnet Thyssen asked. "We hardly know anything about it. Till I heard the Gap had melted through, I wasn't sure I even believed in the Golden Shrine. I'm still not sure I do."
"Don't worry about whether you believe in the Golden Shrine," Eyvind Torfinn said. "The Golden Shrine believes in you, which is all that really matters."
Instead of answering him, Hamnet Thyssen jerked his horse's head to one side and rode away. If Earl Eyvind wanted to talk nonsense, he was welcome to, as far as Hamnet was concerned. If he wanted anyone else to take him seriously when he did .. . that was another story altogether. Or was it?
Count Hamnet found himself looking in every direction at once. If the Golden Shrine was somehow sneaking around out there keeping an eye on him, he wanted to catch it in the act. Rationally, that made no sense at all.
He needed a little while to realize as much, but eventually he did. Yet out here beyond the Glacier, things weren't necessarily rational. . . were they?
He saw nothing that looked like the Golden Shrine—not that he knew what the Golden Shrine looked like. The country was the same as it had been since the travelers came through the Gap—a steppe for the moment green and spattered with flowers, but with all the signs of winter to come. Here and there, snow lingered on slopes that didn't see much of the sun. Here and there, frost heaves made miniature hillocks—the only real relief in the landscape.