Hamnet wasn't the only one who wished Audun would keep his mouth shut. "He's a trusting soul, isn't he?" Ulric Skakki whispered.
"He's a trusting fool, is what he is." Hamnet didn't bother keeping his voice down.
If Audun Gilli heard him, he paid no attention. That the mammoth-riding strangers could be dangerous didn't seem to cross the wizard's mind.
He just saw them as people with whom he couldn't speak—and maybe as a way to let him seem important to his comrades.
"I'm a sorcerer," he repeated. This time, he showed the bad-tempered barbarian—so Hamnet reckoned the man, anyhow—just what he meant. "Behold, I shall become invisible," he said, as if the stranger could understand him (and Hamnet had no sure proof the man could not).
Audun reached into his belt pouch and drew forth an opal. The stone sparkled in the sun, showing glints of red and blue and silver. The wizard began to chant. The opal seemed to draw more and more sunlight to itself as the spell went on. It sparkled brighter and brighter. Before long, it grew too dazzling for Hamnet Thyssen to look at. He had to turn away. And, since he could not look at the stone, he could not look at the man who held it, either. Audun was effectively, if not actually, invisible.
Looking away from Audun Gilli, Count Hamnet looked toward Liv. She watched the Raumsdalian wizard with avid interest. Her lips moved silently, perhaps in a charm of her own that let her go on looking at Audun and the opal after Hamnet Thyssen and the others close by had to avert their gaze.
Then Hamnet glanced in the strangers direction. He screwed up his face and squinted at Audun—better that, he seemed to say, than to admit he was dazzled. But at last narrowed eyes availed him no more. He had to turn away.
When he did, he shouted back toward his comrades, who still sat on their mammoths. One of them stirred. They were more than a bowshot away, so Hamnet Thyssen could not tell exactly what their wizard or shaman or whatever he was did. Whatever it was, it served his purpose. The opal in Audun Gilli s hand shattered into fragments. The dazzling, coruscating light that flowed from it died.
"You see?" the stranger said in the Bizogot tongue. "You think you are so high and mighty, but in truth you are only a maggot like all your foul kind."
Audun Gilli stared at his hand, and at the tiny bits of opal still left in it. The mammoth-rider's speech meant nothing to him, because he did not speak the Bizogots' language.
But it meant something to Trasamund. "Who do you call maggot, dog?" the jarl demanded. "I asked if you knew my speech, and you would not give me a yes or a no."
"I give you nothing," the stranger said. "It is what you deserve. Soon enough, it is what the Rulers will give all who are not men."
Trasamund turned red. "You say I am no man?" he growled. The stranger nodded. "What am I, then?" Trasamund asked, his voice suggesting bloodshed would follow if he didn't like the answer.
The stranger only yawned. If he was trying to be offensive—and no doubt he was—he was succeeding. "Vermin," he said.
"Why, you flyblown son of a mammoth turd!" Trasamund shouted. He started to climb down from his horse. "By God, I'll kill you for that!"
"Wait, both of you," Eyvind Torfinn said in the Bizogot tongue. "We are newly met. We should not war. There is no quarrel between our folk."
"There is a quarrel between this wretch and me," Trasamund said.
"No, there is no quarrel," the stranger said. "The Rulers do not quarrel with lesser breeds. How could we? We do not quarrel with dogs, either. I, Parsh"—he jabbed a thumb at his own broad chest—"say this, and I speak the truth. We do not waste our time lying to lesser breeds, either."
"And I, Eyvind Torfinn, say you are provoking us on purpose."
Parsh yawned in his face. "I care nothing for what you say. Soon enough, your folk, whoever they are, will bend the knee before the Rulers. If they do not, we will destroy them as easily as Samoth there destroyed your silly wizard's stone."
"These are the people who hold the Golden Shrine?" Ulric Skakki whispered to Count Hamnet. Not much bothered Ulric—or if it did, he didn't let it show—but he sounded scandalized now. Hamnet wasn't surprised; the notion horrified him, too.
"Maybe they don't," he whispered back. "We don't know where the Golden Shrine is, and we don't know how much land these, uh, Rulers rule. Maybe they just talk big."
Talk big they did. "You will come to our encampment," Parsh said. "My chief will want to see what manner of lesser men you are."
"And if we don't care to come with you?" Eyvind Torfinn asked.
"However you please." Parsh shrugged broad shoulders. "But in that case, we will have to kill you here." Now he didn't sound boastful. He sounded matter-of-fact, like a man who had to talk about getting rid of mice.
Hamnet Thyssen eyed the mammoths and the men riding them. He didn't like the idea of fighting warriors aboard such immense animals. They outnumbered the travelers from the far side of the Glacier. And . . . "Audun!" Hamnet called in Raumsdalian. "How good is their sorcerer?"
"I heard you have more than one kind of animal grunts," Parsh said in the Bizogot tongue. "Well, that won't do you any good, either."
"He ... is not weak," Audun Gilli answered reluctantly.
That would have been Hamnet's guess. But he didn't want to have to go with a guess here. He wanted to be sure. Now that he was, he said, "Let's go with them. We need to learn more about them before we decide what to do."
"When we get to wherever they camp, I will take care of this Parsh," Trasamund said—in Raumsdalian.
The man from the Rulers caught his name, even if he didn't understand the words surrounding it. His grin displayed strong white teeth. Hamnet Thyssen couldn't decide whether his canines were uncommonly sharp on their own or they'd been filed to points. Neither notion seemed attractive to contemplate.
"We will go with you to your camp," Eyvind Torfinn told Parsh.
"Oh, what an honor!" Parsh said. "The vole consents to travel with the—" The last word was one in his language. He bowed mockingly. "Thank you, most gracious and generous vole."
Hamnet Thyssen had disliked Parsh on first sight. The more he saw of the stranger, the more he despised him. He was sure that was exactly the impression Parsh was trying to create. Well, Parsh knew how to get what he wanted, all right.
"To travel with the what?" Earl Eyvind asked.
"With the tiger," Parsh repeated. "The big, striped cat. Are you too ignorant to know of tigers? By the gods, you must be fools indeed!"
"Fools for putting up with your noise," Trasamund said. He might have been less enamored of Parsh than Count Hamnet was.
"Come," the man of the Rulers said. "Come now, or be killed where you stand."
They came.
The camp was not like anything Hamnet Thyssen expected. He'd looked for the same sort of dirt and disorder that always marked a Bizogot encampment. He didn't find them. Tents stood in neat rows. Mammoths and deer were tethered in neat lines. Some of the deer had saddles and reins. The Rulers didn't seem to ride horses. Come to think of it, Hamnet hadn't seen any horses except for the ones with his party since traveling beyond the Glacier. Parsh hadn't shown any curiosity about them, but Parsh didn't seem to show curiosity. The only thing he showed was arrogance.
That irked Count Hamnet. It infuriated Trasamund. As soon as he got down from his horse, he roared, "Parsh! Where are you, Parsh, you bastard child of a rabid fox and a palsied rabbit? Come get what you deserve!"