"One way or another, we'll manage." Trasamund didn't sound worried— but how a leader sounded and what he really thought could be two different things, as Hamnet knew full well. The Bizogot continued, "If we have to, we'll build shelters from snow blocks and wait it out. We've got plenty of deer flesh on the horses' backs."
"Have we got enough fodder to keep the beasts alive for long?" Hamnet asked, knowing the answer was no. By the way Trasamund grimaced, he knew the same thing. "Can we go forward on foot if the horses die?" Hamnet continued.
"We can, yes," Trasamund said. "It wouldn't be fast, and it would be dangerous. Hunting in thick snow's not easy, and you need to eat a lot, or the weather sucks the strength out of you like a vampire."
"You have a way with words, your Ferocity." By the way Jesper Fletti said it, that wasn't necessarily praise.
"We hope for the weather to get better, that's all." If bluff, hearty Trasamund could offer nothing more, he was worried, or worse than worried.
Hamnet Thyssen let his horse fall back alongside Ulric Skakki's. "You came back through the Gap in the wintertime," he said, making it sound almost like an accusation.
"Guilty," Ulric agreed, so he caught the tone despite the howling wind.
"How?" Hamnet asked.
"I waited for a spell of decent weather, and one came along before I got too hungry," Ulric answered. "Then I squirted through as fast as I could go. The weather on the other side was a lot milder, I will say."
"Well, I believe that." Hamnet Thyssen saw no way for the full fury of this storm to squeeze through that narrow opening. "What were things like where the two halves of the Glacier came closest together?"
Ulric considered. "Windy."
"Thank you so much. I never would have guessed." Hamnet laid on the sarcasm with a shovel. Ulric Skakki only chuckled. He probably grinned, too; the way his eyes narrowed suggested as much. But he too kept himself well covered up, so Hamnet couldn't be sure.
"You'll find out," Ulric said. "Either that or the good weather won't come soon enough—in which case, our meat will stay fresh till the animals find it next spring."
"You always did know how to cheer me up," Hamnet Thyssen said. Ulric laughed. For a moment, the wind howling down from the north let Hamnet hear his mirth. Then the frozen blast seized the laughter and flayed it on knives of ice and swept it away.
Hamnet wished he thought Ulric were joking. They could die up here. If they did, no one would know but the striped cats—the tigers—and the wolves and the little foxes . . . and possibly the Rulers, if they came this way when brief spring and summer set this land ablaze with flowers.
Asking a wizard to work against such weather was asking too much. Count Hamnet already understood that—understood it in his bones, which grew colder by the moment. He did wonder whether Audun Gilli or Liv could work with it, could craft some sort of preserving spell that would keep the travelers not quite frozen to death till the storm eased enough to let them travel some more.
Steering his horse over to Liv's was a pleasure of sorts. If he was going to die, he preferred dying in good company. When he asked her his question, she said, "It would be a charm like keeping meat fresh, wouldn't it?"
"Yes, it would," he answered, while his hope sank. He hadn't wanted to hear would be. That meant she had no spell ready to use. He wasn't really surprised, only disappointed. If she'd known of such a spell, chances were she already would have been poised to use it.
"Maybe it will turn out all right anyhow," Liv said.
"Maybe it... will." Hamnet Thyssen started to bellow his answer, as he'd been bellowing all along. Halfway through, he realized he didn't need to. The wind was dying. The snow was easing. Back in Raumsdalia, romance writers threw storms that conveniently stopped into about half their tales. People laughed at them, because most of the time storms weren't nearly so considerate.
Most of the time—but not always.
"Well, well," Eyvind Torfinn said, as he had a habit of doing. "Well, well." He said it—and Hamnet Thyssen heard him. One of the horses snorted and shook its head, sending snow flying. Count Hamnet heard that.
He looked around. He felt as dazed and drained as if he'd fought in a battle. The aftermath of a battle, though, was horror, with the cries of the wounded and the stenches of blood and ordure filling the air, with maimed and slaughtered men and beasts sprawled on the ground, with ravens and vultures and teratorns spiraling down out of the sky to glut themselves on flesh before it grew cold. The aftermath of the storm . . . was one of the most beautiful things Hamnet Thyssen had ever seen.
Everything was white.
As far as the eye could see—and it could see farther with each passing moment—everything was covered in snow. Even the travelers were mostly shrouded. Hamnet almost dreaded having the sun come out. Shining off so much whiteness, it would be bound to blind. The Bizogots sometimes wore bone goggles that let in only narrow slits of light to fight against snow-blindness. Hamnet wished for a pair of his own.
To either side, the Glacier loomed up. It was white, too, whiter than he’d ever seen it. The blizzard covered the dirt that clung to the sides of the ice, covered the plants that sometimes grew in crevices when the weather warmed. The way Hamnet's breath smoked reminded him it was anything but warm now.
Trasamund shook himself like a bear emerging from hibernation. The snow he dislodged made the comparison seem more apt. "Well, now I know where south is, by God," he said in a voice not far from a bear's growl. "Let's get to the Gap as soon as we can, and leave the worst of this behind us."
On they rode. Gudrid's back was uncommonly stiff. She wasn't used to getting mocked over and over again for making a mistake; that was something she was more in the habit of doing to other people. Trasamund didn't care. He'd taken what she gave him, and he gave back nothing. No, Gudrid wasn't used to that at all.
What would she do about it? What could she do about it? Nothing that Hamnet could think of, not now, not unless she never wanted to see Nidaros again. But if they got down into safer country.. . Hamnet wondered whether to tell Trasamund to watch his back.
In the end, he decided not to. The Bizogot jarl was a grown man, able to take care of himself. That he'd turned the tables on Gudrid proved as much. If he couldn't see that she might want revenge, he was a fool. To Count Hamnet's way of thinking, Trasamund was a fool, but not that kind of fool.
The sun came out and shone down brightly. Hamnet blinked and narrowed his eyes against the glare. But for the snow everywhere, the blizzard might never have happened. The air grew .. . warmer, anyhow. The travelers slogged on toward the Gap.
XIV
Ham net Thyssen spread his arms wide. Liv laughed at him. "You can't span the Gap with your hands, my love," she said. "It's narrow, but not that narrow."
"I suppose not," Hamnet said. But the urge remained. With those cliffs, those mountains, of ice going up and up and up, the gap between them still seemed tiny—and, on the grand scale of things, it was. But a tiny gap was oh, so different from no gap at all. And then Hamnet stopped and gaped, really hearing in his mind everything Liv had said. "What did you call me?"
"I called you my love," she answered. "You are, aren't you?"
"By God!" The idea still startled him. But he had to nod. "I am, yes. And that would make you mine."
"Well, I should hope so." The shaman sent him a sidelong look. "Not much doubt about what we've been doing, is there?"
"Er—no," Hamnet Thyssen said, and she laughed at him. He didn't think it was so funny. He'd lavished all sorts of words of love on Gudrid.