“Tell us more, tell us more,” Odovacar sang. “Spy out our foes. Fly north, fly north. Spy out our foes.”
“I see herds.” Liv sounded dreamlike, or perhaps owllike, as her spirit soared far from her body. “I see herds of musk oxen. I see herds of mammoths. The herds seem large. I see herds of… deer?” All at once, doubt came into her voice. Those riding deer had traveled down through the Gap with the Rulers. They weren’t native to the Bizogot country.
“You begin to find the foe,” Odovacar assured her. “Tell us what you see, before the foe finds you.”
“I see an encampment,” Liv said. “It is wide. It is broad. All the tents are laid out in square array.” That surely marked it for a camp of the Rulers. The Bizogots were not an orderly folk. They scattered their tents every which way across the ground. The Rulers, as Count Hamnet had seen beyond the Glacier, had far more discipline.
“Tell us more, tell us more, before the foe finds you.” Even if they understood Odovacar in a Raumsdalian tavern, they would have thrown things at him. But he wasn’t singing to entertain; he worked with the charm to remind Liv what to do.
“I see men of the Rulers tending to mammoths. Some of the mammoths must be theirs. Some are stolen from the Bizogots.” Though her spirit had flown far, anger still fired her voice. She went on, “I see women of the Rulers. They are ugly bitches.” That wasn’t anger – it was scorn.
“Does the foe ride to war? Does he mount mammoths and ride to war?” Odovacar sounded more urgent now. He probably couldn’t hear her answers, but he was bound to know others could.
“I see … I see … I think I see . ..” For the first time, Liv hesitated. Were the Rulers’ wizards working to thwart her? Her arms flapped faster, as if she was flying away from the encampment. Her eyes widened. “I do see them. By God, I do! They ready their host! Mammoths and deer without number. Soon they will sweep down on the Red Dire Wolves! How did they bring so much through the Gap?”
“Tell us more!” Odovacar sang. “More! We must hear more!” He thumped the drum harder, as if to pull words from Liv.
“They are in a place we always called the Four Breasts because of the big frost heaves there,” she said. “That is a fine place to move south from – the forage is always good there. Even horses have no trouble finding grass under the snow in winter. It is easy for mammoths and musk oxen – and I see it is easy for the riding deer the Rulers use, too.”
Then she gasped. Her body twisted. She might have been banking in flight. She let out an angry cry, a cry that might have burst from a true owl’s throat. Her hands stretched into what were plainly meant for talons, visible even through her mittens.
Audun Gilli gasped at the same time. “Spirit hawks!” he said in Raumsdalian, and then, “Drum her home, Odovacar! Quick!”
The Red Dire Wolves’ shaman spoke no Raumsdalian. Even if he had, he wouldn’t have been able to hear Audun. But he too could sense what needed doing. The rhythm of his drumming changed. So did his chant. “Back to safety!” he sang. “Back to the tents of your folk! Evade all evil! Back to the tents you know so well!”
How well did Liv know the Red Dire Wolves’ tents? Well enough to home on them? Hamnet Thyssen watched in an agony of suspense, that being the only thing he could do. Liv twisted again, as if sliding away from something. Spirit hawks, Audun called whatever the Rulers were mustering against her. What did that mean? No wizard himself, Hamnet didn’t know.
Then, without warning, Liv reached out and grabbed with the claws that were really fingers. “Ha!” she cried. “That one will trouble me no more!”
Audun Gilli’s face twisted in pain. Whatever shed done, he felt it. “They might as well slay that wizard’s carcass, for his soul is dead,” he said somberly. Hamnet remembered what he’d asked Liv before her spirit flew. One of the things she’d feared most for herself, she’d just visited upon the Rulers. Good, Hamnet thought. Do it again!
But, by the way she moved, she went back to trying to escape. How many enemy sorcerers were flying against her, riding the winds of the world and whatever equivalents the spirit world knew? Defeating one might be – was – bold and brave, but a shaman flying alone surely couldn’t hope to outfly and outfight a flock of foes.
“Here is the circle! Come back to the circle!” Audun, for once, had the sense to speak the Bizogot language, not his own. Odovacar’s drumming also – Count Hamnet hoped – helped guide Liv’s spirit back towards her body.
“Fly like the Breath of God,” Hamnet whispered harshly. “Fly straight, fly hard, fly fast. Oh, fly fast!”
And then Liv came back to her body once more. No more than a couple of heartbeats after she sprang to her feet, reason on her face once more and all owlishness banished from it, two of the wardstones in Audun’s circle flared to brilliant life. Liv winced, but stood steady. Odovacar lurched in his dance, though he also stayed on his feet. Audun Gilli grunted as if he’d taken a punch in the belly. But the circle held.
“I saw – enough,” Liv said, panting as if she’d run – or flown – a long way.
“Can they strike you even with your spirit back in your body?” Count Hamnet asked, still anxious for her.
“I don’t see how,” she answered. “I know we couldn’t. They were trying to hold my body and spirit apart. Now that I’ve returned to myself, they’ve failed.”
No sooner were the words out of her mouth than she staggered. Odovacar cried out and dropped to one knee. Audun Gilli shouted, too, in what seemed to Hamnet mixed pain and surprise. Liv’s left hand shaped a Bizogot gesture against evil. Audun pulled out an amulet he wore under his fur jacket and brandished it like a sword.
Hamnet Thyssen did draw his sword. He slashed the air all around Liv, hoping to cut any influence lingering close by. He had no idea whether that did any good. He didn’t see how it could hurt, though.
“Begone!” Liv said, and her hand twisted into that sign again. “Begone, by God!” She sounded fierce and frightened at the same time. Hamnet had heard a lot of soldiers going into battle sound the same way.
Odovacar barked and snarled and bared his teeth. They always seemed long and sharp for a mere man’s. Now they looked more than halfway wolfly. Hamnet Thyssen didn’t think he was imagining that.
He was sure he wasn’t imagining things when the tension broke, as quickly and cleanly as if he had severed it with his sword. Odovacar nodded and grinned, and his teeth went back to normal again, or as normal as they ever were. Audun Gilli breathed a noisy sigh of relief. He returned the amulet to its hiding place.
Liv sighed, too, and shook her head. “Every time I say what the Rulers can’t do, I turn out to be wrong. I won’t say anything like that anymore.”
“They did strike you, then – the, uh, spirit hawks?” Hamnet asked.
“Oh, yes.” Now she nodded, shakily. “They chased me here, and they struck me – they struck me hard. I don’t know how they did, but I do know I came off lucky to get away with nothing worse than scrapes and scratches on my spirit.” She paused, visibly reconsidering that. “No, not just lucky. I had good friends and comrades who came to my aid.” She bowed to Odovacar, to Audun, and to Hamnet. “I thank you all.”
“I don’t think I did anything to be thanked for.” Hamnet wished he knew more of magic. Loving a shaman made him feel foolish and ignorant.
But Liv squeezed him hard enough to make the air leave his lungs in a startled Oof! “You did! You did!” she said, and her eyes glowed. “Couldn’t you feel your blade cutting through the links between me and my pursuers? What wise shaman taught you to do that?”
“I couldn’t feel anything. Nobody taught me. I didn’t even know if I was helping,” he answered honestly. “I wanted to do something, that’s all.”