“Yes, it’s the bear. But if we want to use it, we will have to find a tree trunk big enough and strong to mount the head on.”
“We will not need the ram here, I think,” Isgrimnur said. “There is hardly wall joined to wall in that tumbledown place.”
“Better safe than sorry,” Vigri said. “Especially with the White Foxes. They are tricksy as weasels.”
Isgrimnur nodded. “By all that is holy, you are right about that. I wish we fought men. God grant that at least it all goes quickly. Damn me, where has that sack of ale gone?”
“Why is it always so bloody cold these days?” Endri asked sadly. “It’s supposed to be summer!” A tattered rag, dropped by some other soldier, had joined his woolen scarf; with both wrapped around his skinny neck, Porto thought the young Harborsider looked like a turtle. But, he thought, a turtle would be better protected. Endri’s aged chain-link armor had more than a few links missing.
“It’s the north,” Porto explained.
Endri shivered again. He stared up the hill at the ruined castle, then made the sign of the Tree. “I just wanted to earn a few coppers.”
Porto could not help pitying this young man, so far from all that was familiar. “Have you never fought before?”
“In an army? Not really. By the time I joined the prince and Camaris, we were on our way to Erkynland. We were some of the last onto the field at the Hayholt.”
“Even the last onto the field must have seen some fierce fighting. I was there.”
Endri shrugged, but he looked shamed. “I was near the back. No one ever tried to kill me. I swung my sword at a few of the Norns as they ran past after the tower fell, but I didn’t hit any. Too fast. Like swinging at shadows. Or at flying bats. And that was the only fighting I’ve seen.”
“I killed a Norn at the Hayholt,” said Porto, and in that moment, beneath dark skies and battered by the wind, it might have just happened. “Or rather I was fighting him when he died. It was when the tower fell, Angel Tower or whatever it was called—were you close when it happened? All around the storms were raging and thundering, but there was fire in the sky, too. The world seemed upside down.” He fell silent for a moment, uncertain how much he wanted to remember. “Where I stood,” he said at last, “the tower went down with a great groan and roar, like a living thing. The ground jumped beneath me and knocked me down. Snow, dirt, water, all thrown into the air in a great spout, like a whalefish’s breath, then they began to fall back to the earth. For a moment I could not see anything at all, mud and stones tumbling down all around me, then something rushed out of the flurry and knocked me over again. Before I even had a chance to make the holy Tree, something swished past my head and a hand grabbed at my arm. Someone was trying to kill me—that was all I knew—and I pulled out my dagger and jabbed and jabbed. I was lucky. I hit something and it collapsed on top of me. As we fought I realized that blood was splashing on me—not dripping, Endri, splashing, as though I lay in the course of a stream. Whatever was on me sagged off then, and I got to my feet. It was one of the White Foxes, and my knife had cut deeply into its belly, but it was also missing part of its head.”
“What do you mean?” Endri’s eyes were wide, like Porto’s younger brother when he had told him ghostly stories in their childhood bed.
Porto shook his head at the memory. He did not like remembering that bloodied, death-pale creature, here, so close to those ruins at the top of the pass. “Perhaps a part of the tower had fallen on him, lad. I can’t say. But his helmet was gone and part of his head was dinted in. His one good eye was filming over. I do not know how he fought with me even for those few moments. No mortal could have done it with all his brains out that way.”
“Do they not die?” Endri sounded terrified.
Porto silently cursed himself for making things worse. “Nay, nay, of course they do. This one had already died by the time he fell off me. For the love of the Aedon, man, most of his blood was out! The White Foxes are canny fighters, strong and crafty, but when people call them immortals they mean only that they have long lives. They may go on for centuries, as it’s said, but with a yard of steel in their guts they will die like anyone else, trust me.”
Still, his tale did not seem to make the younger man feel better about the upcoming struggle. Porto decided he would be more careful telling stories in the future.
“While the Order of Echoes sent their calls out upon the dreamwinds, Lord Yaarike the Magister of the Builders employed the Singers led by Tzayin-Kha, who would become one of the revered martyrs of those final battles. Her Singers went secretly among the enemy, traveling on mirror-courses. Undetected, they spread fear among the mortals, but they were too small a force and too weak after the destruction of Ineluki Storm King to do more than sow confusion and bring back knowledge of the enemy.
“The stories they carried gave Yaarike and his lieutenants no solace. The People were greatly outnumbered, and Isgrimnur of Elvritshalla and most of his mortal troops were battle-hardened.
“Lord Yaarike Kijada and his advisors knew that without the protection of Tangleroot Castle, however degraded that fortress had become, their forces would be quickly overcome. Many of the defenders under him believed that the only choice left was to sell their lives as dearly as they could, but others believed just as strongly that they should abandon the stronghold by night, when the mortals were hampered by darkness, and hope that at least a few of the People might make their way back to Nakkiga, where a proper defense could be mounted.
“But Lord Yaarike knew that to abandon Tangleroot Castle in secrecy and haste would mean not only a shameful retreat, but an even more shameful desertion of the body of the martyred hero, High Marshal Ekisuno . . .”
As Viyeki made his way into the interior of the ancient ruin, the echoes of the funerary priests chanting prayers for General Ekisuno’s voyage back to the Garden made the place seem almost homelike. Back in Nakkiga, their city in the mountain, the air of the public places was usually sonorous with the voices of Celebrants, and in the great martyr-temples of the queen’s family and other noble dead, the chanting for the departed never ceased.
Only the walls of the old keep still stood intact, though its roofbeams were long gone and the stars now its only ceiling. Viyeki made a ritual obeisance as he skirted the huge casket and its circle of murmuring clerics, then discovered his master standing by himself near the wall in an attitude of meditative contemplation. As always, Magister Yaarike looked to be the very essence of calm, but Viyeki had served the lord of the Builders for more than three Great Years, through times both bad and good, and he had learned that his master was never as unmoved as he appeared. Viyeki treasured the fact that he knew his master so well, but considered such insight to be his secret trust. We owe correct outward behavior to our inferiors, his mother had always told him, but even more to ourselves. When we think of what is right, we can be what is right. Warmed by the memory of her, Viyeki sat beside his master and waited.
No little time passed before Yaarike finally spoke to him. “I am beginning to think that the only acceptable tactic is to try to break through the ring of black iron with which the mortals have surrounded us. Not tonight, when they would be expecting us to do so. Tomorrow when the sun comes back they will attack this hill and these inadequate walls. We will have to hold them off at any cost, then be prepared to try our escape when darkness returns—when the mortals will be tending their wounds and expecting us to do the same.”