Brochael took a long look, then turned his back and leaned against the rock, stretching out his legs in front of him. “We’ll need the High One himself to get us through this.”
Thorkil turned to Kari. “Why don’t you do what you did before—make us invisible?”
Kari shook his head. “That’s not what I did. I made one man think he had not seen you. There are far too many of them for that. I can’t touch all their minds.”
Thorkil shrugged. “So what can you do?” There was a touch of scorn in his voice. Jessa remembered the unwinding arm ring and frowned at him. But then, he didn’t remember.
“I don’t know,” Kari said. “Not yet.”
After a silence Wulfgar rubbed his wet hair. “We can’t get by with stealth, so we must attack.”
“No.” Brochael shook his head. “We’d be cut to pieces.”
“Well, do you have any other ideas?”
“None.”
There was another silence. Finally Jesssa said, “I’ve got an idea.” They all looked at her. She was fiddling with the laces on her boots. “It’s the fire.”
“What about it?” Wulfgar asked patiently.
“It’s the only light they’ve got. And it’s what blocks the way. If the fire went out suddenly, it would be dark, very dark, in that crack in the rocks. Their eyes wouldn’t be used to it. We could take them by surprise, if we were near enough.”
Brochael was nodding. “Yes, she’s right.”
“But listen, little shamanka,” the skald said, pulling gently on her hair, “how do we put it out? Throw rocks at it?”
She shrugged. “Kari must put it out.”
Kari looked at her. “I’ve told you, I can’t—”
“I don’t mean make them believe. I mean put it out. You, yourself.” She shuffled around to look at him, her voice urgent. “She could do it, and if she could, you can. You must. You must know your own powers.”
Kari stared into the darkness. He let Brochael put a hand on his shoulder. “What do you think?” the big man asked gently.
“I don’t know. I’ll try, but—”
“You can,” Jessa said quietly. “And you know it.”
He smiled. “If you say so.”
“If it was possible,” Brochael said slowly, “we could be through in seconds. Wulfgar and I will hold the pass until you’re down.” He grinned at the dark man sprawled elegantly in the mud. “What do you say, my lord? We’d have some good fighting.”
Wulfgar nodded, but the skald said softly, “I thought the point of this was a new Jarl. Not much use to us if he’s dead.”
Wulfgar ignored him. “So it depends on you, runemaster,” he said to Kari.
Kari turned and gazed over the rocks at the blaze of fire. “Let’s move up closer, then.”
Shadows in the darkness, they drifted from rock to rock, silent as ghosts. Now they were so near they could hear the soft speech of the watchers and the crackle and spit of flames. A sentinel moved past them; they waited, flat against rock. Kari, a darker shape in the darkness, edged out so that he could see the flames. Jessa saw the light of them glimmer on his face.
They waited, unmoving. For a while nothing changed; they had time to know they were crouched in a dark, damp place high up on a mountain, pinned down by the wind.
And then Jessa began to feel it, a slow accumulation of darkness, a gathering up of night from all its cracks and holes and crannies. Kari was conjuring with black air; as he lay flat against the rock, unmoving, she could sense his mind searching, gathering, piling night on night.
The fire glimmered. A man muttered something and threw on kindling; sparks flew and went out. Above the flames the air seemed a web of blackness, descending, drifting down. The red light grew less. The flames sank. Kari clenched his fist, his face intent. “Go on,” Jessa breathed, half to herself. “Go on.” Slowly the fire was dwindling, shrinking to small cold blue flames. Someone shouted angrily; the charred sticks were stirred into a cloud of ash. Kari gripped Brochael’s sleeve.
“Now,” he said. And the fire went out.
It was gone so suddenly that Jessa was barely ready. In the blackness someone pushed her. She sprang up and ran up the steep path, slipping between shadows in a confusion of shouts and the clash of swords. Someone grabbed her; she thumped at his chest and shoved him away, and then she was over the pass and racing downhill over loose stones that clattered and spilled under her feet, down and down into the darkness of the land below. Breathless with speed, she slid and rolled and grabbed at the scree to steady herself, hearing the stones rattle down and fall a long way. She crouched on hands and knees. Someone was kneeling at her side. “All right?”
She recognized Thorkil’s voice. “Yes.” She scrambled up. “Where are they?”
The top of the mountain was black against the dim sky. Figures moved up there; there were shouts, the ominous clang of metal.
“Brochael’s holding them.” Thorkil sounded breathless, choked with excitement. “He and Wulfgar, like they said!”
“They’ll be killed! Where’s Kari?”
“I don’t know.”
She looked up. “We must do something!”
But as they watched it, the sky split open. An arch of blue light flamed suddenly over the hilltop, and under it they saw Brochael clearly, wielding his ax, scattering men, and Wulfgar, his sword flashing blue and purple. Then out of the arch shot strange shafts of eerie fire, glimmering down like a net of light. Gudrun’s men leaped back, one yelling, as the blue flames scorched him, until the rippling curtain of light had closed the pass. Wulfgar and Brochael were already hurtling down the path to where Jessa and Thorkil waited.
“Where’s Kari?” Brochael gasped.
“Here.” He was standing farther down the slope, the skald at his side.
In the eerie blue light Brochael stared at him. “Did you do that?” he said, his voice gruff. “How could you have done that?”
Kari was silent. Then he said, “I didn’t want you to be hurt.”
Brochael shoved his ax into his belt. For a moment Jessa thought she saw something new in his face; some fear. But when he looked up at Kari it was gone. “Let’s get on,” he said.
Nineteen
Learned I grew then, lore-wise,
Waxed and throve well.
Word from word gave words to me,
Deed from deed gave deeds to me.
They moved down the hillside, a line of shadows in the darkness. No one pursued them. For hours, looking back, they could see the strange gate of blue light on the hilltop, dwindling behind them, until they came down to the trees and it was lost among the branches. Jessa was at the back, near Brochael. “What happened up there?” she asked quietly.
He shrugged. “It came down between us—between her men and us. Fire, sparkling, spitting, crackling. It was like lightning that stayed. I tell you, Jessa, it scared me. I never thought he could do that.”
Silent, she nodded. But it didn’t scare her. It filled her with secret, fierce delight. Oh, Gudrun, she thought, wait until you see what we’re bringing you!
That night they stopped and slept near the banks of a stream, lulled by the wind in the trees and the trickle of meltwater. In the morning they moved on, always down, into the endless forests. As the day went, on the sky darkened. A coldness in the air seemed to thicken and drift together; it made a low mist that wrapped itself around the boles of trees. As the travelers walked it swirled cold and wet about their legs, soaking coats and cloaks and Jessa’s skirts.
“Witch mist,” the skald remarked over his shoulder. “This is her welcome.”