The jarl grunted. “All right. Makes sense.”
They found what was left of a border station, though it had been burned. White bones in the ruins said the guardsmen hadn’t got away. A road-or at least a track-did lead south from it. As the Bizogots rode in amongst the trees, they did more muttering. Dark, aromatic branches hid the sun and most of the sky. “It’s like riding inside a tent,” one of the big blond men said.
“Like riding inside mammoth guts,” another put in.
“Smells a good deal better,” Ulric said. That didn’t seem to encourage them.
“Watch out for short-faced bears,” Hamnet said. “They like to hide behind tree trunks and then jump out at whatever they think they can kill. Chances are they won’t bother a big band like ours, but you never can tell.” The Bizogots didn’t like hearing that. Up on the steppe, most of the time you could see danger coming from a long way off. That didn’t always mean you could get away from it, but you could see it. The mammoth-herders didn’t care for the idea that it might lurk behind trees.
Neither did Hamnet Thyssen. Short-faced bears weren’t the only danger, or the worst one. If the Rulers wanted to lay an ambush here, they could. Marcovefa likely had the best chance of sniffing one out. But she looked no more comfortable in the forest than most of the Bizogots did. She’d come down into the Empire once before, which didn’t mean she liked it here.
“What’s the first town down this road?” Hamnet asked Ulric. The adventurer might not have been everywhere, but he came close.
“It’s Lonsdal, isn’t it?” Ulric sounded uncertain, but only, Hamnet was sure, for politeness’ sake.
“Lonsdal. That’s right,” Hamnet said. “I’ve heard the name, but I don’t think I ever went through the place.”
“You didn’t miss much,” Ulric Skakki said. “It’s about what you’d expect up here: a hole in the ground with a stockade around it. If the Rulers have come through, I don’t suppose it’s the better for that.”
“Not many places are.” Count Hamnet thought of the Rulers plundering Earl Eyvind’s mansion down in Nidaros. He thought of them laughing drunkenly as they threw ancient codices into the fire one after another. He thought of them leering as they pulled Gudrid’s provocative gowns out of her closet. Would they throw those away? Would they put them on women of their own, or on Raumsdalian women staying alive by doing what they could for the new conquerors?
Or would Gudrid, wearing one of those gowns, somehow charm the invaders into leaving Eyvind Torfinn’s home intact? She wouldn’t do it for Eyvind’s sake; Hamnet was sure of that. But for her own? A different story altogether.
Could she bring it off? Hamnet only shrugged. He had no way to know. But it was possible, maybe just as possible as the mental picture of her corpse naked in a gutter, raped to death.
When they got to Lonsdal, they found the Rulers had been here before them. The stockade was down: not undermined, but blasted by some sorcery. Much of the town seemed to have burned. The stench of death lingered in the air, though the carrion birds had taken what they could.
Some people still lived here. They peered from the doorways of buildings that survived. “Good God! More barbarians!” somebody shouted in what sounded like despair.
“We’ll fight!” someone else yelled. An arrow arced through the air. It landed well short of the Raumsdalians and Bizogots, but served as a warning even so.
“You idiots! We’re not invading you! We’re here to fight the God-cursed Rulers,” Hamnet Thyssen bellowed.
“You always did know how to make friends,” Ulric Skakki said, much more quietly. Hamnet waved him to silence.
The locals went back and forth with one another. At last, warily, one of them came out into the open and approached the newcomers. “You don’t talk like a damned foreigner,” the fellow said.
“I’m not,” Hamnet answered. “We’re at war with the people who did this to you. Have you got any food at all you can spare us?”
“Maybe a little,” the man said dubiously.
“Or maybe more than a little,” Trasamund rumbled. “Do you want to see what damned foreigners can do if you make them angry?”
“No,” the local said. “But we already had one set of robbers go through here. How much do you think they left us?”
And you’re another set of robbers. He didn’t say that. Trasamund didn’t catch it in his voice. Count Hamnet did. By the way one corner of Ulric’s mouth quirked up, so did he. And, by the way Marcovefa raised an eyebrow, so did she.
“Do what you can,” Hamnet said. “We came south off the Bizogot steppe to fight the Rulers. We can’t do it on empty bellies, though.”
“Oh, joy,” the local told him. “Well, if you whip ’em, don’t chase ’em back this way. Don’t reckon we could live through it if they came through Lonsdal one more time-or if you were right behind ’em again.”
The locals coughed up some bread and some flat rounds made from rye and oat flour and some smoked meat. Even more reluctantly, they produced a little beer. Hamnet would have bet they had more than they were showing. He couldn’t blame them too much for holding back, though. They had to go on living, too.
They didn’t invite any newcomers to use their houses or their beds. In fact, they made it plain the Bizogots and the Raumsdalians with them had better keep clear unless they wanted a fight. Hamnet worked hard to keep the mammoth-herders from losing their tempers. More often than not, Bizogots responded to a challenge with a fist in the teeth.
“We’ll post guards tonight around our own camp,” Trasamund declared, “the same as we would anywhere in enemy country.” He glared at Hamnet as if daring him to say they were anywhere else.
Hamnet didn’t. All he said was, “Sounds like a good idea to me.”
“If the people we’re trying to help are liable to jump on us in the dark, what’s the point of helping them?” the jarl asked.
“They’ve already had a lot of trouble. They think we’re more of the same,” Hamnet answered.
“If they do jump us, they’ll find out how right they are.” Trasamund made a fist.
“That doesn’t do us much good. It doesn’t do them much, either,” Hamnet said.
“Beats the demon out of getting ambushed by a bunch of skulking murderers in the night,” Trasamund retorted.
“Set some obvious sentries,” Hamnet said. “And set some who aren’t so obvious. The locals won’t have the nerve to try anything.”
“We’ll make them sorry if they do,” the Bizogot said.
The folk of Lonsdal didn’t. Even more reluctantly than they had the evening before, they came up with some food in the evening. They didn’t cheer out loud when the Bizogots rode south, but they weren’t far from it. Hamnet could see that in their faces. If you lived in a place like this, you had to want the outside world to leave you alone most of the time. The folk of Lonsdal hadn’t got enough of what they wanted.
Riding south, Hamnet wondered what the Rulers would do to thwart him. The short-faced bear that had attacked his comrades; that, on dying, had proved not to be a natural bear at all but a shaman or wizard in sorcerous disguise . . . He asked Marcovefa if the enemy had anything like that in mind this time around.
Her nostrils flared, as a lion’s might when it sought a scent. After a moment, she shook her head, saying, “I feel nothing.”