“Seems likely,” Hamnet agreed. The piece included a loop through which a chain might go. He imagined it nestling between Gudrid’s breasts. He’d never seen it there; he was sure he would have remembered it if he had. But how much did that mean? Anything?
“Shall we look for more of these hiding places?” Per asked. “Or do we see they have nothing important in them?”
Ulric looked at Hamnet Thyssen. Hamnet shrugged. He wanted to throw the little gold model away. Instead, he dropped it back into the hidey-hole. “Let’s get out of here.” He waited till all the Bizogots tramped out of the bedchamber before leaving himself. He made it plain he was waiting, too, so none of them could steal the bauble. That earned him a few hard looks. Had the piece been bigger, he might have had a fight on his hands-or he might have chosen differently.
“You’re a dangerous fellow,” Ulric remarked as they left Eyvind Torfinn’s house. “Gold doesn’t tempt you.”
“Gold that had anything to do with Gudrid doesn’t,” Hamnet answered. “Let it go. Let’s get out of Nidaros in one piece. Anything besides that is a bonus.”
The adventurer grunted. “Well, you’re bound to be right. We’ll have to slide around that barricade again, and we’d better pick a new way to do it, too, or those lovely fellows we ran into before will try to make us pay.”
“Pick your route,” Hamnet said. “I won’t quarrel with you, whatever it is. I want to get away from here-that’s all.”
“I know what you mean,” Ulric said. “I can fell the goose’s footsteps on my grave, too.”
As a matter of fact, that wasn’t what Hamnet Thyssen meant. He kept rubbing the palm of his hand against his trouser leg as he followed Ulric through the maze of alleys that zigzagged between the main streets. Ulric never seemed to have any doubts about where he was going. Hamnet did, more than once, but Ulric proved right in the end.
No one troubled them while they made their getaway. “Maybe God watches over us,” Per Anders said in glad surprise as they trotted out through the open gates.
“Maybe,” Hamnet and Ulric said together. Neither man sounded as if he believed it.
“Well?” Trasamund asked when they got back to the Bizogots’ encampment.
“Wasted trip, I’m afraid,” Ulric said. Count Hamnet nodded.
Marcovefa looked sharply at Hamnet. “You had something,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
“A trinket of Gudrid’s,” he said. “Nothing important.”
“You think not?”
“What do you want me to do?” he asked irritably. “Go back and get it for you?”
For a moment, he thought she would say yes. He thought, in fact, she would insist on coming with him. But then she hesitated, and finally shook her head. “No, no point,” she said at last. “The bone comes from the beast, but the bone is not the beast.”
“What does that mean?” Hamnet asked. She didn’t answer.
X
The Rulers rode along as if they hadn’t a care in the world. There were two or three dozen of them-most on the deer that must have come down from beyond the Glacier, a few riding horses. They didn’t disdain what they found the Bizogots and Raumsdalians using. A war mammoth led the troop.
“Let’s go get ’em,” Trasamund said. Nobody told him no. His force far outnumbered the invaders. By the way the Rulers paraded along south of Nidaros, they expected no enemies in this part of the Empire.
As in so much of life, what they expected and what they got were two different things. Their heads twisted toward the oncoming foes in what couldn’t be anything but horror. Despite that, none of them made as if to flee. Maybe they knew it would do them no good, since riding deer couldn’t outrun horses. Or maybe running never crossed their minds. As Hamnet Thyssen had seen more often than he cared to remember, the Rulers were formidable.
They formed a battle line: riding deer on the wings, horses near the center, and the war mammoth anchoring the whole thing. And then one man on a deer rode out in front of the line. The fringes and animal tails and sparkling crystals adorning his costume declared what he was: a shaman.
“Well, well,” Ulric Skakki said. “No wonder they think they can take us.”
“No wonder at all,” Hamnet said. “But this bastard never ran into Marcovefa.”
He glanced over to her. She probably didn’t notice him: her eyes were on the enemy sorcerer. A lion doubtless eyed a fat sheep the same way. This fellow in his fancy clothes didn’t know he was a fat sheep, but he was about to find out.
With a harsh shout-or maybe it just seemed so to Hamnet’s ears, since he knew little of their language-the Rulers rode forward. Their shaman still held the lead. They started to shoot when they were still well out of range. Or so Hamnet would have thought, but their arrows landed among the Bizogots and Raumsdalians. A Raumsdalian soldier who’d joined Trasamund’s band clutched at his throat and slid from the saddle.
When Trasamund’s men answered the enemy archery, their shafts did fall short. The Rulers’ wizard held up his hand as if defying not only arrows but the whole world.
Then a red-shouldered hawk perched on that outstretched hand. Its talons closed on-and in-the wizard’s flesh. Somehow, his screech of pain resounded over the battlefield. He beat at the hawk with his free hand. Its hooked beak nipped his fingers. It pecked at his face.
Marcovefa laughed. With the shaman distracted, archery went back to normal. The Bizogots and Raumsdalians were well within range of the Rulers now. Men and beasts on both sides began to fall. The mammoth trumpeted in anger and distress when an arrow pierced its sensitive trunk. The Rulers on the great beast’s back managed to keep it under control, though. It was well trained-and they were experienced.
And their shaman proved not the worst of wizards, either. Even though he was bleeding, he managed to make the red-shouldered hawk fly off. A moment later, lightning crashed down out of a clear blue sky not far from Marcovefa’s horse. The beast snorted and reared at the thunderclap. Hamnet hoped she could stay on-she was anything but an experienced rider. She managed-awkwardly, but no equestrian judges stood around doling out style points.
As the horse came down on all fours, Marcovefa laughed again. Count Hamnet wondered why. Then he realized that lightning bolt was intended to blast her black and smoking, and that she’d successfully turned the stroke. Sorcerous judges would have given her as many points as the rules allowed.
The Rulers’ shaman realized the same thing at about the same time as Hamnet. He threw up his blood-splashed hands in what had to be despair. He’d done everything he knew how to do-and it didn’t work. What could he do now but wait for Marcovefa’s revenge?
Hamnet nocked an arrow, drew the bowstring back to his ear, and let fly. The string lashed the leather brace on the inside of his wrist. The shaft caught the shaman in the chest, right between two glittering chunks of crystal. The man threw up his hands once more. He slumped down against the riding deer’s neck.
“I would have given him worse than that,” Marcovefa called.
“He’s dying. What’s worse than that?” Hamnet asked. Marcovefa’s feral smile suggested that she knew several answers. Count Hamnet was just as glad he didn’t know any of them.
He didn’t have time to worry about them, either. Without the shaman to protect the Rulers’ ordinary fighting men, they didn’t last long. Few of them even tried to surrender: they sold their lives as dearly as they could. Hamnet had seen the invaders behave that way more often than not. Say what you would about the Rulers, they didn’t lack for courage.