Gerin's unease became alarm, but too late. With a whistling hiss, the summoned god, in all his effeminate finery, stood before Rihwin. " So!" Mavrix screeched, bouncing with wrath. "You are in league with this miscreant, and have the gall to seek my aid?" The furious deity pointed a finger at Gerin; somethow it did not seem strange that the digit should lengthen till it thumped the baron's chest.
"I will never help you, wizard! Never! Never!" Mavrix shouted, dancing around the little fire in a sort of war-dance. "And you shall never have the chance to ask my aid again. Mortal wretch, now and forevermore you have forfeited your right to work sorcery, and be thankful I leave you the remainder of your pustulent life!
"Take that, ox-goad!" the god added for Gerin's benefit. He stuck out a long pink tongue like a frog's, made a gesture street urchins often used in the capital, and vanished.
"What was all that in aid of?" Rihwin asked, white-faced.
"I told you before, the god and I had a disagreement not long ago."
"Disagreement forsooth! The next time you have a disagreement with a god, my dear Gerin, please let me know in advance so I can take myself elsewhere-far elsewhere." Rihwin tried to resume his interrupted spell, stopped in confusion. "A pox! The pestilential godlet did it! I still know every spell I ever knew, but I can't use them. No wine, no magic…" He seemed ready to burst into tears.
So, for the moment, was Gerin. He had gone south with high hopes, and returned with-what? A suddenly useless wizard and some sour wine. No, fool, wait, he told himself before his mood altogether blackenedthere's Elise, and she's worth troubles a dozen times worse than these. His gloomy side added: or she will be, if troubles no worse than these at all don't kill you first.
The Elabon Way continued packed with refugees. They fled south toward a safety that no longer existed, carrying on their backs or in handcarts such pitiful belongings as they had salvaged. Pushing north against them was so slow that at last, much against his will, Gerin decided to leave the highway and travel on back roads. Though less direct, he hoped they would also be less traveled.
His hopes were justified most of that day. He made better progress than he had since he'd first seen that accursed imperial courier. But as the first cool evening breezes began to blow, what must have been the whole population of two or three farming villages jammed the narrow track on which he was traveling.
The peasants had their women, children, and meager possessions in ramshackle carts driven by oxen or asses. They drove their flocks of cattle and sheep before them. When the baron tried to tell them the way through the Kirs was blocked, they listened in dull incomprehension, as if he were speaking some foreign tongue, and continued on their way.
The same thing happened three more times in the next two days. Gerin's pace slowed to a crawl. Once more he had the feeling the whole world was against him. He was brusque even with Elise, and so churlish toward Rihwin and Van that the outlander finally growled, "Captain, why don't you shut up and do us all a favor?" Shame-faced, the Fox apologized.
Later that day, Gerin heard a commotion ahead, but thick woods and winding road kept its nature hidden. He, Van, and Rihwin reached for their weapons. But when the path opened out into a clearing, they put them down-there would be no fighting here. Instead of Trokmoi, they had come upon yet another group of peasants taking flight and the local lordlet trying to talk them out of it. Or so Gerin thought at first. A moment's listening showed him the noble had given up on that and was telling them what he thought of them for going.
"You cheese-faced, goat-buggering, arse-licking whores' get-" The noble's command of invective was marvelous; even Van listened in wideeyed admiration. The fellow's appearance complemented his delivery. He was a solidly made man of about thirty-five; he had a fierce red face with one eye covered by a leather patch, thick brows, and a tangled black beard. He wore a bearskin cape over broad shoulders and massive chest, and carried a brace of scabbardless swords on his belt. " Lizard-livered, grave-robbing sodomites-"
The abuse rolled off his tenants like water from oiled leather. They were going whether he liked it or not. Despite the three troopers and two chariots he had at his back, there were at least twenty men in the exodus, each with scythe, mattock, or pitchfork close at hand. Gerin wished they would have been as ready to take up arms against the Trokmoi.
As the peasants began to move, the minor baron noticed Gerin. "Who in the five hells are you?" he growled. "Why aren't you on the run like these pissweeds here?"
Gerin named himself and his friends. He asked, "Are the woodsrunners so close, then, to send your villeins flying?"
"Close? I've yet to see one of the pox-ridden bandits, for all they've sent these dungheaded clods a-flying, aye, and most of my fighting men too. I've seen partridges with more heart in 'em than they showed." He spat in utter contempt and slowly began to calm. "I'm Nordric One-Eye, in case you're wondering-lord hereabouts, not that I look to have much left to be lord over."
"Friend Nordric," Rihwin said, "would it please you to fare north with us and take vengeance on the barbarians who have caused such chaos?"
Nordric lifted an eyebrow at the southerner's phrasing, but the notion of hitting back at the Trokmoi was too tempting for him to resist. "Please me? Great Dyaus above, I'd like nothing better! Those sheep-futtering, louse-bitten woodsrunning robbers-"
He rumbled on for another couple of angry sentences. Then he and one of his men climbed aboard one chariot and the other two soldiers into the second. His driver, Gerin learned as they began to travel, was Amgath Andar's son; one of the last pair was Effo and the other Cleph, but the Fox was not sure which was which. Neither of them said much. Nor, for that matter, did Amgath.
That did not surprise Gerin. Nordric talked enough for four. Not only that, he kept peppering his speech, even on the most innocuous subjects, with fluent, explosive profanity.
Rihwin steered close to Gerin. "It's as well for him he's short an eye-otherwise they'd surely style him Nordric Swillmouth."
The baron grinned and nodded. He was still glad to have Nordric along. He did not think the foul-mouthed baron would shrink from a fight, or his men either. Facing Trokmoi in battle had to be less terrifying than confronting an angry Nordric afterwards.
Though armed, Nordric and his men carried few provisions. Gerin had resupplied from imperial stores at the pass, but he knew what he had would not feed eight people long. The food would go even faster if he gathered more followers. That meant spending time hunting instead of traveling, something he resented but whose necessity he recognized.
More companions, though, also meant more men to stand watch. Freed from the need to break his sleep with a watch in three, Gerin spent the early evening sitting by the fire with Rihwin. He studied the southerner's grimoires with a desperate intensity that he knew was almost surely futile. Still, he persisted. The vengeful Mavrix had taken Rihwin's power to work magic, but not, it seemed, his ability to pass on what he knew.
"Here." Rihwin pointed to an incantation written in the sinuous Kizzuwatnan script. "This is another spell for the destruction of one' s enemies when a bit of their spittle, hair, or nail parings is in one's possession."
"How does it differ from the more usual one, the one I would have set on the fair Namarra?"
"It has the advantage of needing no elaborate preparation, but is more dangerous to the caster. Unless perfectly performed, it will fall on his head rather than the intended victim's."
"Hmm." The spell looked simple enough, involving only a couple of genuflections and some easy passes with the left hand. But as Gerin studied its verbal element, his first enthusiasm faded: the Kizzuwatnan text was one long tongue-twister, full of puns, subtle allusions to gods he barely knew, constantly shifting patterns of rhyme and rhythm. He almost passed at once to the next charm. Then, stung by the challenge and artistry of the ancient versicle, he stopped and read it again and again, until it was fairly well lodged in his mind.