Rihwin bowed, dripping still. "You are a lord among lords, my fellow Fox."
"What I am is bloody tired of having to worry every moment of every day," Gerin said. "The gods willing"—a phrase that took on new and urgent meaning after the evocation—"I'll have maybe three days of peace now before the next thing, whatever it is, goes horribly wrong. Come on, let's tell Aragis and the rest what we've done here today."
Along with Van and Fand and Drago and Marlanz and Faburs, Aragis the Archer stood at what Gerin thought of as a "safe" distance from the shack. The word was a misnomer, of course. Had the gods truly released their wrath, nowhere in the northlands would have been far enough from Fox Keep to escape—as the monsters had discovered.
Everyone pointed and exclaimed when they came forth. Fand's voice pierced through the rest: "Did the sot spill the wine and wreck your magic, now?"
"Not a bit of it," Gerin answered. "We summoned the gods, and the monsters are no more."
That raised the hubbub quite a bit higher than it had been. Van said, "But how can it be, Captain? You only just went in there."
"What? Are you witstruck?" Gerin demanded. "We were in the shack an hour at least, more likely two." He looked to Selatre and Rihwin for confirmation. They both nodded.
Without a word, Aragis pointed up into the sky. Gerin's eyes followed the track of the grand duke's finger toward the sun. He had to look away, blinking, but not before his jaw dropped in astonishment. By the sun's place in the sky, a couple of minutes might have passed, but no more.
"I don't understand it," he said, "but I was telling the truth, too. I suppose the bigger truth is, when you treat with gods, you can't expect the world they know to be the ordinary one we usually live in."
Aragis said, "I think you had better tell me in detail all that came to pass in there. I warn you, I am not satisfied with what you have said so far. It strikes me as likely to be a ploy to keep from having to honor your share of our terms of alliance. Are you saying the monsters are simply gone, thus?" He snapped his fingers.
"Let's go into the great hall and broach some ale, and I'll tell you everything I remember," Gerin said.
Rihwin held out the jar of wine Gerin had given him. "No, let's share this," he said. "As Mavrix is part of the tale, so should he also be part of the explanation." That made sense, but hearing it from Rihwin surprised Gerin. For his fellow Fox to share wine he could have kept for himself was not far from a revolution in human nature, and confirmed that something extraordinary had indeed happened inside the hut.
Divided among so many—and with a libation to the lord of the sweet grape—the one jar of wine did not go far, but Gerin savored every sweet drop; when he'd evoked Mavrix, he'd hardly tasted what he'd drunk. Aided by Selatre and the wine-soaked Rihwin, he explained everything that had passed in the hut.
When he was done, Van said, "Some of the yarns I've told are wild, but I hand it to you, Captain: that beats 'em all."
"Thank you—I think." Gerin could rely on his friend to believe him. Aragis the Archer was something else again. Gerin eyed the grand duke with some concern, wondering how he would react.
Aragis' jaw worked, as if he were chewing over the tale Gerin had told. At last he said, "It fits together well enough; I give you so much. But how am I to know whether it's the truth or just a clever tale to get me out of your hair?"
"Send a team down to Ikos," Selatre suggested. "If they find no monsters on the way and discover Biton's shrine restored, you'll know we have not lied. It's not a long journey; four days, five at the most, will get your men to the temple and back. Then you won't have to guess—you will know."
Aragis' jaw went up and down again. After a moment, he dipped his head to Selatre. "My lady, that is a fine thought. We would not have left here much before my men could return from Ikos in any case. I'll do as you say, though I'll send more than one team south, on the off chance you're . . . mistaken." He was too courteous to suggest straight out that she was lying, but left the implication in place.
Once his mind was made up, he was not a man to waste time. Four chariots fared south toward Ikos that afternoon. Gerin gladly gave them supplies for the journey; he was confident about what they'd find there. He went to sleep that night wondering where the last of the monsters, the ones Mavrix had missed, still lurked in the northlands. Were they the cubs he'd spared? Solve that riddle and you'd deserve undying praise. The world being what it was, you probably wouldn't get it, but you'd deserve it.
* * *
Two days later, the lookout in the watchtower blew a long blast on his horn and shouted, "Lord prince, chariots approach out of the southwest." Gerin frowned; it was too soon for Aragis' men to be coming back, and the southwest . . . The sentry's voice cracked in excitement as he added, "Lord prince, they're Trokmoi!"
The Fox cupped his hands and called up to the sentry, "How many chariots? Are we invaded?" That would be a mad thing for Adiatunnus to try, but just because a thing was mad didn't mean it couldn't happen.
"No invasion, lord prince," the sentry answered, much to his relief. "There's just a handful of them, and they're showing the striped shield of truce."
To the gate crew and the men on the palisade, Gerin called, "We'll let one crew into the courtyard; the rest can wait outside. If they try to follow, they'll never go home again."
The Trokmoi uttered not a word of protest when Gerin's troopers passed them those conditions. At the Fox's nod, the gate crew let down the drawbridge, then grabbed for bows and spears. A single chariot rattled and rumbled over the bridge into Fox Keep. Gerin recognized one of the woodsrunners in it. "I greet you, Diviciacus son of Dumnorix," he said.
"And I'm after greeting you as well, lord Gerin, though I met some of your men closer than I cared for, these few days past," the Trokmê answered. A long, ugly cut furrowed his left arm and showed what he meant. He got down from the car and bowed low to Gerin. "Lord prince, in the name of Adiatunnus my chieftain, I'm come here to do you honor. Adiatunnus bids me tell you he'll be your loyal vassal for as long as you're pleased to have him so. Forbye, there're tribute wains waiting to come hither so soon as your lordship is kind enough to tell me you accept his fealty, indeed and there are."
Gerin stared at Van. They both stared at Aragis. All three men seemed bewildered. Gerin knew he was. He turned back to Diviciacus. "What accounts for Adiatunnus' . . . change of mind?" he asked carefully. "A few days past, as you said, we were all doing our best to kill one another."
"Och, but that was then and this is now," Diviciacus answered. He sounded bewildered, too, as if he'd expected the Fox to know exactly what he was talking about. When he saw Gerin didn't, he went on, "Himself was chewing things over with one of the monsters—one o' the smart ones, y'ken—the other day when lo! All of a sudden the creature turns to smoke before the very eyes of him, and then it's gone! All the others gone with it, too; not a one left, far as we can tell. Will you say that's none o' your doing, lord prince?"
The Fox didn't say anything for a moment. Now Aragis bowed to him, almost as low as Diviciacus had. "Lord prince, I think in your own way you have met the terms of the alliance to which we agreed, which is to say, I doubt the monsters now threaten my holding."
"Thank you, grand duke," Gerin said vaguely. He'd known what Mavrix had said he'd done, of course, but knowing in the abstract and being confronted with actual results were two different things. Pulling himself together, he told Diviciacus, "Aye, the god worked that at my urging." In fact, the gods had worked that because they'd been quarreling with each other, but some things the Trokmê didn't need to know. "And so?"