1633880583 (F) (65 page)

Innocence bowed. “Hekla, companion of Huginn. Hail. We mean no harm.”

“Innocence!” Hekla gasped, lowering her sword. “Innocence Gaunt! Why, I never thought to see you again. What . . . has happened to you?”

Innocence could not help but smile a little. “There are many answers to that, Lady, but I sense you wonder about my forehead and my eye. The one is a gift from Qiangguo, the other from Kantenjord. I am not altogether pleased with either. But it’s said that a gentleman who loves comfort is unworthy of the name.”

“Tell me, lad, have you word of Huginn?”

Innocence shook his head. “I know he was at Svanstad when it fell. That is all I know. I am sorry.”

Hekla surveyed
Bison
’s crew. “You travel with Karvaks . . . and the boy has a troll-splinter. And yet you serve Corinna? This is a riddle.”

Steelfox stepped forward. “My bodyguard, my shaman, and I are considered renegades. Yet it is my sister Jewelwolf who has truly betrayed our ways, by allying with trolls and using their cold magic. Speak what is in your heart, Kantening. Is Oxiland ruled by the Karvaks?”

“It is. My own bedmate, with his Oxiland volunteers beside him, opened the gates of Svanstad. In return for his treachery, this farm is allowed autonomy, in anticipation of the return of Huginn, the Crowned King of Oxiland.” Her voice was not proud. “All this was six months ago. Yet the winter goes on. Fimbulwinter, folk call it. We are given supplies and promises that the cold will break soon. Such is my lover’s work. We will have words one day, he and I. Meantime, I won’t give you over to the Karvaks. But you had best be quick about your business.” Hekla pointed her sword to the north, where a distant pair of balloons drifted above the horizon.

Innocence said, “Can you tell me if the Oxilanders Rolf and Kollr yet live?”

Hekla said, “The names of Rolf and Kollr have emerged as those of Huginn’s scribes.”

Innocence laughed, and the sound was bitter.

Erik said, “I can only guess at your worries, Lady. I don’t want to add to them. Will you allow us to reach the river?”

“I don’t think I could stop you,” Hekla said. “That’s what I’ll tell the Karvaks when they come. For I doubt you’ll long escape their notice.”

Innocence said—and for this he needed all his courage—“I would ask you, Hekla . . . do you know the health of one Jaska Torsdatter? She lives on a farm north of here.”

Through all her worry, Hekla’s eyes widened a little. “Of course she is known to me. I have taken her into my service, for we are short-handed. She is well. Do you wish to see her?”

Innocence stared toward the farmhouse in the hillside, wondering if he would be disappointed or relieved if Jaska was peering out at the strange ship. He became acutely aware that whatever Jaska might be doing, everyone else was looking at him. “No. There is no time.”

Hekla moved closer and put her hand on his shoulder. So only he could hear, she said, “Shall I tell her you asked after her?”

“I—yes. Please.” He wracked his brains for something wondrous, brave, and memorable to say to the dark-eyed girl. But only Walking Stick’s classical quotations came to mind. “A sage of Qiangguo once said, ‘If I hear Truth in the morning, I’m content to die in the evening.’ I feel this way about having met Jaska.”

“They have the hearts of foamreavers in Qiangguo,” Hekla said. “It must be. I will tell her.”

Innocence retreated, feeling all those stares. Alfhild in particular watched him as he worked beside Kollr to get
Bison
to water. “What was all this about, Innocence Gaunt? This girl Jaska? Is she very beautiful?”

Alfhild herself seemed astonishingly beautiful in that moment, and Innocence tried not to look at her or at the jealous glance of Erik. “She was kind to me once. That is all.”

Bison
floated at last. Innocence’s father was the one who tossed the rope up to his mother, beside the ox figurehead. They were graceful together, and Innocence felt a strange pride. He waded into the icy waters and boarded the ship.

They rode the river south in a meandering path. The banks became rocky, and the water became a frothing roil of white on blue. The ship sped. In an hour they were in a low gorge of white water, swishing between shores of pocked gray basalt.

“There’s another gentle region beyond this,” Steelfox said, looking through the eyes of Qurca, “but then there are more rapids and then a waterfall into the sea.”

“We’ll portage soon, then,” Erik said.

“Beware,” Steelfox said. “Karvak horsemen are headed this way.”

“Why do they not use the balloons?” Persimmon Gaunt asked.

“To surprise us, I’d assume. They must not know about Qurca and me.”

“Will we make it?” Bone said.

Steelfox shut her eyes. “I think it will be close.”

“What’s your sense of the ship surviving the falls?” Yngvarr asked.

Steelfox shook her head.

“We’ll move
Bison
by land then,” Erik said.

The rapids ended, but it seemed nearly an hour before a suitable landing shore appeared. At last they dragged
Bison
onto a bank of egg-sized rocks. There was salt in the air.

“Everyone who can, haul the ship!” shouted Erik. “The sea is our salvation!”

There was nothing pleasant about this second portage. They alternated lifting and hauling as befitted the terrain.

“The riders are crossing the river,” Steelfox said as they could hear the breakers over a rise of black sand and gray stone. “But we are almost there.” Qurca circled overhead, guiding them. “We should shift leftward, to easier ground—no! They have sabercats with them! The cats are lurching ahead. Captain, we have to go over that rise. It is steep on the other side, but we can manage it.”

As they groaned and hauled
Bison
upslope, Bone in the lead yelped and looked back. “Are you mad?”

They looked down at a descent to the sea some three hundred feet long, pitched so steep that a man would have to race down it to keep his balance, or else slide.

“Perhaps!” said Steelfox. “Do you wish to face ten sabercats?”

“All right, all right,” said Bone.

“Up and over!” said Erik. “To the water or to the underworld, down we go!”

It was like some mad sporting event, racing a longship down the rubble and sand, trying not to break it or yourselves. Innocence’s father in particular was running with the rope quite aggressively toward the water, a giddily terrified expression on his face. Innocence was, for once, not entirely dismayed to have the man in his bloodline.

His mother called out, “They’ve come!”

Ten golden cats massive as ponies, with huge, curving canine teeth, reared over the slope. They leapt to the attack.

Steelfox called to her man, and together they faced the beasts. She raised a sword and barked a command.

A few beasts obeyed her and halted. But three veered to her left and four to her right. Two men were swiftly mauled.
Bison
went off balance and tumbled on its way, cracking its masts.

Nine Smilodons cut down one of the creatures that were his namesake. He might have had more trouble, but it hesitated at the approach of a Karvak. The deed done, the blood upon the snowy sand, now there were nine indeed.

“Innocence! Down here!”

His parents, along with Malin, Northwing, and Alfhild, had retreated into the freezing water, Gaunt readying a bow, Bone applying some sort of elixir to the arrowheads. Innocence ran toward them. The water numbed his feet as he stood within the gentle surf of the bay. Bone said, “If you can raise any power against these beasts, son, I would.”

Innocence calmed his breathing, trying to raise the chi within him, unlock the powers given him by the Heavenwalls and the Great Chain.

Gaunt was loosing arrows now, and one beast had two sticking from its hide, to no apparent effect.

Strength awoke within him. As the combatants were of different species, he tried to push chi into the humans, enliven them, make them ferocious.

The Kantenings and Karvaks responded with unnerving eagerness. Some of them even frothed. They stabbed and hacked and leapt forward with no regard for their own lives. Mad Katta seemed better able to keep his wits about him. He backed away as the battle surged and his allies’ swings grew wilder.

The sabercat targeted by Gaunt toppled, and she switched to another. Beside her Northwing concentrated and murmured, and all of the animals grew more sluggish. Soon more cats were falling. With unexpected speed, all the animals lay orange and red upon black-and-white sand.

Some of the enlivened Kantenings would not cease battle. Yngvarr, deranged, fell upon Taper Tom and split his son’s head apart with an axe.

“No!” Innocence wailed. He dimmed the energies of the warriors. The battle ended, men at last slumping with their injuries.

Bison
hissed into the sea.

They had lost eleven crew, including Tom. Face stony, Yngvarr gave to the waters the wreckage of his son.

“Just like Numi,” Innocence murmured. “My fault.”

His parents told him that was nonsense, but they could not comprehend his power. Only Joy could have understood.

They hadn’t all boarded when Steelfox called out, “Karvaks!” and a force of five arbans, fifty of her people, reared upon the rise. Methodically, the Karvaks fired arrows at everyone but Steelfox and Innocence.

Erik Glint fell first, an arrow in his eye. He lay at the prow, dead instantly.

Nine Smilodons glared at a shaft protruding from his right arm. He snapped it and began rowing. Mad Katta took a shot in the back and nearly toppled from the craft, but Northwing caught him.

Bone stared at an arrow shaft in his stomach and stumbled into the bilge. Innocence heard his father saying, “Shoot them, Gaunt . . . don’t waste the poison . . . Innocence, help me. . . .”

Yngvarr commanded oarsmen with a dread voice. Those who couldn’t row held up shields to protect the rowers. Innocence helped Bone point a peculiar black baton. “Got this from Eshe . . . no, use
that
end . . . point that end at the Karvaks . . . and pull this thing, here. . . .” Innocence moved the metal lever, and the device delivered a kick that stung his hands. A rocket like the fireworks of Qiangguo shot upward past the Karvaks, briefly distracting their archer.

Deadfall was in the air, flying past the archers, slapping at their hands. Some dropped their bows.

Persimmon Gaunt dropped hers as well. She joined Innocence in tending to Bone’s injury.

“Just a flesh wound,” he said. “Perhaps a few more important things . . . but mostly flesh . . .”

“Shut up, Bone. Innocence, help hold him still. This arrow is coming out.”

“Why must he help me hold still?” Bone complained. “I’ve had wounds befo—yeargh.”

“There,” Gaunt said, tossing the arrow overboard. She looked up, and Innocence followed her gaze. Deadfall was rushing back onto the ship, sometimes leaping skyward to slap arrows from the sky. The dark shore had receded, and
Bison
’s survivors were rowing as swiftly as possible.

Survivors—they had lost eight more crew to the archers, including the captain.
Bison
now carried eighteen human beings, a bird, and a magic carpet. The ship was meant for a crew of forty.

They had no mast or sail. Everything was now muscle. Bone insisted he was fine, and Gaunt’s expression did not agree. But she protected him sternly, so Innocence felt free to row. He ached with the work, and with the draining effect of enlivening the foamreavers’ chi, he was facing exhaustion. But he couldn’t let others work themselves to death while his strength remained.

At any rate, the exertion took his mind off the dead.

At last Deadfall said, “Tie a line to me and secure me to the figurehead. I can tow the ship. Not at any great speed, but it will allow the rowers to rest. I will head in the direction that seems best.”

“Thank you, creature,” Yngvarr said.

“You are welcome, entity,” said Deadfall.

“Before, you were reluctant to reveal your powers,” Gaunt said.

“I think there is no question of avoiding detection,” Deadfall said.

Steelfox said, “I would expect my people to send balloons now, there being no possibility of surprising us. Or Oxilander allies with ships. Yet I see no pursuit.”

“You sound worried,” Gaunt said.

“I am. They may have something worse in mind.”

“Worse,” Northwing said. “Ha. That would be something to see. I have rested as much as I dare. If no weather control is desired, I shall deal with the spirits to speed the healing of our wounded. Me first, of course.”

“Of course,” Bone said.

“You and Katta are next on the list. You were both hit badly.”

“I can maintain myself for a time,” Katta said. “Others may be healed first.”

“Such brave nonsense ill-becomes you, monk. You are badly wounded. I’d prefer to have a proper gathering, with drums, an awestruck village, the whole performance. But your good wishes, crew, are welcome.”

“I could send chi into their bodies,” Innocence said. “It might help.”

“Like it helped us?” Yngvarr said. “I sensed the power entering us, and for a moment I had visions of fiery dragons dancing in the air with similar creatures, misty and green. Then the rage came, and I saw a vision of Orm One-Eye and his golden hall, and fire danced before it. I have never walked the path of the berserker, one who enters a battle-trance, but you brought it on.”