Harry Turtledove - The Golden Shrine

Courteous as a cat, Ulric returned the bow. “Nice to know I’m of some use to you anyhow, Your Grace.”

“Let’s ride!” Trasamund bellowed. Hamnet Thyssen wasn’t sorry to follow him. He wasn’t just riding away from the dead mammoth and the scavengers clustered around it. He was riding away from his own imagination . . . and getting away from it might be the best thing he could do.

The Rulers might have been drawn by the teratorns gliding down to try to steal mammoth flesh, but they didn’t need long to realize they weren’t the only ones who had been. They shook themselves out into a battle line. Some of them were on their riding deer, others on horses they must have seized since coming into the Bizogot country. They didn’t have any live war mammoths with them. That by itself raised Hamnet’s spirits, and probably those of everyone else in the war band.

Audun Gilli gasped. “They-have a wizard!” he choked out.

“Hold him off,” Hamnet said urgently. “We’ll see if we can kill him.”

He glanced over to Ulric, who nodded. They’d done this before, or tried to. Killing enemy wizards was the best way to make sure they couldn’t use their spells against you. The best way if you could do it, that is.

Surveying the Rulers’ line, he had no trouble picking out the wizard. As usual, he was the one who hung back behind his comrades. Maybe that was cowardice. It was bound to be good sense. Killing the wizard hurt the enemy much more than killing one of their warriors would have.

As archers on both sides started to shoot, Ulric asked, “Are you game?”

“Not especially, but I don’t think we’ve got much choice. Do you?” Hamnet said.

“No. I only wish I did. Well . . .”

The adventurer spurred his horse forward at a gallop, spurting out ahead of the Bizogots’ line. Hamnet Thyssen went with him. As his horse thundered toward the Rulers, he tried not to think about what a tempting target he made.

“Three Tusks! The Three Tusk clan!” Trasamund roared, and he joined the charge, too. Hamnet had no idea whether the jarl intended to go after the wizard, too, or whether he just wanted to close with the hated Rulers as fast as he could.

Wherever the truth lay, Trasamund distracted the foe from Hamnet and Ulric. Trasamund could distract anybody from anything. Count Hamnet had thought the Bizogot was larger than life ever since he first met him two years earlier in Sigvat’s palace down in Nidaros. Two years! Was that all? Hamnet Thyssen had to think about it, but he nodded a moment later. It seemed much longer.

An arrow thrummed past his head. A moment later, so did another one, even closer. He stopped worrying about how long it had been since he met Trasamund. Worrying about how long he’d keep breathing was more urgent.

A Ruler on horse back swung to try to block his path. Hamnet cut at the swarthy, curly-bearded man. Their swords belled off each other. Sparks flew as iron grated against iron. Then Count Hamnet was past. His foe looked comically surprised. The Ruler must have thought Hamnet was after him in particular.

Well, fellow, you’re not as important as you think you are, Hamnet thought. That probably hurts worse than a sword cut would have.

There was the wizard, astride a riding deer-no newfangled mounts for him. For the moment, he seemed to have no idea Hamnet was closing in on him. His attention was aimed at the Bizogots’ line, and likely at Audun Gilli.

Then Ulric Skakki shot an arrow into the riding deer’s flank. No doubt he’d aimed for the wizard. But archery from horse back was a tricky business. The riding deer didn’t shriek the way a wounded horse might have. But it did jerk and jump and buck like a wounded horse. And the wizard, who’d expected no such thing, went off the deer and onto the dirt with a thump.

The deer bounded away. The wizard scrambled to his feet-which might have been a mistake, because it made him an easier target for Hamnet Thyssen’s sword. The sharp edge glittered in the sun as Hamnet swung the blade. It bit into the wizard’s neck with a noise straight from a butcher’s shop. The impact almost tore the sword from his hand.

Blood sprayed, then fountained. The wizard let out a bubbling scream. Hamnet urged his horse into as tight a turn as it could make, in case he needed to strike again. He saw at once that he didn’t. He had no idea how the wizard stayed on his feet with blood gushing from him that way.

Stand the wizard did. The Rulers, say what you would of them, seemed as hard to kill as serpents. The man’s eyes speared Hamnet. His lips shaped a word. Hamnet had learned only tiny fragments of the Rulers’ language, but he thought he knew what that word was.

You.

To his horror and dismay, the wizard’s hands came up. He started to shape a pass. Then Ulric Skakki galloped past and struck with the sword from behind. The wizard’s head leaped from his shoulders. Body convulsing, he toppled and finally died.

“Tough bugger,” Ulric remarked. “I thought the one you landed would be plenty to do for him.”

“So did I,” Count Hamnet answered. “Well, he’s gone now.”

“He looked like he was still trying to cast a spell on you, even with his head already half gone,” Ulric said.

“He did, didn’t he?” Hamnet said uneasily. You . He’d heard that and things like it too often from the Rulers. For some reason, they worried about him. He wished he knew why. There were plenty of days when he felt more dangerous to himself than to the invaders from beyond the Gap.

“Must be nice to have them love you like that,” Ulric said.

“I could live without it.” Count Hamnet’s voice was dry.

The adventurer chuckled. “Probably quite a bit longer than with it. Which reminds me-how long are we going to live if the bastards turn on us?”

Not long , was the first thing that occurred to Hamnet. But the Rulers had no chance to do it. They were fighting for their lives, outnumbered by the hard-pressing Bizogots, and suddenly without sorcerous support. And Audun Gilli took advantage of that. The Rulers suddenly started staring at their swords and bows. The weapons must have started talking to them-the same spell Audun had used again and again, but never before, so far as Hamnet knew, on the battlefield.

Audun didn’t speak the Rulers’ language. He still had trouble with the Bizogots’ tongue. But a sword that suddenly started spouting Raumsdalian might have proved even more alarming. For all the Rulers knew, their blades were cursing them. If Audun Gilli had any sense-never a sure bet-the swords were doing exactly that.

Hamnet looked for Trasamund. The jarl of the Three Tusk clan was trading lusty sword strokes with an enemy warrior. Trasamund fought for the fun of it, as a lot of Bizogots did: a taste that had always struck Hamnet as perverse.

He roared in triumph when one of his great strokes got home. Maybe the Ruler’s boiled-leather corselet kept the edge from his vitals. Whether it did or not, though, that blow had to break ribs. The invader reeled on his riding deer. Trasamund’s next hack, undefended, sheared away half his face.

Maybe that broke the Rulers. Maybe they would have decided they’d had enough about then anyhow. They broke off the fight and fled back toward the north. The riding deer had shorter legs than horses, but still fled fast enough to let a good many Rulers on them get away.

“We beat ’em, by God!” Trasamund boomed.

“So we did,” Hamnet agreed.

“Yes, so we did. The Battle of the Dead Mammoth-huzzah!” Ulric Skakki said. “And if we win another hundred victories just this big, they may start to notice us.”

“Scoffer!” Trasamund said.

Ulric graciously inclined his head. “At your service, Your Ferocity.” Hamnet Thyssen wondered if Trasamund would explode. But he didn’t, not after a winning fight. He threw back his head and laughed instead.