Harry Turtledove: Breath of God

He forced himself back to matters he could do something about. “We’ll plunder them,” he called, not that the Bizogots weren’t already tending to that. “We’ll plunder them, and we’ll slaughter their riding deer -”

“And I, by God, will ride off on one of their mammoths!” Trasamund shouted.

And, to Hamnet s amazement, he did. After Marcovefa let her spell lapse, the mammoths and deer soon calmed down. A woolly mammoth let the Bizogot jarl clamber aboard and guide it along. Trasamund whooped with joy and pride. He was a boy with a new toy – a toy that could kill him if he got the least bit careless, but he didn’t worry about that, not then.

Count Hamnet didn’t worry about it, either. For once, he didn’t worry about anything, and wondered why not. His gaze slid towards Marcovefa. She grinned back at him, then eyed an enemy corpse and reached for a knife, as if to butcher it. She was only half joking, if that much. Hamnet didn’t care. Savage or not, cannibal or not, she gave him hope. And when you had hope, what else did you need?