Harry Turtledove - Tale of the Fox

"What? Nothing. Never mind." Van shook his head and looked determined not to answer. The Fox decided pushing him right then would probably be a bad idea. The outlander had taken a while to work out what Dagref saw right away, was his guess, and didn't care for it any more than Dagref had.

Nothos, Elleb, and Tiwaz were in the sky when the army camped that night, the first pale moon a thin crescent, swift-moving Tiwaz a much fatter one, almost at first quarter, and ruddy Elleb a couple of days before full. Rihwin said, "I think they'll fight us again soon, tomorrow or the day after. If they wait much longer, we'll be down to Cassat."

"You're likely right," Gerin said. He caught one yawn, then let another one loose. "They won't fight us tonight, though. With the ghosts abroad, traveling by night will be more dangerous to them than we would."

"There you speak sooth, lord king," Rihwin answered. He yawned, too. "I shall have a good night's rest, the better to lay waste the imperials come morning, and the better to forget I was once a man from south of the mountains myself."

"Yes, you had better forget that, hadn't you?" Gerin said pointedly. He yawned again. "Me, I'm going to forget everything but my bedroll."

Morning dawned bright and clear. It also dawned without Lengyel. Both his guards were asleep and remained so despite repeated efforts to shake them awake. "Some drug or other, I judge," Gerin growled, examining the prostrate men with no small annoyance. "Maybe he had it secreted on his person, or maybe he found an herb he could use when he went behind a bush. Either way-" He raised his voice to a shout: "Ferdulf!"

"What now ?" the demigod demanded, drifting over from some distance away.

"The wizard escaped," the Fox snapped.

"I didn't know anything about it," Ferdulf said. He looked at Lengyel's unconscious guards, too. "He didn't use magic to do it. That's what I was looking for. That's what you told me to look for, if you'll recall."

Gerin exhaled angrily. "I don't care if the whoreson bored them to sleep reading bad poetry. I didn't want him loose."

"That's not what you said," Ferdulf replied with considerable aplomb. "I can't keep track of everything at once, you know. I'm only superhuman."

In the abstract, Gerin admired the line. He had scant time to worry about the abstract. "Since you let him get away-"

"I did no such thing," Ferdulf retorted.

"You were charged with keeping him here," Gerin said.

"I was charged with making sure he did not escape by magic," the demigod said. "I did as I was charged, and he did not escape by magic. If a couple of witless mortals let him up and wander off when he didn't even have to bother with sorcery, that's hardly my problem, now is it?" He folded his skinny arms across his narrow chest and floated off the ground till he was staring the Fox straight in the eye.

The expression on his face ached for a slap. Regretfully, Gerin held off from delivering it. Instead, keeping his voice light, he said, "It depends on how you look at things, I suppose. If you don't mind taking the chance that his magic will do worse things to you than Caffer's did, you may be right."

Ferdulf might have had a god for a father, but he wasn't much better than any other four-year-old at looking ahead to the likely consequences of things he did-and things he didn't do. He was unhappy enough at what Gerin said to let his feet scuff the dirt once more. "All right-what should I do about that?" he asked in tones much less toplofty than he usually used.

"Now that he has escaped, can you use your powers to hunt him down, or to help some troopers hunt him down?" Gerin asked.

"I don't think so." Ferdulf frowned. "Or maybe I can. I could try, anyway." Gerin nodded.

He rose into the air now, till he drifted high above the encampment like a bad-tempered cloud. He twisted his body so that he faced due west, then slowly began bearing ever more to the south. Gerin wondered what sort of sense he was using to feel for the vanished Lengyel. Had it been a sense the Fox possessed, he could have done the search himself.

Up in the sky, Ferdulf suddenly stiffened. He dropped a few feet, as he had a way of doing when he wasn't paying full attention to his flying. Were he wholly divine, no doubt he wouldn't have had to worry about such things. Were he wholly divine, Gerin would have had to worry much more about him.

"There!" he called down to the Fox, pointing southwest. "He's going that way."

That way was the direction in which Gerin was almost certain the bulk of the imperial army lay. "How far away is he?" he shouted up to Ferdulf. "Can you tell?"

"Hard to be sure," Ferdulf answered. "I wasn't sure I could find him at all, you know."

"Yes, yes," Gerin said. "But is it worth my while to send a few men after him, or has he got back safe to the enemy's main camp?"

The little demigod dropped a few feet more. "I can't tell," he said, sounding angry at Gerin, Lengyel, and himself. "I wish I could, but I can't."

"A pestilence," Gerin muttered. "I wish you could, too." He looked around for Aragis. The Archer wasn't far away. "Shall we send men after the wizard?" Gerin asked him. "Were it up to me, I'd say yes, but you're the overall commander. If you want to hold back and let him go, I won't quarrel."

"Are you daft?" Aragis growled. "Of course, send men after him. Bringing him back is worth the risk. Send some of your riders. It's the sort of thing they'd be good for-they're faster than men afoot, and they can go places where chariotry can't. Chase him till he wishes he'd never run away."

"Good enough." As Gerin shouted for Rihwin, he reflected that the best way to fight Aragis was liable to be leading him into a trap, a place where he'd think he had an easy victory, but where in fact more foes waited than he'd expect. For the moment, though, he was an ally.

"How many men would you have me send, lord king?" Rihwin asked. "And shall I take Ferdulf?"

"If he'll go with you, certainly," Gerin answered. "That'll make it harder for Lengyel to turn your troopers into toads." He raised an eyebrow. "You're going to lead this chase yourself?"

"By your leave, I am," Rihwin said. "Since I could not even detect the presence of a woman warrior among my men, I'd fain reassure myself that I am on occasion capable of seeing beyond the end of my nose."

"Fair enough," Gerin told him. "But don't just have your eyes open for Lengyel. Remember, the imperials are liable to be waiting for you somewhere out there, too." He hesitated, then asked, "And how did Maeva seem to you? — as a warrior, I mean."

"Oh, I understood you; you need not fret over that." Rihwin looked chagrined. "Had Aragis not noticed what she was, I doubt I should have done so. This, you must follow, disturbs me for not one but two reasons: first, that she performs in every way so much like a man, and second, that I of all people simply failed to note her femininity."

"And what would you have done if you had?" Gerin asked, and then answered his own question: "If she didn't make you sing soprano for trying to do that, her father would have."

"I do not molest women who find my attentions unwelcome," Rihwin replied with dignity. "Given the number who find those attentions most welcome, I have no need to bother, or bother with, the others." What with the number of bastards he'd fathered over the years, that comment held no small grain of truth. With more dignity still, he went on, "In any event, the charms of a woman-or, I should say, a girl-of that age hold little appeal for me."

"All right, I'm persuaded," Gerin said. "Now go off and-"

But Rihwin, once begun, was not so easily headed. "Maeva may well be attractive to someone with fewer years than myself. Your son, for example, immediately springs to mind."