C. Dale Brittain (17 page)

After a minute, Kardan reached out to squeeze his daughter’s hand.
 
She forced herself to meet his eyes.
 
He was no longer looking inward, at his loss, but directly at her, and it struck her that she was now all he had left.
 
Standing on the mound where her ancestors had been buried since time out of memory, standing above their very bones, she felt the full weight of their tradition fall on her.
 
When the dead were gone, it was up to the living to remember them, to honor them, to carry on all that they had begun.

Her mother and both her brothers were now in Hel where all mortals went, the brave and the honorable, the depraved and the cowardly, venerable grandfathers and babies who had lived no longer than to take one breath.

People did not return from Hel except in the oldest tales, but then beings without backs also did not appear to mortals except in those stories.
 
Even so, those who had died peacefully or in accidents should not walk again if suitably buried.
 
She had heard somewhere when very young, probably something the serving-maids had said that she was not supposed to overhear, that one could reach Hel by digging into a burial mound.
 
But if so there must be more involved, for all castles and manors had large mounds into which new graves were dug every generation.

The stories had never given a clear picture of Hel, though she had the impression that it was a murky and confused land, where one’s memories and even identity slowly disappeared.
 
But on one point all the stories were explicit.

There were no Wanderers in Hel.

2

Roric picked his way through the oak woods.
 
It was an overcast night and hard to see, but the cold damp air was exhilarating.
 
He sucked it into his lungs as he proceeded slowly in the direction of the castle.
 
He did not know if the Wanderers would try for him again, since the “third force” had reached him first this time, or how King Hadros would react to his return, but very soon he would see Karin again.

He smiled in the darkness.
 
He could understand why Karin had never told him about the faeys.
 
He and she had come to trust each other so recently, and had had so little time for conversation in the short weeks since they had first declared their love for each other, that she might not have felt easy in telling him about these foolish friends from her childhood.
 
But he had a message for her from them.
 
They were becoming worried because they had not seen her in a long time.

He stopped, a hand against the rough bark of a tree, listening.
 
Something was moving across the ground ahead of him, something heavy.
 
It rustled the grass and twigs and made a curious spongy sound as it came.
 
He drew his sword, slowly so as to make no noise, and put his back to the tree.

And then the clouds above him lifted for a moment, and the moon shone down on the oak woods, several days short of the full.

Crouched on the hill before him was the troll.

Mostly head and mouth and long powerful arms, with a small soft body that it had to drag along when out of the stream, it lay on the hill looking at him with eyes bigger around than ale horns.
 
“What have you done with my horse, Roric No-man’s son?”

Its voice was deep and indistinct, soft like its body but packed with menace like its teeth.

Roric turned his blade so that the moonlight flashed on it.
 
“Get out of my way, troll, unless you wish to test my steel.
 
I have no time for riddles and games of chance tonight.”

The clouds obscured the moon again, and Roric could hear the troll laughing.
 
Its laugh was much worse than its voice, wild, irrational and threatening.
 
But something else was wrong.
 
The moon had been just past the full when he galloped away from Gizor and the manor, and he could have sworn that was only a week ago, not nearly four weeks.
 
How long had he
really
been gone?

“You should know mortal steel will not be much use against a troll
here,
” came the soft dark voice again.

“It will slow you down if you intend to eat me.”

“No, not tonight, Roric No-man’s son.
 
I caught a deer last week, and I am still feeding nicely.
 
Did you never wonder why I didn’t eat that horse?”

Roric had been about to rush past.
 
Now that he knew where the troll was, he should be able to get by it and on to the castle well ahead of it.
 
The troll was certainly dangerous, and no children had ever been allowed out of the castle alone after dark, but it moved slowly enough that Hadros had never felt it a threat worth rousting out from under his bridge.
 
Rather, he left it there as an additional guard to his castle.

But instead of hurrying away Roric went still, judging the troll’s position by its snorting breath and the squishing sounds it made when it moved.
 
It might know something he should have known himself long ago.
 
“Goldmane is in the realm of the Wanderers,” he said slowly.
 
“Is that where he came from originally?”

At the time, two years ago, he had not questioned where the troll had acquired the horse.
 
All he had seen as he stood by the troll’s bridge at twilight was the magnificence of the stallion.
 
It had seemed unsurprising that a creature of voima like the troll should have it.
 
All that was surprising was that the troll had been willing to engage in riddles and a game of dice for Goldmane—the dice had come back to his hand wet and sticky from the troll’s—without insisting that if Roric lost he should be eaten on the spot.

And now that he thought about it, he had beaten the troll rather easily.
 
It must surely have known the old riddles about the egg and about the creature that goes on four legs, then two, then three.

The troll chuckled.
 
“I am not sure if the one who sent you your horse originally will have time or attention to send you another now that you’ve lost him, especially with the change is coming.”

Roric moved along the sandy hill a short way to keep his distance, thinking hard.
 
The trolls of the Wanderers’ realm, the “third force,” must already have had their eyes on him two years ago and deliberately given him his horse.
 
It was Goldmane, he thought with dismay, who had taken the bit in his teeth and gone through the stone gateway out of Hadros’s kingdom while he was still hesitating.
 
If he could not trust the stallion, he was back to his own voima and the little bone charm.

But it was also Goldmane who had carried him away from the horned warriors and had brought him home.

And he had something else he needed to know.
 
“When you say my steel will harm you but little here, do you mean it would do greater damage in the Wanderers’ realm?”

The troll did not answer his question and did not even laugh.
 
“Be proud of your association with the Wanderers if you like, Roric No-man’s son,” it said indistinctly.
 
“But be careful wandering these hills at night if I am not well fed.”
 
It gave a booming belch, and then it did chuckle again.

Roric made a wide circle around it, his sword still in his hand.
 
Ahead of him through the trees he could see faint lights from Hadros’s castle.
 
Soon he would learn if he
had
really been gone for close to four weeks—or, he thought grimly, even for several months.

An oak tree around the back of the castle reached a branch toward the top of the wall.
 
Roric scrambled up it, as he had many times since he was a boy, coming home after the gates were already shut and not wanting to have to knock and explain himself.
 
With luck, he would find Karin before he had to talk to anyone else.

Hadros had neglected things like the oak branch since the end of the war, he thought with a hard smile as he dropped inside the wall.
 
If he had been a scout for an invading army he would have had the gates open for his companions in no time.

Even in the dark, he knew the castle like he knew his own skin.
 
He slipped across the courtyard, hearing the voices of maids and of housecarls from the hall.
 
Flickering firelight came through the open doorway.
 
He was slightly surprised, because normally the maids did not sit with the warriors and housecarls in the evening, instead retreating to the weaving house or the bake house.
 
He glanced in both in search of Karin and found them dark and empty.
 
In the bath house, even the stones were cold.

And certain voices seemed to be missing.
 
He stood close by the doorway into the hall, listening.
 
He could not hear the king’s deep voice, which usually rose over all the other men’s.
 
And now that he thought about it, he also did not hear Valmar or Gizor One-hand, though both of them might long sit silent on the bench in the evening.
 
But he thought he heard Nole, the king’s youngest son, his voice high and excited.

As he hesitated outside the hall, he heard in the distance the sound of hooves.
 
He slipped across the courtyard again to look out through the crack along the edge of the gate.
 
A band of men, carrying torches that lit up the night, were riding up the hill toward the castle.
 
Their harnesses jingled, and all of them had shields slung from their saddles.

And the man in the lead was King Hadros.
 
Roric stepped back into the shadows with a smile as the king pounded his fist on the gate.
 
He would let the king enter his hall before surprising him with his own return.

“I am home!” roared the king.
 
“Open the gate!”

The housecarls poured out of the hall.
 
“They’re home!
 
They’re home from the All-Gemot!”

The All-Gemot.
 
Roric had completely forgotten about it.
 
It was still ten days or so in the future when he rode away, which meant he really had been gone under a month, not the entire summer.
 
That at least was a relief.
 
He wondered if he would have accompanied Hadros if he had been here; he had been among the king’s warriors at the All-Gemot the last few years.

The big gate swung open, and the king and his warriors came through.
 
Gizor One-hand was among them.
 
Roric mingled with the back of the crowd as Dag and Nole hurried forward to greet their father, and as housecarls took the horses and baggage.
 
Roric thought it a little surprising that no one seemed to notice him.

“But where is Valmar?” he heard Dag ask.
 
“And where is Karin?”

“They are in Kardan’s kingdom,” said Hadros.
 
From his tone it was impossible to tell if he was pleased or not.
 
“Karin will stay, because some day she will be sovereign queen there.”

“And Valmar?”

“I shall tell you when I’ve had something to eat.
 
You!” to one of the maids.
 
“Is there no one here who will offer a man food in his own home?
 
Karin would have had something hot ready for us,” he grumbled, heading into the hall.

King Kardan.
 
That was Karin’s father.
 
Roric went into the hall with the rest, forgetting to keep himself hidden although still no one seemed to pay him any attention.
 
She had told him, of course, that she was her father’s heiress now, something the faeys seemed to find very exciting, but it was like having half the castle suddenly disappear to have her gone.