Just as Snorri had described, the Black Fort took me by surprise. The landscape offered no clues, no buildup, no growing promise of journey’s end. One moment it was a featureless white wasteland, bounded on one side by the Bitter Ice; the next moment it was the same featureless wasteland, except there was a feature, a black dot.
The trek had worn us to our final strength—Fimm it had worn past even that—but we were none of us the shambling, frostbitten wreck that Snorri had been when he had last stumbled to the gates. We came with at least some measure of fight in us, some final reserve to draw upon. And, as little as I wanted to battle anyone, I knew for sure that without the chance to rest and restock in the shelter offered by the Black Fort, I for one would not survive a return journey.
Snorri led us closer. Urging swiftness. He wanted to be inside before the sun set—wanted Aslaug’s strength in the fight to come. The terrain offered no cover and we relied only on being white upon a white background to hide us, and also on the hope that nobody would be looking out for us. This latter proved an unfounded hope.
“Wait.” Ein, raising a gloved hand. “Man in the south tower.”
However well we blended against the snow, with the sun sinking behind us our shadow might yet announce our approach if the man were paying close enough attention.
The Black Fort is a squat, square construction with a crenellated tower at each corner. A central keep, barely taller than the outer walls, sits amidst a large courtyard. Snorri believed the keep unmanned and that the small garrison kept to chambers within the thickness of the walls around the main gates.
“The Dead-Eye will shoot him,” Snorri said. “Then we climb.”
Arne rubbed gloved fingers across his face guard, the soft hide frozen stiff and hanging with miniature icicles. The wind swirled around us, full of razors. “It’s a long shot.”
“Not for the Dead-Eye!” A quad slapped him on the shoulder.
“And the light’s failing.” A shake of the head.
“Easy!” Another quad.
A slump of shoulders. “I’ll get my bow ready,” Arne said. “Then we move closer.”
It took a damned long time, extracting and unwrapping the bow, finding the string, waxing that, flexing this, warming fingers, hooking one thing to another. They’d taught me archery back in Vermillion, of course. Every prince had to know the art. Rather than having us become crack shots, Grandmother was, apparently, more interested that we know and understand the possibilities and limitations of the weapon so that we could better utilize it en masse upon the battlefield. Even so, we still had to hit the bull’s-eye.
If all those long hours of much-resented archery practice had taught me anything, it was that wind will make a fool of even the best archer, a swirling, gusty wind especially so.
At last Arne had equipped himself and we crept forwards across the snow, crouching low now, as if that might make a difference. The figure in the tower moved several times, facing our way for a heart-stopping moment, but showed no signs of interest.
“Do it here.” Snorri caught Arne’s shoulder. I think the Dead-Eye would have closed to fifty yards if they’d let him.
“Odin, guide my arrow.” Arne removed a glove and set a shaft to his bow.
On a still day with warm hands and no pressure on the outcome, it was a shot I might hope to make four times in five. Arne loosed his shaft and it hissed away, invisible against the sky.
“Miss.” I stated the obvious to break the still moment that held us all. The shot had gone so wide the man in the tower hadn’t even noticed it.
Arne tried again, taking deep breaths to steady himself. Fingers white on the bowstring. He loosed.
“Miss.” I hadn’t meant to say anything, the word just spoke itself into the expectant hush.
Arne pulled away his face guard and gave me a sour look. He ran his tongue over an array of teeth, most brown, one black, one grey, one white, two missing. He took another arrow, one of maybe a dozen remaining, and returned his attention to the tower. Three breaths, hauled in, released slowly, and he took the shot.
To be fair I waited several seconds. It was lucky all three shots had gone high rather than striking the stonework. The man on the tower hadn’t so much as flinched. “Miss,” I said.
“You fucking do it!” Arne shoved the bow at me.
Safe in the knowledge I couldn’t do much worse, I stripped off a glove and strung an arrow. The wind made an agony of my fingers within moments. Those moments would be all I had before the wind stopped them hurting and made them useless. I lined up on the man, guessed at compensation for the wind, and shifted my aim yards to the right. The lack of time helped. It stopped me thinking about what I intended to do. I’m told that I killed men in the Aral Pass, but I’ve no clear memory of it. On the mountain with Snorri a man had pretty much impaled himself on my sword—and I’d apologized to him for the accident before I knew what I was saying. That had all been in hot blood. But here I crouched, arms trembling, blood as cold as it had ever been, ready to punch an arrow through a man’s chest, to take his life without warning, without seeing his face. A different matter entirely.