She wanted to know more, but he was right: the darkening sky said they had only a little time. “We shall keep moving, then, but you will not silence me. So you were of the Skalijar once, those . . . mortal bandits. Why did you leave?”
“Because they were foul and cruel, and what they wanted was meaningless. Because they nursed old hatreds that had nothing to do with me, who was not born in Rimmersgard. My ancestors were slaves of Nakkiga, and so was I. Why should I care whether Rimmersmen worship Usires the Aedon or the old gods they brought out of the lost west?”
The sky was darkening quickly now, blackness swirling overhead like the smoke from a gigantic chimney. “So you returned into what you call slavery? That makes no sense. Why would you do that?”
“Better a slave with a roof above his head, however crude, than a man lost in the wilderness, soon to starve or freeze. That was how it seemed to me.” Jarnulf gave her a keen-eyed look. “But if we are to play this game of questions, then you must answer the same one that began the contest. Why are you here, Sacrifice?”
“That is a waste of a question, mortal.” She lifted her hand to help him down a pile of snow-covered rocks and onto the ledge where she stood. For a moment, even through their gloves, she felt a strange, strong connection, and she spoke as much to cover her confusion as anything else. “I was sent by the queen herself. I am of the Order of Sacrifice. The queen’s word is as the beating of our own hearts.”
“I’m sure,” he said, letting go of her hand and reaching back for the goat’s leg. He eased the carcass over the top, down the stones, and onto the stony lip beside him. “But that is not what I mean. The queen herself chose you. A great honor—an astounding honor! And to die for the queen is, I’m sure, your fondest wish. But why should the queen, or whoever might have acted for her, choose you?”
“I was first among my file in the Order of Sacrifice! I defeated five others Sacrifices with only my hands!”
“Ah. And did Makho do the same?”
“In his day, yes! He is many years older than I am.”
“And Kemme?”
“He is Makho’s friend. He is also a fearsome warrior.”
A swirl of snow began to spin past them. “Yes, he is, but otherwise not tremendously distinguished. In fact, Kemme is as stupid as a bag of stones. And Saomeji, for all his subtlety, is also young, is he not? Not to mention that he is a halfblood like yourself?”
She wiped melting snow from her eyes with her sleeve. “What do you reach for, slave-taker?”
“Just a curious thing—that this so-important mission, which has seemingly taken you across the whole of the north, to this place where some say the last dragons live, and which is commanded by Makho, undoubtedly one of the fiercest warriors of your Order of Sacrifice, should otherwise be made up of such . . . disposable minions.”
She was not certain what the mortal meant to suggest, but it made her furious. “Why do you seek to undermine us, Jarnulf? What does it benefit you?”
“Ask instead what your queen wants of you, Sacrifice Sister Nezeru—or rather, I suspect, what Akhenabi wants, because from what I have seen and heard, it is his hand behind this mission, though he seems not to care if it fails.”
“You dare . . . ?” she began, but never finished what she meant to say, not because she hadn’t puzzled it out yet herself, but because of the sudden appearance of a snarling white shape that fell onto Jarnulf from above, as if it had dropped out of the storm. For a moment Nezeru saw nothing but a rolling, screeching ball of white that bumped and slid perilously close to the ledge’s end. Some animal that had attacked them, perhaps a white wolf or a bear, but she could make out little of it in the fluttering snow except the red wetness of its maw as it tried to bite Jarnulf’s face.
She could not draw her sword swiftly enough to help—already the mortal and his attacker had rolled too close to the edge, but one of her arrows had fallen from her quiver, so she snatched it up and thrust it as hard as she could into the bristling white back of Jarnulf’s attacker, then pulled out another and plunged it into the hairy shape as well. She felt them both hit bone and then slide deeper, but the thing would not let go. She tried to struggle to her feet so she could draw her sword.
“My . . . knife!” Jarnulf gasped, twisting his head free from the claws of the furiously writhing animal.
Nezeru saw the weapon on his belt, but before she could reach it, the two combatants rolled again and stopped partway over the edge with Jarnulf on his back, so that nothing lay beneath his head and shoulders but a deadly fall down the scarp. Nezeru finally managed to pull her sword, but for agonizingly long moments she could not use it because man and beast were struggling so violently she feared she would stab Jarnulf instead.
Or with one shove of my foot, she suddenly thought, I could push them both over the edge. Just a brief instant, then it would all be over and the mortal and his questions and his lies would trouble her thoughts no longer.
Instead she leaned forward, shielding her face from the flailing attacker, and groped until her hand found living fur. Then she set the point of her sword against it and pushed hard. The thing squealed, a rasping cry of fear and pain. She shoved the blade deeper. The creature struggled for a moment, trying to fight its way up the blade toward her, and for an instant she saw its face close up, the weird, whiskery snout too long for any wolf or bear. Then Jarnulf managed to get enough of a grip to shove the thing off him and kicked out with his booted foot. The beast slid from her blade as she clung to the hilt with both hands, then it tumbled over the narrow ledge and out into the void.
For a long moment after the creature disappeared they both lay panting at the edge of the precipice. Nezeru’s legs and arms felt as boneless as mushroom stalks. Jarnulf choked and wheezed, trying to get his breath, then finally sucked in enough air to crawl farther from the drop.
“What was it?” Nezeru asked at last. She rolled over and was relieved to see the dead goat still lying where they had dropped it.
“Yukinva, they are called by the trollfolk. A kind of giant rat of the snowy heights.” He got up, absently wiping blood from his face. His skin had been torn in several places by the thing’s claws and teeth. “It must have smelled the blood of our kill.”
“Then let’s hurry and get back down to the cave before another arrives,” said Nezeru. “We’ll put snow on your scratches when we reach somewhere safer.”
Jarnulf got to his feet and nocked another arrow. “We won’t bother,” he said. “A little blood is a good sacrifice to the mountain gods, I think, and we should not spend more time out here than we need to.”
Nezeru had to admit that was an even better plan.
44
Charms and Tokens
The early days of Yuven had brought a flurry of rain; it took the visitors no little time to remove their dripping cloaks. Archbishop Gervis was accompanied only by a pair of priests, clearly suggesting the meeting would be an informal one, but when he had removed his outerwear he kneeled before the king and queen and kissed each of their hands, something that Miriamele could see made Simon restless, even anxious.
“I don’t know what it is with these religious fellows,” Simon whispered to his wife as the archbishop retreated to his seat. “Always down on their knees kissing something.”
On another day Miriamele might have smiled or even laughed, but she did not want to be distracted now. She nodded to the archbishop and said, “It is good to see you, Your Eminence. I hope no sad errand brings you to us.”
“Would that it were a happier one, Your Majesty.” Gervis, in all other ways almost the model of what an archbishop should look like—tall, slender, and even-featured, with a fringe of snowy white hair showing below his mitre—had a habit of gnawing at his fingernails when he was distracted or worried. As Miriamele watched, he lifted one of his hands to his mouth before remembering where he was and quickly lowering it again. “But I come to you today not as archbishop of Erchester, but as a humble servant of Mother Church and of our great father, Lector Vidian.”
“And away we go,” said Simon under his breath.
“As always,” Miriamele said loudly, “you bring honor enough by yourself, Archbishop, but we are eager to hear what His Sacredness wishes to be made known.”
“Then let me move swiftly to the matter that brings me here.” Gervis was clasping his hands together as though to thwart any treacherous move one might make toward his mouth. It was clear to Miriamele that he was more than just ordinarily disturbed by something, and she began to feel it herself, as though it were a fever that could pass through the air. “You know of the troubles in Nabban, of course.”