Dave Duncan – The Living God – A Handful of Men. Book 4

Days and weeks were creeping by and the rebels’ battle against the Covin seemed doomed to perish of sheer futility.

All they had achieved in Guwush was a half promise of assistance from an unknown number of gnomes—hardly an accomplishment to illuminate the history books of future generations. Meanwhile the Almighty must be steadily tightening his grasp upon the world.

They crested a slight rise. Surprisingly, the road snaked out ahead of them in almost a straight line, sloping down to a blighted plain. Normally it twisted like a knotted snake. “Solitary rider?” she said.

Shandie peered, screwing up his eyes. “Apparently. Why is that of interest?”

“Nothing. Just unusual.” Despite the relative peace prevailing in this sector of the Guwush theater, a few gnomish terrorists still roamed the woods. Inos and Shandie had not been molested—at times they had almost wished that they would be, in the hope that they could thereby pass word of their plight back to Oshpoo—but danger had been part of their troubles. A solitary traveler was a rare sight. Even Imperial couriers were escorted. Of more significance to Inos, though, was the fragile hope of rescue she had nursed for days. If help was to come, it must come in the form of a solitary rider.

She told herself not to build castles on the clouds. A few minutes later, though, she felt a faint pulse of excitement as the lone horseman—or, please Gods, horsewoman—drew closer. “Fair hair?”

“Oh, come! You can’t possibly make that out at this distance.”

“I think I can! Even djinns compliment me upon my eyesight. You forget I am half jotunn.”

Shandie peered curiously at her around the donkey’s ears. “They both look the same to me. Which one is the jotunn one?”

That was better! She rewarded him with a smile. “The greener one.”

“They are equally beautiful,” he said solemnly, and returned to watching the lone rider. “Yes, you’re right. Fair hair. And a woman! Praise to the Gods!”

Dwarves could not ride horses. Goblins would be apprehended on sight. Of the five fellow outlaws due to rendezvous with them at Randport, only one could possibly come in search of them, to find out why they had been delayed.

And Jarga it must be, for she was kicking her mount to a gallop. Big and raw-boned, leather britches caked in red clay, she was an ungainly rider. She could never have been beautiful, even in her youth, but she had the strength and competence of a jotunn sailor. She was the most welcome sight Inos had seen in months. Inos knew hundreds of her kind in Krasnegar, and knew their worth.

Flaxen hair streaming, Jarga arrived in a shower of mud. Her attempt to leap from the saddle almost pitched her to the ground. Horse and donkey flashed teeth and temper at each other and were brought under control.

By that time Jarga had hauled back the leather cover on the cart to peer at the unconscious dwarf on his straw. His cheeks were hollowed under the iron-gray beard. His breathing was shallow, and yet dangerously labored.

She looked up, face flushed by the wind-and perhaps by anger. “How long has he been like this?”

“Five days,” Inos said.

“It happened on the coach, the morning we left Yugg,” Shandie explained. “He just keeled over on the bench. He was at the front, I was at the back . . . We don’t know if he was struck down by the Covin, somehow, or if he just had a stroke, or . . .” Realizing that further detail was unnecessary, he fell silent, waiting hopefully.

“He is old,” Inos added. “And he wouldn’t dare use sorcery to keep himself hale.” That, also, need not be said. Nor was there need to explain why the conspirators had been reduced to buying a cart and donkey to transport the warlock. Adventuring in real life was never as glamorous as it was depicted in the romances Kadie had enjoyed so much. An invalid of any description might carry infection, and a man in a very deep coma was a disgusting, smelly companion. Inns and coaches would not accept such a patron, so imperor and queen had taken on the unpleasant chore of transporting and tending him. Inos had insisted that her experience of raising babies qualified her to cope; Shandie that he had nursed wounded in field hospitals. They had taken turns.

Apart from keeping him clean and warm, though, they had achieved very little. They had managed to force no nourishment into the sick man, and not much water. Every day he was weaker. That a powerful sorcerer could be brought to such a pass was a sad commentary on the current state of the world.

Jarga straightened up bleakly and replaced the cover. “It is sorcery, minor sorcery—a sleep spell, is all.”

Shandie bellowed, “What!” and turned a look of fury toward Inos. ”Those accursed gnomes have betrayed us!”

“I think not.” Jarga glanced around the landscape. There were no houses in sight, and no gnomes, either, in these daylight hours. There was no life to be seen, other than a few pathetic sheep grazing the wet grass of the fields.

“I am a sorcerer, not a medic,” the sailor said in her harsh Nordland voice. She hesitated. “Hub is noisy now, but I have detected no sorcery close at hand for days. That is both good and bad. Even a little power may betray us.”

Shandie nodded. “You must be the judge. But I think our friend is worth a risk or two.”

Jarga smiled gratefully. The concern on her leathery face was oddly touching, and also puzzling. Any hint of tears in her eyes must certainly be a trick of their extreme paleness, closer to the color of winter fog than to blue. A jotunn sailor, even a female jotunn sailor, was no more sentimental than a goblin, and the idea of one feeling attachment to an elderly dwarf was absurd. As well match a walrus and camel.

But Jarga did look worried. “It is dangerous for a man of his years to lie flat for so long. There is fluid in his lungs, but surely a couple of hours more can do no great harm. A league or so back I detected shielding in a gully.”

“Excellent!” Shandie said. “Let us take him there and see what you can do.”

“Would my horse pull your cart faster, do you think?”

“Not without a horse collar.” Inos was surprised how much the sorceress’s arrival had eased her mind already. In this bleak, alien world of the millennium, she felt vulnerable without sorcery close at hand. Although neither Jarga nor Raspnex dared exercise their powers very often, they could observe and report on what was going on, and just to have them around was reassuring.

“Would you like to ride awhile, my lady?”

“Not in this dress.” Inos winked at the sailor. “Surely it would be more fitting for us humble womenfolk to walk and let—our lord take the horse?”

“When you adopt that tone,” Shandie said, “I feel a need for a cohort or two to defend me.”

“Cavalry, I suppose? And Jarga and I would still walk.”

“Undoubtedly. Allow me to demonstrate equitation.” Shandie sprang nimbly into the saddle.

A moment later he dismounted. As he stooped to shorten the stirrup leathers. Inos and Jarga shared smiles of satisfaction at the noteworthy redness of his ears.

A donkey might scorn an imperor. It could even ignore a queen regnant, but a jotunn armed with a rail was a serious matter. Soon the little beast was displaying more enthusiasm for work than it ever had previously, and the, cart jangled forward at a pace it had not approached before, with both women riding on the bench. The lessons had been effective, but brutal. Inos probably felt much worse than Zinixo did.

“What did you mean when you said `Hub is noisy’?”

“Sorcery,” the sailor said. “We think the Covin is dismantling all the shielding. That makes waves.”

It also made sense. Zinixo—the two-legged Zinixo—was notoriously nervy. Shielding anywhere might conceal enemies. When he had removed all of it, there would be nowhere in the world for opponents to hide.

Jarga was a woman of few words. She addressed most of them to the donkey, periodically wielding her club. She would brook no slacking.

Inos wondered again what feelings there could possibly be between a middle-aged jotunn and an elderly dwarf. Even for friendship they had nothing in common except the cause of the counterrevolution. They would make an absurd-looking couple, for Jarga was almost twice his height. Inos had assumed that the warlock, in adopting the principles of Rap’s new protocol, had released all his votaries. She had never asked him, though, and she very much doubted that Shandie had, for the crusty old dwarf was not the sort of man to tolerate impertinent questions. Of course there was no way to find out from Jarga. If she was still bound to the warlock, she would lie about it.