“Sizzle!” the little man said. “I’d come back fried. Anyone stands up at the moot and starts to talk about sorcery, he’s going to be blasted by thunderbolts. None of us three’d set foot on the island before being nabbed. Even if we hadn’t sapped the Directorate, the Nintor Moot’s just too high grade for my nephew not to keep an eye on it. Now he knows where we are, roughly, and what we’re up to— now he’ll have pits dug. I say we forget the thanes and head south.”
Inos sighed, and smiled. “I wanted to say so sooner, but I thought you’d call me a nervous old maid.”
“Me, too!” Shandie chuckled. “I’m not suicidal yet! Besides . . . how many sorcerers are there in Nordland anyway?”
“Damn few, I think,” Raspnex growled. “Jarga doesn’t know of any.”
“Thane Kalkor was a sorcerer,” Inos said. “The one Rap killed.”
The dwarf shrugged his thick shoulders. “Well, he was an exception, then. Jotnar have no truck with sorcery as a rule.”
“So the game isn’t worth the candle,” Shandie said. “We’ll forget about Nintor. I just hate the thought of breaking the news to old Kragthong. He’s relishing the thought of setting the moot by its ears. He’s going to be very disappointed, to say the least.”
“Bloodthirsty old killer,” Raspnex snorted. “We can tell him to go ahead by himself, but I’m sure he won’t get five words out before his beard goes on fire.”
After a moment Inos said, “If not Nordland, then Guwush?”
Mm! Shandie shivered. Zinixo might be keeping less of a watch on the gnomes, but the mundane dangers would be even greater. Rebellion still festered in the hills and forests. Shandie himself had earned great hatred when he helped put down the gnomes’ last-but-one revolt. He had slaughtered thousands of the little horrors at Highscarp. Moreover, it was hard to imagine asking gnomes for help in anything, they were such inconspicuous, secretive people. Yet they could be implacable fighters when they wanted, like rats.
“I think we should split up here,” Inos said. “Some of us go overland across Guwush, and the rest sail around it by ship. We can join up somewhere on the Morning Sea. Maybe even Ollion itself.”
“Goblins.” Apparently the warlock meant the word to convey agreement. The two goblins would have to be smuggled off Gurx by night, or in sacks maybe. They were probably the first goblins ever to venture near Guwush since the coming of the Gods.
“We can ask the thane to find us a ship,” Inos suggested. “We may as well charter our own vessel. Here he comes now.”
“The old villain will despise us for a clutch of cowards,” Shandie warned. “Who wants to break the news that we’re not going to Nintor with him?”
Kragthong’s great bulk had been rising into view like a surfacing whale. He stepped off the plank and headed ponderously across the deck toward the conspirators, totally ignoring the crew, which had just raised yet another ironfilled net from the hold. Free of the hatch, it began to swing on its cable. Sailors screamed warnings, which he did not heed. A dozen men scrambled to catch the deadly mass, jotnar and dwarves both. Inos and Shandie and Raspnex sprang to their feet with cries of alarm. For a moment disaster seemed inevitable. Then the squirming heap came to a screaming, cursing halt just inches away from the ambassador, who strode on by it as if it did not exist.
Inos and Shandie remained where they were, the warlock stepped up on the bench. The thane stopped and looked down at them all, his battered face flushed and his forked white beard sparkling like ice in the sunlight.
“I have bad news!”
“Namely?” Shandie asked.
“This is in confidence. You’re not to tattle to the imps!”
Shandie almost said, But I am an imp! I am the chief imp! That wasn’t true, though. Much as he hated it, he was an outlaw now, a rebel against his own impire, an enemy of his people. He felt his fresh-shaven face flush. “In confidence, then.”
“Blood Wave II’s in port.”
God of Murder! Shandie wondered which of the longships he had passed was the notorious raider. They had all looked equally lethal. Drakkor! Shandie himself had put a price on that man’s head, a huge price, although he had known it was an empty gesture. Even the semicivilized, Impire-born jotnar would sooner die under torment than ever betray a thane.
Inos said, “Pardon my ignorance?”
“The thane of Gark!” Kragthong barked. “Drakkor, son of Kalkor. Another of your kinsmen.”
“Ah!” She nodded, her green eyes glinting cold like pack ice. ”Indeed he must be, for his father was. I thought . . . After my husband ended that monster’s career, I understood that one of his brothers succeeded to the thanedom?”
“Three of them held it, in turn. Then Kalkor’s sons began to come on the scene. The latest is Drakkor, who won it two years ago. Four reckonings in one day! No one is likely to dispute his claim now. He is cast in the same mold as his father, although he must be too young to remember him.”
“A bad mold. Why is this bad news, that he is in town?”
The weathered old face glowered down at her. “Because he is on his way to the moot. I understood he had gone south. His father almost circumnavigated Pandemia, and Drakkor was thought to have the same ambition. But he is back, breathing fire as usual.” The old man hesitated, then added, “A ruthless and very dangerous killer.”
If a Nordland thane described another in those terms, then he was talking of someone worth watching. Were the notion not so absurd, Shandie might have supposed that Kragthong was nervous.
“His father laid claim to my kingdom,” Inos said furiously. ”The issue was settled at a reckoning in Hub. You are saying that Drakkor might reopen the matter?”
The big man took his beard in both hands and tugged, as he did in moments of stress. Perhaps that was why it was so forked. “If you go to the moot, he will feel compelled to do so. The reckoning in Hub was suspect—so he would claim. There was some doubt, was there not, whether your husband killed him in fair combat or by sorcery?”
“Kalkor himself was a sorcerer!”
“That statement alone would be enough to provoke a challenge!” The thane continued before Inos could answer, his voice growing louder. “Even an orthodox reckoningheld at Nintor in proper fashion, witnessed by the assembled thanes . . . even an orthodox reckoning may be set aside by another. His father’s failure would not stop him challenging you. He would plead a blood feud, and no one would argue.”
A very odd gleam showed in the queen’s green eyes. “Well, we cannot let a boor like this Drakkor fellow keep us away from the Nintor Moot, can we? I am thane of Krasnegar, after all!”
Imperor and ambassador opened their mouths simultaneously, but this time it was Inos who brooked no interruption.
“A noble thanedom! If I wanted to, I could probably outfit more longships than almost any of them. I thought an ambassador’s guests were protected by his diplomatic status?”
The big man harrumphed, looking quite abashed now. “The challenge would be improper and could be refused. That would not look, ah, seem . . .”
“Quite!” Inos said crossly. “In practice one cannot hide behind points of law without casting doubts on one’s courage. So we must accept the challenge, right? I certainly cannot lift one of those axes the boys fight with, so I shall have to find a champion. Some husky young . . . But it’s usually a relative, isn’t it? Of course! I should have realized. Honor will compel you, as host and kinsman, to waive your immunity and take up my cause!” She smiled gratefully.
The ambassador stiffened. “My pleasure, ma’am. But I shall see that Drakkor is warned of the danger in advance. That should give him second thoughts.” He turned quickly to Shandie. “You are aware that Hub has pulled four legions out of Guwush to fight the goblins?”
“Four? “ Shandie recoiled. “Pulled four . . . You are joking!”
Obviously he wasn’t joking, though. What in the Name of Evil was Zinixo thinking of? The gnomes would explode instantly. It was amazing they had not poured down out of the hills already. A generation of warfare had not completely pacified Guwush, and now it would be all thrown away. Surely the crazy dwarf was not letting idiot Emthoro actually run the Impire?
He wanted to scream.
There was worse to come . . .
“Ever since he won his thanedom,” the ambassador said grimly, ”Drakkor has been preaching fire and sword against the Impire! He claims his father was betrayed in Hub. Again, a blood feud.”