The lofty poop of the great flagship was dark as the town in the pouring moonlight. Beside Edumir his witchdoctor stood above a brazier of tinder, holding aloft a flint and a horseshoe in either hand, his eyes wild as those of the ship-horses. Next him crouched a wiry-thewed warrior naked to the waist, bearing the Mingol bow of melded horn that is Nehwon’s most feared, and five long arrows winged with oily rags. While to the other side was an ax-man with five casks of the captured oil.
On the next level below, the five Sayend maidens cowered wide-eyed and silent, their pallor set off by their long dark braided hair, each in the close charge of two grim she-Mingols who flashed naked knives.
While on the main deck below that, there were ranked five young Mingol horsemen, chosen for their honor because of proven courage, each mounted on an iron-disciplined Steppe-mare, whose hoofs struck random low drum-notes from the hollow deck.
Edumir cast his wine cup into the sea and very deliberately turned his long-jawed, impassive face toward his witchdoctor and nodded once. The latter brought down horseshoe and flint, clashing them just above the brazier, and then nurtured the sparks so engendered until the tinder was all aflame.
The bowman laid his five arrows across the brazier and then, as they came alight, plucked them out and sent them winging successively toward Sayend with such miraculous swiftness that the fifth was painting its narrow orange curve upon the midnight air before the first had struck.
They lodged each in wood and with a preternatural rapidity the oil-drenched town flared up like a single torch, and the muffled, despairing cries of its trapped inhabitants rose like those of Hell’s prisoners.
Meanwhile the she-Mingols guarding her had slashed the garments from the first maiden, their knives moving like streaks of silver fire, and thrust her naked toward the first horseman. He seized her by her dark braids and swung her across his saddle, clasping her slim, naked back to his leather-cuirassed chest. Simultaneously the ax-man struck in the head of the first cask and upended it above horse, rider, and maiden, drenching them all with gleaming oil. Then the rider twitched reins and dug in his spurs and set his mare galloping across the close-moored decks toward the flaming town. As the maiden became aware of the destination of the wild ride, she began to scream, and her screams rose higher and higher, accompanied by the rhythmic, growling shouts of the rider and the drumbeat of the mare’s hoofs.
All these actions were repeated once, twice, thrice, quarce—the third horse slipped sideways in the oil, stumbled, recovered—so that the fifth rider was away before the first had reached his goal. The mares had been schooled from colthood to face and o’erleap walls of flame. The riders had drunk deep of the same mushroom wine as Edumir. The maidens had their screams.
One by one they were briefly silhouetted against the red gateway, then joined with it. Five times the name of Sayend rose higher still, redly illuminating the small bay and the packed ship—and the staring Mingol faces and glazed Mingol eyes, and Sayend expired in one unending scream and shout of agony.
When it was done, Edumir rose up tall in his fur robes and cried in trumpet voice, “East away now. Over ocean. To Rime Isle!”
Next day the Mouser and Fafhrd got their ships pumped out, warped to the docks assigned them, and work began on them early. Their men, refreshed by a long night’s sleep ashore, set to work at repairs after a little initial grumbling, the Mouser’s thieves under the direction of his chief lieutenant Pshawri and small Mingol crew. Presently there was the muffled thud of mallets driving in tow, and the stench of tar, as the loosened seams of Flotsam were caulked from within, while from the deck of Sea Hawk came the brighter music of hammers and saws, as Fafhrd’s vikings mended upper works damaged by the icy projectiles of Khahkht’s frost monstreme. Others reaved new rigging where needed and replaced frayed stays.
The traders’ quarter, where they’d been berthed, duplicated in small the sailors’ quarter of any Nehwon port, its three taverns, two brothels, several stores and shrines staffed and loosely administered by a small permanent population of ill-assorted foreigners, their unofficial mayor a close-mouthed, scarred captain named Bomar, from the Eight Cities, and their chief banker a dour black Keshite. It was borne in on Fafhrd and the Mouser that one of these fisherfolks’ chief concerns, and that of the traders too, was to keep Rime Isle a valuable secret from the rest of Nehwon. Or else they had caught the habit of impassivity from their fisher-hosts, who tolerated, profited from them, and seldom omitted to enforce a bluff discipline. The foreign population had heard nothing of a Sea-Mingol eruption, either, or so they claimed.
The Rime Islanders seemed to live up to first impressions: a large-bodied, sober-clad, quiet, supremely practical and supremely confident people, without eccentricities or crochets or even superstitions, who drank little and lived by the rule of “Mind your own business.” They played chess a good deal in their spare time and practiced with their quarterstaves, but otherwise they appeared to take little notice of each other and none at all of foreigners, though their eyes were not sleepy.
And today they had become even more inaccessible, ever since an early-sailing fishing boat had returned almost immediately to harbor with news that had sent the entire fleet of them hurrying out. And when the first of these came creaming back soon after noon with hold full of new-caught fish, swiftly salted them down (there was abundance of salt in the great eastern cliff, which no longer ran with hot volcanic waters) and put out to sea again, clapping on all sail, it became apparent that there must be a prodigious run of food fish just outside the harbor mouth—and the thrifty fishers determined to take full advantage of it. Even Groniger was seen to captain a boat out.
Individually busy with their supervisings and various errands (since only they could go outside the traders’ quarter), the Mouser and Fafhrd met each other by a stretch of seawall north of the docks and paused to exchange news and catch a breather.
“I’ve found the Flame Den,” the former said. “At least I think I have. It’s an inner room in the Salt Herring tavern. The Ilthmart owner admitted he sometimes rents it out of a night—that is, if I interpreted his wink aright.”
Fafhrd nodded and said, “I just now walked to the north edge of town and asked a grandad if he ever heard of the Hill of the Eight-Legged Horse. He gave a damned unpleasant sort of laugh and pointed across the moor. The air was very clear (you’ve noticed the volcano’s ceased to smoke? I wonder that the Islers take so little note of it), and when I’d located the one heathered hill of many that was his finger’s target (about a league northwest), I made out what looked like a gallows atop it.”
The Mouser grunted feeling fully at that grim disclosure and rested his elbows on the seawall, surveying the ships left in the harbor, “foreigners” all.
After a while he said softly, “There’s all manner of slightly strange things here in Salthaven, I trow. Things slightly off-key. That Ool Plerns sailing-dory now—saw you ever one with so low a prow at Ool Plerns? Or a cap so oddly-visored as that of the sailor we saw come off the Gnampf Nor cutter? Or that silver coin with an owl on it Groniger gave me in change for my dubloon? It’s as if Rime Isle were on the edge of other worlds with other ships and other men and other gods—a sort of rim….”
Gazing out likewise, Fafhrd nodded slowly and started to speak when there came angry voices from the direction of the docks, followed by a full-throated bellow.
“That’s Skullick, I’ll be bound!” Fafhrd averred. “Got into what sort of idiot trouble, the gods know.” And without further word he raced off.
“Likely just broken bounds and got a drubbing,” the Mouser called out, trotting after. “Mikkidu got a touch of the quarterstaff this morn for trying to pick an Isler’s pouch—and serve him right! I could not have whacked him more shrewdly myself.”
* * * *
That evening Fafhrd strode north from Salthaven toward Gallows Hill (it was an honester name), resolutely not looking back at the town. The sun, set in the far southwest a short while ago, gave a soft violet tone to the clear sky and the pale knee-high heather through which he trod and even to the black slopes of the volcano Darkfire where yesterday’s lava had cooled. A chill breeze, barely perceptible, came from the glacier ahead. Nature was hushed. There was a feeling of immensity.