A Handful Of Men - The Stricken Field Part 23

That got the amba.s.sador's attention. He blinked down at Gath with wintery disapproval. "Money? You're not supposed to leave the ship. What d'you need money for?"

"Er, Vork and I were just going to go ash.o.r.e for a few minutes to settle something. Winner buys the beer, sir." The silvery beard quivered into a smile. Kragthong seemed to swell even larger, and he looked thoughtfully past Gath to his son. Then his approval faded. "Looks like you started on him already."

"No, sir. Not me. He slipped on the companionway."

"Did not!" Vork squeaked, although Gath could not imagine what explanation he would prefer to offer.

"I'd ask my mother, sir, but I don't think she would understand."

"Of course not." Kragthong chortled. "But I ought to give the money to him, surely?"

"Certainly not!" Gath said, faking the anger that would be expected. "He hasn't a hope. I know he's only a kid, but he gives me no peace and I just can't take his c.r.a.p any longer."

The thane beamed with pride. "Suppose I hand you both a crown and the loser gives his back?"

"That's very generous of you, sir. I'll see he does."

"He talks big for a half-man!" Vork trilled. "He doesn't know what real Nordlanders are made of."

"That's the spirit!" Kragthong said jovially, fishing in his pouch. "Make a good match out of it, lads. Men shed blood and women tears, remember. Wish I could come and watch, but I've got some business to attend to."

Gurx was just tying up.

3.

"Come on!" Gath said, and ran down the plank with Vork at his heels. He almost fell on his nose, because the plank was much steeper than he had expected. With the crest of the spring flood in town, Gurx was riding high. The pier was almost awash. There was a longship tied up ahead, and a squad of legionaries keeping watch on it. They paid no attention to two barefoot jotunn youths running by.

Beyond the levee, the streets were knee deep in dirty water and the stench would have stunned a troll. There were some very unhappy dogs. There were dwarves, but Gath was sick of dwarves. There were horses, some of them huge, bigger than anything Krasnegar had ever seen, plodding along with their great feet splashing and wakes behind their carts. Seeing horses made him think of Dad.

There were jotnar galore, mostly dressed like him, just in breeches. The sailors had big silvery mustaches. The ones with beards as well were probably raiders when they were farther from Imperial authoritya"to paint an orca on a sail was the work of a few minutes. Many of both types were so smothered in tattoos that they looked like the chintz chairs Mom had imported last summer. There were imps, both civilian and military. Urgaxox was unofficially a free port, the imperor said. It was so valuable to Dwanish and Nordland and the Impirea"and to Guwush when Guwush wasn't part of the Impirea"that whoever happened to be holding it never closed it. Even with a war on, dwarves were going about their business under the legionaries' noses. Under their armpits, too.

There were gnomes, and they were finding the water especially troublesome. It came up to their waists, and higher than that when a wagon went by. Gath had only ever met six gnomes in his life, the royal ratcatchers in Krasnegar: Pish, Tush, Heug, Phewf, and their two tiny babies, who could lie on his hands. He had never seen gnomes out in daylight. He had never seen them taking a bath, either, he thought with a chuckle. Then he noticed that they were eating things they picked out of the floating muck. He lost interest in gnomes.

"Where're we going?" Vork demanded at his back.

"T'find a dry place. I don't want to drown you."

"Drown me? I'm going to give you the thrashing of your life. I'm going to teach a mongrel to watch his tongue around his betters . . ." Vork had started talking himself up. Lots of jotnar had to do that. Some could flash into fighting madness right away, but most needed to work on it. Gath had to get Vork on his back while he could still listen to reason.

Then he saw the archway and turned into it. Vork said, "Hey!" and came after.

The courtyard beyond was deserted, as Gath had known it would be. There was ample mud on the ground, juicy black mud, but not much free water.

He swung around. "This'll do, Carrots. Prepare to meet thy doom!" That faint image of Vork systematically reorganizing Gath's face was more solid than it had been earlier. The one with Gath on top was still stronger.

Vork was paler than usual, his green eyes wider. The odds were not on his side. His opponent was taller, and a seer. Such things wouldn't matter to him in a few minutes, but he wasn't quite there yet. He was insulting Mom now.

"Oh, shut up!" Gath said, and swung a feint. Yes, attack was the secret. He poked a few more, and Vork kept blocking and backing away, still gabbling nonsense.

Gath swung a slow right; Vork blocked; Gath caught his wrist and heaved, thrusting out a leg to tip him over. That was all it took. He threw himself on top, twisted Vork's arm up out of the way, and grabbed red hair with his other hand. Vork's nose was right on the mud and Gath's teeth were at his ear.

"Give up?"

"I'll kill you. I swear it. I will kill you!"

"If you won't give up, I am going to rub your face in the mud."

"I will ka""

Gath rubbed his face in the mud, then pulled it out again. "I can keep this up for hours. I can rub all the skin off, so you'll have a red beard to match your hair, and everyone will know how you got ita""

Vork squirmed helplessly, scrabbling with his free hand to find something to hurt. "I don't care what you do to me, I'll kill you afterward. I will kill you kill you kill you!"

Any wriggle he made, Gath could counter before he even tried, and yet the image of him winning grew stronger. The kid was about to lose his temper and then Gath lost the battle. More ruthless! He pushed Vork's face hard in the mud and held it there. He bit his ear to get his attention.

"Listen to me! I'm bigger'n you, and I'm a seer. You never had a hope. I could probably beat your father, even, given enough time. He could never lay a boot on me, and I'd wear him out. D' you hear me?" He let the kid take a breath.

"Kill you!"

Back in the mud. "I'm a seer. You can't ever beat me. You are not going to Nintor. Your dad is not going to Nintor." Gath gave him a moment to think about it, and the possibility that Vork would win suddenly faded away to nothing, Gath let him breathe again.

He choked out a jugful of mud and said, "Truth?"

"Swear it by G.o.d of. I'm the better fighter?" Reluctantly Vork muttered, "Yes."

Gath stood up. He offered a hand. He was a mess, but when Vork scrambled to his feet also, he was an awesome apparition, and it was too soon to laugh.

Then came the strangest moment in the whole strange day, at least as far as Gath's prescience reached. Vork grabbed his hand, squeezed it, pumped it. He grinned, showing white teeth in mud, and his green eyes were shining in mud. "You won! Thought you would. Glad that's over. Buddies?"

And that was when Gath said, "Buddies. This is what you wanted?"

And Vork would explain that of course he'd wanted to be buddies all along, but jotnar couldn't be buddies until they'd found out which one was the better fighter.

Crazy! "Then let's clean up and go have that beer." Vork hesitated, impressed. "Serious?"

"Dead serious," Gath said. "I want your help, kinsman-buddy."

They found a pump and cleaned up. The water was even browner than the stuff in the streets, but it took most of the mud off. Then Gath set off as fast as he could stride, with Vork almost trotting to keep up and babbling questions by the score, as if he'd been bottling them up for weeks. He wanted to know all about Krasnegar and howc.u.m the jotnar there would accept a queen ruling over them, or failing her a faun. He wanted to hear about the goblins. He was a different boy altogether. It was weird.

"There's a place," he said. "What's wrong with that one? Where're we going?"

"We're going to the True Men and we haven't got much time."

"Where? Why? What're you planning?"

"Just wait and see. Do what I tell you to do and you're going to learn why you're not going to go to Nintor." Except he almost certainly was.

"What's it like to have prescience, Gath?"

Now that was an impossible one! "It's like memory, except it works forward, not backward." It was harder to describe how sometimes he could see more than one future, and he couldn't possibly explain that Vork's witless chatter was welcome in the sense that he didn't quite know what to expect because it was trivial. Important things he knew in advance but not trivial things, just as he remembered important things in the past and forgot unimportant things. How could he possibly put into words the fact that sometimes he had to go places and do things to learn things, even when he knew in advance what he was going to learn, because if he didn't, he would set up a paradox that even he couldn't handle? And he wasn't going to explain how sometimes the really important thingsa"

Then it happened, right there in the street. Prescience became present and suddenly he was lying under the table, looking at the boots. He staggered and said, "Where am I?"

"Gath! What's wrong?"

"Where am I?" Gath whispered, in case the owner of those boots heard him.

"You're in Urgaxox. In the street! What's wrong?" Gath shuddered, and found his way back to the present, shaking and sweating. Yes, he was in the street, leaning against a door. A group of gnomes stood at the far side, staring at him with their beady black eyes. He hadn't pulled that trick since the night he saved the imperor! And he remembered what the warlock had said in Gwurkiarg about foresight driving people mad. He wished Raspnex hadn't said that, because he'd often wondered if he was going mad and it didn't help much to know that it could happen.

All right! Concentrate. You're still going to the True Men. You're not there yet. Don't think about the important things that are going to happen. Think about what's happening now.

"Come on!" he said grimly, and began walking again. Vork was quieter after that. But soon he wanted to know why the True Men, and how Gath knew about the True Men, and what was so special . . .

"There it is," Gath said.

There were no words on the sign, of course, just three crudely painted male faces, all heavily forested with golden beard and mustache. Any nonjotunn who walked in under a sign like that could expect to come out in pieces. Gath pushed open the door and marched in, wondering whether he would have had the courage to do that if he were by himself. He was showing off to his new friend. New follower, reallya"that was what Vork was. He said he wanted a buddy, but he really wanted a leader, even if he was a year older. He wanted a better fighter to follow.

Gath had been in saloons in Krasnegar a couple of times, so the scene was vaguely familiar. Once he'd been sent to fetch Krath, the smith. Twice he'd been tagging along with Dad when Dad was on business. Oh, Dad, Dada Even so early in the morning, the big room was crowded and noisy. The air was thick enough to drink. There was not one dark head to be seen, and Gath felt small, suddenly. Along one side were three rows of plank tables, where men were eating fish soup. Along another was a bar. He headed for the bar. Getting close was tricky. One didn't jostle jotnar, especially drunk jotnar. Eventually he squirmed his way through, though.

The bartender was ma.s.sive and shirtless, all fat and hair and tattoos. His face had been taken apart and put back together so many times that it wasn't quite a face anymore. He turned it sideways and inspected his two new customers out of the corner of one eye.

"Don't serve milk," he said.

Gath produced the amba.s.sador's coin and clinked it on the bar. "Two beers. The small beer." His insides were dancing a gavotte with excitement.

The bartender turned away, dipped two mugs in a bucket, and slopped them down in front of the customers.

"The small beer, I said." Gath knew what happened if he drank that stuff. Nintor didn't happen, for one thing.

The bartender's face twisted as if in pain, but it might have been a smile. He removed the mugs, tipped their contents back in the bucket, and filled them from another bucket. Then he reached for the coin, and Gath let him have it. He grabbed his drink and began edging back out through the knots of shouting men.

"He cheated you!" Vork squealed behind him. "You ought to get change. Or a meal. Or something."

So go wrestle him for it? "Be quiet and follow me!" The center of the room was fairly empty. Gath hurried across to the tables and went round behind the first one, carefully not jostling any of the men on the stools. Some were slurping up the soupa"it smelled gooda"and others had pa.s.sed out. Some were red-faced and arguing. It was hard to think straight in so much noise. He found the stool he wanted, facing the door.

Vork flopped down beside him, green eyes big as eggs. "Kinsman!" Gath said, raising his tankard. "Kinsman!" Vork beamed. He drank. He choked.

It was awful stuff compared to Krasnegar beer, and Gath didn't even like that. He forced himself. "Drink up," he commanded, but his eyes were on the door. He could tell when it opened and closed, because of the light, but it was hard to see who was coming in because of all the men standing in the way.

"Gath?" Vork whispered, worried now. "What happens?"

"You won't believe me."

"Yes, I will!"

"No, you won't! Just do what I say, anda""

It happened again. He was marching up the plank, holding his hand out and trying to smile and saying "Kinsman!" Seagulls cried overhead and the deck moved under his feet and a hundred blue eyes . . .

"Gath!"

Gath had his eyes shut and his fists clenched. "I'm in the True Men, right?"

"Yes. What's wrong?"

Thane Drakkor had a very babyish face, and yet there was something chilling in his brilliantly blue gaze. Gath stepped off the gangplank and felt the thane's h.o.r.n.y hand take his and he braced himself for the crushing grip . . .

It pa.s.sed again. Back to the present, and the True Men. Madness! He wiped his forehead, which was streaming wet. "Nothing. Just a big day, you see. I live things too often when . . . Ah!"

There was no mistaking who had come in now. He gripped Vork's pudgy arm. "Now! Down on the floor!" In a moment they were both under the table. If Vork's eyes had been eggs before, now they were poached eggs. But no one had noticed. No one laughed or came to peek. "Lie down," Gath whispered. "If anyone sees us, pretend you've pa.s.sed out. Keep quiet, and listen!"

Staring at him as if at a madman, Vork sank back on one elbow. Gath stretched out, rolled over on his belly, and laid his head on his arm to keep his face off the floor, which was almost as filthy as the streets.

Feet went by. A real drunk was snoring under the table not far away.

A very small voicea" "Gath?" Gath said nothing.

"Gath. I need to go pee!"

"Pee then!" Who'd notice in here? And why did he have to mention that? Gath said nothing, cursing the beer. He hadn't drunk that much of it! Vork whimpered.

Then a pair of very large boots came into view, one of them hooking a stool back so their owner could sit down. They had been very fine boots once, with silver buckles and fancy st.i.tching around the tops. They were wet and muddy now. Gath had never seen them before, but he risked a look at Vork. His face was paler than a fresh snowdrifta"York recognized those boots, obviously. A tankard clumped down on the table.

A pair of dirty feet and bare shins joined the boots and another stool sc.r.a.ped. A second tankard thumped down beside the first.

"What's going on?" Amba.s.sador Kragthong demanded in a low voice. "Why so many in town?"

"On their way to the moot," the other man said. "I know that, fool. But why come to Urgaxox?" The other man chuckled. "To see if it's true."

"If what's true?"

"The Impire's pulled the legions out of Guwush. Four of them."

"G.o.ds' ballocks!" the thane said. There was a sound of gulping, and then a tankard thumped again on the table. Beer slopped through the planks onto Gath's shoulder.

"The XIIIth's still here in town, and the XXVIIth's inland, but that's all. They're jumpy as fleas, too. Hardly got enough men to watch all those longships."

"G.o.d of Slaughter!" Kragthong muttered. "It's an open door! It's money on trees!"

"That's it. And Drakkor's here."

A grunt. "Thought I recognized his outfit. Heard he'd gone south this year?"

"He came back. You can guess what he's going to say at the moot!"