A Mankind Witch (35 page)

"Well, at least you are thinking. I wondered if you could," said Erik. "Breaking through a flank is always risky, though."

"As I learned off Naples," said Cair, wryly. "Sometimes it is better to come back through the middle."

The next two days on the run proved that the worst fears of the fugitives were correct. There were now some eighty foes harrying them and they were definitely trying to head them off from the forest that was now visible on the horizon. They'd managed to cut some lances for Manfred and Erik, but Cair had contrived himself a troll club—a heavy chunk of basalt bound into a four-foot pole. "If Manfred can club one unconscious, but Erik cannot effectively stab one, I'll leave knocking them over to you knights and settle for hitting them on the head. Preferably from behind."

Manfred had taken a good look at the "club." "Well, I like it—but I think I'll make me something heavier. What I'd like is something more like a miner's mattock."

"That looks like the perfect piece of basalt for the job." Cair had pointed out a long triangular piece, among the fragments they'd stopped next to, It weighed perhaps twelve pounds, three times the size of his own rock. "For someone of your more delicate build, eh?"

Manfred weighed in one hand. Nodded. "Give me a hand with binding it, will you? I tried doing this when I was a gossoon. Thought I'd make me a stone axe. It was a dismal failure."

Cair had cheerfully helped him bind it with neat lashings. Erik was struck by how quick and precise the man was with his hands. If he'd been an assassin, he'd missed a good career as a jeweler, or perhaps a silversmith. But if he was an assassin, he was a well-born one, even if he did not ride like a knight.

By the end of the second day they'd lost one of the led horses in a close encounter, and it looked as if the trolls were going to succeed in encircling them. It seemed that the trolls could go without rest a lot longer than either horses or humans could. Their food for the horses was getting low too. It had grown steadily colder as they'd fled. Little patches of snow lay in the lee edges of rocks, and the larger tussocks here.

"They're going to close on us soon," said Erik, tiredly. "We'll have to try to push out of the gap."

"I suspect that's what they want us to do," said Cair. Erik had found days on the run together had given him more respect for the man. He wasn't nearly as good a rider as Manfred or Signy, who almost seemed to will her horses to obey and adore her. By ordinary standards he was a fair rider, but in this group he was the weakest. However, he made no allowances for this, replacing skill with determination. The only thing in which he exceeded that determination was in straight, pragmatic common sense—and the cunning of . . . well, it was more than a fox. More like a lynx. Erik waited for him to offer his idea. Cair was looking back, plainly thinking.

The land had risen in some low folds with the hills running down toward the forest, with some trees extending from the valleys. They were on a ridge, and could see the files of trolls on either side. "I think we need to go back down there, and then make for the higher hills." The forest lay to their right, and the hills to the left.

"How?" asked Erik, thoughtfully. "Night-proper doesn't seem to fall here. I'd say that what we need is some sort of cover, mist, darkness . . ."

"What about smoke?" suggested Signy.

Erik and Cair found themselves nodding in unison. They'd been cursing the cold wind that took their scent back to the trolls. "It's the best we can achieve, I suppose. It won't be a hot enough fire to kill them. Let's send it back on them and follow behind it. They'll assume we're running on, and will presumably try to get ahead."

Soon the flames were licking at uprooted dead bushes, and Erik was proving what a master horseman he actually was, riding with a burning brand while controlling a restive, rolling-eyed horse well enough to lean down and touch fire to the dry grass. Only Signy felt even vaguely capable of trying it on the other side. Manfred held the horses—to spare his feet—while Cair lit fires on foot. It was not the kind of fire steppe or prairie folk use for herding game; it was far too inclined to go out, and much more smoky. But with brands to relight it and with the wind spurring it into occasional towers of flame in little patches of dry birch, they chased fire before them, back onto the center of the line of troll pursuit, with heavy smoke.

And then it all went wrong.

The first Cair knew of it was a flurry of snowflakes against his bare neck. The sky had been heavy and gray. Now—specifically where they were—it was snowing. Big wet flakes. Blizzardlike. "Hell's teeth. Nothing will burn in this," yelled Manfred.

"It'll just have to do as cover instead," said Erik.

It was doing a better job than the smoke would have. They rode on, keeping together as the stuff drifted down thick and fast. They had barely a mile to cover before they expected to encounter the skirmish line, but Cair thought that they'd be bogged down in the snow before then. He knew little of snow, except that he was sure he didn't like it. Erik and Signy knew snow well, however. "This isn't natural," said the Icelander.

"Bakrauf," said Signy. "She can control weather with her magic."

Cair shivered. "I don't know about magic, but at least it should hide us from the trolls."

"Not likely, friend," said Erik grimly. "They hunt by scent."

"And they love ice and snow," put in Signy.

"They're welcome to it," said Manfred.

As he said this they blundered into a little gully, full of birches, snow, and trolls.

The trolls were just as surprised as they were, but as they'd been riding virtually parallel with the gully, some of the trolls in it were effectively behind them.

"Ride," yelled Erik, spurring his horse, dropping the point of the makeshift lance. There wasn't a lot of time for his horse build momentum, but Erik still hit the troll on the shoulder, and spun and dropped it. The lance shivered and he tossed it aside. Manfred, just behind him, had a clear run.

Signy turned to yell at Cair. Her horse chose that moment to stumble. She was half turned when its right fore struck some snow-hidden obstacle. Off balance, she was catapulted from the saddle.

"Erik!" bellowed Manfred, struggling to turn his horse. He dropped the rein of the led horses and the two of them rode back, to see Cair piling off his horse, running to Signy as she lay on the ground. He had her in his arms.

"She's stunned," he yelled. "Take her." Erik was there moments before Manfred . . . and two trolls. He hauled the landed-fish gasping princess up over the pommel, as Manfred hit one of the trolls with his lance. He didn't have Erik's momentum. The troll staggered but did not go down. Erik reached for his sword . . . and saw Cair slap the rump of his horse. Trolls frightened horses enough. An extra slap they did not need. "Take her away!" As he struggled to control his steed, Erik saw Manfred, his horse rearing, swing his makeshift troll club at the second of the trolls—which was making a grab at Cair.

The horse and the club came down together, as Cair dodged back and fell over a broken birch in the snow.

Manfred's club shattered. So did half the troll's skull.

And it fell like a great tree, onto the man on the ground.

Cair's last yell was, "Ride!"

He disappeared under what must have been at least a ton of troll.

Across the saddle bow, Signy gave a weak gasp and struggled. Erik held her fast and yelled, "Retreat! There are more of them coming."

Signy fought for breath. Fought for freedom. Found herself pinioned by a strong arm. She'd had all the breath knocked out of her by the fall. And hit her head on something too. Even her distant vision was blurred right now.

Cair hadn't so much dismounted after she'd fallen, as thrown himself off his horse and run unheeding past a troll to get to her. As she tried to draw breath and sit up, her thrall had seemed as tall as Vortenbras. He'd seemed even stronger than her hated half-brother when he had picked her up. She'd felt her fingers close instinctively on his jerkin. And then he thrust her away, upward, letting her be hauled over a pommel.

The horse whinnied and bucked, driving what little air she had in her lungs out again. As the horse turned, she saw Cair, with the sword she'd been shocked to see him carry, lunging at a troll five times his size, yelling at Erik to take her to safety. And Manfred, swinging that huge club, hit the troll. It was bending forward, snatching at Cair. The blow saved Cair . . . 

And killed him.

She saw Cair stumble and go down, as the huge mass of troll slowly fell.

Desperately, she willed that he would somehow get free. He must. He must!

With a terrible, unreal seeming slowness, she saw how snow and broken tree fragments sprayed up around the fallen troll, as it landed on top of Cair. Somehow she managed to scream, although it sounded more like a pitiful mew.

She must have fainted, because when she next knew what was happening, she was sitting on a rock, with her head between her knees.

She sat up. Manfred, sword in hand was standing watchfully next to her. "Erik has gone after the rest of the horses. They ran when we did. We're going to have to ride. The trolls are behind us still."

Somehow she couldn't bring herself to care very much. Erik reappeared leading her own horse, Cair's, and one of the spare mounts. "Are you fit to mount up, Princess? They're coming fast."

Manfred tossed her up into the saddle, and, because she did not know what else to do, they rode, switchbacking up the steep hill.

Her mind kept recreating the scene where the troll fell on her loyal man.

Cair had kept a cool head through nearly everything life had ever thrown at him. Now, he panicked.

The broken saplings he'd fallen over had cracked and shattered as the weight of the troll descended onto them and then onto him, pressing him into a snow grave.

He was going to die, drowned, not in the sea, but in frozen water, trapped under the body of his foe.

She looked back at the files of trolls following them. The hills were deceptive, more like steps than hills, leading ever higher. They'd gained enough distance to be able to pause, to take stock.

"He was a good thrall," she said quietly.

Erik felt as if he was a geyser finally blowing. He hadn't realized how much it had been bothering him, and, he had to admit how guilty he felt about misjudging the man. He turned on her, his voice icy. "Princess Signy, you are very astute in some ways. You're good with simples, great with animals. But you don't know people very well, do you? Someone put a thrall-brand on that man. That doesn't make a man a thrall. Not that man, anyway. The only way he would ever have been a thrall was by choice. He chose to serve you. He also chose to die for you."

She was as white as a ghost—but sat stiff in the saddle. Her chin went up as he spoke. "What else could a good thrall do? He was
my
thrall. A thrall must follow."

Manfred turned in the saddle and looked at her. This was not Manfred the spoiled boy-knight, or the Manfred who had emerged from Venice, older and wiser. This was Manfred the prince who one day would give both judgment and justice. "No. That one was no follower, ever, Princess. I misjudged him. Erik misjudged him. And he let you misjudge him, because he believed that it would be easier for you. You were wrong about how he got here. He, on his own, went looking for you. And we followed
him
."

"He came looking for me, alone?" Now Signy looked taken aback. Erik realized that this was alien to her small Norse world. A thrall could not do that. Not without a freeman ordering it.

Erik nodded. "He said to me that you had lost everything, that at least you would have a loyal thrall. He chose that because he wanted you to be happy. Or at least not too unhappy. I think he loved you very much."

Now she had lost her earlier rigidity. Actually, she looked as if she might fall out of the saddle. But Erik was not in any mood to relent. Not when she said, "But I am a princess of the Royal House of Telemark. He was a thrall."

Erik looked at her in silence for a long moment before he spoke. "Princess," he said, "if you were captured on Viking and held for ransom, how many ducats do you think that your captors would ask for your release? What
blot
-price for a royal princess?"

She shrugged. "Perhaps a hundred thousand ducats."

Erik smiled wryly. "An acceptable ransom. Now ask Manfred what his uncle would have paid for the head of Cair Aidin?"

Manfred gaped. "What! Is
that
who he was? A sailor from Lesbos! Huh. Talk about barefaced gall! No wonder he got away with blue murder! When did you figure this out, Erik?"

"At the last. That comment about Naples. That's exactly what he did when the Genovese and the Duke of Naples thought they had him on the run. Remember, the old Fox of Ferrara was lecturing you about it while we waited for Sforza. But I've been suspicious for a while. Can you imagine what a prize you were to him?"

Manfred shook his head incredulously. "Princess. Your
thrall's
head—not attached to his body—would have brought you a cool half a million ducats. And the same again from Venice. Lesser amounts from the Genovese, and I know Aquitaine had a price on his head, too. His brother Aruj might have paid even more for him, alive."

Signy looked puzzled and hurt. And doubtful too. "If he was a noble, then why did he not have his brother ransom him? Who is 'Cair Aidin' anyway?"

"One of the Redbeards," explained Manfred. When that plainly meant absolutely nothing to her he went on. "The brother-captains of the Barbary corsairs. And that is why he could not let himself be ransomed. The Empire and every nation which owns ships on the Mediterranean would pay for the most notorious pirate and raider of the western Mediterranean, dead."

"You mean he was a raider chieftain?" She looked stunned.

Of course such a man would be much respected by the Norse, Erik realized. "I suppose so," he said. "He and his brother also effectively ruled an area the size of about half of all the Norse kingdoms in North Africa."