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Haraldr had to wake up. He had thrust her into safety before the snow tore him
away from her. He was one of her last links with her home; she had never
realized how much Imperials relied on the
Varangians, not just for strength and courage, but for their loyalty and
humor. That the magic had reached out to harm him pained her: It was wrong for
the blond giant to face anything that could not be mastered by his great axe.
Bracing herself against his shoulder, she forced herself free
of his grip and turned toward the abbot.
"This is my guardsman. I think he must have fought a demon," she told him.
"Help us!"
Without appearing to hurry, the abbot knelt at
Haraldr's other side. "He's too strong, I
can't hold him," she gasped.
The abbot nodded and touched a point at the
Varangian's throat. Haraldr collapsed and lay alarmingly still.
"Now," the abbot said, and a clangor of horns, bells, and chanting started.
The chant had recalled
Alexandra to life; she prayed earnestly it would do the same for Haraldr. The
old, intricately wrought bells rang with a peculiarly shrill and piercing
sound that washed over the hearers in wave upon wave, and never ceased. It
seemed to separate
Alexandra from all the world except the man whose hand she still clutched. She
could see Father Basil's lips moving, but could hear nothing but the eternal
clamor of the bells. The abbot held up a horn for her to see. Instead she
leaned over Haraldr, trying to wake him, shake him back into reason and
courage.
An underpriest knelt at Haraldr's other side, washing his bitten wrist with
warm water. There were no wolves in what passed for lowlands here at the Roof
of the World.
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There were, however, snow leopards, but they were notorious for avoiding human
dwellings. And the bite of any big cat would have rotted by now. She ought to
be praying that Haraldr would not lose his arm, much less his life. But what
good would either be if the mind were gone?
"Tell me what happened!" she begged, though the bells and horns, ghanta and
k'alin, drowned out her words. Haraldr's eyes opened, the blue that the people
hereabouts found so uncanny, and he started, glancing about wildly until her
pressure on his fingers made him look at her. He was floating in illusion,
Alexandra remembered her own wanderings in spirit-and then his glance and his
grasp pulled her into the nightmare which held him trapped.
As the snow pried him away from the princess, Haraldr bellowed his rage. At
least he had given her a chance to survive; the Shieldmaids would know that
and save him from Hela; he could cross
Bifrost, knowing he had been true to his oaths to the rulers of Miklagard.
The snow bore him down the mountainside until he seized a rock outcropping and
swung himself into the safety it offered. Snow and ice thundered over his
head, and he grasped his amulet.
The rumbling and the mad snowslide subsided. After a time, it looked like he
might live. When the snow stopped trembling as more tumbled down, he dug
himself free, and looked uphill, his eyes wild. He
could not even see the place from which he had been swept: clouds covered it,
or perhaps that whiteness was tumbled ice and snow.
"My princess," he whispered. "Alexandra!" His voice rose to a scream, and he
flung himself at the slope until he threatened to pull more snow down upon
him. The footing was too treacherous; he could not climb back up to save her,
if still she clung to the rock with those little
Susan
Shwartz hands of hers. More likely, the snowslide had buried her. He sank to
his knees, dizzy.
She held his oath, and he had failed her. Best to die right here, he thought.
Would that have been her way? If she held his oath, her brother held hers; and
she had sworn to travel east as far as she could. Poor brave princess:
if she could go no farther, Haraldr could, as long as breath was in him. He
slapped his arms and legs to bring warmth back to them, then cast about for a
plan.
He had been taught by his grandfather how to walk out of such slides. He would
descend into the valley, find a village where he could rest, then determine
what might be best for a masterless man to do. Scrubby treetops showed above
the snow; he could weave them into shoes and walk the more easily.
The air grew easier to breathe as he descended.
He paused once to glance up at the mountain peak where he had lost friends,
and the princess he had sworn to protect, and shook his fist at it. Though he
knew that the Imperial lady withstood hardships like a woman of the North, she
was still in his charge. Like all the house of Miklagard, she was delicate,
because she lived too much inside her thoughts. That was why they had
Varangians to guard them. The Rhomaioi were moody but not fools: They valued
the
Northerners" courage as it deserved, favoring them with special trading
privileges, and honoring the
Guard with its own wing in the Imperial palace.
He would probably die here, he realized. But he could not have allowed his
princess to travel to the edge of the world unguarded. Though rocks and snow
shifted treacherously underfoot, Haraldr reached the valley.
Tumbled where they had been flung, he found the bodies of several men and and
their horses, but not his princess. He plundered the dead men's packs for food
and weapons.
Nearby lay a tumble of priest's robes. There was no body in them, though the
ground where such a body might have lain seemed etched into the shape of a
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man, his limbs twisted at impossible angles. The ground scrub beneath that
shape was withered. He stirred the robes cautiously with a stick. From them
tumbled a medallion on a chain, insignia such as a priest might wear, though
it bore no likeness to anything he had ever seen or wished to see. The image
on it grinned like Grendel itself, had daggers in each of its many arms, and
wore round things that looked like skulls.
He might have known. Princess Alexandra had known
Andronicus was no proper priest.
Certainly he had always made Haraldr's hackles rise.
He touched the Thor's hammer that, for a wonder, still lay about his neck. Now
what? He was lordless now.
His duty had been to guard the princess and her cousin on their way to
Ch'ang-an, and to cover their retreat.
That need not change. Haraldr had no illusions about his abilities. He could
hire on as a caravan guard and make the desert crossing. But he had not the
cunning and speed to trick Ch'ang-an out of its silk. Still ... he glanced
around the valley, hoping to see smoke or flocks or fields-some sign of people
who might take him in.
Something rolled across his foot, and he stooped to pick it up. A hunting
horn, but curiously shaped, not like the ones he used in the home he would
never see again. A circular design had been carved into it.
Grumbling at the pain bending down had caused him, he tried to blow the horn
until twinges warned him that his tumble down the mountain had probably broken
a few ribs. He hung the soundless horn about his neck and went on. He might
not know what direction to walk in, but his course was clear. "I will not flee
the space of a foot, but shall fare on farther," he muttered in his matted
beard. To Kashgar, when he could. And thereafter, if his fate permitted,
across the Land of Fire into Ch'in.
A shrill cry brought Haraldr around, hand to his dagger. Nearby huddled a
child, who tugged at a sheep that had gotten its foot caught between two
stones. If he were lucky, the child would understand the mangled Sogdian he
had learned from the grooms, he thought and started toward him. Naturally, the
child fled, but Haraldr bent to free the sheep's foot.
Let the child see he
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