Prince of Fools (The Red Queen's War 1)

• • •

Toiling across the mountainside gave fresh impetus to the finding of reasons not to go. With gritted teeth I put in the effort needed to catch up to Snorri at the head of our trek.

“This Broke-Oar of yours. He’s a war leader, important amongst his people?”

“He has a reputation. His over-clan is the Hardassa.” Snorri nodded. “Many followers, but he doesn’t rule in Hardanger. He’s feared more than loved. He has a way about him. When he focuses on a man, many find it hard to resist him—they’re swept along with his energy—but when he turns away, often that man will remember reasons to hate him again.”

“Even so.” I paused to recover my breath. “Even so. He’s not going to spend year after year sitting in this little fort in an icy wasteland? Not a man like that? You can’t expect to find him where you left him?”

“We weren’t just buying furs in Trond, Jal.” Snorri glanced back at the stragglers. Well, straggler. Tuttugu. “There’s no other place in the North like Trond for finding out what’s going on. Tales come in on the ships. Sven Broke-Oar has been raiding up and down the coast. The Waylander and Crassis clans in Otins Fjord, the Ice Jarls in Myänar Fjord, and the Hørost on the Grey Coast. All of them have been hit, and hard. Many captives, many slaughtered. And last reports have him entering the Uulisk. There’s nothing there for him except the trek to the fort. He’s set to winter there. Ice locks up all the high North in the long night. Everyone draws in, holds fast, waits for spring. The Broke-Oar reckons himself secure at the Black Fort. We’ll teach him a different lesson.”

I had no answer to that, other than that I was a worse teacher of lessons than I was a pupil, and I was a terrible pupil.

• • •

We trudged on, mile after mile, up unforgiving slopes of bedrock shelving skyward from the sea and angled towards daunting heights. Weariness took me into dark places. I grumbled about the weight of my pack until I hadn’t even the energy for that. Several times I thought about ditching my sword just to be free of the weight. At last I fell into a kind of reverie, plodding on whilst replaying the highlights of my afternoon, Astrid and Edda’s highlights in particular. All of a sudden it hit me. The man who had stepped in, lowered his hood a fraction, then ducked out . . . a band of raven-dark hair, greying to the sides.

“Edris!” I stopped in my tracks. “Snorri! That fucker Edris Dean was there. In town!”

Up ahead Snorri turned, raising a hand to stop the quins. “I saw him too,” he called back. “With a dozen men of the Hardanger. Another reason we left in a hurry. The Red Vikings are a significant force in Trond.”

They waited until Tuttugu and I caught up. “We’ll camp here,” Snorri said. “And keep a watch for anyone following up the slopes.”

Sleeping on mountains is a miserable business, but I have to admit that it’s less miserable in a thick fur-lined sleep-sack with a canvas and leather awning to divert the worst of the wind around you. Snorri and the others had spent their money well and we had an untroubled night.

Come morning we broke fast on black bread, cold chicken, apples, and other perishables from Trond. Before long we’d be back on hardtack and dried meat, but for the now we ate like kings. At least like impoverished kings who happen to be stuck on a mountainside.

“Why the hell is Edris in Trond?” I asked the question I’d been too bone-tired to voice the previous evening.

“The thing we’re chasing—being dragged after—it seeded its trail with trouble for us.” Snorri chewed off another piece of bread, attacking it like meat on the bone. “The Dead King lies behind all this, and he collects men, living ones as well as the dead. The right kind of man he’ll draw to him. Men like the Broke-Oar and this Edris.”

“Edris will be chasing us now?” I hoped not. The man scared me, and more than trouble did in general. Something about him gnawed at me. Whatever quality ran through individuals like Maeres Allus, Edris had his measure of it too. An understated menace—the kind you know that when it does speak will be worse than any threat or posture from men capable only of common cruelty.

“Trying to get ahead of us, most like.” Snorri swallowed and stood, stretching until his bones creaked. “He’ll aim for the Black Fort, or maybe the mining at the Ice first. If they’re warned we don’t stand much chance.”

We didn’t stand a chance in any event. I kept that opinion to myself. Perhaps if Edris did warn them, the others would see it was hopeless and abandon the effort.