Part 8 (2/2)
139this news ”I doubt not that this is the work of Totila's pet wizard, lilma Alcuina's men are shut up inside their stockade, and they are leaderless They have no one of royal blood to co for their queen to return I think they will have a long wait Now is the time to strike and s therowl of approval fro his erratic behavior and waning powers, they had no such doubts concerning his acquisitiveness and his predatory instincts Of these things, they all approved Odoac had been a decent battle-leader in his younger days, and perhaps he was showing a flash of his old power in this plan After all, kings lived by preying upon rival kings, and better the Thungians should absorb the Cambres than the hated Tormanna
”I am not so certain that this is the best course, Uncle,” said Leovigild The old king stared at hiuised hate, but the youth went on fearlessly ”It see to attack Queen Alcuina's people while her fate rereat people should deal with one another”
”Is that so?” said Odoac in a dangerouslyourselves, high and low, here in the Northland The weak are sed up by the strong That is the way of it, as I learned from my sire and he from his, and so it has always been since the wars of Gods and giants/'
Many nodded at these words, for custoht Yet others plainly wanted to hear ild had to say
”I think that this way is unwise I grant that it is good to be strong and fierce, for how can a people survive otherwise? But I think it is also good to be wise and behave with forethought Here is my counsel: If ar upon the Cartibres at this time, both peoples will lose warriors and will be the weaker when the inevita-ble war comes with Totila Instead why do we not send heralds to the Caainst Totila until Queen Alcuina returns? This can have only two outcoood: If Alcuina coe you as their king, having no king of their own and having followed you in war Should Alcuina return, how can she again reject your suit, since you will have been the salvation of her people In truth, her folk reat approbation at words of sucha man
Had it not been for those sounds of admiration, had the boy coht have adopted it and claimed it as his own As it was, the words threw hi words are these? Could the fierce Thungians ever follow such a simple-ton? No such coward could be born of our royal line, and I a, Odoac lurched to his feet and began to draw his sword His men rushed to restrain him, and forced him back into his throne
A senior counselor turned to Leovigild ”Best get you gone, lad We'll not let the king harild strode froh to be released
”That boy tries th '”Best that he is exiled He is treacherous as well as cowardly I thank you for restraining me,” he said piously ”I should never wish to shed the blood of a kinsman, be he never so disloyal” The warriors let this pass in eloquent silence
”What of the custorim-faced man ”Now you have no heir The people must have an heir to the throne, or there must be trouble”
Odoac shi+fted uncomfortably in his seat ”Think you I aht? As soon as we have settled the problem of the Cambres, then I shall take a neife, be it Alcuina or some other Then you shall have an heir within the year, 1 vow”
”That is good to hear, ,” said the same man, and Odoac was not sure that there was no mockery in the voice ”Nohat of this black-haired cha of? Is this fellow likely to cause us trouble?”
Happy to be off the subject of the succession, Odoac said, ”1 have spoken with the trader Dawaz about this man He is a mere sellsword, an adventurer from afar with neither kin nor friend here He seems to possess some sed to slay Agilulf I have also heard that he disappeared on the saht as Alcuina, as did the wizard Rerin All the more reason e should move now The Cambres have lost queen, chaain?” He looked around and saw only battle-lusting faces ”See to sharpening your weapons, then” He turned to a trusted retainer nas and summon the warriors It has been , so re as ht After that we should be feasting upon the stores of the Cambres!”
A ferocious cheer went up at these words, the unfor-tunate Leovigild forgotten for the moment Odoac sat back and smiled with satisfaction Few problems, how-ever thorny, were not to be solved with a little warfare and prospect of loot
Leovigild rode for o No ht to s onto a packhorse and rode froht have been preferable He was an exile, driven from hearth and hall, denied the protection of his family In the North, a man without clan or kin was under virtual death sentence
His sh the snoin jets of stea from his nos-trils Mane and tail swept al the serried drifts, its hooves crunching reat freeze
Where could he go? He had his two horses, his sword, helm and cuirass of finely worked bronze On the packhorse were his hunting clothes and his feast clothes, two long spears, a short javelin, and his shi+eld of painted wood and leather With the clothes he noore, these were his total resources It never crossed his mind to take the protection of some landholder and serve as a peasant farood blood could always join the war-band of some chieftain That was at least honor- 142
143able, but it would have to be far from here, and a lone htful heir to the lordshi+p of the Thungians, and he had no intention of relinquishi+ng his claihts turned to Alcuina of the Cambres If the reports were true, she noas in some form of exile as well If the loathsome liima was behind it, Alcuina's situation was far more dire than his own He had never reat beauty The thought of such a lady wed to his uncle was repellent, although honor and loyalty forbade his expressing the thought while in the garth
He wished to avoid the men of the Tormanna and of the Cambres Times were even more unsettled than usual, and there was no law to protect lone wanderers Captorshiard on the battlefield enuity in the treatment of prisoners
He remembered a small valley in the hills to the north He had found it years before when hunting alone It was uncultivated and snaked along the ill-defined border between the lands of the Cambres and the Tormanna If he could pass between the two nations unseen, heservice with a petty chieftain until he ht Surely Odoac could not live round near the mouth of the valley It was a wild place, frequented only by hunters or herdsmen in search of strayed stock With the flint and steel from his belt pouch he kindled a fire There was scant likelihood that he would be seen in this wild spot
As he was about to bed down in his war a the trees within the narrow valley His hand went to the protective a at his neck, and he chanted out a quick spell to ward off evil The lights ca than the fire, which was now a small heap of coals before him
”Ymir!” he muttered in a near whisper, ”am I a child to hide my head for fear of will-o'-the-wisps?”
With a short, forced laugh he bundled into his cloaks and was soon asleep Nothing ue, ild peered into the narrow, growth-choked valley Little of the snow lay there, but the density of the tree canopy could have explained that Still, it was an ill-looking place It took soled draw When he had visited this place before, he had been on foot That had been in the days of high summer, but even then the darkness of the valley had oppressed hi in halfhearted pursuit of a wounded stag, and turned back hastily when its tracks ended in a welter of blood and broken brush Some dire predator dwelled in the valley, but he was older and betterrarmed now
The air was still and warrowth of plants was different as well Here, instead of pine and fir, broad-leafed oak predorowth, and once he ell into the valley the undergrowth Sunned, and the traveling was easier The valley floor was uneven, a tiny strearowth of stunted trees and 144
145thick vines, the great mossy boulders, all lent the valley a certain wild beauty, as, but he saw little sign of larger ani the winter in sleep Still, he kept his bow strung, its handle of hide-wrapped yew coret his decision to travel by this route The men of Totila and Alcuina would never accost hions and giants His iination peo-pled the copses and caves itches, and behind thefroht He tried to shake off the uncanny hten children,” he oblins froild urged his horse forward There was a tiny clearing in the over-head cover, and a heap of snow lay before him It was the first sizable drift he had encountered since entering the valley Then a great uided his horse around the drift the heap of snow burst upward, flinging white clu, casting the youth to the ground with enough force to half stun hie-shaped head reared high upon a sinuous trunk as thick as a , slit-pupilled eyes fixed ild, and he knew that he had no chance against this thing froasped
Travelers claiiant, white-furred snakes in the lands north of the forest belt, where the sun rose not for half the year, nor fully set in the other half Never had he heard of such in the woodlands of his people
His packhorse bolted toward the upper end of the valley, but his eted, too paralyzed by terror to pick a direction and run With Leovigild motionless, the primitive brain of the serpent was distracted by the terrified beast Its jaws gaped, and yellow slied forward, and Leovigild heard the dooh cut short by a horrible sound of crunching bones
With a wrenching, painful effort, the youth raised hi, white-furred coil fros of his mount Horror thrilled his spine as the serpent's head reared frorotesquely distended The horse's head and part of its forequarters had al-ready disappeared into the gaping maw, and he realized that the monster intended to s the horse whole
Now, he kneas his chance to escape Even so immense a monster must need some time to s an entire horse He tested his limbs and found them all relatively sound It would be soh to run, but he could creep painfully upon hands and knees
As Leovigild began to drag himself away the serpent turned to fix its eyes onceto rid itself of the carcass, but its backward-curving fangs would not release it It had to s the horse or die with the carcass in its jaws Gradually it lost interest in the lesser prey and went back to its task
Leovigild was gasping with a mixture of pain and 146
147relief when he pulled hi He bled only fro Odoac's hall had fallen upon hi way up the valley he took stock of his situation
If he had felt poor and abandoned upon setting out, he was in far worse condition now He had the clothes he wore, his sword and knife, and a relatively undas was soht recover theht have ended as snake food hi his luck
He paused to catch his breath Painfully he bent and touched the earth ”Father Ymir, I thank you that I have escaped as cheaply as I did” He suspected that Ys, but it did no harood ter a ild whirled at the sound of a hu He saw nobody ”Show yourself!”
”I aloom and saw a luular look to it, a seing from its crest In deep-shadowed pits he saw a pair of unht have sent prickles of horror up his spine So soon after his encounter with the snow serpent, it was a mere curiosity
”What ht ask the saild could now see that it was a s atop the boulder So twisted and irregular was his shape that he see arild, heir to the lordshi+p of the Thungians My pack-beast was slain by a great white serpent, and I now search for s you hither, to a place avoided by men since your breed first caed fros and scratched at a bark-brown cheek