rivet

We must consider what we will do if the Hikeda'ya do not come out to fight." The Sithi began to discuss the upcoming siege as though there had been no dispute over the honorability of fighting beside mortals. Eolair was puzzled but impressed by their civility. Each person was allowed to speak as long as he wished and no one interrupted. Whatever dissension there had been—and although Eolair found the immortals difficult to faThorn, he had no doubt there had been true disagreement—now seemed vanished: the debate over Naglimund, although spirited, was calm and ap- parently free of resentment. Perhaps when you live so long, Eolair thought, you learn to exist by such rules—learn you must exist by such rules. Forever is a long time to carry grudges, after all. More at ease now, he entered the discussion—hesitantly at first, but when he saw that his opinion was to be given due weight he spoke openly and confidently about Naglimund, a place he knew almost as well as he knew the Taig in Hernysadharc. He had been there many times: Eolair had often found that Josua's was a useful ear for introducing things into the court of his father, King John Presbyter. The prince was one of the few people the Count of Nad Mullach knew who would listen to an idea on its own merits, then support it if he found it good, regardless of whether it benefited him. They talked long; eventually the fire burned down to glowing coals. Likimeya produced one of the crystal globes from her cloak and set it on the ground before her where it gradually grew bright; soon it cast its cool lunar glow all around the circle. Eolair met Isorn on his way back from the council of the Sithi. "Ho, Count," the young Rimmersman said. "Out for a stroll? I have a skin of wine here—from your own Nad Mullach cellars, I think. Let's find Ule and share it." "Gladly. 1 have had a strange evening. Our allies ... Isorn, they are like nothing and no one I have ever seen." "They are the Old Ones, and heathen on top of it," Isorn said blithely, then laughed. "Apologies, Count. I sometimes forget that you Hernystiri are ..." "Also heathens?" Eolair smiled faintly. "No offense was taken. I have grown used to being the outsider, the odd one, during my years in Aedonite courts. But I have never felt so much the odd man as I did tonight." "The Sithi may be different from us, Eolair, but they are bold as thunder." "Yes, and clever.

I did not understand all that was spoken of tonight, but I think that we have neither of us ever seen a battle like the one that will take place at Naglimund." Isorn lifted an eyebrow, intrigued. "That is something to save and tell over that wine, but I am glad to hear it. If we live, we will have stories to amaze our grandchildren." "If we live," Eolair said. "Come, let us walk a little faster." Isorn's voice was light. "I am getting thirsty." They rode across the Inniscrich the next day. The battlefield where Skali had triumphed and King Lluth had received his death-wound was still partially blanketed in snow, but that snow was full of irregular hummocks, and here and there a bit of rusted metal or a weathered spearhaft stuck up through the shrouding white. Although many prayers and curses were quietly spoken, none of the Hernystiri had any great interest in lingering at the site where they had been so soundly defeated and so many of their people had died, and for the Sithi it had no significance at all, so the great company passed by swiftly as they rode north along the river. The Baraillean marked the boundary between Hernystir and Erkynland: the people of Utanyeat on the river's eastern side called it the Greenwade. These days, there were few living near either bank, although there were still fish to catch. The weather might have grown warmer, but Eolair could see that the land was almost lifeless. Those few survivors of the various struggles who still scratched out their lives here on the southern edge of the Frostmarch now fled before the approaching army of Sithi and men, unable to imagine any good that yet one more troop of armored invaders might bring. At last, a week's journeying north of Nad Mullach— even when they were not in full charge the Sithi moved swiftly—the host crossed the river and moved into Utanyeat, the westernmost tip of Erkynland. Here the land seemed to grow more gray. The thick morning mists that had blanketed the ground during the ride across Hernystir no longer dispersed with the sun's ascension, so that the army rode from dawn to dusk in a cold, damp haze, like souls in some cloudy afterlife. In fact, a deathly palt seemed to hang over all the plains. The air was cold and seemed to reach directly into the bones of Eolair and his fellows. But for the wind and the muffled hoofbeats of their own horses, the wide countryside was silent, devoid even of birdsong. At night, as the count huddied with Maegwin and Isorn before the fire, a heavy stillness lay over everything. It felt, Isorn remarked one night, as though they were passing through a vast graveyard. As each day brought them deeper into this colorless, cheerless country, Isorn's Rimmersmen prayed and made the Tree-sign frequently, and argued almost to bloodletting over insignificant things.

Eotair's Hernystiri were no less affected. Even the Sithi seemed more reserved than usual. The ever-present mists and forbidding silence made all endeavor seem shallow and pointless. Eolair found himself hoping that there would be some sign of their foes soon. The sense of foreboding that hung over these empty lands was a more insidious enemy, the count felt sure, than anything composed of flesh and blood could ever be. Even the frighteningly alien Norns were preferable to this journey through the netherworld. "I feel something," said Isorn. "Something pricks at my neck." Eolair nodded, then realized the duke's son probably could not see him through the mist, although he rode only a short distance away. "I feel it, too." They were nine days out of Nad Mullach. Either the weather had again gone bad, or in this small part of the world the winter had never abated. The ground was carpeted in snow, and great uneven drifts lay humped on either side as they rode up the low hill. The failing sun was somewhere out of sight, the afternoon so gray there might never have been such a thing as a sun at all. There was a clatter of armor and a flurry of words in the liquid Sithi speech from up ahead. Eolair squinted through the murk. "We are stopping." He spurred his horse forward. Isorn followed him, with Maegwin, who had ridden silently all day, close behind. The Sithi had indeed reined up, and now sat silently on their horses as if waiting for something, their bright-colored armor and proud banners dimmed by the mist. Eolair rode through their ranks until he found Jiriki and Likimeya. They were staring ahead, but he saw nothing in the shifting fog that seemed worth their attention. "We have halted," said the count. Likimeya turned to him. "We have found what we sought." Her features seemed stony, as though her whole face had now become a mask. "But I see nothing." Eolair turned to Isorn, who shrugged to show that he was no different. "You will," said Likimeya. "Wait." Puzzled, Eolair patted his horse's neck and wondered. There was a stirring as the wind rose again, fluttering his cloak. The mists swirled, and suddenly something dark appeared as the murk before them thinned. The great curtain wall of Naglimund was ragged, many of its stones tumbled out like the scales of a rotting fish. In the midst of its great, gray length was a nibble-filled gap where the gate had stood, a sagging, toothless mouth. Beyond, showing even more faintly through the tendrils of mist, Naglimund's square stone towers loomed up beyond the walls, the dark windows glaring like the empty, bone-socket eyes of a skull. "Brynioch," Eolair gasped. "By the Ransomer," said Isorn, just as chilled. "You see?" Likimeya asked. Eolair thought he detected a dreadful sort of humor in her voice. "We have arrived." "It is Scadach." Maegwin sounded terrified. "The Hole in Heaven. Now I have seen it." "But where is Naglimund-town?" Eolair asked. "There was a whole city at the castle's foot!" "We have passed it, or at least its ruins," Jiriki said. "What little remains of it is now beneath the snows.