The Lady of the Snowmist (War of the Gods on Earth Book 3) Read online

  The Lady of the Snowmist

  War of the Gods on Earth, Volume Three

  Andrew J. Offutt

  © Andrew J. Offutt 1983, 2017

  Andrew J. Offutt has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as author of this work.

  First Published in 1983 by Ace Fantasy Books.

  This edition published in 2017 by Venture Press, an imprint of Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter One

  They moved out of the woods onto the beach, mailed and armed men with sunlight aglint on their helmets. Almost at the instant of their emergence from the gloom of the forest, the trees began to rustle in the breeze that rose suddenly. It blew straight out to sea. The hair of the men, wheat and jonquil shading into a tawny hue and no darker, stirred where it appeared below their round pots of helms. Bright light shrank their pupils and they gazed blinking upon the long bright strand that slanted down to the sea.

  It waited, their stout wooden ship Seadancer. Their leader paused. He had been Kirrensark Long-haft and was now Kirrensark One-arm. Now the big man who had once raided shoreline farmers fled women, and a strange somber yunker commanded more than he. On the service of Her: the Lady of the Snowmist.

  After a brief pause he paced down the strand toward the long boat they called ship. Behind him came his men, in mail and leather leggings. They moved in silence, with their captive in their midst.

  And behind them, the Guardians of Osyr emerged from the wood. A single feather of red or white stirred above the blue-tressed head of each as she moved apart from her sisters. The Guardians of the god Osyr were women, all women. They and these departing invaders of their manless island had made the trek to the beach without incident; their queen was still held hostage by the men to insure safe passage to their ship. Tension hung over them all like a pall of smoke on an overcast day, as it had accompanied them all through the forest from their wark.

  That man called Jarik called to them to halt, and Kirrensark turned then to shout the same order, for he was firstman and ship’s master. But these were only men. The sinuous bodies of the Guardians did not come to halt until they heard the command called out by their queen, their Osyrrain.

  They continued to emerge from the trees, and they stepped apart, and stopped. Thirty-one women with full quivers on hips and taut-strung bows held not idly in the left hand. Scarlet feathers and white trembled above bluehaired heads. In silence and tension they watched the men moving down toward their sea-going Thing called ship: werk.

  The thirty-second was the Osyrrain’s champion. She had never been defeated at arms since her thirteenth year — until yesterday, when the over-tall one called Jarik had bested her. He with the sword of black. Only just, had he bested her! Her quiver rode her hip and her bow was on her back. She wore sword and dagger. The barely adequate skin of a grey squirrel dangled between her taut thighs, her only clothing. A red feather stood erect above her blue hair and on her breast was the dull gleam of the ruby bonded on its tip. The sullen red stones had been bonded thus, in pain, to the outermost curves of the right breasts of all the Guardians.

  She was Jilain, and she had done much thinking while she glided through the forests with her sisters in Osyr. Now she stood frozen, with her sisters. None of them had been defeated by Jarik, had wounded him and been wounded by him. None of them had spent the night with him, as had she and the Osyrrain. The others looked alert and angry and Jilain looked troubled and deep in reflection.

  “To the ship,” Kirrensark called, and turned and walked. Behind his broad back were thirty-two bows and surely over three hundred striped arrows.

  Men moved past the Osyrrain and looked at the tall Jarik by her side. He nodded. The Osyrrain looked at him while the men moved on. Buskins scuffed and crunched on sand. They followed their firstman down to Seadancer, and set stocky legs and strong backs into it. They pushed the ship down into the surf. The hazel and chestnut eyes of women looked from them to Jarik and their ruler, who had paced twenty steps down the strand. Twenty paces behind waited thirty-two superb archers with as many superb bows. Forty paces ahead was Seadancer.

  Her sisters watched Jilain, then, while she paced to a point a little nearer Osyrrain, nearer Jarik. Her hands remained empty. Another man had remained behind. He stood on the other side of the queen. He was Delath Morbriner, with white-blond hair fluttering below his helm, and he was old enough to have been Jarik’s father, assuming he had seen his son born at his age seventeen, which was more than normal among his people. His pale eyes sought those of Jarik, while their fellows floated Seadancer in a lively surf and began clambering aboard. Still the breeze blew from the woods, out to sea. Few doubted that the wind was for them, for who could doubt the power of Her? They had seen it; they saw it on each of Jarik’s wrists.

  On the strand, the silence held, in tension thick and palpable as that impermanent tension that precedes a violent storm. Seadancer was afloat and restless, and all but two were aboard and more than ready to depart Kerosyr; the Isle of Osyr, the dead god.

  Jarik bade Delath go with the others, to the ship.

  “You do not command, Jarik Blacksword. I go when you go.”

  The two men looked at each other. They were not friends. Morbrin-fighters both; the machines-that-fight; they who fight as the wolf fights. They had had their troubles on this expedition for Her, but now Delath chose to remain with Jarik, in danger. A warrior’s respect for courage superseded antipathy.

  “I remain to hold the Osyrrain, Delath Berserker. I will join you on the ship.”

  “With many arrows behind you. I go when you go, Jarik Blacksword.”

  “Go,” Osyrrain said. “We will not seek to stop you now.”

  Jarik said quietly, “Say that again, Osyrrain. Very loudly.”

  She looked at him, while Delath looked at her, and she repeated her words. Loudly, for her women. “Go! We will not seek to stop you now!”

  “At rest,” her commander said, hearing the promise, which among the guardians was helderen, which meant sacred, and more. “Let them go as the Osyrrain commands.” Jarik stepped away from the queen, and turned. “We leave you, Guardians,” he said, so that all heard. “Remove yourselves back, to the very edge of the trees.”

  “Do not seek to take her, Jarik!” That from the commander.

  He let his gaze meet hers, and he nodded. “She remains, Ershain. I have promised it.”

  Ershain made a little sound and the Guardians backed, to the very edge of the treeline. The very air seemed heavy, despite the seaward breeze. Jarik was sweating, in leathers and linked mailcoat, and bird-songs were only intrusions. Kirrensark alone had not boarded Seadancer. He waited near the ship, as a firstman should. He would be last aboard. All but two of his had boarded, and the tension had not abated a whit.

  “Farewell, Osyrrain,” Jarik muttered, and looked past her for he expected no reply from this woman who hated him very much. “Delath.”

  Jarik looked at the ship. His back prickled
. Sweat trickled and was fire in the whip-weals the Osyrrain had put on his back.

  “When you are ready, Jarik Blacksword.”

  Jarik glanced at the other man. “I am ready, Delath. Go!”

  “When you let go this queen of murderers and go, Jarik Blacksword,” Delath said. His gaze was steady, expressionless. “Then goes also Delath the Morbriner.”

  “Delath … we have given our word.” As he said those words, Jarik felt Osyrrain tense. “Kiddensok!’ Jarik called. “Delath!”

  Dutifully Kirrensark called to his longtime friend and weapons companion: “Delath! Board ship!”

  The pale-eyed, cloud-bearded man looked back at the line of bow-armed women, and at their queen, and at Jarik. And he took his hand from his hilt. Then Delath backed down the strand, and Jarik knew that Osyrrain seethed at the insult. Reaching the ship, Delath allowed Shranshule to aid him aboard. He turned at once, still watchful. Showing his distrust. Pale eyes above pale beard, and eyebrows no darker than the sand of the beach, and yet his hair was not white with age.

  Jarik took a deep breath. He scanned the beach ahead of him and saw no obstruction or depression to turn the ankle of a running man.

  He let go Osyrrain’s arm. Then Jarik raced to the waterline, his mailcoat jingling and his back gone all aprickle. Behind him, just as his feet splashed for the first time, he heard the shout. The voice was Osyrrain’s, and Jarik went cold.

  “SLAY THEM!”

  “Bows’.” Delath yelled instantly. “Up bows for Kirrensark!”

  “No!”

  That from Jarik, who had clamped his lips and splashed dodgily through the water while his back crawled. He reached the bulking hull of the ship. For an instant he and Kirrensark looked into each other’s eyes. Jarik looked back to see women frowning, eyes rolling. Arrows were being moved slowly and uncertainly from quivers toward taut bowstrings. A promise had been made, and among them no promise was broken; it was not conceivable. Yet she spoke for the god, and she had ordered them to loose their arrows. They moved slowly, uncertainly —

  One of Osyr’s Guardians moved swiftly. She ran leaping ahead of the others. Almost naked, jiggling as only women jiggle, she raced and her sword was out in her hand. She ran toward the Osyrrain, and all stared.

  That Guardian did not slow. As she passed, running, she struck. Racing, bosses flashing on her leather helm, shell necklace and squirrel’s tail crotchpiece wildly amove, she struck without slowing. She was the best of the Guardians and with one sweep of her blade she accomplished the impossible. No hair covered the Osyrrain’s neck, and the sword was sharp and well swung, backed with the momentum of the Guardian’s racing pace. The Osyrrain’s head fled her body on a wake of scarlet. It thumped to the sparkling sand, and rolled. The treacherous eyes glared and flashed bright as gemstones.

  Every body froze and every eye stared — save those of the Guardian who had slain her queen. She ran on down the strand until she was splashing in water, and came to Jarik’s side beneath the ship’s fierce hawk’s head of a prow. She offered him no harm, but instead she turned back to face her sisters in Osyr.

  “The Osyrrain gave an Osyrrain’s promise!” she shouted, and her voice hurt Jarik’s ears. “And she spoke too for Osyr! These men know not the helderen-promise — and yet they kept theirs! Would you allow a promise to be helderen only until the Osyrrain decides on treachery? Would you allow her to rob Osyr of honor, because she had none? Guardians! Choose now an honorable ruler!”

  Jilain whirled then, and reached up to the ship. As she stretched, Kirrensark regained sense and movement. He seized her thighs and lifted that tall lithe woman. Aye, and she well muscled and he with but one arm. The two hands that reached down were Delath’s. Dripping, the Guardian of Osyr turned her naked backside to her people, and to the sun, and scrambled aboard that ship of men.

  Whirling at once, she reached down for Jarik of the Black Sword.

  A woman aided aboard the agent of the Iron Lords and the unwilling servant of the Lady of the Snowmist, made hers by the silver bracers he wore. At the same time two men drew up their firstman.

  Ashore, Jilain’s fellows stood staring, shocked into immobility of brain and body with their bows and their arrows in their hands. Would that this shipload of men had never come to Kerosyr! Would that the Guardians had not sought to use them to father more Guardians and then to slay them, and their male get, as Guardians had done time out of mind. Would that the incredible Jarik had not come with them! First the dilemma of whether to serve a queen who broke her promise, because she wanted revenge.

  Now dilemma continued: break a queen’s helderen promise to avenge their queen in death? Their standing feathers quivered and blue hair stirred, for the wind was blowing well and the sail was up and hardly was Kirrensark aboard before his shout bawled out.

  “ROW!”

  Seadancer moved. The wind strove at the sail and men rowed anyhow, while the weavers wove and gods plotted and strove and their servants endured without understanding.

  “I am Ershain, and I have made no promise!” a voice yelled, and in its excitement it rose into a screech. “Loose, loose, loose!”

  The dilemma was broken. Ershain served Osyr, as did they all. Never had men come ashore on His isle and left it again. Bows were raised to a higher tilt, arrows aimed upward. Strings twanged and left hands returned partway with the bows while right arms cranked to pluck forth second arrows while thirty were still in air.

  To the ears of those on Seadancer came the ugliest sound known to men of weapons. It had been likened to the hum of swift bees, flying on that distinctly un-beelike course called a bee-line. Angry bees. It had been likened to the high-pitched whining hum of those most ferociously territorial insects, wasps, when their nest was threatened or disturbed. Others had referred to the angry keening hum of enraged hornets, which was enough to send a fine horse bolting. Yet none of those impressions was truly descriptive. There could be no sound quite like the keening whistling rush through the air of slim deadly missiles. No sound so hideous as that of the attack of a swarm of bow-shot arrows.

  Up they arced, to fall into the ship in a bee-swarming, wasp-speeding, hornet-attacking, eerily keening whiz of death. One rattled off the round helmet of Tole, whose expression became disconcerted. He staggered. Another improbably struck the copper boss on a man’s leather jerkin with a definite ring. The striped shaft caromed away to fall into the water and he knew that he was saved, only by luck. Anonymous attack from the skies; indiscriminate stabbing down of blind staffs — what a way for a man to be downed! What a hideous impersonal way to attack, to wage war!

  Several of the keening staffs peppered planking and one drove with a harsh thunk into the mast. None fell into the water; not one of those Kerosyran arrows. The horn-plated bows and the skill of the Guardians were beyond that. One slammed into Jarik’s upper arm, so that he emitted a mingled gasp and grunt while he jerked violently. Yet he felt only the impact. The arrow stood there for a moment, part of its head wedged between links of thin wire of the god-metal. Its point was caught in the close-fitting jacket he wore under the coat of chain. Jarik plucked it forth, unblooded. Another man cursed as an arrowhead, in passing, did not quite miss but opened a shallow ridge in his arm. Merely a scratch.

  No one was wounded in that first volley, which was ragged and loosed in excitement. Men pulled hard even as the sail snapped and bellied.

  Though the ship was farther off by yards, the second volley was not ragged. The same wind that thrust the ship away from the island aided the flight of the pursuing arrows, which the Guardians loosed in concert. Thirty shafts whistled high and fell onto Seadancer. This time more than one man cried out. So did Jilain, and she fell back.

  “Jilain!” Jarik shouted.

  “PULL!” Kirrensark roared, and grunted when an arrow banged off his helmet less than a finger’s width from his face.

  Men pulled. Oars and backs creaked, along with planking and cordage. The ship leaped ahead and water
gurgled past her flanks in white foam. Another angry keening whizzing descended.

  “Do Not Look Up!” Delath bawled, for helmets were invulnerable to arrows and faces were not.

  This time some shafts plunged into the sea short of the ship’s stern, while others impacted Seadancer and others rattled away. A man’s outcry was of shock and pain combined; a scream and a gurgle all at once. The fourth volley hiss-screamed aloft, and this time only one arrow struck; it thunked into the ship’s stern. All the others were wasted in the brine. Seadancer was away. Now the breeze moved her too rapidly for men to pull oars. Twice a man’s height at her waist, the ship sped asea.

  Those men who saw were amazed to observe Jarik pounce to the fallen Jilain and squat there. Already she was rising, blinking. She wore a leathern cap with plackets of bone awled and sewn all around, and on the neck-and ear-flaps. One flap was broken, now. An arrow had struck with enough force to stagger her. She was uninjured.

  Blinking as she gazed into the face of Jarik so near, she saw that it was … different. The eyes had changed; the lines of it had changed.

  “Ah, you are all right,” Oak said, and swung away from her. He seized Strick’s arm, inspected it. “You are all right,” Oak said. “It hardly bleeds — and do let it bleed, man!”

  Blinking, frowning, Strick said, “Here Jarik, what — ”

  Already turning from him, the mailed wearer of the Black Sword swung back. His eyes were ablaze, ferocious. “Don’t call me that, damn you!”

  While Strick stared with his mouth open, Oak shouldered aside Seramshule to squat beside Handeth the Hounder.

  Jilain, frowning, and others, frowning, watched while Jarik moved his hands over the man, from whose thigh stood an arrow. Yet it was not Jarik. None of them knew. No one of Kirrensark-wark or Kerosyr had seen this strangest of the strange aspects of Jarik. None of these had seen Oak the Healer, who shared Jarik’s body. Oak, who saw wrongness or debility and the solution or cure, by scrying with a sort of psychic eye that saw within. They were seeing him now, and knew it not.