"Are you going to take over the steering?" Manfred asked.
Erik shook his head. "He's a great seaman, whatever else he is. He's even got this bathtub close in to the bank, despite the fact that the current is pulling us toward the middle. The valley has opened up a bit. Rapids might mean that we're coming out of this gorge."
"Or that it gets steeper," said Manfred. Ahead the gorge was misty with spray. Already they had to shout to make themselves heard.
"Contrive oars," yelled Cair. "And get as much weight as you can to the front. We'll see if we can land her."
Erik and Manfred took their swords to levering loose a section of deck plank. This made two rough paddles, but even this and the rudder could not stop the current from wanting to suck their hapless craft toward the strong flowing center. Then they rose up on a huge standing wave, and flumed down it. Cair had the rudder hard over, and that took them skimming past a water-polished tooth of rock. Then into a vast swirl—a sort of maelstrom. At the far edge of this, they struck.
It wasn't a case of thinking about abandoning ship. The impact catapulted them out of the barge wreck and into the water.
They hit the water some yards from the shore—and the flow was still deep and strong, but nothing like as powerful as in the midstream. Erik found himself washed toward the rocky edge and sucked into a gap between two huge boulders. The gap was fortunately partly choked with driftwood that provided handholds which the slippery, polished rock did not. With a tearing of clothes Erik hauled himself out. His first act was to look for Manfred. The prince was coming downstream fast. Erik ripped a stripped and water-polished spruce from the driftwood and thrust it out to him. Manfred grabbed and hauled. Then, both on the boulder, they looked around for Cair, to see him crawling onto the rocks a little upstream. He was considerably closer to the real shore than they were.
They still had to make their way across several house-to-generous-barn-sized boulders, with water sluicing between them. With some jumping and some driftwood bridges, the three of them finally stood together on the shore, such as it was. It was merely there because several rocky lumps had fallen from the broken cliffs, and were too huge for even this river to wash downstream. They had to shout to hear each other. Ahead, downstream, you could see the huge river seething and fuming across rocky teeth. The kobolds wouldn't come looking for them, or the lost barge.
"We go down, I reckon."
"Ja." Erik agreed. There weren't many other alternatives—up the cliffs would involve a lot of climbing, on what appeared to be rotten rock. The three of them began picking their way down the slimy spray-damp rocks. It wasn't easy going. Several times they had to go back and try another route. But eventually they came to a point where the river reformed into a lake, and the boulders became interlinked with soil.
The valley no longer closed above them. Instead they were under a slate-gray sky. The noise level had dropped off, too. Manfred announced a break by sitting down. "I'm all in." He looked at Cair. "Got any food left?"
Cair shook his head. "I'm afraid not."
Manfred looked at his feet. They were cut and bruised. He grinned. "No food. No boots. Wet gear. I don't suppose you've got any strong drink either? Or perhaps a horse stashed somewhere?"
The man looked as tired as they were. And he was a good few years older than them, too. Nonetheless, he smiled. Erik noted that he was at ease with the prince. He was a very odd thrall—wealthy, powerful men were usually ransomed rather than enslaved. "Patience. We'll get them, but these things take time."
"So. Where do we start looking?"
Cair pointed at the bare feet. "Firstly, let us contrive some sort of footwear. Your feet are too soft for walking barefoot, and more boots are a little beyond me right now."
"Moccasins?" said Erik, reluctantly eyeing his leather trousers.
Cair shook his head. "I think sandals will do. The terrain eases. We should find some planking remains at the waterside. Those will do for soles. I have seen the peasants in Atlas make do with bark, too."
Manfred raised his eyebrows. "You're a widely traveled man, friend."
"Sailors tend to be," said Cair, getting to his feet and heading toward the water.
Erik looked at Manfred and said nothing.
Manfred got to his feet, uneasily. "If he's just a sailor, then I'm an Alexandrine courtesan. Come on, Erik. Let's go and see what fiendish plan our love-struck 'sailor' has for shoes."
"Love-struck?"
Manfred nodded. "In my humble opinion, yes. Be careful around him, Erik. Men tend to be unusually illogical when their balls start thinking; and when their emotions get tied up in it, too, doubly so. Watch what you say about that girl. He's old for it, and if anything that makes a man worse."
Erik nodded. In affairs of the heart—or at least the groin—Manfred was his master. "You be careful around him, Manfred. I know the type. He's a calculator. While he finds us useful—he'll use us. I'd not wager a clipped penny that he rescued us from that kobold mine for any reasons but his own benefit."
"I reckon. Look. He's calling us."
Cair was beckoning. They picked their way across the rocks to him. He had several pieces of pine-planking that he'd hauled out of the water. "You have knives—you need soles. And then we must look to binding. We can cut some thongs off your breeches, Ritter. I have an iron needle. It will serve us in more ways than one."
* * *j
Cair sat drawing the iron needle patiently in one direction along the knife blade. The other two were still working on their sandals. He had some advantages. For one, as a thrall, he'd walked barefoot for months. For seconds, he had found the planks—and had chosen the best pieces. Now he had time to look around and think. And to avoid thinking about food.
The valley they were in didn't seem to hold much promise of that. There were sparse grasses and dry bracken upslope. Mosses here. It was a bleak place, and what it would be like after dark, temperature-wise, was another matter. Their clothes were wet—to a greater or lesser degree. He'd been lucky—when they'd struck he'd been flung far further than the other two, and had landed in water that was not even three cubits deep. He'd thought he was going to hit the rocks, barely yards from where he had landed. He hadn't even gotten his hair wet, on that second, more involuntary swim. But now he was faced with various questions, the first of which was how, in this apparently deserted land, was he going to find where Signy was being kept? Had that bridge been destroyed after the bearskin-dressed ones had crossed it? Or should his first priority perhaps be staying alive? Perhaps to follow the river—construct a raft? Head for the sea?
He had no easy answers and plenty of doubts so instead he turned to the practical things. He tested the needle. He'd been working on it in the little spare time he'd had before they'd set out. It stuck, weakly, to the iron of the knife. Now . . . a thread from his cotte. The linen was coarse, but it was thinner than the wool of the jerkin. He tied it carefully while Erik watched curiously. The needle had to balance. It worked better if floated on a sliver of cork in water, but hung from something steady, out of the wind, it should give them a bearing. He attached the other end of the thread to a stick and hung it in the lee of the rock.
The needle began to turn slowly . . . as it should. It should steady and point north.
It continued to turn instead. Turn faster.
Cair stared at the spinning needle rather the way a man might stare at a swaying, venomous snake.
They walked downstream. There seemed to be no other logical direction in which to proceed. The gorge had emptied onto a vast rolling plain with hills leading back into the towering, ice-capped mountains across the river. The river, no longer constrained by steep walls, spread out into a broad, meandering flow.
"Some rocks are naturally magnetic, you know," volunteered Erik after they'd been walking for a while. They were all tired and cold. Conversation hadn't exactly blossomed up to now.
Cair shrugged. "Or we have come out at the very place to which lodestones are attracted. Without a sight of the sun or the stars, and no northerly bearing, finding our way around here is going to be difficult."
"True. But we could just head for the smoke," said Manfred, pointing.
Away from the river, across the heath, they could see a thin column of it rising into the cold air.
"Almost certain to be trouble," said Erik, warily.
"Almost certain to have opportunities," said Cair.
"More trouble than being out here when nightfall comes?" asked Manfred, rolling his eyes. "I don't know about you, Erik, but my spine is touching my belly button, we haven't seen any game, I'm cold, my toes are frozen. I'm with our sailor from Lesbos. Even if I suspect he's a Turk."
"Very well," agreed Erik. "Let's walk closer, anyway. But there are only three of us, and I'm not keen on another spell of imprisonment."
"Take it from me, you can't be less keen than I am. That hole made the Empire's dungeons look attractive. And the place flooded the first few days."
"At least you had water."
They set out up the grassy slope and across the heath.
Soon, standing on a low hilltop, they were looking across another wide braided river—not as wide as the one they'd left, but still half a mile of sandbars and channels—at another hill on the far side of the river.
A hill with a difference, though.
Unlike the rounded rolls on the bleak heath that surrounded them and it, this hill had a fair amount of exposed rock. Odd-shaped boulders adorned it.
However, it was the fact that the hilltop was raised on brass pillars that really caught the eye.
The smoke they'd followed wreathed up from inside the hollow hill.
Erik took a long hard look at it, and crossed himself. "Troll hill," he said.
Manfred sat down, taking the weight off his feet. They were looking fairly swollen and ugly. "Do you think they'd give us a bed for the night?"
"More likely to eat us," said Erik grimly. "They're supposed to be able to smell man flesh from half a mile off."
Cair studied the lie of the land instead. "Well, maybe so. But look there. Those look like men to me." A line of ragged figures, carrying buckets, were heading for the water. Something in their posture said "thrall." From here, anyway, they looked human.
"We can cross lower downstream hidden by the bend. It looks as if there would be rocks for cover," said Erik.
Manfred rubbed his feet, wincing. "I thought we were avoiding trolls."
Erik shrugged. "I don't see that we'd smell too different from that lot, even if there are trolls in that hill. They've got fire, food, and maybe even horses."
Manfred got up. He was obviously in some pain, putting his weight onto those large feet. Perhaps because he was biggest and heaviest his feet had suffered worst, climbing over the rocks at the rapids. "For horses, I'll even take on a round dozen trolls. Lead on, Erik."
They walked down. It was possible to cross the braided sandbanks without getting wet to more than midthigh. The other side of the river was littered with boulders and flood debris, and in among the flood debris Cair found a broken wooden bucket.
"Ah. My gate pass," he said with a wry smile.
"A bucket?" said Manfred. "It doesn't even have a bottom to it."
Cair assumed a doleful look. "I may be beaten for that."
Erik snorted. "As opposed to just being killed—or made into a thrall anyway?"
"A chance I just have to take," said Cair with a shrug. "I seem to be getting good at changing owners."
"Just how do you intend to get to mingle with the thralls—and how do you intend to get away again?" asked Erik. "I think I had better go. I am a better stalker than most people."
Cair shook his head. "You are a better stalker, yes, Ritter. But you don't walk like a thrall. They would spot you instantly."
"What he says is true, Erik," said Manfred. "You walk like a cat."
Erik acknowledged this, reluctantly. "But you're an unlikely thrall, Cair. You don't fit the part either."
Cair slouched his shoulders and shuffled. "But I can," he said humbly, without, looking up, "master."
"You should have been a court jester or a traveling player, not a sailor," said Manfred, grinning despite his tiredness. "So what are you going to do in there?"
"Check out the lie of the land, find out where we are, steal what I can . . . that'll do for a start," said Cair. "But now I need a bundle of firewood. It'll give me an excuse to get closer. I will get away and bring you news and food as soon as I can. Where will I meet you?"
"Those rocks there," Erik pointed to three large boulders a hundred yards or so upslope. "By the looks of it we should be able to see from the ridge line just beyond that. We'll keep watch."
"Better keep my sword, too," said Cair, unbuckling it. He looked scathingly at it. "Norse rubbish, but better than no blade at all." His stolen knife went into his sleeve, tight-wrapped in a piece of rag. And then, gathering kindling, he set out. He walked along, hidden by an undercut bank until he was nearly at the bucket-filling slaves.
Erik and Manfred watched from the ridge as he meandered to join the tail end of the line of bucket carriers. He calmly set his wood bundle down and, with them, walked off into the hollow hill.
Manfred shook his head. "He's got a lot of gall; I don't know about anything else."
"True," agreed Erik. "I trust him as far as I can throw him, but he's a survivor."
"He's more than just a sailor though," said Manfred, untying the rough sandals and looking ruefully at his feet. "I'd dearly like to know what he was doing in Telemark. Looking at how he organized within the kobold mines, there is no way he couldn't have escaped if he had wanted to."
Erik scratched the bristles on his chin. "I would guess that he is an agent for someone rich and powerful. He's probably an assassin. He might even have been there to kill you."
"He's missed a few good opportunities since then."
"He's a bit confused over this princess," said Erik.
"I must admit I hardly noticed the girl before this lot blew up. I saw her at the feast, of course. A mousy little thing, who looked thoroughly miserable. She didn't look much of anything, let alone a witch."
Erik yawned. "Glamour, or a seeming. It's very much part of the northern magics. Now, you go over to the rocks and stay there. I'm going back down to the river. I saw at least one trout when we were coming across here. Let me see if I can tease one out from under that bank."
"With what? Insults? How do you tease a trout?" Manfred looked content not to move.
"Tickle them. Get a hand under them, flip them out. It takes patience, and tolerance for cold water."
"Even raw trout sounds good," said Manfred. "I'll stay here on the ridge and watch, Erik. I want to rest these feet before we have to run—if we have to run."
Erik looked critically at Manfred's feet. "Tonight, I think we will have to make a fire. We can cook the trout, and contrive some sort of dressing on those cuts."
Manfred nodded. "I'm half frozen now. Tonight will be bleak."
"If this place has a night." Erik slithered back from the skyline and walked off to the water. Manfred remained watching.
Erik found the water bone-numbingly cold but the little red-spotted trout under the bank were overconfident about how it protected them. He had three, and was just getting his hand under a fourth, when a ground-vibrating clang startled him into frightening the fish. He was up and running up the hill before the echo died away.
"They're just shutting up shop," said Manfred.
The boulder-studded hill was . . . just a hill. A little smoke and steam billowed around it, but a cold wind was carrying even that away.
Erik let his breath hiss between his teeth. "Well. I suppose there is nothing to stop us having a fire and some fish now. Cair is stuck in there."
"Did you get some fish?" asked Manfred eagerly, rubbing his stomach.
Erik nodded. "Three—the fourth I lost because I spooked with that racket."
"What are we going to do about the fire? Your tinderbox is somewhere in kobold lands," Manfred pointed out.
"I'll make a fire-drill," said Erik. "There is a lot of dry stuff washed up at the waterline."
The trio of rocks that Cair had pointed out proved as good a camp as they were likely to find. On a dry watercourse, it was hidden in a little fold in the rolling hill, away from prying eyes and sheltered from the icy wind. Water had eaten under the rocks so there was a little overhang. They carted driftwood, and Erik got busy contriving a fire-drill while Manfred cut some dry grass and bracken for their nest.
Erik had been well taught during his sojourn in Vinland. He got first a curl of smoke and then an ember. Shaved dry splinters of resinous pine gave them flame, grilled trout, and some warmth. Nothing could have kept them from the arms of Morpheus. Erik tried to sit guard for a while, but the toll of hard labor, poor food, a hectic escape, and the stress and worry over Manfred over the last few days were just too high. Swords in hand, back to the rock, with a little hidden fire, sleep took them.
If they'd been awake and watching, they would have seen seven huge bears crossing the sandbars. And a huge pile of rocks move to greet the mistress, before opening a narrow portal into the hill.