Isorn, despite his own tension, turned a look of pity on the count. Eolair felt it almost as a rebuke. "They know best how to battle their kinfolk."

"I know, I know." Eolair slapped at his sword-hilt. "But I would give much ..."

A high-pitched note sang along the hillside. Two more horns joined in.

"Finally!" the Count of Nad Mullach breathed. He turned in the saddle. "We follow the Sithi," he called to his men. "Stay together. Protect each other's backs, and do not lose yourselves in this G.o.ds-cursed murk."

If Eolair expected to hear an answering shout from the men, he was disappointed. Still, they followed him as he spurred up the slope. He looked back and saw them wading through the snow, grim and silent as prisoners, and he wished again he had brought them to some better fate.

What should I expect? We are fighting an unnatural enemy, our allies are no less strange, and now the battle is not even on our own soil. It is hard for the men to see this is for the good of Hernystir, let alone for the good of their villages and families. It is hard for me to see that, though I believe it.

The mists swirled about them as they drove toward Naglimund's shadowy wall. Beyond the gap he could see only the faintest signs of moving shapes, although a trick of hearing made the shrill cries of the Norns and the birdlike war-songs of the Sithi seem to echo all around. Suddenly the great hole in the wall was before them, a mouth opening to swallow the mortals whole.

As Eolair rode through, the air was torn by a flash of light and a booming crash. For a moment all seemed to go inside out; the mist turned black, the shadowy forms before him white. His horse reared, screaming, and fought the reins. A moment later another great smear of light rubbed against his eyes, blinding him. When Eolair could see again, his terrified horse was heading back toward the breach in the wall, right into the reeling ma.s.s of the count's own troop. Eolair yanked furiously at the reins, to no effect. With a strangled curse, he pulled himself free of the stirrups and rolled out of the saddle, then crashed to the snowy ground as his mount ran wildly, scattering the reeling soldiers before him and trampling several.

As he lay struggling to catch his breath, Eolair felt rough hands close on him and drag him to his feet. Two of his Hernystirmen were staring at him, eyes wide with fear.

"That ... that light ..." one of them stammered.

"My horse ran mad," the count shouted above the din. He smacked snow loose from his leggings and surcoat and strode forward. The men fell in behind him. Isorn's horse had not bolted; still mounted, the young Rimmersman had vanished somewhere in the mists ahead.

Naglimund's inner court looked like some kind of nightmarish foundry. Mist hung everywhere like smoke, and flames leaped periodically from the high windows and traveled along the stone walls in great blazing curtains. The Sithi were already at close quarters with the Norn defenders; their shadows, magnified by flames and fog, stretched out across the castle like warring G.o.ds. For a moment Eolair thought he knew what Maegwin saw. He wanted to fall down on his face until it all went away.

A horseman appeared out of the fog. "They are hard pressed before the inner keep," Isorn called. He had a b.l.o.o.d.y streak down his jaw. "That is where the giants are."

"Oh, G.o.ds," Eolair said miserably. He waved his men to follow, then set out at a lope after Isorn. His boots sank into the snow at each step, so that he felt as though he labored up a steep hill. Eolair knew his mail-coat was too heavy to let him run for very long. He was breathing hard already, and not one blow struck.

The battle before the inner keep was a chaos of blades and mist and near-invisible foes into which Eolair's men quickly vanished. Isorn stopped to pick up a fallen pike and ride against a bloodied giant who held half a dozen Sithi at bay with his club. Eolair sensed movement nearby and turned find a dark-eyed Norn rushing toward him waving a gray ax. The count traded strokes with his attacker for a moment, then his foot slipped and he dropped to a knee. Before his foe could take advantage, he scooped a handful of snow and flung it up in a white shower toward the Norn's face. Without waiting to see if it had distracted his opponent, Eolair lunged forward, sweeping his sword around at ankle-height. There was a resounding crunch of steel against bone and his enemy fell atop him.

The next moments pa.s.sed in what seemed a profound stillness. The sounds of battle dropped away, as though he had pa.s.sed through into some other realm-a silent world only a cubit wide and a few inches deep where nothing existed but his own panicked struggle, his failing wind, and the bony fingers clawing at his throat. The white face hovered before him, grinning mirthlessly like some Southern devil mask. The thing's eyes were flat dark pebbles; its breath smelled like a cold hole in the ground.

Eolair had a dagger at his belt, but he did not want to let go even an instant to reach for it. Still, despite his advantage in size, he could feel his hands and arms losing their strength. The Norn was gradually crushing the muscles of Eolair's neck, closing his windpipe. He had no choice.

He released his grip on the Norn's wrists and s.n.a.t.c.hed at his sheath. The fingers on his throat tightened and the silence began to hiss; blackness spread across the cubit-wide world. Eolair hammered with the knife at the thing's side until the pressure slackened, then he clutched his dying enemy like a lover, trying to prevent the Norn from reaching any weapon of its own. At last the body atop him ceased struggling. He pushed and the Norn rolled off, flopping into the snow.

As Eolair lay gasping for breath, the dark-haired head of Kuroyi appeared at the edge of his cloudy vision. The Sitha seemed to be deciding whether the count would live or not; then, without saying a word, he vanished from Eolair's view.

Eolair forced himself to sit up. His surcoat was sodden with the Norn's fast-cooling blood. He glanced at the sprawled corpse, then turned to stare, arrested even in the midst of chaos. Something about the shape of his enemy's face and slender torso was ... wrong.

It was a woman. He had been fighting a Norn woman.

Coughing, each breath still burning in his throat, Eolair struggled to his feet. He should not feel ashamed-she had almost killed him-but he did.

What kind of world... ?

As the silence in his head receded, the singing of Sithi and Cloud Children pressed in on him anew, combining with the more mundane screams of anger and shrieks of pain to fill the air with a complicated, frightening music.

Eolair was bleeding in a dozen places and his limbs felt heavy as stone. The sun, which had been shrouded all day, seemed to have gone down into the west, but it was hard for him to tell whether it was sunset or the leaping flames that stained the mists red. Most of the defenders of Naglimund's inner keep had fallen: only a final knot of Norns and the last and largest of the giants remained, all backed into a covered pa.s.sageway before the keep's tall doors. They seemed determined to hold this ground. The muddy earth before them was piled with bodies and drenched with blood.

As the battle slackened, the count ordered his Hernystirmen back. The dozen who still stood were dull-eyed and sagging with weariness, but they demanded to see the battle through to the end; Eolair felt a fierce love for them even as he cursed their idiocy out loud. This was the Sithi's fight now, he told them: long weapons and swift reflexes were needed, and the staggering mortals had nothing left to offer but their failing bodies and brave hearts. Eolair held to his call for retreat, sending his men toward the relative safety of Naglimund's outwall. He was desperate to bring some of them out of this nightmare alive.

Eolair remained to hunt for Isorn, who had not answered the war horn's summons. He stumbled along the outskirts of the struggle, ignored by the Sithi warriors trying to force the giant out of the shelter of the arched doorway, where he was inflicting terrible injuries even in his dying moments. The Sithi seemed in a desperate hurry, but Eolair could not understand why. All but a few of the defenders were dead; those who remained were protecting the doors to the inner keep, but whoever was still inside seemed content to let them die doing so rather than try to bring them inside. Eventually, the Sithi would pick them off-Jiriki's folk had few arrows left, but several of the Norns had lost their shields, and the giant, half-concealed behind one of the arch pillars, already had a half-score of feathered shafts lodged in his s.h.a.ggy hide.

Where Eolair walked, the bodies of mortals and immortals alike lay scattered as if the G.o.ds had flung them down from heaven. The count pa.s.sed by many faces he recognized, some of them young Hernystirmen with whom he had sat at the campfire only the night before, some Sithi whose golden eyes stared up into nothing.

He found Isorn at last, on the far side of the keep. The young Rimmersman was lying on the ground, limbs awkwardly splayed, his helmet tumbled beside him. His horse was gone.

Brynioch of the Skies! Eolair had spent hours in the freezing wind, but when he saw his friend's body, he went colder still. The back of Isorn's head was soaked with blood. Eolair had spent hours in the freezing wind, but when he saw his friend's body, he went colder still. The back of Isorn's head was soaked with blood. Oh, G.o.ds, how will I tell his father? Oh, G.o.ds, how will I tell his father?

He hurried forward and grasped Isorn's shoulder to turn him over. The young Rimmersman's face was a mask of mud and fast-melting snow. As Eolair gently wiped some of it away, Isorn choked.

"You live!"

He opened his eyes. "Eolair?"

"Yes, it's me. What happened, man? Are you badly wounded?"

Isorn took in a great rasping wheeze of breath. "Ransomer preserve me, I don't know-it feels like my head is split open." He lifted a shaking hand to his head, then stared at his reddened fingers. "One of the Hunen struck me. A great hairy thing." He sagged back and closed his eyes, giving Eolair another fright before he opened them again. He looked more alert, but what he said belied it. "Where's Maegwin?"

"Maegwin?" Eolair took the young man's hand. "She is in the camp. You are inside Naglimund, and you've been hurt. I'll go find some folk to help me with you ..." "No," Isorn said, impatient despite his weakness. "She was here. I was chasing her when ... when the giant clubbed me. He did not strike me full."

"Maegwin ... here?" For a moment it was as though the northerner had begun speaking another tongue. "What do you mean?"

"Just as I said. I saw her walk past the outskirts of the fighting, right through the courtyard, heading around the keep. I thought I was seeing things in the mist, but I know she's been strange. I followed, and saw her just ... there ..." he winced at the pain as he pointed toward the far comer of the blocky keep, "and followed. Then that thing caught me from behind. Before I knew it, I was lying here. I don't know why it didn't kill me." Despite the chill, sweat beaded on his pale forehead. "Perhaps some of the Sithi came up."

Eolair stood. "I'll get help for you. Don't move any more than you have to."

Isorn tried to smile. "But I wanted to take a walk in the castle gardens tonight."

The count draped his cloak over his friend and sprinted back toward the front of the keep, skirting the siege of the keep's great doors. He found his Hernystirmen huddled beside a gap in the outwall like sheep terrified of thunder, and took four of the healthiest back to carry Isorn to the camp. As soon as he saw they had him safe, he returned to his search for Maegwin; it had taken all the restraint he possessed to see his friend out of harm's way first.

It did not take him long to find her. She was curled on the ground at the back of the keep. Although he could see no marks of violence on her anywhere, her skin felt deathly cold to his touch. If she breathed, he could find no sign of it.

When his wits returned sometime later, he was carrying Maegwin's limp body in his arms, staggering across the camp at the base of the hill below Naglimund. He could not remember how he had gotten there. Men's faces looked up as he approached, but at that moment their expressions had no more meaning for him than the bright eyes of animals.

"Kira'athu says that she is alive, but very close to death," said Jiriki. "I bring you my sorrow, Eolair of Nad Mullach."

As the count looked up from Maegwin's pale, slack face, the Sitha healer rose from the far side of the pallet and went quietly past Jiriki and out of the tent. Eolair almost called her back, but he knew that there were others who needed her help, his own men among them. It was clear that there was little more she could do here, although Eolair could not have said what exactly the silver-haired Sitha woman had done; he had been too busy willing Maegwin to live to pay attention, clutching the young woman's cold hand as though to lend her some of his own feverish warmth.

Jiriki had blood on his face. "You've been hurt," Eolair pointed out.

"A cut, no more." Jiriki made a flicking movement with his hand. "Your men fought bravely."

Eolair turned so he could speak without craning his neck, but he retained his grip on Maegwin's fingers. "And the siege is over?"

Jiriki paused for a moment before replying. Eolair, even in the depth of his mourning, felt a sudden fear.

"We do not know," the Sitha finally said.

"What does that mean?"

Jiriki and his kin had a quality of stillness in them at all times that marked them off from Eolair and his mortal fellows, but even so it was clear that the Sitha was disturbed. "They have sealed the keep with the Red Hand still inside. They have sung a great Word of Changing and there is no longer a way in."

"No way in? How can that be?" Eolair pictured huge stones pushed against the inside of the entrance. "Is there no way to force the doors?"

The Sitha moved his head in a birdlike gesture of negation. "The doors are there, but the keep is not behind them." He frowned. "No, that is misleading. You would think us mad if I told you that, since the building clearly still stands." The Sitha smiled crookedly. "I do not know if I can explain to you, Count. There are not words in any mortal tongue that are quite right." He paused. Eolair was astonished to see one of the Sithi looking so distraught, so ... human. "They cannot come out, but we cannot enter in. That is enough to know."

"But you brought down the walls. Could you not knock down the stones of the keep as well?"

"We brought down the walls, yes, but if the Hikeda'ya had been given time earlier to do what they have now accomplished, those walls would still be standing. Only some all-important task could have kept them from doing that before we laid siege. However, even if we now took down every stone of the keep and carried it a thousand leagues away, we still could not reach them-but they would still be there."

Eolair shook his head in weary confusion. "I do not understand, Jiriki. If they cannot come out and the rest of Naglimund is ours, then there is no worry, is there?" He had reached his limit with the vague explanations of the Peaceful Ones. He wanted only to be left in peace with Lluth's dying daughter.

"I wish it were so. But whatever purpose brought them here is still not understood-and it is likely that as long as they can stay in this place, close to the A-Genay'asu, they can still do what they came to do."

"So this whole struggle has been for nothing?" Eolair let go of Maegwin's hand and rose to his feet. Rage flared within him. "For nothing? Three score or more brave Hernystirmen slaughtered-not to mention your own people-and Maegwin ..." he waved helplessly, "... like this! this! For For nothing?! nothing?!" He lurched forward a few steps, arm raised as though to strike at the silent immortal. Jiriki reacted so swiftly that Eolair felt his wrists caught and held in a gentle yet unbreakable grip before he saw the Sitha move. Even in his fury, he marveled at Jiriki's hidden strength.

"Your sorrow is real. So is mine, Eolair. And we should not a.s.sume that all has been for naught: we may have hindered the Hikeda'ya in ways we do not yet realize. Certainly we are alerted now, and will be on our guard for whatever the Cloud Children may do. We will leave some of our wisest and oldest singers here."

Eolair felt his anger subside into hopelessness. He slumped, and Jiriki released his arms. "Leave them here?" he asked dully. "Where are you going? Back to your home?" A part of him hoped that it was true. Let the Sithi and their strange magics return to the secret places of the world. Once Eolair had wondered if the immortals still existed. Now he had lived and fought with them, and doing so had experienced more horror and more pain than he had ever thought possible.

"Not to our home. Here, do you see?" Jiriki lifted the tent flap. The night sky had cleared; beyond the campfires hung a canopy of stars. "There. Beyond what we call the Night Heart, which is the bright star above the comer of Naglimund's outwall."

Puzzled and irritated, Eolair squinted. Above the star, high in the sable sky, was another point of light, red as a dying ember.

"That one?" he asked.

Jiriki stared at it. "Yes. It is an omen of terrible power and significance. Among mortal peoples, it is called the Conqueror Star."

The name had a disturbingly familiar sound, but in his grief and emptiness Eolair could summon no memories. "I see it. What does it mean?"

Jiriki turned. His eyes were cold and distant. "It means the Zida'ya must return to Asu'a."

For a moment the count did not understand what he was being told. "You are going to the Hayholt?" he said finally. "To fight Elias?"

"It is time."

The count turned back to Maegwin. Her lips were bloodless. A thin line of white showed between her eyelids. "Then you will go without me and my men. I have had enough of killing. I will take Maegwin back so she may die in Henystir. I will take her home."

Jiriki lifted a long-fingered hand as though he would reach out to his mortal ally. Instead, he turned and pulled the tent flap open once more. Eolair expected some dramatic gesture, but the Sitha only said: "You must do what you think best, Eolair. You have given much already." He slid out, a dark shadow against the starlit sky, then the flap fell back into place.

Eolair slid down beside Maegwin's pallet, his mind full of despair and confusion. He could not think any more. He laid his cheek against her unmoving arm and let sleep take him.

"How are you, old friend?"

Isgrimnur groaned and opened his eyes. His head pounded and ached, but that was as nothing to the pain below his neck. "Dead. Why don't you bury me?"

"You will outlive us all."

"If it feels like this, that is no gift." Isgrimnur sat a little straighter. "What are you doing here? Strangyeard told me that Varellan was to surrender today."

"He did. I had business here at the monastery."

The duke stared at Josua suspiciously. "Why are you smiling? It doesn't look a thing like you."

The prince chuckled. "I am a father, Isgrimnur."

"Vorzheva has given birth?" The Rimmersman shot out his furry paw and clasped Josua's hand. "Wonderful, man, wonderful! Boy or girl?"

The prince sat down on the bed so that Isgrimnur would not have to stretch so far. "Both."

"Both?" Isgrimnur's look turned to suspicion again. "What nonsense is that?" Realization came, if slowly. "Twins?"

"Twins." Josua seemed on the verge of laughing aloud with pleasure. "They are fine, Isgrimnur-they are fat and healthy. Vorzheva was right, Thrithings-women are strong. She hardly made a noise, though it took forever for them both to come."

"Praise Aedon," the Rimmersman said; he made the sign of the Tree. "Both babies and their mother, all safe. Praise be." Moisture appeared in the comer of his eye. He wiped it away brusquely. "And you, Josua, look at you. You are practically dancing. Who would have thought fatherhood would suit you so?"

The prince still smiled, but something more serious was beneath. "I have something to live for, now, Isgrimnur. I did not understand it would be like this. They must come to no harm. You should see them-perfect, perfect."

"I will see them." Isgrimnur began struggling with his covers.

"You will not!" Josua was shocked. "You will not get out of that bed. Your ribs ..."

"Are still where they're supposed to be. They've just been dented by a tipped-over horse. I've felt worse. Most of the punishment was taken by my head, and that is all bone, anyway."

Josua had grasped Isgrimnur's broad shoulders, and for a moment it seemed that he would actually try to wrestle the duke back into bed. Reluctantly, he let go. "You're being foolish," he said. "They are not going anywhere."

"Nor will I be either if I never move around." Grunting with pain, Isgrimnur put his bare feet down on the cold stone floor. "I saw what happened to my father Isbeorn. When he was thrown from his horse, he stayed in bed the whole winter. After that he could never walk again."

"Oh, goodness. What is he ... what is he doing?" Father Strangyeard had appeared in the doorway, and was staring at the duke with profound unhappiness.

"He is getting up to see the children," said Josua in a tone of resignation.

"But ... but ..."

"Blast you, Strangyeard, you sound like a chicken," Isgrimnur growled. "Make yourself useful. Get me something to sit on. I am not such a fool that I am going to stand up in there while I make faces at Josua's heirs."

The priest, alarmed, hurried back out again.

"Now come and help me, Josua. It's too bad we don't have one of those Nabbanai harnesses for lifting an armored man onto a horse."

The prince braced himself against the edge of the bed. Isgrimnur grabbed Josua's belt and pulled himself upright. By the time he was standing, the duke was breathing heavily.