Dark Border 04 Ingulf the Mad by Paul Edwin Zimmer

Author:Paul Edwin Zimmer [Zimmer, Paul Edwin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy; science fiction
ISBN: 9780441370948
Google: zLGsAAAACAAJ
Publisher: Ace
Published: 1989-01-01T22:00:00+00:00

Vildern’s men marched toward the mail-glinting mountain road, while Vildern wondered at the numbers waiting there. Had help come from the nearby forts? But that was impossible, for they would have had to march on the road. . . .

He recognized Grom Beardless, flanked by the chief officer left in charge at Klufbirk, and another man Vildern did not know. This was Grom’s doing, then. But where had Grom found so many? The message last night had said that Grom had two hundred men (and a chain of a thousand slaves) but there was certainly more than three times that here. . . .

Grom came down the hill to meet him, the bright blue eyes, usually so cold, beaming like a boy’s. He grinned.

“I hear you’re in command now,” Grom’s soft voice murmured, “and I’m glad. It’s time. And I’d much rather deal with you than with any of these rear-licking wellborns.” Their slave-black hair had always been a bond between them, although Grom shaved his beard and kept his hair cut short enough to hide under helm and coif. “I’ll not try to steal it from you.”

Vildern would have looked sharply at any other man who had said that, suspecting a lie to put him off guard. Grom he trusted, alone among all the men he knew, except, perhaps, for Ulvard,

“Take the command,” he said, quickly. “I’ve not done that well with it, and perhaps you can find a way to strip the bones that I’ve missed. So far, I’ve been stopped at every step.”

Grom’s eyes turned cold, watchful; the boyish grin died.

“What are you trying to do? Cover yourself by putting the blame on me?”

“No!” Vildern felt despair well up in his throat, choking him. Trust between men was so fragile! “No. . . .” He shook his head. “I only hoped. . . . I don’t know if even you can handle this, but—if you can’t. . . .” His voice dried up in his throat. He heard the wolves again, closer now. They had been calling for hours, and at first he had rejoiced to hear them. “If you can’t, I certainly can’t! No one can. And I would rather serve you than lead.”

Grom’s eyes softened, though they did not return to the happy candor which had first met Vildern. Instead, there was a sadness now.

“I think I understand. Though many a man would mock you—mock us both.”

The wolves called again. Vildern chewed his lower lip. Though he was no Beast-Speaker, and had no Beast-Speaker with him, he could still feel the fear and urgency of those calls.

What could have gone wrong? It made no sense! He felt himself entangled in an invisible net of ill-luck whose webbing ran everywhere, though centered on the Islander. . . .

Looking up, he saw the Beast-Speaker Rothgalin, whom he left behind in Klufbirk, listening to the wolf-calls with an incredulous frown.

Indeed, all the officers and men of Klufbirk seemed to be here. . . .

“Who—who’s left in Klufbirk to

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