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He turned, and the flash, bang and whining ricochet were simultaneous. The lead ball had struck one of the merlons he'd been about to climb between. He froze.
'Nobody move, or the next one takes off a head,' came a shout from the same direction as the shot, followed by hurried footsteps.
'Don't move or speak;' the Irishman hissed in Old Norse. Bugge nodded.
'Oh, Jesus, it's Duffy!' exclaimed a voice Duffy recognized after a moment as Bluto's. 'Just what the hell are you doing, you troublesome son of a bitch?' Bluto hobbled up, accompanied by a burly guard who carried a fresh matchlock and blew vigilantly on the glowing end of the cord.>The Irishman stared at him in disbelief, then gulped some of the wine. He shook his head, laughing in spite of himself. His laughter grew like a rolling snowball, until he was leaning forward on the table and gasping, with tears running from the corners of his eyes. He tried to speak, but managed only, '...Parade. .. .damned clowns.. .funny hats.'
Aurelianus hadn't even smiled. 'So we won't be entirely alone,' he said.
Duffy sniffled and wiped his eyes. 'Right. And how many men will Ibrahim have?'
'Aside from his.. .bodyguards? I don't know. Not many, since of course he doesn't want to be seen.' He shrugged. 'And after the deadlock breaks - who can tell? A lot of sorcerous pressure has built up on both sides; both of the forces will change, out there tonight, when the King of the West joins the battle.'
After opening his mouth, Duffy decided not to pursue it. Instead he said, 'I'm not sure I'm even ready for these bodyguards.'
'No, you're not,' Aurelianus agreed. 'But you will be, when you're carrying the right sword. That blade you're wearing now is fine for poking holes in Turkish soldiers, but if you're going to face.. .well, those other things, you need a sword they'll fear, one that can cut through their flinty flesh.'
The Irishman saw Aurelianus' direction and sighed. 'Calad Bolg.'
Exactly. Now listen - you get some sleep, it's only about a quarter of eight. I'll -,
'Sleep?' Duffy's momentary mirth had evaporated completely. He felt scared and vaguely nauseated, and rubbed his face with his hands. 'Is that a joke?'
'Rest, at least. I'll fetch Bugge and his men, and the King, and get the sword, and come back here. We'd better head out at roughly eleven.'
Duffy stood up, wishing he'd left the fortified wine alone. Am I bound to do this? he wondered. Well, if Merlin wants me to.. .But why should I care what Merlin wants? Does he care what I want? Has he ever? Well, to hell with the old-wizard, then - you're still a soldier, aren't you? All the bright, vague dreams of a slate-roofed cottage in Ireland died last night, fell on a knife in a shabby room. If you aren't a soldier, my lad, dedicated to fighting the Turks, I don't think you're anything at all.
'Very well,' he said, very quietly. 'I'll try to get some rest.'
Aurelianus laid his hand briefly on Duffy's shoulder, then left. A moment later the Irishman heard the horse's hoofbeats recede away up the street.
Under the rain-drummed roof of a lean-to that had been added onto the side of the southern barracks, Rikard Bugge hummed a dreary tune and pounded his dagger again and again into the barrack wall. Soldiers, trying to sleep on the other side, had several times come round to the lean-to's door and tried to get him to stop, but he never looked up or even stopped humming. The other Vikings, sprawled on straw-filled sacks in the slant-roofed structure, stared at their captain sympathetically. They knew well what was bothering him. They had all come on a long and troublesome, if not particularly risky, journey in order to defend the tomb of Balder against Surter and the legions of Muspelheim; and they had found the tomb, and Surter was now camped not three miles south - but the men in charge would not let them fight.
So they'd languished for several months in this hurriedly built shed, oiling and sharpening their weapons more from force of habit than any hope of using them.
Wham. Wham. WHAM. Bugge's dagger-blows had been gradually increasing in force, and he put his shoulder into the final one, punching the blade right through the wall up to the hilt. There were muffled shouts from the other side, but Bugge ignored them and stood up to face his men.
'We have,' he said, 'been patient. And we are stowed here like chickens in a coop while the dogs go hunting. We have waited for Sigmund to lead us into battle, and all he does is drink and make the old woman at the inn cry. We have obeyed the wishes of the little man who masqueraded as Odin, and he mouths burning serpents and tells us to wait. We have waited long enough.' His men growled their agreement, grinning and hefting their swords. 'We will not be lulled into forgetting what Gardvord sent us here to do,' Bugge said. 'We will take action.'
'You have anticipated me,' Aurelianus said in his fluent Norse as he stepped noiselessly into the lean-to. 'The time for action, as you have observed, has arrived.'
Bugge scowled skeptically at the sorcerer. 'We know what needs to be done,' he said. 'We don't need your counsel.' The other Vikings frowned and nodded.
'Of course not,' agreed Aurelianus. 'I'm not here as an adviser, but as a messenger.'
Bugge waited several seconds. 'Well,' he barked finally, 'what is your message?'
The wizard fixed the captain with an intense stare. 'My message is from Sigmund, whom you were sent here to obey, as you doubtless recall. He has discovered a plot of the Muspelheimers to poison Balder's barrow by means of filthy southern magic, which Surter's chief wizard, Ibrahim, will perform outside our walls tonight. Sigmund will ride out to stop him, armed with Odin's own dwarf-wrought sword; he sent me to tell you that the period of waiting is at an end, and to arm yourselves and meet him two hours from now at the guardhouse down the street.'
Bugge let out a howl of joy and embraced Aurelianus, then shoved the wizard toward the door. 'Tell your master we'll be there,' he said. 'It may be that we'll have breakfast with the gods in Asgard, but we'll send Surter's magician to keep Hel company in the underworld!'
Aurelianus bowed and exited, then galloped away toward the Zimmermann Inn as a chorus of Viking war-songs began behind him.
Duffy was lying down on a cot the captain of the guard had told him he could use, but he was far from asleep, in spite of the extra cup of fortified wine the captain had insisted he drink. Odd, he thought as he stared at the low
ceiling, how I can't imagine death. I've seen a lot of it, cautiously flirted with it, seen it take more friends than I'll let myself think about, but I have no idea what it really is. Death. All the word conjures up is the old Tarot card image, a skeleton in a black robe, waving something ominous like an hourglass or a scythe. I wonder what we will be facing out there, besides wholesome Turkish soldiers. Ibrahim's bodyguards.. .1 don't remember the fight in the Vienna woods, but I suppose they'll be like the things that flew over me that night on the south shore of the Neusiedler Lake, speaking some eastern tongue, and destroyed Yount's hides-wagons.
Then his stomach went cold at a sudden horrible comprehension. Good Jesus, Duffy thought, that was hini. I had supposed, mercifully hoped, that he was dead. God only knows how old Yount escaped those demons and made his way, mad but alive, to Vienna, to be given the village idiot's job of driving the nightshift corpse wagon; to be still, by some ghastly cosmic joke, a dealer in hides. Recoiling from these thoughts, the Irishman cast his mind's eye back again to the skeletal image of death. I guess it's not so bad, he decided hesitantly. Clearly there are worse cards in the deck.
