Per Anders looked from one of them to the next. He must have decided they weren’t joking, because he got up shaking his head and walked away from them. Hamnet Thyssen let out a sour chuckle. “See how we win friends wherever we go?” he said.

“He is a foolish man,” Marcovefa said.

“No, he’s just a man who’s never been up on top of the Glacier,” Hamnet said.

“A lucky man, in other words,” Ulric Skakki put in.

Marcovefa sent him a dirty look. “I never knew we were poor. I never knew we were missing so many things. You do not miss what you never had.” She licked her lips. “But I do miss man’s flesh. I had that up there, but it would turn your stomachs if I ate it here.”

“You’re right—it would,” the adventurer agreed. “I’ve eaten a lot of nasty things in my time. You can’t believe some of the things you’ll try if you get hungry enough. I never did turn cannibal, though. I haven’t got a lot to be proud of, but that’s something, by God.”

“Pooh!” Marcovefa said. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Man’s flesh isn’t nasty. Man’s flesh is good. Like I say, the best meat there is.”

“Well, you’re welcome to my body—but only after I’m done using it,” Ulric Skakki said.

“You’ve already got my body, but not for stewing, I hope,” Count Hamnet added. Marcovefa thought that was funny. After a moment, so did Hamnet. Winning a skirmish made everything look better.

THEY PUSHED SOUTH, picking up more Raumsdalians who wanted to fight the Rulers. Some of the men from armies the invaders had shattered had gone home. Others had turned bandit. Still others seemed willing to try again as long as they had someone to lead them against the enemy.

“Our own officers ran away,” one man angrily told Hamnet. “What the demon good are they if they won’t stand and fight?”

“They didn’t all run away,” a new recruit said. “But most of the ones who did fight got killed.” He paused, then admitted, “Watching them get killed set some of the others running.”

Count Hamnet made a grinding noise deep in his chest. “I sometimes wonder whether Raumsdalia deserves to live.”

“Who do you suppose appointed the officers?” Ulric answered his own question: “Sigvat did, that’s who. And what did Sigvat do when the Rulers got to Nidaros? He ran away, that’s what. It’s no wonder the officers take after their master.”

The new recruits stared at him. “If one of our captains heard you say something like that, he’d horse whip you,” said the soldier who’d complained that the officers had run.

“He might think so,” Ulric said lightly.

“Oh, he’d do it, all right. He’d . . .” The soldier seemed to take his first good look at the adventurer. He paused, then changed course: “Well, maybe not. He was mighty fond of his own skin.”

“A sensible fellow,” Ulric said. “Of course, if we were all that fond of our own skins, nobody would ever hurt anybody else for fear of what would happen to him. But it doesn’t work that way, worse luck.”

“We’ve both got the scars to prove it,” Hamnet said, and Ulric nodded. Hamnet went on, “Better to dish them out than to wait while they heal up, though.” Ulric Skakki nodded again. So did the Raumsdalian soldiers rejoining the fight.

And so did Trasamund. “Always better to give than to receive,” he said, and reached over his shoulder to touch the hilt of his two-handed sword.

“I have a question,” Hamnet said. Everybody looked at him. He asked it: “How long before the Rulers figure out they’ve got trouble behind them as well as in front of them? What do they do once they realize it?”

“That’s two questions,” Ulric pointed out.

“If you’ve got two answers, I’ll listen to them,” Count Hamnet said.

Ulric made as if to turn out his pockets and go through his belt pouches. Hamnet Thyssen waited. He knew the adventurer was trying to annoy him, and would win a point if he succeeded. When Hamnet just stood there, Ulric said, “My guess is, it won’t be long. And when they do realize it, they’ll turn on us. It’s not like they’ve got any reason to be afraid of Sigvat.”

“Too right it isn’t,” Hamnet said. “And that’s about what I was thinking, too. We’ve better be ready for the worst they can do to us.”

“Why are you telling me? You need to talk to your lady love,” Ulric said. “Without her, the best we can hope for is to hightail it off to some place where the Rulers won’t come for a while.”

“Not so bad as that.” But Trasamund didn’t sound as if he believed it himself.

“We usually say things won’t be so bad when we bump up against the Rulers,” Ulric said. “And they usually aren’t. They’re usually worse.”

Trasamund had brightened till he finished. Then the jarl glowered at him. “Curse it, why can’t you leave that part out?”

“Because I’m trying to tell the truth?” Ulric suggested. “I know Bizogots don’t always understand the word—”

“What do you mean?” Trasamund said indignantly.

“Oh, you know it’s true as well as I do.” Ulric sounded impatient, to say nothing of tired. “What gets you people through the winters up there except lies swapped back and forth? Don’t tell me any different, either. I know better. Anyone who’s passed a winter up on the plains knows better.”

“Those are just for the sport of it. Nobody believes them. Nobody expects to believe them,” Trasamund said. “When we need to tell the truth, we can do it as well as anybody else. I’ve heard plenty of Raumsdalian liars, too.” He fixed Ulric with a significant stare.

“Who, me?” the adventurer said. “If you can prove anything I’ve ever said is a lie, go ahead and do it.”

“How am I supposed to? You talk about places nobody else has ever been to. You’re the only one who knows if there’s any truth in you at all.”

“Hamnet’s been to some of those places,” Ulric said. “He knows whether I’m telling the truth or not.”

Thus prodded, Hamnet said, “I’ve told you before, Trasamund: Ulric hasn’t lied about any places where I’ve been, anyhow. I would have let you—and him—know about it if he had.”

“Huh.” Trasamund didn’t want to believe him, either. “But he talks about places you’ve never seen, too, Thyssen. As far as anybody knows, he’s making all that up as he goes along.”

“I don’t think so, and I’ll tell you why,” Count Hamnet said. Trasamund could have looked no more dubious had he practiced in front of a mirror. Ignoring his expression, Hamnet went on, “Here’s why. When we went up onto the Glacier, Ulric could talk with the people we met there. How? Because he’d run into Bizogots who spoke a dialect like theirs way over by the western mountains.”

“He didn’t talk about that before we went up onto the Glacier,” Trasamund protested.

“No, but he’d done it. He’s done some things you haven’t done, Your Ferocity, and seen some things you haven’t seen, and you might as well get used to it,” Hamnet said.

“Oh, don’t tell him that,” Ulric said. “Now I’ll be able to lie as much as I please, and he’ll have to swallow all of it. Where’s the challenge in that? Where’s the sport? Making somebody believe a really juicy lie shouldn’t be easy. You should have to work at it.”

Count Hamnet exhaled through his nose. “You’re not helping, you know.”

“How about that?” Ulric said cheerfully. “Anybody would think I was trying to be difficult or something.”

“Anybody would think you were trying to be Skakki,” Trasamund said. Ulric bowed, as if at a compliment. Trasamund threw his hands in the air.

MARCOVEFA KEPT LOOKING back over her left shoulder so often that Hamnet asked, “Did you get a crick in your neck when you slept last night?”

“No.” She shook her head. “I keep looking to find the way north.”

He pointed out the obvious: “We’re riding south.”

“Not always,” Marcovefa said.

“What does that mean? What do you sense?” Hamnet asked.