by Ben Galley
‘Our business is in Dathazh.’
‘Come for the Tourney, is it? A lot of you strangers come through here. Keep themselves to themselves in most cases.’
‘As do we.’
‘Is that so?’
Mithrid heard a trap. Remina had once favoured such a trick: leading Mithrid into a conversation only one side knew the script of.
‘I should hope so!’ brayed the man. He ran a hand through his stripe of yellow hair and sighed. ‘Alas, not all strangers are like you. A rumour is travelling the plains. A rumour of strangers who aren’t so respectful of our lands and laws. Strangers wearing strange armour. Pale faces from the west. Strangers who come with trespass in mind and murder in their hearts. Strangers the Dusk God knows as enemies.’
‘A shame,’ Farden grunted. ‘If we see any of them, we’ll be sure to let you know.’
‘That would serve you well,’ the Cathak warned. ‘A price has been put on their heads, you see.’
‘How high a price?’ Mithrid asked, curiosity overcoming her caution.
That sickly grin of the Cathak’s showed itself even wider. ‘Well, my lady of fire. The greatest price of all: death.’
‘How inconvenient. For them, of course,’ replied Mithrid.
‘Of course.’
‘Well,’ Durnus surmised. ‘It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance…?’
The man stood quickly, stretching as tall as he could muster. ‘You will call me Lord Oselov. Son of the High Cathak Tartavor himself. And you will remember my name.’
‘Curse it. Already forgotten it,’ Farden teased.
The man’s sword came halfway from his scabbard. Mithrid tensed, but Farden, Durnus, and Aspala barely flinched. Mithrid’s eyes darted around the table, waiting for them to pounce. They seemed far too relaxed. The opposite of the Cathak cronies, each a hair from lunging with their blades.
Lord Oselov dropped his act. ‘You insult me as you have my father. Enough play! I know who you are.’
Farden was so calm he sipped from his flagon. ‘Oslo, was it?’
‘Lord Oselov! You have a debt to pay the Dusk God. I will do what my father has not and collect that debt.’
Farden held the lord’s gaze until the man could be seen turning the colour of beetroot.
‘Sorry,’ said the mage. ‘One more time, then I’ll have it.’
Oselov’s curved sword flowed from the scabbard, drawing shouts from the stewards and drinkers alike. Whatever strike Oselov had planned, he halted in midair. It took Mithrid a moment to realise why.
Without her – or possibly anyone – seeing, the mage had switched his knife between hands. Much to Oselov’s surprise, as soon as he drew his sword, Farden hooked the tip of the knife between the very soft and tender area between his legs. Oselov stood on tiptoes trying to avoid its point.
‘I would think about that very, very hard if I were you, Lord Oslo,’ Farden warned. ‘It would be a shame to break the Spoke’s rules now, wouldn’t it?’
Shaking with outrage, Oselov’s eyes darted around, trying to find a solution to his problem. While he clearly hoped it would be a violent solution, the arrival of a dark, ominous shadow behind him drained the fight out of him.
‘Speak more, pink-flesh, and I will have fresh meat at last,’ spoke Warbringer. Her sharp teeth moved very close to his ear.
Oselov visibly swallowed, making quite the trembling show of sheathing his sword.
‘We will keep the rules. You can’t stay here forever, strangers.’
With much cursing and pounding fists on his cronies, Lord Oselov made a hasty exit from the Spoke’s tavern.
‘Curse these Cathak,’ Farden muttered.
‘He is right, you know, we cannot stay here forever.’
Over the bustle of the tavern and the bard’s hastily resumed wailing, Mithrid could hear a familiar wail of a horn. One that she had heard in the Bronzewood. It sent a shiver running down her spine.
Aspala heard it too. ‘I get the feeling there are more of them outside.’
‘Me too,’ Mithrid affirmed. All eyes lingered on them. The stewards were huddling together, whispering like a nest of snakes. ‘And I don’t think we’re welcome in here any more.’
‘Looks like we’ll be leaving before sunset. No rest for the wicked.’
‘Is that what we are?’ Aspala asked.
‘To the Cathak.’
‘And Emaneska, apparently,’ added Mithrid.
Farden growled quietly. The subject of Loki and Krauslung must have weighed on him, too.
Aspala put her half-sword on the table. ‘What is the plan?’
Farden signalled for a steward. ‘We keep moving. If these Cathak want to stop us, then let them try.’
‘You must be mad,’ their steward greeted them, standing as far as possible from their table while still being in earshot. He did not look impressed. ‘Do you know who that is? They are Cathak! That is the son of—’
‘No, and I don’t care. Where’s the back door to this place?’
The steward pointed irritably past the willow tree and towards a dark hole between the misshapen architecture. ‘There. Now, please go.’
‘With pleasure,’ Farden replied.
Whether it was the violence or the fact that they were leaving that stirred Farden, Mithrid didn’t know, but the mage was already striding through the tables, not caring for the chairs he knocked over. Warbringer didn’t delay following him. Durnus neither.
Aspala and Mithrid looked to each other. Mithrid felt a lack of breath in her lungs.
‘Do you ever stop being nervous before a fight?’ she asked.
‘No,’ Aspala replied. ‘If you do, you’re not doing it right, or so my mother taught me.’
Mithrid muttered a curse beneath her breath and got to her feet. Her axe felt heavy in her hands as she followed Farden and the others out of the Spoke.
Twisting this way and that through the confusing hallways, weak sunlight called them outwards, where the baying of the beasts around the Spoke was strangely silent.
Mithrid emerged into the fading daylight behind the others and wondered what had stopped in the doorway. She soon saw why.
The coelos, sheep, and various other beasts Mithrid didn’t recognise were being led quietly away from their stalls and troughs. Out of sight and out of the way. Beyond the tangled foundations of the Spoke, Mithrid saw them: a swathe of Cathak waiting outside the Spoke. Browns, yellows, and blues, their colours were unmistakable. Every one of them wore a confounded skull mask. Their numbers were considerable. Mithrid guessed at perhaps a hundred. A score of them sat upon their prize cows. Their horns had been dyed blue and filed sharp. Leather armour draped them.
Lord Oselov sat astride no cow. To Mithrid, the beast looked stuck halfway between a sabrecat and a salamander. She briefly pondered what animals had lain together to create such a monstrosity. It had broad scales down its flanks and ridged back, yet coarse, matted hair covered its underside and stout legs. Saliva dripped from its bared fangs.
There was now a scythe in Oselov’s hands. It was firmly pointed at Farden.
‘You spat in the face of the Dusk God one last time, strangers! You have insulted our lands. Our brothers. Our Bronzewood. My father will exact the Dusk God’s righteous vengeance upon you.’
‘You were right, Aspala,’ Farden sighed. ‘The religious ones really are the worst. If you’re going to be a bandit, just be a damn bandit.’
‘Surrender now or suffer our holy wrath!’
‘You know we have a dragon, right?’ Farden called out.
Half the heads of the Cathak immediately pointed upwards. But the sky was awkwardly clear.
‘Somewhere,’ Farden muttered so only the others could hear.
‘Where is she?’ whispered Mithrid.
Farden closed his eyes, reaching out with his mind. ‘I don’t know.’
Lord Oselov was not as dumb as his bearing suggested. He soon cottoned on. ‘I see no beast other tha
n that great thing beside you. You seem all alone to me.’
‘What’s the plan, Farden?’
‘Fight,’ he said.
‘But we have no dragon and you have no magick.’
Durnus’ gaze snapped around, flitting between Mithrid and the mage. ‘What did you say?’
‘I am quite aware of that,’ Farden replied sharply.
‘Surrender your weapons, your armour, and yourselves, and we will see the Dusk God’s glorious mercy visited upon you.’
Farden held Loki’s dagger to his forehead, the blade and hilt up. ‘For Modren,’ he hissed, as he started walking towards the lines of Cathak.
‘Farden?’
‘But there’s too many, surely?’ said Aspala.
‘Not likely,’ Durnus snorted. He took a deep lungful of air as he tested his own magick with a clench of his skeletal fist. Mithrid felt it billow around her as a breeze. ‘Even I do not dare imagine how many souls that mage has taken with a blade or his bare hands.’
Warbringer seemed to relish the thought. She kept her palms flat and her hammer upright and followed behind the mage.
They approached the lines at so gradual a speed it did not seem to be a charge. With Farden’s knife out in what looked like surrender, most of the Cathak began to chant in premature victory. Only a few stepped up to seize him.
Oselov was already grinning. ‘Wise, to submit so willingly! That armour will look just fine on my arms, methinks!’
Scythes, Mithrid would soon learn, were cumbersome weapons. Due to their reach, they needed a lot of room to swing. They also required speed, and the right angle to be of devastating use. Up close, the beaklike blades were more dangerous to their owner than a foe. The Cathak wore curved shortswords, but Mithrid saw only a few drawn. Their confidence was their downfall, and the mage mocked them harshly for it. She watched on with mouth agape as Farden went to work.
Farden raised the knife so casually, the Cathak fighter looked utterly confused as it passed his open hand, flipped tip over pommel, and abruptly punched a bloody hole in his throat. After breaking the nose of the next man with his vambrace, Farden stretched, aimed, and threw. Loki’s knife was a gold blur that ended abruptly in Lord Oselov’s stomach. He howled with pain, toppling from his saddle and unleashing his strange beast.
Two more Cathak charged Farden. He bent a knee to duck their scythes. As they clanged above his head, he seized the swords in each of their belts and drew them into the daylight. Their steel blades were sharp enough to lop the arms from both men. They fell screaming. Farden stepped over them, swords wide and ready. Mithrid had, of course, seen him fight before, but without magick, the Forever King was a different beast. Savage.
Behind him, Warbringer entered the fray. Cathak flew over the heads of their comrades and landed with screams and sickening crunches. A mist of blood arose as she twirled Voidaran in her hands, the hammer screaming a war song.
Mithrid charged. Aspala ran at her heels, half-sword levelled at a now panicking crowd of enemies. The girl felt heat wash over her as Durnus began to unleash his magick. Forks of lightning lanced through the crowds. The cries of the Spoke joined the howls of the Cathak. Mithrid got the impression mages were far and few in those lands, especially those of the calibre of Durnus.
Mithrid ruined her first swing. The Cathak woman she had aimed to behead caught a glancing blow instead, still spinning to the ground but alive. Aspala dispatched her with a vicious boot to the face. That counted for a lot when Aspala’s foot was more hoof.
‘Steady, Mith!’ she warned. Her blade flashed, spilling a fellow’s guts to the grass.
Mithrid steeled her stomach, put the revulsion and panic behind her, and fought like she had learned to on the walls of Scalussen. Eyrum and Hereni’s staccato orders filled her mind. Pivot, parry, strike. Her axe bit deep into a man’s chest. She twisted it free with a crack of bone and brought the momentum up between another’s legs. A blade dug into her armour. Before Mithrid could turn around to deal with the bastard, the Cathak was riddled with lightning. Blue light burst from his eyes. He fell, revealing Durnus weaving his spells. He spared her a moment to nod before unleashing his next spell.
Mithrid found Farden in the chaos. He was a blur of gold and blood-red who was determined to reach Lord Oselov. The man’s cronies were trying to keep him upright. Several of them had already begun to flee. Their cows galloped through the crowds with abandon. It was then that Oselov’s strange beast came raging through the ranks. It slavered as if rabid, and the mage had captured its frenzied attention.
‘Farden!’ Mithrid warned.
Fortunately, he had already seen it coming. Steel clashed against its claws as he fended off its charge. Mithrid looked for an opportunity to hurl her axe, but she kept needing it to stay alive.
Warbringer roared something unintelligible as she barrelled through the fray towards the beast. The thing never saw her sharp horns coming until they had punctured its scales and were buried in its ribs. Warbringer kept charging, pushing the beast a dozen feet until rearing upright. Blood painted her horns.
That moment broke the Cathak. A good number of them ran for the sanctuary of the Spoke, while the rest broke across the grasslands. Those who rode upon beasts knocked their brethren aside as they scarpered. But not before Farden had found his prey.
Mithrid had at last caught up with him. The mage had a fresh cut across his cheek. A curtain of blood ran down his jaw. He was too focused on Lord Oselov to notice Mithrid by his side.
Oselov gurgled in pain as Farden withdrew the knife.
‘You fucking bastards,’ the Cathak cursed. Bloody spittle decorated his chin. Despite all the pain, he had a gleeful shine to his watering eyes. ‘You don’t know what you’ve done. You don’t know who I am! What my father and I will do to you when we find you. You’ll see me strutting in that armour of yours before we cook you alive.’
‘And that,’ Farden said between grit teeth. ‘That is what you shouldn’t have said, because now I can’t trust you to stay put and not follow us, can I?’
Oselov chose foolishness instead of understanding what Farden was offering. ‘I’ll see you die slowly for your insult! The Dusk God will devour your soul for a thousand years!’
Farden pointed the knife close to his face. The light vanished from the lord’s eyes as he realised Farden’s intentions.
‘You wouldn’t dare,’ he said. A spiteful final curse balanced on his lips, but it was never voiced. The mage dragged the blade across Oselov’s throat.
Farden didn’t stay to watch Oselov gurgle. He stood up and began to wipe the blood from his knife. ‘Do you have a problem with my lack of mercy, Mithrid?’ asked Farden as he put the blade back through his belt.
She was asking herself the same question. She watched the lord drift into death.
‘Take it from somebody who’s lived long enough to know,’ added Farden. ‘Loose threads need cutting. We seek to save these people from Loki as well as Emaneska. This lord’s revenge would have hindered us.’
‘Let’s hope you haven’t caused something worse by killing him,’ Mithrid said as she sheathed her axe. ‘All of this better be worth the kingdom you’re fighting for, Farden.’
The threat was a lie. Mithrid walked away to hide her shaking hands. She couldn’t deny the thrill of survival. The same dark love of battle she had first experienced in Efjar had returned.
It was under hundreds of watchful, narrowed eyes of man and beast that they departed. Their shadows long against the blood-soaked grass, the strangers took their leave of the Spoke and its troubles. Mithrid hoped they wouldn’t follow them.
PART TWO
PATHS CHOSEN
CHAPTER 10
THE HUNTED
It was on this day the Noose God gifted intrepid Sigrimur his mighty spear, and the task of protecting humankind after the departure of gods and daemons. But Sigrimur was beset by envy on all sides. His family slain by a covetous king, he turned to the wilderness, lying in
wait like a beast for his vengeance. At last, Sigrimur’s patience was rewarded. After slaying his avowed enemy, he prospered for many decades, becoming rich and proud off his own legend. In return for wasting his gods-given mantle, the Noose God, in his anger, took Sigrimur’s spear and struck him down. The fate of the world was instead entrusted to the ancient Scalussen smiths, who forged the armour of the Knights of the Nine.
FROM THE ‘TRUE TALE OF SIGRIMUR’, A LESSER-KNOWN EDDA OF EASTEREALM
They had washed the decks with bucket after bucket of seawater, yet still the stains of blue leviathan blood remained, mixed purple with the ichor of sailors, soldiers, and mages. Beyond the stains, the rest of the decks were a mess of broken rigging, smashed wood, and corpses still to be hauled away. A dragon lay dead and broken over the midships of the Summer’s Fury.
Elessi stood above the carnage with Lerel. Both of them were hollow-eyed, exhausted, and tired of keeping watch. Slowly but surely, the citizens who had spent the escape from Krauslung deep in the bookship’s hold were emerging for sunlight and fresh air. Their faces were aghast. Full of fear. Children and those who had lost loved ones cried pitifully.
There was something deeply wrong about so much danger being present on a day as fine as this. Over the flat ocean, the cloudless sun cast its diamonds of shimmering light. To their starboard, nothing but water ruled for as far as the eye could see. Storms like false mountains sat low on the horizon. Barely any swell divided the endless blue. White birds wheeled alongside the dragons that kept watch as far from the seawater as possible.
To port lay a sharp hook of coastline that was peculiar, to say the least. Each cliff and shore was made of perfect columns of basalt rock. Between them, giant thrusts of quartz crystal jutted like spears from a shield wall. Hidden beaches of white sand and crushed crystal sat between these great upthrusts of oddly organised rock.
The leviathans had disappeared for now. Hopefully sated upon the three ships they had broken over the last day and night. Four vessels destroyed altogether, including the old Waveblade. Elessi winced. It felt horrible to feel such a thing, yet still preferable to the dread she felt for the return of the monsters.