It was time.
He leapt once, twice, thrice, before reaching the Great Chain. He knew others had descended it, and he tried the trick himself. He was by no means immune to its energies. He hopped from link to link, despite the pain it caused. Some would think he’d fled, and indeed he heard triumphant guffaws from the trolls. But he was implementing his most desperate plan.
Even as he moved, he pulled forth A Tumult of Trees on Peculiar Peaks.
In his mind’s eye he hovered over misty spires and saw the tiny figure of the self portrait of the Sage Painter, he who was often called Meteor-Plum, after the original.
Meteor-Plum said, “You do not look as if you bear good news.”
“I must implement the last contingency,” said Walking Stick.
“I still do not advise it.”
“Nonetheless. Gaunt, Bone, Snow Pine, and my experience at Penglai proved that a young Western dragon could awaken a sleeping Eastern elder. It is time to test the reverse.”
“She is ready.”
Bone, Snow Pine, and Flint reached Innocence and A-Girl-Is-A-Joy. Innocence had his arm around Joy, but it was clear to Bone that Joy was the one whose power was at work.
“Daughter?” Snow Pine said.
“Mother,” Joy said. “Innocence gave me the power of the Heavenwalls.”
“He what?” Bone said.
“I’m not certain that was a good idea,” Joy said. “Because I’m still the Runethane. I’m having difficulty reconciling the powers. Let alone quieting the arkendrakes.”
“I did what I had to do,” Innocence said.
Bone put his hand on his shoulder. “I know, son.”
Snow Pine took up the side opposite Innocence. “I believe in you, daughter.”
There came a blast of cold wind, and raindrops hit their faces. They all looked up, even Joy.
Walking Stick was descending the Great Chain.
“At this rate,” Bone said, “they should really add a rope bridge—”
“Look,” Flint said.
Insubstantial at first, but gaining solidity as it flowed forth, an Eastern dragon coiled up from Walking Stick’s location. She was a thing of beauty and majesty, green and blue, scales like river stones, wings like clouds. Her eyes were wise and bright, like pools of moonlit mountain water.
And she had doomed them all, Bone thought.
A renewed rumbling commenced beneath their feet.
“What?” Snow Pine said.
“You should know,” Bone said. “We’ve seen this before. A young dragon awakening an arkendrake of the opposite sex.”
“Oh,” Snow Pine said. “We’re dead, aren’t we?”
But the Eastern dragon spoke, its voice falling like soft rain, and it was not speaking to them. You who are called Staraxe, I am Yewan Long, and I have come to stir you. For many centuries, little beings have warred over your broken isles, and even your younger brothers Sunsword and Moonspear still hope to claim your energies. It is time to end their conflict. Rise a little and join me in the sky.
Gaunt, Northwing, Katta, and Haytham fell as an earthquake rocked the land, and the volcano Surtfell roared to renewed life.
Gaunt said, “What has happened? Are the dragons awakening? Is everyone dead?”
“Can’t tell you now!” Northwing said, for the shaman’s spirit was back in its true body. “Someone’s using a mastodon to crush a sabercat. We need to move inland. Do you not sense it? Death hanging near us?”
“I do,” said Katta. “As if in a nearby reality we had already perished.”
“It changes . . .” hummed a voice, echoing amid hundreds of crystals.
A shadowy figure appeared in the mass of icicles, surrounded by a border of rainbow reflections.
“He awakens . . .” said the voice. “Fiddler, you may pass.”
Joy said, “I’ve been trying to calm the Svardmark and Spydbanen dragons. But Yewan Long is waking up the dragon of Oxiland! I don’t think I can control it. . . .”
Suddenly Walking Stick was there.
“Nice to see you,” Bone said. “Are you trying to kill us all?”
“No,” Walking Stick said. “Not us. All depends on Yewan Long—and on you, Joy. You have the power of the Chain.”
“And the Heavenwalls,” Joy groaned.
Walking Stick’s eyebrows rose. Bone was not above enjoying seeing the man shocked. “Indeed?” Walking Stick said. “That should make matters easier. . . .”
“It doesn’t!”
The island rose beneath them.
Bone fell to his knees and looked all around. The many islands and skerries of the Splintrevej were all rising, water rushing away. The coast expanded, revealing mud, silt, and starfish. He noted the barnacled ruins of a stave church upon the sunken headland.
Indeed, it was a headland in more ways than one. Bone registered a terrifying image of a vast draconic skull rising from the waters.
Walking Stick said, “Calm yourself, Joy!”
Innocence said, “Surely you’re joking, Shifu!”
“No! Yewan Long is calling to Staraxe only, making him rise for a singular purpose. You must help keep the other arkendrakes subdued.”
“Ah,” Flint objected, “I am not certain a gigantic draconic landmass is a precision instrument. . . .”
“I can’t control the two powers!” Joy yelled. “They’re getting away from me!”
“Then . . .” Innocence said, taking her hand. “Give one of the powers to someone else. It can’t be me, anymore. But we know it can be done. Give it to someone you trust, someone who can help you.”
Hand shaking, Joy reached out and grabbed Snow Pine’s arm.
“Mother,” Joy gasped, “Snow Pine. I name you the bearer of the Heavenwall Mandate.”
“What—” Snow Pine shrieked as power flowed into her.
Gaunt, Haytham, Katta, and Northwing emerged from the Straits of Tid in the ragged remnants of a drowned stave church. The whole world was shaking, and the land was rising into the storm-choked sky.
“You were right,” Northwing told Gaunt. “That sunken spot of power isn’t sunken anymore.”
“What have they done to my balloon?” Haytham demanded.
“I do not perceive the efrit,” Katta said. “This island is remarkably free of anything sinister, let alone evil.”
“That will be comforting when the earthquakes kill us,” Northwing said.
“Let’s get to the Chain,” Gaunt said.
They ran as fast as they could manage, ground trembling underfoot.
“Gaunt!” Any relief Bone felt evaporated with the knowledge Gaunt would share his fate. They were rising into the sky, toward the clouds . . . any more shaking and they would all topple into the sea. He craned his head and saw the slaughter over on Svardmark pause as trolls and men stared up at doom incarnate.
“Gaunt!” he cried, embracing her. “What are you doing here?”
“How can we help?” she asked. “I have this feeling I am supposed to keep the dragons from rising.”
“That’s what Snow Pine and Joy are attempting. Or rather they are trying to calm two out of three.”
They joined the group at the Chain.
“I . . .” Snow Pine said. “I can’t do it . . . it’s too much. . . .”
“We have to . . .” Joy said.
“Mother!” Innocence said.
“I feel as though we were just together,” Gaunt said, smiling weakly at him, “and nearly lost each other. I remember music.” She raised her fiddle. “I was trained to play by a fossegrim. Perhaps it can help.”
She played. She improvised a song that seemed to Bone all about loved ones united, mates, friends, mothers, and children, here at the world’s end. And whether it helped calm the dragons or simply inspired the Runethane and the chosen of the Heavenwalls, Joy and Snow Pine took heart.
“Mother,” Joy said, new confidence in her voice, “you tame Moonspear. I have Sunsword.”
“Yes . . .”
The arkendrake Staraxe breathed. As with a voice of ten thousand thunderclaps, Bone heard two words.
NO.
MORE.
The Chain broke. Its rings flew across the waters, and its energies across the sky. The thunderclouds of the Karvak shamans were rent.
Sleep now, Staraxe, sang Yewan Long, and dream of love. I may yet come to you, one day. . . .
They were descending now, but Bone could see the promontory of Svardmark as they sped past.
The clouds were gone. The summer sun blazed upon the army of trolls.
In one heartbeat the trolls became inert, and the once flat-topped promontory now resembled a quarry, filled with thousands of piles of rubble.
Staraxe returned to the sea.
Gaunt awakened, waterlogged fiddle in hand, on the slopes of a spindly mountain. Far above, she saw a monastery wreathed by mist.
“What?” she said, coughing. “Here?” Her retching tasted of salt.
“You are all right, Mother!” said Innocence. “Father pulled you out?”
“I did!” said Peik, whom Gaunt remembered from Klarvik. “She did such honor to my father’s fiddle, I had to help her. I fought off sharks and men and shark-men. I never lie.”
“Peik never gave me any credit, either,” Imago Bone said nearby, squeezing water from his clothes. “But he did help,” Bone added.
Gaunt groaned, seeing more companions approach. “We . . . we are all right?”
“Yes,” Walking Stick said. “I was quite thoroughly busy rescuing as many people from the island as I could. Inga and Malin helped, and Joy, despite her exhaustion. Steelfox rescued her sister, for reasons I cannot understand—”
“Don’t forget me, Katta, and Northwing,” Haytham said. “We did our part. As did Haboob, I understand, before we arrived.” He carried with him a charred, cold brazier, dripping with seawater.
“Be happy for the efrit,” Northwing said. “It’s free.”
“I seem to be losing all my companions,” Haytham sighed. “After what you told me about Corinna . . .”
Katta said, “There is a great shadow upon her, which falls upon many with power. She may never escape it, my friend. But we are with you.”
“You’ve got friends, Haytham,” Northwing said. “I feel like I’ve been to the deepest underworld beside you.”
“They’re right,” Gaunt said. “You are not alone, Haytham.” Gaunt looked past him to see Snow Pine. “Wherever fate, chance, or bad weather take us, we are all friends. . . .”
The former bandit, she who was once called Next-One-A-Boy, was staring up and around in wonder at the monastery. And at more than the monastery, Gaunt realized. Flint sat beside her upon a boulder, holding her hand . . .
. . . And the boulder sat at the edge of steel-gray waters, flowing in the midst of craggy straits. This mountain was an island now, and the other Peculiar Peaks were gone. Familiar-looking coastlines rose in their place.
“She . . . this place . . . what has happened?” Gaunt said.
“Let me try,” Innocence said. “The convulsion of forces destroyed the Scroll of Years, Mother. But Snow Pine, with her new powers, was able to rescue part of the world inside . . . or perhaps that world still exists, and she dragged over a fragment of it. The difference is academic now. The monastery now exists here, in Kantenjord, at the site of our battle.”
“Snow Pine’s powers?” Bone said. “So it’s true—she’s empress of Qiangguo now?”
Walking Stick said, “Rightful empress of Qiangguo. But there will be others who disagree. It will be a great struggle, making her reign possible.”
“Is that what she wants?”
“Think about it, Imago,” Gaunt said. “However it came about, who could be a better choice? She grew up a common woman, suffering what ordinary people suffer. She’s seen much of the world. She is fierce in doing what she thinks is right. What pampered prince could serve better?”
“I once told somebody,” Bone said, looking at Innocence, “that to become a ruler wasn’t necessarily a blessing. But I agree. If Snow Pine wants the job, there couldn’t be a better choice.”
“We may not live long enough to worry about it,” Innocence said. “The trolls are gone, and the Karvaks are distracted. But they still have a vast army, and Kantening allies. And the Chain was shattered, so Joy has lost her draconic powers, just as I have.”
Walking Stick said, “I go now to rally my own army. We have this new defensible position to retreat to—one they’re quite familiar with.”
“Let me go with you,” Inga spoke up.
“And me,” Malin said.
“And me!” Peik said. “I could fight a thousand Karvaks, and often have. Though there’s at least one,” he added with a glance at Steelfox, “I would fight beside.”
“I will go as well,” Katta said. “Northwing and Haytham, I suggest you rest. But a swim sounds invigorating.”
“All right,” said Walking Stick. “You four will be useful, if you are up to the swim. I will help you cross safely. Innocence?”
“Master, I prefer to stay with Joy . . . and my parents.”
Walking Stick nodded. “That is most proper.”
Once Walking Stick’s group plunged into the waters, Bone said, “Go talk to her, son. I’m sure she needs you. She’s gone from being godlike to becoming an ordinary human being. Well, mostly ordinary. Just as you have.”
Innocence nodded. Then, suddenly, he hugged Bone. “There is no one who is truly ordinary. You have taught me that.”
“I, ah, well, I am glad.”
He pounded Innocence’s back and let the boy go. Gaunt put her arm around Bone, eased him back down. He was clearly in bad shape but would recover. There was so much to worry about, and their reunited family was only the most immediate item. But looking at the sun spearing through the last of the Karvak shamans’ clouds, she could not help but smile.
There would be a tomorrow. Her family probably would be in it. That was enough.
CHAPTER 43
CHOSEN
Arnulf Pyre-Maker, Ottmar Bloodslake, and Kolli the Cackling strode through the army of Free Kantenjord like mowing farmers, a dwindling trail of Spydbanen warriors in their wake. The devastation of their forces was unexpected, the earthquakes uncomfortable, and the trolls’ sudden petrification unfortunate, yet the Three Wolves slaughtered merrily on. They’d come too far to do anything but enjoy the mayhem. And who knew what a few ferocious men might yet accomplish?
Yet now, as they tore through a batch of Ostoland irregulars and hacked down a gaggle of longbowmen, time seemed to slow for the Wolves. The sky changed, showing a rich scattering of stars and an aurora rippling skyward like a bridge. Soaring through that sky was a spear-wielding girl riding a narwhal. Shadowy shapes followed, riding flying horses with far too many legs. Attending her were two ravens.
Fierce-eyed Arnulf said, “What apparition is this?”
“Do I see Orm himself?” many-scarred Ottmar gasped. “And Torden and Verden? Do they come to aid us or challenge us?”
“And who is with them?” laughed Kolli, for either possibility amused him.
The voice of the Chooser of the Slain rang out. “They are the ones I chose, Wolf, to defy this Wolf-Time! I was called from across the centuries by the Vindir to be the final Chooser, a daughter of a time-flow in which Fimbulwinter was foiled. For even as a young child I had an imagination for dooms and battle. A natural inheritance, you might say! As Chooser I claimed these spirits and brought them backward in time to join the Vindir. Now they are here to fight this would-be Ragnarok. Among them are Nan of Love and Grief, and Freidar of the Sunlight! There are Alder of the Earthquake and Vuk Horsemaster and Havtor the Brave! There are Erik the Bright-Eyed, Ruvsa the Rose, Tangletop the Trickster, and Taper Tom the Clever! There too is Yngvarr the Blazing! So many others. And watching all are Huginn and Muninn, raven servants of Orm himself!”
And the Three Wolves saw the gods, and as one they ransacked thei
r memories. For a fleeting moment it seemed to them that not all these names were those they’d heard ’round the crackling hall-fires. The moment passed; they recognized all and knew their end was come. And Arnulf roared, and Ottmar grinned, and Kolli cackled. For they were as Kantenings of old that day, and even against gods they would fight on.
“You see, Rolf, old friend,” declared Kollr, Friend to Ravens’ Hunger, as the last Wolf toppled below the stars, “wherever your Swan keeps you. Our gods are violent.”
As screeching Charstalkers rose from the bodies and were speared and hacked by weapons full of starlight, Jokull the Vengeful said, “And now I am fulfilled.”
And Torfa the Wrathful smiled, and said, “But where is your friend? The Sabercat Warrior?”
“He sleeps in a blue sky above a green place,” said the god, “and may his days be as peaceful as our nights are bloody.” And he rode laughing after the Chooser toward the glittering place that was the past, and also home.
CHAPTER 44
THE MIDDLE
I remember how we arrived that noontime, amid the rock piles that once were trolls. Men and women were disassembling them to make barrows for their own dead. There were so many. Even the Spydbanen lords had fallen, though men whispered there was not a mark on them. So many cairns. Yet there was always more troll to go around.
They are now calling that promontory Trollhruga, by which I think they mean “troll-heap.”
But there was one troll who hadn’t perished from the sun, and one trollchangeling who had never feared it.
“Hello, Rubblewrack,” said Inga as I climbed down from her back.
“Hello, Inga Peersdatter,” said Rubblewrack, still chained. “Would that I could destroy you, and Princess Alfhild there. Your existence mocks mine.”
“There’s been too much destruction,” Inga said. “Listen! You and I may be the only trollish folk left in a thousand miles.”
“I have no troll blood! I am a mockery. Look at us! An uldra who took the shape of a troll. A troll raised as a Swanling human. A human raised as a haughty uldra. There is no true place for us.”
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