The Legendary Inge

by Kate Stradling

  And yet, invite it she did. He supposed it was a stroke of luck—good or bad, he did not know—that had placed the pair of them under the king’s care at this point in time. Captain Raske had been frank with him about the situation. Gunnar gave more credit to his former commander’s warning than to the one his sister had tried to issue, mostly because Raske could provide details, while Inge had only voiced speculation.

  The door at the back of the forge opened. “All done there?” Master Kettil inquired, emerging.

  “Almost,” said Gunnar as he retrieved a broom.

  “Good lad.”

  He felt the master-smith’s eyes upon him as he swept soot and ashes from the floor. His heart was like a ball of lead in his chest.

  “You were my father’s apprentice, weren’t you, Master?” he asked.

  Master Kettil started. “Yes. That’s right.” His voice wavered. “Master Torvald was the greatest sword-smith this nation has ever seen. It was an honor to learn at his feet.”

  Melancholy set into Gunnar’s soul. “Did you envy him?”

  “What? No, nothing of the sort!” Kettil’s mouth broke into a broad, toothy grin. “How could I? Everything I know I learned from him!”

  “But he never taught you the magic he used in his sword-making, did he?” Gunnar pressed.

  A nervous laugh worked its way up the smith’s throat. “What are you getting at? I never had much ability for magic. My weapons are forged with skill and might alone, but that’s fine by me. We can’t all be the caliber of Master Torvald. In all honesty, Gunnar, I wish that he were still here.”

  The contrition that flashed across Master Kettil’s face was sincere. Gunnar swallowed a lump of regret in his throat. “In all honesty, so do I.” He continued sweeping, his back to the man and his ears trained upon the sounds of the falling night around them.

  Afar off, a church bell tolled the hour.

  “It shouldn’t be long now,” said Master Kettil, a wistful note in his voice.

  Gunnar looked up. “What shouldn’t?”

  “The monster hoard attacks at night,” his master replied. “They’ll be loping across the fields and forests and come upon us, to slaughter us all.”

  “Some of us don’t die so easily,” said Gunnar as he resumed his sweeping.

  Kettil grunted. “You have your father’s courage. Would that it meant anything. I’m truly sorry, Gunnar.”

  He moved swiftly for a man so large. Had Gunnar not been on edge, he would have fallen to the hammer that the forge-master swung powerfully down upon him. Instead, he neatly dodged the blow. As Kettil heaved the hammer again, Gunnar thrust the stout handle of the broom into his ribs. The smith tumbled off-balance to the ground.

  Loyalty hung from a hook on the wall. Gunnar lunged for the weapon and ripped the blade from the scabbard.

  “I didn’t want to believe you were part of it,” he panted. “Rebellion to the king, Master Kettil? How could you even contemplate such a thing?”

  The man picked himself up off the floor. “It would’ve been better for you just to die without a fight, boy. I wish you no ill, truly.”

  “And yet, you’re trying to smash my head to pieces,” Gunnar replied, ready for another attack.

  “If you weren’t Torvald’s child, or if he hadn’t left that blasted circle spell behind, it would be different. You wouldn’t have to die—none of you would have to die. But the castle will fall tonight, Gunnar. Those on the wrong side of the battle will perish. I have a family to protect. He said he would kill them all if I turned traitor to him.”

  “So you would turn traitor to King Halvard instead?”

  “Isn’t it the king who’s turned traitor to us?” Kettil bellowed in return. “Hasn’t he chosen a position of weakness? Where the king goes, the nation follows! Must we follow him to oblivion?” He launched across the space that divided them; Gunnar was not his equal in sheer power, but he had training and combat experience to his advantage. Kettil’s hammer was no match for the swiftness of Gunnar’s blade.

  Loyalty slashed through the smith’s leather arm-covers, and the heavy hammer tumbled from fingers gone suddenly limp. Kettil recoiled, clinging to his injured forearm with his free hand. His eyes flitted from one corner of the room to another as he assessed his options.

  “Move, and you’re a dead man,” said Gunnar quietly.

  “I’m a dead man anyway,” his master replied. Desperately he lunged for a poker near the dying fire.

  Gunnar cut him down before he could reach the would-be weapon. The smith collapsed upon the ground with a groan. Before he could so much as move, Gunnar cuffed him on the back of the head with Loyalty’s hilt, rendering him senseless.

  Kettil’s injuries were not fatal. Closer inspection showed a shirt of chainmail beneath his clothes. The only open wound, upon his arm, received cursory treatment before Gunnar trussed the man in chains and manacles—items so recently forged in that same room and thus readily available. He left the smith shackled to the heavy anvil.

  Truthfully, whether Kettil awoke and escaped was the least of Gunnar’s worries. As he stole across the twilit courtyard between the forge and the castle proper, his thoughts fixed upon his sister and upon the nest of possible traitors that surrounded her.

  Castle guards had abandoned their posts. The courtyard was all but empty, and the interior halls held a similar gloom of desertion. Gunnar, sword in hand, crept through dancing torchlight. He went first to his sister’s room, but it was vacant, without so much as a sentry along the way to guard it. He cursed and turned his steps to the throne room.

  There were yells up one of the corridors, and a clash of sword against sword. Gunnar glimpsed a skirmish of castle guards fighting one another. He abandoned any attempts at stealth and broke into a run. The throne room doors were shut and barred; the guards without, too, fought against one another. Gunnar watched from behind a corner, unsure of where to go next.

  A hand clamped around his arm, and a command for silence hissed in his ear. “Stay quiet, Lang.”

  He knew the voice as well as he recognized the discarded surname. “Colonel,” he replied, for he had only ever served Raske under that rank, “it was just as you warned me. I’ve left Master Kettil in the smithy. Where is my sister?”

  Raske tipped his head back down the hall, away from the skirmish. “King Halvard ordered her to stay with Princess Signe. This way, quickly!”

  Gunnar fell in line, as though back on the battlefield. “Have the monsters appeared?”

  “Not yet. I think the general plan was to conquer the castle from within rather than allowing such creatures to ransack the place. Your sister and Signe should still be safe.”

  “Should be?” Gunnar repeated. “Master Kettil tried to brain me with a hammer! Someone will have been assigned to kill Inge as well!”

  “No,” said Raske. “I mean, they may have been assigned, but they won’t succeed. Osvald won’t let them.”

  “Osvald?” Gunnar repeated sharply.

  “He’ll have gone straight for Signe. He’s twisted enough, but he’s never been able to stomach violence towards women, probably from watching his own mother and sisters die.”

  “But does he know that Inge’s a girl?”

  “By now? I can think of no reason that he wouldn’t,” Raske grimly replied.

  ***

  “Don’t come any closer,” Inge commanded. She brandished Forget-me-not to fortify her words.

  Osvald, that strange, smiling glint still in his eyes, regarded her with amusement. “Ah, our little sister—how cute she looks with that knife. Don’t you think so too, Signe? You don’t still think she’s a boy, do you?” he added. “I thought so for a while—such a clumsy trick, and it almost cost her her life!—but I was pleased to learn the truth.”

  Signe was careful with her words. “I know that Inge’s a girl.”

  “You always did want a sister, didn’t you? We’ll have to get you another one. We’ll get a whole dozen of them. Li
ttle Sister, put down that knife before you hurt yourself.”

  “It’s a dagger,” Inge corrected him, “and I promised I’d keep Signe safe.”

  “But Signe is safe,” Osvald insisted. “I’m here now. Nothing can harm her as long as I’m here.” At his feet, the dying Baron Adelborg moaned and tried to push away from the ground. The smile on Osvald’s face twisted into fury. Savagely he kicked the nobleman. “Don’t—you—dare—!” With each word, his heavy boot stomped down on the man.

  Inge and Signe instinctively backed away.

  Osvald, satisfied with his assault, reverted to his sunny expression. “He was going to kill you, Little Sister, did you know that? But if he could kill you, he might kill Signe, too. He always wanted his Lina to stand where Signe stands. Worthless men who harm women for their own benefit should just die, don’t you agree?”

  He kicked the motionless Baron Adelborg again. A puddle of blood spread out across the floor.

  Inge opened her mouth to respond, but Signe laid a warning hand on her shoulder. Osvald was a madman. Caution would serve both girls much better than engaging with him.

  “Signe, have you no greeting for me?” he pressed. “Will you not embrace me?”

  He stepped forward. Both girls stepped back.

  “You’ve cut your hair,” said Signe. “I’ve never seen it so short.”

  “I had to. I singed most of it when some of my magic triggered sooner than I expected. Don’t you like it? Tell me you like it.”

  “I do. I do like it, Osvald.”

  Signe’s mention of his name brightened his smile. He took a step toward her but stopped short as the point of Inge’s dagger moved in his path. His expression flattened in warning. “Little Sister, you’re in the way.”

  “I promised I would protect Signe,” Inge repeated. “I promised King Halvard.”

  It was a mistake to mention the king. Inge knew the moment the words left her lips. Behind her, Signe caught her breath. In front, Osvald melted into rage.

  “That rotten old man?” he cried. He seized a nearby chair and hurled it across the room. It smashed into the wall and tumbled across the floor. “That evil, self-serving oppressor? Give me the knife, Little Sister!”

  He leapt at Inge then, but she was quick with her blade. Forget-me-not lacerated the fallen prince’s palm even as he tried to catch it. He hissed and recoiled in shock, clutching the injury.

  During his momentary stupor, Inge snatched a vase of flowers from a nearby table and smashed it over his head. As Osvald keeled to one side, she grabbed Signe by the arm and pulled her from the room, running with all her might.

  Signe’s guards lay dead in the hall, neatly executed before Osvald and Adleborg ever entered the room. Inge vaulted past them, intent upon escape.

  “It’s no good!” Signe panted, though she valiantly tried to keep up. “You didn’t knock him out, and the injury you gave him was only a scratch! He’ll come after us!”

  Inge had stunned him with the vase, buying them a few seconds’ head start at least. More importantly, she had drawn blood.

  “Only a scratch with this weapon is more than enough,” she said. She had already shoved Forget-me-not back into its sheath for safety’s sake.

  “Is it poisoned?”

  “No. It’s enchanted.” She didn’t explain any further, didn’t explain her father’s amusement in naming deadly weapons after seemingly innocuous things. “Forget-me-not” referred less to a small blue flower and more to the wound the enchanted blade left behind: one that its victim would be foolish to ignore, however small a scratch it might appear to be.

  An angry roar reverberated from behind as Osvald launched into the corridor. Running was futile, Inge knew, but she nevertheless redoubled her efforts, her hold on Signe tight. The adjoining hall was near enough; she could turn and attack the fallen prince again, if only they could make it there ahead of him.

  Just as they reached the junction, a shadowy figure rounded the corner. Inge slammed into a solid suit of armor and fell back hard upon the ground, with Signe alongside her. The princess cried out. Behind them, Osvald stopped short, like a feral animal taking stock of a rival predator.

  From her position on the floor, Inge looked up in sick horror at the towering man: black armor, with a black-and-gold crest emblazoned across the breastplate. A writhing serpent leered from the center, its claws tense and jaws open. A pattern of scales textured the warrior’s black helmet; the faceplate, rather than bearing a humanoid resemblance, was half-covered with silver, razor-sharp teeth. In one hand, the warrior carried a similarly menacing sword; the saw-toothed blade gleamed in the dimness of the hall.

  It could be no one but the Dragon, Inge realized with sinking dread. Other warriors clustered behind him in the hall, subservient to their imposing leader.

  The Dragon spoke. “I didn’t expect you to be outsmarted by a couple of little girls, Osvald.”

  A chill ran up Inge’s spine at the sound of that cold, calculating voice.

  Behind her, Prince Osvald scoffed. “They didn’t outsmart me. Little Sister just doesn’t know how to play.”

  “I told you I needed Little Sister dead,” the Dragon replied.

  Then, without an ounce of hesitation, he thrust his jagged sword straight into Inge’s chest.

  Shock suffused her, stronger than the pain of the blade as it ripped back out again. Vaguely her mind registered the sounds of Signe screaming, of footsteps shuffling around her to wrench the princess from the ground and drag her away along the corridor.

  As Inge slumped boneless upon the hard floor, her horrified eyes remained fixed upon her executioner, upon that luridly wicked faceplate and the stony eyes that lurked behind it. He loomed above her and boldly met her gaze. In one practiced movement, he removed the helmet.

  Jannik Bergstrom stared back at her, triumph upon his hateful face.

  Inge’s life was pouring from her; she heard his voice as though from a distance.

  “And thus you see the value of brute strength, Your Highness,” he sneered.

  He turned on his heels then to depart. Meanwhile, Ingrid Torvaldsdotter slipped into the oblivion of death.

  Chapter 23: And the Bellows Stokes the Fire

  A shriek echoed through the castle corridors. “That was Signe,” Raske said, anxiety and adrenaline pumping through him. He picked up his pace, with Gunnar hot on his heels.

  They stopped just short of the hallway that led to Princess Signe’s room. Cautiously, Raske peeked around the corner. Feeble light spilled from the princess’s open doorway, just enough to illuminate two fallen bodies in the otherwise darkened corridor. Raske wordlessly tipped his head and bolted for the opening. The guards were dead. From within the room emanated only silence. Heart in his throat, he glanced inside.

  Another body lay upon the floor, a man, with no sign of Signe or Inge.

  “That’s Baron Adelborg. Check the room, quickly, for signs of anyone else. If Signe and your sister have been taken, we have to hurry.”

  Gunnar obeyed. Out in the hall, Raske kept watch for enemies, his ears perked for any other telltale noises. Thirty seconds earlier and they might have kept the princess safe. If Osvald had taken Signe he would keep her alive, but he had no need for Inge. Raske was sure the fallen prince would not harm a woman, but even so, a nagging doubt ate at him. If, for some reason, Osvald was not the one who took Signe…

  Apprehension crept up his windpipe. It tightened in a knot as, through the shadows, his eyes spotted another body at the end of the hall.

  “Colonel, the baron is still alive,” Gunnar called from within the room.

  A strangled noise escaped Raske’s mouth. Heedless of Gunnar’s words, he tore away down the corridor. He covered the distance in a heartbeat, even as numbing despair sank its claws into him. Slick, dark blood seeped out across the floor. Raske skidded to his knees in the mess, cradled the pallid face, desperately searched for a pulse. She was still warm, but with no vital signs to keep her th
at way.

  Despair engulfed him. He was a warrior. He had lost friends and companions to the chaos of battle. It was part of the job, to deal calmly with death and destruction, to partition grief away in the face of duty.

  But this was completely different. Only thirty seconds sooner—!

  “Colonel, don’t touch her!”

  Swiftly Gunnar dragged Raske back from his sister’s body, his eyes almost wild.

  Raske fought against him.

  “Don’t touch her!” Gunnar commanded again. “She’s already dead! Don’t touch her!”

  “Lang, your sister—!” He couldn’t finish the sentence.

  Gunnar maintained his iron grip. His voice quavered with every word despite his efforts to control it. “There’s no sense getting worked up now that it’s already done. Honestly, it might be better this way. This could be to our advantage.”

  Raske stared, numbness and shock warring within him at such callous words. Ingrid—bright, funny Ingrid, who was always so full of life and spirit, who had survived night-walkers and magical traps—lay dead upon the ground and her brother simply spewed this nonsense?

  Gunnar favored him with a shaken glance. “I’ve never seen it happen from this side, so I don’t know what to expect. Just don’t touch her until it’s over.”

  “Until what’s over?” Raske said, utterly mystified.

  Gunnar’s smile was grim. “Just another piece of our family legacy, Colonel. Pray that it works like it’s supposed to.”

  ***

  “Papa, will it hurt?”

  Eight-year-old Nea sat upon the kitchen table, her big blue eyes fixed on her broad-shouldered father. Next to her, twelve-year-old Inge grasped her sister’s hand in a comforting gesture, even as she too waited for his answer.