by John Gwynne
Bleda was sitting to one side, a giant with him, helping him. There was a lot of blood on his face. His lip split. One eye swollen shut.
‘You all right?’ Jost said, a strange expression on his face.
‘Yes,’ she said, the faint anger within her still present enough to make her feel annoyed with him. ‘Why?’
‘Ha,’ a voice barked behind her, deep and grating. Then she realized why she couldn’t move.
Someone was holding her.
Thick arms, knotted as rope, hard as iron.
‘You can let go, now,’ Riv said.
‘Your word: no more violence.’
‘My word,’ Riv said.
Balur One-Eye let her go. ‘You are a lot stronger than you look, little girl,’ he said, regarding her with his one eye. ‘Why did you do it?’ he rumbled.
What have I done? At this rate Israfil isn’t going to let me take my warrior trial until I’m a hundred and two!
Riv blinked and looked around again, her head clear now, feeling only a residue of shock at the carnage she’d wrought. She could not remember all of it. Only Bleda pushed over, many figures. Someone headbutting her. A berserker rage. Red, red, rage.
‘They all attacked him. Ten, twelve of them. More. It wasn’t . . . fair.’
‘A keen sense of justice, then,’ Balur said.
‘Maybe a little too keen,’ Jost muttered.
Balur looked up, pale blue sky leaking through leafless branches. Riv did too, saw the silhouette of wings spiralling down to them.
Oh no, I will be humiliated and shamed again. A stone in her belly, shame and fear.
‘Best if you go,’ Balur said to her.
Thank you, Balur. Riv grinned at the giant. She didn’t need to be told twice, turning and marching away, feeling a little unbalanced, swaying and light on her feet, as if taking too big a step would result in her floating away.
Thirty, forty strides, and there were footsteps behind her, a hand on her shoulder. She spun around, ready to fight again.
It was Bleda.
‘Why?’ he said. ‘They are your people.’ He looked genuinely confused, honestly wanting to understand.
‘Because –’ Riv shrugged – ‘it wasn’t fair. Wasn’t right. Wasn’t honourable.’
He stared at her, head cocked to one side, his face battered and bruised, cut and swollen, but still blank, an unreadable mask.
‘My thanks,’ he said.
They stared at each other and, then and there, Riv made a decision.
‘Tonight, in the forest beyond the field of cairns,’ Riv said. ‘After the eighth horn.’
Before he had a chance to respond, Riv turned and walked away.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
DREM
‘Where are we going?’ Drem asked his da.
‘You’ll see,’ Olin called over his shoulder as he cantered ahead.
Never a straight answer from that man. Drem bit back his frustration and an angry retort.
He glanced at the sky, the clouds low and heavy, a nimbus glow threatening more snow to come. What was left of the day’s veiled winter sun was a faded gleam on the edge of the world. He muttered under his breath and gave his pony some heel, urging it to catch up with his da as he rode out of their courtyard.
Drem had been seeing to their new livestock, chaining the goats in the barn and chasing the chickens in, making sure he did a head count and didn’t leave any out by mistake. A night locked out of the barn or stables at this time of year would most likely be a death sentence for any of their animals. This was the Desolation, after all, and there were worse things than foxes that came south from the Bonefells when winter fell like a hammer-blow upon the north.
Hard-frozen snow snapped and crackled under their ponies’ hooves as they rode past Fritha’s hold, warm firelight flickering through the slats of shuttered windows, looking all the more inviting from this side of the cold. Drem’s nose was already tingling, his breath a great mist with every exhalation. Fritha’s dog barked as they passed by, tied to a rope and iron ring close to their door.
I told her to bring the hound in at night. Drem frowned. At the thought of Fritha he felt a strange sensation, as if a fluttering moth was trapped in the pit of his belly.
Twilight was as thick as smoke about them when they reached Kergard. Drem was surprised that the gates were still open. A solitary guard was standing beside the gate, cloak hood pulled up over his head, blowing on his hands. Olin reined his horse in and leaned down, taking something from the guard, the rattle of metal. Drem blinked as he caught a glimpse of the face inside the hood. It was Calder the smith.
Without a word, the big man pushed the gates closed and slotted a bar of oak into place, then walked away and faded into the shadows.
‘Come on,’ Drem’s da muttered and clicked his pony on.
The streets of Kergard were empty and still, fat snowflakes falling, silent and soporific, one landing as gentle as a goodnight kiss upon Drem’s lips. Drem knew where his da was going long before they arrived – he just didn’t know why. His da dismounted and walked his mount through an arched gateway and into a cobbled courtyard situated behind Calder’s smithy. Olin unstrapped a package from the back of his saddle and passed his reins to Drem.
‘Quick as you can,’ his da said, nodding towards the stables, then turned on his heel and strode to the smithy. A jingle of keys and the door was opened, Olin framed for a moment in a red glow. With a sigh, Drem headed for the stables.
‘What took you so long?’ his da said as Drem entered the forge. He was working a bellows, the suck and heave of air sounding like a diseased giant’s lungs, the glow of the forge changing from red to orange, yellow-edged.
‘What are we doing here, Da?’ Drem asked.
‘Here, put this on and keep this going,’ Olin said, ignoring the question, shaking a leather apron at him and gesturing for Drem to take over the bellows. Olin wore his own blacksmith’s apron, scarred and pitted black.
Drem did, grunting at the weight of the apron. He’d worked a forge before, though it had been a makeshift one his da had built when they lived in Ardain. He’d enjoyed it, finding a deep pleasure in the rhythm of work, whether with bellows or hammer. Drem’s thoughts of sleep melted away, along with his irritable mood. Behind him there was the clank and grate of tools pulled from racks, buckets moved, iron shifted through.
The charcoal started to glow yellow, tinged with white.
‘Da!’ Drem called over his shoulder.
A silence.
‘Hotter,’ his da said.
Drem scooped more cinder and ash from the ash-pit beneath the forge and banked the fire higher, then set back to work at the bellows.
Olin appeared, put a pile of iron rods on the workbench, and something else, wrapped in sheepskin. The package that had been strapped to his saddle. Almost reverently, Olin unrolled it, revealing the black lump of rock they’d discovered in the foothills of the Bonefells. Drem’s sense of worry returned like an avalanche.
‘Da, please, what are you doing?’
His da looked up at Drem, as if noticing him for the first time.
‘Please, Da, for once, just tell me. I’m not a bairn.’
‘I’m making a sword,’ Olin said, eyes bright with the forge’s glow.
‘What? Why?’
‘There’s nowhere left to run, Drem. Since your mam, we’ve travelled the Banished Lands, always searching, running, fleeing the tide. Five years since, we settled here, and I thought we’d finally found some peace. And now it’s coming here, the curse of the Kadoshim and Ben-Elim polluting everywhere in these Banished Lands. There’s nowhere left to go. I’m tired of it, worn out by it.’ He went back to his gathering of tools, slipping a bag from his shoulder and rummaging through it. Drem reached out and grabbed his da’s wrist, pulling him back to face him.
‘Da, you’re worrying me.’
Olin sucked in a deep breath, blew out slowly.
‘The newcomers in Kergar
d, the ones you fought. I don’t like them.’
‘I don’t like them either,’ Drem said. ‘No need to make a sword to kill them with, though.’
A flicker of a smile. ‘No, son. I’m not forging a sword to kill them. My axe or knife would be good enough for that. No, I mean, there’s something wrong about them being here. I feel it. And Old Bodil, supposedly killed by our white bear . . .’
‘I’ve had . . . doubts, over that,’ Drem said, frowning, remembering the strap-mark worn into the flesh of Bodil’s wrist. He told his da about it.
His da nodded, giving him a proud look.
‘Aye, that’s what I’m talking about. Strange things are happening here. The new mine, the miners, men found dead in the Wild, bonfires. Call me suspicious, but I don’t like any of it.’
I don’t like the new miners! Drem thought, thinking of Wispy Beard and the fight near the market.
‘And on top of that, the damn Kadoshim are stirring things up in the south – talk of human sacrifice and who knows what – and the Ben-Elim demanding their warrior tithes and taxes. It’s their fault, all of it,’ Olin snarled, a hint of savagery and rage barely contained. He breathed deep, closed his eyes. ‘And I’ve had enough,’ he said with a slow exhalation. ‘Something feels wrong, and when I’ve had this feeling before, we’ve packed up and left. Moved on. But where else is there to go now?’
Drem shrugged.
‘I’m going to end this. All of it.’
Drem didn’t like the way his da was acting, the way he was speaking, the look in his eyes, a focus verging on frenzy.
‘How? Da, you’re not yourself. What do you mean?’
‘I’m going to forge a starstone sword and cut Asroth’s head off with it.’
Drem felt an overwhelming urge to take his pulse and almost let go of the bellows. There was a long moment of silence between them, even the crackle of fire and charcoal ebbing.
‘What?’ Drem blurted, incredulous.
Has he lost his mind?
A thousand more questions burst to life in Drem’s mind. His da ignored him.
‘DA!’ Drem shouted, but then his da was moving, all grim focus, and Drem could tell from the look on Olin’s face that he wasn’t going to do any more talking. With tongs Olin lowered the lump of starstone metal into the forge, laid it into the white heat of the charcoal, so hot the air was a shimmering haze about it.
Drem felt sick, all this talk of running and hiding, of Ben-Elim and Kadoshim. For as long as he could remember, life had been Drem and his da, just the two of them, a solitary existence, but one that Drem was used to and loved. This talk of the world piercing their bubble and crashing into their lives, changing everything, left Drem feeling scared and nauseous.
And he’s talking about Asroth? The Demon-Lord of the Kadoshim. But he’s dead a hundred years, or alive and sealed in molten rock in Drassil, an eternal gaol. Everyone knows that.
They both stood in silence, looking at the matt black metal. Nothing happened.
‘Not hot enough?’ Drem said.
Olin stood there, staring at the lump of metal, a dull, impenetrable black, then nodded to himself, drew himself straighter. He unsheathed a knife from his belt and opened his mouth, spoke, but in no language Drem recognized, the words issuing from his throat fluid and unearthly, setting Drem’s hairs standing on his arms and the back of his neck, sending an icy chill trickling through his veins, even in the sweat-heat of the forge.
‘Tine agus fola, iarann agus cruach, lann a maraigh an aingeal dorcha,’ his da said, at the same time drawing the knife across his palm, a dark line welling, with a flick of his wrist spattering the blood on the forge and starstone. There was a hissing sound, a sweet smell, and where the droplets of blood hit the starstone the rock began to bubble, rising like blisters, spreading across the dark metal like spilt ink.
‘Da,’ Drem croaked, his voice dry and cracked. ‘You’re scaring me.’
The black metal began to glow, red first, shifting to orange and then incandescent white.
‘Da!’ Drem said, louder.
Olin ignored him, reaching for tongs and hammer.
Dawn was a glow in the east when they left the forge, turning the water of the Starstone Lake to rippling bronze. Snow had fallen during the night, a thick layer fresh upon the ground, but the roof of the world was cloudless now, a pale, fresh blue that felt like it went on forever, the air cold and sharp. Drem found it refreshing after the night of thick heat and hammer blows in the forge.
Drem rode behind his da, staring at his back with a mixture of dread and awe.
What happened last night? A sword forged, my da casting a spell . . .
His mind tried to pick apart the events, to unravel them and piece them back together in a shape that resembled logic. It wasn’t working.
Who is my da? It was a terrifying feeling, to realize that he did not know the man he’d spent his whole life with, almost like vertigo, as if the world were shifting beneath his feet.
They had spoken little after Olin had started shaping the white-hot metal, hammering, twisting, cooling, heating and hammering again, dross leaking from the metal like black tears. Drem fed the bellows, between hammering he dipped the shaping sword in water and oil, and towards the end he shared the hammer-work with Olin. The din and smells of the forge filled Drem’s senses as he struggled to make sense of what his da had told him. In the end he had become lost in the rhythm and roar of their labour.
Drem’s eyes fixed upon the sheepskin bundle that was tied to Olin’s saddle, little more than a shadow in dawn’s first light.
We’ll finish it at home. A handle of ash, bound with leather. Those had been the only words Olin had said as they’d stood and stared at the result of their labour. A long blade, tapered to a fine point, a heavy crosspiece and fuller like a black vein running down the blade’s centre.
Kergard’s gates were closed when they reached them; Olin frowned at that.
‘Calder is supposed to be here,’ Olin said, searching the shadows for the big smith, but he was not there. Drem jumped from his horse and hefted the bar across the gates. It was heavier than he’d thought, judging by the way Calder had lifted it last night. The gates opened with a creak, Olin hovering a few more heartbeats, waiting for Calder.
Drem looked at his da enquiringly.
‘He’s supposed to be here,’ Olin muttered again.
He sounds worried.
Olin scanned the streets that converged on the gates. They were silent and still, only melting shadows for company. ‘Don’t like leaving the gates open and unguarded,’ Olin said.
‘Guards should be along soon enough,’ Drem said.
‘Aye,’ Olin agreed.
And if we’re still here, Da’ll have to explain what he’s doing.
That thought seemed to have run through Olin’s mind, too.
‘Can’t wait any longer,’ Olin said and with a shrug from Drem they were riding through and breaking into a trot as a world of white opened up before them.
Drem looked at Fritha’s hold as they passed it, and he was pleased to see that there was no hound still tied to the rope and ring in the yard. A sound echoed in the distance, from the woodland to the north. Dim and muted. Drem strained to hear it. A crashing, perhaps a roar. He and Olin shared a look.
Wolven bringing down their prey. Something big, anyway.
As they began the long stretch of track to their hold Drem noticed tracks in the snow, following the path they were on, then veering off, towards woodland framed in the distance by the Bonefells. Olin saw them too, reining in his mount.
One man, one hound. Maybe a woman – small feet for a man.
A jolt of worry.
Fritha?
Drem looked up at the sky, heavy with more snow, a strong wind gusting down from the north, bringing with it the taste of ice. Drem looked to his da. At any other time there would have been no question, no hesitation, but Drem knew his da wanted to get the sword home. It was written a
ll across his face.
Drem just waited, knowing what the outcome would be, but letting his da go through the process of it.
‘Best go see who those tracks belong to,’ Olin said.
‘I think we’d better,’ Drem agreed.
Drem heard something, away to his left, coming from the scrubland that fringed the wood as it rolled down from the Bonefells.
‘You hear that, too?’ his da asked him.
A nod, and together they were pulling on reins and riding away from the track, towards the scrub and woodland.
They followed the footprints in the snow, heard a voice calling out, the same word, again and again.
Drem ducked his head under branches heavy with snow, the voice louder now. He recognized it.
‘It’s Fritha,’ he said and urged his horse on. Then he saw her, flitting between the dark trunks of trees, still calling out.
‘Surl!’ Drem heard her cry.
Her hound.
She saw them, stood and waited.
‘It’s Surl, he’s gone,’ she said and pointed at paw tracks in the snow, heading deeper into the woods. She wasn’t dressed for the cold, just wearing breeches and boots, a wool shirt and cloak.
Not enough to stop the blood from freezing out here. And no weapon.
‘Up with Drem,’ Olin said to Fritha and clicked his horse on, Drem taking Fritha’s hand and pulling her up into the saddle behind him. She wrapped her arms around his waist.
‘How long has the hound been gone?’ Drem asked her as he followed his da into the thickening trees.
‘Dawn,’ Fritha said and he felt her shrug. ‘A while. I let him out and he just ran. I followed.’
‘Should’ve brought a spear, and put on some snow-clothes,’ Drem said over his shoulder.
‘It happened so quickly, I didn’t think . . .’ Fritha said into the back of his head.
‘Not thinking is what gets you killed in the Wild,’ Drem muttered, the words drilled into him by his da. There was a pleasure in saying those words, and not being on the receiving end of them.
Fritha said nothing in response.
‘There,’ Olin said from ahead and Drem spurred his mount on, weaving through the wide-spaced trees, pulling alongside his da, and he saw a dark shape about thirty or forty paces ahead. Fritha’s hound, Surl. It was slumped against an ash tree.