The Immortal King: Part One of the Godyear Saga
Page 26
I was foolish. I thought that perhaps I could bargain with Hakon, but all I had done was fall into his trap and bring him what he needed: Godwin’s sword. It appeared that any luck that weapon did possess had finally run out. What chances I had were quickly disappearing. I needed a plan soon.
“I’ve got nothing,” I whispered back to Dughlas.
He grunted. “Let’s just see what happens first. We might have to improvise, like you did with the vampire. You’re good at that.”
I smiled. I loved Dughlas. He always knew how to lift my spirits, even in the darkest of times. We could be marching through the deepest, darkest depths of the Pits, but Dughlas would still be cracking jokes.
We marched for what seemed like forever. I thought that this tunnel would never end, but eventually we came out into an enormous chamber. It was circular, the roof was three storeys high, and the floor could have fit thousands of men. As the procession entered the chamber, it diverged and the men all spread out along the walls.
Hakon, who had left his horse in the tunnel, stood in the centre of the hall with Clodild. Her hands were tied behind her back, and her mouth was stuffed with a rag. Her eyes were red and her cheeks wet. In the middle of the chamber, in front of Hakon, was a large stone bowl that seemed to be carved into the floor.
An offering bowl.
And then I noticed, stretching from the floor to the ceiling, a large archway. It was at the end of the chamber opposite the passage and looked to be sealed up by bricks carved by giants. I did not notice it earlier because it looked just like the rest of the chamber’s wall, but once my eyes had adjusted to the dark I could see its outline clearly. As we entered the chamber, Hakon beckoned to me.
“Welcome, everyone,” he called out, his eyes fixed on mine.
He pulled a long knife from his belt and pointed it at Clodild’s chest. Her breathing quickened. She watched me with panicked eyes. The chamber went silent, and the singing stopped. Not even the rats made a sound.
“Today, with the help of Edward, we will release the incarnation of the Dead-God from his mountain prison. He shall ride forth in the body of Emrys once more and chastise this world for abandoning the Gods.” Hakon held out his hand to me, but I did not move.
I only shook my head.
“Your sword, Edward?” Hakon said. I do not know why I said what I said next. I was out of ideas, and it seemed that the only chance I had to save Ardonn now was to kill Hakon. I would not be able to save Philip or Dughlas or Clodild, but I might be able to prevent the release of Emrys. Gods, I was a fool for bringing that sword.
“I will duel you for it,” I said.
“What?”
“I challenge you to a hazeling. If I win, then the Gods do not favour you, and your task is not meant to be. I will take my sword and the princess and go free. If you win, you can take the sword from my corpse.”
“It would be foolish for me to accept this challenge, Edward.”
“Foolish? Are you a nobleman, Hakon, or some slave girl’s bastard?”
Hakon flinched, and I heard some murmurs among the crowd. I had challenged Hakon’s honour, and were he to refuse this fight, he would lose all but his life. And so he accepted. “I will nominate a champion to fight in my name. Leif.”
And so Leif, the tall man who had attacked us in Everlynn forest, emerged from the crowd and stood by his lord. He had a limp, but he would still probably have a better chance at beating me than Hakon. I had come to learn that Hakon was no warrior.
“Let me fight him,” Dughlas said. I turned around, and Dughlas stepped forward.
“This is my fight,” I said.
“Hakon has put forward a champion, so it’s only fair that you do too. I want to fight him.”
“For revenge?”
“For justice. He took my eye, and so I’ll take his life.”
“But your arm is still wounded, and your ankle has not fully healed.”
Dughlas laughed. “Leif has a chance then.”
I thought about it for a few moments and then nodded. I did not want to appear a coward, but Dughlas was insistent. His honour depended on avenging the loss of his eye. I could not deny him this.
I insisted my oathman use Godwin’s sword, for he needed all the luck he could get, but Dughlas refused. He knew his own blade better. Before I could protest, Dughlas approached Leif and drew his weapon. Hakon stepped back out of the way, pulling Clodild with him, and I went to stand beside Philip. The ground was ready for the duel that would seal Ardonn’s fate.
“Make it quick, Dughlas,” I said.
“Don’t I always?” With a smile and a roar, Dughlas leapt towards Leif, and the two men clashed, parrying each other’s blows.
Every man in the room was silent as we watched the two warriors dance. They spun and twirled and ducked and dodged, blocking and parrying every swing and lunge of the blade. Dughlas was taunting Leif, and Leif taunted back, as each tried to enrage the other, drawing out a wrong move.
Despite his limp and his size, Leif seemed quite nimble, and Dughlas struggled to find an opening, but slowly Leif began to grow tired. Dughlas noticed too, and so instead of trying to hurt Leif, he started toying with him, egging him on and forcing him to keep his leg moving.
Leif was red-faced and panting now, but Dughlas seemed to be completely fine. In fact, he did not seem bothered by his injuries at all. He was smiling as he whirled in circles around Leif, tapping his opponent’s longsword with the tip of his own as if inviting him to strike.
Leif was making heavy swings at Dughlas, but the weight of his sword and his limp meant Dughlas could easily dodge them. He even began to laugh as his long golden hair flicked back and forth. He was a warrior, but he looked like a dancer.
Then Dughlas’s teasing was over. Leif was tired, and his morale was quickly dropping. I could see beads of sweat reflecting the torchlight, and the veins were popping out of his bald head. Leif grunted and attempted to lunge at Dughlas, but Dughlas only knocked the blade aside, and then with the flick of his wrist, Dughlas brought his sword up towards Leif’s head.
Just in time, Leif jerked backwards so the top of the blade only scraped his chin. An arch of blood streamed from his face, and he stumbled back, holding his new wound. Dughlas took a step back to catch his breath. “Should I finish him, Edward?” he called.
“I told you to make it quick,” I said. My hope had been renewed. Dughlas smiled and then went to fulfil his promise.
He jumped forward, lifted his sword up above his head, and Leif lifted his to block. But Dughlas feinted, and instead of striking above the head, he quickly brought his sword back down and around and cut into Leif’s thigh. Even standing several yards away I could hear steel meet bone, and Leif let out a mighty roar. He lifted his blade to counter Dughlas, but Dughlas pulled away just in time. He backed up slowly, and Leif followed, enraged.
In his fury, Leif made a foolish, clumsy lunge, but Dughlas stepped aside, grabbed Leif’s arm, and brought his elbow down onto it, snapping the bone in two. Leif cried out and his sword fell to the ground, but then he swung with his left arm and hooked Dughlas in the face.
Dughlas stepped back and spat out some blood, but before he could react, Leif threw himself at Dughlas and tackled him to the ground. His sword went skating across the cold stone, and the two men began to wrestle. Leif, however, was stronger and bigger than Dughlas, and he managed to pin my oathman to the ground.
He was beating him now. Again and again and again he hammered Dughlas, flicking blood up with his fist whenever he pulled back to punch again. Dughlas’s face became a bloody mess, and whenever Dughlas tried to hit back, Leif simply swatted his arm out of the way.
“Get up, Dughlas,” I shouted. He appeared not to hear me, and I shouted again.
Hakon smiled at me. “Finish the job, Leif.”
Leif grunted and reached for Dughlas’s blade. He held it up with two hands, pointing the blade down at Dughlas’s chest. Dughlas had lost. He would die, pierced b
y his own sword. Leif yelled in triumph, but just as he was about to thrust steel through Dughlas’s heart, I shouted. “Stop this!”
Leif paused, and Hakon frowned at me. He held a hand up to Leif.
“It is over. Your man has won,” I said. Tears were forming in my eyes. “You can have Godwin’s sword. You can have the princess. But please, let my man live.”
Hakon grinned. “You have lost, then?”
“I have lost.”
Dughlas turned his head to look at me. I looked into his eye and saw sorrow. Anguish. He knew he had failed me, but it was I who failed him. I should have fought Leif myself, but now it was over. I drew my sword and tossed it to the ground.
“Let him live, Leif. I want this dog to see what his master has done. Bring me the blade,” said Hakon.
Leif obeyed and left Dughlas lying there. I went to him and helped him sit up. His head was limp, and blood poured from his open mouth and nose, but he would live.
“I can walk,” he mumbled. Dughlas tried to stand but fell to his knees. “I just need a moment.”
“We shall continue the ritual,” Hakon said.
He held my sword — Godwin’s sword — in front of his face, admiring it, then beckoned to two men in the crowd. They came forward, took Clodild by the arms, and dragged her to the bowl, then pushed her to her knees. Her screams, muffled by the rag in her mouth, echoed throughout the chamber.
The two men held her head down over the bowl. I stood, and Dughlas slowly climbed to his feet. The two of us watched in horror. It was just like the pig I helped sacrifice in Oldford during Winterlow, except this was no pig but a little girl instead. A child.
Clodild would not stop squealing. Hakon approached her and held the edge of my blade at her throat. She was bawling her eyes out, writhing and wriggling in vain, but the men held her tight. Philip came and held my arm, and Dughlas shut his eye.
Yet Clodild did not die. I do not know whether Hakon changed his mind, or if he was merely tormenting the girl, but he moved the blade away from her throat and in one swift motion cut across her cheek with the tip. Clodild fainted. The men held her head in place as blood trickled from her open gash into the bowl.
“The blood of Emrys is needed to open the prison,” Hakon said. “But not a lot. Let that scar be a reminder to you, little Clodild, of what you have done for this country. You shall be rewarded in this life and honoured long after your death.”
He watched as drops of blood continued to fall into the bowl, but as they began to slow, Hakon nodded, satisfied that he had enough. The men pulled Clodild away, and her eyes fluttered open. She seemed dazed for a few moments, but when she remembered where she was, she began to struggle and scream again.
One of the men clapped her on the back of the head, and she went limp once more.
“What now, lord?” Leif said.
“We wait,” said Hakon.
And so we waited for what seemed like an eternity. I watched the giant archway. Nothing was happening, and the hall was silent. Hakon stared at the archway too. We all did. None of us knew what to expect. Was Emrys merely fiction after all?
But then we began to hear a rumble. It was soft at first and seemed distant, but it grew closer and louder, and eventually it was deafening. Some of Hakon’s men bolted for the tunnel and fled, but many stayed, and Hakon began to laugh. The stone blocks that sealed the archway were beginning to shake, and then as if by magic they crumbled into dust. A cloud of dust shrouded the archway, the rumbling stopped, and the chamber went silent again.
Then we heard the slow, steady clap of a single horse walking on stone. It echoed around the chamber, and my blood ran cold. My intuition was screaming at me, urging me to run, to abandon everything. But I stood frozen, staring at the cloud of dust in the open archway.
Then I saw it. The outline of a man on a horse. He emerged from the dust, and Hakon with all his men fell to their knees.
I could see the man clearly now. He sat upon an imposing grey horse. He wore a suit of dark steel mail and had broad shoulders and a rugged, menacing face. His grey hair was long and wild and fell down to his waist, and his grey, wispy beard grew to his chest.
In front of him, sitting in the saddle, was a grey puppy, and the man stroked its fur as he rode forward. I remember thinking about how odd that was, but the thought was overshadowed by the darker forces radiating from this man.
He was not holding the horse’s reins, and it seemed to be guided by his mind alone. Instead, in his other hand, he held a leaf-bladed, gilded sword. His horse entered the room slowly, and he looked around at everyone on the floor.
He smirked. The horseman came to the blood bowl and stared down into it for a moment, then looked up, and his eyes locked onto mine. Like everything else about him, his eyes were grey. Cold. A shiver crept through me. The mere sight of this man, knowing who he was yet not knowing what he might do, was enough to fill the hearts of even the mightiest heroes with terror.
I shivered with fear, for I could sense the doom he would bring. It seemed as if all my courage had fled.
“Godwin,” the man said. His voice was an eerie mix between a hiss and a groan. “I did not expect to see you here again.”
“I am not Godwin. I am Edward, his successor,” I replied. The man was speaking the ancient tongue, so I replied in that.
“Ah. You…feel like him. Tell me, Heir of Godwin, why have you released me?” I pointed at Hakon, who had his face to the floor in prostration. The man on the horse looked puzzled.
“This man freed you,” I said in my own language.
Hakon looked up, and the horseman laughed. “So you are his tool, then?” he said, turning back to me.
Before I could respond, Hakon stood and scurried over to the horseman, bowing his head. He held out a piece of parchment. “My Lord Emrys, I am but a messenger. This letter is for you,” he said. He was a completely new man now, and I could almost smell the fear on him.
Emrys reached down from his horse and plucked the letter from Hakon’s hand. “Oh? I cannot read your language. Edward, would you translate this for me?” I slowly walked over to him and took the parchment, unfolded it and began reading, translating its contents into the ancient tongue. Hakon glared at me.
As I read the letter, my heart sank. Hakon was right; he was just an instrument. The levels of treachery at play here were far more complex than I thought. I read the words out loud to Emrys, doing my best to translate. He closed his eyes as if the sound of my voice was a soothing song.
King Emrys. I beseech you on behalf of all people in this land. We are betrayed by a man who calls himself king, but he is nothing more than a puppet. If you are reading this letter, it is because you have been freed by a pawn in my game.
But what is my plan, you may ask? I wish to overthrow our false ‘king’ and put the rightful ruler back on the throne. That ruler is you, Lord Emrys. I offer you my loyalty and the throne of Ardonn, and all you must do to claim it is head south from your prison until you reach a town called Tillysburg, occupied by another false claimant to the throne. Ignore him, for he is weak.
Once you reach this town, head west until you encounter an army. You must slaughter any man who does not fight under a blue banner, and just like that, you will have your kingdom.
After we have annihilated the false king’s army, we will discuss our next steps.
Now, the man you likely see grovelling before you is my brother. He believes he will ride alongside you to glory, but he is a fool and a bastard. He wishes to take what rightfully belongs to my son and will no doubt use you for his own gain. I do not need him anymore, so you may put him and his men out of their misery.
Regards,
Lord Odo of Everlynn
I had spoken in the ancient tongue, but everyone else in the room understood the name at the end. Lord Odo. He had orchestrated this plan all along. He was the architect. I had thought Hakon was the leader of this fanatical plot, but in truth Hakon was as much a pawn as I was.
There were murmurs among the crowd. Emrys began to hum, then he smiled at me.
“A tempting offer. Perhaps I shall go and visit this man called Odo,” he said. He looked back down at Hakon, who had prostrated himself at the horse’s feet. “You are a rat, and I hate rats. I will not dirty my blade with your filth. Your men, on the other hand, will die.”
Emrys pulled a hollowed goat’s horn from his belt and blew into it. Its droning sound echoed through the chamber, and with its noise I heard the sound of hundreds of hoofbeats coming from beyond the archway.
In an instant, hundreds of warriors on horseback streamed out of the cloud of dust and immediately began cutting down Hakon’s men. The screaming was terrible, and the men all began to flee in an attempt to escape the wrath of the Immortal Horde.
The horsemen seemed to pour endlessly into the chamber, and they all laughed and whooped with glee as they slaughtered Hakon’s screaming men. Hakon was wailing in despair, pulling at his hair and pacing back and forth. Leif tried to flee, but he was too slow. Emrys’s horsemen rode him down like the rest of Hakon’s warriors, and he died on the spot.
I grabbed Philip and ran to check on Clodild, who was now awake and crying. She was terrified. I put my arm around Philip and my body over the princess to shield her, and when I turned my head I saw Emrys sitting up on his horse above me. I could smell the beast’s breath.
“You and your friends here will be safe,” he shouted down to me. The sound of horses, laughter, and dying men was deafening. I could hardly hear him. “But tell me, what year is it?”