by T. G. Ayer
Right beside me, a dwarf let out a drunken laugh, liquid spraying from his wide open mouth, saliva clumping in the whiskers at his lips. He sloshed his wooden beer jug around, almost flinging it out of his hand, right at me. I was saved only from the jug.
The contents were another story entirely.
Beer sloshed all over the cloak, and I froze; Mika stiffened beside me. It must have looked strange to the drunken dwarf. Beer flying through the air, landing on nothing, and sliding down nothing, then dripping onto the stone floor. From the edges of nothing.
I held my breath as the dwarf stared at me and struggled to focus on what he thought he saw. Maybe he tried too hard, because eventually both eyes moved inward and he ended up cross-eyed. Then he shuddered, closed his pretzeled eyes and fell over at my feet.
Beer coma.
I snapped my gaze to Mika and gave an urgent nod toward a door just to the right of the stage. "Now," I mouthed, not wanting to risk even a whisper. At the opposite end of the room, two large doorways marked a pair of exits. We made a beeline for the nearest one.
Almost there.
While stumbling through the raucous crowd, we stepped on each other's toes too many times for comfort. I struggled to breathe, because it felt like the crowd was beginning to close in on us. Our pathway narrowed more and more, the closer we got to the other side of the room.
We swerved, avoided a chubby, grog-bearing maid and stepped over another dwarf, who sprawled across the aisle, eyes rolling into the back of his head. These guys certainly had no idea of the concept of self-control.
A few yards from the exit, we squeezed behind a slouching dwarf who stood too close to the wall. The cloak brushed against the back of his hand, and I froze, not daring to even blink. The dwarf grunted, shrugged and scratched at his hand. Good thing he had eyes and ears only for the singing woman.
The song lasted long enough for Mika and me to sneak past the stage toward the doorway, our sanity and lives barely intact.
Just as we made it to the exit, another dwarf trotted across the threshold into the room, heading straight for me, about two seconds away from slamming right into me.
I was too stunned to move. And in that moment I knew this was it.
We were done for.
Chapter 28
Shock froze me in place for almost too long. At what seemed like the very last second, I spun around toward Mika, out of the way of the oncoming tapestry-garbed dwarf. The movement created a sudden rush of air, an invisible breeze that ruffled the coarse hairs of the dwarf's unruly eyebrows but went largely unnoticed by their owner.
His attention remained fixed on the singer. Not her voice, just the girl herself. My heart thumped. What was in store for her now? The guard barreled to the stage, gesturing wildly until the music squeaked and ground to a stop.
Grumbles and shouts rose from the more strident of the girl's fans within the discontented audience. The redheaded guard loped onto the stage and tugged the girl toward him, shackles clinking in his fist. A strange hush fell upon the crowd at the sight of the shackles, and Red shook them again, facing the sea of silent faces.
The dwarf's voice traveled toward us. "Shut up, all of you. One more sound and she gets the shackles." He laughed, enjoying the discomfort of the audience and the terror in the girl's eyes. "Come, girl. She wants you. Now."
I tugged at Mika's sleeve. "We'd better get out of here before he comes our way." We slipped out of the hall into another identical torch-lit stone passageway, unsure which way to go.
The burly guard came up close behind us, dragging the silent girl with him. His thick, pudgy fingers dug deep into her arm, but she paid no attention to his grip or the pain he surely caused her. Sarah just stared ahead, wisps of oily brown hair hanging limp around her face, her eyes free from the added burden of hope.
Mika and I plastered ourselves against the wall just in time. The guard walked past, his arm brushing against the cloak's silky fabric.
The guard flinched and stopped, staring hard at his hand, turning his arm over and over. He studied the empty air next to him intently, confusion dulling his already un-scintillating personality.
His? No, hers. I did a double take at the dwarf's face. Not a man! A dwarf woman. Very un-girly bushy eyebrows twitched, and then she spun away, not caring to waste time on strange and inexplicable things.
"Follow him. I mean, her," Mika whispered in my ear, grinning at me.
A moment later my amusement died when the captive girl spoke for the first time. "What does she want with me?" Each syllable fell emotionless from her mouth, her accent clipped, formal English. But her cool tones failed to mask the hopelessness in her eyes.
Her captor snarled, "She wants you to sing, little bird." Sarah flinched and hugged her spare frame with both her thin arms, as if they would be sufficient protection. They weren't. "Come, we had better not keep her waiting. She is in a bad mood today. Best we just get on with it, then we can all avoid a lashing." The guard pulled the girl roughly by one elbow and walked on down the corridor.
I nudged Mika, who'd remained stiff beside me during the little discussion between the dwarf and her captive. At least now we knew how to find the queen. Things had just gotten much easier for us. All we had to do was follow.
While we shuffled along, I watched the wretched girl, her brown hair matted, her garments stained and worn out. Her accent was definitely not modern; it sounded more like the way people spoke in old Victorian movies. How long had she been imprisoned here? Had she ever tried to escape?
The girl let out a sigh, her hands dropping to her sides. The red bands at her wrists sent a shiver down my spine; the memory of the audience's reaction to the metal cuffs increased my repulsion. Were those hideously black shackles a form of torture or a punishment?
Mika tugged at my arm. It must have been my silence that tipped her off. When I glanced at her, she narrowed her eyes at me. "Do not even think of rescuing her," she hissed. "That is NOT our mission."
I didn't answer.
We followed the now-silent pair down the corridor. Just a few minutes and too many thunderous heartbeats later, we paused before an ornately carved doorway, which the dwarf pushed open slowly. She shoved Sarah into the room so hard that the frail girl stumbled, almost tripping over her bare feet.
The dwarf crossed the threshold and heaved the door closed with her shoulder. Just in time, I stopped its great stone bulk from totally shutting us out. With an ear to the opening, I listened. The guard grunted, fabric rustled and her muffled footsteps thudded away farther into the room.
We waited a few seconds, hidden beneath the cloak, in case the dwarf returned to check why the door hadn't completely closed.
Nothing.
***
From somewhere inside the room, a guttural voice barked out an order, and at once the sound of plaintive singing filled the air. Mika and I slipped inside. The music masked the grate of stone on stone as we pushed the door open farther, only wide enough to let us squeeze through. We hugged the back wall until we stood a few feet from the doorway.
As it happened, we'd cleared the doorway just in time.
The great stone door swung wide open again behind us, sending us scurrying away a safe distance along the wall. A trio of women marched in, escorted by a second guard: two Huldra and an auburn-haired girl whose slim, pale face niggled at my mind. Her elegance and grace were only enhanced in comparison to the squat, chubby dwarf guards and the pair of shorter Huldra beside her. She held her head with a cool confidence despite her captivity.
I turned to Mika and raised a puzzled eyebrow.
"Elf," she whispered.
So humans weren't the only ones being held captive in Swartelfheim. My gut burned. I wanted to grab that awful queen by her neck and twist the life out of her with my bare hands, but I tamped down my anger and tried to concentrate.
Guided by the two stony-faced, tapestry-garbed guards, the little band of women proceeded into the room until they reached a be
d occupied by a dark and shadowed figure. The bed was magnificent: an ornately carved four-poster made entirely of gold and studded with thousands of winking and glittering gems. Stunning. Gold net curtains hung around the bed, tied to the four posts with ribbons of silky red. The blood-red bedspread, garish in color and statement, clashed terribly with the beauty of the four-poster itself.
But the occupant of the bed simply blew my mind away. She lay on her side, propped up by stacks of silk and embroidered pillows, a silver platter of fruits keeping her mouth occupied. Her eyes seemed too large, bulging from her small face. Her skin, dark as ebony, made me think of ancient leather. My eyes lingered on her face, held there by a revulsion that was so unlike me. Had Thor's dislike of the woman rubbed off on me? Or was she just the ugliest creature I'd ever seen in my life? Even Bal the Surt looked handsome next to this creature. And from what I'd heard so far, it seemed her heart was no lovelier than her face.
Two things stuck out: the multitude of black tattoos that patterned the skin on her face and neck, and her bald head, which gleamed in the yellow light of the many lanterns dotting the room.
I blinked, swallowed, couldn’t bear to look at her anymore. Turning my attention to the room and its opulence, I studied the rich tapestries hung on the walls; handmade Persian carpets, like the one my father had in his study, decorated the floor. The fragrance of incense wafted toward us. Music, drifting across the room from a harpist and violinist from the far corner, accompanied the lonely singer. Both musicians bore the same lifeless expression as the other captives. Their manacles glinted as their wrists moved with the music.
And yet, despite the beauty, an air of darkness embraced the room. An insidious chill sucked the life out of the rich embroidery and deadened the deep red of the silken furnishings.
Queen Huld popped a bright red grape into her mouth and sat up, the light glinting off her gold-embroidered gown. "Bring her!" She barked the order to the guard who'd brought the captive women in. The guard grabbed the elf by her elbow and shoved her forward. The elf stumbled but regained her balance, standing spine-erect before the queen.
The queen rose from her bed as elegantly as she could, given that she was swarthy and no taller than four feet in height. She stomped to a chaise lounge and lay down against a pile of soft, silky pillows.
Moving to the seat, the beautiful elf-girl perched beside the queen, glancing at her captor with the most radiant blue eyes I'd ever seen. Eyes that flashed with anger as the elf's jaw tightened slightly.
Go, elf-girl. Don't let them walk all over you.
The foolish queen never saw the hint of rebellion in her captive. She just waved an imperious hand and dismissed the two guards. "Leave us!" she snarled. The queen seemed to treat her guards no better than her captives. "Guard the hall. Let no one disturb me while the music plays." They scurried out of the room, shutting the door behind them. I doubted the queen saw the relieved expressions on her subjects' faces, either. It seemed even her guards were far from happy campers.
Beneath the cloak, both Mika and I shuffled, uncomfortable from the odd position of leaning close together for so long. She nudged me. "Do you see it anywhere? The goblet?" Mika whispered impatiently. But despite knowing the goblet was the real goal of this mission, my eyes remained on the elf—another slave of these grotesque creatures.
Without pause, the elf withdrew a roll of leather from her pack and spread it out on her lap, her fingers, precise, dexterous and so elegant. Next she withdrew a bottle of a black substance that looked suspiciously like ink. A needle glinted in her hand, and she dipped the gleaming metal into the black ink.
The queen spoke again, and I didn't need to strain to hear her strident words. "Be careful now, you useless elf," the queen barked, but the elf remained serene. Not even an eyelash twitched. She leaned over the queen's face and began painting black ink onto her leathery cheek. I almost gasped as it dawned on me that the horrid old queen was getting herself an elegant facial tattoo, complete with swirls and butterflies.
Mika snorted softly beside me, and I knew she shared my not-so-illustrious opinion of Queen Huld.
The elf worked quietly, and the slave-girl sang her sad notes, while I scanned the room for the Blood Goblet. I searched the queen's boudoir, inspecting it from the golden bed, which occupied the left side of the room, to a small wooden dais on the opposite side, currently used as a stage by the frowning violinist and the sad harpist.
They stood beside a throne made of dark gold and carved with images of trees and flames and dwarfs. Next to the throne sat a small stone table, overshadowed by the gleam of the ugly queen's golden chair. A single item took pride of place upon the Roman-styled pedestal.
One oversized gem-studded goblet.
Bingo.
It reminded me somewhat of the jewel-encrusted goblet from which I'd sipped Mead during the Rite of the Valkyrie, when I'd received my wings. Only this goblet was much larger and more ostentatious; impressively blown, with hundreds of little faceted surfaces, the goblet sparkled with a million tiny reflections of the flickering torchlight. Beautiful crystal.
The hideous queen grumbled beneath the ministrations of the serene elf, and my eyes flicked back to her. The elf rose to her feet and stepped away, and one of the Huldra rushed forward with a large gilt-edged mirror so the queen could inspect the elf's handiwork.
She peered into the mirror for what seemed like a long time, examining the tattooed swirls that covered the skin beside her eyes. At last, satisfied, she lifted her head, opening her mouth to speak . . . and then suddenly stiffened and sniffed the air in front of her, her newly inked tattoos creasing as she scowled. "What is that smell?"
Around her, her captives froze, eyes darting around the room. The music faltered. The queen's bulging eyes glared and her nostrils flared, bringing to my mind an image of an angry, maniacal horse. I almost choked when she curled her upper lip, revealing her sharp teeth, just like the horse I'd imagined. She took a deep breath and waited a few moments, then shrugged and gazed back at the mirror, dismissing whatever odor had upset her.
Another bark brought forth the other Huldra, who carried a startlingly beautiful black wig. I guess the old bat wanted to hide her bald skull from the world, though I doubted the wig would help at all to improve on her appearance. The queen snatched the headpiece from the skittish Huldra, rose and pulled it onto her head. I swallowed my surprise. The fake hairdo actually managed to make the hideous crone look a little better. The wig and the swirling tattoos were a success.
"Hold the mirror still, you incompetent fool." The queen growled, and her reflection in the mirror made me shudder. Again she paused and sniffed the room, her eyes squinting as she lifted her nose, nostrils flaring. She turned towards us, eyes trained on the exact place where Mika and I stood, hidden beneath the cloak.
Entering Queen Huld's realm using the cloak had been genius. My only problem was Mika. The dwarfs seemed to have the knack of sniffing her out every time. As helpful as she'd been to my mission, her wolfy fragrance had been a hindrance one too many times. Not that I'd be so ungrateful as to say it to her.
Thankfully, the guards had evacuated the room.
I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, tensing and relaxing muscles taut from standing still for so long. We needed the goblet, and we needed to get out of this place. Fast. The queen continued sniffing, and I cringed every time her eyes passed our hiding place.
"I smell Ulfr blood," she announced. The queen rose from her chaise, scenting the air again, almost loping across the room, drawing closer to us with each step and each sniff. "You had better show yourself, or I will have the entire palace guard in this room in five seconds."
Mika and I glanced at each other in the shadow of the cloak.
"You get the goblet. I will distract her and the guards," Mika whispered. She stepped out of the safety of the cloak before I was able to respond or make a decision. Guess she made that decision for me.
Clearly, the last thing
the queen expected was for an Ulfr to appear out of thin air. Her thick jaw fell open, and a weird choking sound gurgled from her throat. Mika took another step away from me, closer to the queen, hip jutting forward as nonchalant as you please, as if she belonged here.
"Spawn of Fenrir." The queen spat the words out, and I stiffened, driven by the urge to turn back and punch the queen's lights out. Mika balled her fists at her side, barely restraining her obvious desire to do the very same thing.
While she held the queen's attention, I tiptoed to the dais, my path clear of obstacles and observers. All eyes were trained on Mika. Even poor Sarah, who stammered as she began a new ballad, had her gaze fixed on the Ulfr's face.
I stepped onto the dais, recognizing too late that the platform was constructed of light wood rather than rock. My foot slapped the wood, and a hollow echo spread through the room. The songstress faltered; her eyes darted to the spot where my foot had hit the dais.
"Sing, you stupid creature," the witch yelled, briefly turning away from Mika to glare at the girl, her painted eyebrows furrowed with fury. The girl flinched, eyes moistening with tears. She fisted her fingers and set her shoulders back ever so slightly.
Good for you, Sarah.
The girl was stronger that I would ever be. Who was she and how had she ended up captured by dwarfs, forced to sing for this odious queen?
Her song resumed, and I crept closer and closer to the goblet. The queen glared again at Mika, the flick of her hand in front of the Ulfr's face both dismissive and disgusted. "Horrid spawn of Fenrir!" Again she spat the words at Mika, flecks of saliva flying from her mouth. "What has brought your tainted blood to my palace?" I gritted my teeth again, hating her insults for Mika, but more for Fen, who was my friend and my mentor.
Mika, slowly and deliberately, wiped the queen's spittle off her cheek. "I have a proposition for you," Mika answered, her response surprisingly placid.