A Mighty Dawn

by Theodore Brun

  ‘The god. The High One. The Slain-God. The Father of Victory. The Father of All.’

  ‘Odin.’

  ‘Indeed. Listen, my good son. I do not speak lightly. Oh, I know men utter plaintive prayers to him in the shadow of their battle-dread. Perhaps he listens. But I doubt he does otherwise than just as he chooses. But we . . .’ She smiled, seeming pleased at her own craft. ‘We may be far more persuasive.’

  ‘How?’ demanded Sigurd, bluntly.

  She was about to answer, but then checked herself and gave a light, low chuckle into the kitten’s fur. Then she was back at her old trick of listening to the damned cat. Einar reflected that if this woman were his wife, the leather of his belt would get a good airing, and no mistake. ‘What’s that, my little glutton of milk? You are shy? Your little schemes are for his ears alone. Oh, very well. It shall be as you wish.’ She smiled at Sigurd. ‘Shall it not, my lord?’

  He considered her, his jaw twitching. Then, he gave a sharp snort and turned to the guards. ‘Leave us.’ Einar didn’t need telling twice. He had urgent business of his own to attend to. But turning to go, he heard Sigurd say, ‘You too.’ He glanced back to see the solitary figure of Vargalf, Sigurd’s oathman, delay a moment before uncoiling himself from a bench in the corner and following him out of the council chamber.

  A short while later, in a quiet spot round the back of the nearest dungheap, Einar was enjoying a moment of profound relief. He’d awoken that morning feeling like the bottom had fallen out of his world. Now he’d let what felt like a world fall out of his bottom, he was feeling a Hel of a lot better.

  He was just pulling up his breeches when he heard a giggle behind him. He turned to see a pug-nosed brat making a poor job of suppressing his sniggers. Einar snatched up a stone and threw it at him. The boy dodged it easily.

  ‘Go on, you little tyke!’

  The boy stood there, brazen as you like, hands on his hips. ‘Vargalf’s looking for you.’

  ‘Is he now?’ Einar wondered what that pale-faced bastard wanted now. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Back of the Great Hall,’ said the boy, and scampered off.

  ‘Toe-rag,’ muttered Einar.

  He found Vargalf easy enough. As usual the two of them didn’t bandy words. Vargalf gave him the names of three women to find and bring to the Smith’s Hall – one of the smaller halls among the jumble of buildings spread out east of the Great Hall.

  ‘What do you want ’em for?’

  ‘Just get them,’ was the curt reply. Before Einar could object, Vargalf had turned and stalked off.

  ‘If that son of a bitch took his head out of Sigurd’s arse for half a minute, I’d gladly knock it off for him,’ muttered Einar. He was the king of the late comeback. But he couldn’t be too glum. He was feeling a new man, after all. ‘Right then, lassies. Where are you at?’

  It didn’t take him long to find the first of them: Klarika, the wife of Finn the archer. She was easy to spot in the crowd with her bouncing auburn hair and a pair of fine shoulders. He found her haggling over a pile of homespun among the wool-halls. The girl she was dealing with looked mighty glad for the interruption. Beautiful as Klarika was, she had a mouth like a shitpit and was stubborn as a mule, neither of which made her an enviable woman to barter with.

  ‘What – right now?’ she groaned, when he said she was wanted. ‘I’m right in the fucking middle of something.’

  ‘Afraid so, sweet-cheeks.’

  ‘Least tell me what it’s about.’

  ‘Would if I knew myself. Just have to come get you. That’s all I know.’

  ‘Fuck,’ she said, and dumped the homespun on the trestle. She wagged an elegant finger in the girl’s face. ‘I’ll be back. And don’t you go giving this to anyone else till I do. You hear me?’ The girl nodded slavishly.

  It was a pleasant stroll around the halls, Klarika chattering away, while they found the other women. Finn’s wife had a garrulous tongue and knew a hoard of filthy stories from her days as a concubine under Sviggar’s roof. But she admitted she preferred married life with Finn. ‘There’s no doubt the man knows what he’s doing.’ She thought about it, adding, ‘Least, now I showed him what’s fucking what, he does!’ She laughed a great beaming laugh, and Einar couldn’t help wishing he’d learned to shoot an arrow straighter if the likes of her were the rewards. They collected one of the kitchen wenches – a pretty little thing with an elven face and short cropped hair. Lastly, a raven-haired wanton who – as everyone knew – spent her days in the dairy and her nights in the bed of any visiting nobleman who happened to stray near the Uppland halls. She had a string of little bastards to show for it.

  They were merry company, gossiping away, and as they arrived at the Smith’s Hall a little later, Einar was reflecting that some days a council guard’s duty had its pay-offs. But between them, they couldn’t fathom the reason they’d all been summoned.

  The Smith’s Hall was a dismal hovel compared with Sviggar’s Great Hall, but its blazing hearth was welcome relief from the cold outside. He hustled them in, telling them to keep their voices down, better yet be quiet – though he had little hope of that. But when they saw who was waiting on the dais at the end of the hall, they soon hushed up.

  Lady Saldas was dressed in a finery of blacks and forest greens, looking, by Einar’s reckoning, as striking as any queen in the north ever had, and this time with not a hair of that damned fool kitten in sight. Beside her was Lord Sigurd, with his customary glower, though Einar thought he saw a trace of nervousness – or was it excitement? – in his eyes. Positioned around the hall were armed guards. In a moment, Einar’s practised eye told him seven in all, including that savage son of a bitch, Aleif Red-Cheeks. And glancing behind, he saw by the doorway Vargalf, whose face, as usual, was unreadable.

  Nevertheless, Einar’s eye was drawn inexorably to the young women assembled at the foot of the dais. It only took a scan of their faces to see this was no ordinary collection. True, Einar had been enjoying the company of the three bonny girls he’d brought with him, but he’d thought nothing of it in particular. But this group of. . . he counted them. . . with his three, there were nine. . . Well, seeing them together, it was as though someone had handpicked the nine brightest beauties in all Uppsala.

  Excepting the queen herself, of course.

  ‘Thank you, gentle sisters, for coming here at such short notice,’ Queen Saldas began. ‘I realize you are all busy. But I also know you are aware these are times of great peril and uncertainty. There is not one of us here who is not bearing a heavy burden of care for at least one of her menfolk, and some of you more. Like me, you must feel so very powerless to help them in their task. We women are weaker in limb, naturally. And for that reason perhaps, we have to be stronger in heart.’ She indulged them with a smile.

  Einar scanned the women’s faces. A few of them, he knew, would already have an irreverent joke or two on their lips in response to the queen’s words. But for the moment, they all looked up at her, attentive enough.

  ‘But,’ continued the queen, ‘a woman’s role may be further reaching and more profound than any man could understand. Yet we should not judge them too harshly for that.’ She turned and smiled at Sigurd, but his face was stone. One or two of the women tittered. ‘It is because we have the greater power that often from us is required the greater sacrifice. Gentle sisters, you have an important role in these perilous times. You have the power to seal your menfolk’s victory. A victory for all our people. You are honoured indeed.’

  Just then, Einar found himself distracted by shadows moving on the wall. He glanced behind and saw Vargalf discreetly closing the doors. He watched him ease the second door shut, then gently drop the bar in place. His head turned and Einar noticed his mouth curl into a smile. Something about it gave him a bad feeling in his stomach. A very, very bad feeling.

  This time, it had nothing to do with Vanta’s rotten ale.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Erlan peered into th
e shadows.

  Before, he could see nothing but pitch darkness. Now everything seemed to have a dull luminescence. A line of braziers with pallid flames trailed into the gloom.

  His heart was galloping, the blood in his veins surging like a storm-swell. He didn’t understand what was happening. Yet his senses were sharper than ever.

  He stopped and listened. Behind, silence. Ahead, a jumble of far-off murmurings, the pulse of drums, the ring of iron. Lilla must be that way.

  He limped towards the noises. The light was growing. At least he could see more and more. The rock walls rose about him. Looking higher, he saw nooks and hollows; a few at first, then more and more until the cavern was riddled like a honeycomb.

  He came to a crack between two shoulders of rock, followed the path round a bend and halted in surprise. Steps descended into another chasm, this one filled with light and noise. A fresh stench filled his nostrils. He recoiled, disgusted.

  Suddenly a figure appeared with lank white hair and a hunched body. A Nefelung thrall? Whatever it was looked up, eyes straining, hesitated a moment, then turned to run.

  Erlan leaped after it. The Nefelung had no time to escape. Erlan was on him at once, kicking away his legs. The Nefelung fell headlong down the steps, crashed against a rock, then turned, cowering away from him.

  For the first time, he saw its face clearly. Like a man’s with all the colour leached out of it. Eyes darting, with ugly sores, blackened teeth, a nose crossed with scars. But there was no time to inspect any closer.

  He put his point to the Nefelung’s chest.

  ‘Where is she?’ The response only a craven babbling.

  ‘The woman?’ But the creature shrank back, a jabbering heap. Erlan shook the tail in his face.

  ‘The woman!’ he cried.

  When the Nefelung saw the tail, he screamed, his face twisting in sudden terror, desperate to get away.

  Struck by the tail’s effect, Erlan hesitated, long enough for the Nefelung to throw himself over the edge into the darkness. There was a scraping noise as he slid into the abyss.

  Erlan beheld the tail, wondering what power he had in his hands.

  But there was no time to waste. He limped on, able to see quite well now, the pain of his wounds somehow dulled. At the bottom, he turned a bend and emerged from a cut.

  A vast cavern opened about him.

  The path continued straight. Either side of it, the ground fell away into deep pits. He saw steps down into some, and further on other paths and stairways leading into higher caverns and cracks.

  The noise grew all the time – a din of murmurs and shrieks and scrapings – drums – metal hammering. He stumbled along the pathway, a new dread seeping into his heart.

  And looking down into the pits, he saw things of such horror as he never would forget.

  In one, a writhing sea of bodies, and from them moans and gasps rose up in an unbroken sibilant breath. He heard women’s wails and saw many muscular backs at work, something twisted and brutish in their shape.

  In another, drums echoed off the walls around a horde of Nefelung leaping about in a mad frenzy, pale arms whirring overhead.

  He shuffled on, gagging at the stench rising from the next pit. There, he saw figures stirring a boiling stew of blood and body parts in huge vats, and seated around them other figures clutching bowls, slopping the grisly contents into their mouths. But these ones were somehow different. Bigger, with rounded shoulders and crooked hands. He remembered the Watcher’s words – of the Vandrung, the deformed sirelings of the overlords. He shook his head, bewildered at this demon’s nest of horrors.

  He moved to the next pit. There, the smell was worse, of open viscera and human filth. There too, the cries of infants – newborn sons and daughters of this strange race, lying wretched and helpless. One by one they were put before a Nefelung with a knife, whose long hair was soaked red. He slashed the tiny throats and pushed them, still wriggling, to another who slit them loin to chin and began disembowelling them. Erlan tore his eyes away, his stomach heaving with disgust.

  Forcing himself on, he saw more pits on the other side: one in which bodies were strung up, stretched out and skinned. In another, rows of the Nefelung lay prostrate before a great stone likeness of a serpent; in yet another sounded the ring of metal, with molten iron glowing in smiths’ faces, and stacks of all kinds of weapons and outlandish objects, embellished with spikes and hooks. But none of them looked up and saw him. All seemed too intent on their grisly business.

  This is all some mad nightmare. It must be. He felt his mind slipping under, drowning in revulsion.

  Suddenly a scream pierced the deathly air. Far closer this time, and from above.

  Lilla.

  Just ahead, a staircase led up to the right, disappearing into a dark hole. He took it and began climbing. At the top the steps narrowed into a passageway. He stopped to listen, eyes probing the gloom. Ahead, he heard a whimper, just for a second, then a low snicker.

  He steadied his sword and edged around a curve in the passage until at last he saw two figures standing guard at the entrance to another chamber. They were peering inside, each clutching a long-spear.

  He took a deep breath and ran at them.

  He was onto the nearest guard at once. The spear-point lowered to meet him, but it was too late. Wrathling scythed into the guard’s side so deep Erlan felt its edge scrape his spine. The guard gave an agonized shriek. Erlan ripped his blade clear and turned to face the other.

  The Nefelung braced himself. Erlan flicked out the tail. The effect was that same craven look. The guard flung down his spear and turned to flee, but Erlan was quicker. He whipped the tail. With a crack, it coiled round the pale neck. He jerked his hand, pulling the creature onto its back. In an eye-blink, Wrathling was wet with fresh blood and the Nefelung sighing his last breath.

  Erlan stepped over the body and went inside.

  A brazier, flaming yellow, stood on one side. Along the wall were apertures in the rock through which came the sounds of the hideous scenes below, and in the middle was an enormous bed.

  On it lay a naked woman. Her limbs were bound to the corners, her skin slick with oil. In another place, another time, he might have reckoned the contours of her body beautiful. But here, there was something horrible about the way she was splayed out. She lay quite still.

  ‘Lilla!’

  The princess stirred, moaned, tried to lift her head. ‘You!’ Her voice was a broken whisper.

  He moved around the corners of the bed, cutting her free.

  ‘Don’t look at me,’ she said, writhing in shame. ‘Look away!’

  ‘Believe it or not, Princess, I didn’t come here to gawp at you!’ he snarled, severing the last bond.

  Once her hands were released, she covered herself.

  ‘Put this on.’ He unfastened his cloak and threw it over her.

  She sat up, hugging the cloak to her chest. ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘Yes.’ Her eyes looked half-dead with fear and fatigue.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I cut off his head. Good enough for you?’

  Her face curdled. ‘What’s that?’ She nodded at the dark coil he had tossed on the bed.

  ‘He had a tail. I took it from him.’

  ‘Why would you do that?’ she asked, shrinking away from it.

  ‘Listen to me – we need to get away from here – now!’

  But she didn’t hear him. Her shoulders started shaking and her mouth curled into laughter. Cackling laughter that grew and grew, until her whole body shook and her eyes became wild. And then she was sobbing, gasping for air, tears staining her face.

  Erlan took her in his arms, squeezing her, feeling her shudder against him. Suddenly she pushed him away.

  ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘Your father sent me.’

  ‘You? Of all his men, he sent you? I don’t understand. You’re a. . . a. . .’

  ‘A fucking cripple, I know! You’re hardly in a po
sition to be picky, Princess.’

  She stared at him, wide-eyed, and then seemed to regain some control. ‘I’m sorry. I should thank you. . . For coming for me.’

  ‘Coming is one thing. Getting out is another. Can you walk?’

  ‘I think so. But how can we get away? There are so many of them!’

  ‘We’re going to try.’ Though just then the surface seemed about as far off as the moon, and no easier to reach. ‘At least I’ll get you away from this place. But to find our way back to the surface—’

  ‘I know the way!’

  ‘You do? How?’

  ‘Even in darkness, a quick mind can see.’

  ‘What? You think you could find the way back through that warren of caverns? You must be out of your mind!’

  ‘That’s the whole point. It was to stop myself going out of my mind that I forced myself to memorize it.’ She tapped her head, eyes ablaze. ‘When they brought me here, I carved every step, every turn, every echo right here. It was my only hope.’

  It was a thin shred to go on, but what choice did they have?

  She must have seen the doubt in his face. ‘Trust me. I’ve retraced those steps a hundred times in my head already.’

  ‘All right. Do you have any things?’

  ‘My dress,’ she gestured at a heap of rags in the corner. ‘What’s left of it.’

  ‘It’ll do for now. Up there, we’ve plenty of things for you.’

  ‘We? You mean my father is up there with his men?’

  ‘Not your father. My servant, Kai.’

  ‘What! That little clown of yours?’

  ‘That’s right,’ he scowled, running out of patience. ‘The clown and the cripple got this far, so I suggest you shift your noble backside if we want to get any further.’

  At last she did as he bid her, climbed off the bed and snatched up the remains of her dress. ‘Do you mind?’ she said, over a naked shoulder.

  ‘Just get on with it.’ He turned away, glowering, and gathered up his sword and the tail from the bed. When he looked back, she had the dress over her head.

  ‘Ready?’