The Errantry of Bantam Flyn

by Jonathan French

  “None,” Flyn replied, keeping his eyes on the Corpse Eater. “Remember, I have met you once before, husk. That encounter ended with my death, yours, and that of the little boy who saved me at the cost of his own life. I do not know what you told the lady to make that tragedy palatable, but I have no wish to hear it. For you see, I do not, will not forgive you. You killed me once, and you may do so again. As before, there is nothing I can do to prevent it. But I know my purpose here and I will see it through.” He shot a quick look at Beladore. “Forgive me, lady. You know my name, but not my nature. Fighting is what I do. Red Caps and skin-changers, Unwound and wights. I have battled them all and am rather skilled at it, but I am also an impetuous rascal. I bolster this failing by surrounding myself with deeper thinkers, but none of them are here at the moment, so I must ask you again. Remove yourself to safety.”

  Beladore did not move, but the husk did, stepping forward.

  “Allow me to be your deeper-thinker,” he said.

  Flyn shook his head. “Not likely.”

  “This is not a battle you need fight,” the husk insisted, throwing an arm up at the Corpse Eater. “You are not the one meant to face her as you have been led to believe. But the deceitfulness of the dwarrow goes far beyond their fallacy in interpreting prophecies. Did they claim she cursed them, corrupted their immortality in order to retain her own? Lies! I have heard it directly from her. She did not create the blight of the vættir to extend her days, but to punish the dwarrow for robbing her children of eternal life.”

  Flyn tried not to heed the husk's words, but the calm surety of that thin voice penetrated all attempts to ignore him.

  An unwanted question came to Flyn's tongue. “The dwarrow? They took the immortality of the coburn?”

  The black elves. Took from you. Not I!

  Flyn looked up at the Corpse Eater, her calamitous stare challenging him to doubt.

  “I am sure you know the legend,” the husk asserted, “of the forebears of Middangeard's Elementals. One of them stands before you. It is no myth. She and her mate created your race. So too did the giants, the elves and the dragons have such mighty parentage. But not the dwarrow, for they were once elves, stunted and forsaken by Magic. Their progenitors, the mother and father of elf-kind, went to Airlann with their favored kin, as did the dragons. The giants and the coburn were left here, abandoned, but they had their mighty forebears to guide them. The dwarrow had nothing. Nothing but what they could steal.”

  Flyn's mind raced, the voice of the Corpse Eater accompanying his scattered thoughts.

  Deceivers! My mate. Imprisoned. Mother giant. Father giant. Imprisoned. Leeched to death.

  A chill entered Flyn's blood at the mention of the Corpse Eater's mate.

  He had seen the remains, the great, shackled skeleton housed deep within Hriedmar's Hall. It had been kept behind a set of massive gates, one of three. Fafnir had said that the great bird's incarceration was a mystery, but admitted that it might have been the result of a trap set by a dwarrow lord of bygone days. Did the other gates conceal the mouldering bones of the first giants, entombed by the dwarrow? Could the immortality of dwarf-kind truly be invested by such skulduggery?

  “No!” Flyn snarled. “Fafnir has no wish to capture the Corpse Eater. He wants her dead to end the threat of the vættir.”

  “Of course,” the husk agreed. “The lore of stealing life- eternal has long since slipped beyond the ken of dwarfs. But the deed has been done, to you and your kind in the ancient past. Your matron wanted to destroy the dwarrow for that ignominious act, and now you would slay her for it at the behest of those who deprived you of your birthright.”

  A humorless laugh played across the nest. Flyn turned, equally relieved and troubled to see Inkstain appear out of the putrid haze. Relieved to see his companion alive, troubled to see the owl returned to him.

  “You are a fine one to speak of stolen birthrights, hollow man,” Inkstain declared with dark amusement. “Did you truly believe I could not follow you up here?”

  “Ingelbert,” Flyn said. “You know this husk? Does he speak true?”

  “That is not who you think it is, Sir Flyn,” the husk put in quickly.

  Inkstain came to stand beside Flyn, his dancing, mucid eyes taking in all present. They eventually rolled around to settle on Beladore and stilled, deadening. Flyn saw the woman blanch under that stare, though she remained firmly rooted in place and countenance.

  “Who can say what is true?” the chronicler said, his voice adopting an odd, sing-song inflection. “Immortals lie, as willingly and readily as those of us with limits to our years. You coburn are mortal, that is true. Whether by the craft of those hideous dwarrow or this delicious carrion-creature matters not at all. History is an old whore, only interesting if you delight in hearing of all the depraved things she used to do. I much prefer the debasements of today.”

  Flyn was loathe to admit it, but the husk was right, this was not Ingelbert Crane. But the chronicler had known the dangers, better than any of them, and admitted to the struggles he faced under the owl's influence. He had confided his fears to Flyn, as well as his means of combating this corruption.

  “Remember Ulfrun, Master Crane,” Flyn told him.

  The man laughed low in his throat, his eyes never leaving Beladore. “Ah yes, the giantess. Those were some exceedingly wet ablutions we shared. But that frolic is now behind me, in the tiresome past. I am now focused on the conquests to come.”

  “Dammit, Ingelbert, enough! Find control!”

  “Strike him down, Sir Flyn!” the husk exclaimed.

  Inkstain chuckled, his lascivious gaze finally leaving Beladore. “This one?” he asked, pointing derisively at Flyn. “He dare not. Far too noble, far too chivalrous is our flocculent cock here. He lacks the viciousness of his race. By the Hallowed, he is practically a castrate.” The chronicler turned to face Flyn, his face aglow with mockery. “And that is where the husk speaks most truthfully. You are not the foretold coburn. And not because that half-wit runecaster was wrong about his paltry prophecy, but because you are entirely too sparing. You hear one measly possibility that the Mother of Gales is not the malevolence you wanted her to be and it causes you to doubt, to think of mercy! You are worse than a craven, Bantam Flyn, you are a poet, trapped in the body of a killer.” Inkstain's smile widened. “As it happens, I am caught in the opposite dilemma.” He waved two fingers over his shoulder in a lazy, dismissive gesture.

  Beladore vomited blood.

  It came without warning, the woman suddenly choking on a torrent of crimson. The husk rushed to her side, catching her as she collapsed.

  “Crane, no!” Flyn cried, readying his sword to strike.

  “Thwart me and she dies!” Inkstain proclaimed, his warning sweeping Flyn and the husk. The man smiled as Flyn lowered his blade. “You see? A slave to compassion. But I would not drop your guard too far, gamecock. You will soon need that ludicrous sword.”

  The chronicler slowly began walking towards the Corpse Eater. The great bird grew skittish at his approach, but did not attack or flee, seemingly rooted in place by the man's mere presence.

  “I am going to give you a gift, Bantam Flyn,” the leering swain who was once Ingelbert called over his shoulder. “I am going to give you the monster you desired.”

  Inkstain was now directly beneath the Corpse Eater's head, nearly standing between her feet. She made no move to oppose him, nor did the gathered wights. Turning to face Flyn, the chronicler smiled.

  “She is nearly as old as time itself, yet her hold on reason is wonderfully tenuous. Imagine what would become of her if that hold was completely severed. Oh, do not fret. You need not imagine. I will show you.”

  The Corpse Eater screamed, throwing back her head to trumpet a deplorable agony to the sky. Inkstain stepped away as she shivered violently, molting feathers and digging into the logs with her talons. Her head leveled, snaking forth from her neck, and when she opened her eyes, they bored into Flyn. There
was nothing left in those pitiless orbs but brute savagery. Pure, hungering madness.

  With a screech for blood, the Corpse Eater launched herself directly at Flyn, her wings unfurling. The open beak came at him with terrible speed and Flyn tried to jump aside, but he was struck by the monster's shoulder. Feeling ribs crack, Flyn folded at the middle, pinned to the bird's wing bone by the speed and force of her movement. He felt the pounding footsteps of the beast jostle him and then they ceased, replaced with a punishing press of wind upon his back. The wing on which he clung flapped and he was dislodged, tossed up momentarily, only to have the wing slam into him once more. He tumbled across the Corpse Eater's back, screaming in terror as he saw, beyond her tail feathers, the top of the great tree receding below, surrounded by the stone embrace of the mountains.

  Desperately, he grabbed hold of the tuft of feathers between the pumping wings and clung one-handed. Crosscutting gusts of wind nearly threw him off, but he pressed himself to the Corpse Eater, face-down, the solid stink of her separating him from the cold void. Some unseen force began to lift him, starting at his feet. He looked down and between his dangling talons saw a great eye, the white world with the vale for an iris, the denseness of the tree its pupil. The Corpse Eater was climbing quickly, her ascent nearly vertical. Flyn could feel the downy feathers between his fingers slipping as his own weight pulled at the plumes. He twisted, facing the horrifying emptiness of clouds, and kicked the steel of his spurs into the Corpse Eater's back. Her screeching protest could be heard over the tumult of beating wind.

  Flyn's stomach charged to his throat as the climb turned into a dive. All his senses became useless, his world nothing but a shrieking haze of fear. Any instant, he expected to find himself free of his foe, she having killed him while he yet breathed, existing in impotence until the ground received him. Yet, somehow, he held on.

  Survival, however, was no victory. It would be fleeting for all his fortune and effort. He would tire long before this beast, she who was mother of Wind. Eventually, he would join the clouds. Knowing it was impossible, Flyn fancied he could hear the beating of the Corpse Eater's heart, just beneath his shoulder. He would never be closer.

  Focusing on the unsettling motions of the bird's flight, Flyn held on, waiting. When, at last, he could feel his back resting level upon her, he ripped his spurs free and rolled, knowing he had only a moment. He gained his feet, and as the unseen hand of the wind punched him, he plunged Coalspur down. The blade sunk through feather and flesh, and Flyn's precarious perch lurched beneath him as a screech pierced his ears. He clung to the sword, using it to defy the wind's might and tried to push the blade deeper.

  The sky and earth switched places, revolving with frightening speed.

  Flyn floated in emptiness.

  Coalspur was still in his hand, half the blade darkly stained. The mind-shattering chaos of the flight was gone, replaced by a near serene weightlessness, the roaring air no longer threatening, but embracing. Flyn's sight was keen once more, his plight displayed before him with detached clarity. It did not feel as if he were plummeting to the earth, and the crushing dread of such a death was absent. The powerlessness provided a freedom from all care.

  Below, he could see the vale just off to his left. Just as Flyn thought it would never grow any closer, it began to swell, taking up more of his vision with each speeding moment. He judged he would come down amongst the bordering peaks, somewhere in the heights above the vale.

  As the end drew near, Flyn found his acceptance dwindling, quickly replaced by stark terror. His panic mounted as a stretch of stark white rushed to end his life. It was a ridge, snow-blanketed and flat, nestled amongst the craggy shoulders of the mountain. Flyn's eyes darted around, streaming tears from the punishing updraft. He nearly laughed at his own desperation. What did he search for? And then he did laugh at what he saw.

  It began as a smudge, a blackness on the white. Quickly, it became a hole, a vertical shaft, sunk into the ridge. It was a sizable, roughly circular crevasse. The earth, it appeared, desired to devour him. Flyn would not disappoint and began adjusting his fall, aiming for the icy gullet. Swimming in the air, he directed his feet at the yawning hole and gripped Coalspur two-handed over his head, point-down. Screaming with triumph and terror, Flyn entered the throat of the mountain.

  The shadowy wall of the pit was before him, the bottom an unknown distance below, eager to jelly his bones. With all his might, Flyn thrust Coalspur into the rocks. The steel bit through, gouging into the stone, the speed of Flyn's fall forcing the blade to carve deep. He held firm to the grip, riding the sword as it sliced a furrow down the wall of the pit. The joints in his arms screamed in burning protest, promising to snap, but he held firm until finally, the blade slowed and his plummet came to a halt.

  With an expulsion of breath, Flyn grabbed hold of the rock face with his feet, taking some of the weight off his wrists and shoulders. He hung there, trembling for what seemed an eternity. At last, he opened his eyes and surveyed the shaft. Down, an impenetrable pool of shadow, the dark and distant gut of the mountain. Above, a circle of sunlight, now no larger than a plate.

  “Up it is,” Flyn said aloud, his voice croaking.

  He hung one-armed from his sword for a moment, reaching down with his free hand to unbuckle one of the elven spurs. Wielding it as a spike, Flyn began climbing, keeping Coalspur in the trench it had carved and sliding the blade up, twisting it just enough to bite before pulling up and stabbing with the spur. Thus, aided by the steel of dwarfs and elves, Flyn made his slow, steady pilgrimage towards the light.

  The trench made by Coalspur ended some distance before the mouth of the shaft. Keeping the spur buried deep in the rock, Flyn pulled the sword free and resumed his climb, one-handed. After many muscle-trembling rests, he reached the lip.

  Flyn hooked his sword arm over the edge of the pit, hauling himself up until his forearms rested on the ice. He clung to the edge of the hole for a moment, his eyes closed, his wattle resting on the cold stones between his arms, breathing deeply. When he opened his eyes at last, his heart sank.

  The Corpse Eater waited upon the ridge, unslain. She was less than a stone's throw from the pit, staring at him with eyes eager for retribution. One wing protruded oddly from her body and her black blood smirched the snow at her feet.

  Flyn chuckled darkly. He did not have enough strength left to haul himself out of the shaft, much less do battle with this beast, however injured. She began to stalk towards him, her lower beak nearly dragging the ground.

  “Be warned, Mother,” Flyn said, grinning weakly. “I shall likely stick in your craw.”

  Her breath was upon his face when an object came whirling through the air. It thudded into the side of the Corpse Eater's neck and she stumbled, hissing. Flyn saw a long-hafted axe buried in the bird's flesh. He looked to the right, the direction from which the weapon had come, and found a coburn standing in the shallow of the ridge. The mail and furs of a fjordman covered his drab, grey feathers, a long dirk in his hand. Only one coburn was that tall and grim.

  The Dread Cockerel.

  Flyn nearly burst into hysterics as revelation flooded his exhausted mind.

  The husk had said he was not the proper champion, not the foretold slayer. Here stood the proper knight, the one with the viciousness needed to bring this beast down, the one who would have won the tourney and received Coalspur as prize if not for unhappy chance. This quest was never Flyn's fate. It was housed within the determined stare of the Dread Cockerel.

  “Sir Wyncott!” Flyn yelled and, flinging his arm out, sent Coalspur spinning across the ice. The motion upset Flyn's purchase and his feet began to scrabble on the slick stones. He clung with the last of his strength, making sure his cast had been true.

  The Dread Cockerel stopped the sliding blade with his foot and, hooking his talons beneath the blade, kicked the weapon into his hand.

  “Cocky strut,” Flyn whispered with a smile before allowing himself to fall.

>   THIRTY THREE

  “Will he live?” Deglan demanded as soon as Ulfrun set him down.

  Hengest looked up from the prone form of Fafnir and nodded, quickly reaching into his pouch for his runestones. Deglan tried to watch him work, but his gaze kept returning to the mouth of the cave that now sheltered them, and the howling maelstrom without. Ulfrun stood just under the threshold, watching for signs of pursuing draugr.

  It had been a near thing, pulling Fafnir out of that mass of murderous dead, but Ulfrun and Hengest had managed it, while Deglan watched from near the edge of the Gale. With the giantess hobbled and the Chain Maker barely coherent, their only chance of escape had been to enter the clutches of the storm. Were it not for Ulfrun, Deglan would have been lost in those punishing winds, beaten down and buried by snow. When she scooped him up, she had handed him something square and heavy, and only now was he able to look at what he held in his arms.

  Ingelbert's book. The bloody big, ugly tome, covered in green leather. The thing was practically as large as Deglan's torso. He thumped over to Ulfrun, wincing as he drew nearer the storm, its voice shrieking through the cave.

  “It was the only sign of him,” the giantess said as soon as he drew near. Her vigil of the storm never wavered, but Deglan saw through her brave face. Clearly, Crane and the giantess had grown closer since Deglan's capture. The signs were etched in her brow, the corners of her eyes and the set of her jaw, which bulged irregularly as she grit her teeth. Knowing she would accept coddling about as well as he would, Deglan said nothing.

  Behind them, Fafnir began to gasp. Together, Ulfrun and Deglan came away from the cave mouth and approached the dwarrow. Hengest was helping the Chain Maker sit up, just enough to prop him against the rough stone wall. The older dwarf looked ghastly.

  “Crow Shoulders?” Fafnir asked, his voice fringed with coughs.

  “Dead,” Ulfrun told him. “He and his brood.”

  “Where is Crane?” Deglan asked, giving voice to the question Ulfrun would not.