The Blood Debt: Wolf of the North Book 3

by Duncan M. Hamilton

  He shook the thought from his head. How had he come to consider stealing from a grave? Then lying about it to grow his fame? He felt disgust at himself, and wondered how his thoughts had turned in that direction. Was he so weak that his head could be turned by a few shiny baubles like any common thief? As hard as he tried to push the temptation from his head, it remained there obstinately, as though it was planted and held in place by some outside force.

  He turned his attention to the remains sitting on the throne. Whatever sat there could never have been called a man. He took a step back in shock. Its skin was dry and had a greyish-blue tinge. It was stretched across the skeleton within, giving it an emaciated look. It wore breeches and a necklace with a large pendant that rested against its chest. Large as the pendant was, it could not conceal the great wound behind it, the one that had likely killed whatever this monster had been. Its dried lips had drawn back to reveal teeth that looked more like fangs, and its ears had pointed tips. It wore a diadem on its head, made of a dark metal that glimmered red when the torch light fell on it. The same black jewel he had seen on the throne was fitted to its centre on the creature’s forehead.

  The answer to who, or what, this was, came to Wulfric as soon as the question entered his mind. Fanrac. These were his remains—it could be none other. Even the wound to the chest fit with the story of how Jorundyr slew him. How Fanrac’s corpse had come to be buried like an ancient king was anyone’s guess, but Wulfric supposed that even in defeat he must have had those who continued to support him. Any temptation the gold or the sword had caused him fled. Everything there was tainted by the demon king’s foul presence, dead though he was. That it would fall to Wulfric to cleanse the place with fire was both humbling and an honour.

  To be in the presence of something so ancient was awe-inspiring. To know it was the embodiment of evil was terrifying. Might it be so concentrated in that place that the grave robbers were turned into draugar by its influence alone? If so, could it have the same effect on Wulfric? The thought sent a chill down his spine, and he wanted to be done with the place as quickly as possible. Even if there was nothing to the barrow beyond an ancient, bizarre grave and a recent robbery, and the village’s problems had more to do with thieves or wolves, Wulfric knew the villagers would not know peace until they believed the threat posed by the barrow was gone. He took one final turn to look around—he could see no sign of anything but what he took to be Fanrac’s corpse. Whether this was the case, or simply a product of an over-excited imagination, he would incinerate it all, and move on.

  Like as not, the tale of what he did there that day would be embellished with the retelling, just as Jagovere’s were. He could not deny the appeal of his fame and tales of his heroism growing further, and did not know whether to feel ashamed of the fact. He had dreamed of being a famed warrior for as long as he could remember, but he worried that most of his fame was undeserved. Was it the same also for the others? Were the stories of the great warriors from Leondorf as exaggerated as his? Was Angest Beleks’ Bane really as fierce as everyone believed? Was his father? Perhaps the reputation was as important as the reality. Growing up in the belief that there were ferocious, terrifying men protecting you was of great comfort. Perhaps that was what the people of Ulmdorf needed?

  He had reached the start of the passageway back to the outside when he thought he heard something behind him. He immediately looked toward where the monstrous corpse sat, but heard nothing more and he didn’t think the sound had come from that direction. Might it have been an echo? He considered ignoring it, but thought it was better investigated now when he had a sword in his hand, rather than a pile of kindling.

  He turned and walked back the way he had come, a tingling sensation spreading across his skin. Every instinct told him there was danger ahead, but his brain refused to accept it. He held the torch out in front of him, its light failing to penetrate very far into the darkness. Light appeared where there had been none before. Green and ethereal, there was no way it could be the reflection of the red flame of his torch. Foxfire. His heart quickened a beat. The old stories always spoke of foxfire being the sign of draugar. Its pale light formed small patches of haunting glow throughout the barrow, but did little to illuminate the place. He moved forward with short, silent steps as though he was hunting a wild beast. He placed his foot carefully each time so he was always certain to be on firm footing, and evenly balanced. The only sound now was the flutter of his torch, though he could hear the blood pound through his ears like a drum.

  A rat shot from the darkness, running between his legs and toward the passageway behind him. He jumped at the shock, but ignored the distraction it caused. Rats didn’t run toward people, not unless there was something more frightening behind them. His mind was working quickly now, and although it felt smothered beneath all that earth and stone, he knew his Gift was beginning to take hold of him. What if Gunther was right?

  The light of his torch reached a stone wall with alcoves large enough to lay the bodies of full-grown men in. They were all empty, but the stench of decay and corruption filled his nostrils. Wulfric swallowed hard and waved his torch to the left, following it with his sword. A lone figure stood in the gloom, holding something to its mouth.

  Wulfric felt his heart quicken even more. Blood pounded through his ears like a berserk drumbeat. ‘Hey, you,’ he shouted, unable to think of anything else.

  The figure lowered the object from its mouth. Wulfric could see a rat’s tail hanging from it, and realised why the other rat had been so eager to leave. Wulfric felt the same way at that moment. The figure looked at Wulfric, its face falling into the torch’s light for the first time. It was bloated, and grey-blue in colour. Wulfric had expected something far more skeletal, like Fanrac, but this looked like a body that had been dead for no more than a few days. Its clothing too looked little different to that worn by the men waiting outside. Things changed slowly in regions like that, but nothing about the creature suggested great age, as the corpse at the other end of the barrow had.

  It regarded Wulfric for a moment before dropping its rat and fixing its dead grey eyes on Wulfric. Wulfric had never felt the compulsion to turn and run more strongly than he did at that moment, not even in the line of battle in Darvaros where he could not move for the press of men around him. There was something about it that exuded fear, as though its very stare could drive a man to madness.

  The creature seemed to grow larger in the gloom. The foxfire glowed more brightly, and Wulfric started to regret having ever picked up a sword. How much better a life it would have been to have tended the land, or watched over a herd or flock. Wulfric took hold of himself—what was he thinking? Could the creature actually rob him of his courage with no more than a glare? Fear surrounded him like a solid object, trying to force its way in.

  Wulfric steeled himself against it and stepped forward, slashing at the creature. His sabre sliced through its unprotected flesh, but it barely flinched. He cut again, but it did not stop its advance. Wulfric felt more terrified than he ever had before, but could not work out why. He cut again, this time taking the draugr’s right arm off at the elbow, but still it walked forward, forcing Wulfric back. He fought through the cloud of fear and confusion to try to remember how the ancient heroes had killed draugr. Burning destroyed them eventually, but a draugr on fire was no less a danger than one that was not.

  Mjoldan, one of Jorundyr’s heroes, had defeated a draugr by wrestling it back into its grave, where it fell into a slumber, before setting it on fire to destroy it completely. Wulfric cast a glance at the alcoves, but there was no way to tell which one belonged to the draugr, if any. He remembered that cutting the draugr’s head off disabled it until the two parts had time to rejoin. This draugr seemed to be confused, not the fast, cunning, and lethal creatures of the stories. Wulfric had no intention of letting it find its wits.

  He dashed forward, and took the draugr’s head from its shoulders with a mighty backhand cut. The body fell to the g
round with a dull thud, and Wulfric pressed his torch against it. As the stories had said, the draugr’s body took up the flame quickly. He watched his handiwork a moment, and looked on in horror as the draugr’s remaining arm groped around in the darkness for its head. He pressed the torch down harder, then heard more noise in the gloom. There were more of them.

  He dashed from the main chamber back down the passageway. The men were all gathered there expectantly, waiting for him to return with good news. They were to be disappointed.

  CHAPTER 24

  Adalhaid smiled to herself when she saw the note with her name on it on the school of medicine’s noticeboard. She had been hopeful that Professor Kengil’s threat had been an empty one, but deep down she knew the woman was too spiteful to let the matter be. She pulled it down and read what it said. She was summoned to a meeting of the faculty that afternoon. Kengil might think she was taking Adalhaid by surprise, but she was ready for whatever the professor had to throw at her.

  She had prepared for this eventuality, reading about the principles of legal certainty to make sure her argument had a solid grounding. Nonetheless, the fact that she was actually going to have to fight her case in front of a faculty committee was unnerving, and not something with which she had any experience. Her confidence that the regulations and the law were on her side was not enough to quell the unease. It was one of those times when she missed Wulfric the most. Simply being around him had allowed her to find peace, something she realised she had not had at any time since losing him. Facing all of life’s trials alone was not something she ever thought she’d have to do, and although she knew in her heart that she could deal with whatever came her way, it would have been so much easier to have him to share it with.

  The campanile chimed for nine bells. Adalhaid put the note into her satchel and headed for the library. Her morning would have to be devoted to preparing herself for the faculty meeting. It was time she could ill afford to spend on anything but her medical studies. Even if she did manage to convince the faculty that she was in the right, it occurred to her that Kengil could derail her in other ways. Distractions from putting in the study time needed could end her hopes of scraping a passing grade.

  Her mind raced with the potential ways that Kengil could harm her chances. Banning her from the library was the most concerning. She calmed herself with the thought that there were always other places to find books, and if she really had to, she could always seek the Markgraf’s assistance in getting Kengil off her back. She hated the thought of doing it, of needing someone else to take care of her problems, but when someone was threatening to impact on her life so maliciously, she thought it prudent to use whatever help she could get. That need was purely the fruit of speculation; something she didn’t think she needed to waste her energy on just yet. For the time being, she needed to be sure she had all the details she needed to prove she was entitled to sit the exams. Any fresh obstacles the faculty committee sought to place in her way could be dealt with as and when they appeared.

  THE FACULTY MEETING room was stuffy and panelled with dark wood stained darker still by years of timber and tobacco smoke. A fire crackled at one end of the room, while a great table of the same dark wood dominated the centre of the room. It was surrounded by oxblood buttoned-leather chairs, and faces of former professors of medicine stared down from their gilt frames on the wall. Three equally severe-looking people sat on the far side of the table—two men whom she did not know, and Professor Kengil.

  ‘Good afternoon, Miss Steinnsdottir,’ said the hawkish-looking man in the middle of the three. ‘Please sit.’

  She sat opposite him, and tried to calm herself.

  ‘I am Pro-Chancellor Feder, this is Dean Terring, and Professor Kengil you already know. We’re here to discuss your application to sit the final medical examinations.’

  Adalhaid nodded, guarding her thoughts as she waited to see what their attitude to it was. She had no doubt that Kengil had poisoned them against her, but she wanted to make them put forward their reasons for refusing her, so she could attack them, rather than leading with her argument so they could try to pick holes in it.

  ‘You realise,’ Feder said, ‘that if allowed to go forward for examination, you will have spent the shortest period as a student on record.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ Adalhaid said, ‘but I was aware that it was a possibility.’

  ‘We can’t allow students to enrol and then expect to graduate in only a few months,’ Feder said. ‘We have standards to maintain at the university. Allowing you to go forward for examination after such a short period is, quite simply, impossible.’

  Adalhaid’s heart quickened. She had never expected them to let her through without a fight, but her body was involuntarily reacting to the fact that the time had arrived.

  ‘Surely,’ she said, ‘the standards you seek to maintain are defined by the examination process, and the other compulsory components of the course. If the exams have been passed, and the compulsory requirements met, have the standards not been also?’

  Before he had a chance to answer, she slid a piece of paper across the table to him. ‘My clinical hours,’ she said. ‘Every one signed off on by the resident physician. As you can see, they exceed the required two hundred hours.’

  Feder pulled the page toward him with his fingertips and stared down his nose, through his spectacles, at the time sheet. He frowned as he studied it, then nodded, and slid it over to Professor Kengil, who gave it only a derisory glance. She had an expression on her face that could curdle milk.

  ‘It seems to be in order,’ Feder said, ‘but as you have acknowledged, clinical hours are only a part of the requirement.’

  ‘And there’s only one way to find out if I meet the rest of it.’

  Feder sat back in his chair and his mouth betrayed the slightest of smiles.

  ‘It’s not possible to achieve a passing grade in the final examinations after only a year of study,’ Professor Kengil said.

  ‘A little over a year and a half, actually,’ Adalhaid said, struggling to conceal her contempt for the woman.

  ‘It makes little difference,’ Kengil said.

  Feder nodded slowly. ‘There is something to what she says, though. There is only one way to find out. There’s never been any question of the exams being too easy, has there?’

  ‘The failure rate remains consistently above forty percent,’ Dean Terring said, with his first contribution to the conversation.

  ‘I believe that’s the highest in the university,’ Feder said. ‘It certainly doesn’t indicate to me that the passing standard is too low.’

  Adalhaid sat back in her chair as the faculty members ruminated on the matter, thankful that exam papers were anonymously marked. It would all be for naught if Professor Kengil was able to downgrade her papers to ensure she failed. It was still a possibility, but it would be difficult for her to do, easily discovered, and would ruin her. She might hate Adalhaid, for reasons that remained unknown to her, but Adalhaid doubted she was spiteful enough to destroy her own career and reputation to fail her.

  Feder cleared his throat, and started to speak again. ‘While I take on board what you are saying, I’m uncomfortable with the idea of someone being able to take and—even though the likelihood is low—pass the final examinations, after so short a duration at the university. It’s not just about academic and practical ability. Being a good physician is about so much more—compassion, time management, interacting with other physicians. These are all things that are learned and experienced by being part of the community of the university for a longer duration. Learning is not something that occurs entirely in isolation. We learn so much from others, from their mistakes, from their differing approach to tackling problems. Do you see what I mean?’

  ‘I do, and I can identify the benefits that those things bring. However, they can also be acquired in the course of professional practise. Not all of us are in a position—financial or otherwise—to prolong our stay here, h
owever much we might want to.’

  Feder’s smile was more pronounced this time. ‘If I were to say that we could simply refuse your application to sit the exams?’

  ‘I’d say the university regulations don’t empower you to do so.’

  Feder let out a staccato laugh.

  ‘Regulations can be changed,’ Professor Kengil said, her voice dripping with vitriol.

  ‘They can,’ Feder said, ‘but as I suspect Miss Steinnsdottir already knows, any change of regulations would not affect her, as her application to sit the exams has already been made.’

  Adalhaid nodded, but contained a smile. It seemed that Feder was siding with her, rather than his colleague, which was completely unexpected.

  Feder sat back in his chair and laced his fingers over his stomach. ‘I can see that you are an intelligent, articulate, and well-informed young woman, Miss Steinnsdottir. I took a look at your grades before this meeting, and I’m not as convinced as my colleagues that your failing the examinations is as foregone a conclusion as they think it is. Were that the case, I wouldn’t have bothered with this meeting at all—I’d have allowed you to fall on the sword of your own hubris. Rather, I came here hoping to convince you to change your mind, to invest yourself in life here at the university, to take from it all that you can, and likewise, enrich all of us with your contributions. I feel you are convinced to decline my entreaty?’