by Kildare
“He wasn’t a woodcutter,” Fáelán said.
“Then what was he?” Cillian asked.
“Perhaps a servant of the Dread Queen. Who has a better motive in this world to release Loki than her?”
“That could explain why the treasure we captured was being sent to the Grim Mountain,” Rebel Sly said. “Which means Scorpio is involved in this, too. But why? What could he have thought he’d gain from any of this?”
“Was the dragon Red Ruin involved, too?” Cillian asked. “I was sent to steal the sword to kill him.”
“Red Ruin would never submit to the Dread Queen,” Niamh said. “But they might form an alliance.”
“Let us hope our situation isn’t that dire,” Rebel Sly said. “An alliance with Red Ruin, the Dread Queen, and Scorpio would be devastating.”
“Perhaps it’ll finally rouse the Tuath Dé to finish their war,” Fáelán said.
“Or they’ll defend their lands, and watch us enslaved,” Rebel Sly countered.
“If the archangels’ warning is true,” Cillian said, “Scorpio, Red Ruin, the Dread Queen—none of them matter. Something far worse is coming.”
The conversation ended, each wandering into their own thoughts.
The black smoke blotted the horizon, its menace growing as they neared. As much as his curiosity was piqued, he was dreading what they’d find when they reached the city of Arx Aequoris.
“If you’re not from this world, where are you from?” Niamh asked later.
“A planet called Earth.”
“And where is that from here?”
“I don’t know. I don’t where here is. Your stars are all strange to me.”
“What do you do in your world?” Niamh asked.
“I taught English, and sometimes French, two languages no one here seems to speak.”
“How do you understand our languages? You understand the tongues of the Daoine Saora, Solaeri, and Muir Mac Tír?”
“Who are the Muir Mac Tír? Cillian asked.
“That’s the Daoine Saora word for people like Kjartan and Arinbjørn. They call themselves the Sjøenfolk.”
Cillian was beginning to understand the world’s different people. The Muir Mac Tír, or Sjøenfolk, meaning sea-folk, were a Norse-like people who spoke Norwegian. The Solaeri, a corrupted word meaning people of the sun, were a Greco-Roman-like people who spoke Latin. And the Daoine Saora, or free people, were a Celtic-like people who spoke Gaelic. If he understood the bits of information he had collected in his visits, all three groups were involved in intermittent warfare against each other.
“I understand you,” Cillian said, returning to the earlier question, “because all these languages—and many more—exist on my planet, too.”
“How strange.”
“You’re not a warrior?” Rebel Sly asked.
“I was once, long ago.”
“Long ago?” Niamh asked. “You’re too young to have been a warrior long ago.”
“I’m eighty-six, I think. I fought in my twenties.”
“Eighty-six!” Fáelán exclaimed. “How do you look so young?”
“The angels said I needed a younger body for what I’d have to endure. It was all very foreboding. Terrible bedside manner. If you ever get the chance to speak to them, pass.”
The three exchanged puzzled glances. They didn’t understand half of what he’d said.
“My children are older than any of you,” Cillian said, a weird realization.
“What’s your world like?” Niamh asked.
“Nothing like this world. Nothing at all. In my world, there are stories about dragons, magical swords, trolls, and supernatural beings, but they aren’t believed. They’re fairy tales. Stories you tell children to entertain them.”
“It must be a strange world,” Rebel Sly said.
“It is. Kind of a boring world when I think about it. But we have much more advanced technology.”
“Like what?” Fáelán asked.
Cillian tried to explain planes, trains, and automobiles, guns, nuclear weapons, and tanks, rockets and space shuttles, televisions and computers, and many other technologies. He wasn’t sure if their continued curiosity was the sign of a genuine belief in his story, or entertainment from what they supposed had to be lies.
He certainly felt like a liar. How did one describe a plane to those with no frame of reference for such a thing? He had to resort to calling it a flying ship, an absurd description. How did it fly? Jet fuel. What was that? He had struggled to provide an explanation. What was the plane made of? Metal. Like a shield? Sort of. A flying shield? Not at all. How high could it go? Thirty thousand feet. They would freeze at such a height. The snow on the highest mountains never melts. It had a heater, Cillian tried to explain. They had a fire in their ship? Didn’t that make the metal too hot? Did the wings flap like a bird? No. Then how did it fly? He had tried to explain uplift, but he didn’t think they were understanding. He talked for over an hour, prodded by their continuous questions.
“It’s a very strange world you come from,” Niamh concluded.
“I know it sounds hard to believe, but it’s true.”
“It isn’t so hard to believe,” Rebel Sly said. “The Tuath Dé also have advanced technology. They have a weapon like the gun you were talking about, but it shoots nothing, and yet kills.”
On a distant ridge ahead, the black outline of a lone rider stood chiseled against the blue sky. Neither horse nor man moved. Only when they neared did the sentry break his freeze and approach. He was dressed in the armor, black robe, and the black-and-blue crested helmets of the legions. A bright streak of red cut across his face, starting at his forehead, slicing across his eye and nose, and ending at his jaw. At first Cillian thought the red was warpaint, but as they neared he realized it was blood, and not his own. The horse was black with white fetlocks and the fetlocks were also stained red.
“What news today?” Rebel Sly cried out in Latin.
“A great battle was fought for three days before the gates of Arx Aequoris,” the sentry said. “The gates were breached on the third day and much of the city overrun. The slaughter was beyond all comprehension. Beyond the cage of words. Yesterday morning the Ninth, Tenth, and Twelfth Legions arrived. Seeing the reinforcements, the legions holed up inside the citadel sallied forth and fell upon the looting trolls. Rivers of blood flowed before the trolls were finally repulsed. This city should no longer be called Arx Aequoris, but instead Urbs Mortuorem. The North hasn’t seen such carnage since the War of the Black Snow.”
The City of the Dead? Cillian had no interest in witnessing why Arx Aequoris had earned such a dreadful name.
“And what of the troll army?” Rebel Sly inquired.
“They retreated northwest, greatly reduced in number, but still as dangerous as a cornered boar. What’s left of the legions are in no position to pursue. Without reinforcements we no longer have enough soldiers. A call to arms has been sent to ally and foe alike, but who can say who will answer.”
The sentry returned to his post as they reached the crest of the hill. The wide valley opened before them and the blood in Cillian’s veins chilled. As far as he could see, the plain lay strewn with the dead that numbered in the hundreds of thousands. A black cloud of scavenger birds hung above the battlefield, searching for an opening to swoop down and snatch a bite.
Dirty white tents had been set up along the road for miles leading toward the smoking desolation of Arx Aequoris. Orange flames licked the buildings outside the walls and fed such a dark cloud that little of the city could be seen. The scout had been right: Cillian had never seen such devastation in all his life.
The road sank down into the plain and arced in a curving path through the center of the battlefield. The smell of flesh starting to rot pervaded the air, not yet so strong as to be repugnant. Cillian looked up at the hot sun; that would change quickly in this heat. The nearer part of the field had already been cleared of fallen soldiers, but the ground was st
ill strewn with dead trolls, horses, weapons, and banners. He guessed much of the litter would never be cleared from the field; it would be left to be reclaimed by the soil. So much blood had been spilled it had stained the grass black.
A dead troll lay on its back along the roadside, giving Cillian his first true sight of their appearance without their faces hidden by a helmet. Their skin was grayish in color, with black hair that this one had bound together in long braids. Its face was brutish and scarred, a nose flattened like that of a pig, but less round and more pointed. To each side, dark, lifeless eyes stared into the sky. A pair of tusks protruded from a thick lower lip. The creature measured about six feet in height, with short legs, a long, thick torso, and arms that could nearly touch its knees while standing. It was much more muscular than a man, and reminded him of the build of a Neanderthal. The troll wore light, leather armor. At its side lay a simple wooden shield and a battle axe.
The men gathering the bodies looked a wretched lot, their skin and clothes soaked in blood and pieces of what had once been humans or trolls. Their appearance alone was nauseating. Cillian had never seen a butcher so bloody. He pitied them and their gruesome labor. Tens of thousands of the dead had already been gathered, yet their work had barely begun. They would be busy for days, maybe even weeks.
They veered around the wagons being loaded with the dead that blocked the road. A haggard, bloody man approached. Unlike the legionary soldiers, this man wore simpler, lighter leather armor. The hollow, exhausted look in his eyes said far more than words ever could. Cillian squinted to see better. Something about the man seemed familiar.
“Kjartan!” Niamh exclaimed. “Praise God you’re still alive.”
Kjartan’s face lit up. “Niamh. I doubted I’d ever see you again.”
“How did you come to be here?”
“I was scouting for the Twelfth Legion as it tracked a marauding band of trolls when we learned that a huge troll army bore down on Arx Aequoris. We abandoned our pursuit, and set off to reinforce the city, but our warning came too late. By the time we received the news, the troll army was already within a day’s march, and we were still over a week away. We linked up with the Ninth and Tenth Legions and rushed to the city’s aid.
“On the morning of the sixth day we began to see the smoke above the city. Already we were hearing rumors the city had fallen. We’d discounted the stories as wild rumors until we saw the smoke. Then we knew. Revenge boiled, driving us to double our pace, marching all through the night, and arriving the next morning, our presence masked by the thick smoke from the burning fields and buildings. We caught the trolls outside the city sleeping off their revelry from the night before, assaulted their camp, burned their tents, and hacked down all we encountered. We offered no quarter.
“Even with our thirty thousand soldiers, we were greatly outnumbered. Their camp was of such enormous size that they stopped the rout and formed a counteroffensive. We were slowly pushed back by their sheer numbers, until it looked like our front line would snap and disintegrate. It was then that those soldiers barricaded in the citadel sallied out and drove deep into the troll army’s flank, rolled them up, and broke their formation. We rallied our own soldiers and the battle turned into a rout. Only at the end did many of the trolls regroup and make their final stand in small groups. Horrible was that final fighting. The dead lay so thick the ground was never touched.
“The Ninth is gone, the Tenth shattered, and the Twelfth—well, there’s no Twelfth left. Not a single soldier from the Twelfth has been found alive. Ten Legions fought here. If all the surviving soldiers were gathered they would barely form a single legion. Nine Legions annihilated. Had we lost here the North would’ve been lost. The empire is too riven by civil war to send any more troops north, and now there are too few left to send any south. Whispers of insurrection have been spreading.
“Though the army is shattered, there are still many fighters in the North. The Daoine Saora are a fierce people. Even the milkmaids will take up swords. I suspect the bloodshed is far from over. The Rebel Sly may win his independence yet.” Kjartan shook his head grimly as he surveyed the carnage all around. “What has returned you this far north?”
“I could no longer stay in the capitol, having been accused of murdering the Imperator.”
“Damn that Scorpio. I never trusted him. I wish now that I’d killed him when I had the chance. Would’ve been easy enough. I led Scorpio on several expeditions in pursuit of the Rebel Sly. Plenty of people disappear in the forest. Could’ve been Sly and his bandits.”
Cillian glanced at Rebel Sly. Kjartan didn’t seem to realize Rebel Sly was in front of him. He didn’t know what the bandit looked like.
“We’re going to An Dún sa Spéir to seek the druids counsel,” Niamh said.
Kjartan glanced at Cillian. “I suppose this one is the reason. You’re looking better since I last saw you. We’d thought for sure you would die. Odd for one of the Tuath Dé.”
“He isn’t one of the Tuath Dé.”
“I suspected as much. Though he did cause quite a reaction among them at the mountain pass.”
“That’s why we’re going to speak to the druids. We need answers.” She leaned down to Kjartan. “Loki has been released from his prison.”
“You joke?”
“Never about this.”
“You’re certain?”
“I saw it myself,” Cillian said.
The color drained from Kjartan’s face at this news, as if one of the Valkyries had tapped on his shoulder on the battlefield. Cillian barely heard what Kjartan asked Niamh next. “How do you know you can trust the Outlander?”
“I don’t. But what choice do we have? Loki is free.”
“How long ago?” Kjatan asked Cillian.
“I’m not sure. Maybe two months.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“Don’t you need to stay with the army?” Rebel Sly asked. He seemed to hope the answer was yes.
Kjartan looked around him. “What army? Most of these men will never fight again. I served the Imperator, and he’s dead. I won’t serve his executioner. My service for the Solaeri Empire is over. Loki is a far greater threat than even the Dread Queen.”
Kjartan approached one of the other men who oversaw a crew clearing the battlefield. Words were exchanged, the men each laid an arm on the other’s shoulder, and then Kjartan walked back. “I have to find Egil and Arinbjørn and get the horses and gear. We’ll catch up to you.”
Cillian turned his gaze to the fires burning near the walls of Arx Aequoris. The thought of approaching the city sent a shiver down his spine.
VIII
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20
Cillian’s party left the men to their gruesome labor and continued ahead on the road. As they neared the city, gray ash snowed down upon them, adding to the dirty blanket of ash that already covered the blood-soaked earth. At some point in the battle the grass had all been burnt. Kjartan hadn’t exaggerated. They were marching into a scene straight from Dante’s Inferno.
Bodies were piled two and three layers high, the fighting having continued on top of the slain. The plain near the city was so thick with the dead that it looked more like a mass grave than a battlefield. Only the road had been cleared. Everywhere he looked he saw only horror—the legs of horses sticking up out of the jumble, the tattered, collapsed tents that had been the troll camp, the dead propped up and unable to slump over, banners tilting this way and that.
A hundred-foot-high hill dominated the plain a quarter-mile from the city gates that at first Cillian had thought was dirt, but as they neared he realized it was built with the bodies of the dead trolls. Already tens of thousands had been added to the pile. Two dirt ramps were being constructed to allow it to reach ever higher. By the time they reached the heap, Kjartan and the others had caught up with them.
“They intend to pile every dead troll and their weapons onto that mound as a reminder of the great defeat dealt to the trolls at
this place,” Kjartan said.
“There must be a hundred thousand trolls,” Rebel Sly said. “By the time their labor is finished they’ll have built a small mountain.”
“It’ll offer a terrible warning,” Kjartan said. “Though it would’ve been stronger if most of the city’s inhabitants hadn’t been slaughtered, too.”
“What do you think the death toll for both sides is?” Cillian asked.
“Over half a million. There are few who survived this battle, civilians or fighters.”
Niamh looked around in ghastly horror. “So many. Have you been inside the city?”
“Kjartan nodded grimly. “It’s a gruesome sight. I wouldn’t recommend it. The streets are as packed with the dead as the plain is. What couldn’t be burned or sacked was slaughtered.”
“To cross at the next nearest ford would add a hundred miles and several days to our ride,” Rebel Sly said. “So we must pass by the city, no matter how gruesome the way.”
They rode around the edge of the city, Cillian numbing quickly to the unending scenes of destruction and death. He thought they might never get free of the carnage and then the smoke ahead cleared, unveiling the jeweled shimmering of sunlight on water. Escape beckoned. A massive guard tower overlooked the river and buttressed the corner of the wall. The road turned, passed beneath the shadow of the tower, and ran along a steep bank sloughing into the river. A few large trees clung to the bank, but mostly it was covered in grass or thickets of willows. The broad river rippled with enough current to caution against attempting a swim across.
The narrow strip of land between the walls and the riverbank had been fiercely contested. More bodies drifted past in the current and were clumped together along both banks. Cillian’s hope of a cleansing in the river was dashed; disease would already be brewing in its putrid waters.
The smoke from the city drifted away from the river and for the first time in far too long they were back out in the sunlight. Black clouds of flies covered the bodies and stirred into swirling torrents at the passing of the horsemen. Without the smoke and fire, the crows and ravens had reappeared, poking and tearing at the bodies of trolls and humans alike. Here too the living toiled to gather the bodies of the dead. They piled the corpses into heaps, many already burning. So horrendous was the stench of burning hair and flesh that Cillian started to gag, barely able to suppress his stomach. One of the men clearing the dead paused to puke himself before resuming his work.