Borg screamed sharply, but it quickly became a whimper. Beads of sweat formed on his brow, adding to his overly greasy look.
Disgusted, Rune stared down, remembering too well the deal offered almost two moons ago.
“Take him to the keep,” Rune said.
Ottar obliged with an overexerted shove up the stairs to the keep.
Still battling against Ottar’s large frame, Borg stumbled over his own feet as he fumbled his way ahead of Ottar, through the wide doors to the Great Hall. There, he dug his feet into the floor and for a moment, he hung, unmoving, as he glared across the room at Kallan. Vile contempt twisted his face as Kallan met the familiar eyes too large for his head. Her face white, Kallan stared, unable to move as Ottar gave a hard shove and pushed Borg along.
Outside on the steps of the keep, Rune unclenched his fists and gazed darkly at the scout.
“Joren,” Rune said.
“Borg has never been early before,” Joren said. “There was no time. I didn’t—”
Rune raised a hand, forcing Joren to swallow his words. Joren’s face fell white.
“What did he say?” Rune asked.
“He came to identify the prisoners. He heard they were captured and—”
“I know what he wants,” Rune breathed as enlightenment cleared his face.
“Joren,” Rune said with exercised precision. “You know what I need you to do.”
Joren nodded and started down the steps toward the stables.
“Bergen,” Rune said.
“Yes.”
The berserker stepped in at attention and met Rune’s fist. Bergen stumbled and, clutching his jaw, turned back to Rune. Opening his mouth, Bergen cocked his jaw back into place with a pop. Bergen was still rubbing the point of impact when Rune clamly straightened himself up and rattled off the orders as if Rune hadn’t just punched Bergen in the face.
“I need you to ride north—”
“But there’s no one left.”
“We have to try!” Rune shouted, sounding more strained than he had meant to.
“Aye.” Still stretching his jaw, Bergen started toward the barracks for his horse.
With a heavy sigh, Rune looked back to the keep’s door, dreading the next order of business.
“Hey, Rune!” Bergen called from across the courtyard.
Rune peered over his shoulder at his brother.
“I didn’t touch her!” Bergen shouted and, giving a tip of his hand in farewell, he darted the rest of the way to the barracks.
Unable to ease the sneer that twisted his face, Rune trudged up the steps to the Great Hall. A heavy hand fell affectionately to Rune’s shoulder, lifting his attention from his encumbrance.
“What can I do to help, lad?” Geirolf asked.
Ignoring Geirolf’s offer, Rune turned his attention to Kallan, who stared fixated on a single, distant stone in the wall, idle and blanketed in impassive awareness. Hovering around her with spreading concern, Daggon, Gudrun, and Torunn attempted and failed to reach Kallan’s consciousness.
The soft echo of Rune’s footfall struck the stone like cold droplets of water as he came to stand before Kallan.
“Kallan?” He forced his voice gentle.
The fight in her was gone.
“Kallan,” he said, softer. “Princess.”
With a deadened gaze glassed over with a wall of unbroken tears, Kallan looked from the stone to Rune as if seeing him for the first time.
“Kallan,” he tried again.
Stiffly, Kallan looked from Rune to Gudrun to Daggon. She had no need for their words. Numbed to the shock, she gazed at Rune and forced her legs to move. Wordlessly, she pushed past Rune and trudged up the steps to her bower where she locked the door between them.
“Who sent you?” Ottar barked, slamming his fist into Borg’s face. “Who?”
His knuckles struck Borg a fourth time, then a fifth as the Dokkalfr gazed through the blood and sweat. With his arms extended, pulled taut by the chains that secured him to the stone wall, his body hung limp on a dislocated shoulder.
“Speak, boy, and I’ll let him stop,” Rune said, leaning against the wall of the dark cell as if bored.
“Who sent you?” Ottar bellowed again and landed another punch in Borg’s side.
A definitive crack confirmed the snapping of at least two ribs and Borg gasped to catch his breath.
“Did Kallan’s marshal put you up to this?” Rune asked.
A cold, dark laugh cut through the cell like sky wyrm scales on stone and Borg smiled.
“What makes you think I wouldn’t be willing to do this myself?” Borg spat through a mouthful of blood and a swollen lip.
“I am no fool to think a Nidingr is the mastermind behind all this,” Rune said.
Borg peered at Rune with a blood shot, blackened eye.
“You don’t have the intelligence to compose something this large on your own,” Rune added and Borg spat a mouthful of blood on the floor.
“No…” Borg gasped. “Just the nerve.”
Ottar pounded his fist into Borg’s stomach, leaving the Dokkalfr unable to gasp for air. At last, Borg breathed, long and deep, as he took in air again. His broken ribs flexed against his lungs, causing him to gasp deeper and harder. He managed to lift his bloodied face in time to see the sleek, slender curve of a short blade as Ottar turned to face him from a small table laden with refined metals glistening in the light of a lone torch.
“This is a Khukuri.” Ottar’s eyes glistened with malice. “The Dark One brought this back from Khwopring during his travels in the eastern mountains.”
Ottar turned the blade over so that the black and silver metal caught the light.
“This is wook steel—Urukku steel, they call it. The metal is not just hammered, but folded so that I can do this…” Ottar bent the blade one direction then the next and the metal obeyed with ease. “The blade was designed to move without breaking or flaking.”
A bead of sweat mingled with Borg’s blood at his temple and streamed down the side of his face.
Ottar smiled. “I can stab, cut, slice, and skin anything with this blade.”
Ottar stroked the flat of the blade as he walked toward Borg strung to the wall. He slid the flat of the blade down Borg’s bloodied cheek.
“I can start at the ankles and shave the skin off,” Ottar said. “Or start at the neck and move up the face then down the back.”
Borg gritted his teeth. Blood pooled in his mouth.
The door whined open, spilling a fresh streak of orange light into the dimly lit room. The ivory and ebony handle in Ottar’s grip glistened. Like rivers, black coal streaked the steel of the blade that curved elegantly toward its tip.
“Rune,” Daggon said.
Neither Ottar nor Borg afforded a glance to Daggon, who stood on the threshold.
“Let me,” Daggon bade, drawing Rune’s attention from Borg for the first time since his arrival. “He’s Dokkalfr. He was our traitor before he was your spy.”
An unusual darkness permeated Daggon’s gaze—as dark as the day Rune had believed Kallan dead on the battlefield in Swann Dalr.
“I wish Bergen were here,” Ottar said, staring down at Borg. “They don’t call him the ‘Dark One’ for nothing.” Ottar peered closer and lowered his voice for only Borg to hear. “Bergen loves taking spikes used for the horse’s crescents and hammering them down through the tips of your fingers right at the nail. It’s a pity Bergen isn’t here.”
Borg shook. With either hate or fear, Ottar couldn’t decide.
“Let me,” Daggon said, meeting Rune’s impassiveness.
With a simple nod, Rune pushed himself off the wall.
“Ottar,” Rune said.
With a snarl, Ottar turned slowly from Borg and, passing the Khukuri to Daggon, he followed his king through the door. Before the metal click sounded behind him, Ottar was certain it was fear that filled Borg’s eyes.
* * *
Rune lay on the ston
e floor of the war room ignoring the ever-growing debate between Ottar and Geirolf as his thoughts wandered across the keep to Kallan’s chambers. There he knew she was already throwing up her walls while she descended deeper into the chasm buried in her mind.
“We can’t just sit here,” Ottar said. “Waiting for the next move to come from Lorlenalin… The Dokkalfar could be moving right now!”
“Borg hasn’t spoken yet,” Geirolf cried, leaning across the table. “You have no idea what the Dokkalfar are up to or if Borg is even linked to them. What you propose is a full scale attack on Lorlenalin without reason.”
“Exactly!” Ottar slammed his hand on the table.
The vehemence in each rebuttal grew as Rune quietly lay pondering on the floor.
“They won’t see it coming!” Ottar said. “We’ll have the upper hand!”
“They are Kallan’s people!” Geirolf bellowed. “This isn’t just Borg anymore! It’s the whole of Lorlenalin’s army! We don’t have the manpower! What people would die, would die for nothing!”
“We will have the upper hand as soon as they see Kallan alive and well, blasting her way back to her throne!” Ottar insisted.
Rune smirked at the vision supplied by Ottar.
“Besides…” Ottar waved his hand. “We also have Gudrun.”
“Two Seidkona are hardly an army,” Geirolf growled.
“One Seidkona is all we’ll need,” Ottar dismissed confidently. “The second is for insurance.”
“Insurance.” Geirolf snorted. “What you propose is murder! Kallan doesn’t have the mind in her to fight!”
“Exactly!” Ottar growled. “A good fight can cleanse the most profound troubles!”
“Or blow up in our faces when she runs off wreaking all sorts of havoc!” Geirolf said. “Kallan won’t sit still—”
“Enough!” Rune shouted from the floor. “You’re wasting your heads on talk. We’re not moving anywhere until Joren and Bergen get back.”
Rune’s outcry left Geirolf and Ottar silent as he resumed his thoughts on Kallan.
“What we need now is numbers.”
The door clicked then creaked as Gudrun and Torunn entered into the room.
“Any word?” Geirolf asked eagerly.
Rune cocked his head at a peculiar angle to better see their faces from the floor. Gudrun remorsefully shook her head.
“She refuses to open the door or take in her meals,” she said.
The whole of the room seemed to sag at Gudrun’s answer.
Heavy with guilt, Ottar mumbled aloud, “Well, she is in no state of mind to face him, let alone fight. The poor’s girl’s been through enough.”
Geirolf glared at Ottar, who suddenly avoided eye contact.
“Rune.” Torunn’s voice cut through the room. “I’ve held my tongue too long.”
Her tiny footsteps drummed the opening notes of his dirge.
“When do you plan to speak to her?” she asked.
The creak of the door nearest Bergen’s chambers added a sudden stuffy chill to the room as all eyes turned to Daggon.
While wiping thick blood from his hands with a rag, Daggon slowly, sadly, shook his head.
“I’ll end up killing him before that one talks.”
With a sigh, Rune slapped his palms to the stone and jerked himself off the floor. With a quick shuffle, he rested his back against the wall to face his group of assorted players and sighed again.
“I need a drink,” Rune grumbled.
“There’s plenty of time for that after we hear your answer,” Geirolf said, demanding an answer to Torunn’s question.
The five companions leaned closer, eager for the word that would send them or keep them. Rune looked from face to face then sighed long and deep.
“I suppose it’s time we share our side of things,” Rune mumbled, more to himself than his company.
Daggon finished wiping his hands and joined Gudrun’s side.
“Torunn has been keeping you updated on Borg’s position, I presume,” Rune asked, meeting Gudrun and Daggon.
“She has,” Gudrun confirmed, and the women and Daggon moved closer.
“Borg came to us years ago with enough military information to keep one step ahead of Eyolf. On occasion we sent him with request for negotiations or proposals for a truce, but we were told that every offer, every message, was rejected then met with more hostilities. Now Kallan says she never received a single summons and that, if she had, her marshal would have delivered such summons.”
Daggon and Gudrun both looked as if Rune had slammed their heads together.
“Hm,” Daggon grunted. “Aaric.”
“Aaric,” Rune repeated. “Tell me about Aaric.”
Daggon and Gudrun exchanged glances: consulting, arguing, and deciding all within that look. Daggon nodded and Gudrun sighed, reluctant to proceed.
“Aaric is Kallan’s high marshal,” Gudrun said.
Rune thought long for a moment.
“It is he who banished you?”
“He is,” Daggon said. “He—”
“Aaric never wanted war,” Gudrun interjected. “If Aaric launches a battle because he believes Kallan is dead, then he truly believes that Kallan is dead. He does what he must for Lorlenalin.”
“Can we trust him?” Rune asked pointedly.
Gudrun pursed her lips, stopped herself, and thought for a long while.
“He wouldn’t ever harm Kallan,” Gudrun finally spoke.
Rune brooded as he walked to the window and stared out over the city to the river where vast longships pulled into the harbor.
“For seven hundred years, I’ve sent summons after summons to Eyolf,” Rune said. “For seven hundred years, I have fought a vengeful foe. Within two moons, I have narrowed our position down to this: Either Borg altered the messages delivered to Aaric, or Aaric never delivered our summons to Kallan.”
Rune stared at the table, too deep in thought for a moment to continue.
“Kallan claims she sent Aaric with similar declarations for me.” Rune raised his eyes to the Dokkalfar. “We have never received any such declaration. Ever. And, until my stay in Lorlenalin, I had never seen your Aaric. It is possible he hired someone to carry Kallan’s message to Gunir…even Borg perhaps. It is also possible he was passing information to Borg down from Kallan’s court.
“Aside from Bergen accidentally stumbling onto a chance meeting centuries back,” Rune continued, “Joren was the only one allowed to work with Borg per his conditions. Needless to say, when Borg came to me and offered me my freedom in exchange for Kallan’s life, I didn’t recognize him as anything more than a rogue Dokkalfr who had it out for his monarch. But there was too much in question to just lend my aid blindly and kill his queen without, at least, understanding his intent in this. And that is where Borg’s plan backfired…when I kept Kallan alive.”
“You wanted to be sure you weren’t doing him a favor at your expense,” Daggon said.
“Exactly,” Rune said. “What Borg didn’t count on—what none of us saw coming—was the Dvergar’s involvement in this.”
“The Dvergar?” Daggon furrowed his brow. “What do they have to do with this?”
Rune released a long, audible sigh as he walked to the window and rested his arms in the frame. It was a long while before he answered.
“The Dvergar have been following Kallan since the summer thaw. They took her almost as soon as she and I rode from Lorlenalin. I found her nearly a fortnight later half-dead in a cave less than a day’s walk from the gates of Svartálfaheim. My guess is, the Dvergar were after her pouch.”
Gudrun and Daggon exchanged a silent glance.
“Before I had a full day to withdraw the details from Kallan, a usurper of Midgard calling himself king began hunting us for that same pouch. Now I don’t know if the Dvergar and a deranged king are related to a rogue mercenary. But too soon, there were too many players. Too much was not adding up and I couldn’t blindly abandon Kallan to the Dver
gar. And I knew if I sent her back to Lorlenalin, I’d be handing her over to Borg who had already expressed a keen interest in her death. So, I brought her here until I could sort this out.”
With every word, Daggon amassed a scowl as if he had swallowed a rotten fish. “What happens now?” he growled.
Rune exhaled patiently.
“We determine who is behind this.”
“The players may be linked, or they may stand alone, each working to their own goal. Borg could be working for someone else. He could be workingfor himself.”
“He sure wants us to think he’s working for himself,” Ottar said.
“Which only convinces me more that he is working for someone else,” Rune said, peering down at the table. “Borg’s plan required Kallan’s death. And, until this morning, he believed his plan had worked.”
“And his plan only works if Kallan is dead,” Daggon said.
Rune continued.
“Now if Aaric is working with Borg—if Borg did in fact pass my summons on to Aaric—then Kallan’s death would ensure Aaric keeps the throne so long as the Dokkalfar people believe Kallan is dead.”
Rune gazed at Gudrun and Daggon. “But you suspected Kallan lived. Aaric couldn’t afford you finding Kallan and bringing her back, which may be why he exiled you.”
“Assuming Aaric is behind this,” Daggon said.
“Borg is here,” Rune said. “He is harmless.”
“But Aaric,” Gudrun said.
“We need to know what side he’s on,” Rune said. “If Aaric is behind this and he learns that Kallan lives, he will seek to protect his holding with the desperation of a drowning rat.”
“And if he isn’t?” Daggon asked.
“Then he will welcome you back with open arms,” Rune concluded his summary.
Daggon sighed as Gudrun inhaled with the staleness of one who hadn’t moved for a long while.
“All we need to do is get to his troops,” Daggon said, staring at a table knot.
“But as long as you are branded a traitor, there’s no one there who will grant you an audience with the high marshal,” Torunn said.
Geirolf stifled a chuckle that emerged as a snort.
Fire and Lies Page 21