Strife & Valor: Book II of The Rorke Burningsoul Saga

by Regina Watts

  While Odile made a little noise of protest that I duly ignored, Lively’s expression firmed. The faint furrow of her brow, hinting at nervousness, belied a determined core.

  “After what you’ve done for me and my Erdie,” she said, accepting the purse I plucked off Odile’s hip and passed over, “the very least I can do for you is this. Where should I meet you?”

  “I’m not sure yet—just wait for us outside the airport as casually as you can. We’ll find you somehow.”

  Nodding, Lively bent to kiss her husband. Erdwud’s expression, tight with concern, melted somewhat as his wife assured him with a wink, “Don’t worry, dear, I’ll be back in two shakes. You just watch the bar…if anybody asks, I was woken up by the row and told by the innkeeper I’d ought to go elsewhere a whiles.

  “You just holler if they give you any trouble,” said Erdwud, watching his wife hurry back out of the cellar and into the inn proper. Shaking his head in an affectionate way, he looked at me quite knowingly.

  “These women,” he said with a shake of his head. “It’s like finding a field of flowers to discover each one of ‘ems made of painted iron. A bit unnerving, really! I think Lively could best me in a fight, you know…”

  Soon, one by one, we descended into the ancient tunnel system beneath Skythorn. A mist in his eye, Erdwud called down, “Now, you lot be sure to send word to us that you’ve made it wherever you’re meant to be going…don’t want us to worry for the rest of time, do you?”

  “We certainly will find some way to let you know,” I called up to him while landing upon the old concrete. One by one, my companions had already organized themselves and lit the magical lantern. Now they waved up with me as I called, “Perhaps, if ever you and Lively find yourselves inclined to travel again, you might come see us…wherever we end up.”

  With that, Erdwud shut us in, and we were left alone beneath the tunnels of Skythorn. By what means Sharp so confidently traversed the dark, I could not guess only to say that he had perhaps practiced the trek on which he embarked so as to flee without drawing attention by torchlight. Whatever his means of departure, it was the last we saw of him. With Branwen at the pack’s head and me at the rear to guard from any sneak attack that might have been laid by man or monster, our party of five made our way through the labyrinth beneath Skythorn.

  It is here I must make time to pause and describe how grateful I am to have known Indra and Odile. Today it is patently obvious to me how much I and my family owe to the two who found me in the Nightlands and assisted us through so much of our journey. Were it not for them and their lantern, their familiarity with navigating the darkness, even the simple tools they bore such as compasses and lockpicks, we would have been quite literally lost.

  Instead, with the two of them close together in the center of our party, (just behind Valeria, where they could watch the displaced leader of their species and ensure she was in no danger), Odile and Indra navigated the tunnels for us. Amid the occasional soft squeak of a rat, they kept us going in what was roughly the right direction and held the lantern so we could see and avoid the assaults of any dumber beast that happened upon us.

  And there were, in fact, things moving in that darkness—things that were not fully discernible and may at times have been human. Whatever they were, brigand or beast, they avoided us and we avoided them.

  All except for one particular aggressor.

  Although there were points where tunnels crossed with one another and rough passages that connected between them, the main tunnels as the ancients had envisioned them were demarked by the same mine cart-like rail system that had caught my eye from the first. As Sharp had described it, all we needed do was follow those rails through the tunnels in a southwesterly direction. After a certain point we would either run out of exit options or reach the end of the tunnels…but it would be hard to tell which was which.

  We had walked for almost an hour. I was beginning to worry because of the airship’s noon departure time. Though the duel had been first thing in the morning and we still, by any stretch of imagination, had a fair bit of time still before the ship left, if we became too lost in these tunnels we might end up quite some ways away from our intended destination.

  Furthermore, the exits were variable. Sometimes we might pass a set of stone or metal steps that had been installed by a previous owner and neglected by the current one; sometimes, like with Sharp’s inn, there might be a ladder up to an emergency exit. Most often, however, any trap doors or diversionary tunnels had long ago been sealed, abandoned, and forgotten.

  How were we to know where to exit? What would we find at the end of the tunnels? What would happen if Skythorn guards found us down here and we had to kill a few? What then?

  I was so sucked into the miasma of my own thoughts that I hardly even realized we’d been walking in the same direction, without any change of angle or noteworthy landmark, for something in the neighborhood of twenty minutes…at least, that was how long it seemed to us.

  Valeria’s question broke the tense silence in which we traveled for fear of otherwise attracting bandits. “Have we been going in the same direction for over a mile now?”

  “I was just thinking the same thing,” I told her, looking back over my shoulder. “Have you noticed, Indra? Odile?”

  “Sure, I noticed,” said Odile. “I thought it was supposed to be like this.”

  “But there haven’t been any exits,” said Branwen. “Not on the ceiling or walls or anything.”

  Concerned, I asked, “Are we still headed southwest?”

  “Hold on”—Indra dug out their compass, tongue poking from the corner of her mouth—“let’s see…”

  The noise of shock that followed chilled my blood.

  “Odile,” she said hastily, “look at this!”

  Odile took it from her hands and gasped, tone at once drenched in accusatory displeasure. “You ninny! What did you do to this thing?”

  “But I didn’t do anything,” protested Indra, adding tersely while I leaned over their shoulders to see the problem, “and I don’t call you names, you know, Odile.”

  The needle of the compass whizzed in rapid circles, indicating nothing.

  I was only about to request the device to take a closer look at it when a woman’s familiar, cruel-edged cackle echoed through the darkness of the tunnels all around us.

  Sword in-hand, I turned to face Gundrygia.

  THE NEW WOTSUNG

  HOW LONG SHE followed us in the fashion of a shadow, I could not possibly say. Even today Gundrygia remains coy about the subject.

  I know only this: that I set eyes upon her in that darkened space and knew we were no longer on Urde.

  Gritting my teeth, I tried to fathom how much time had passed. The days I had been in her arms had seemed like hours. The minutes in her sepulcher had been near an hour. Perhaps, if Weltyr willed it, there would still be time to make it to the airship. Perhaps, if we could extricate ourselves from this trap, we would escape capture by the Skythorn guards.

  Like most traps, this one was lined with the finest of bait. Wilder and lovelier than ever, Gundrygia stood before us in the same furred garb she’d worn when I discovered her; with the same tattoos upon the haughty face that peered through tumbling curls.

  “So it’s you again, witch.” Blade gleaming bright between us in the light of the lantern, I fought back the yearning and subsequent fear that subsumed me to see her. “If you’ve come for the lantern again, you’ve made a sore mistake—my friends and I are still making use of it.”

  “I came for no light, but a flame…for you, Burningsoul.”

  Scoffing, I lowered the blade somewhat while the enchantress smiled on. “What business have you saying such a thing? What force on Urde could convince me to go of my own will?”

  Her lower lip protruding in a pout, Gundrygia drew her furs up from her feet and slunk toward us in the dark.

  “Rorke,” said Branwen, “be careful.”

  The elf raised he
r crossbow. With the wave of a hand and a pink flash of light, Gundrygia sent it skittering across the ground. Branwen cried out and went to claim her much-abused weapon as the witch steadily eyed mine.

  “You mean to say you feel no desire for me, Rorke?” Her great green eyes turned toward me in a way almost frightfully girlish while she continued her steady stride toward me. Behind me, Indra and Odile raised their weapons in defense of their queen.

  With my companions on-guard for their own sakes, Weltyr’s sword was my only defense. Of all things, Gundrygia pressed herself against it when she was near enough. My breath hitched while her slender hand caressed the length of the white blade. Soon those same fingers melted over the hilt and enveloped my hand.

  Before I knew what had happened, Gundrygia’s body pressed to mine. The hand folded around my fist guided the sword’s razor edge to her cheek.

  “Does this body not please you, Paladin Burningsoul?”

  “I’m not a paladin in the eyes of the Church anymore, Gundrygia.”

  “But in the eye of Weltyr, himself—oh, you must be mighty indeed for the All-Father to have selected you as bearer of this. His most powerful weapon.”

  Her free hand trailed over my chest and down my stomach, which had tightened with anticipation along with the rest of my body. Inhaling once again the rich honey of her supply scent, I brushed my lips across the flyaway strands of her dark curls and, bending lower still, kissed the temple of her forehead. Almost breathless to caress her even now, I dropped my voice to a whisper.

  “If you fear the sight of my Master, as I have been informed you do, then surely you must have respect for his power…surely you understand what could happen to you for disobeying his will.”

  With a soft laugh, Gundrygia gazed into my face and drew another, altogether more haggard exhalation from me with her even lower contact. “Who could disobey the will of the All-Father, Burningsoul? It is the only will in existence, of which we mortals are all simple pawns…our wills cannot help but be expressions of Weltyr’s will. Therefore, should you will to come along with me, how could your lovely companions argue that this be anything the will of the divine?”

  “We are not called to test,” I told her, pushing her away and going on while she gasped to stumble back from me. “We are called to obey. Those slaves that do not obey are doomed to be destroyed by their master. Those that do—”

  “Are to be rewarded?”

  Lip curling in a vicious sneer, Gundrygia stumbled back further. Her head jutted forward from her shoulders and for a few seconds she looked like an animal baring her teeth.

  “Please—ask your durrow friends behind you. Tell them how often the average slave merits reward. How happily you had it in the Nightlands, friend! How coddled and spoiled you were by your own privileged mistress. Yours is not the lot of most who find themselves in bondage in the city of El’ryh.”

  Remembering the beatings I had witnessed in the streets, or the humiliated and sometimes executed slaves I had seen with Valeria on the way to find Indra and Odile, I agreed with Gundrygia, “Certainly, most slaves suffer. The weak fall to the strong, and though slavery is a woefully inept and cruel basis for an economy, it is typical that the slave should succumb to a master in systems where slavery exists…that is not the fault of Weltyr. These are Nature’s laws; and Nature, like the deepest workings of Fate, are aspects of existence to which Weltyr must abide.”

  “Then how can you bring yourself to serve him happily? How can you bring yourself to serve him at all?”

  “Because without Nature’s laws and the threads of Fate weaving our reality together, none of this would exist.”

  Gundrygia’s eyes blazed without need for the lantern’s light. “And these are my gods, Burningsoul—my only gods. Fate and Nature. See how free I am!”

  Regarding her outspread arms, I assured her, “I see only a prisoner. One freed by the grace of Weltyr for a purpose I do not presume to know.”

  “It was not Weltyr who led you to me! My servants did that—my own children, from whom I’ve been kept for ages on end. My own children, created from nothing.”

  “From Weltyr’s blueprint,” I corrected her. “Misshapen, gimlets, whatever else you’ve made—you’ve produced nothing new. You’ve only collaged existing works of my Lord. Mangled them into beings most often hostile to mankinds.”

  “My children would not be near so hostile if mankinds could restrain themselves…if the Church of Weltyr wasn’t so bigoted, so spiteful.”

  “I do not serve the Church,” I told her firmly. “I serve Weltyr.”

  “And you will have nothing to show for it if you persist. Only death awaits you, Burningsoul! Do you wish to be like me? Wish to slumber for millennia with no end in sight?”

  “If I serve my master faithfully, I will be brought to the All-Father’s Hall of Valor and live eternally.”

  “And then? When the final battle comes, and the heroes are called from their Hall?”

  “Then?”

  I looked at her somewhat blankly. She waved at me in disgust.

  “Then,” she said, “you will be obliged to give yourself up. Then, there will be nothing until there is something. The same something there always is. You will be a slave for eternity.”

  “All the more incentive to live a right life,” I assured her.

  “You’re a fine one to speak on these matters with such confidence…how you trembled and wept in my arms when I told you all in that grove!” I raised my blade to her, stepping forward now, and she raised a hand to stay me. “I have already told you more truth than your god ever will, and more clearly. Even now you wield a sword whose name you do not know!”

  Faltering somewhat, I asked her, “And you do know it?”

  “It has as many names as your All-Father—as many names as I have heard applied against me over my life. Exigence!” The name rang from her in a victorious cry, her hand rolling out from her arm in a gesture toward it. “Exigence, slayer of dragons the world has forgotten! Exigence, born from the heart of need! The weapon that can be wielded only by those who are true slaves to Weltyr’s will: the weapon that belongs in the hands of a Wotsung.”

  “And a Wotsung?”

  “A man who could conquer a god—a master among mortals, a king among slaves! The Wotsung line has outstretched through time and now dwells in you, Burningsoul. Here you are, a lord to all, and your heritage has been hidden from you for your whole life! Come with me. I will teach you how much more you’re worth. Scurrying about in the tunnels of Skythorn like a rat—this is not what you’re meant for!”

  Gundrygia’s burning eyes seared into mine. Both her arms now outstretched, pleading for my embrace.

  “Come with me. Together we can kill my father and I can show you the means of true immortality. Bodily immortality, here and now! Not some vague promise of life eternal in exchange for your enlistment in a future, all the more vicious war. Come with me, Rorke Burningsoul. I will teach you how to become a god!”

  Amazingly, I believed that she believed what she was telling me. Such temptations from sorceresses of Gundrygia’s ilk might have been base and empty promises to most, but the hope that lit her tone was so bright it almost saddened me. The fear I once felt for Gundrygia dissolved in an instant, her humbling beauty transfiguring from something cruel and dangerous to a hallmark of her true essence.

  “You really are afraid of Weltyr,” I observed.

  Her face changed in an instant despite the gentleness of my own, all her features tightening with disgust.

  “I am, too, of course,” I continued, lowering Exigence to speak to her as a friend, “but only as the son fears the mystery and power of the father who gave him life, and who is so much mightier than he. Surely, whatever you have done, Weltyr does not think so ill of you that you need fear him like this.”

  Her hands pressed childishly to her ears. “Ugh! Don’t patronize me. I won’t hear this nonsense from a slave. If anyone has call to fear Weltyr, it’s certa
inly I. I, who have brought into the world races he did not permit the hand of Time to produce for him. My power is so mighty that he cannot destroy me, but cannot let me live unhindered! Shall I show you, Burningsoul?”

  As I lifted Exigence once more, I demanded, “Release us now, Gundrygia, and we will spread your legendary name far and wide. All will know you as the most powerful mortal in the land.”

  “I care nothing for such acclaim…I only care to bring you with me, Burningsoul.” A rat scuttled through the darkness and toward Gundrygia’s furs, glowing the same bright pink aura that haloed her head. “If you won’t come of your own volition, I’ll bring you by force.”

  The terrible noise of cracking bones echoed through the tunnels. Valeria cried out behind me and began one of her prayers, but I was not convinced that any blessing of Roserpine’s could reach us in the space Gundrygia crafted. Only Weltyr’s might have pierced such a strange pocket of space-time. Even then, Gundrygia had so much power in the place that I did not want to lean too heavily on the generous intercession of my god.

  By the time the rat had emerged into the pink light of Gundrygia’s aura, it was twice the size of the largest cat I had seen; as it scrambled between us, it accomplished the stature of small horse; by the time it reached me, it had managed to rise upon its rear legs while, with the elongating limbs of its forelegs, it slashed at me with claws tinged black from a lifetime in tunnels.

  Seeing the transformation, Valeria stopped her prayer. I shuddered to think of being faced down with some giant spider for more hideous and violent than a misshapen as a result of her well-intended summoning spell. The rat would suit me just fine. While the squealing, foaming beast slashed at me, I met it with Exigence and its cry rattled through the tunnel.

  Branwen, who had been looking in the dark for her crossbow (forever lost in faerieland, I assumed), hurried back to the safety of the light that surrounded my other companions. The overgrown rat’s beady eyes followed her movements, its ears and whiskers twitching amid a terrible rolling shudder as it seemed to consider pursuing her into the purview of the lantern. It focused, instead, on gripping my blade with one bleeding hand and reaching forward to grab my head with the other.