Grimenna

by N. K. Blazevic

  “I can’t go back to the Keep,” Yulin stated and took a long swig of Ulrig’s Cure All. “Seems there was trouble in Quarrytown. Apparently a tall, black-haired Wilderman slipped into the Warden’s Quarters and did a good deal of damage to the premise and the rangers on duty. Master Warden Lier was locked into the holding cell, though he swears up and down he ran this Wilderman through with his sword. He identified this intruder as none other than Black Renn. When they began to interrogate Mrs. Ibbie, I pretty well knew I would have my neck stretched once Ceitra found out it was I who set this raging criminal loose.” Yulin sized Renn, his eyes skirting over his unharmed torso, then downed the rest of his drink. Renn raised his eyebrows and shook his head in mild disbelief.

  “Run through with a sword did you say?” Renn scoffed. “Liar Lier.”

  “I’d love to see that little brat branded and thrown into the woods. I would love to see that right bastard Ennig Strapback get a hold of him one day,” Yulin scowled.

  “Is she harmed?” Paiva broke in. “Has my mother been harmed?”

  “She’ll live,” Yulin said, his eyes growing soft. Ulrig gave him another drink.

  “And what plans did you have now that you’re in the woods? You’re not branded, but you might as well be,” Ulrig questioned. “Why did you want to come to Far Reach?”

  “He should be branded,” Ennig interjected. “I’ll do it myself.”

  “That is not necessary,” Ulrig replied firmly. “Yulin?”

  “I swore an oath to protect the Pratermoras and serve the land. I cannot do that with Ceitra in the way and the Lord succumbed to his dreamless sleep. I will serve Rennik instead — as a Wilderman if I must. I believe Rennik is innocent of his brother’s death and I believe Ceitra is a dark and malicious creature that must be destroyed. I don’t know what she is and I don’t know what she has done, but I know my Lord’s madness, Odrik’s death, and Rennik’s exile have been caused by her manipulations and exacted by her ill will. I know Paiva Ibbie is not a summoner of dark spirits, I know Rennik is not a cold-blooded murderer and I know Ramsi Lier is an unfit substitute for a Master Warden. I am enraged, I am bewildered, and I am humiliated. That is all I have to say. Rennik, I am yours to command. I have nothing to return to on the other side of the river. I have nothing to my name except the oath that I swore and shall uphold.”

  “You’re a rare bird,” Ulrig said. “Never heard of a Master Warden willingly becoming a Wilderman.”

  “I’m not a Master Warden,” Yulin said bitterly. “I have nothing but the shirt on my back.”

  “I am glad for you to join us.” Ulrig smiled cheekily and tipped his cup to Yulin’s, who glowered at him in return.

  There was a slew of curses that flew at him from the unkempt crowd and he retaliated by skirting a dark look about the cave. “Mark my words, Wildermen, I did not come just on my own behalf. I came to warn you of what will come. With Ceitra ruling the roost you will all be outcast for the rest of your lives. She will not grant you pardons. Not ever. Mark my words.”

  “What say you?” Jorn asked from his seat by the fire.

  “I said you’re damn fools if you think Ceitra will grant any more pardons. There will be none, not unless the Lord somehow miraculously awakes and returns to his old self.”

  “But that can’t be done,” Lorik, the red-bearded father said. “Crowbill says his sleep is enchanted.”

  “Here, here. I have something to say about that.” Ulrig swallowed the rest of his drink and then banged his cup on the table to gather everyone’s attention. The Far Reach Wildermen all swung their heads and swiveled in their seats towards him, falling silent as they waited for Ulrig to speak.

  “I ask you now my outcast Wilder-whelps to join me in taking this girl on a pilgrimage to the Highpeaks.”

  A cry of protests arose, questions were shouted, voices were raised. Ulrig raised his hands for silence and then lifted his voice in the airs of a storyteller.

  “I have taught you all that I know of the Old Stories. I have taught you of the Old Spirits born from the Humors of our hearts. You have all seen for yourselves the Folka beasts you hunt for your pardons and you all believe they are creatures of the Dark Spirits.”

  The men murmured their agreement. Yulin sat back in his chair and crossed his arms as he listened raptly, a curious look of hungry interest on his face.

  “…There is a dark spirit whom we all fear,” Ulrig continued. “We have called her the Strix, for she is faceless and ageless and we have known her since the beginning of the Old Stories. She has left the forest to do her evil work in the world of men. Tearing families apart, stealing happiness and eating our hate that comes from it. She has left the forest in the form of a woman. A beautiful, red-haired woman… And we now know her as the Lady Ceitra, a cunning and beguiling disguise for a wicked spirit.

  “This girl you see before you, she is no ordinary person. For her father is an Incarnate of a Good Spirit and she is his Virtue. She is a symbol, whether she likes it or not, in which we must believe to guide us through these dark times. We must follow her to Morinvere where she will find the spirits of the Good Humors that have been driven away by the Folka beasts. We must protect her and keep her safe. You must put your hope and your beliefs in her, for she has a promise to give you. The Dark Spirits will have no power over us if we lend her our thoughts and our prayers.” Ulrig gazed around the room at the stunned faces. Yulin’s eyes dropped to Paiva, whose cheeks grew hot and red.

  “Hold on,” Jerrik piped up. “What do we get out of all of this?”

  “Salvation,” Ulrig answered.

  The man scratched his head thoughtfully, then spat into the fire. “I don’t need salvation,” he answered.

  “A pardon then,” Ulrig said impatiently.

  “How can that be if the Lord’s asleep and Ceitra won’t grant anymore pardons?”

  Ulrig sighed impatiently and rubbed a hand over his face. “By my beard,” he muttered. “If we bring this girl to Morinvere and she raises the Old Spirits, they will drive Ceitra back into the woods.”

  Paiva looked around at the empty eyes of the men. Yulin rose then and cleared his throat. “You lot have been thrown into the woods because nobody gives a damn about you or your families. And you know why that is? Because you’re all damned selfish cowards. Show some spine, rise and do something good. Be men, be honorable and redeem yourselves.”

  “Honor means nothing to damned men,” Ennig’s deep voice called out. The others seemed to agree. “We don’t want honor. We want a pardon. None of us will find our pardons in Morinvere. We will find only our deaths.” The other Wildermen agreed.

  Paiva looked to Renn helplessly. He shrugged and stuck his pipe in his mouth, for he had nothing else to offer. Paiva’s mind raced with possible solutions, wondering how she could convince these men to take her to the Vale of the Spirits. She felt tears whelm in her eyes, knowing she could not face the odds of this journey alone.

  “Please,” she said to them, “I need your help.” But her voice was drowned out by arguments that broke out amongst the men. Yulin sat down, his nose turned up in disgust. Ulrig looked to Renn beseechingly.

  “No, old man,” Renn muttered.

  “Please Renn,” Ulrig urged. “Set these men straight.”

  Paiva looked to him anxiously, her eyes wide with pleading. He returned her stare with a blank look, and she could not coax any support from him.

  “No one goes into the Vale,” the red-bearded man said, his son quivering beside him, “for no man ever returns from beyond the Highpeaks. It is the dark spirit Varloga himself who guards the valley. He is the dark conjurer.”

  “I don’t trust her,” another one said, pointing at Paiva. “How we sure she ain’t some malicious being here to enchant us? Spirits take many forms. How are we even sure she’s who you say she is?”

  “No one can kill V
arloga. He’s as old as time, I’ve heard what he can do to men. He steals souls, I’d like to keep mine, however worthless it is,” Gartri protested.

  “No, not going. You’re on your own.”

  Ulrig looked to Paiva apologetically and sat down again.

  “I’m going,” she said.

  Yulin shook his head and gave her a stern look. “You’re as good as dead on your own.”

  “I can’t very well live out the rest of my life hiding in a cave. I have nowhere else to go.” She rose from her seat briskly and plowed her way through the smoky air of the cave. She slunk out the crooked door to escape into the fresh air of the night.

  “I’ll take her myself if you won’t,” Ulrig said looking to Renn dismally.

  Renn sighed miserably. “There must be a safe place somewhere she can go. The rest of the world can go to hell for all I care.”

  “Her mother’s in the Quarry,” Ulrig spat. “Her father’s been spirited away by the Folka. Where else does she have to go? She’d have better chances of finding answers in Morinvere than facing persecution in the lowlands.”

  “Jekka found a safe place,” Renn said levelly, eyeing the old man coldly, “without anyone’s help.”

  Ulrig’s temper flared violently at the slight. “You cannot even dare compare the two,” Ulrig snarled. “Two different circumstances.”

  “Not entirely,” Renn mused. “Perhaps Jekka would have an idea of what to do. She must know a safe place.”

  “You will not involve my daughter in this. I don’t want her dabbling in the affairs of spirits. I want her to be safe from this. There is no other solution — the girl must not lose everything she loves, for then she will be ruined. As Jekka was.”

  “As you wish.”

  “Go see to that girl,” Ulrig spat. “Fie on your soul if you dare let her heart be broken. You protect her and you keep her from harm, if it’s the last thing you do. I don’t care if you disagree or if you don’t believe. Every moment she spends in anguish is a triumph for the Strix.”

  Renn rose stiffly, his eyes clouded over with indifference. “As you wish, Ulrig,” he repeated, “but perhaps you should send Yulin. I am not one for consoling delicate things.”

  “Just go,” Ulrig flared. “Out of my sight.”

  As Renn made his way towards the door Ulrig called out to him again.

  “You know,” he said, “your mother would be ashamed of you. Even if the whole world damned her, she would never damn the world.”

  Renn’s eyes landed on Ulrig and froze, but Ulrig looked away, suddenly feeling ashamed himself. Renn strode out of the cavern and disappeared without a word.

  Yulin looked to Ulrig and sighed.

  “So, old friend,” Yulin said. “It seems you still harbor the forbidden love that outcast you so many moons ago.”

  Ulrig scowled. “Love, no matter how great or small, should ever be forgotten.”

  “Of course it should,” Yulin sighed. “Think of the life you could have had if it hadn’t been for your heart leading you astray.”

  Ulrig smiled cunningly and sat back in his chair, crossing his arms squarely across his chest and setting his speckled eyes on Yulin with a stern look of sympathy. “Funny,” he said, “how you should say that. For you’re the very man who never gave his heart away, and look how we both now sit together. Both outcasts on the far side of the river.”

  Yulin smiled, his face resigned. “You always were a wit, weren’t you?”

  Ulrig nodded sagely. “It is funny. I was the Lord’s left hand and you were his right. Here we both sit, without him.”

  Yulin leaned over and mockingly toasted his cup to Ulrig’s. “To our follies, then. You threw your life away out of a blinding love and I threw mine away out of blinding hate.”

  “To us, then.” Ulrig suddenly laughed. “To our many, many follies. To love and loyalty…”

  — «» —

  Renn found Paiva sitting on a ledge off the path down to the Berg horses’ corral, her feet swung over and dangling in the open air. Her head was tilted back, allowing her to stare at the sweep of stars spangled out over the hills. She didn’t look at him as he came to stand beside her. She was too angry to face him.

  “I’m going,” she said. “With or without anyone’s help.”

  “It isn’t wise,” he said. He found a seat on a mossy boulder.

  “I have no choice. What else is there…? Please, tell me.”

  “You could hide here — a few months, a year — until people forget you. Then you could cross back to the lowlands and run south. Find a new town, a new family.”

  “Is that what you would have done if it was you? Abandon your family? Give up hope on them?”

  “I am not you,” he said. “I am stronger, more capable.”

  “I am strong,” she said and swung her head to him. Even in the dark he could feel her eyes burning into him. “I have my will.”

  “Out here you are prey, Paiva. No matter how much you will yourself through this forest, there are predators, of men, animals, and spirits. Not to mention the exposure, the starvation, your own fear.”

  “Then you take me.”

  “I have taken you as far as I can,” he said. “Any farther and I fear I could not hold true to my promise to keep you safe. The farther north we go, the more savage the Wildermen become. What if I failed you? What if I couldn’t protect you from violation, from torture? Whatever light you have left in you, take it and run from here. Your father would not want this of you, nor your mother. They would want you to be safe, to be whole.”

  She shook her head vehemently. “I started all of this,” she said. “How could I doom my family, how could I abandon them, when all of this is my fault? I took my mask off on Mummers-eve, I followed Varloga up to the altar. Because of me, you were almost sentenced to death.”

  “Paiva,” he sighed. “I doomed your family by stepping foot inside your household that night. It is my fault, not yours. Don’t ever think it is.”

  “My father begged you to stay.”

  “And I should have left.”

  “But you kept us safe. My father should have never written of it, it should have been forgotten. Wherever he is, I am certain he regrets it. He probably thinks he caused your death. We have to find him.” This time when Paiva looked at him her gaze was soft, pleading. “Somewhere out there in the forest he is all alone, fighting against the monsters we have created from our fear. Not only is he my father, whom I love and adore for all the world, but he is the last of his kind.”

  “No, Paiva.”

  “Do it for your own father, then. To lift his madness.”

  “No.”

  “Do it to avenge your brother.”

  “No.”

  “Why?” she asked sadly.

  “It’s too late,” he said bitterly. “The Strix has won.”

  “She has won because you have given up. I won’t.”

  “I won’t let you go,” he repeated. “I promised your mother I would keep you safe.”

  “My mother will die in the Quarry. Your father will be lost in madness, and Ceitra will rule the lowlands. How can you let the world stand like this?”

  He sighed wearily, shaking his head in dismay.

  “The Old Ones need their believers. I need you, and I believe in you,” she said. “It couldn’t have been chance that brought us together. I have seen your strength, your abilities, and I am in awe of you.”

  “Don’t you dare put your faith in me.”

  “It is too late,” she said. “Even if you chose to stay your hand, I could never accuse you of anything but being a good man.”

  For the first time in a long time, he felt a burst of pride. He remembered the first time he had seen her. A wraith of a girl standing in a slanted moonbeam, her face shattered with fear as she gazed into t
he eyes of the malevolent Varloga. The Ibbies were good people and turning away from Paiva now would cause more harm than could ever be undone. Her family would be lost, the spirit he saw soaring inside of her would be broken, and to him that was unforgivable. He could die a damned man without a pardon; he could find peace in that. He would have no rest for this error, and surely it would haunt him for the rest of his days.

  He let loose another of his weary sighs and rose.

  “Come along then,” he said. She swung her head to him in question, then bounded off her rock and followed him back up to the cave.

  — «» —

  “Wildermen,” he said, his voice deep and low. It radiated out into the cave. They fell silent again and turned their heads to listen. “The idea is that if we find this Morinvere, and we set the good spirits free, they will drive out all spirits of the dark humors. They will drive out the Folka and leave Grimenna in peace.”

  “And then how are we supposed to be granted a pardon? The Lord won’t grant a pardon for a stuffed elk head,” Jerrik argued.

  “There will be no more pardons regardless. The tower has been burned, the Lord has succumbed to madness, and Ceitra rules the Keep,” Renn said. “We are all trapped out here. Killing a Folka is worthless. There is only one way to end this, for all of us. We must take Varloga’s head.”

  “Varloga’s head,” Lorik spluttered. “Might as well go jump off Far Fall instead.”

  “You’re a fool, Renn,” Ennig said. “This girl has brought you a false hope.”

  “It’s the only hope I have,” Renn mused, “and it is the only thing I believe.”

  “I believe it,” Jerrik said. His nose was scrunched up and he was nodding his head thoughtfully. “I believe I’d get a pardon for that. I believe we’d all get a pardon for that. Find Morinvere, let this Virtue set the banished spirits free, cut off Varloga’s bloody head. Sounds simple. Except for the fact that it’s guarded by hundreds of Folka.”

  “That’s why we’re going to Maggra’s,” Renn said. The men grew quiet then. There was a tremor of excitement mixed with outrage.

  Jerrik’s jaw slacked open in shock. “I’ll go to Morinvere but I’m not going to Maggra’s, by my beard,” he said. “They’re all mad badgers up there. Every last one of them.”