The kings and queens of Vastness looked splendid as they passed us. Most sacrifices bowed their heads in respect and awe, and the hundreds of their guards marched past without a glance in our direction. I didn’t look down. The royal svartalfs all looked young as fresh apples, their age impossible to gauge. Nobility was written on their faces. All wore robes and armor of elegant make, dotted with precious metals. I frowned. While the procession was splendid, I didn’t see anyone else quite as regal as the mounted ones. “They don’t have family?” I whispered as they had passed and stood below the gate. “Are the kings and the Queen the only ones in their family?”
Thak chuckled. “They spawn like squirrels. But you know, this war is different. They all want to make sure their family survives. Stheno has been brutal since Ban’s betrayal. Their sisters and brothers and children are safe at home.”
“Sounds like an insecure alliance,” I muttered.
“Shh,” he said. “Stheno is above the laws, though she tries to respect them. She is ruthless and insecure, and there have been many royal losses lately in the war. There have been battles all over the Vastness for this week, and not all of those nobles serve as enthusiastically as she would like, I bet. This is the beginning of her great purge of rebels, and she’ll be in a peculiar mood. The Horn, she wants the Horn.”
There were lesser horns playing far in the city. Thak leaned close to me. “There will be a huge army surging out of Scardark. They’ll let the royals enter it first, of course. And us.”
“We will eat first?” I asked.
“We shall,” he chuckled. “Oh, we shall. They’ll serve us a final meal in the Black Lodge, and there we shall enjoy ourselves for an hour or so. There will be smoked lizard, deep aur, and white mead brewed in the depths of the Below. The very best. Don’t gorge yourself, though. Would be embarrassing to see you vomit all over the Pit. Would be shaming for Shannon.”
“Shannon,” I said. “Happily she won’t see it. Though—”
He looked down at me as a great commotion filled the air. There were screams, cheers all across the great city. The kings and the queens shifted in their saddles, and so did Cosia, who was fingering something, her dark eyes scourging the top. Other gorgon kin around her were speaking animatedly. “Say your piece,” Thak growled.
“Shannon and I made a deal,” I told him. “She said she’d consider giving up Hel’s quest. She said she might consider giving away the Horn to the gods, instead of Hel.”
He sighed. “She won’t be able to. Just let her do her thing, Ulrich.” He gave me an understanding look. “No matter what it costs.”
What did Itax plan with the Scepter? What did he mean, when he said he can save the Nine Worlds, without Hel? And then I remembered what else he had said.
He loved Nött. A goddess. There was a treacherous thought in my head, and I shook it to clear it. I nodded at Thak. “I heard Nött built her castle around the gate of Asgaard. Where is the castle of the goddess?”
He chuckled darkly. “Forget it.”
“I doubt I will,” I said and gazed up the far white road that led to the doorway in the cavern’s side. There was something about that doorway that made me anxious. And I had a hunch what Itax planned to do.
Thak slapped my head. “Yes, it’s there,” he said. “Forget it. No matter what Shannon is, what she plans, where she goes, I’ll be with her. She will fail one day, she will fall. It is inevitable. She will need me. She’ll do terrible things for Hel’s goals, but she’ll never survive trying to execute Hel’s terrible plans. Remember what she was, not what she is now. Oath is above all else. Even personal unhappiness.” He smiled sadly. “We are far now, Ulrich. Let’s see it to the end.”
I nodded, and my eyes kept wondering to the simple doorway, far up the white path, where the light shone. I didn’t trust Itax, nor my friends. But I had a hunch and I was going to follow it. The dragon’s Pact might give me a chance to help everyone.
“I’m sorry, Shannon,” I muttered. I felt both relieved and ashamed, but I knew I’d take the dragon’s deal.
A gigantic horn blew. It echoed far and wide, no doubt all the way to Dark Waters. The great gates groaned, and slowly opened up. It was like a mountain shifting. Gold, silver, metal was glinting, the beast heads carved into the door making a thin, pipe-like noise as it opened up. We cringed and held our ears, even the jotuns did.
Countless numbers of guards walked out of the city.
They were all dressed in black armor. Their helmets had a golden crest of hair, and their shields glinted with silver and black spirals. There were hundreds, then thousands and the guards of the queens and the kings shuddered into a tighter group as Stheno’s guard surrounded them. Three thousand such svartalfs marched to encircle us all, their faces expressionless.
I could see a long, wide stairway climbing up to the summit of Scardark. It was a murderous climb of dark stairs. High walls surrounded the stairs. On those walls, and towers all along it, tens of thousands of svartalfs yelled encouragement. At the end of the long stairway, there began the city. There too, great multitudes of svartalfs waited. I didn’t see Stheno or the others kings and queens of the city.
“I feel small,” I whispered. “They will—”
“Cheer us,” Thak said. “Let’s go.”
I gazed up at the queens and the kings. They moved off, and Cosia moved off last. She had a part to play in the ploy, no doubt. I felt itchy with anxiety and anger, and then I was astonished.
Ittisana turned to look at me from the crowd of Cosia’s guard.
Ittisana lived!
Thak pushed me. “Forget it.”
“She lives?” I whispered.
He shrugged. “Forget it.”
The column moved.
CHAPTER 16
We entered Scardark.
My mind was whirling as I tried to catch a sight of Ittisana.
“Did you know?” I whispered. “She lives!”
Thak looked long-suffering and said nothing. I fumed.
The black steps led up. The walls were lined with armed terraces, crenellated towers, and the svartalfs lined the black walls in a thick throng. Tens of thousands were cheering us and the royals, and the cacophony was such we could barely stumble on. The thousands of guards boxed us in, and before us, the ally kings and queens rode on, stoically holding on to their reins. Pipes were playing, giving all the screams a ferocious undercurrent. The stairs seemed to go on forever. The lizards before us had no trouble navigating the steps, but some of the royals had to dismount from their horses or risk breaking their bones.
“Ferocious folk,” I told Thak, looking up at the cheering svartalfs. Thak was walking forward. “Look—”
“Shh,” he said tiredly. “Enough, Ulrich.” Large, black flowers began to rain down on us. “Black Rain,” he chuckled. “It was common in all the Nine Worlds when such battles were being set up. They hail the willing heroes. It is their show of appreciation.”
“Willing heroes?” I laughed.
“The concept’s a bit corrupted, I agree,” he laughed, somehow happier as the time for action was getting near, and relieved I had apparently given up asking about Ittisana. “The winner will be granted a title, riches, and freedom by the High Queen. I’ve never been here, but usually the winner—if he survives—is made for life. And that is a long life. One of those,” he murmured, and thumbed before us at the queens and kings, and Cosia, “won their freedom in such a way. Took a city later, and now rides back here, with tens of thousands of troops. The stuff of dreams.”
“I’ve only seen the stuff of nightmares,” I muttered. “Bitch Cosia is here,” I cursed. “I hope Stheno disembowels the serpent-faced bitch in anything we are going to try. Though Ittisana—”
“Anything can happen,” Thak interrupted me. “We shall soon see how things will turn out.”
“Great,” I whispered and hated him for keeping me in the dark. I looked around at my fellow victims. There were dark and white faces, walkin
g up the near endless steps. It was a dubious group of a thousand slaves, and we had no idea what to expect. The climb took an hour. The rain of black flowers never ceased and my legs were screaming with fatigue when we finally arrived. There, the guards swerved from the route. The city’s thousands of buildings rose steadily to all sides, dark, some gray, roofs painted as red as the towers, and the route to the squat Red Tower ran for some more miles. The Red Tower’s massive structure reached high, high up to the Vastness where monstrous sized cave-birds circled it.
The guards pushed us to one side past the onlookers, where there was a low-roofed, black house with soft light burning in magical lanterns. A sign was nailed to the door. It read ‘Feasthall of Plerus’.
“Black Lodge they call it,” Thak said. “Plerus is long dead.”
“The kings will go on?” I wondered and watched them ride up the road for the great tower, as the crows bowed to them.
“Yes,” Thak said. “They won’t sit here with the sacrifices. We’ll eat, fart, and burp, and they'll fart with the other royals.”
Then, there was a booming noise. We turned to look at the city.
A streaming snake, a gleaming army, moved from the higher parts for the stairs leading down and out of the city. There were thousands of svartalfs marching for war. The tens of thousands were again cheering as the army marched past the way we had come, and the soldiers, passing the Feasthall, all saluted us. There were thirty thousand, then more, and more, at least sixty thousand such warriors, I decided. “When they are done with the dragon, Stheno’s going to destroy Aldheim,” I whispered.
Thak nodded. “There, you see Shannon’s dilemma. And an army of enemies in Aldheim, another here. These armies could take Himingborg, raid the north continent, perhaps,” Thak said. “Aldheim’s not easy to take, not even with three hundred thousand such warriors. But there will be enough to gain a permanent foothold… I guess,” he added. “It is enough for that. But keep heart. Shannon has a plan.”
If only I knew it.
We watched them march. They’d join the allied armies and crush the Masked One and Ban’s rebellion. Thousands of lizard riders, holding tall lances rode past. They rode huge armored lizards. And there were even bigger ones with archers and mages riding on their backs. A thousand jotuns, all armed with sword and shield. It was an awe-inspiring army, and the last was Stheno’s guard, mage-warriors with curved swords, black armor, golden crests, and black cloaks, thousands of the best warriors in Scardark. Most of our guards joined their ranks. Some thousand remained to guard us. Flutes and drums sent the army off to war, and we stood there, bewildered by the terrible power of Stheno. The kings and the queens disappeared into the Red Tower, and we would join them shortly.
The doors opened behind us. The thousand guards shifted, and an old, long-faced svartalf leaned on the doors. “The Chosen, welcome. Feast, and enjoy, before the end.”
The sacrifices turned, and walked inside. What had looked like a low hall, was actually a deep, stone-hard tavern with steps down where a bar and huge, circular tables were laid out over a field-sized floor. There, succulent feasts and drinks had been heaped on each table. We were pushed inside.
“Where now?” I asked Thak.
He looked around, listening to the mass of svartalfs whispering, confused. Thak nodded down toward the side table. “I guess everyone tries to make allies now. Poor bastards. Little do they know we have five hundred on our side. Let’s take a seat near the dverger.” Indeed, the shorter folk had not wasted time and were already down and picking tables for themselves. Thak winked at me. “Don’t try to speak with them. They’ll have none of that. They are here only to do a job. Rather drink, and be merry for a change, you brood little man.”
“Might be amusing to have us fight drunk?” I murmured. The feast was lighted by thousands of tiny magical lights, and specks of dust moved in the air.
Some Svartalfs took a tentative step forward to follow the dverger. Others moved. We pushed through, and made our way downwards. Thak led us towards a group of twenty dverger. They were short, wide creatures of dark eyes, noble faces and huge hands. Some were whispering, others nodding, and they seemed to work like a unified force. “Can they Embrace the Glory? How did the Under Lord hire them?”
“There are many who See the Shades amongst their kin,” he chuckled. “The Under Lord is well connected. That group is the Shield Watch. They are expensive.” He nodded at the jotuns like him. “Split Helms. Another party of adventurers. Even more expensive.”
“Shall we feast then?” I asked him.
He nodded, and amidst the bustle, we moved to sit near them. We ate and enjoyed the fine food. There were a lot of fish dishes. They were grilled, spiced to the degree that made them just perfect. There were deliciously sweet sauces, meats aplenty and we ate far too much. The hall had filled with music, and the sounds of the army marching outside faded off as we enjoyed the sumptuous banquet. I sipped wine, Thak gulped down ale, and so we spent an hour or so. I spoke with some of the svartalfs, and spotted a huge fat man sitting on a barrel nearby. He had a thick red beard, deep green eyes, and hair halfway down his back, braided with gold. He wore gleaming silvery armor, thick gauntlets laced with steel strips, and his belly heaved with laughter, as a witty svartalf next to him weaved a complicated joke. His eyes met mine, and he hesitated, and got up. He apologized to the jester, and grasped a thick leg of some poor beast, tore into it and walked to sit down next to us, pushing aside the svartalf on my left. I hesitated, not knowing his intent, and he gave me a wry smile.
He nodded. “You’re the ones, then. Itax told me to keep an eye on you.”
I nodded back. Was he the one to offer me another way out for Itax? Possibly.
He spoke on, his huge mouth chewing on the meat. “Didn’t tell me too much about you. Where you from? Not locals? I’m betting Aldheim, since the portal is open. That’s what all the fuss is about, eh?” He snorted and waved the leg towards the door. “The war of the Vastness.”
“Aldheim,” I agreed. “Before that, Earth.”
“Huh?” he rumbled. “What’s that? A city?”
I shook my head. “It’s a long story. Call it the Tenth.”
“Oh,” he said and squinted as he looked around the thousand feasting warriors. “All males. No fun to be had. Might as well be bored by your story.”
Thak chuckled. “I’ve heard it already, so a short version please.”
“A jotun should have more patience,” the man laughed. “You live forever, unless someone chops off your ears. Why don’t you stuff your face with more food and let the man speak, eh?”
Thak growled at him, about to get up, but the man didn’t give an inch. Perhaps he was mad. “You ought to look out for your rear,” Thak growled.
“Only if you are into that sort of thing, I will,” he winked as Thak blinked. “Yeah, it was an insult. I’m called Gutty. I’ve got another name, but Gutty will do.” He slapped his belly. “I call you,” he said and nodded at Thak, “the Rear, and you,” he eyed me with appraising eyes, “the End.” He laughed, shaking his head. I could not help but smile at his idiotic antics. “The story.”
Thak apparently made a mental note to kill him in the battle, no matter whose side he was on, and I told Gutty much of what had happened to us in the past, though I didn’t mention my skills and powers, or my mission. Gods knew if he had anything to do with Itax, after all.
He probably drank down a gallon of a honey-sweet white, mead-like substance. He was silent and attentive, and I decided he was no fool, despite his quarrelsome nature and bad jokes. He smiled to himself, as I described our trip to Aldheim, the brush with Euryale, the escape and war in Aldheim, and what happened to Shannon. It was hard not to give away our secrets, and I sensed Thak, while devouring a mountain of meat, was unhappy. Yet, it felt good to have the fat human to talk with.
Gutty was mulling his drink. “You know what will happen, right?”
“They’ll take us in there, to the
cellar of the Tower, and there we’ll run around until one remains,” I said, shivering with anticipation. It would be time soon. I went on, “Though I have no idea what will really happen.” The feast had done a great deal to strip away the anxiety of what was coming, but Gutty brought it back again.
He arched an eyebrow. “Keep this Rear as your bodyguard, eh? Guard yourself with the dverger and the jotuns.” He nodded at them and I saw the mercenaries give me a subtle nod. “Let the lesser ones eat at the enemy, until it is time … for a change. Got it?”
I shrugged. “I suppose. As useless advice as any I’ve heard today.”
He slapped his knee. “I’ll hook up with you two at the right time. No need to thank me. Eh, Rear?”
Thak turned a baleful eye on him, probably upset he couldn’t eat the man. “Don’t know if I want you near me, human. I’ve got my claws in enough shit as it is.”
Gutty shrugged. “As I said, I have some surprises of my own. You’ll need me.”
“How did you end up in Svartalfheim, anyway?” I asked him suspiciously. “Not a native, either, are you?”
He chortled. “There are some thousands of our kin here. Been since the gates were still open. As for me? Well, let’s just say there is more than one way to travel from Aldheim to Svartalfheim than the Gates,” he chuckled and raised his hands, anticipating my reaction.
“What?” I asked predictably.
He shook his mane. “I’ll say no more of that. It’s a secret, and a well-kept one and not even the gods know of it.” He winked.
I blinked. “More than one way? How is that possible? The gods made the ways. Surely they made no mistakes?”
He chortled and whispered near my ear. “Well, fine. As it would happen, Aldheim and Svartalfheim were different in the beginning. They were closely linked. They were the very first worlds the gods shaped and created, and the goddess of the Night built her own little ways to the surface of the rival world of Aldheim. Didn’t stop there, either. There are wells in deep places of Aldheim and in Svartalfheim, and only those versed in mischief know them. I found one.”
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