by Ben Galley
Heimdall grunted something incomprehensible and grumpy. The god was useless around so much magick, and it had put him in a dark mood. The world was just noise and light to him now. Making sense of it was like trying to listen to a harp in a gale, or catch a puddle in the ocean. It made his head want to explode. It was no wonder that he had a face like a storm giant’s backside.
‘Nothing,’ Durnus said. It should have been easier, there in the foothills, where everything around them was painted a deep, dark red by the giant volcanoes of the Spine, the Roots. A deep, blood red. Disconcertingly so.
‘Here comes another one,’ Eyrum said, catching a flicker from the corner of his eye. Everybody turned to see yet another bubbling, sizzling rock rocket high into the black sky. It puffed and it spat, making a great fuss before it reached its zenith and plummeting downwards. Just before it came to its explosive end amongst the distant crags, it cast its light across the foothills just beyond their camp. Every head in the camp turned, every eye squinted, straining to catch a glimpse of something in the rocks. Anything.
Nothing.
Towerdawn said as much. The Old Dragon placed his chin in the snow and listened to it hiss against his hot lips. ‘Not a sign,’ he sighed.
‘Curse all this waiting,’ Modren said, appearing out of the crimson shadows. There were streaks on his face. Maybe dust. Maybe oil smears. Maybe tears. Nevertheless he was armed to the teeth. Two swords were strapped to his shoulders, followed by an array of various sharp and pointy objects stuffed through the belts across his chest. There was a bow in his hand, a quiver at his hip, and a throwing axe stuck in his boot. He looked on the verge of comical. His eyes dared anyone to say it. ‘Curse it all,’ he repeated. He perched on the yoke of the sled.
‘They’ll attack just before sunrise, when the light is poor and the shadows are at their longest. When they think we’re still asleep. That’s when I would do it,’ Eyrum spoke as he stroked his axe.
‘Well, in the meantime, I am sure you can all take in the sights. Not many in our history have made it this far north. Not many at all,’ Durnus waved his hand across the sky, wishing he could see it. ‘Think of where we are. The very centre of creation. The bones of our earth. These fires have never been extinguished. They have burned for millennia.’
‘And longer,’ rumbled Heimdall.
The others looked up at the dizzyingly high peaks that dominated the bruised sky for as far as the eye could see, for as far as the mind could imagine. Jagged crowns of black rock and soot, biting at the sky. Their sheer faces were aglow with the countless fires that burned at their hearts. Orange, murky red, sulphurous yellow. Rivers of fire and molten rock no doubt, swirling around their bases. Some of the mountains, far, far in the distance, even spewed fire from their peaks, or belched smoke into the sky where lightning came to flit and flutter. They could hear the rumbling of those peaks on the breeze, dangerous and thankfully distant. The Spine and its Roots were hostility incarnate.
‘Are you sure we haven’t travelled to the other side by mistake?’ asked Modren, scratching his head.
Durnus pulled a face. ‘No, we are still very much in the world of the living.’
‘I for one, would like to keep it that way,’ Eyrum grunted. He pointed at the sky. ‘And here comes another,’ he pointed at the sky.
They all watched as another rock rose and fell. It was a tiny one, and it sputtered out halfway through its fall. ‘Pathetic,’ muttered Heimdall, rubbing his eyes. A silence came with a gust of wind. Nobody could think of anything to fill it with. The Spine did it for them.
All of a sudden, the cold breeze turned unnaturally warm. It was a strange sensation after having frozen cheeks for so many days. Everybody in the camp seemed to feel it. Lights flickered in every sled in the column as feet slid into boots and cloaks were quickly wriggled on. Dark shapes began to fill the ice around them. Still nobody said a word.
In the wake of the wind came an almighty bang, loud enough to pop the ears of everyone in the camp. There were words aplenty now, fearful, agitated words, growing in volume as the northern sky grew hotter and hotter. The bloody red turned carmine, then scarlet, then a fierce orange. The ice changed colour with it. Yellow came soon after: a hot, sulphurous yellow that stained and smoked the sky. Black pillars of ashen grey smoke rose from the nearest peaks. The ice began to tremble under their feet. The dragons roared involuntarily, and so did the wild men. Their bellows and screeches joined the rumbling of the earth as the Spine belched forth rock after burning rock. They filled the sky like fireworks. Some exploded in mid-air while others tumbled, spitting fire as they crashed to the rocks below, unnervingly close now.
‘Pull the sleds back!’ Towerdawn yelled, and his dragons went to work. It was not a moment too soon. Little pebbles began to rain down on them, sharp little bastards that slipped under collars and into pockets and burned as they went down. Yells filled the camp. Indignant, confused yells. This was worse than war. A war they could fight, but a burning mountain? No. Foolish.
The dragons threw their weight into the sleds and shoved them back, a hundred yards at a time. The pebbles and stones clattered on their scales like heavy rain on a tabletop, bouncing harmlessly off. The dragons hauled sled after sled until the snowmads mustered their jittery moles and tackled the rest. ‘Take the sleds back into the ice and form a line, east to west. A battle line!’ Towerdawn roared to them, hoping they would understand. His spines prickled as he watched them turn about and retreat. Something was making his skin crawl, and it wasn’t the stones.
Light splashed the snow. Slowly, he turned to watch an enormous missile rise up into the sulphurous sky, like a falling star changing its mind at the very last minute. It climbed high into the air, almost rivalling the tallest of the peaks, until at last its weight caught up with it. It teetered in mid-air, burning like a battling mage, and then exploded into a hundred sizzling fragments in a burst of brilliant white light. What was left of the night’s darkness was unceremoniously tossed aside.
And there she was.
And there they were.
They filled every nook and crag. They stood knee-deep in the snow-drifts. They crowded on every slope and hilltop. Men and beasts stood silent and waiting.
She stood above them all, halfway up a tall hill, standing in a hollow shaped like the seat of a throne. Flanked by two dragons, two daemons, and two giant wolves, she stood with her arms crossed. Towerdawn thought he saw a smile on her lips as the light faded away.
The others had seen them too. ‘Lines! Draw those lines!’ Modren could be heard shouting to his mages. Eyrum was barking orders too, Durnus clinging to his arm as they sprinted across the snow towards the sleds. Sunrise, it seemed, had come a little early.
‘Are you ready, girl?’
Samara grit her teeth. It felt like a storm was welling up inside her, burning her insides, making her bones shake. It had started in the night. Like a venom creeping into her veins. A sickening, dizzying venom, it wracked her body from head to toe. A glorious venom. One she had been waiting for. Magick, in all its glory.
‘I said, are you ready, girl?’ Hokus asked again.
‘As I’ll ever be,’ she squeaked, through the pain. It had become too painful to keep it in, but thankfully, it was now time to turn it loose. She was ready to try again.
‘Good,’ Hokus grinned. He looked up at the yellow sky and rubbed his hands. By his side, Valefor began to laugh. ‘Then, by all means, my dear cousin, tear down the sky.’
Despite the pain, Samara managed a little smile. The roar of the volcano was loud in her ears. It sounded like applause, a countless crowd all clapping frantically for her, eager to see her begin her act. ‘Better not keep them waiting,’ she said.
Chapter 27
“The dead are dead and dead they will stay.”
Siren proverb
It was a day of déjà vu for more than just Eyrum. Farden was feeling its poison too.
Breathe! his brain screamed at his mouth.
His mouth refused.
Swim! cried his legs, but the cold was too gripping, his body too heavy.
Grab hold of something! he bellowed at his hands, feeling precious air escape his lips in a stream of bubbles, sliding over his numb face.
He reached out, half expecting to find a crate, or a cat, in his hands. But this was no storm, no sinking Sarunn. His hands met solid, sharp ice, and nothing but. It would have cut his fingers had they not been clasped in steel. He felt it rushing by as he sank, like a ten-tonne brick in the sea. He could feel the pressure mounting on his skull, on his ribs, as though a dozen trolls had set about turning him to pulp.
Farden dared to open his eyes and found them stung by the bitter cold. Water shoved its way under his eyelids and near ripped them off as it rushed by him. He shut them again, but not before he realised he saw how pitch black his surroundings were.
There was ice water in his veins. How?! his brain screamed again. He could feel it stabbing every joint and every bone as it swirled around his body. He twitched in the inky darkness.
Something kicked him in the head and he lashed out. But it was gone all too quickly.
Breathe! his brain commanded again, and this time his mouth obeyed, against all his might. Ice-water, so cold it felt like it would crack his teeth, gushed in and filled his throat. He swallowed, trying to find some saviour in it, but it was thick and oily and colder than any night on any mountain. Icicles stabbed his lungs, pierced his heart, and ran him through.
Farden swallowed again, and that time he felt an old, familiar friend in the water with him. A friend as cold as the water itself. A friend called death. It seized his flailing hands. It calmed his legs. It opened his mouth and let the water flood in. It even kindly numbed the pain for him as his insides gave up on him. Farden felt the water tug, but he didn’t care. Something struck him the face, but he shrugged it off. The water was his friend now. As faithful as a grave.
I’m sorry, he told it. I tried.
Farden awoke by a river, a blue ribbon of a river lined with smooth, patchwork pebbles. Blue, grey, black, orange, they all quivered as the clear, cold water flowed over them. Farden listened to it burble. It sounded like words. A thousand different words with voices all swirled and mashed together. Farden listened to the voices, and smiled. So many of them, all of them telling their tale.
Soon enough he became aware of another sound: the gentle crackle of soft feet sliding carefully across pebbles. Farden sat up, feeling dizzy, and found himself in a huge cave, lit by bright lights he could not see. He heard the sound again and turned to see a faint outline of a crooked old man trudging across the pebbles, parallel to the calm river. It was not deep, and yet he seemed reticent to cross it, even at the shallowest points where the pebbles of its bed broke the surface.
Farden got to his feet, stumbled, and then tried again. His legs were foreign to him, as though he had borrowed another’s for a time. He looked down and found red and gold steel staring back at him. Clean, polished, flecked with droplets of ice-water. They were marvellous things. He wondered whose they were.
Farden opened his mouth to call to the old man but his throat was too cold to work. He felt like a lead weight, striding across the pebbles, but step by step he did it. The man was hobbling so slowly that he caught him in no time.
‘Old man,’ he rasped, when he was near. ‘Old man.’
The man was staring straight ahead, eyes beady and eager over a lip of a bedraggled old scarf. He was barely visible in the bright light of the cave. A mere shadow at most, but Farden could still see the sores on his brow, his cheeks, and his bare arms. He wore thick gloves and walked carefully, as if he were going to fall at any minute, as though a lifetime had been spent doing exactly that. A leper, if Farden didn’t know better.
He looked old and beaten and Farden couldn’t help but stare. He had seen this man before. ‘Where are you going, old man?’ he asked, through a throat that wasn’t his. More bright metal caught his eye, and he looked down to see that his hands were wrapped in it. He clenched his fists, and the very end finger on his left hand remained upright. Farden moved to touch it, but before he could he heard the old man speaking.
‘One step away from the grave. One step away from the grave,’ he was mumbling.
‘Come again?’ Farden asked, but the man didn’t answer. He hobbled on, and Farden was left frowning, searching for a memory that had never been, in a mind like a dark void. Farden followed. It was the right thing to do, though he knew not why.
The river by their side was running deeper now. The cave grew narrower. The lights became brighter. More shadows joined them, crowding between the cave wall and the shingled riverbank. Soon enough they were shuffling along in a group. Farden, and a bunch of shadows. He was glad to be one of them.
Tyrfing sat up with a start. Loki was standing over him, holding out a hand. The mage pushed it aside, struggled to his feet on his own, and then promptly fell over.
‘The cold, I imagine,’ Loki said, going to look at the river. It was deep and cold, its bank made of smooth pebbles.
‘Where is my nephew?’ Tyrfing hissed, from his position, sprawled in the pebbles. His throat was on fire.
Loki looked around, as if only just noticing that it was just the two of them. ‘He isn’t here,’ he said.
‘That’s rather obvious,’ snapped Tyrfing, as he tried his feet once more. They seemed sound enough this time. He walked in a wide circle, craning his neck to stare at the lofty roof of a long, giant cave, at the multicoloured pebbles, and at Loki dipping his fingers in the river. ‘Well, where is he? More to the point, where are we?’
‘I don’t know, I just woke up. Same as you,’ Loki said. Tyrfing wasn’t quite sure whether to believe him. Farden’s suspicions were rubbing off on him. ‘But I would hazard an educated guess at Hel. The tunnels that birthed the daemons, when the first sparks…’
‘Yes, yes, I know the stories. So we made it.’
‘Look,’ Loki pointed. Tyrfing looked.
Two shadows were making their way across the stones, heading away from them and upriver. They seemed nervous and careful, picking their way across the smooth stones with precision, as only the elderly would. Another quickly joined them, seemingly from nowhere, only this one was smaller, a child, probably no more than ten by her size. Her only clothes seemed to be a sack, stained black with coal or oil or blood. She traipsed behind the older shadows, matching them step for step.
Loki was after them like a shot. Tyrfing tried his best to keep up, wobbling from side to side on his numb legs. ‘Where have you got to now, Farden?’ he muttered to himself.
‘What is this place?’ Farden asked a shadow beside the old man. He was tall, rugged. A farmer by the looks of his clothes. He too was staring straight ahead, as though his eyes were glued in place. His lips moved though, and he spoke in a faint voice, stolen by an invisible wind.
‘To the Naglfar.’
‘Naglwhat?’ Farden cupped a hand around his ear, feeling the cold of his metal hand. Strange, to be so dead and yet still feel so cold. He hoped it wouldn’t last long.
‘The deadship.’
‘The crossing.’
‘The boatman.’
‘The other side,’ came the whispers from all around him. The shadows jostled him as they walked. Their pace had quickened. Even the crooked old leper by his side was hobbling along as fast as he could. Farden followed suit.
At a bend in the river, the cave opened out into a huge vault, its roof so high that mist hung to the distant ceiling. He could barely make out its edges. Creamy stalactites punctured its thick tendrils, looking for all the world like upside down mountains. The river here was thick and wide and running fast. The shadows, the dead, gathered at its banks in their hundreds and thousands. Mist hung at the edges of the crowds too. There could have been millions there, buried in the haze. Farden gawped. All of them jostled for space. Never before had whispers been so deafening.
‘I’ve been here b
efore,’ he said aloud. The crowd of shadows behind him laughed without smiling, or barely even moving their lips at all. One, a pale man with a face half-crushed and broken, shook his head.
‘You don’t get to see this place and leave, friend.’
‘What is it then?’ Farden asked. Something was itching in the back of his mind. Vacantly, he reached up to scratch his head, and then paused halfway.
‘Where the dead come,’ growled another, a huge minotaur with a twisted horn. Its lips had barely moved.
‘The ship!’ a thousand voices whispered around him. And there it was.
‘Where are they all going?’ Tyrfing asked.
‘I thought you knew the stories?’ Loki sneered. For some reason he was walking very closely to the shadows, arms outstretched as if he were readying himself to hug one of them. Whether it was a trick of these ghostly lights, Tyrfing couldn’t tell, but the god seemed to be glowing. Tyrfing squinted at him, and then huffed. Trick of the light for sure, he told himself.
‘Forgive me,’ grunted the Arkmage, ‘I’m not that familiar with Hel.’
‘That you aren’t. These are the dead. They are making their way to the other side.’
Tyrfing looked around at the ever-growing crowds. His eyes ached trying to fathom their numbers. He was trying his hardest not to touch them. ‘There are thousands of them. More.’
‘Tens of thousands. Such are the dead.’
‘And they all pass through here?’
‘All by one ship.’
‘Ship?’
Loki nodded. ‘That’s right.’
Tyrfing put the toe of his boot in the river. Even through the thick leather he could feel its deadly cold. ‘A ship, in this?’
‘Just you wait,’ Loki said, distracted again by another crowd of shadows moving closer to the river. Closer, but not too close. The god pressed himself close to them. Tyrfing rubbed his eyes. Loki was shivering now, wriggling even, like heat rising from a flame, or a hand passing behind mottled glass.