Frostborn

by Lou Anders

  “S-sure,” Karn answered, his teeth chattering right on cue. “But this is the f-first time I’ve ever seen anything that isn’t from Norrøngard or Ymiria. I m-mean, anything besides a traveling m-merchant. Or his wares.”

  “I think we’re still inside the Norrøngard border, technically.”

  “Yeah, but we didn’t build this. Soldiers of the empire did. Over a th-thousand years ago.”

  Thianna whistled.

  “Don’t you kn-know this stuff?” Karn asked.

  “I’ve heard of Sardeth, sure,” she said. “Just not the history expert you are.” She looked around at the ruins. “You think anybody’s been here since?”

  “Of course. Every so many years some adventurer comes here looking for treasure.”

  “They ever find any?”

  “Don’t know. N-n-nobody’s ever come back.”

  “Well, that’s encouraging.”

  Thianna looked at the sky. She could see the black speck again, grown larger as it drew closer. It was more of a dot now. It ranged back and forth. The wyvern and its rider were obviously searching for them. It wouldn’t be hard to work out where they had come ashore. She took a good look at Karn.

  “Karn,” she gasped. “You are turning blue.”

  “Is it a g-good color on me?” he asked, grinning bravely.

  “That settles it. Shelter. And fast.”

  Thianna broke into a slow jog, dragging Karn with her. They were approaching the center of the ruins now, several of them smoldering as if they had been burned recently.

  “Is there a fire?” Karn asked.

  “We’ll worry about that later.”

  Thianna pulled Karn to the looming, black doorway of what appeared to be a temple. It was rectangular in shape, with one narrow end facing what must have once been a main street. The stone above the doorway was carved with an image of a man with horns on his shoulders. A god, then. Ymirians didn’t go in much for gods. She hoped this one didn’t mind them intruding on his ruins.

  Inside, a cold stone floor was littered with debris. There was the altar for the same god toward the back of the room, where the horn-shouldered guy stood over a large metal brazier.

  Thianna left Karn to explore. The brazier was empty. She was hoping one of Karn’s fabled adventurers might have left something in their explorations that she could burn. There was nothing on the temple walls but fungus.

  She went back to Karn. His pack had survived the plunge into the river. She pulled out the strike-a-light and the remains of the torchwood fungus. The strike-alight was still good. The fungus was sodden and disintegrated in her hands.

  “We have to get a fire going,” Karn said unhelpfully.

  “Yeah, that’s what I’m trying to do, Norrønboy.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  “Nothing left to burn that isn’t burned already.”

  “Anything in the brazier?”

  Thianna winced. He must be pretty far gone not to have realized she just checked it.

  “Nothing?” he asked.

  “No. Nothing.”

  “N-nothing you can burn at all?” he asked again. He was desperate.

  “Nothing,” she snapped. “There’s nothing here at all but fungus.”

  She glanced down at the soggy, melted fungus smeared on her fingertips.

  “Hey … wait!”

  Shortly, Karn and Thianna were huddled around the brazier while a pile of torchwood fungus blazed merrily. Torchwood burned hot and fast, with little smoke and a lot of heat. Thianna hoped the scant smoke wouldn’t give their position away amid the other fires smoldering around the dead city. They had shed their outerwear and stretched their clothes across the edges of the brazier. Karn was taking turns with each of their boots, roasting them one at a time on the end of Whitestorm like a sausage on a spit. The fire wasn’t hot enough to hurt the famous blade, but he hoped the sword wouldn’t mind the indignity.

  Thianna suddenly burst out laughing.

  “What?”

  “You. You’ve gone from rabbit-on-a-stick to boot-on-a-stick. I’m having serious second thoughts about being the door giantess at your tavern.”

  Karn flicked Whitestorm and sent a hot boot flying into Thianna’s lap. She just rolled over with it, laughing.

  “It’s done then, is it?” she laughed. “I’d say the sole is a bit undercooked!”

  After a bit, Thianna’s laughter subsided.

  “We need to figure out our next move.”

  For an answer, Karn pulled his boots back on. He got up and began to walk the perimeter of the room.

  “If we go outside now,” the giantess continued, “we risk being spotted.”

  Karn was running his hand down the temple walls as he walked, studying the stone, but he kept silent.

  “If we stay here, we risk getting pinned down if we’re caught.”

  Karn had made a full circuit of the room. Now he was studying the statue of the horn-shouldered guy, looking up at the face of the statue and then letting his gaze fall all the way to the base.

  “We’re down to our last bits of soggy meat. So we’ll need food soon.”

  Karn walked around the statue now, disappearing from sight.

  “Plus, we want to make sure we don’t end up as food for whatever lit those fires we saw coming in.”

  No answer from Karn.

  “If only there was another way out of here.”

  Still no answer.

  “Karn? Karn, are you listening? I said, If only there was another way out of here.”

  Karn reappeared from behind the statue.

  “You mean like a secret passage under the altar?” he said.

  “Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. Why do you ask? Oh—”

  Thianna leapt to her feet. She ran to the back of the statue. Karn was kneeling beside a low opening at its base. He had slid aside a thin panel of stone, revealing a passageway. The ground sloped sharply downward into the dark, with rough steps hewn into the rock.

  “Shall we?” Karn asked.

  Thianna looked at her bare feet.

  “Let me get my boots.”

  She slipped back into her footwear, and they donned their newly dried coats. Karn looked at the rapidly dwindling pile of fungus.

  “Wish there was something we could use as a torch.”

  “Like this?” Thianna held up her wooden practice sword. “It’s not like I’m going to impale any wyverns with it.” She stuck the end of the wooden sword into the fire, spearing some of the leafy fungus. “One torch coming up.”

  Their makeshift light didn’t illuminate much in the passageway under the statue.

  “Probably just a storage room,” said Karn.

  “One way to find out,” said Thianna. Passing Karn the torch, she ducked through the opening.

  “Hurry up with that light, Norrønboy,” she called back. “We’ve fallen off enough rocks for today.”

  Karn grinned and followed her under the earth.

  The passage led not to a basement chamber but to a tunnel. It was narrow enough that Karn and Thianna couldn’t walk comfortably side by side. As she was already in the lead, he passed her the torch.

  “So you think we should follow it?” she asked.

  Karn shrugged. “Might as well.” He didn’t see any evidence of animal dwellings, and draug would be in Norrønir barrows, not in Gordion ruins. Of course that didn’t mean something didn’t live down here. Just nothing he had learned how to recognize.

  It was awkward not being able to see much past Thianna’s broad shoulders, and Karn kept looking over his own shoulder at the wall of darkness trailing them outside the circle of torchlight. The passage ran roughly straight for a ways, then it veered sharply to the right, opening abruptly into a bigger chamber. Thianna stepped out into the dark space with uncharacteristic caution.

  They were in a large chamber with multiple columns that were laid out in a grid, supporting the stone ceiling overhead. Between every other pair of columns,
metal bars had been fitted. It divided the room up into a number of cages, with open spaces that allowed walking between them.

  “A dungeon?” Thianna asked.

  Karn narrowed his eyes.

  “I don’t think so,” he said. He pointed at the low stone troughs that were still in evidence in several of the nearby enclosures. “Those would have held water or feed. More like a stable. These are animal pens.”

  Thianna nodded, but then her eyes fell on something hanging in another cage. She pointed to a pair of shackles chained to a set of bars.

  “Not all of them were.”

  Karn nodded, stepping closer to examine the shackles. They had definitely been made to fit around a person’s wrists to chain that person upright to the bars. Walking around, he found several more cages clearly meant to hold people.

  “So,” he said at last. “Cages for men. Pens for animals. All underground.”

  “What is this place?”

  Karn shook his head. Somehow it was more disquieting being here than in the narrow corridor. Beckoning Thianna to follow, he led them across the room to the wall opposite the one they had entered. There, they found a wide hallway leading away into more darkness.

  After twenty paces or so, the floor of this hallway suddenly sloped upward. There were no steps, but the stone was cut with shallow horizontal grooves to help a foot, or perhaps a hoof, gain traction.

  The light of Thianna’s torch fell on an open doorway set into the wall on their left. She poked the torch, and her head, into the opening. They saw an antechamber off the hallway.

  “Look at this.”

  The room was small, maybe ten feet square. The ground was littered with detritus and rubble. But all four walls were ringed by rows of stone pegs, some of which still held an assortment of items. Picking their way through the rubble, they saw that the wall pegs held weapons, including clubs, barbed chains, what looked like metal darts, and most exciting to Thianna, actual swords.

  She ran her hand quickly over several rusted weapons, then, smiling, she lifted up a finer blade.

  “Hold this,” she said, passing her torch to Karn. Then she gave a few quick experimental thrusts.

  “Hey, watch it,” he said, stepping back.

  Thianna grinned and whipped the sword around in a wide arc. Then she held the sword out to examine it in the torchlight. The metal gleamed and cast back the firelight.

  “It’s called a spatha,” said Karn.

  “Spatha?”

  “Yeah. It’s what the Gordion army used.”

  “No surprise there. We’re in a Gordion town. But it looks like your sword.”

  “Yeah, well, most Norrønir swords are patterned after Gordion spathae.” When she gave him an odd look, he continued, “Hey, we know a good thing when we see it.”

  Thianna nodded.

  “Can I see Whitestorm?” she asked.

  “Why?”

  “I just want to compare them.”

  Karn drew his father’s weapon and handed it to her.

  Thianna held the two weapons out side by side.

  Both were straight double-edged swords. Both had plain, column-style grips, round pommels, and oval guards. Whitestorm had a groove down its length, called a fuller, but the spatha had no such groove. Whitestorm also had a red-gold glint that the other blade lacked. And while both swords were on the longish side, this one was also somewhat shorter than Whitestorm.

  “It’s lighter too,” said Thianna.

  “Of course the shorter sword is lighter,” said Karn.

  “No, I mean Whitestorm is lighter. A lot lighter.”

  Karn blinked and looked again at the two weapons.

  “How can that be?”

  “I don’t know,” said Thianna, flexing both wrists to test the balance of each blade. Karn ungraciously wondered if Thianna would want to keep both weapons, but she suddenly handed him back his father’s sword.

  “I think you’ve got yourself a very special weapon,” she said. “At least there’s something special about its metal.”

  “You think?” said Karn, looking at his father’s sword anew. “I mean, I knew it was special, but—”

  “I doubt it was forged around here. Maybe it’s elven or dwarven made. It’s lighter than it should be otherwise. Anyway, lucky you.”

  Karn nodded, glad to have Whitestorm back in his grip, even if he didn’t really know how to use it. For her part, the giantess didn’t seem unhappy with her quite ordinary weapon. The long blade and the weight were clearly not a problem for someone her size. She danced around the room, experimentally thrusting and cutting with the spatha.

  “About time I had a real sword,” she said.

  “Yes, you weren’t reckless enough without it. No, really, it suits you.”

  “Yeah, well, my wooden one’s on fire.” She grinned. Then she ducked out of the antechamber into the broader hallway. When Karn followed through, she rushed at him. “Defend yourself,” she called. Then she was on him, swinging her spatha in a lazy arc. Karn leapt away and raised Whitestorm on instinct. The blades clashed, the sound of metal on metal ringing in the dark. Thianna laughed and swung at him again.

  “You’re crazy, you are!” he said, but he was grinning.

  Laughing, they danced around, the two blades clashing and clanging over and over again as they chased each other around the hallway.

  Thianna sprinted ahead. Karn ran after her, remembering how he had pursued her through the woods after his pilfered Thrones and Bones playing piece. Then he remembered where that chase had led. Helltoppr’s Barrow. And here they were running again, and being very loud about it. That was when he heard another noise. Sliding or scraping or maybe shuffling. Maybe slithering.

  He came up sharp.

  “What’s wrong?” Thianna asked.

  “Shh,” he said.

  She tilted her head.

  “For a minute there,” he said, “I thought I heard something.”

  She listened.

  “I don’t hear anything.”

  “My imagination, then,” said Karn, but he wasn’t quite convinced.

  Moving more cautiously ahead they came to a pair of large iron doors. Thianna put her shoulder to one of them and shoved. The door slid open a crack. The two slipped through to emerge blinking into the light.

  Karn found himself on the rim of a vast labyrinth. The stone flooring where he now stood had crumbled away before him, so that he looked down into an elaborate maze of chambers and hallways, once underground and now exposed. But glancing around, he saw that they were actually at the bottom of an enormous, bowl-like structure. What looked like the remains of tiered seating rose above them in an elliptical ring.

  “What is this place?” asked Thianna.

  “It’s an amphitheater,” said Karn, who was just working it out. “This is a Gordion coliseum. The empire built these everywhere they went. At one time there were hundreds of them.”

  “What’s it for?” she asked.

  “It was a kind of entertainment. Those are the stands, where the audience sat. They played games down here on the floor.”

  “Floor?”

  “Well, the floor’s fallen in, but here is where they had a sand-covered field for the games.”

  “What games? Like Knattleikr?”

  “Yeah, but more brutal.” Karn remembered the roughness of the giants’ favorite pastime. “A little more brutal, anyway. They had people called gladiators who fought to the death. And they matched slaves against wild animals.”

  “Barbaric,” Thianna said. Karn knew that her culture had used to keep human slaves. Many Norrønir still did, although his father usually freed his, but neither Norrønir nor giants would force anyone to fight to the death just for fun. He looked down at the subterranean level beneath them. The sun was deep into the west now and a section of the lower level lay in shadow.

  “That’s the hypogeum,” said Karn, pointing into the maze below. “They would keep slaves and animals down there and br
ing them up through trapdoors when it was their time to fight. The room we came though with all the cages was probably where they kept the extras. Also, the tunnel to the temple makes sense.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, some of the same animals would be used for sacrifice. And the priests might want to visit the games without having to go out into the street.”

  Thianna nodded.

  “You know a lot about it.”

  Karn shrugged.

  “Yeah, well, I always wanted to see a bit more of the world. Anytime anybody came by with a story …”

  “Guess we’re seeing a bit more of it than either of us planned on now.” Thianna glanced at the sky. “So where do we go from here? It will be dark soon. Should we head back to the temple for the night?”

  Karn wasn’t sure he wanted to go underground again. He pointed to a place where the arena wall had fallen in. “We can make it up to the first floor there. Then we can find an exit out.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Karn and Thianna had to walk across the exposed tops of the chamber walls of the hypogeum. It was exactly like walking on the walls of a maze. Though the going wasn’t hard, Karn found himself being extra cautious. He didn’t want to fall in. It wouldn’t be an easy fall. He thought he heard the sliding-shuffling-slithering sound again, but he couldn’t pinpoint it, and it didn’t linger.

  They reached the gap in the wall and clambered up to the first level of seating, picking their way up the tiers toward an entrance.

  Thianna paused. Despite having grown up in a frost giants’ village, she was having a hard time just getting a handle on the size of the coliseum. It was hard to imagine how many people could have filled the stands of this amphitheater. Hundreds? Thousands even? Were there really so many people in the world?

  “I’ve already seen the top,” she whispered defiantly to the stones of the coliseum. “This is just downhill.”

  “Hey, you coming or what?” Karn hollered, snapping her back to the present. She skipped quickly after him.

  A broad archway led them into an elaborate chamber with a roof and walls on three sides while the fourth was open to the arena below. Karn explained that it was a private box for the use of a wealthy patron or government official. The box had a great view of the field, but couldn’t be seen by people in the stands. Thianna wasn’t sure why anyone would want to hide away from others at a sporting event, but she shrugged it off as a “human thing.” Karn studied the walls in the light of his torch.