Arcanum

by Simon Morden

  Felix stopped kicking and frowned. “That’s a good point, Master Ullmann. Open the door: let’s see these Bavarians.”

  They made their way up the steps inside.

  “We don’t have a name for the second man yet,” said Ullmann. “He’s not volunteering it, though I dare say we could beat it out of him, or Wiel.”

  “We can call him whatever we like. It’s not like Wiel will have given us his real name,” said Felix. “How about Mr Spitzel?”

  “That’s a good one, my lord. Spitzel it is, then.”

  The jailer was perched on a stool outside the locked room. He wasn’t asleep, and even stood up when he heard them approach.

  “Open up, man. The prince wants to interrogate the prisoners,” said Ullmann.

  It wasn’t exactly what Felix had said. If anything, he wanted to see the faces of people who might be his enemy, even though he’d done nothing to them.

  The guard took the key from around his neck and wrestled it into the lock, heaving it around until there was a satisfyingly heavy clunk. He peered through the bars in the door to check everything was still in order.

  “The chains go halfway across the room, my lords. Stick close to this side, and the bastards won’t be able to get at you.” He heaved the door aside. “Up, up, you fuckers, the Prince of Carinthia is here.”

  It was quite clear that neither man had come quietly. Black eyes, cut cheeks and chipped teeth were the order of the day. The man who Ullmann had bitten had a crude bandage on his leg. They looked up as the prince and Ullmann entered, but did not stand, a slight that enraged the jailer.

  “Wait outside, good sir,” said Felix. “My chains around their ankles are enough of a sign of their submission.”

  “The boy Carinthia,” snorted one.

  “That’s Wiel,” whispered Ullmann.

  “Good afternoon, Mr Wiel. Mr Spitzel.” It got a reaction from the other man, who pushed himself up to a more upright sitting position. “Are you being treated well?”

  “Treated well?” Wiel leant closer, and the links tightened behind him. “Why are we here? You chase us, beat us and throw us in here, all for asking about the Simbach bridge.”

  “So you deny you’re Bavarian spies then?” said Ullmann. “I suppose you didn’t try to run my lads down, Spitzel, or to knife one of us, Wiel? We didn’t find a sack of coin on you, worth far more than an honest messenger should be carrying?”

  “It would be useful if you stopped denying it,” added Felix. “We know what you are. I want to talk to you so that I can better decide what to do with you.”

  “You haven’t opened the pressing pit for us, then?” said Wiel, sitting back down. “I’m surprised.”

  “I’m not my father.” Felix sat too, cross-legged on the floor, the Sword of Carinthia scraping across the stone. “Forget whatever he used to do. I’m my own man, and I make my own decisions.”

  “Man? Man? You’re just a child. Does this long streak of piss with you have to hold your hand while you’re straining out the royal shit?”

  One of the reasons why he’d sat down was so that it would be more of an effort to get up again. Felix managed to ignore him.

  “Mr Spitzel. Yes, you. What do you say?”

  “I think you’re going to be screwed like a tuppeny whore.”

  “And why do you think that?”

  “Because you have nothing.” Spitzel stretched his leg uncomfortably, but still gave a little smile.

  Felix steepled his fingers and rested his elbows on his knees. “Tell me, Mr Spitzel: are all Bavarian spies as good as you two?”

  Ullmann snorted at the man’s sour expression. “There you go, my lord. If we have nothing, they have even less. Old Leopold ran his kingdom into the ground long before the magic disappeared.”

  “That’s true,” said Felix. “Not even enough coin to pay for a few spearmen. Ended up scrabbling around for coppers, taxing Carinthian bridges.”

  “Leopold was a fucking idiot,” growled Wiel.

  “Was? So he’s gone, has he?” Felix could see the point of this now, this testing of an opponent and seeing how much they’d give away. “Who’s in his place?”

  “Shut up!” spat Spitzel at Wiel. “Shut up now!”

  “One of the earls, then? Or has Bavaria fallen apart, and every fiefdom is for itself? The Earl of Simbach sent you, is that right?”

  Wiel stayed white and tight-lipped.

  “Answer the prince, you Bavarian cock-sucker,” said Ullmann. Felix looked up at him, eyebrow raised. “If you don’t mind, that is, my lord.”

  Swearing like a stevedore hadn’t been in the prince’s lessons, although he’d picked up a few choice phrases from his father. Being around Ullmann was an education in itself.

  Felix tapped his sword. “We’ll find out soon enough for ourselves, Mr Wiel. One thing that Carinthia hasn’t done is set earl against earl.”

  “They’re all dead. That’s hardly a triumph,” said Spitzel. He reached down to scratch at his injured leg. “You’ll be joining them soon enough, princeling.”

  Wiel wasn’t the senior partner. It was Spitzel. Interesting.

  “So Simbach thinks it can take what it wants of Carinthian land and treasure? The last time we paid you a visit, you couldn’t even make a toll booth.”

  Spitzel considered the insult. “You’re right, of course. No point in worrying about us. You may as well just let us go. A gesture of goodwill between neighbours.”

  Ullmann stiffened. “Is that the same gesture you gave me with your fists, you pig-fucker?”

  “You gave as good as you got.”

  “You won’t be saying that when we burn Simbach to the ground and send all the prisoners as slaves to work in the salt mines.”

  Felix rested his hand on Ullmann’s shin. “Steady, Master Ullmann. We don’t have to force them. Perhaps the people of Simbach would jump at the chance to earn a share of Carinthia’s good fortune.”

  Wiel jerked on his chains. “We’re better than you. We’re just better than you. We’ve had to watch for centuries while you throw your weight around like a bloated boar with its head in our troughs, rooting up our crops and shitting on our floors, and all the time it’s been ‘the Order will come and get you’ if we stand up for ourselves. The Order has gone. No more hexmasters: you’re weak now, and we’re going to gut you like a fish.”

  Felix made sure that Ullmann wasn’t going to jump in and try to silence Wiel, then asked: “When was the last time a Carinthian army invaded anyone? I know the answer to that, because I was made to learn it. Do you know?”

  “You’ve always been there, right in our faces,” shouted Wiel. ‘Do what we say,’ you tell us, ‘or we’ll burn your houses and salt your land.’ You threaten us just by breathing.”

  “A hundred and fifty years ago, and it was Wien, not Bavaria, and that was after they blocked trade on the Donau, which hurt Bavaria as much as it did us. We didn’t even sack Wien, just made it plain that we could.” Felix played a complicated rhythm with his fingertips. “I’ve every reason to hate the Order. Certainly more reason than you. But if you say we charge around like a bull in a field…”

  “Boar, my lord.”

  “Whichever. You’re wrong. If anything, the history I’ve learnt tells me we ignored everything that happened outside our borders because it didn’t make any difference to us. So why do you hate us? Bavaria has been better off for having Carinthia as a neighbour.”

  Wiel breathed heavily, still straining against his iron chain. Spitzel roused himself and ordered the other man to sit back down.

  “We hate you,” he said, “because you’ve never had to struggle, never had to try. Everything’s come easy to you Carinthians. Peace and the wealth to enjoy it are the only two things worth worrying about in life. When our harvests failed, or we were at war, or the Death came calling, you passed us like a beggar in the street. Now that you’re on the street with us, we’re not going to forget.”

  Ullmann shook
his head and walked out, and Felix unfolded his legs. “One of you hates us for interfering. The other hates us for leaving you alone. And you call me a child.”

  He got up and dusted himself down. His shoulder was still sore, but it wasn’t too bad. He thought he might leave the sling off even if Sophia told him otherwise.

  “Prince Felix?”

  “Yes, Mr Spitzel?”

  “Have you decided our fates yet?”

  Felix rubbed his face and pinched at his nose. “No. It’d be easy enough just to have you pressed. That’s what I’m expected to do, and don’t think that my being twelve will save you from the stones. What could save you is that I’m not my father, or my grandfather, or his father either. Good day, gentlemen.”

  59

  His name was Thorsun Heavyhammer, in the usual dwarvish style that sounded more than slightly ridiculous to human ears. From Büber’s limited experience, Heavyhammer was a dwarves’ dwarf: dour when he wasn’t being grim, full of fate and doom.

  Despite the thinness of the air, Heavyhammer kept up an almost continuous monologue. About how they’d make Farduzes by nightfall, unless something ate them first. About how the sky terrified him and the rocks oppressed him. About how, ultimately, his people would be forgotten in a cruel and uncaring surface world. After two days in his company, Büber was left contemplating murder to make at least that part of the dwarf’s wyrd come true.

  They were in the high passes, far beyond any human habitation, in a land locked in snow and haunted by wind. The path – only the most optimistic would have called it a road – gripped the valley bottom as if it were a lifeline, disappearing occasionally under a drift or a landslide for a hundred feet or more before carrying doggedly on westwards.

  The trees had given out. The landscape was cold and dry and bare. Rock and snow, grey and white. Their breath – that of man, horse and dwarf – condensed in clouds ahead of them and beaded skin and hair with dewdrops that initially sparkled, then soaked in.

  It was almost a relief to be interrupted by the howl of a giant. If there’d been any sign of it before, it had been lost in the low drone of the dwarf’s voice. Büber reeled in the leading rein and held the horse’s bridle close. The beast’s ears swivelled and its eyes grew large.

  Büber listened carefully, tracking the echoes from peak to peak to see if he could work out from where the sound originated. Poor dead Nadel had had problems with giants up here; perhaps it was one of the same group. A family, he’d said, like the one Büber had encountered to the east.

  Heavyhammer opened his mouth to speak and Büber raised one of his remaining fingers in warning. Do not speak, it commanded. Make no sound. Don’t even move.

  The only reason a giant called like that was to communicate with other giants across the vast open spaces of the mountain landscape. It had probably been left to watch from some vantage point – the eyesight of giants was as legendary as their temper – while the rest remained hidden beneath a drift or in a gorge.

  He looked for a tell-tale sign: a flurry of snow, a rattle of rock. Nothing. He reached for his sword, nonetheless.

  “They’re not going to attack yet. Later, probably, and we won’t get much warning.” He wiped the moisture from around his nose and mouth with the back of his sword-filled hand. “I thought the giants were closer to Ennsbruck.”

  “Then you thought wrong, human.”

  “They must have wandered up here over the last month.” Büber looked down at the dwarf. “You have less love for the bastard spawn of the Jötun than we do. At least draw your axe. You won’t get a second chance.”

  “Death in the ravening maw of a giant would be welcome compared to the living twilight of this misshapen body,” answered the dwarf. But he put his pack down and freed the axe from its bindings.

  “Gods, I should have travelled alone.”

  The giant’s single ululation had apparently served its purpose, whatever that was, for now the only sounds were the wind and those they made themselves: flapping cloth, scraping boots, crunching hooves.

  “We’d better get going. I take it there’s just one way we can go.”

  “Yes. Up here. To our certain slaughter.”

  Büber pulled his horse on, barging past Heavyhammer on the narrow path. He understood that the end of a whole way of life was a terrible thing to face, but they needed to get to Farduzes before nightfall. If they went too quickly, they might miss any ambush the giants had set, but conversely they’d be so much fresh meat in the dark. Best, then, to press on and hope.

  He kept a watch out for hiding places, for trampled snow, for a sudden shift in the shadows on north-facing slopes. Nothing. Staying alert for such a length of time was immensely wearing; his head hurt with the strain of it.

  He needed a drink of something, a bite to eat, a moment to rest his eyes, so he pulled up and turned to speak to Heavyhammer.

  Two giants, a stadia distant, were padding up the path side by side, arms swinging loosely by their side. He looked the other way, only to see two more on the path ahead.

  “Shit.”

  They’d appeared out of nowhere, just like giants always did. They’d probably passed the two who were now behind them by no more than a few sword lengths.

  Bow or sword? Sword. Giants would cover the distance quickly. Forward or back? Four giants at once was suicide. Two at once was scarcely better odds, with another pair roaring up behind him.

  Forward then.

  Heavyhammer dropped his pack, while Büber smacked the horse on its rump with the flat of his sword to scare it away. Then he started to run up the track.

  He was closing fast. The giants were lumbering towards him. They’d meet sooner than he’d anticipated. He’d thought they were further away, but they were right there, almost on top of him.

  His reckless charge faltered as he suddenly realised they were tiny. Well, not tiny exactly. They were still taller than Büber, but for giants – and they were indisputably those, with their peg teeth, filthy claws and shock-white skin hanging off in great flaps – they were small. The first of them charged Büber, milling its fists as if they were still great clubs of flesh and bone.

  Gods, it was slow, thought Büber. Ponderous, even. He’d never thought of himself as agile, but even he danced easily between the flailing arms and drove his sword-point hard through the creature’s stomach. When the blade grated against bone, he’d knew he’d gone in far enough, and he dragged it out at an angle.

  His face was almost level with the giant’s. Its mouth formed a circle and its yellow eyes bulged. Büber had seen only two expressions on a giant’s face before: rage and hunger. Now, he’d found a third. Regret.

  He turned to avoid the inevitable spew of guts, shoving the giant behind him as he spun. He’d pushed a giant, and the giant had fallen.

  Watching the overgrown dwarf and the second shrunken giant batting at each other with ineffectual blows was like seeing two children scrapping in the street. Their contest should have been epic and fierce, not embarrassing, and Büber felt compelled to end it with a single swing that severed the giant’s spine. It lost the use of its legs, and folded to the cold ground, bleeding to death.

  These creatures were shadows of what they’d once been. This was what the world had lost, writ plain to see. He could feel himself well up inside. He’d killed two of them, and wasn’t even breathing hard.

  “Turn around, Master Dwarf,” he called. “Here come the others.”

  The dwarf raised his axe, and Büber his sword. The chasing giants slowed, and came to a halt just out of reach.

  “What are they waiting for?” asked Heavyhammer.

  “For Death to take them. Look at them. They have no idea what’s happening to them. They only know their old habits, and they have to obey them.”

  “Then why aren’t they tearing at us?”

  “Because somewhere deep inside there’s a voice that tells them it’s all for nothing.” Büber looped his sword in front of him. “They’ll
attack though. It’s all they know.”

  They stared at each other, and eventually one of the giants threw its head back and howled.

  It was answered, plaintively, at a distance. The call echoed between the valley sides, and Büber wondered if that was the last time anyone would hear such a sound again.

  Then the creatures started forward again, driven by their animalistic desires.

  Heavyhammer lacked his former martial skills, but his courage was never in doubt. Though the giant was still twice his height, he swung his axe at the giant’s thigh. It bit deep, even as the giant battered at the dwarf’s head with its fists.

  Büber faced his own opponent. Stepping out the way of its first swipe, he cut up against the giant’s forearm, then slashed at the giant’s pale neck. Air frothed out of the wound; there would be no getting up again after that.

  The other giant was down on one knee, still trying to reach the dwarf, clawing at the air with its horn-coloured nails. It over-reached, and toppled forward with a groan. Heavyhammer’s axe sliced its skull in two.

  Büber lowered his guard. There was nothing else coming for them. The only movement was his horse picking its way across the scree further up the slope.

  “Well, that was pointless,” he said. “Stupid fucking idiots. They could have left us alone and lived.”

  The dwarf put his foot on the giant’s head and worked his axe-blade out. If he’d looked grim before, now he was sepulchral. He rested on the haft as bits of brain and bone slid off the steel, and his mouth set into a thin line.

  For a brief moment, Büber thought that Heavyhammer had finally run out of words. Then he started quoting poetry.

  “Hrafn flýgr sunnan,

  af hám meiði,

  ok er eptir þar

  örn í sinni.

  Þeim gef ek erni

  efstum bráðir.

  Sá mun á blóði

  bergja mínu.”

  Büber raised his eyes skywards, and unbidden, the dwarf offered a translation.