My skin crawled. “Raise me?”
Aten-Sur nodded. “Balic shall bless you with Hel’s power. It is a generous gift, when you consider the trouble you have caused him. He does not love you, but that may change one day. You must forgive him his anger. You did, after all, severely cripple his plans. You released the Aesir, this Baduhanna Mir Blacktower was to keep locked up. She knew of her, since her family knew the history. That Book of the Past?”
“I know it,” I said, hoping Shaduril had it safe.
He smiled wickedly. “And you killed so many of the draugr, an army’s worth? All Mir had raised? Then, the Bull Legion of Palan? Nearly gone. No, he’ll not love you, but he’ll see you in his ranks nonetheless. Eventually, the jotun stories will be forgotten, as you stand there by him, looking like a human.” He toed me. “And Balic’s not one to throw away a perfectly good tool he can yet use, and mock.” He smirked. “And, I think, there is something more he wants with you, but I do not know what, exactly. All the One Eyed Priests know are parts of the story, not all of it. It is a terrible crime, since Mir knows all of it. She, who calls herself the Queen of the Draugr, and Balic, knows everything. Disgusting.” He looked ready to vomit.
“She is the Queen,” I said. “Queen of Rot and Lies.”
“But, not a true Queen,” he roared with rage, and calmed himself with visible difficulty. “Just a minor noble, really, who got lucky to be blessed by Hel. Ah, raising others is a great skill, but she still smells of hay and dung!”
Not their true Queen?
He was tapping me with his foot, hovering over me, and I thrust his foot away.
“Lord?” the Captain said from above and stopped in the light of Lifegiver, as the ship turned and lit the corridor. “We are going to be there soon.” The Captain frowned as he clutched his club. He was looking down at us, nervous as a child in a dark wood, suspicious and frightened by Aten-Sur, who was not moving. I gazed past the odd draugr at the Captain. There was a thick belt around his ample girth, keys and weapons hanging on it.
“Fine, Captain,” Aten-Sur said at length, and the man disappeared.
I spoke to the draugr King spitefully. “I think I’ll pass on Balic’s offer. I’m not dead yet, you piss-stinking corpse. I’ll lead my people yet.” Hollow boast, but it made me feel better.
He shook his head. “A jotun who loves humans,” he said softly. “Makes sense, I guess, since they raised you such. Your people are already doomed. We will have to bleed to destroy what remains, but it will be easier than it might have been, thanks to Hilan Helstrom’s treachery. Not that she had much choice, eh?”
That cloaked figure. One of the One Eyed Priests? Making sure she does their bidding?
He went on. “And your goddess will be slain. Unfortunate it is, the plans are delayed, but she must fall first of all.”
“Baduhanna?” I laughed. “Try.”
“She will die,” he snarled. “Then, all of this shall be soon over, the war in the North. You’ll see it. You’ll see it with your dead eyes, and your dead heart won’t beat, as you hunt down the remnants of your own people in your damned mountains. Then, you won’t care quite as much, though I’m sure a speck of rebellion will remain within you, since we have hard time letting go of our—”
“Old life,” I whispered.
“Old life,” he agreed. “I said I don’t bother to rebel. And yet, in my odd dreams, even I, occasionally, try to do what I will. I, too, have cares from the past.” His face twitched, and gods only knew what regrets and terrors still lived in his soul. He visibly struggled to get back to the subject at hand. “We’ll arrive soon, the good Captain claimed. You are to keep your mouth shut, or your teeth shall be pulled, one by one. Endure, do not resist Balic, and soon, you will join us with relatively little pain.” He turned to go.
I tried to get up, but the chain got caught on a nail. “Where will you hold me?”
He turned. “Aten, my capital. You’ll be paraded under the Golden Chains, Maskan, right up the main market and street. Then, you’ll be locked up in the Locks of the Sea.” He smiled. “You’ll see why it’s called that. You shall see Balic’s blessing after, tomorrow, I think. He usually raises dead in the first light.”
“You’ll drag me through Aten’s streets?” I growled. “You—”
He winked. “I won’t stay. I have a war to win. I have to make sure one of us doesn’t destroy everything with her greed, pride, and stupidity. The Queen of Aten, my dear wife Raven Atenguard, shall present you to the High King.”
“Baduhanna will—”
“Baduhanna will fall,” he said coldly. “You think Hillhold will fight? Ban’s men? No. Hilan makes sure they shall die in their beds. And then, your goddess is going to be in a perilous trap, indeed.” He pulled out my Black Grip, and I watched the dark gauntlet as a starving man might stare at a feast table groaning under a heap of succulent meats. “We thank you for this. It was a shock we lost it. Balic much desires it. Not sure why.” He grabbed something else from his belt. “Perhaps this holds the answer, but I am not to read it. Balic wants it desperately.” He showed me the Book of the Past. It was in his hand, the cover gleaming.
Shaduril. Had she fallen?
I kept my face straight, not willing to reward him with my pain.
He winked. “Relax, Maskan. Rest for now, and let us plan the war. You’ll join it soon enough. On our side.”
“What do you need the Black Grip for?” I yelled. “And the Book?”
He dodged away, and didn’t answer. He claimed he didn’t know. He was on his way back north, and I was sure there was another One Eyed Priest in Dagnar, and Shaduril, at best, was in trouble. As was the city. And Baduhanna. Ban’s men were betrayed.
The ship moved on, and I cursed the ring in my finger.
Sand, Shaduril? Did they survive?
I wept, this time alone.
***
Aten’s port was vast.
I gazed at it from the mid-deck, quaking in the brutal winds of the Arrow Straits.
While Dagnar was guarded by a tall sea wall with thick, deadly towers, like the Fat Father, Aten’s sea walls and towers were crafted of sand hued pillars, thirty feet in height. The walls and towers defended the immense lagoon on which Aten was perched, and the walls continued to the dry land, ringing the massive, white city. Ballista and catapults dotted the top of the walls.
Ululating calls echoed across the waters that seemed much more exotic, blue and green, than ours, though the trip was not long from the North. I squinted in the light of the Lifegiver, and turned to look north. Arrow Straits opened up in all its glory. Dagnar was a good day of rowing away, less with sails and favorable winds—if the pirates didn’t bother one—and I bet if I had stood on one of those towers guarding the sea-wall, I would see glimpses of home.
The potbellied man came forward, while yelling orders to his crew.
He was a head shorter than I was, a nasty specimen with a snotty beard, and he pushed me forward to take my place in the foredeck. I walked slowly, because the thick chain hanging from my wrists hindered my steps. I hopped forward and dragged the chains with me for the stairs, and the bastard kicked me so hard I fell. His keys jingled as he bent over me, and I pulled myself up, as Hammer Legionnaires watched on impassively. The craft had a flag with a ship and a fish, and I knew it was Aten’s own ship. I had killed many legionnaires, and some of the men on the deck had probably seen what I had done to one of their commander’s ships in the battle of Dagnar. Bull Legion was from Palan, a land near Malignborg and Aten both. The men on the deck must have fought together with Palan’s many times in the past, and I had killed their brothers.
I looked to the sky. There, birds flew free.
The ring stopped me from joining them. My finger was bleeding from the constant tugging, but it would not come off, at least not without killing me. Talien’s ring, enhanced with Balan’s magic, was deadly.
The Captain kicked me forward again.
I grumb
led, and lifted the hugely heavy chains, but instead of walking for the stairs to the foredeck, where he probably meant to chain me, I swung the metal around. The chain whirled in the air with a clinking sound, and struck the man’s chest so hard his eyes nearly popped out of his skull.
He fell.
Panting, I leaped over him. He was slapping and pummeling me, his knee coming to my side, but I bit and hit him in the face, drawing blood and flesh, and some beard with my teeth. He screamed madly as the Hammer Legionnaires hauled me up, hitting me with their fists and sword pommels, and in the end, I was dragged and chained to the foredeck on a rung used for mooring. There I was, on my knees, a fitting trophy bleeding on the deck. I kept my fists clutched shut, and endured the pain. The galley lurched, the Captain whimpered, a drum beat lazily, and the ship plunged through an opening in the walls.
A lagoon filled with azure water opened up before us. Like the city, the harbor was white. There were a dozen long piers, and nearly all were filled with ships of all kinds. There were hundreds. They all had a proud flag, some fluttering in a weak breeze, with signs of the legions. There was a Golden Gargoyle, a Minotaur, Six Spears. The Red War Galley flag of Katar Kas Opan, the Whale and Spear of Betus Coin, and Aten’s Ship and Fish were most numerous. The white city spread to the horizon, with a wide main street—the Golden Chains—leading up to a walled fortress comprised of three round towers, all reaching high to the sky. Over the street, golden chains indeed hung, glinting richly in the dying light of the day. The fortress, which I took to be the dreaded Lock of the Sea, looked like an ominous home to pain and suffering.
Pipes began to play across the city.
The cacophony could be heard across the land, and thousands of birds, colorful in a million ways, spread as a blanket across the pink evening sky. Aten was beautiful, but judging by the tens of thousands of people lining the main street, I was not about to enjoy its hospitality. The piers and the ships were filled with people as well. The galley was rowed to the middle of the harbor, and soon, I began hearing mocking laughter, and saw men and women in fine tunics pointing fingers at me, mothers whispering to their huge-eyed children.
Dagnar didn’t practice such treatment of the prisoners.
We would give a condemned enemy a death by hanging in the gallows, but what they were going to do to me in Aten?
Shame. They would shame me.
To them, I was no prisoner of war. I was no king.
I was a traitor. And rumored a freak of nature.
I endured the mockery, as the galley pulled past the piers. The distinct smell death from the water’s edge wafted to my nose. Children, wearing colorful pants, rushed with the galley on the sides, and one pelted me with a rotten vegetable. His aim was excellent, and I felt the slime as a cold blot of shame on my bare back. I kept my fists closed, reminding myself to endure.
Finally, the ship reached the pier’s end.
People were cheering, calling out my name, some for my blood. They were mostly lean men, old and young, strong of limb, and they chanted the names of Balic and Raven as well.
Queen of Aten, I thought. Draugr.
Men clambered up to the foredeck, and untied me. They dragged me back down to the mid-deck, and pushed and pulled me out of the galley over a plank, making sure I’d not try to jump to the sea to drown myself. Four gaudily armored Hammer Legionnaires took charge of me.
The potbellied captain, bleeding from face, remained behind, cursing. Despite the terrible fear of what I was about to endure, I grinned. The man was on his fours, looking for something, enduring the screams of a very frustrated Hammer Legionnaire. I had no more time to think about the man’s plight, as I was pushed to walk under the Golden Chains for the fortress. Near the harbor, there were many defensive castles and rich mansions, and one fortress was built on the wall itself. A huge, golden picture, with the fish and the boat, was painted on its wall. Perhaps it was Aten-Sur’s own home.
The guards pushed me on, until a thin man, with a long, brown hair and red robes, raised his scepter and stopped us. There was a face in white embroidered on his robe, one with a missing eye, and so I guessed he was a One Eyed Priest, though perhaps not a draugr. A lesser creature of Hel, and without the distinctive helmets with horns the higher ones often wore. This one was just a madman.
He kept calling out, “Maskan! Maskan the Rebel!” And people cheered each time.
I tried to keep the fear under control, and my back straight. I endured the discord, the mockery. They called me an animal, a mongrel, a crown-thief, and a traitor, and I wondered if Aten-Sur had been wrong, and they’d just torture me to death right there and then.
The thin man snapped his fingers. “Maskan, the Rebel!” he yelled again. “Prepare him!”
A Hammer legionnaire stepped before me, and his knife flashed. He opened a wound on my chest. I flinched with the pain, as my blood poured out.
Were they showing everyone I was just flesh and meat?
Yes, likely.
Then, later, how death cured me?
His dagger flashed again, as he grabbed my pants. I flinched with horror, as he slashed my belt, and ripped the garment off. He took hold of my loincloth, and cut if off as well.
I was naked, and blood ran across my belly into my loins and down my legs.
The thin man laughed. “Behold, Maskan the Woman!”
The crowds mocked me even more brutally. Tens of thousands of people were laughing and screaming so loudly, so foully that my head spun. Some made mocking movements with their hips, and no man, no matter how strong, can keep his face straight in such a terrible situation.
I kept my fist clenched.
A rope was placed around my neck. The guards positioned themselves around me, the thin man came last, and they began to pull me towards the beginning of the street, so far, and for my destiny. I turned to look behind, and saw Aten-Sur wave at me from the ship. He was not joining the procession.
“Traitor,” the crowds chanted.
The thin priest was yelling. “Maskan the Woman!”
The terrible chant rose around me. It made me reel. I tried to focus on the road. I counted red tiles with carved lizards. I walked, and counted them, and kept myself moving one foot before the other. The chains were heavy. I clenched my fists hard, and felt my nails biting into my palms.
At the end of the road, there was a platform, built before the ominous fortress. Slowly, and I could honestly say I had no idea how long we walked under the Golden Chains, we got to it.
There, surprisingly, the crowds went quiet. There was only the clink of my chain, as I slipped on my blood.
I was pushed down to my knees before the dais.
Silence reigned. Guards were standing still in disciplined rows, and then, the gate opened in the fort.
“Head down,” the thin man said with reverence. “The One Man arrives. Your King, traitor, graces you with his presence.”
I kept my head up, until one of the guards struck my head from behind, and I fell on my face before the dais. I didn’t look up, but knew there would be more than the accursed high King riding my way. There were three horses, at least. Someone was on foot.
I waited, my ass in the air. I bled and ached all over, and then, finally, I heard the horses stopping, then people dismounting. The flags flapped in the wind, and then I heard the steps. I kept my face down, until the thin man kicked my rear, and growling with shame, I looked up.
Balic of Malingborg.
Here was the dead blood of the mightiest house in Midgard, the High King of the Verdant Lands and of the North, the brutal conqueror and unfair law-giver. He was the self-proclaimed One Man, who denied gods, and claimed to be one, tricking Midgard for Hel. There he stood, his face beautiful, healthy, his eyes pools of blue. He was a corpse walking, deader than a stone, draugr king, and yet, he looked enchantingly young. Nothing like I had imagined. His curly blond hair was glittering around his shoulders, his jaw was wide and clean-shaven, and his face strong and intellig
ent.
I had to remind myself of the evil. He was the King of the Draugr, Hel’s Hand in Midgard, and Mir was the Queen. So Mir had told me.
He raised his hands, and people cheered, screamed themselves hoarse, and I looked to the side of Balic. There stood another draugr, a thin woman of red locks, her throat oddly thin, the bones showing in her arms. With her, was a man in a horned mask, wearing robes, and the Queen put a hand on his shoulder affectionately, whispering something. It was probably family, and no doubt yet another draugr.
Behind Raven, stood an enchanting girl of perhaps eighteen.
Her hair was silken and long. The face was subtly beautiful, with full lips, high forehead, and greenest eyes I had ever seen. I noticed one thing about her that was not evident in the other three.
She was breathing.
She looked at me for a long time, her face pinched with worry. Her chest was moving up and down, the green eyes blinking with hint of tears.
Balic let his hand go down. He snapped his fingers, and the guards and the thin priest stepped away. Silence reigned in Aten. Balic looked down at me with no visible emotion, and I wondered if his mind had wondered off. Then he made a smacking sound with his mouth, and licked his lips. “Your part in the affairs of the North is over. At least as you are now. An enemy.”
“I’ll not serve you in death,” I whispered.
He looked down at me and smiled. “All the kings said that. And many of the queens, though not Raven here.” He gave Aten-Sur’s queen an appreciative smile, and she bowed back, her thin face glowing with admiration. “She was willing.”
“King and Queen of the Draugr,” I said, and spat before me. “Filth of the gutter. Balic and Mir, and their lapdogs.”
He gave me a warning smile, thin and cruel. “Mir? You shall not speak of Mir. A mere servant she is, but a bad one, an insolent one, always trying to steal my glory. I’ve told her many times she will not tamper with our great goal. It will all be achieved be me. She is but helping me along.” He calmed himself visibly and smiled. “Despite my spite for her, you must respect us all, boy. You know we hold long grudges. Don’t give me reason to punish you after you are mine.” He leaned closer and spoke softly, so none could hear him speak of the gods he had denied. “We have schemed long and hard to gain this world for Hel, and no boy will mock us for it.”
The Queen of the Draugr: Stories of the Nine Worlds (Thief of Midgard - a dark fantasy action adventure Book 2) Page 11