Slowly, they accepted my words. Few, then more nodded, and some cheered, though tiredly and softly, so as not to alert the enemy, thrumming their spears and shields on the ground.
“Follow the dverger, follow me, and then, we’ll all see something none shall ever forget.”
I entered the barracks with Quiss.
They followed us. I bid farewell to the city, the ancient tree where the skulls hung, where I had hung, and the Tower of the Temple, the home of the ancient king. I turned my back to the land, and rushed down to the cellar of barracks. The dverger were leading men below to the old city through a trapdoor. Outside, some fifty dverger sang, a ferocious song to keep up the appearances of the army still on the wall. They would leave the few human defenders behind, and close the doors, but the song made the lot of us smile, even when many were weeping.
Ho! The King of Carushters went to his queen.
Ho! The Queen wasn’t there, and the King made a scene.
Ho, hai, the Queen hates the weeping King.
Ho, hai, the Queen prefers a soldier’s gnarly thing.
Ho! The King wept on his ale, and took a young lover.
Ho! The Queen poisoned the ale, and married the King’s drummer.
We descended to the ground, down to the depths, and the song faded. We found a huge wall, where the dverger had removed a portion of the stones. There, slowly, very slowly we crept forward. A thrum of catapults could be heard, then a mighty roar. Hirag turned to look back, and shook his head as he lamented. “Our boys will have to go to the Tower of the Temple and hold it. Can’t leave the wall now. Some will close the way, though. We still have some hundred and fifty left, barely. Most will make it out, if your luck holds.”
I went on after him. Above, and soon behind, we heard the rumble, as the dverger and some hundreds of the defenders fought in the Tower of the Temple. We bid them farewell, as the noise faded. Somewhere behind, I heard Ikar Helstrom complaining piteously, and there, too, would be Shaduril and Illastria.
I grasped Hirag. I spoke to him, and he sent two dverger with me, as I took a detour. I found the old watchtower, and made my way to the corpse of Mir.
What I found was a burned out husk.
The body resembled a charred bit of wood. The chain coif was blackened, and bones were still warm. The ears and nose were gone. Her hands black, and the bared bones in her fingers were brittle. I pushed it to its side, found something under the thing, and frowned, then cursed, and wept.
The dverger came to me. I waved them away, and walked off. We rejoined the army.
After an hour of groping on in the dark streets, we arrived to an old courtyard, probably a mansion of some sort. The dverger led us up to a rubble incline, made their way over some rotten logs, and the people of Dagnar followed. There, a doorway was opened carefully near the house they had attacked from during that first battle by the gates, and we moved out to see a troop of cavalry send patrols left and right, with men pulling carts up the road.
Wordlessly, Hirag and his troops charged.
The people smiled viciously, as they followed the dverger. Hope was rekindled in their hearts, and they knew they needed not die that night, trusting my words we’d return. We attacked the surprised cavalry, hunted down the fleeing men, and a spell of icy field by a dverg mage tripped three high officers and their horses, who had tried to take the news away to the upper city.
The dverger issued from buildings, charged to slay guards fleeing for the harbor, and I charged to the top of the gatehouse, with Quiss and the better fighters. I surged in, blade first, and a tall champion danced back from us. He was lean, fast, an older man from Malignborg itself. He lifted a large, rich sword, snarling at his men to stand still, but I had no time for honorable bloodletting. I charged, transforming into a gigantic bear, and barreled over and roared my way through the enemy, savagely ripping them apart. The champion stepped away, his sword flashing masterfully, nearly impaling my eye, but he didn’t see Quiss near him, and fell on his face with a blade in his side.
I changed back to my human form, stood over the corpses of the foe, and peered up the hill.
The Tower still stood.
A battle was ongoing up there, the walls were awash with enemy flags, but they had not breached the Tower yet. I turned to Quiss, who was standing over the wounded champion, whose chest was still heaving. “This is Saxan Pelliot,” she wondered. “The Serpent Sword of Midgard.”
I gazed down at the handsome man. He was a famous one, and had won fame in war and arenas both. A son of a king, some said, others claimed an offspring of a slave. Perhaps both. “Take him down,” I told her. “And tell them to march out.”
She flashed me a grin, and her men moved to obey. I kept watch, as the populace streamed out, the wounded hopping or even crawling out last. The dverger were ripping into the tent city outside the gates. What had remained to guard the enemy supplies and spare horses, ran or died. We found a trove of weapons, armor, food, and supplies of all kinds, and perversely, the people were re-arming themselves with the best Balic had to offer.
The dverger blocked the gates with stones and rubble, building a house-sized pile in a matter of minutes, and then, they dug a deep trench across the gateway.
***
As we watched, on top of the Hill, the Hammer Legions overran the Tower in the first light of the day. Their cheers of triumph echoed across the lands, and I saw their flag raised from the Pearl Terrace, and probably, likely, Balic was sitting on the Rose Throne.
Then again, perhaps not.
He’d be screaming for his men to find me, or at least the thousands of defenders he knew should be there. Some would start exploring the cavern, where Baduhanna had been blocked in, others might soon find the Old City and the wounded. Thousands, drunk on victory, would be streaming all across the city, little heeding their officers, hoping for riches, ale, and even women. Most, I hoped, would pay no mind to their orders. We could see that happening, companies rushing wildly about the city, finally victorious, wild with joy.
Hirag turned to me.
People looked uncertain in their freshly looted armor and weapons, not sure what was taking place. One of the dverger lifted a huge golden horn, which he held gingerly with two hands. He blew a grunting, evil-sounding note, such as likely resonated in the caverns of Svartalfheim. It echoed and blared, demanding notice across the land.
I gave Quiss a look, she lifted her sword, and people followed suite uncertainly, saluting the city.
We stood there, and soon, dverger began to appear on the walls. They rappelled down ropes, one-by-one, exiting the city. Twenty, then thirty, not all would make it. Some, especially higher up in the city, would have to hide in the Old City with the wounded.
All across the city, massive oil fires had been lit under dozens of houses, carefully chosen so the conflagration would spread and trap the enemy army.
The city was smoking already.
A blue-gray haze billowed up to the sky, as the greatest pyre in Dagnar’s history went alight, the city itself. Quiss had said it might be best to burn the whole thing down, and I had secretly agreed, though I had wanted the enemy to be busy looting it, drunk on their victory, high up the Hill, where the smoke, heat, and flames would travel to consume much of the structures so diligently rebuilt after Hel’s War. Ancient buildings burst into flames.
Soon, those fires were massive things reaching for the sky, like a gigantic, hungry beast, an all-consuming inferno dragon writhing across the collapsing, blackening roofs. The Third Tier, then the Fourth, began flaming from one end to the other. The mighty homes of the nobles, the merchants land, the Blue Doors District began to pour heavy smoke to the sky, and soon, we couldn’t see even the Tower of the Temple. Then, the Second Tier, and soon, right there in front of us, the First Tier, the Gate Land, began to burn to crisp
We stared at the conflagration with horror, taking steps back, as we put away the swords. We turned to march away, but everyone’s heads were turned to
Dagnar nonetheless. The inferno was orange and yellow, red and white, and only the distant screams, the horror of the Hammer Legions, made it seem men had once live there. The heat, even as we walked away from Dagnar, was like a scorching kiss on our necks.
The tent city rustled with the warm winds from the city being devoured by flames, and the sky was alive, with sparkling bits of burning material. Some tents caught fire behind us. As we marched up the way out of the peninsula, we saw stray men of the Hammer Legions falling, smoking, and burning from the top of the walls we had left, and gods knew how many they lost. Some would take shelter in the Tower, other would find the caverns where Baduhanna and the dverger had been trapped, but many, very many, perished in fires. On the Pearl Beach, their fleets were pulling off the shores, as they witnessed the ragged army marching off.
We had a goddess to save.
BOOK 5: THE KING
“I will have you locked below, until Balic decides what is to be done with you.”
Draugr Lisar Vittar to Shaduril
CHAPTER 24
I stared at the lazy flags on top of Dansar’s Grave.
There were more than I had expected, and some of them had been a rude shock, stunning the army into silence. I was thinking feverishly, if the plot I had devised to get us in would actually suffice.
The people were making camp. Lifegiver was well on its way down. I kept staring at the flags, and the tall, thick walls, with their majestic towers, and I was frowning. I had given little notice to the towers when I had flown after the white messenger bird, but I was paying attention now. The round fortress guarding Grimwing Pass was absolutely brutish, and the round central keep seemed to be watching us. The flags were there, yes, but there was also a gleam, as soldiers’ helms reflected light, and there would be messaging mirrors as well. The whole fortress was virtually on fire, since torches and cauldrons had been lit to light its entire length, even during the day, and siege machines and archers were guarding every inch of it.
Quiss spoke softly. “You think they are worried a shape-changing jotun might pop in?”
“Yes,” I said thickly. “They fear one might come in for a visit. I had not planned on flying inside anyway, but this is shit terrible. There’s half a legion in there. At least.”
“Lisar Vittar’s,” she agreed. “I know the flag. I’ve met their Queen. She is an unusual draugr. Even more paranoid than most. But, also horribly powerful. She has some ancient artifacts, and they say she shouldn’t be touched; that you lose a limb, if you go near her.”
“Perfect,” I growled. “I’ve heard of her. Damned flags, could they be a distraction? A lie?”
“There are a lot of troops in there,” Quiss said, crushing my hopes.
“I need Thrum,” I said softly.
“He is coming,” she answered. “Their troops are marching up. We picked up most he had left to guard the roads, and he has been speaking with them. But he is coming.”
I waited, and entertained murderous thoughts. Helstrom flag was flapping lazily around on the central tower, as I had expected it to be. Hilan’s troops had garrisoned the fort, and by her orders, held it for the enemy. I fully intended to hang every single one of her traitor men-at-arms from the walls for that.
But, first, I would have to take it.
Dansar’s Grave had fallen, far deeper than just into Hilan’s treason. There were other flags, and one was a White Lion of Vittar, indeed, and it spelled doom for our efforts.
Parts of a Hammer Legion had reached it, and held it. And gods knew what had passed it.
“What was your plan?” Quiss asked me. “Is it still possible?”
I shuddered, and tried to answer, but found no voice. I had planned to go in and to supplant the commander; displacing a suspicious, powerful draugr Queen was no easy feat. It might be an impossible feat.
I wanted Thrum.
This wasn’t an army Balic had sent from his own force. No, it was one of the armies from Crow’s Hook, and that meant Thrum had failed. How that was possible, when five hundred of his had performed such mighty, legendary deeds in Dagnar, I didn’t know.
I’d find out.
I watched how the dverg and his army joined out troop of some thousands, marching to a secluded valley, not far from Dansar’s Grave. Hundreds, no, thousands, were streaming through the woods in solid, evil-looking ranks, so no major calamity had struck them. I saw Thrum, stoically observing Dansar’s Grave, and I was sure he slumped a bit, as if a heavy weight had been placed squarely on his shoulders.
I sat down on a trunk and glowered at him as he approached. His eyes went to the burning specter of a hill, then to the ragged, but well-armed, ranks behind me, and finally, to my hand, where Sorrowspinner no longer held me prisoner.
“Can you guess,” I asked him hollowly, “how well they fought in Dagnar? How much they bled?”
“I see it,” he answered. “Well they did. Very well.”
“And here we are, hoping to save Baduhanna,” I told him, with a snarl. His eyes went to my ringless finger again, and he flinched. He knew a mad jotun was nothing to spit on. “We reaped a bloody harvest, and here we are, thinking it might have been for nothing. You said you would keep the beach.”
“I kept the beach,” he answered stiffly.
“How?” I asked him. “How did that army get past you? The White Lion?”
He frowned, and didn’t answer. “I left five hundred with you. You bring back around hundred. And you look like a roasted tater.”
I wiped sweat off my face, which was blistered with burns and blood, and felt as weak as a kitten. I was surely running a fever. “How does that relate to your failure?”
He snorted, as he looked at the inferno consuming the hill side. “Did you kill Balic? Looks like a gate to Muspelheim.” He shook his head forlornly. “No?”
I slapped the trunk beneath me, and Quiss put a hand on my shoulder. “I’m not sure about that,” I snarled, and waved my sword towards the city. “It does look like a live volcano. A terrible place, Thrum, to spend time fidgeting. Perhaps he perished.”
He spat, and shook his head. “So, you don’t know for sure. I doubt it. You won’t get that lucky, my king.”
“The dverger made all the difference,” Quiss said, and bowed to the gruff General to make him less defensive. As it was, he had not answered my question. “All of it. Without the Old City and their toughness, we would not be able to save Baduhanna. But, no, we didn’t kill Balic, and so, we still have to get in there, and you should answer the question. Call it something other than a failure,” she said and winked at him.
I almost told Quiss to stuff her diplomacy into a crack of Hel, but held my tongue. As it was, her diplomacy worked.
“I’ll call it bad luck, or just being outmaneuvered,” Thrum muttered, and took a ragged breath. “Fine.”
“So, how?” I asked him again.
Thrum scratched his neck, embarrassed. “They came to the beach and disgorged there. Looked mighty martial. Unloaded one-by-one, pulled their arses through the surf, made a fuss with guards. The normal stuff. A pair of vicious, robed Queens were rowed in, and set about making a camp. They soon began sending boys up the trails. We snapped them off. Some officer marched up, high and mighty, pointing at the deserted Hawk’s Talon fortress, and was sending riders ahead to make sure things were well in Dansar’s Grave. We killed these boys that were climbing up to us, and took a head from the officer, a general of some sort. I got some reports from the rear. Had left some boys behind, so as to make sure to kill all Balic’s couriers, as you commanded. He sent a few, but the bastards used the roads, and that was that. They are rotting out there. Balic actually brought all his damned cavalry to the city, can you believe it?”
“We killed many,” Quiss answered. “Go on.”
“The scouts we killed on top didn’t go back to the beach, obviously. The enemy got restless, and a thousand or more formed below. We hid well,” Thrum went on. “We had fortified the trails up that
horrible route, which is full of crags, jagged rocks, sudden drops. The whole hillside looks like something out of a goat’s arse. They sent the companies up, and we sprang a trap on them. Butchered them like milk-lizards, and laid them on their backs and noses. That didn’t sit well with the queens at the beach. They sent more scouts just to see how to play it out.” He shrugged. “It was an interesting night. They tried to march up the shitty trails ten times. It was almost like they wanted to die. We obliged them.”
I stared at him, and pointed my sword at the distant Dansar’s Grave. “That’s a legion flag. Did they land elsewhere? Or grow wings, perhaps? I thought Balissa and I were the only ones to perform something like that.”
He shook his head, held his face, and it was clear the dverger didn’t take well to admitting failure. “They had nearly ten thousand in those ships. We killed two and more. But, the rest are gone, and have moved into the passes.”
Quiss frowned. “They went to the sea, and found another route?”
“No,” he answered thinly.
“So, they did fly away?” I roared, making heads turn. The exhausted company of men and women from Dagnar looked nervous, and I calmed myself.
“They had help,” he said unhappily. “Some hours into the night, they still kept harassing us, though not as aggressively. The ships remained, we could see them, and the enemy had secreted itself below the rocks. Men came up, constantly, and we defended the passes. This morning,” he grunted, “there were none in the beach. Only corpses, some wounded, and abandoned gear remained. The galleys left as we watched. Empty.”
I stared at him with stupefaction. “You questioned the wounded?” I asked him.
He nodded. “They had local scouts, smugglers, pirates. They tried to get to Dagnar from below, right? Men, who knew the ways, guided them? They did. Well, those tunnels were blocked. These weren’t. There are smuggler tunnels in Crow’s Hook. Our king, Morag, had a fairly tough tax policy for many goods, so there are smuggler hideouts all across the coast, and none as vast as the ones in Crow’s Hook. There is a hidden doorway. We found a cave, and a horrible, winding way which runs along a slippery, wet route below. It was almost homelike, eh? It comes up near the Iron Way. It was a costly, time consuming trek for the bastards, and they lost a lot of men along it, hundreds in the nasty, slippery rocks. They came up over there.” He thumbed towards the East, and the hair stood up on my neck. The enemy had been marching along the road we were traversing.
The Queen of the Draugr: Stories of the Nine Worlds (Thief of Midgard - a dark fantasy action adventure Book 2) Page 34