The Book of the Sword (Darkest Age)

by A. J. Lake

  ‘You’re a stranger here – you should not be fishing in our lake. But Olafr here says you have a fire-stick to break the ice.’

  The second man nodded and grinned, showing blackened teeth. ‘It burned white, not red,’ he said. ‘And cut through the ice like reindeer fat!’

  ‘So,’ the first cut in, ‘here’s a bargain for you. Give us the fire-stick, and we won’t stop you taking our fish.’

  His tone was cheerful, but Elspeth had seen men like this before at the harbours. The word ‘bargain’ in their mouths meant: give me what you have, and I may not hurt you. Her father had been adept at sending them off without violence, but her father had been a grown man, whose position gave him respect. She could feel the sword trying to burst free, sending sparks shooting up her right arm. No! Elspeth thought urgently. This is the trouble we have when just one person sees you. But the third man, wide as a hut, was blocking her way back to her own camp.

  ‘I don’t understand you!’ she said, making her voice as loud as she could. Maybe Cathbar and the others would hear her – she could not see them past the wide man’s shoulders. ‘My … my father has a sword. That’s how we broke the ice.’

  The first man gave a bark of laughter and took a step towards her. ‘That’s not what Olafr saw,’ he said. ‘He says you have the stick. And as for your father’s sword …’ He half drew the long knife tucked into his belt; Olafr, beside him, sniggered and did the same. ‘But we don’t want a fight, do we? You’re just a girl. Give us the stick now –’

  A hand like a bear’s paw gripped Elspeth’s arm. The third man had been edging towards her as she kept her eye on the knives, and now he dragged her towards him while the other two lunged triumphantly forward. She threw herself back, trying to twist away from the fat man’s grasp, and felt her feet slide out from under her. She flailed for balance, lost it and came down hard on the ice, the breath knocked out of her. A thump and a volley of curses nearby told her that the fat man had fallen with her, but the other two were bending over her, laughing. Rage filled her, and the sword flared in her hand.

  She had time to see the expression in her attackers’ eyes – shock, then terror – before the ground shifted under her. There was a dreadful creaking, a panicked cry from the man on the ground behind her, and then she was sliding helplessly downwards, plummeting down a shard of steeply sloping ice straight into the lake. Commotion rose all around her: screams, splashing and running footsteps. Then she was in icy water, and all sound stopped as the blackness closed over her head.

  She was sinking into darkness, all light and motion fading above her. There was no air left in her: next moment she must take the ice water into her lungs … And then her father’s voice came to her, from the days when she was small and safe, when water had been her friend: Kick, Elspeth! Kick at it and the water will let you go the way you want. Use your arms to point the way.

  Elspeth kicked hard, casting her eyes upwards. Her arms were above her head, and over them was a greenish light … the sword! It still glowed, and it was pointing the way to safety. She clamped her lips shut: she would reach the surface …

  Something brushed against her. She ignored it, straining upwards, but there was another touch, and then another, twining around her legs. They were all about her: the slender, translucent figures she had seen before: insubstantial but clinging; swarming up her body towards the surface … or else pulling her down. And a hundred soft voices sounded in her ears: Ioneth … Ioneth!

  Let me go! Elspeth could not tell if it was her voice that spoke or the sword’s, but her lips were still pressed together, though her lungs were on fire. Was it growing lighter above her? The whispering in her ears had become an indistinct roaring, and her body was melting with the ice.

  Something wrenched painfully at her wrist. Her hair was being pulled out of her head. There was a violent yank upwards – and she was out in the blessed air, blinking in the red remains of the light, trying to breathe and coughing instead, and clinging for her life to the rough wool of Cathbar’s jerkin.

  ‘I’ve got you, girl,’ he muttered. ‘Try and stand for me now, will you? We need to get moving, fast.’

  His words made no sense to her at first. She was not drowned – surely that was enough? Could she not just lie here while her body came back to her? But then she heard the other sounds, and began to see again. Edmund was standing over her, clutching his knife and looking hunted. Fritha stood nearby, an arrow fitted to her bow. Elspeth followed their gaze to see the fat man who had grabbed her lying flat on his back in the snow, wheezing and dripping wet. He must have gone through the ice as well, and his companion, the tall fisherman who had first threatened her, had only just succeeded in pulling him out. He was crouching over the fat man, very nearly as wet as he was, clutching a sodden cloak around himself and cursing at Elspeth through violently chattering teeth. And along the edge of the lake Olafr, abruptly sobered by the look of it, was leading a band of grim-faced fishermen towards them. Most of them had gutting-knives like his, and one or two had drawn them.

  ‘Can you walk?’ Cathbar asked her again. His voice was level, but there was an edge to it that Elspeth had not heard before.

  An angry mutter came to her from the approaching men. She heard the word galdra-kona, witch, spoken in voices of anger and fear. And then Olafr’s voice, shrill with fury.

  ‘She broke the ice and pushed him in!’

  ‘We’ll see if she can drown, then,’ cried another man.

  ‘If not, she’ll surely burn.’

  Cathbar’s voice in her ear was urgent now. ‘Try to stand, Elspeth!’

  But she could not stand. She could not even feel her legs. She lay helpless, the shivering starting to seize her as the men drew nearer.

  Chapter Eight

  Erlingr was a tall, proud fellow, near as white as his men. He scowled on me at first, saying he needed no help from the Iron people, as they call men of my race, who work with ore plundered from rocks.

  But the Fay who visited me had told me true, Erlingr admitted: the chained god Loki had begun to free himself, and the land was burning and full of fear. If I could use my skill to forge new chains, he said at last, a means might be found to bind Loki again. But he would not hear of the sword, nor look at it.

  The floor of the great cavern sloped downwards, and they had placed Cluaran at the lowest point, so though he was standing, his watchers looked down on him from all sides. In the many times he had been in this hall, he had never seen it so crowded: a mass of faces, pale as parchment in the dim light; most looking at him with cold hostility, though here and there a younger face that he did not recognise held simple curiosity. The light filtering through the ice wall above him bathed them in a greenish glow that made their skin and hair look translucent. They’ve all come to see this, he thought, even the ones who weren’t involved. So Erlingr has spoken to them – but what has he said? Nothing helpful, to judge by those looks. Behind him, Ari stood impassively, more like a prison guard than an escort. It seemed there would be no help here after all. Cluaran sighed, and shifted his feet on the slippery stone.

  ‘I’ve told you already, I would not have come without need,’ he said again.

  ‘And what need could be great enough to draw you here again?’ The speaker was the oldest man there, his face so deeply lined that his cold grey eyes seemed to peer out at the world from crevices. He sat in a great carved seat in the centre of the hall, and held the yew-wood staff that by tradition was given to none but the leader of the Ice people – and Cluaran well knew the power of tradition in this place. He bowed low to the old man before replying.

  ‘One that should concern even you, Erlingr. The dragon, Kvöl-dreki, is flying. It has made at least two attacks on the southern lands, and now it has carried off two children, bringing them to these mountains.’

  An excited buzz rose from the listeners, and several of them rose from their ice-carved benches. Erlingr quelled them with a raised hand.

  ‘The blu
e dragon has been seen by our watchers,’ he confirmed, ignoring the gasps from one or two of his people. ‘It has flown twice over our lands, but has made no attack. Dragons have long memories, and it will remember the defeat our people inflicted on it when it last flew in war. Why should this concern us?’

  ‘Because the two who have been kidnapped were to be taken to Eigg Loki, to the Chained One,’ said Cluaran. The assembled Ice people fell silent. ‘They are both important to him in their different ways,’ he went on. ‘The boy is a king’s son, and his kidnap could draw an army to this land before spring comes. He is also Ripente, and I need not tell you, Erlingr, what uses the Chained One can find for their kind. But it is the girl who will be the most dangerous in his hands. She bears the crystal sword.’

  There was sudden uproar. All around Cluaran, pale figures started up with exclamations of amazement, anger or disbelief. Erlingr, shouting and banging his staff, could barely quiet them. Cluaran stepped forward with both hands raised, and gradually the outcry faded to a suppressed muttering.

  ‘I said they were to be taken there,’ he told them. ‘Watchers from among your own people saw them escape the dragon. Ari, here, can confirm that.’ Ari, behind him, made a sound of assent as Cluaran continued. ‘They are alive, wandering somewhere on the ice plain – but they are being hunted as we speak. That is why I have come here: to find them and help them, before they are captured. This girl has the means to destroy our common enemy once and for all. But the sword is also the only thing that could break his chains. If he can capture her and bind her, he will escape.’

  The crowd were silent now. Cluaran raised his head, appealing to them with all the skill he could muster. ‘Remember that it was your people as much as mine who bound him before – and if he is freed, he will want his revenge.’ He sent his voice ringing through the cavern. ‘Will you help me?’

  Now the faces turned to Erlingr. There was a low muttering: Do we help him? Do we believe him?

  ‘Ari,’ the old man commanded. ‘Come forward.’ The green-eyed man cast an unreadable glance at Cluaran as he moved to stand beside him.

  ‘You have seen these children,’ Erlingr said. ‘Is it true? Does this … human girl bear the crystal sword?’

  There was a long pause. ‘I have not seen it,’ Ari said at last. ‘But I believe that she does. A bright light was seen in the girl’s hand as the dragon carried her. Even to have escaped him, to have survived for this long, they must have some help, some weapon of a more than common nature. And Cluaran has seen –’

  ‘I did not ask what he says he has seen,’ the old man broke in. ‘Nor what you believe.’ Erlingr rose to his feet, a full head taller than Cluaran, and turned to address his people. ‘Is it likely, do you think, that the sword would give itself to a child … to one of the short-lived ones, in a country so far from its forging? And what could such a one do with it? Are we to believe that a human girl could kill the Chained One – or that she could release him? No. I would rather ask –’ he brought the staff down with a crack on the ice – ‘why, now the dragon is flying again, we see this man’s return to the land he has wronged?’

  The old man threw Cluaran a look of undisguised contempt. ‘Tell us no more stories, man without a people; soft-talker; betrayer! Have you come here to kill more of our kind?’

  Cluaran had been ready for this. He kept the anger out of his voice as he answered: ‘I killed none of yours, Erlingr. You know well who it was who murdered your men. But for their sacrifice, no one here would be alive today.’

  Erlingr’s face twisted. ‘Their sacrifice, yes – and ours; and mine! A whole line was wiped out by your fine words!’

  ‘It was Loki who killed your son and grandsons!’ Cluaran snapped at him. ‘And he would have destroyed much more –’

  ‘We do not speak that name here!’ the old man thundered. He strode across the floor to Cluaran and glared down at him, the staff raised as if about to strike him. Abruptly he seemed to recollect himself and lowered the staff.

  ‘Ingvald and my grandsons died in battle, that is true,’ he said quietly, but with undiminished bitterness. ‘While you came back without hurt. And there was one more, one last remnant of my line, taken from me by you – by your companion and his … workmanship.’ He spat out the last word as if it scalded him.

  ‘Your granddaughter was not of your line!’ Cluaran could not hide his anger now. ‘She was not even of the true race, you said. You had no value for her! You called her earth-born …’ He stopped, not trusting himself to say more, but still holding Erlingr’s eyes. He felt a dismal kind of triumph when the old man looked down first.

  ‘I did blame Ingvald when he adopted the child,’ Erlingr muttered. ‘But after his death, she was the last thing remaining to me.’ He met Cluaran’s gaze again, and the minstrel was startled to see a glitter like tears in the old man’s eyes. ‘You should not have taken her.’

  ‘I did not,’ Cluaran said very quietly. ‘It was her choice, and not my will.’ He could see in those glittering eyes that Erlingr would never believe him. Behind the old man the Ice people were straining to hear what was being said, but Cluaran knew there would be no reaching them now. All that he could do was leave quickly – if he was allowed.

  He realised that someone else was speaking, and for a moment was shocked to hear a voice other than Erlingr’s and his own. It was Ari, his voice slow and rough as if he were dragging it over stones. ‘It was her choice. And some of us honour and love her for it still. For her sake, Erlingr, I will go with Cluaran, if you allow it.’

  Erlingr looked down at the two of them in lowering silence. Then abruptly, he turned his back on them and stumped back to his seat, to face his pale followers. He raised his staff in a signal that brought them all to their feet, watching him in silence.

  ‘The man may go!’ he proclaimed, his voice filling the hall. ‘For the sake of the friendship that was once between us, I will not be the one to kill him. But for the sake of his past betrayal, he goes unhelped and unprovided. Let him leave now, and do not speak to him.’

  The old man turned one last time to Cluaran. ‘Go,’ he said heavily. ‘No one will hinder you. Go to Eigg Loki, and die there – alone, unless this fool truly means to follow you. But I will not send one more man to die with you.’

  He sank into his chair, lowering his head and closing his eyes. His people remained standing, though when Cluaran swept his gaze over the massed rows, none would look at him. He turned from them and walked away, his footsteps echoing loudly in the silence. After a moment he heard Ari follow. All the way down the tunnel that led to the outside air, the silence pursued them, and the weight of five hundred eyes at their backs.

  Chapter Nine

  The black-haired girl, Ioneth, brought us food. She told us she was not of Erlingr’s people: her own race, the people of rock and ice, had been destroyed twelve years before, when Loki first sent out his fires. All were burned … all but Ioneth. Erlingr’s son Ingvald found the child wandering among the ashes, and took her in as his own.

  Later, Ioneth took me out to the snow fields and showed me mountains on the horizon, white-peaked, but streaked with black.

  – There is Eigg Loki, she said, where the demon is chained, though perhaps not for long. And then she whispered, so low that I wondered if I had heard her right:

  – I can help you kill him.

  ‘Please try to walk, Elspeth!’

  Edmund and Cathbar between them had hauled Elspeth upright, but her knees kept buckling under her, and she looked at Edmund without recognition. If only we’d got here sooner! he thought desperately. The sound that the ice made as it cracked kept ringing in his mind. He had plunged head and arms into the water, trying to catch Elspeth as she slid out of sight, but it was not until Cathbar arrived that they had been able to reach her.

  Had they been too late after all? Elspeth had not spoken since they had pulled her from the water; her eyes seeming to focus only on her right hand, where a pale glow was
all that remained of the sword. Her lips were bluish and she shivered uncontrollably, despite the blankets they had draped around her.

  The fishermen were close enough now for Edmund to distinguish individual voices. He did not understand the words, but he could hear the threat in their tone – and see it in their drawn knives as they trudged nearer along the shoreline, not running but keeping close together, as if stalking a dangerous animal. Their leader, a stocky man with a red beard and blackened teeth, yelled something at them, his voice harsh with rage.

  ‘They don’t even know us! Why are they doing this?’ Edmund muttered to Cathbar. But he knew the answer even before the captain’s eyes flicked towards Elspeth’s hand. They had both seen the struggle on the ice after Elspeth cried out, and seen the flash of the sword as they started towards her.

  They had left the ice and were back on the trodden snow that covered firm ground. Fritha, a few feet ahead of them, was leading them back along the lake’s edge towards their campsite. Then something whirred past Edmund’s head and he heard Fritha cry out in fear. The men were throwing stones at them. Desperation sharpened his voice as he turned back to Elspeth. ‘You must walk! They want to take the sword from you!’

  Her eyes widened in alarm, and he saw the life come back to her face. Beside him, Cathbar grunted in relief as Elspeth, grimacing, put one foot down, then the other.

  Fritha called out again to Cathbar, glancing over her shoulder at the approaching men. The tall girl’s face was white and set, but her voice was steady. Cathbar replied with a nod, and turned to Edmund.

  ‘She says to follow where she goes!’