by Steve Feasey
‘It’s not a request, Lann,’ she said. ‘This is a royal order. Now, come on.’
24
‘… The lands running down to the Gulf of Rikkor are now owned by Jarl Lannigon Gudbrandr.’ King Erik smiled down at Lann, giving him a small nod. ‘He will safeguard and serve the people therein and be fair in all his dealings with them.’
The king, dressed in white furs and with the gold and silver circlet of his office resting on his head, was almost unrecognisable as the same young man who had been led out to the gallows so recently. Lann himself was dressed plainly in brown woollen trousers and a studded leather jerkin. He was also wearing the fur-lined grey cloak Astrid had insisted he have, held in place on his shoulders by a beautifully carved whalebone pin. The quality of the clothes and shoes was like nothing he had ever owned before.
He felt his aunt nudge him in the small of his back and realised the king had stopped speaking and was expecting an answer. His heart was racing in his chest.
‘My liege. I am just a boy from the Maiden’s Fingers and in no way worthy of this tribute. You do me much honour by bestowing these gifts upon me.’
Erik shook his head. ‘You are no longer the boy from the Maiden’s Fingers, Lannigon Gudbrandr. You are Jarl Gudbrandr now. You are a man, and you will govern these lands wisely. And in doing so, you will expunge the memory of the previous incumbent, the traitor Glaeverssun.’
When the king stood, Lann knew it was his cue to step forward. The Volken ruler embraced his new jarl, the act a signal that the festivities should commence.
25
The longhouse was full of music and celebrations that night. Food of every kind was brought to the tables in quantities that made Lann stare. Ale was poured into horn cups by serving girls and boys, musicians played and sang while guests laughed and shouted and argued. In a rope circle at one end of the longhouse, huge oiled men wrestled each other in competitions of strength and agility. Lann and his aunt sat at the king’s table where they wanted for nothing.
It was shortly after the festivities began that a well-built, older man approached the table and Lann. His long hair was braided on one side of his head and his beard, grey in places, reached almost down to his chest. Astrid made the introductions.
‘May I present Jarl Mardl, former Master-at-Arms at Stromgard.’ Although she spoke pleasantly enough, there was something in her tone that suggested she was not a great fan of Mardl.
‘It is a pleasure to meet you,’ Lann said, taking in the man’s imposing figure and the leather patch over his right eye.
Mardl gestured at the puckered white scar that extended above and below the patch. ‘When I lost my eye I was no longer able to fulfil my role. But I still have a keen interest in fighting skills and run a small school for young Volkenfolk in weapon-lore. I was hoping to talk to you about—’
‘I thought I had been quite clear earlier, Jarl Mardl,’ Astrid said coolly. ‘Jarl Gudbrandr has no interest in discussing the fight. I hope you are not getting forgetful in your old age.’
An amused smile played about the older man’s lips. ‘I must admit, Your Grace, the temptation to ask just a few questions was too great … I have never seen so remarkable a combat.’
‘But I told you—’
‘It’s all right,’ Lann said, nodding at Astrid. ‘I guess I will have to talk about it at some time or another.’ He turned to Mardl. ‘And please, my name is Lannigon. I doubt I will ever get used to being addressed by my new title. What did you want to know?’
‘Where to begin! Such extraordinary prowess. You must have learned from a true master to have dared employ such an audacious gambit.’
‘Gambit?’
‘Oh, come now. I have witnessed it before, but never have I seen it carried off quite so well. To bait your opponent into a hasty attack when you are looking so weak. By the gods, your hands were so low you practically invited the Ubrfullen attack!’
‘The what?’
The look the Master-at-Arms gave him suggested he thought the young man was deliberately teasing him. ‘And yet when your opponent rose to your exquisitely presented bait, you deflected his blows with great skill, transitioning what appeared at first to be a clumsy defence into wonderful attacks. I particularly admired the Shiluer move you made to end his first press.’
‘Shiluer?’
Mardl’s face hardened. ‘It is rude to mock others, Jarl Gudbrandr.’
‘It is. But I am not mocking you. I have no idea what you are talking about.’
‘Who taught you to fight?’ Mardl snapped, any hint of friendliness now gone from his words.
‘Nobody. I am … self-taught.’
‘You expect me to believe that? How many bouts have you fought?’ He leaned in closer. ‘Where did you get that black blade?’
‘Which would you like me to answer first?’ Lann said, his own annoyance coming to the fore. He ticked his answers off on his fingers. ‘I was never taught sword-play – you can believe me or not.’ He moved on to the next finger. ‘I’ve never fought before, so that was my first. And my blade? I am afraid that it is none of your business.’ The sword stirred at Lann’s side as if it appreciated this final response.
Mardl flushed with anger. He went to say something, but stopped. Turning on his heels, he stomped away, muttering loudly about young upstarts and lack of respect for elders.
‘That went well,’ Astrid said, grinning. ‘Don’t worry, he’ll get over you teasing him like that.’
Lann shrugged. ‘I wasn’t teasing him. Everything I just said was the truth.’
‘Now you’re teasing me.’ Astrid’s smile faded at Lann’s expression. ‘Y-you mean to say that was all true? You’ve never been trained in sword-play?’
‘No. I grew up on a cattle farm. The nearest I came to a sword-play was swinging the yard broom about.’
She stared back at him. ‘Then you are a fool, Lannigon Gudbrandr,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I thought you were … I … I thought you had … You could have been killed!’
She turned away and stormed off, her cheeks flushed. Lann caught Fleya smirking. ‘What is she so annoyed about?’ he asked.
Fleya shrugged. ‘Princess Astrid is clearly concerned for your safety,’ she said, but her face suggested Lann was clearly missing something. Turning away, she laid a hand on King Erik’s forearm and stood.
‘My apologies, King Erik,’ she said with a bow. ‘But I too must leave the celebrations early. I have much preparation to do before our meeting tomorrow.’
Left alone, Lann picked at the sweet hilfenberries that had appeared on a plate in front of him while watching the revellers. Amidst the jollity he felt that he and Erik alone were sombre. It wasn’t immediately obvious – Erik raised his cup to Volken nobility and warrior alike, smiling and nodding at their jokes and even making a few of his own – but Lann saw how serious the king looked when he thought no one was watching. Lann could guess why. Tomorrow Fleya would attempt to restore the king’s memories, and Erik clearly dreaded what he might discover.
Turning his attention away from the king, Lann spotted one other grim face in the crowd: the red-robed priest who had presided over the trial by combat. The man’s eyes were fixed on him. After a moment, Lann rose and walked the length of the hall to speak to him.
‘Congratulations on your jarldom,’ the man said as the youngster drew near.
‘Thank you,’ Lann answered, after a brief hesitation. ‘The honour is strange to me still. It feels too … grand, somehow.’
The priest nodded, the ghost of a smile crossing his lips. ‘How refreshing. Most men would kill to receive such an honour.’
‘I did kill for it,’ Lann answered with a shake of his head. The image of Frindr Oknhammer’s bloodied corpse flashed into his mind’s eye and he struggled to fight back the gorge that rose up inside him.
The priest nodded his head. ‘The king merely wishes to show his gratitude.’
‘I know it is an honour,’ Lann answer
ed quickly, thinking he might have offended the man. ‘And I am not ungrateful to King Erik for bestowing it on me.’
‘But …’
‘But it’s not what I am.’ The priest raised his eyebrows and Lann continued. ‘Many of the men in this room were raised to take on the position of leaders and rulers. It is what they were meant to do. Prince Erik –’ he stopped, correcting himself – ‘King Erik himself was tutored and trained specifically to take the throne.’
‘And you, Lannigon Gudbrandr? What were you meant to do?’
‘I was raised to work on a livestock farm.’ He frowned at his answer and gave a small shake of his head, knowing that that was no longer the case. ‘But now? Now I don’t know.’
‘A great warrior, perhaps?’ the priest said.
‘I hope not. I have no taste for killing,’ murmured Lann.
‘The weapon hanging at your side would suggest otherwise,’ said the priest. ‘As would the words you spoke when you fought Oknhammer. Kurum-na murt? Death is coming.’
Lann stared. ‘You know that language?’
‘It has not been spoken for hundreds of years. But yes, I know some of it. It is the language of the gods. The old gods.’ He fixed the boy with a look. ‘The true gods.’
Lann gestured at the priest’s red robes. ‘You are a minister of the new religion. I thought only country oafs like me or witches like my aunt believed in the old gods now. What do you know about them?’ Lann asked.
The priest looked down and frowned, as if seeing the garb for the first time. ‘I wear the robes of one who believes in this new god, Geshtrik. But I am no more a priest for this false deity than you are.’ He ran a hand over the fabric. ‘They hide me. Just as you wear your own disguise, Lannigon Gudbrandr-who-was-Fetlanger.’
Lann shook his head. ‘I wear no disguise.’
The man frowned. ‘Not knowingly.’
‘The way you speak in riddles – it is like one of the old gods.’
‘Oh? Which?’
‘Rakur.’
‘You speak as if you have met the immortal one.’ That quizzical look again, but this time Lann met it only with a stare of his own. ‘Rakur is indeed a riddler. But questions lead us to truths. Not all riddles are childish puzzles.’ The man paused. ‘The sword,’ he said, effortlessly switching the subject in a way that caught Lann off guard. ‘It is dangerous. You must be the one to control it, and not the other way round. Like the trickster god, it is adept at bending others to its will and making them its slave. If that should happen, it may not just be your enemies it would seek to kill. Other owners of the blade have lost those they loved to that baleful weapon.’ The man went quiet, lost in thought or memories.
‘You have not told me your name.’
‘No, I haven’t, have I?’ He smiled again. ‘Would you like to see something?’
‘What?’
‘It is not far from here.’ Lann tried to read the man’s enigmatic expression. ‘I mean you no harm, Lannigon Gudbrandr.’
Lann considered the man’s words and eventually nodded. ‘All right.’
At this, the red-robed stranger turned and left the building, not once bothering to look back and check if the boy followed.
* * *
Sconces holding burning torches lined the walls of the temple, the flames casting shifting shadows on every surface. The walls of the place were painted in a deep red that quickly turned to black in the shadows.
‘I thought you said you were not a celebrant of Geshtrik.’
The priest, a short distance ahead, directed his answer over his shoulder. ‘I told you no lies this evening, Lannigon Gudbrandr. Nor shall I. I have no love for this new god.’
‘Then what are we doing here?’
‘This temple is built on the site of a much older one. Much of the latter still exists, even if it is not immediately obvious.’ He stopped before a huge altar. Behind it loomed the figure of Geshtrik. The god, like the altar, was carved from a dark, almost black, wood. Naked, except for a small loincloth, the god held a kid goat under one arm, a flaming torch in the other.
‘Help me to move this to one side,’ the priest said, ignoring the statue and nodding at the opposite end of the altar. Heaving aside the thing between them revealed a metal-reinforced wooden hatch set into the floor. There was a recess, into which the priest placed a flat, thin object of the same colour and material, rotating it until the two pieces slotted together. There was a muted click. Lifting the hatch up on its hinges, he exposed a dark cavity from which no light came.
‘What is it?’ Lann asked.
‘An entrance.’
Fetching one of the burning torches, the priest illuminated the first few steps of an extremely steep and narrow stairway. Beyond this, lower down, was utter blackness. Without saying a word, the robed man set off down the steps, leaving Lann little choice but to follow.
The descent into that dark fissure was claustrophobic and Lann had the strong sense that the walls were pressing in on him. Even when he put his hands out, brushing his fingers against the rough stone, he was hardly able to banish the notion. As the unease he felt increased, the temperature all about him dropped, until he reached the bottom. The priest stood waiting for him and it was cold enough for his breath to hang in the air before his face.
‘This way,’ the priest said, turning to walk off down a passageway carved into the stone to their right.
Lann paused for a moment. The place had an earthy smell to it. Like a grave, he thought.
Lann felt the change in the air as he emerged into a wider space. The red-robed man stood in the centre of the room, before a large metal bowl set into the floor. As Lann watched, the priest touched the flaming brand to it, igniting a substance inside and filling the place with a dancing, shifting light.
The room was circular, with a floor of a highly polished grey stone that was cold underfoot, and walls adorned with hand-painted images. Lann took a step closer and peered at the first image. The background was black, but in the centre was an egg with a crack running down the outside.
‘The First Egg was all that existed in the darkness before time began. From the Egg came the giant spider, Shi’ith,’ the priest said, narrating the story for Lann as he moved on to the next panel, this one of a spider with all manner of people and things atop it. ‘She was assigned the role of carrying our world on her back, but she had no love for the task. In particular, she despised the humans she was made to carry. So she tried to throw off her burden and destroy it forever. But the great god Og stopped her from doing so. He killed Shi’ith and tore the legs from her body. And from each of the legs came a new god, each one charged with caring for the world and its inhabitants.’ Lann moved on again. ‘But Og did not kill Shi’ith fast enough, and she was able to lay an egg of her own before her demise – an egg full of the hatred she felt. That egg, and all the darkness it carried, hatched to create a powerful and malevolent creature.’
‘Lorgukk,’ Lann said in a low voice. Absorbed in the story and the images, he had not realised he was already a third of the way around the room.
‘Yes. The dark one’s hatred of the other gods was a powerful force and he used it to create more creatures like him to fight at his side. And so began a war that might have destroyed the world of men. But the spider’s spawn and his foul army were stopped. The black blade was entrusted to the god Trogir to cut down that monstrous army, and it did its job well.’
Lann studied the painted panel before him. The previous three or four had depicted terrifying battle scenes, Trogir scything through hordes of creatures in his attempt to reach the hulking, horned thing looming at the rear of those forces. This next panel, however, stopped Lann in his tracks. There were no figures in this panel. Instead it was of an ornate stone archway at the centre of which was a perfect blackness. Around the edges of this arch were signs and symbols he recognised as being the same ones he’d seen on the staff he’d once held in a dream.
‘The Nemesis Arch,’ the pri
est said, studying his face. ‘While Trogir waged his war, the other seven gods had not been idle. They built this structure using all their might and wisdom, a thing capable of transporting the dark god from this world and trapping him forever in the Void. When Trogir finally fought Lorgukk, he drove him towards this arch with the aim of forcing him through it.’
It was a story Lann was familiar with. Indeed, he had seen similar friezes, albeit in a much poorer state, in an old temple not too far from the Maiden’s Fingers. There, the image of Trogir bundling Lorgukk through the archway was the final panel. In the circular room he now stood in, there were more to come.
In the next picture, Lorgukk teetered on the threshold of the dark oblivion described by the arch. The dark god’s left hand appeared to be reaching into his own chest.
The priest continued: ‘The dark god knew he must leave a part of himself behind if he were to ever return, so he tore free his own heart and managed to throw it, unseen, behind him into the human world.’
‘What happened to it?’
‘It was lost. Some say the old gods destroyed it. Others say it was rescued by the people of the West, a terrible people who were later to become the Hasz’een. We must pray they never cross the seas to these lands again.’
‘They were defeated when they last came. At Dreuvn Val.’
The priest nodded. ‘Your aunt has taught you well. But that defeat has never been forgiven in the land of Hasz. One day, they will seek revenge.’ He paused. ‘One way or another.’
‘The heart? It is the dark god’s only hope of ever returning to this realm?’
‘That is what is said, yes. But there is still some of our legend to tell.’ He nodded for the boy to move on to the next panel.
‘Trogir and the Dreadblade had vanquished their enemy and driven the monsters out of this world. But the victory came at a high price. The power of the Dreadblade sent Trogir mad. He believed the world would be better under the dominion of just one deity: its saviour. So he set about trying to destroy the other gods. But his efforts with the dark god had left him weak, and he was no match for the Seven. They wrestled the black blade from his possession, and Morinar, the sea god, called up a great storm that swept Trogir up to drown him in the Sea of Tears.’