“It’s that girl,” said Berin.
“What girl?” asked Cruhund.
“The dead one!”
“What?”
“She was with those pilgrims. We left her dead on the road.”
“I hear you,” the girl said. “”Every word through your bleeding teeth! I’m back from the dead, and I’ve come for you! I’ve come to take your head. Just like I took the others.”
She came closer and he could see a knife in her hand, the flat of the blade catching the light from his camp’s fires.
“Should I send her back to the abyss?” asked the mercenary spearman at Berin’s side.
“No,” said Cruhund standing so tall that his shadow bled across the bridge and its dark form swallowed the girl. “This time I’m going to send her to the abyss and make sure she stays there.”
He covered the distance in a few breaths and even though the girl swiped at him with her knife, he did not hesitate. He caught her wrist and lifted her off her feet. Such a small thing. Bird-boned and squawking. This one would be food for the crows. Maybe they’d take this offering and leave him alone. He squeezed her wrist until the knife clattered at his feet.
He shuffled over to the edge of the bridge. “Think you can fly, little birdie?”
A voice cut through the night. “Cruhund.”
At the other end of the bridge stood Spear Spyrchylde, a man Cruhund had never wished to see again, a man Cruhund had often prayed was worm food.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
SPEAR WHISPERED INTO his horse’s ear, urging her forward, pleading, cursing, praying to the old gods. The rain was unrelenting, swirling with the wind, a great storm descending. The horse careened along the narrow trail. The bushes had become a dark blur at his sides. Several times unexpected branches almost unseated him but he ducked and dodged just in time.
How could Valda have pushed her horse faster than his?
He passed through the clearing where they had fought against Cruhund’s mercenaries and pulled his horse to a stop. Had she passed through here already? Did she even go this way? But he knew that she had. She only wanted revenge and would stop at nothing.
He wiped at the water on his cheeks and squinted into the dark.
Hooves pounded the earth and he looked up. The other bandits had caught up to him.
“What are we doing?” asked Biroc. “She’s gone.”
“I’m going to cut her open when we find her,” said Longbeard. “Won’t be lying to us anymore.”
Spear jerked on his horse’s reins and kicked it up towards the crest of the hill and the bridge.
“We should just go,” pleaded Seana. “That way leads only to death.”
Before the crest of the hill, he threw a leg over his horse and slid to the ground. The horse the girl stole stood by a towering pine, its reins looped loosely around a low branch.
“Val,” he whispered to the trees. “Where are you? You come back to me.”
He slid down the slope that led to the bridge, slipping under the cover of the branches and the bushes. Then he stopped to stare at the bridge.
Within moments, the five that remained with him – Longbeard, Seana, Biroc, Bones and Kiara – caught up, having left their horses with his and descending through the bushes.
“She’s on the bridge,” said Seana pointing.
Kiara’s breath eroded into weeping at the sight of Little Boy’s head. Its shape was silhouetted by the camp fires opposite. A head planted on a pole.
“We should go. Get away from here,” warned Bones.
“The gems are lost,” said Longbeard.
“She has no more rubies.” Biroc wrapped his cloak tight around his bow to protect it from the onslaught of rain.
Val was yelling. Her voice was lost beneath the roar of the swollen stream. She shouted to the men on the other side of the bridge, shadows against the darkness, the fires glinting off helmet and blade. The only words Spear could make out were “coward” and “I’ve come to take your head.”
“She’s going to get herself killed,” said Seana. The rain washed her face.
“And so are we if we stick around.” Bones was already slinking behind Biroc. Step-by-step, he retreated back up the slope towards the horses.
A man stormed from the far side of the bridge and caught hold of Valda. She struggled but he was too strong.
“You need to save her, Spear,” pleaded Seana.
Spear could smell the perfume of pine needles as if they had been released by the wind and rain. The scent floated around him. It cut through the decaying forest floor and kicked up mildew.
“She lied to us,” said Longbeard. “She deserves what’s coming.”
“She is a child.” Seana’s eyes were lost in the shadows but Spear felt her gaze on him.
“I can let loose an arrow,” said Biroc. “These winds though will make it a lucky shot.”
Bones was halfway back to the horses. “It’s always a lucky shot. Don’t you realize that yet?”
“I’m going for her,” said Spear.
“Don’t be a fool!” spat Longbeard. “You can’t be a hero now. Too late for that! A whole life time too late!”
The man on the bridge had picked Val up; she hung by an arm as he cuffed her senseless. She dangled, limp, all the fight drained out of her as if she had finally given up on revenge.
Spear found the solidity of the planks beneath his feet. Through the dark mist, Valda’s captor materialized.
Words dripped from between those rotten teeth. “Think you can fly, little birdie?”
“Cruhund!”
The warlord froze. The girl hung from his hand, dangerously close to the edge of the bridge. A few more steps and she would be suspended over the edge, nothing between her and a bone-cracking death below.
“Spear Spyrchylde. In all my years, I never thought I’d see you again. Figured you had finally met the death you deserved.”
“Let her go!”
Cruhund took a step closer to the edge. Val’s feet suddenly hung over empty mists. “That what you want?”
“She’s a child.”
“A monster come back from the dead.” He rattled her in his hand. She did not fight back. She hung like a rag doll. She stared past her feet into the darkness below. Then words too soft for Spear to hear spit out at Cruhund. He lowered his hand and then jerked it back up pretending to drop her. A whimper escaped her lips.
“You the one?” asked Cruhund. “The one taking heads?”
“It was a job. Nothing personal.”
Cruhund laughed. Blood trickled at the corner of his lip and into his beard. “It’s always personal! You’re hunting me, aren’t you? Dreaming of what I have now: gold, a fortress, an army, and, above all else, your sweet Yriel. She’s mine now! Not sure she was ever really yours, even when you thought that she was. Isn’t that right, Yriel?” he called back to the campfires.
Spear tried to see through the darkness whether Yriel was there. Even the mention of her name made his jaws clench and he resisted any temptation to look back at Seana. He had forgotten about Yriel, but hearing her name pushed him off center.
“I’ll pay for her.”
“For this raggedy little thing?” Cruhund stepped closer to the edge. She was so far out over the bridge that if she dropped she would have no chance to grasp for the beams. She would simply plummet into the waters below. “I don’t have a need for a handful of coppers. She’s supposed to be dead any way. This time I want to make sure she won’t keep coming after me. Finish this once and for all.”
“I have a ruby. Worth a small sack of coin. I’ll give it to you. Just let her go.” He lifted the small ruby between thumb and forefinger.
Longbeard cursed behind him. “You bastard! Giving away our pay for that little liar!”
Hearing this, Cruhund laughed. Spit and blood flew from his lips. “Doesn’t sound like all those who hide in the trees want to follow you.” He raised his voice. “Any of you want to leave this ol
d dog and come stand with the wolves, now is your chance! A warm bed, more mead than we know what to do with, and I promise not to steal coin right out of your hand!”
“I’m in!” cried Longbeard. “Tired of this old fool.” The young Northman pushed by Spear and crossed the bridge but then suddenly slowed as he reached the midpoint.
“Come on, boy,” said Cruhund. Longbeard hesitated looking at Little Boy’s head. But then after once quick glance to Spear, he continued until he stood in front of Cruhund. “Hate him, do you?”
Longbeard nodded.
“You made the right choice. Now, tell me, how many of them are there?”
“Don’t tell him!” cried Spear.
“When we’re done with him,” whispered Cruhund, “that ruby is yours. Split it with no one. All yours.”
“Four others,” said Longbeard.
“Bring me some heads,” Cruhund growled to his massed reavers.
They came, a dark swarm from behind him. Grim eyes pinched between helmet and shield. The bridge shook beneath the pounding of their feet. Longbeard was swept up with them, his own axe lifted high over head in both hands. Two fell to Biroc’s black arrows but the rest closed the ground too quickly. Spear heard his four companions behind him scrambling up the hillside.
He too made ready to turn. But Cruhund caught him with wide eyes. Spear hesitated. Cruhund opened his hand. Val disappeared, a dark shape falling into the mist. The crack of her body against the rocks rose above the rain and the thunder of the coming men.
Spear ran from his pursuers, his fist clenched around the small remaining ruby, the little stone that had eaten so many lives.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
SPEAR HAD SURVIVED.
The rain had stopped. The long night was nearly over. Darkness was vanishing and the sky paled.
And he had eluded the packs of blood-thirsty mercenaries.
Spear, sodden, his feet blistered, and trembling with cold, shuffled along a narrow section of the trail that ran along the chasm. One side of the trail rose into unscalable cliff walls; the other dropped precipitously into the chasm.
He knew where he was. He was close to the bridge. As soon as he could find a section where the cliff walls gave way to steep wooded slopes, he would return to their meadow camp, and hopefully his horse and companions.
Throughout the night, he had been on the run. The same howling winds and sheeting rain that stung his face and nearly blinded him had protected him, obscuring him from his pursuers. Through the night, Cruhund’s reavers had been behind him with their rough voices, their catcalls, and the scrape of their blades.
He had finally lost them.
Suddenly, the pounding of footsteps filled his ears.
They came from both directions. He had nowhere to go. He could not run up or down the trail. To turn to the chasm, in his weakened state, would likely mean a fall to his death on the rocks below.
Nowhere to go?
His sword shook in his hand. Not the way for a Hound to go out. Not the way for Spear to meet the end of his days.
Then he spotted a stone outcropping just off the trail, one giant boulder balanced precariously on top of the other. A narrow gap sat between those two stones, a thin gap in which he could hide. He quickly climbed into the opening and squeezed between the two rocks. Cold stone pressed in from above and below.
Not the act of a warrior, but one of a survivor.
He wiggled his way into the gap between the rocks until he wedged so deep that he wondered if he would be able to pull his way out. Small granite pebbles tore at his skin. But he had to be deep. Light would expose him to his pursuers.
He choked back sudden laughter. If they found him wedged in here, he would have no chance. Arms pinned. Feet squeezed. Sword laying beside him. A few quick jabs of spear or sword and that would be the inglorious end of Spear Spyrchylde, former boss of Cullantown, one of the last of the Hounds of the North.
All because he had gone after Valda.
He was struck with the sudden fear that the boulders would shift. What if all that weight came down on him suddenly? Or worse what if the rock above shifted slightly clamping him down like a wild animal? Would he have the courage to sever off his own leg to free himself?
He stared through the gap in the stones. Small ferns unfurled on the opposite side of the trail. Tiny water drops on the fronds glowed even in the dim light. Soon they would fill with the brightness of the sun.
Past the trail and on the other side of the chasm, the forest was dark, the light lost at the base of the thickly packed trees.
Suddenly he saw boots and trousers and drawn swords through the narrow gap in which he hid. He tried to press himself even further back.
“This is hopeless” said a gravelly voice. “Been running around in the dark for hours. Time enough to let us return to the keep.”
Others grumbled in agreement.
Then Spear saw boots he recognized: pale leather boots dyed green. Only one man would where those – Berin Lightfoot, a Northern thug who had served under Spear in Cullantown. Berin had been one of those who had sided with Cruhund and waited for Spear with sharpened blades the night he returned from the warlock’s tower.
Berin’s voice confirmed Spear’s suspicion. “I want that ruby.”
“It’s for that turn coat,” said the gravelly voice.
“Isn’t really for him now, is it though?” asked Berin. “Cruhund will just as soon give it over to whoever brings Spyrchylde’s head. Longbeard not that long in the beard. Otherwise he would have realized that he’s jumping out of the frying pan and right into the fire.”
“He’s going to demand that promised ruby if we get Spear.”
“You think he’s going to get it? You think Cruhund cares what he says? You been blind these past six months.”
Another voice. “I want what I get promised and lately…”
Berin’s foot toed the ground. “Just because a man leads us now.”
“What are you saying?”
“Nothing. Not a single thing. Just that if I sat at the head of the table all those bags wouldn’t be hidden away in those tunnels. I remember the ways of the old lords. Equal shares among all the kin, and if I sat at the head of that table, you be treated as my blood kin and rewarded accordingly.”
“Dangerous words.”
“Why do you think he wants Spear’s head so much? Spear once led us. As long as he still lives, Cruhund is the little man. Way I see it, even if you are the king of the fucking borderlands, you still gotta hold onto it, and you best do by that by treating the men who carry sword and shield as your kin, brother.”
“I thought you were true to Cruhund,” said the gravelly-voiced man.
“I’m true to my sword brothers first. I bow down to the old ways, even in these hellish borderlands.”
The conversation ended soon afterwards and the sound of the men’s footsteps faded. Spear waited out the return of the song of the river and the call of the dawn birds. After some time, the droplets on the ferns lit with the rising sun.
He hoped his pursuers had given up on the hunt. He needed to sneak back to the meadow where he and his crew had camped. He hoped that they had not left, and if they had that at least they have left a horse. Otherwise it would be a long walk back to their camp.
Finally, with the symphony of birdsong, Spear moved. First he slid one arm towards the opening, and then shoulder and hip. His body ached from having been in the same position for so long. The muscles on the right side of his neck pinched as if a needle had been plunged into his shoulder. He slipped a trembling hand out in the light and grasped the edge of the boulder and pulled. He felt weak. When was the last time he had eaten?
He blinked hard. It was brighter than he had remembered.
He pulled his head further out, then his shoulder and tumbled into the ferns and grasses. The trail was marked with the foot prints of the men who hunted him. The water surged and hummed from the chasm. He turned his ear one way and th
en the other. No rattle of armor. No steady drumming of feet. But even so, he would need to get off the trail as soon as he could and find his way through the forest back to the meadow.
Movement was good. He started at a slow walk and then added in a bit of jogging, alternating between the two, making sure he kept a pace and enough breath so that at any moment he could sprint for cover. The aches and pains in his neck and knees and lower back dissolved, moving from the foreground to a tolerable background level. He dug a bit leathery meat from his kit and slipped it between his lips. His mouth watered immediately. He sucked on it, letting it soften with his saliva and the sharp flavor filled his mouth. He began to chew, slowly at first, wanting to make the bit of food last as long as he could.
If they continued to pursue him back away from the keep, he would not have time to hunt or forage. His only food would come from the little that remained in his bag.
Spear had covered only a short distance towards the bridge when he heard the pounding of hooves. He stared ahead. The forms of a half dozen riders were visible through the brush where the trail turned.
A near sheer wall of stone and crumbling dirt, the height of three men, rose on his right. He would not be able to climb it and he would not be able to sprint back to the cleft between the boulders before the riders were on him.
So he did the only thing he could. He ran to the chasm side of the trail, and lowered himself over the edge of the precipice. He pressed against the stone and moss in the hope of hiding himself. Below him, the water churned white and cracked through the litter of skull-like boulders.
Almost immediately, the earth beneath his feet began to peel from the wall. He grabbed at the small plants that clung to the hillside but they tore out, clods of earth and root.
The hooves shuddered above him, and then were past. Not a single rider saw the man hanging from the cliff. But it did not matter because, at that moment, Spear lost his grip and fell.
The sky spun.
Then, blackness.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Five Bloody Heads Page 14