The Blind Seer
Isolde Saga Book Three
Robert D. Jones
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PRELUDE
Like lightning piercing through his skull, the pain was excruciating. Hrothgar reached up to his jaw and felt the cold silver hairpin sticking out from the soft under skin of his chin. The thin metal had pinned his jaw closed, and thick black blood oozed down his face from where it had come out of his eye.
In one swift motion, he ripped the pin down and gritted his teeth as he felt the silver scrape against the bone in the socket. His vision was halved, the left eye useless, he could feel the warm blood flowing like tears and looked at the pin in his hand with disgust. He tossed the thing aside and let it clang to the stone floor of the tower, before looking up at the horrified faces of the guards around him.
“Sound the alarm,” he choked, but the words were gargled, and he had to spit the blood and phlegm from his mouth to breathe.
A deep horn filled the air around them and thundered down the tower in shuddering waves. Hrothgar listened and heard the lesser horns sounding in response, and smiled with the knowledge that the mother of his child could not get far.
The High-King swallowed a mouthful of warm, viscous blood, and clenched his teeth to keep it down. With his throat cleared, he looked at the dark-elf, Valarth, and asked, “is it done?”
“So long as she is not purified before mid-winter,” the elf replied.
They looked over the edge of the tower and saw the little boat flowing through the water. Hrothgar smirked, they would break upon his river-gate like a wave against the rocks. But his smile dropped when the black iron in the river sheared away and the boat passed by uninhibited.
“That wizard, Skaldi, may be a problem,” Valarth said as he watched the boat flee the city unharmed.
“You should have killed him,” Hrothgar growled.
The old king wiped away more mess from his face and Valarth frowned at him.
“Clean yourself up, my grace,” Valarth said, “we have work to do.”
The king looked at the dark-elf with dead pan eyes.
“You have work to do,” Hrothgar said, “you will return her to me.”
The High-King looked out to the north and saw a thousand red eyes staring up at him through the night gloom. He listened to the raspy chanting, the chinking of iron, and he smiled at the stomping of boots. He raised his hands high above his head, and the congregation of foul warriors cried out in a clamour of cheers and growls. At once, they were silenced as he dropped his arms, and every soul far below was eager to hear their orders.
“War!” he bellowed, and again a great din of voices howled into the night before being silenced once more.
“Tonight, we march! Tomorrow, we burn Harkham to the ground!”
The crowd cheered and squawked in a cacophony of violent voices, and Hrothgar watched as they began to move like one great machine, marching across his mighty stone bridges to flood south in a wave of destruction.
The king turned back to Valarth and looked the dark skinned elf up and down.
"Purified? How is that possible?"
"There is a way, Lord," Valarth said, "but it is through the land of the dead."
Hrothgar laughed. "Good, then it's up to you to stop her. Take Rikgit's outriders and have them bring her back to me."
Valarth nodded and let a smile cross his face.
"And the others?"
"Kill them," the king said. "And when that is done, bring your legions to Harkham."
CHAPTER I
“We will take the sea,” Skaldi decided, “I would much rather risk Hrothgar’s raiders then be forced to wander blindly through the Silent Hills.”
“You’d be best to steer clear of the forsaken cities too,” Wulfric said while he stuck his paddle out into the water.
“I wouldn’t dream of entering them,” Skaldi shuddered at the thought.
“It can’t be worse than what we’ve already seen,” Harald said.
He was reclining against the hard wood of the boat, rocking with the gentle current of the river.
Wulfric huffed, “Ignorance is bliss, you’ll see things worse than your nightmares before the end.”
The conversation went back and forth, and Isolde listened to each speak about what was to come, and the big plans for the war ahead. There was nowhere to hide on the tiny boat, but she did her best to be invisible. She had barely spoken in days. It seemed her heart never ceased to race anymore, and her eyes grew tired of darting around all of the time.
She was broken - when she wasn’t thinking about her night with Hrothgar, her mind would wander to thoughts of the nightmarish Orlog, the betrayal of Erik, and the torture inflicted on her by the vile Valarth. She could still feel the dull pain of the ruby in her shoulder, like a splinter that couldn't come out.
“Isolde?”
Her eyes flickered up and she saw Skaldi waiting for a reply.
“Sorry,” she said, “what did you say?”
He raised an eyebrow, “We will take the sea, do you agree?”
She shook her head slightly and said, “I don’t care, either way, it doesn’t matter.”
She shifted her eyes over to Harald. He looked as distant as her and she felt the emptiness since leaving him. He hadn't said much to her, he had hardly even made eye contact. All his words on forgiveness and understanding in Ravenscar had seemed to have dissolved, and she could feel his animosity toward her.
She looked back over the side of the boat to the empty landscape around them. The country was grey and bleak. Rain pattered down, on and off, every day, and soaked the drab-green hills and ruffled the surface of the River Thurso. She couldn’t remember the last clear sky she had seen, maybe it was on Jotunn? Maybe at Ravenscar? They had been sailing down the river for days now and hadn’t seen a single living soul. There had been several burned out villages, but no life anywhere.
“Where are you going to take her, anyway?” Wulfric quietly asked Skaldi.
“To an old friend,” Skaldi replied, “a seer named Ama Frettir.”
“The Blind Seer?” Wulfric asked with raised brows, “I thought she was a legend.”
“She is a legend,” Skaldi said with a smile, “and she lives on the way to Heroth Nuir, count our blessing.”
“The Blind Seer…” Wulfric mumbled with a smile, he was gazing off into the distance. “What I would ask her if I only had the chance.”
“Her knowledge is not free, you know,” Skaldi said.
Isolde watched Harald sit up then, he had been listening.
“Who is she?" he asked, "I’ve never heard of Ama Frettir.”
“My boy,” Wulfric boomed, and clasped a hand to Harald’s shoulder, “she is the future. Everything that she tells you comes true.”
“Does she see the future, or change what happens so it’s like what she says?” Harald asked.
Wulfric creased his brow and Skaldi laughed.
“That is a good question, maybe you can ask her, Harald,” the old man chuckled.
The day rolled on, and the boat glided endlessly down the river. As a light fog rolled in over the water, Isolde thought it looked as if they were floating weightlessly through the netherworld. Then she heard it, first a splash, and then voices. Muffled and distant, but they were definitely there. She shushed the others and they strained to listen. Silence. The wind maybe, playing against the boat and the water. Her heart spiked, there it was again, louder, the rough sound of laughter. There was no doubt about it as the heavy voices carried
themselves across the river.
“Raiders…” Wulfric muttered, and Isolde watched him pull the axe from his belt.
Skaldi leant down low and peered over the edge of the bow. He was trying to see through the mist and she thought he looked like a dancing snake as his neck twisted this way and that to get a better view.
“A single longship,” he whispered back.
“Twenty men,” Wulfric muttered, “it’s too many for us.”
Isolde felt her heart pound away, she wouldn't let them take her back to Hrothgar. She couldn't do it again. She squirmed in the boat and reached for her broadsword. She held it tight in her hand and dug her nails deep into the leather grip.
“Wulfric,” Harald hissed, “we can take them, you know we can.”
Wulfric looked over at Harald, Isolde saw his eyes under the bushy red brows dart from Harald to herself and back to Harald again.
“There’s too much at stake,” he said, “we have to abandon the ship.”
Harald snapped his head back at Isolde, and she could see a darkness in his eye, was it resentment?
“We cannot go by land,” Skaldi said to Wulfric.
A cry broke out through the mist, and a flaming arrow streaked through the abyss before cracking into the hull of their boat. Wulfric cursed and paddled furiously for the southern shore. Another arrow hissed through the air, and Isolde watched as the wooden form of a dragon-head prowl emerged from the haze like a demonic beast had come to swallow them whole.
The rest of the longship followed behind, and her heart raced as she saw the gleaming of chainmail and iron helms. Round shields decorated the sides of the boat, and she saw the black sea-dragon device rising out the green field of the shield - they were raiders from Skalloway.
“Ramming speed!” a voice cried out from the longship, and twenty oars pulled as one and lurched the ship forward.
“Get ready to run,” Wulfric cried, and in that moment her body jolted forward as their hull scraped against the sandy shoal beneath them. She dove overboard and sunk knee-deep into the freezing waters.
The raiders roared behind them. There was no time to think. She had her mother’s sword in her hand, and that was all that mattered. An arrow whistled past her ear, she lurched forward with a final look back as hulking men, clad in iron shirts, jumped from their wooden dragon into the water. She felt an arm grab her and wrench her onward, it was Harald.
Pain screamed from her shoulder, but there was no time to stop. She had never seen warriors so fearsome. Their heavy hauberks chinked as they moved, cruel axes glinted in the sun, and each man had his own ornate helmet. Some were full faced and forged in the likeness of lions, demons, and snakes. Others had great horns twisting down to their jaws, or iron spikes poking out like knives. Each of them waded through the water, screaming like wild beasts on the kill.
Isolde pulled her feet from the black mud beneath the water and threw herself forward. Harald moved beside her, pulling her onward as Skaldi and Wulfric roared at them to move from the river bank. Skaldi's face was as white as snow, his blue lips moving in a trance, and as she and Harald made the dry land, she heard the old man cry out.
"Lymphae et glacies, glacias et tumescas!" And he stomped his boot into the river.
At once, she saw the lapping water freeze and harden into frozen crystals that grew and spread like fire. The ice stretched out in great cracks and hisses until it caught the legs of the raiders and froze them to the spot. Isolde watched in horror as the men screamed and cried out. Some of them desperately hacked at the ice with their great axes, while others fell backwards, their legs locked in place at the knees.
"Move," Skaldi said, "they will not be held for long."
They retreated away from the river, toward the mist hidden hills.
"How did you do that?" Isolde asked through panting breaths.
"Do what?" Skaldi asked.
"Freeze the lake? You said those words, and it was ice!"
"I asked for help," he said, "the river nymphs were happy to oblige, thankfully."
Isolde shook her head, she felt like she was in a dream. The fog thickened around them as they ran on, and they soon found themselves in a shallow valley. Wulfric stopped first and held his arm up for rest. The big man was doubled over, struggling to breathe. Isolde could see the sweat running down the scarred crevices on his skull, and his red twinned beard puffing up and down.
"I'm getting too old for this," he admitted.
Skaldi murmured an agreement and said, "this is not how I wanted things to turn out. Not at all."
"Where are we?" Harald asked.
"Somewhere between Ravenscar and the Silent Hills," Skaldi said. "This fog makes me think we've come too close to the Barrow Mors."
"Barrow wrights?" Harald asked with his one good eye wide with terror.
"Draugrs?" Skaldi corrected him. "No, the guardians of these barrows were summoned away. But their holes have been filled by other foul creatures."
A rushing in the grass made Isolde jump but nothing came from it.
"We move west and avoid the barrows," Skaldi said. "We find the cliffs of the Sea of Teeth and follow them to Ama Frettir."
Wulfric stepped forward then, and Isolde thought she saw the gleam of a tear in his eye.
"This is where I leave you," he said.
"Not this close to the barrows," Skaldi said.
"I must," he replied, "as you said, time is not on our side. I have to warn the cities. I have to rally them."
Skaldi shook his head, and Isolde's stomach felt as though it had dropped to her knees and her heart had shot up into her throat.
"We need you," she said, "you can't go out alone."
Wulfric stepped forward, took her in his huge arms, and squeezed her so tight that she thought her back might break.
"You don't need me anymore, Little Bird," he said. "You have Harald, and you have Skaldi, and better than that, you have yourself."
Her tears welled up in her eyes, and she squeezed Wulfric close.
"And I am not alone anymore," he said. "After years of loneliness, you and Harald... and Skaldi, have given me back something I thought I had lost forever. I believe in you, Isolde. Keep fighting and I will see you again."
He let her go and looked back at Harald.
"Protect her," he said, "and wield that axe of yours with a strong arm."
Skaldi looked at Wulfric and said, "we will be at the Harkham crossroad on the birth of the moon after next. Do not forget us."
Wulfric smiled at the old man, his chipped teeth like daggers in his mouth.
"I'll be there with friends," he said, and with a short nod he turned on his heels and disappeared into the fog.
CHAPTER II
If there was one thing in the world that Valarth hated, it was goblins. He had been given Rikgit and his outriders to hunt down the runaway sacrifice, but the greenskins seemed more of a hindrance. He looked at them squabbling by the river’s edge and wondered what Hrothgar saw in these things. If Valarth had it his way, he would have kept the Frozen Wastes locked, and looked to the strong arms of men. You could always rely on a man’s lust for money, but these goblins, they were different, sure they loved gold as much as any, but they were undisciplined, too easy to enrage and insult, they were too ready to spill blood.
He watched as the biggest one sauntered up to him. The goblin was hunched as his kind was akin to do. Rusted iron plates had been riveted onto an equally wretched leather coat that swished as he walked. His long fingers were curled around the handle of the long scimitar in his belt. Valarth kept his lips tight, the greenskin’s beady red eyes burned out from a face of crisscrossed scars and pustules, all hidden under a dirty-old fur-lined steel cap.
“What news from the sea-dogs?” Rikgit asked is a rasping voice.
Valarth sighed and rubbed his eyes.
“Yes, the captain saw them,” he said. “Only yesterday, apparently they made contact, but the wizard froze the river.”
“Why not walk the ice?” the goblin asked.
“Because, Rikgit, the men were in the river, when it froze. Six sailors had their legs crushed from the knee down.”
Rikgit spat and Valarth watched the green spittle become string on the goblin's lip.
“We’ll kill him,” Rikgit said, “slice him open and feed him to the pigs.”
Valarth’s dry laugh took the goblin by surprise.
“If you kill the wizard, I would willingly call you King Rikgit.”
The greenskin smiled and Valarth shuddered at the mouthful of needle-like teeth. They gleamed white at the points, but the gums were black and yellow.
“I’ll be a king,” Rikgit said, “you’ll see.”
Valarth ignored the comment. He was trying to think, what would he do, if he were in Skaldi’s position. The Barrows were too dangerous, perhaps not for Skaldi himself, but for the girl… but why head south at all? It dawned on Valarth quickly, he knew who was in the Silent Hills, why else would Skaldi risk the wretched cities? He means to find her, to cleanse her… he means to take her to the seer, to Ama Frettir. Valarth gritted his teeth as he thought of the wretched woman. He looked down at Rikgit and saw the goblin dreaming of glory.
“Ready your boys,” Valarth said, bringing the greenskin back to reality. “Send a group to hunt east through the barrows, you will take a party west toward the cliffs. The rest are coming south with me.”
***
Isolde, Skaldi, and Harald had been travelling in silence ever since Wulfric left. Up and down hills they went with Isolde silently cursing her throbbing shoulder. Each step felt as though it would drain her of whatever energy she had left, but up and down they went, up and down.
The valleys were deep and filled with swirling masses of mist that swallowed the adventurers whole when they reached the base. Each time they rose back to the top of a crest, she could see the cloudy sky once again.
It was quiet, silent in fact, except for the wind or the patter of rain whenever it fell in its patchy showers. The silence reminded her that Orlog was no longer present. The voices and dreams that had been plaguing her were gone. It was as if the silence around them was a mirror to the silence within, and she wondered whether it was the calm before the storm.
The Blind Seer (Isolde Saga Book 3) Page 1