by Ross Lawhead
They retreated past the standing stones and toward the trees, their backs almost edging up along the black metal rail fence that surrounded the Rollright Stones. Getting backed into a corner was not ideal in most circumstances, but in this instance it was preferable to being surrounded.
Alex’s arms ached; swinging that sword through fur, muscle, and bone was hard work. He was buzzing from adrenaline, panting, his arms and shoulders on fire; it was a good feeling.
Ecgbryt cleaned his blade and was sliding it back into the holster he wore on his back, underneath his coat.
“Shall we try to hide them?” Alex asked. “Half a dozen fivehundred-pound bears are quite the handful.”
Ecgbryt considered and then shook his head. “Leave them here. We should be away.”
“The RSPCA will be hot, no doubt. Do you think they’ll turn human again when daylight hits?”
“We’re not going to be around to see it if they do. Come. The survival of young Daniel and Freya depends on our swift movements hereafter. I do not wish to storm the city, only to be greeted by their lifeless corpses hanging off the main gates.”
CHAPTER THREE
Assassin
_____________________ I _____________________
“The boy is very impatient,” Frithfroth said.
“You’re not wrong there,” Vivienne assented.
“His blood runs hot—too hot. It boils and rises to his eyes in a mist. When it leaves, it leaves him empty, so empty. I have seen men chase after such heat. I hope it will not be his ruin.”
“Tell us what happened, Frithfroth. How Niðergeard fell, if they could not take the Langtorr.”
As an answer, Frithfroth crossed over to one of the tapestries hanging at an angle. He pushed up a corner to show a dark archway. He slipped through it and the tapestry fell back to its skewed position. Freya and Vivienne traded apprehensive looks, and then Vivienne crossed over and pulled back the thick woven cloth.
Swallowing hard, Freya ducked under the faded cloth, which smelled of rot and mold. Descending a curved stairway, the two women gradually lowered themselves into the thick, sharp smell of death that seemed to rise up in a cloud around them. They blocked their noses, but it crept into every breath they were forced to take. It stung their eyes and made their skin crawl. It was like a slap in the face.
“This was our last defense,” Frithfroth said, apparently oblivious or immune to the stench. “After finding Ealdstan departed, Godmund grew desperate. He spouted betrayal, deceit, perversion.” The staircase wound down and then opened into a wide, semi-spherical room. It was aglow with hundreds of silver lamps arranged along walls and pillars. The light that shone from them fell upon four concentric circles, each with a low stone slab cut to contain a man, but rising only a couple inches in height off the ground.
There were one hundred and five sleeping spaces arranged in four concentric circles—seven in the inner ring, twice that in the next, and doubling again and again in the next two rings. A circular dais was raised in the centre, and on it, a stone throne.
“This is the Slæpereshus—the Chamber of the Sleepers,” Frithfroth said. “These are the elite of all of the sleepers in this isle. Their deeds are celebrated in myth and legend. Over fifty from the fields of Agincourt. Nearly thirty from the first crusade. One dozen and two from Horsa’s men, and seven knights of the table. All of them surrounding the hero who wore a dragon’s helm. Sleeping all not just for the nation’s greatest need, but for Niðergeard’s.”
However glorious it sounded and once may have looked, it was a slaughterhouse now. The biers were covered with the mangled remnants of the bodies they once held in state. The skin and flesh were beyond decay—black and leathery in some instances, or already decomposed. Bones could be seen, but not the clean, white bones in movies and on TV—these bones were brown and corrupted, with leathery flesh still hanging on to them. Forms could really only be made out by the clothing and armour that the bodies once occupied. Some heads appeared to be absent. Some biers only bore a shattered weapon or a broken shield.
Horrifically, perversely, the ground was moving. Maggots, insects, and some reptiles could be glimpsed in Frithfroth’s lantern light and the large flashlights that Freya and Vivienne carried. The dead bodies had apparently presented enough nourishment to produce a macabre ecosystem, a carrion food chain in the Langtorr’s cellar.
Freya gasped when she saw all the crawling nasties that swarmed the floor and raised an arm to prevent Vivienne from walking past her. Vivienne tensed and they stood there, a few stairs up, where nothing, they hoped, could crawl up to them, as Frithfroth unheedingly navigated the large room. He wove in and out of the biers, uncaring of the creatures that scuttled across his feet or clung briefly to his cloak. He went to the far wall where an iron hook was mounted, on which was hanging a horn. He raised an arm to it, as if he were reaching out and touching it with his missing hand.
“He blew this horn to wake them. When the knights awake, they are not like the city’s guards—they are mortal, and thus able to vanquish the yfelgópes permanently.
“Yes, he blew the horn, and it will never sound again, for there will not be any to hear it. They rose and went forth to battle, striking at the heart of the enemy, beyond the once-high walls of this city. It should have been a charge to victory, to a glorious routing of the enemy, but the unimaginable happened—the greatest war band ever seen in these isles was withstood.
“They fought for days without a one of them falling. The bodies of their slain enemies mounted higher and higher, and became their fortress. They fought along its walls and built them higher, bulwarked with more of their foes.
“And then one of our own fell. He was brought back here and laid to his final rest, arising again only when his body is made whole in the final judgement. But his absence in the line of defenders gave a hold to the relentless storm to wear away at those on either side of him. And more fell, over time, and more. They, too, were brought back. Those that remained standing—standing and fighting for almost a year now with no rest—renewed their resolve and fought harder and more cunningly than any in history. But no man is perfect—all falter. I myself watched from this very tower as the last three valiant knights fought in a whirlpool of enemies, each taking many blows that would have laid a mortal man senseless. Then they, too, were taken.
“All that remained was the hero of the dragon’s helm. They disarmed him, cut him so that no muscle moved any bone, and then divided him up amongst themselves so that each could have a talisman to show their defeat of the greatest hero in the western kingdoms. Two had his jawbone, many had his teeth, the fingers of his hands, so, too, the bones of his shins . . .”
Frithfroth started back toward the stairs, through the bodies and writhing shapes on the floor.
“Those left in Niðergeard could only watch in dread. Godmund had armed the citizenry and given them all instruction, but when the army of the enemy marched upon us, they did not last an hour.
“Kelm himself claimed the dragonhelm. And once he had, he threw it over the Langtorr wall just to spite. I recovered it and moved it here.” He indicated a silver helmet traced with gold that lay on the throne in the centre of the dais. It had a winged dragon mounted on it, its arms and legs clutching at the sides, its wings joining around the back.
Frithfroth said no more and did not move away from the throne’s side.
“All right, well,” Vivienne said. “I believe I’ve got a fairly clear idea now of what happened here. Freya, would you agree?”
Freya nodded. “Yep. No questions here. Maybe a few later, but, um . . .”
“Good Frithfroth, keeper of the Langtorr,” Vivienne began in an officious voice. “May we, by your leave, obtain freedom to walk these halls?”
Frithfroth blinked. His brows contracted and his mouth twitched open. For a brief moment Freya saw the man he used to be, before Niðergeard fell. It passed, and the old man’s face slackened and his eyes turned to stare into the dis
tance. He bowed his head, however, in response to the formal request.
Vivienne tugged at Freya’s shoulder and the two women made swift but careful tracks back up the stairs.
_____________________ II _____________________
Daniel looked down from a window in the guest room floor hallway. At first sight, it was still and lifeless, but after a time he started to pick out small movements. He would see a dark shadow shift and roll over in its sleep—a yfelgóp. Studying it closer, he could see that it was lying next to others—maybe fifteen of them, all lying asleep in the second floor of a gutted, roofless building. They were so vulnerable and unaware. He wondered if there would be a way to kill them as they slept. To collapse the building, perhaps? Or slit their throats as they snored through their wretched dreams?
No. Eyes on the prize, he reminded himself. Even if he managed it well and quietly, and nobody saw him, any stray activity would run the risk of putting Kelm on alert. And if Kelm had even the slightest degree of wariness as a result of such an action, then it would be too costly. He would simply have to strike quickly and slip away before he was discovered. Daniel could feel that this was what he should do; he had faith; he believed.
Now he just had to spot an opening. He continued to scan the ruins below him, moving from window to window, becoming more adept at spotting the yfelgópes from his vantage. They seemed to be rather lethargically guarding the city, if indeed they were guarding it at all. Occupying it was probably the correct term, but in the laziest fashion imaginable. Those that were dotted along rooftops seemed more interested in squabbling with each other or playing games of chance than keeping watch. Years with no threat to give their vigilance worth left them lazy. All the better for me, Daniel thought.
He noted the familiar landmarks that were once his favourite places. It broke his heart to think that the fascinating stonework friezes on the buildings were now almost all damaged beyond repair. He looked for the blacksmith’s house where his sword had been named but couldn’t find it in the dark rubble. The marble courtyard with the intricate red and white paving was no longer empty but now contained a huge pile of rubble, presumably made with the debris of the collapsed buildings around it.
Was this the hero’s throne that Frithfroth had told them about? The courtyard was about midway between the Langtorr and the ruined wall of trees, but at his current height, it was hard for Daniel to make out what exactly was going on with the heap. He could see the back of what could be the throne, as well as a curve of what might be someone sitting on it, but he couldn’t tell for certain. There was yfelgóp activity around it—figures approached, stood for a while in what might be a deferential posture, and then left. They were obviously addressing or being addressed by something atop the pile. Daniel decided to sit and watch.
He watched for at least an hour before the curved edge of what was on the throne detached itself and hobbled down the stone heap—it looked massively overweight—and then started moving down the streets toward the Langtorr. As it came nearer, Daniel edged away from the window, so that he only peeked through the very edge of the window pane. He doubted that he would be spotted this high up, at this distance, in a darkened hallway, but he didn’t want to chance it.
The more he watched the figure, the more Daniel became certain that it was Kelm. Although he walked the streets unescorted, he would often stop a moment here and there to abuse or issue instructions to one of his minions. He was not attended or, apparently, guarded in any way. How lazy had Kelm become, resting on his laurels? Overconfidence would be his downfall.
Kelm turned a corner and stumbled on a prone yfelgóp who was lazing against a wall. Daniel imagined that the victim’s leg must have certainly snapped, but he leapt up pretty quickly anyway.
The war chief passed out of his sight, and Daniel moved across to the next window, just in time to see him enter one of the few buildings in the city left whole. He stayed in there for some time and didn’t come out all the time that Daniel watched it.
The hours passed. Daniel kept his eyes trained on the hut. He became hungry and ate from his provisions. He was aware of Freya and Vivienne moving around in the tower, but he didn’t go to speak to them, and they didn’t come to see him.
He fought tiredness. He hadn’t been sleeping well lately—not at all, in fact. Not since he got back from Elfland. The last week or so, just as he’d been on the edge of sleep, he would feel a sudden terror and an abrupt feeling of plunging. Each time he jerked himself awake—once nearly falling out of his bed. He would lay awake, panting, in a sweat, gripping the mattress through the sheets, counting the minutes until morning.
Suddenly, Daniel tensed. He threw his arms out to brace himself against the edge of the windowsill. For a second he thought that he had fallen through it and was plummeting to his death. But the glass was still in front of him. His forehead hadn’t even touched it. Just thinking about sleep made him tired enough to drift off.
He’d sleep when he was finished with the mission. It was all side effects of the anxiety of the situation, no doubt. Either that, or something mystical that would guide him toward completion of his new mission. Either way, it was good.
Daniel wondered why there were so few yfelgópes below him. The city should be flooded. But they were only scattered here and there, in clumps or singly. Where were the rest of them? Did the knights really kill as many as Frithfroth claimed, or were they off somewhere else?
Well, it wasn’t his problem now, and Daniel was tired of waiting. He had enough information. Now he needed to move. He pulled out a map of Niðergeard that Alex had made for him and studied the route he would take, comparing it to the streets outside, noting obstacles. He would have to memorise the route exactly. There would be no room for error, even the slightest mistake. As he contemplated his route, an idea struck him. He grinned gleefully, clenching and unclenching his hands in eager anticipation.
_____________________ III _____________________
Daniel stood just inside the door, watching the flames of the fire flare up and then die down. He’d brought one of the moldy sheets down from the room he’d once stayed in and set it alight in the dining hall, out of sight of the main entrance. It gave off a few large billows of brown smoke and then died down into a ball of bright orange worms that chased each other over the black, charred ball.
Should he find Freya and Vivienne and tell them what he was doing? No, what good would come of that? Best just slip out and surprise them later with his mission accomplished.
He had kept the gun he had been given in Elfland. It was oiled now and loaded with new bullets from Alex’s armoury at his family manse. He had a belt holster for it and three other magazines clipped beside it. He only planned on using his gun during phase two of his plan—making it back to the Langtorr alive—and only if he had no other option. No doubt, at some point—unless he was very, very lucky—he’d be discovered, and the yfelgópes would learn he’d killed their leader, and if he had to blast his way back here, then he would.
He discarded his bag and coat onto a low iron table. Then he stripped off his shirt and T-shirt so his chest and arms were bare. Bending down, he rubbed his hands in the now fairly cool ashes of the burned bedding; it was a black, greasy soot—perfect. He rubbed it on his body in long, dark strokes, making sure to build it up good and dark. He propped up a metal serving platter against the wall and used it as a mirror in order to make sure he got his face and back as well.
When he was finished, he stepped back and looked at the dim, distorted image in the serving plate. At the most casual of glances, he’d make a passable yfelgóp, especially if he emulated their hunched posture and scrabbling gait.
He grabbed his sword, Hero-Maker, and drew it from its scabbard. With the remaining ash, he darkened its blade, covering the brilliant shine until it only reflected a dull, oily-grey sheen. His heart pounding, Daniel did a few warm-up stretches and then padded back into the main hall.
Time to be a hero, he thought as he
crossed to the door. He paused, watchful and alert. The air that came through the small crack was not cooler or warmer or fresher, it just moved more quickly. He gently pulled the door open. Thankfully, it did not squeak or creak, and, stepping over the brown patch left by Cnapa’s blood, he was able to slip through it, only to pause briefly in the shadow of the archway. The wide, shallow steps spread before him. He noted what must be the remnants of Cnafa’s body, splayed out over several of the wide steps, the skin brown and drawn, like a Hollywood mummy, his clothes decaying, the blue threads of his shirt turned black.
Silver lamps lit every step, making this one of the brightest areas of the city, but if he stuck by the wall, he could move in relative darkness. Skirting past the elaborately carved and highly textured wall, moving slowly, he circumnavigated the courtyard and made it to the inner wall’s gate.
He paused a moment to catch his breath; he was already panting anxiously. From this angle, the debris pile in the courtyard didn’t seem as haphazard as it had from the window above. There were two lines of silver lamps that bisected it from the top, the ridges of what could have been stairs, and the outline of a large chair on top of it. That must be the hero’s throne.
There were no yfelgópes in view, but he knew that a group of them were lounging on the rooftop above the building opposite the gates. Unfortunately, there were no buildings closer than thirty feet to the inner wall to provide cover. And the dark buildings might contain any number of hidden eyes. To his advantage, however, there was plenty of rubble and detritus in piles against the wall; he wouldn’t be a stark shape against a plain background, at least.
He made his way quickly through the pile of dry corpses that lay across the gateway, trying not to think too much about what was beneath his feet, and began following his route along the outside of the Langtorr wall. He kept his back hunched, head up, and body tense and poised, trying vaguely to emulate the yfelgóp stance.