“What’s this, Aylootr?” asked Mothi.
“It seems these men are poor and need to eat,” I said in a mild voice.
“Is that so?” asked Meuhlnir.
“They think to fill their bellies by taking from us?” asked Veethar in an algid voice that might have tempered molten steel. His horse took a step forward, lips twitching.
“Forgive us, lords and ladies,” said the big man, his voice shaking.
“Are you aware of what happened to the last band of harriers that bothered us?” asked Meuhlnir.
“No, Lord.”
“No, you aren’t. Any idea why?”
“No, Lord.”
“Because none of them lived to tell the tale.” The line of kneeling men glanced at each other, seemingly at a loss for what to say or do next.
“Well, fools?” demanded Mothi, unsheathing his axes. “What are you still doing here?”
They looked up, expressions of shock on their faces. I gestured at the wooded side of the road with Krati. “Run that way. There are sea dragons about today.” I pointed at the big man. “Remember your life belongs to me now. Don’t make me come and collect.”
“Thank you, lords!” said the big man. He got up and sprinted away into the woods, followed by his merry band.
“And give up robbery,” I yelled. “Or I will come back for another visit.”
“Yes, Yarl Aylootr!” the big man yelled back over his shoulder. “I’ll see to it!”
I sighed and glared at Mothi. “I hope you’re happy,” I said.
“Oh, I am, Aylootr, I am.” He grinned at me, and I couldn’t help laughing.
Thirteen
The sun flirted with the mountains girdling the western horizon as we crested the last rise and glimpsed the city stretching out along the shore for what must have been miles and miles. Suelhaym. “Bigger than I thought,” I said.
“You should have seen it before the war,” said Sif in a wistful voice.
Muddy red tiles capped the buildings, and smoke from cook fires billowed skyward. An ivy-covered granite wall surrounded the city, and it must have stood forty feet high. Docks stretched far out into the natural bay that was the eastern border of the city. Ships teemed in the harbor, leaving with the evening tide, their lanterns and navigation markers bobbing about like fireflies in a breeze. There was no sign of the sea dragons that had escorted us down the coast. The muddy red tiles must have once been bright red and shiny, and the wall straight and kept clear of the creeping ivy that climbed it now. “It must have been beautiful from up here.”
“Oh, it was,” said Frikka. “In time, it will be again.”
“I’m hungry,” grumbled Althyof. “And thirsty. I wonder if anyone here has a proper ale?” He tapped his horse with his heels and cantered down toward Suelhaym’s massive North Gate at the foot of the hill.
The gates stood open and seemed to be unattended. As we approached, I understood why: they stood open because they no longer closed. The left gate leaned propped against the granite wall, its massive hinges twisted and broken, the gate on the right still hung by its bottom hinge, but the top hinge had melted after contact with something extremely hot, and the inner tip of the gate had buried itself in the ground.
“This is where she made her last stand,” said Veethar in a quiet, almost mournful tone.
“We had to attack our own city,” murmured Meuhlnir. “Break our own gates, fight our former neighbors street by street to the palace in which we used to serve.”
“Then the real battle began,” said Frikka, brushing at her cheeks.
“Yes,” said Veethar and walked his horse off the road and into the trees on the inland side.
“Come on,” said Mothi. “Let’s leave them to their reminiscences.”
“Lead on,” I said, and we followed Mothi through the gate.
Once we’d ridden a block or two, Mothi said, “I’m glad I was born after the war. So many places are nothing more than reminders of the worst times in their lives.”
“Understandable,” I said. “It must have been the hardest thing they’d ever done.”
“I don’t know how Pratyi and Freya can stand to live here.”
“Did they fight?” I asked.
“Oh yes, despite how Freya was at the beginning of it all, by the end, by the battle of Suelhaym, she’d enlisted with my father to unseat her sister.”
“Why didn’t Freya become the queen?” asked Jane. “I’ve always liked the myths about her.”
“They offered the kingdom to her, but she refused. She said she’d lived in her sister’s shadow her whole life, and she didn’t want to live in the shadow of her sister’s fall from grace.”
“Do they live inside the walls?”
“Yes,” said Lottfowpnir. “Their estate lies down near the northern gate. Other side of the city. It used to be the Dark Queen’s palace.”
“So much for moving out of her sister’s shadow,” murmured Jane.
“It’s where we are heading,” said Mothi with a curt nod.
“We’ll take our leave here, Yarls,” said Lottfowpnir. “Our path leads toward the harbor. Many thanks for your generosity. Please pass the sentiment on to the others.”
“We will,” I said. “I hope everything works out with your spinner.”
“I’m sure it will,” said the karl. “If not now, when Lord Veethar and Lady Frikka return to Trankastrantir.” He nodded at Sig and somehow managed a graceful bow to Jane from horseback. To Mothi and me, he raised his hand to his forehead and tugged his hair. “Lords.”
“Goodbye, Lottfowpnir,” said Mothi. “Uhkmuntr, and Neerowthr, farewell.”
The karls mumbled their farewells and the three of them took the next right without a backward glance. “I’ll never get used to it,” I murmured.
“Yes, you will,” said Mothi in a matter-of-fact tone. “Your legend grows daily, and even if you weren’t Isir, people would assume you were one and, like it or not, the people would treat you like one.”
I nodded.
“Oh, great. Thanks a lot, Mothi, now his head will be as big as a…as an…”
“As my father’s?”
“Exactly,” laughed Jane.
I glanced behind us, sure Meuhlnir would claim to have heard the conversation in a thunderous voice, but the others had not entered the gates yet. “They’ll be along soon, I trust?”
“Yes,” said Mothi. “Before true night falls.” He led us on, nodding to the karls and thralls who dropped what they were doing to come pay their respects to our passage. Mothi sat straight in his saddle, despite the weariness he must have felt. He presented a regal figure—a stern-faced hero, back from the wars.
I could see the northern wall by the time Mothi turned to the east. The broad avenue he led us to had a flower-filled median and smelled of honeysuckle and fresh bread. The businesses and homes along the avenue seemed to be of a richer variety than the gate road.
Ahead of us stood a smaller set of walls made from the same stone as the outer walls, but the gates of the inner walls were in good repair, and the stone was polished, almost like a fancy counter-top back home. As we approached, the gates swung open, revealing an inner courtyard bedecked with garlands of tropical flowers.
A woman whose beauty eclipsed Frikka’s (but not Jane’s!) stood on the other side of the courtyard. Her hair was blonde and hung to her waist. Her smile beamed radiantly through the gloaming like a lighthouse in a storm. She stuck her tongue out at Mothi, almost skipping over to take the reins of Jane’s horse. “Hello, Sister,” she said.
Jane glanced at me, a terror-struck expression on her face. She slid to the ground, and before she could say a word, Freya embraced her and kissed her on both cheeks. “I’m so glad you are here,” Freya exclaimed. “We have so much to talk about.” The blonde woman linked her arm through Jane’s and turned to Sig. She beamed a smile at him, and said, “Welcome, Sigster. I hope you’re hungry. We don’t have the same kind of kitchens as you do on
your klith, but I had my cook prepare the fingers of chickens for you. Oh, and fried cheese.”
Sig darted a look of wonder my way. “Thank you!” he said, turning back to stare at Freya. “Those are my favorites. How did you know?”
Freya winked at him and smiled as would a carny huckster. “Magic.” She laughed and turned to meet my gaze with curiosity. She looked so like her sister that for a moment, I could see her snarling at me as she cursed me in the Gamla Toonkumowl.
“I am not my sister,” she whispered.
“Forgive me,” I said. “The resemblance is uncanny—took me by surprise is all.”
“And she re-earned her nickname—the Black Bitch—in what she’s done to you and your family. I understand.”
“Are you done ignoring me?” demanded Mothi.
“Did someone say something?” she asked Sig.
“It was only Cousin Mouthy.”
“Cousin…Mouthy?” Her gaze snapped around to Mothi’s, merriment in her eyes. “What an appropriate nickname.” She laughed, and it was as if someone had struck a chorus of glass bells. I remembered Meuhlnir telling me Suel had laughed that way before her fall, and it was every bit as beautiful as he had claimed.
“I allow Piggy to call me that, and sometimes Hank, but you? No, I don’t think so.”
“Like you could stop me, you big lug.” She took a few steps, dragging Jane along, until she was close enough to punch Mothi in the shoulder. “Don’t think you’ve gotten so big that I can’t spank you.”
Mothi grinned and winked at me. “She’s all talk, this one. Never does as she promises.”
“Flirting with my wife again, youngster?” boomed a man’s voice from a darkened doorway. The voice was melodious, like that of a trained opera singer.
“Flyting’s more like it,” said Freya, “and he has as little chance in one arena as the other.”
“She started it,” said Mothi, a toothy grin splitting his face. “Anyway, old man, if you can’t keep her home, that’s your problem.”
“Suddenly, I feel like a cow,” Freya said. “Be careful, boys, lest you find yourselves outside the gates looking for a place to sleep.”
“I don’t think Suelhaym could handle Pratyi and me spending a night out on the town.”
“Neither could Pratyi,” said Freya. “Now, stop being crass, the both of you, before Jane takes offense. She’s been working with her shield, I understand.”
Pratyi stepped out into the twilight and sauntered toward us. He was tall, as were all the Isir, and broad across the shoulders, and yet he moved with a dancer’s grace, not quite the flowing elegance with which Yowtgayrr moved—not like a master martial artist—but as if he listened to a music none of the rest of us could perceive. He squinted past me toward the gates. “Noble Alfar, welcome to our home.”
“Thank you, Pratyi. I am Yowtgayrr, and this is Skowvithr.”
“Are you here looking for your kinsmen? The five Meuhlnir sent last spring?”
“We are Hank’s tutha verntar.”
I glanced at Yowtgayrr, eyebrows arched. “It means bodyguard.”
“Don’t gild the lily, Yowtgayrr.” Pratyi turned to face me. “It means ‘death protectors,’ the implication being they will die before you do.”
“Oh,” I said. “I knew they felt that way.”
Pratyi fixed his gaze on me. “Language is more than a tool to hack about oneself with like an axe.” Without looking, he swatted Mothi on the shoulder. “It can be a weapon, it can be a balm, it can be a caress, or it can be a club wielded by a clumsy ogre.”
“Very poetic imagery, husband,” Freya said in a risible long-suffering tone.
“I try,” said Pratyi with a smile.
“Are you done with the pedantic sermon?” she asked, her tone sweet and cajoling, but with the promise of hidden barbs.
“I think I am,” he said, rolling his eyes at Mothi.
“Let’s all go inside. Pratyi talks less when he’s inside.” Freya flipped her hair and batted her eyelashes at her husband demurely and led us into the main house. “I take it the others are mooning about outside the gates?” she asked over her shoulder.
“Yes,” said Mothi. “They’ll be along when they are ready.”
She sighed. “If they would accept that this is now my fiefdom, instead of living in the past…”
“Wife?” said Pratyi.
Freya glanced at him. “Husband?” she mimicked.
“Shut up.”
Freya stuck her tongue out at him but said no more.
“Is anyone hungry? Thirsty?” asked Pratyi. “We’ve had the cooks busy all day preparing a feast of favorites, both from Osgarthr and from Mithgarthr.”
“I told them,” said Freya.
“Oh.” Pratyi winked at Sig and boomed, “Lead us to the dining hall, woman!”
The hall was much the same as Veethar’s and Meuhlnir’s before him but on a much grander scale. It was a huge rectangular room, with a row of fire pits running down the center and long picnic-like tables on either side. There was a dais at the end, and on it sat another table, this one grander than the rest, with gilded carvings running down the legs. Elaborate scenes of ships, dragons, and Isir doing various tasks lined the walls and columns—carved into them by master craftsmen.
The last table on our side was set up for eating, and a fire babbled next to it in the fire pit. Dishes of all kinds, some I recognized from Mithgarthr, some from Osgarthr, and some I didn’t recognize at all, covered the center of the table.
Freya nodded toward the table. “I thought we could be informal. Does it suit?” She looked at me with quirked eyebrows.
“I guess you’ve never seen Mothi and my son attack supper. Informal is a step up.”
She laughed and swept her arm at the table. “Sit. Eat. Drink. Ignore my blowhard husband.”
Pratyi shook his head and sat next to Mothi. “Tell me, youngster, what mayhem have you wrought since we last spoke?”
Mothi grinned at his plate heaped with roasted and smoked meats. “Have you heard how the mighty Aylootr slew the dragon at Trankastrantir?”
“Oh, no,” I said. “But at least you didn’t come up with a new nickname for me.”
“Don’t worry,” said Pratyi. “The locals already have.”
I groaned. “Do I even want to know?”
Pratyi shrugged.
“Tell us,” said Mothi, grinning from ear to ear.
“Valkyosanti,” said Pratyi. “Chooser of the slain.”
I grimaced. “I think I prefer wand-bearer.”
Mothi’s wide shoulders twitched. “It’s not as funny as wand-bearer, I’ll give you that.”
“Why is there a need to give me a different nickname every other day?” I asked. “Does Mothi have a bunch of these nicknames?”
“No, he’s too inconsequential,” said Pratyi with a grin. “Meuhlnir, on the other hand…”
“Oh? Tell us,” I said with a chuckle.
“My favorite is Rimr,” said Freya. “It means ‘noise.’ I always thought it suited him.”
“I heard that!” said Meuhlnir striding into the room, followed by the other Isir.
Sif wore a wide grin. “My favorite is Ednlinkr.”
“Oh, no,” muttered Meuhlnir.
“What does that mean, Auntie Sniffles?” asked Sig.
“It means ‘the big-headed.’” Everyone laughed at that.
“Well, technically, it means ‘the one with the big forehead,’” murmured Pratyi.
“Back to pedantry, Husband?” asked Freya with a hint of acid in her voice.
“Did I speak aloud?” he asked Mothi.
“Don’t worry, Hank. These nicknames are just something that someone of your and my caliber has to endure. Admiration of the common man and all that.”
Veethar snorted and set off another round of laughter.
I was glad to see the others falling back into familiar routines. “Speaking of big heads, did you run across Althyof?”
“Boo,” said Pratyi.
Meuhlnir cast a rueful look at Freya. “Can you yell at your husband more? He’s getting mouthy again.”
“Leave me out of this,” said Mothi.
Meuhlnir let out a gusty sigh and turned on his son. “How long are you grounded for again?”
Mothi smiled. “Four hundred years? Five? Who can keep track?”
“We’ll make it an even six hundred in that case.”
“Fine, fine,” said Mothi around a mouthful of smoked venison.
“And leave some food for the rest of the Isir!”
“I have to eat fast, or Piggy-Sig will eat it all.”
“As if,” said Sig in a voice that dripped scorn.
Again, the room filled with laughter—even the Alfar joined in—and it warmed my heart. I caught Jane staring around the table too, her gaze bouncing from Frikka to Sif to Yowrnsaxa to Freya and back again. She caught me looking at her and wrinkled her nose at me, and I grinned at her like a love-struck idiot. Her eyes drifted past my shoulder and locked onto something.
I turned and saw nothing of interest at first, but the fire guttered, then blazed as if there were a strong wind. The flames leapt and danced for a moment, before the fire went dark, along with the torches and braziers hanging from the walls of the great hall. The room plunged into darkness.
“Lyows!” yelled Freya, and the big room filled with bright white light.
A woman stood in the middle of the fire pit, where the flames had leapt and cavorted moments before, long blonde hair cascading down from her bowed head. I stood, almost overturning the bench, and jerked Kunknir and Krati out of their holsters.
It was the woman I knew as Liz Tutor—the Dark Queen, the Black Bitch…Hel.
Her head snapped up, gaze locking on mine, a sneer on her lips. “Pathetic,” she whispered.
“Sister! You are not welcome here,” hissed Freya.
Hel threw back her head and laughed. “The moment I need your permission to do anything, let alone visit my own palace in my own capital city, teekur, I hope someone kills me.”
Pratyi lurched up from where he still sat, eyes blazing. “Don’t you call her that! That is your nickname!”
Blood of the Isir Omnibus Page 65