Stars and a Wind- The Complete Trilogy

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  Grimr was impatient. “You talk like a woman. Can you possibly believe I’ll change my mind now? Or are you buying yourself time to admit defeat?”

  “Hush then, my dear. Close your eyes. Open your thoughts.” Thoddun climbed into his brother’s mind. There was no sparkle of bright light, nor gentle warmth. The restful comfort which he adored and the benign wistfulness he travelled within Skarga’s thoughts, were all her own. Instead Grimr’s wakeful slumber was shadowed in wild jealousies. Black secretive hatreds and the lust of cruelty had been built as a bridge over fear. And in the heart of the fear beneath the bridge, lay the wolf cub. Its body sagged, empty and diseased. Thoddun paused there and bent, touching gently. The creature gave no response. So Thoddun sat and sighed, and then he lifted it carefully to his face. It stank and Thoddun heaved. It was the first time in Grimr’s life that the wolf had moved, and he lurched within the bed, his heart beat racing.

  Thoddun felt his fingers soaked in the reeking pool of death, and the small body hung limp. Then he opened its mouth and pushed his fingers inside. He began, slowly and carefully, to breathe the heat of his own breath into it. His tentative finger tips, stretching past the dry withered tongue, reached further and touched its heart. The muscle had shrunk and had no pulse. Very gently, Thoddun began to massage.

  Grimr jerked violently. His mouth was open, gulping and gasping. The excitement was intense and the pain acute. He pulled away. Thoddun wrenched him back and held him still. “Fool. Of course it will hurt. It will hurt more very soon. Lie still.”

  It was a long time later when the shadows approached night’s zenith and within the chamber it was black. The room smelled of rotting excrement, of ancient blood and of vomit. Thoddun sat back on a wide chair, his legs stretched, his arms resting on the chair arms, his eyes open, watching. Grimr was doubled over on the bed. His soft silks were crusted with the voiding of his stomach. He rocked, clutching his belly, face down. Between the retching and gasping, he moaned softly. Thoddun did not touch or comfort him but sat very still at a distance and watched.

  Eventually Thoddun said, “Do you want the truth?”

  Grimr sat up and faced his brother. His eyes were so violently bloodshot that he saw through a scarlet glaze. “It’s dead,” he said quietly.

  Thoddun shook his head. “It was. I have given it a pulse. You feel its return to life. That’s what hurts so much. It was dead. It was rotting inside you. Now its breath stinks of decay and makes you spew and shit. You must absorb all its disgorgement. You’ve been poisoned by its decomposition all your life. If you can continue now, and if you take back every part that was rotten, it may live. But you may die.”

  Grimr gazed at Thoddun through the darkness. He was crying. The tears slipped silently down his face in a silver snail’s sheen and he made no attempt to wipe them away. “He has a pulse?” he whispered. “You have truly given him life?”

  “Not his own life. Mine.”

  “Is this true?” Grimr shivered and blinked back the tears. “What must I do to give him his own? Or may I give him mine?”

  “Breathe for him.” Thoddun’s voice was harsh. He felt bilious. “Swallow his decay. The cub lies in a black glue, a swamp of filth and stagnant death. Take that from him, and spit it out. Leave him clean and ready for life. His heart beats, but only weakly. If you leave him to rot, the pulse will fail again.”

  “I’ll shit for him, I’ll spew for him. How do I breathe for him?”

  “Wash him with tears,” Thoddun smiled faintly. “Is this the first time you’ve wept since you were last in my arms as a child?”

  Grimr lowered his eyes. “I’ll sob and writhe if it serves my wolf. I don’t mind the pain if it gives him life.”

  “I don’t know if it will,” said Thoddun. “But nothing else can.”

  Grimr lay down curled on the bed, his arms around his belly, his chin to his chest. “Will you come to me now, then, big brother?” he whispered. “Will you hold me?”

  “No,” said Thoddun. “I will not comfort you now. We are no longer children and I am very tired. You must comfort your wolf cub. It needs you.” Grimr was silent, shivering, pulling the furs around him. Most were old wolf pelts, softer than silk to him, the touch he adored. “In all my channels I’ve scavenged the slaughter fields for dead meat,” murmured Thoddun. “But absorbing the filth of decay disgusts me. I will come back to your wolf again, and will help again, if you can keep it alive. But not yet. Not now. I need clean air.” And he got up and strode abruptly from the room. The door swung shut behind him and closed off the stench of Grimr’s resurrection and the newly fluttering channel.

  Thoddun stood one short moment, listening to Grimr’s thoughts. Grimr had closed his eyes, still weeping, dazzled by the first hope of transanima salvation he had ever known. Thoddun heard the first terrified whimper of the wolf cub, breathing Thoddun’s own breath, but striving for its own. He stooped and took a large iron key from behind his belt. He fitted it quietly to the door’s lock, and turned it.

  He did not go back to his own chamber. Knut was waiting there and he had no wish to discuss any of the things he knew the boy would ask. He had locked that door too, when he had first left the room. Instead he walked down to the great open cave below, where the ice was melting a little and the tides swelled the waters. There was a new contingent of guards.

  The night before he had lain with Skarga, free in his own camp. Now again he accepted imprisonment. He did not recognise any of the men but he sat a while and talked to them. It cleansed his tongue and his lungs and his mind. And he knelt a moment, washing his soiled hands in the grey lap of the ocean. Far beyond the bragging and gossip of the bored and hungry guards, he heard the approaching clamour of Ogot’s people. They were travelling fast. The last of the supplies they’d carried with them were long gone and they were eager for a castle rich with feasting and bright with treasure. “What will you do,” Thoddun asked the guards, “when there are another hundred men to feed?”

  “We’ll hunt,” said one. “It’s nearly spring. The sun climbs higher every day.”

  Another shook his head. “There won’t be no hundred extra mouths. Those buggers out there’ll rip Ogot’s army to shreds afore reaching our gates. It’s us is safe in here. Them monsters’ll never get past these walls, long as we stay awake.”

  “You’ve no interest then,” Thoddun asked, amused, “in the fate of the men coming to help you against a shared enemy?”

  Their captain grinned. “Help us? The bastards are coming to take a share of the treasure more like. They don’t care about us. We don’t care about them.”

  “You may starve before they get here to distract your besiegers,” Thoddun pointed out.

  “Not likely,” said the captain. “We can eat raw meat if we have to, and there’s plenty of that in your stores. Swells the belly and heaves the guts fit to bust, but I’ve eaten it already and I’m not so hungry no more. Chew quick and swallow, that’s the trick.”

  “Dried grains and grits too, there is,” said another. “We’ll make do.”

  Thoddun laughed. “I know what’s in my own stores. But do you know how much of it is poisoned?”

  They stared blankly at him. One man sniggered, but another scowled and grappled in his belt for his knife. Thoddun stepped back, ready for attack. But the men guffawed at their friend. “Stupid fucker. As if any man’s going to risk killing his own people. Why would he keep poisoned meat in his own larders?”

  “Maybe he done it since,” glowered the other.

  The captain shook his head. “The stores are guarded. No one gets in there. Rationing’s strict. No stealing. And no poisoning.”

  Thoddun smiled. “But you see, in one of the smaller pantries there’s bait ready loaded for hunting. Poisoned bait.”

  They stared at him. “Piss off,” the captain said. “You’re fucking lying.”

  “Perhaps I am,” said Thoddun. “Keep eating. You’ll discover the truth of it, sooner or later.” He stood, nodd
ed politely to the captain and turned to leave. Then he paused, and turning back, smiled. “There is an alternative of course.”

  “Yeh,” said the captain. “Like surrender I suppose?”

  “In less than one rise of the sun,” said Thoddun, “I could have a fire heating every hall in the castle, and the dormitories too. I could have flames shooting to the ceiling beams, without more than a slow seep of melt from the ice. I could have a hundred carcasses slow roasting, and new bread baking in the embers. My men could corral a dozen reindeer to be milked, for hot curds, butter and cheeses. You’d enjoy more feasting than you’ve known in your lives.” Their faces were white in the moonlight, shivering, staring back at him. “Either that,” he smiled, “or death.”

  “It’d be death,” one man muttered. “We open the gates and let your people in, and they cook up a feast and so mighty obliging, invite us to party? Monsters and trolls like that mob out there? Reckon we’d be part of the feast ourselves. Think we’re stupid?”

  “I do,” Thoddun grinned. “Remarkably stupid. But remember what I’ve said, for I meant it. There are neither trolls nor monsters amongst my people, though they are not like you. But whatever they are, they follow me and they obey me. And if I give my word, I keep it. I prefer a peaceable solution. Your people are also my people and I’ve no desire to have you slaughtered, nor see my community suffer. Both will happen unless you all surrender by morning.”

  “You should have been our king, lord,” one man said. “I’d not kill you myself, even were my sword at your neck. And I’d surrender, since you ask it. But Lord Grimr wouldn’t allow it. And we’ll not be seen as cowards.”

  “Then you’ll be seen as corpses,” Thoddun said. “Listen to me all of you, and tell your companions. When the time comes, if you lay down your weapons and stand aside, I’ll keep you alive. That I swear. Go to the main hall where the arrow slits look out to the camp and the mountains behind. Stay there and take no part in the fighting, and I’ll make sure you go free.”

  “Grimr makes a better king,” muttered a small man. “I’d never respect a man as my chief, who asked me to play coward. And stand aside from what? There’s none of your filthy beasts will set paw nor claw past our guards.”

  “Just remember what I said,” smiled Thoddun, and stalked off back to the long corridors.

  It was still dark, though morning had come and the camp stirred and woke under cover of night’s remaining shadow. Thoddun stood in a small empty room just above the huge cellars where the flooded dungeons had swamped the arched stone, and water weed floated between the piled casks of ale and mead. Where he stood there were no windows, he saw nothing but black ice. But gathering sound, and thought, and scent from all around, his mind saw a great deal. He smelled the camp outside, waking and stretching, kicking the fires back into life and setting the cauldrons for porridge. He heard Skarga murmur in her last dream, and smile, remembering him and their love-making. He smelled the ocean creatures dive and breach, some Shifting, many swimming out to hunt in the deeper waters. He heard the sky creatures untuck their heads from their wings and stare bright golden eyes up into the fading moonlight of the new day. And he saw Ogot’s army, stumbling, frozen, exhausted and excited, through the last miles of snow. They were too close.

  Thoddun immediately contacted Lodver’s mind. “I want everyone back. I want everyone ready. Call the ocean army to return, I need them here. I’ll allow a quick break-fast but no hunting. You know where to come and I shall already be there waiting for you. I’ll send word immediately when the moment is right, so be alert.” Lodver answered at once. He was always alert. “One more thing,” Thoddun continued. “Kjeld must stay close by the queen, with at least ten others. You lead the full army to me. But if the other human army manages a final spurt, my queen could be in danger. I must be sure she’s safe. The two children must also stay outside with her.”

  “I could bring her inside with us,” said Lodver’s mind.

  Thoddun thought a moment. “Through the water?” he said. “There’d be small advantage and it would surely be more dangerous. She must stay there, away from the battle and from Grimr. Just make absolutely sure she’s well guarded.”

  His message answered, he walked slowly down the narrow steps at the end of the passage. The dark waters slurped and slapped against the stone. He stood just above the uneasy turbulence. Since the dungeons had been drowned, waters surged in from each tidal change, seeking freedom from confinement, straining to find new dominion within the old foundations. This was the oldest, the deepest part of the castle, built by his grandfather. He had never known the old bear. Still alive when his daughter’s twin cubs were born in their human valley, the old tyrant had stayed in his arctic realm, ruling a small ragtaggle remnant of former glory, half men worshipping gods, half transanima preying on men. But some years ago the king had died, of the gangrene it was said, after fighting his human consort and losing a finger to her jealous knife. When Thoddun arrived to discover his transanima inheritance, the ancient bear was already dead and the body frozen in honour within the castle foundations.

  Thoddun stood just above the water’s level, ripped off the ruined hem of his tunic and cupped it in his hands. He blew carefully, creating fire. Its flames were not copper, blue or jade, they were the true scarlet blaze of natural heat and the ice walls around him started to ooze, weeping a silver sheen. He stepped back, climbing up a few steps. He held out his hands and the fire within them. He watched his castle begin to melt. His hands scorched. He let the fire travel the corridor, dancing up along its own icy reflections. He rubbed the soot and flaking skin from his palms onto his britches and watched the waters rise until they lapped his boots. Then he knelt, quickly soothing his hands in the cold encroaching sea before turning again, climbing once more to safety.

  Gradually the foundations crumbled and the flooded dungeons sank further beneath the flooded cellars. Where a narrow entrance to the sea had previously allowed only one man or beast to pass at a time, now it melted into wide and open passages and the water surged and pounded. More walls fell. Finally as the sea rushed in, so the fire fizzled and went out. Where stone reinforced the ice, nothing further tumbled. The destruction was small, but it was sufficient. It had entirely opened the entrance for his people to come home.

  Again Thoddun called Lodver. “I am here. I am ready.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  Lodver said, “Flokki now leads the sea army from the open ocean to the cellars, my lord. Kjeld guards the queen with twelve others. Safn is already in sight of the battlements with all the sky army. On your orders, they will land, and Shift back to men. Wenden and the reserves have already Shifted to bears. Now I will also Shift and lead the bears into the sea, but gradually, since the camp cannot be seen to empty at once.”

  Flokki rose up to the water’s churning surface beyond Thoddun’s feet, the orca’s huge bulk shimmering in the torchlight that Thoddun held aloft. Still half submerged, Flokki Shifted and the man climbed out from the waves, grinning wide, hair streaming. He handed Thoddun a great doubled edged sword as long as a man’s leg; Thoddun’s old blade returned to him. “Well, my lord,” said Flokki. “It has begun.”

  All throughout the day they came. Deep underground through the flooded dungeons they continued to arrive. First the sea creatures and then the bears. Ten, fifteen at a time they came onto the steps and Shifted. As each turned back to man, Thoddun smiled and nodded and gave his orders to stay silent and find a shadowed place in the lower corridors until the entire army had congregated. Then they would advance.

  The bears hauled themselves out of the freezing ocean, their fur sodden and heavy. Clambering huge pawed onto the ice, they shook themselves. The water flew. Then, with the deep smile of utter satisfaction that comes with the Shift, they became armed men, and silently followed the backs of their disappearing friends into the upper gloom. They were to assemble, stay secret, and wait until all were safe within the great walls. Meanwhile the army of bir
ds landed on the battlements. Under a slow dawn, they also began to Shift back. The full force was to attack at the same time from both above and below.

  The dawn came up like a giant whale breaching from the mountains, and all across the sky a rosy tint turned starry black to pastel pinks. Beneath the dawning, the revealed camp seemed suddenly threadbare. Fires still smouldered, strewn amongst the wild emptiness. The sleds stood abandoned. The dogs, wandering a little lost through the scattered clutter, remained, wagging their tails at the last patrols, hoping to be allowed into the warmth of their home.

  The last tents stood stark against the clarity of the new day and outside one of the smaller tents, a giant of a man stood, fists to his hips, watching the stillness of the castle. At his feet, two young boys sat cross-legged. One was biting his finger nails. There was no other movement though the wind moaned a little along the ruffled melting ice of the sea shore. Time seemed to be sleeping.

  Quite hidden within the castle, more than a thousand men crept up the stone steps and through the shadowed passages, meeting with those that came quietly down from the turreted battlements. In groups and pairs and without sound, long practised in the silence of the ambush, they spread throughout the castle’s winding breadths. Some had not Shifted back and remained in the huge, shaggy shape of the pacing snow bear. Bears walked with men and both merged colour with the ice walls and the lost darkness. They had already filled the castle before they were noticed. Then the alarm was loud and sudden and urgent. It was the main wolf patrol which was alerted, smelling bear scent within the enclosed mustiness. The clash was immediate and the four wolf men at once lay sprawled and shuddering, without time to Shift before death.

  Thoddun, unShifted, led the greater part of his forces through the central area of the castle. Lodver, Flokki, Safn and Wenden led other contingents. In total their numbers were more than twice those of Grimr’s people, but in corridors, small rooms, stairs and winding passages, the force of numbers mattered less than the force of skill, of strength, of determination, and of simple geography. Thoddun’s people were at home.