by Ben Galley
‘Well, Durnus?’ he said, cross-armed and contemplative like the others. ‘Ideas?’
‘ “Gunnir’s last blood”,’ Durnus whispered to himself while he ran a tongue around his fangs. He made his way around the walkway, walking his hands over themselves along the railing. ‘Look there,’ he called. ‘They even carved his mortal wound, do you see?’
Farden and the others followed. They now stared at Sigrimur head-on. Where his hand clutched his chest, a hole pierced the stone. By the faint light shining from the other side, it ran him through. Once again, the detail of it astounded Farden. He could even see whorls in the headless stump that looked almost like bone and windpipe.
Durnus was fidgeting. There was an excitement in the vampyre that belied their exhaustion. Farden truly wished he could feel the same; some of the spark of his younger self when his world consisted of hunting down problems for the magick council. He had been free, then. He was growing tired of the feeling that every step he took, a thousand hands reached from the dust and held onto him.
‘ “Hear the last breath of retribution’s lesson.” What is usually the outcome of retribution in this world of ours?’ asked Durnus.
Aspala spoke true. ‘Death.’
‘Then that means Sigrimur himself is retribution’s lesson,’ hissed Farden.
‘So the first task is listening to… his last breath?’ Mithrid thought aloud. ‘How is that even possible?’
Before anyone could answer her, they noticed a woman of purple cloth and black hair further down the railing chuckling to herself. A heavy shawl covered in a complicated yellow pattern hung over her far shoulder.
‘Something amuse you, madam?’ asked Farden. No wonder she had overheard them; she had large, pointed ears on either side of her partially shaved head. Her hair ran in a tight tail between her shoulders.
‘Retribution, I thought I heard you say,’ she said. Her accent was of the same thick Commontongue of the east.
‘And how is that amusing?’
‘Because you, like most foreigners I meet, have obviously listened to far too many eddas written by the wrong bards and skalds. It wasn’t retribution that killed Sigrimur, but jealousy.’
Sensing the presence of another scholar, Durnus stepped forwards. ‘I understood it was the Allfather himself that killed Sigrimur. In return for his pride and betraying the gods.’
The woman smiled bright teeth almost matched her clear eyes, almost devoid of colour save two circlets of green. ‘You must be of the west to use that name for the Noose God. And as such, you’ve likely only heard the false tales of Sigrimur; the ones the ancient scholars would have us believe is a moral lesson of pride and devotion. Lies. It was not Sigrimur’s pride that killed him, but the Noose God’s jealousy. Sigrimur was hailed as a god in his own right by the time he built the first of the Scattered Kingdoms. He built this very city, as it happens. Jealous of the adoration the people paid to a mere mortal, the Noose God took revenge on Sigrimur, not retribution. He killed him with Sigrimur’s own magick spear. Many say he had a sword instead, broken into nine pieces, but that is wrong. The Noose God – your Allfather – then stole the spear and destroyed it. According to some songs, he threw it in the ocean. Here is all that is left of Sigrimur’s legend; his name celebrated but the man forgotten. Hundreds used to make the pilgrimage. Now only handfuls come.’
‘Might I ask who you are to know so much about Sigrimur?’
‘Because I,’ she said, standing tall and haughty, ‘am his daughter by bloodline.’
Taking a moment to adjusted her shawl, the woman brought forth an arm of polished and intricate grey wood. Unknown runes had been carved into its surface from shoulder to elbow. A contraption sat on her forearm that looked very much like a miniature crossbow bent back on itself. A small bolt sat ready and waiting to kill. She proffered her wooden hand to the vampyre, who didn’t hesitate to shake it. His intrigue was far from subtle.
‘I am Durnus Glassren of Emaneska.’ Durnus said, admiring the forearm far too closely. ‘And what a fascinating appendage, madam, I must say. Forgive me for staring but I have never seen the like.’
‘They call me Irien, the Lady of Whispers,’ she replied with a winning smile. ‘And this is nothing but Golikan wood and Haspia magick to cover for an incident years ago.’
It was hard to pin down how old the Lady of Whispers was. Her skin was alabaster and she was more scars than wrinkles. Yet she had an assuredness to her that spoke decades. Farden found himself staring.
‘What brings you to Dathazh, ladies and gentlemen? By the look of you I would say the Scarlet Tourney, but few of the fighters make pilgrimages to Sigrimur’s Rest any longer. You are curious, to say the least.’
‘We’re just passing through,’ Farden grunted. ‘Spectators at the most.’
Durnus elaborated. ‘We are explorers, in truth. Historians and scholars. We have journeyed here looking for relics related to Sigrimur, if possible.’
‘Explorers, you say? How fortunate! In my spare moments, I am somewhat of a collector myself. And as a daughter of Sigrimur, Golikan and Easterealm art and trinkets are my speciality. If you are looking for something in particular, I might just be the person to help you. It merely depends on what,’ Irien said, cocking her head.
‘That it does,’ Durnus replied, letting the silence drag before Irien changed the subject.
‘And who might your companions be? By the look of them, Durnus, you must be looking for something dangerous, or at very least looking in dangerous places.’
Durnus flashed a smile. He had remembered to fold away his fangs. ‘Sometimes both! These are my cohorts. Guards, if you will.’
Farden flashed the vampyre a scowl.
Irien laughed, making the others look uncomfortably between themselves. ‘Three knights alone would have surely sufficed, Durnus, no? You alone must have cost a pretty pouch of coin, madam,’ she said to Warbringer. The minotaur just thumped her warhammer on the walkway.
‘This one owes me a life debt, fortunately,’ Durnus answered quickly.
Irien tittered. ‘Shame. I imagine you would do well in the Tourney.’
‘Is this where you tell us you’re a patron and have a chancer’s slot for us if we have the coin?’
Irien held Farden’s glower with her sharp eyes. Her smile spread ear to ear. ‘You’ve been harassed all the way here, I imagine, sir…?’
‘Farden.’
‘Sir Farden. I am no patron. Like you, I am merely an intrigued spectator.’
‘Well, it has been a pleasure—’ Farden began, but he was quickly interrupted.
‘Which inn have you managed to squeeze into tonight?’ Irien asked.
Durnus shook his head. ‘Er, we have not. Not yet.’
‘We were actually heading to an armourer first.’ Farden crossed his arms with a clank.
Irien laughed once more. Humour seemed an easy habit to her. ‘Then you’ll be queuing for hours and then sleeping in the streets with the other drunkards. I can offer you a place for the night as well as an appointment with a smith. I’m bound across the river tomorrow for the Tourney. Vensk armourers are famed throughout the Easterealm. I can introduce you to a reputable man.’
‘How much?’ asked Farden.
Irien looked shocked. ‘I would not be a good host if I asked for your coin, now would I? Come now. Follow me, it’s not far.’
Sweeping her hand beneath the shawl, the Lady of Whispers thumped her way across the walkway in sturdy, heeled boots. Durnus was beginning to follow when Aspala held him back.
‘Do we trust this woman?’ she asked.
‘I don’t trust anybody,’ Mithrid muttered.
‘You said we need information, did you not? She might have it,’ Durnus said. ‘You heard her claim. Who better to ask?’
Farden was not convinced. ‘And who else better to know what we’re talking about, and want to tag along? Or worse?’
‘One night, Farden. She would be a fool to try anythin
g. She knows as little of us as we do of her.’
Farden was about to complain when an unusual wave of dizziness struck him. He sagged against the railing, making it groan. Mithrid grabbed him, but something about her touch worried him. He shrugged her away, accepting Aspala’s arm instead.
‘I’m fine. I’m fine,’ the mage muttered.
Irien called back to them. ‘Something the matter? I know all the finest healers and apothecaries if necessary.’
‘It won’t be, thank you,’ lied Farden as he stood upright again. His knees protested with two loud clicks. Thankfully it sounded like his armour had made the noise. These were not just the echoes of injuries, but aches and pains that had no reason or cause. Instead of healing over the last few days, his body was doing quite the opposite.
‘This way, strangers. Peace and quiet awaits.’
No longer able to argue with Mithrid’s narrowed stare, and leaning on Aspala more than he liked to admit, it was with muttered curses that Farden followed the Lady of Whispers back into the maelstrom of Dathazh, to gods knew what and where.
All Farden knew for sure was that something was deeply and worryingly wrong with him.
CHAPTER 12
VENGEANCE’S POISON
Compared to the elemental mages of the west, the magicks of the Easterealm are far subtler. It resides in the manipulation of the mind or the alteration of the self. It is coveted, held deep within religious orders or secret bloodlines.
FROM ‘THE COMPENDIONOMICORUS: A LIST OF ALL THINGS’
Three days had passed. Soldiers and Scarred alike spent it hunched in the farmhouse’s kitchen, holding their ears against the noise above, quivering with the horror.
The first day had been filled with roars of pain. The unfettered volume of a tortured man. Curses spewed from the farmhouse. Every god was cursed until their name became a guttural cry. Loki’s name most of all.
Every few hours, the shrieks of the scribes would rise to join the noise, until they were dragged away and thrown from the house. There they raved in the wilds until the madness burned their minds from their skull or they were taken by the gathered beasts.
By the second day, the roars had turned hoarse and desperate. Pleas to halt and for mercy replaced vehemence. When at last those calls went unanswered, the cursing began again as the sun fell; a screeching rage those present had never heard from a grown man before.
Farden.
Farden.
Farden!
The mage’s name was screamed at rafter and thatch until the creatures in the dark gathered beyond the farmhouse door. They had not left when the tattooing started, only grown in number.
Wolves howled to the ritual’s dirge. Trolls thumped their chests in a stuttering rhythm. Beasts of shadow raised their hands to the tortured night.
Silence fell upon the third day. Only those in the house were privy to the senseless babbling of a man drunk on pain and the poisons in his veins. The occasional yelp cut the air as the whalebone needles cut too deep, or the magick gripped too strong. Constant and disturbing was the tirade. Again and again, the mage’s name came, like a bell marking the hours of the sun.
When dawn came on the fourth day, the frozen scratch of earth and farm knew true silence. Not a sound emanated from its upstairs. Even the last scribe had fallen silent.
Loki had been there to listen to it all, avidly enduring.
He had not dared to witness the ritual. He had glimpsed through the crack of the door as often as he dared. Entered only to replace ink, daemonblood, a blunt whalebone needle, or a maddened, twitching scribe. Only once had Loki stood before Malvus and his work, and uttered the single word of, ‘More.’
Even gods were not immune to the work of the original Scribe, and the power he wrought in the Books of Written mages.
And so, in glimpses, Loki had watched a body broken and built again. Watched a soul crushed by pain, only to be lifted by power. He had not left the doorway except to fetch another scribe, or ink, or another needle to replace the blunt ones. He could not tear himself away if he had wanted to. Years of planning unfolded gradually before his wary eyes. And now, he stared upon his creation.
Malvus Barkhart was no longer the man he had been before. He was possibly no longer a man.
The door creaked as Loki entered. The squat room stank of blood and sweat and shit. A lone candle, close to death, gave it light. The last scribe was a limp heap on the floor. The man’s neck was still crushed in Malvus’ grip, several inches off the floor. A blanket soaked with blood and ink covered most of his body. Around his neck, Loki could glimpse the ragged, bleeding lines of script and runes. They stretched beneath the blanket and emerged again on his arm, reaching all the way down to his fingertips. The skin beneath was pale, sweaty, oozing with pus around the wounds the scribes had carved into him. There was now a bulk to him that didn’t exist before. The veins in his skin were swollen purple between the misshapen muscle. Bunched shoulders lay beneath the soiled blanket, swollen with magick and daemonblood. The bottles of it Loki had supplied lay either empty or smashed about the room. It seemed the daemonblood had lent as much to this new creation as the raw magick in the Books.
‘Malvus,’ Loki breathed.
Malvus heaved with an inhale, rising slightly. He turned to show Loki his cheek. It, too, was carved with script. Blood streaked his pallid skin. This was no Scarred. No Written. Not one, but five Books – including Farden’s – lay across his skin from thighs to arms. Another gamble on Loki’s part, but once more, it seemed the luck of the gods was with him. The others of Haven frowned on the power of luck. To Loki, it was as strong as magick.
‘I remember you,’ came the reply. Malvus’ voice had fallen several octaves while sounding like stone scraped against iron.
‘I should hope so,’ the god replied.
Another heaving breath. At last, with a crunch of bone, Malvus let go of the dead scribe. The corpse slumped to the floor.
‘What have you done to me?’
‘What you wanted. I gave you the power you’ve always wanted over Emaneska. The power of daemons. Of the greatest mages to ever walk these frozen lands. You are more powerful now than—’
Malvus arose shockingly quickly. His bulk cast a shadow over Loki as he turned. His bleeding, inked hand sought Loki’s throat. Loki could have moved, could have fended him off, but he stayed still. Malvus’ hand was simultaneously cold yet burning. The god could feel the magick coursing through the man’s every vein. The strength testing the bones and cartilage of Loki’s throat was of steel. Half of Loki wanted to cackle with accomplishment. Avoiding looking too long at the tattoos, Loki stared into Malvus’ eyes: bloodshot, swollen; a yellow iris staring back at him. There was more daemon to him than human.
‘Where is Farden?’ Malvus growled.
The single-mindedness of Malvus’ question caught Loki. He had expected questions. Complaints. Curses, at very least.
‘To the east. Far to the east,’ he replied.
‘How?’
‘Durnus took him there using a Weight.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because I planned it. And one who is with them – the Hâlorn girl – carries a token of mine. One that calls to me.’
‘The girl,’ Malvus intoned. He stared around the foul room. ‘She will die as well.’
‘Leave her to me.’
Malvus’ grip tightened. Loki tried to swallow and found he couldn’t. His throat bobbed against Malvus’ knuckles.
‘She will die for standing against me.’
Loki swallowed his complaints. He was wise enough to recognise an issue that didn’t need to be pressed. After all, the tool did not need to know what it was building, just merely to work.
‘She will die indeed,’ Loki affirmed. ‘But first we need to fetch armour and clothes for you. A weapon.’ If only to keep him from turning everything about him mad from magick, Loki thought.
Malvus released him. He flexed as if stretching new skin. Th
e muscles rippled across his shoulders. White light shimmered across the tattooed, bleeding runes, as Loki had seen in Farden’s Book once upon a time. However, here and there, some runes glowed a fierce red. Red as daemonblood. Waves of heat emanated from Malvus’ arms and shoulders. The magick in him fought to be free.
Loki finished rubbing his throat. ‘Shall we begin?’ he asked, gathering up the Hides of Hysteria before he forgot. The foul book’s weight faded into his coat.
Malvus dragged the blanket over his head like a makeshift cloak and said nothing. Loki forced a smile and wondered, just for a moment, whether he had made a rare mistake. A mortal error. Only time and spilled blood would tell.
After struggling to squeeze through the diminutive door built for peasants, Malvus took one look at the stairs and decided to break his way through the wall with his fists. Loki’s hair blew in the shockwaves from the magick in his fists. Fresh night air flooded into the rank atmosphere. Malvus dropped from the farmhouse. The shudder from his landing could be felt through the stairs. Loki hurried his way out into the cold night. The trellises and shadows were stirring. Wolves’ howls began to fill the air. Screeches and cries created a spine-chilling chorus.
Shoulders hunched and heaving, Malvus stretched to his full height. He would have rivalled Toskig had the fool of a general kept his mouth shut. To Loki’s intrigue, Malvus raised his voice too. It started as a growl and rose as a wretched roar in unison with the creatures that had come to worship the magick.
Loki watched the rivers of light in the sky above tremble as if shaken by his voice. Far to the north, thunder rolled as Irminsul spoke. It was as if it roared for its champion. A monster of pure magick and hatred.
The god watched Malvus test his bare feet on the snow. The frosted ground couldn’t break his skin. Faint steam came from wherever he stepped.
‘Do you know what the roots of your name mean, Malvus?’ Loki asked. The emperor looked at him over his shoulder. ‘In old Commontongue it means “hammer”. No longer do you have to rely solely on your silver tongue. Now, you are your name’s true meaning. Test your powers, Malvus Barkhart. Test the magick I’ve given you.’
