by Ben Galley
‘Tired, is all.’
‘You don’t seem yourself.’
‘As you told me yesterday,’ he said, with no malice in his voice.
‘I was tired,’ she whispered. ‘I didn’t mean it. Now that Malvus has survived, I feel so much pressure on us to succeed my entire being is focused on it. Not Loki. Malvus. That’s why when I see you endanger this quest, I can’t understand why, and it grates me.’
‘You’ll see, Mithrid,’ Farden said. ‘You’ll see why I do what I do. This is why I never wanted to put this on your shoulders. This life of being a hero is no life to lead.’
‘And yet I want it. I feel that’s my calling. You said you’ve never been one for believing in a god of fate. And that something brought me to Scalussen. Irminsul is not all I can do. I know it.’
The mage took a moment to hover a hand over her shoulder as if to say thank you, but he merely nodded and walked on.
Mithrid watched him go, mentally railing against everything he had said. She wanted that life. Desperately.
Aspala was standing beside her. ‘Trust him, Mithrid. We have to trust him,’ she said. ‘Are you going to talk to him about Loki’s knife?’
Mithrid flashed her a look as if to tell her to shut up. She had forgotten about the damned knife. ‘I’ll tell him. If it means anything at all.’
‘I get the impression whatever Loki does is not at random, and all for Loki’s gain.’
A traitorous thought popped into her mind. It had not been the first time she had considered whether Loki was the villain everybody hailed him as.
Irien summoned them with a clap of her hands. ‘Out into the world we go, friends! You will soon see why Vensk is famed the world over.’
In the light of day, their surroundings looked stranger and more unfamiliar than they should. The fire of torches and lanterns had died at dawn, and now the sunlight showed them a different city. One that seemed in the grip of a mass, if not colourful and cheery, exodus.
Every crowd had coalesced as one, filling each of the plain streets like floodwater. Where last night they had been full of revelry and debauchery, today they all shared one goal. One direction, to be precise. Vensk. With so many people trying to move at once the pace was slow, but unchanging. Fortunately, they passed the time by blowing horns, hammering drums, and throwing handful after handful of red and orange petals into the air.
Irien had a number of guards in wooden armour waiting beyond her door. They held a perimeter around them to fend off the more excitable members of the crowd. They raised their fists and roared. Some screamed. Others appeared to be having fits of excitement as their group passed by. Mithrid saw one man perched on another man’s shoulders. He was practically naked, covered only with paint. On his back was drawn the crude likeness of a fighter ahead of them. Mithrid had seen them from above: the contenders of the Tourney. Their retinues ranged from dozens to hundreds. Some had their own musical bands. Some warriors sat astride beasts while others marched amongst hosts of guards.
Irien pointed them out one by one.
‘There we have Hrishnash of the Huskar. She is a famed krasilisk hunter. Ahead of her is the curiously named Night Knight. Her people come from a place of caves and caverns. There, you see the plumes of purple ostrich feathers? Rovisk Dal’Bvara. He is last year’s champion and a favourite to win again this year. He is the son of a past champion from the southeast, nephew of a warlord. Whispers tell me he’s killed a hundred men with his bare hands and never been beaten in a fight. He is Queen Peskora’s favourite.’
Mithrid tried to pronounce the mouthful of a name Irien had spoken. Her gaze found Rovisk’s retinue between the crowds. The man stood atop a dais that was supported by a whole swathe of sweating servants. Rovisk was shirtless, painted in colours of turquoise and purple. His southern skin shone with gold dust and oil. Between flexing his muscles, he stared leeringly at his adoring fans, of which their seemed to be countless numbers. Mithrid wasn’t sure why, but she realised her lip was curled.
‘Makes quite the impression, doesn’t he?’ Irien smirked. ‘Some fight for others. Some fight for their country. He fights for himself.’
Farden was not impressed. ‘Looks like a buffoon. I’ve seen plenty like him. No brains but plenty of brawn to throw about.’
Irien explained the Tourney as they slowly paced their way alongside the crowds.
‘The Scarlet Tourney is the culmination of three events, or seasons of the year. The three champions of those tourneys are given automatic entry to the Scarlet Tourney. The rest either fight their way in or pay for their places. A hundred Golikan gold leaves to enter. Otherwise you find a patron who pays for you. There’s a lot of gold and fame to be made as a patron. They take a share of the bets made. That’s why smart fighters bid on themselves, just in case. It’s not uncommon for patrons to take half or more of the winnings. As you said, Farden: brawn, not brains.’
‘And if we want to place a bet? asked Durnus.
‘You don’t look the gambling kind, Durnus,’ Mithrid answered.
‘When you have lived as long as I have, you get good at gambling, my dear.’
‘You will see huts and stalls around the Viscera. Any of the bet-takers baring the Golikan flag are legitimate. There are plenty more that aren’t. Wherever there is coin to be made, a bet will be taken. If you should change your mind about fighting, you have until the second day to enter.’
At last, they reached the bridge. Wide enough for three fighters and their retinues, the bridge was made of stone that looked foreign to the clay of Dathazh. It wore the scars of old battles beneath the streamers and flower garlands and crowds of colourful people. At every one of its pillars, one of the infuriating nests of trumpets sat. Now even closer to them, their notes made Mithrid wince.
Over the walls of the bridge, she could see boats and barges covering the silty water. Flocks of green pigeons and doves scattered between their squat masts and giant flags. There wasn’t a ship in sight, owing to the height of the bridge, but the barges of the river were bigger in length and width.
Irien was divulging all manner of history and gossip of the two cities. Durnus and Farden paid attention, but Mithrid found her attention wandering. Particularly to the fringes of Golikar, and the city at the end of the bridge.
‘…the bridge itself is called Ogin’s Ford. Or the Og, as the bargemen call it. Three miles long, it spans the River Torsa from city to city. Vensk, like most cities in Golikar, is built in both on the ground and in the trees.’
And what trees they were.
Even at that distance, Mithrid’s neck was struggling to take them all in. The colossal pines stretched up, blade-like, scoring the sky jagged. Their boughs were as thick as roads, bursting with foliage. Their needles and bark were a lush green and brown, the exact colours of the Golikan flags that fluttered above Mithrid’s head. The gardener in Mithrid was entranced. She did not know trees could grow so large.
The trees soon towered over them. The city of Vensk sprawled in two directions: across the riverbank and up through the forest’s boughs. It gave the city an hourglass shape. It reminded Mithrid of Troughwake, and the way their cottages had clung to the cliffs. In Vensk, spherical buildings of wood and leaf thatch sprouted from the trunks and branches. Walkways hung suspended from cables spread like cobwebs between the giant pines. Lifts of complicated pulleys played a constant game with each other of how much cargo they could hoist and lower and how fast. Citizens filled every balcony and walkway she could see. They cheered just as loudly. The keen wail of wooden pipes joined the trumpets. The blasted things were now following behind the fighters. All one hundred of them were now upon the bridge.
As they crossed the threshold of the riverbank, petals rained like an impromptu blizzard. They had a perfume Mithrid had never known. Coins scattered underfoot, thrown by richer fighters to make the peasants scramble. Several Vensk women even held their infant children up high so that some of the fighters might touch or bless their
spawn. Beggars sprawled on mats or hopping on crutches reached just to be seen by their heroes. More and more, Mithrid noticed a mania to the crowds. She saw plenty pointed ears, too, presumably a sign of Golikan blood.
‘Welcome to Vensk,’ she was saying. ‘Oldest city in Golikar. Not the biggest, mind, but fine enough. The Queen Peskora of Golikar resides here for half the year. A distant cousin of mine, as it happens.’
‘Lady of Whispers!’ crowed a tall man dressed in black feathers. Irien spared a moment to greet him over the arms of her guards.
Durnus and the others were meanwhile fascinated by the rust-brown branches that reached over them, two hundred feet above or more. She didn’t blame them. Mithrid could hardly help but stare either. That was until a petal poked her in the eye.
Mithrid found that Farden was the only one distracted. He was looking towards the distant echoes of a hammer and anvil. Irien had finished with her friend and had noticed the same look on the mage’s face.
‘Where did you get your armour, might I ask?’ she asked him.
Farden jumped as if he had forgotten they were there. He spoke as they walked, barely audible over the crowd’s roar.
‘Gathered over years. Took a lot of time. A lot of struggle. A lot of blood.’
‘Understandable. I’ve known entire dowries given for a full suit of old Scalussen armour. Even the new Scalussen armour is fine work that no doubt would fetch plenty of coin.’ Irien’s gleaming eyes crept to Mithrid’s armour. Black steel trimmed with gold and crimson to match her axe.
‘This, though.’ Irien’s wooden finger poked at the intricate design of the lone wolf on Farden’s breastplate, between the damaged scales. Mithrid was surprised how still he stayed, merely giving her a narrow-eyed look, no doubt trying to figure her out.
‘This is unlike any armour I have seen. The motif alone is unusual. Scalussen designs are normally plainer, elegant in their simplicity. Decorations are reserved for runes and whorls. If it had any magick in it, the collector in me might assume—’
‘Lucky me,’ Farden cut the sentence dead. ‘Where is the smith you mentioned. Can he work with this kind of metal or just the wooden armour Golikans wear?’
Irien laughed. ‘What do you take me for? I know everybody in the twin cities. My recommendations are worth gold.’
Mithrid decided to test her. She pointed at a man standing at the edge of the procession. He looked officious enough in his patterned robes of Golikan green. ‘Who’s that then?’
‘Somebody not worth knowing,’ Irien replied with a wink.
Mithrid was curious. ‘You can sense magick, then?’
‘Your magick in the west, at least, has a certain… edge to it. I have never found the word to describe it, but I can feel it like a cold draught.’
‘I understand that completely.’
‘Where is this smith, then?’ asked Farden in an impatient tone.
Once more, Irien laughed him off. ‘Have a little more patience, Farden, we are close.’
Mithrid chuckled with her, and found herself staring up once more at the branches and the falling petals in wonder.
“Close” was another hour of the procession weaving its way deeper into the tangled nest of Vensk.
The further into the city they walked, the fainter daylight became. Where the foundations of tree trunks were at their thickest and strongest, a grand city of thin spires and globular buildings had been built. The core of Vensk perched upon a great platform between the huge pines. It towered upwards to rival their tips. From its body of palaces and halls, swathes of buildings reached out and clustered around trunks. The architecture was everything Dathazh refused to be. There wasn’t a straight line to be found. Every arch and roof and walkway flowed together. Even the sparse sections of clay and stone Mithrid spied was shaped and carved.
She was just pondering what damage a lone fire might do to this city when they crested a rise in the thoroughfare and looked upon the Viscera.
The Viscera hung beneath the city’s centre. It had the appearance of an enormous dead spider on its back with its legs curled inwards. Its fat bulbous body was the Viscera itself, black and brown. Its foundations and walkways reached upwards and peered into the arena. Beneath the Viscera was a dark layer of buildings that pierced its belly. Smoke and commotion alike poured from that area. They were too far away to make up much detail, but Mithrid saw swathes of fighting yards, animal cages, kitchens, armourers, and bulbous clockwork machinery that the Viscera needed for some reason. It reminded her of the forge beneath the Frostsoar.
This was where the procession split. The fighters continued on to the Viscera’s bowels while the gamblers, spectators and large retinues made their way into the walkways and towards their seats in the arena.
‘Your choice, friends,’ Irien said. ‘We can join the others to watch the beginning of the Tourney, or find a smith within the Viscera’s staging areas.’
Farden was already drifting after the fighters. Several guards had gone with him. ‘You go on,’ he said to the others. ‘I will see about the smith. I have seen enough fighting to last more lifetimes than my own. I don’t need to choose it.’
Aspala, who had been even quieter and shade paler than usual that morning, edged after him. ‘I wish to see somebody about my sword, as it happens.’
Warbringer bowed her head and horns as if to agree.
Irien put a finger to her lips in thought. ‘You will need me. Durnus, Mithrid, you can follow my guards. They will lead you to my private seating area. The Queen of Golikar will present the Head of Sigrimur shortly.’
Durnus pushed his black spectacles down his nose. ‘Be safe, mage. If you could refrain from making any more enemies for us, that would be preferred.’
Irien bowed in mock grandeur. ‘I will keep a close eye on him, Durnus, fear not!’
After the others, she swept, leaving Mithrid and the vampyre to press on with the spectators.
‘And how are you this morning, Durnus? I forgot to ask.’ Mithrid made conversation.
‘My head is heavy with wine, I shall admit,’ he replied. Even as he spoke, he took Mithrid’s arm and leaned upon it. ‘And my body is weak with all this walking and lack of… sustenance.’
Mithrid gave him a sidelong glance. ‘By sustenance, you mean the vampyre thing? Blood.’ she whispered.
Durnus shook his head with a smirk. ‘Yes, the vampyre thing. I do not see you this disturbed when Warbringer eats.’
‘It’s different. You don’t look like a… I forget what you are half the time.’ Even when she saw his fangs, it took her a moment.
‘That is what makes my kind so dangerous,’ he joked. ‘But alas, unlike the minotaur, I cannot eat anything else to sate my hunger.’
‘Do you need to eat now?’
‘Not yet,’ Durnus breathed wistfully. ‘What fills my mind is my concern for Farden. Without his armour’s spell, the man only weakens rather than strengthens. If I did not know better, I would guess he is the vampyre of this group. Not to mention the lack of his magick. It puts us all in danger.’
‘I have been wondering if it’s my fault,’ Mithrid confessed. ‘What if I did something to him or his armour in Scalussen? Before you pulled us out of the fire?’
‘And into the frying pan, it would seem.’ Durnus thought for a moment before patting her forearm. ‘I think not, child. And if I am wrong, then I have seen Farden lose more than his magick and still walk away the victor. Give him trust and time. Perhaps distraction will help him.’
‘Do you mean the Viscera or the Lady of Whispers?’
Durnus cackled along with her.
‘Too busy. Sorry!’ barked the portly chap.
Irien flexed her wooden arm. ‘You and I both know there is no such thing as too busy to an entrepreneurial soul such as yours, Krugis.’
‘It’s the damn Tourney week, Lady Irien! Not some treetop noble wanting to re-armour his guards.’
‘Again, you present this as a problem, and yet i
t’s your fault for producing such wonderful work, Krugis. I can’t be held responsible for that.’
For a brief moment, Farden watched the flattery wear down the portly smith’s puckered face. A yell from another nearby forge snapped him out of it.
‘No! No more favours,’ Krugis yelled in a whining pitch.
Irien leaned over his workbench, to her credit enduring the spittle on her cheek. ‘A whisper for you then, Krugis. Hmm? I happen to know Queen Peskora is looking for a new ceremonial suit for her eldest son. The handsome one, not the newest inbred mutt she parades around. I can have your name added to the royal list. You know how well they pay. Open two new forges, kind of well.’
‘Damn it, Irien!’ Krugis threw his hammer down, startling the hound that slept beneath the bench. ‘What do you need?’
Aspala held up her golden blade. ‘This sword reforged.’
‘Is that it?’ spluttered the smith.
Thunk.
Piece by piece, Farden lay his helmet, gauntlets and vambraces on the workbench. The smith’s eyes widened in increments as if they were being cranked open.
‘Ever heard of Scalussen armour before?’ asked the mage.
The man’s heavy brows grew heavier as he fixed Farden with a glower. ‘The lady should have told you; I’m not like these other smiths. Bloody shields and spears are all they’re good for.’
Irien was dabbing at her cheek with a kerchief. ‘I told him.’
‘Then can you work with it?’
Krugis’ sooty fingers picked up the vambrace, examining it reverently and from angle after angle. ‘What happened, you throw it down the Rainmaker? I… this looks melted here, too. You know how hot a fire has to be to melt Scalussen armour? Either you’ve got yourself a fake or you had a run-in with a dragon.’
‘No fake, sir,’ Farden answered.
The smith smudged dark streaks across his face as he blew out more spittle and a deep sigh. ‘I… I could work with it. Unpin and reforge the scales, if that’s even possible on this cuirass. The helmet is tricky…’
