Heavy Lies The Crown (The Scalussen Chronicles Book 2)

by Ben Galley

  ‘Fame and glory and power, is it?’ Farden smirked.

  Mithrid snapped her fists shut.

  After a moment, the mage patted the knife at his side. Mithrid stared at it while he spoke.

  ‘I will train you. Axes are best for Eyrum, but I still know some tricks,’ Farden said. ‘How is everyone faring? I forget to ask sometimes, with my head so full.’ It was a clumsy change of subject, but Mithrid was glad for it. He had seen too deeply into her mind.

  She sucked her teeth. ‘Aspala is fine. Warbringer complained she didn’t get to crack more skulls in the Viscera.’

  ‘Classic minotaur.’

  ‘Durnus seems in good spirits. Better than I’ve seen him so far. He bounces back fast, for being thousands of years old. I guess it’s his… diet?’

  Farden sighed. ‘Something like that.’

  ‘What’s going on between you two? There’s been a scowl on one of you since the first night of the Tourney.’

  ‘Bad blood,’ Farden said. There must have been some inner joke that the mage snorted at. Mithrid didn’t get it. All the conversation had given her was unease. She had expected their time in Vensk would lay to rest some of the needles in her mind. She saw now that wasn’t the case.

  Their worries voiced and in doing so their edges blunted, the two looked out over the rolling hills of green grass and white flowers. The coast cut them to a savage edge barely ten miles or so from where they sat. The coastline looked like a child’s frivolous cutting of a cake, sawing back and forth in peaks and troughs. The village was a sprawl of a dozen shacks along a chalky road.

  As they stared, Fleetstar came swooping low across the vista. She cared not for the cries of the village. She swung above, and Mithrid could see the shark in her mouth as plain as the sun. Seawater and blood fell like rain.

  ‘That bloody dragon,’ Farden chuckled drily.

  ‘Why do they call her the Mad Dragon?’

  ‘Have you ever noticed how the dragons speak a certain formal way? That they follow tradition to the letter, and bow graciously to their Old Dragon?’

  ‘I have, yes.’

  ‘Well, Fleetstar does none of that. She does what she wants when she wants, as you might have seen. Nerilan has called her a child of Scalussen rather than of Nelska. The dragon population was growing until the war, but riders are still hard to come by. Takes a specific mind. Shivertread, Kinsprite, they’re a younger generation but they follow the rules. They’ll take a rider one day. Fleetstar is different. Individual. A lone wolf rather than a pack animal, and so they call her the Mad Dragon. Besides, Roiks taught her to swear, which Nerilan thinks is too human a trait.’

  ‘Talking about them makes me wonder what the others are doing now.’

  ‘Busy, it seems.’ Farden knocked his fists together as he got up. ‘And so we should be. Time is wasting, now more than ever.’

  The sausages were dry, tough as boots, but edible. They chewed in silence, watching Fleetstar roasting pieces of her shark as she ate them. The dragon didn’t share.

  With their wounds dressed, the complaints of their stomachs quietened, and their flasks full of fresh water, they left the copse in a hail of leaves and twigs. Fleetstar seemed as eager to keep moving as the rest of them.

  The hills of green grass blurred beneath them. Rings of old forts long conquered to rubble sat on the tops of the higher thrusts. Fleetstar weaved between their ruins, scaring peasants in fields, or skinny children tending flocks of galloping persnippen. Whatever had happened here long ago, a simple bucolic life had taken over. It was peaceful to watch such lands slide by.

  Fleetstar followed the coastline, sometimes dipping below the cliffs to skim the whitecaps. Cliff-villages like that of Hâlorn huddled between crags, or hung from outcrops in baskets and ropes.

  Miles fell away behind them. As did the sun, bringing with it a mist from the sea. It folded over the clifftops like a blanket of cotton pulled tight. The dragon’s wings drew whorls in it.

  Either Farden called for a halt or Fleetstar decided she was tired. Just as Mithrid’s eyes were drooping, the dragon lurched into a descent towards a ruin reduced to a simple circle of stone blocks, head high. One solitary wall clung to the past and rose above the ruin. A square window looked both ways across the darkening grassland. Fleetstar chose a corner and immediately curled up, breathing hard from the effort of carrying them. She kept one cerulean eye open as the others made camp.

  Mithrid was so used to a day of speed that the ground felt jarring. She tottered about, kicking feeling into her legs.

  Durnus flexed his magick to light a fire of wood they’d taken from the copse. Mithrid’s fingers tingled in its presence, and she had to hold herself back from reaching for it.

  ‘Must have travelled another three hundred miles today,’ Durnus said.

  Farden cackled harshly at that. ‘You were asleep the whole time, how would you know?’

  ‘Not asleep. Concentrating on the riddle.’

  ‘Doomriddle,’ Farden snorted. The mage sat himself down by the fire as it began to burn brightly. After taking off his gauntlets, he found a fist-sized piece of wood in the pile, took Loki’s knife from his pocket, and began to carve it.

  After snaffling up a handful more of the raw sausage links from the haversack, Warbringer beat her chest. The minotaur would eat her way through their supplies before they found another butcher. ‘Come now, fire-haired girl. Let us fight. Others too tired, look.’

  Mithrid didn’t expect to be granted her wish so early. Her arse cheeks hurt and her spine had taken on an impressive ache after an entire day sat on a dragon. At least Ilios had feathers and fur to sit on instead of stone-like hide.

  ‘Er…’

  Warbringer nudged her with her hoof. ‘Up. No rest in war.’

  ‘Well…’

  Mithrid jumped back as the minotaur threw a hand at her. Claws thumped her on the arm, almost knocking her off-balance.

  ‘Remember your training, Mith,’ Aspala whispered. One of her eyes was propped open.

  Mithrid thought back to the cold days upon the training yards, with Eyrum barking orders in her ear. And Hereni, catching her glances to the mage recruits.

  Warbringer chided her with another cuff. ‘Concentrate, pink-flesh. Too many minds in here.’

  She no doubt meant to be gentle, but she rapped Mithrid’s skull with a blunt claw, leaving the girl to pout and rub her scalp.

  ‘Act. Don’t think.’

  Durnus held up a finger. ‘That is not entirely the best strat—’

  Warbringer silenced him with an angry snuffle. ‘Owing you a blood pact not mean you are right, grey-skin.’

  Mithrid settled into a stance and squeezed the handle of the axe in both fists. ‘Don’t you dare put me in that hammer of yours.’

  Warbringer grinned sharp teeth before charging.

  Mithrid had seen her fight in the Viscera. She knew the speed that hid in the minotaur’s muscles as well as the strength. Mithrid knew she moved at half-speed, but even that was terrifying. Mithrid felt as green as she had her first and only time in Efjar.

  Voidaran moaned as it sailed past her head. Mithrid had dodged just in time. Mithrid knocked the hammer away with her axe and circled the minotaur. She feinted for a strike and switched direction last moment. The trick failed. The minotaur grabbed the haft of Mithrid’s axe and twisted her to the ground.

  ‘Everybody expects first lie. Second lie, no.’ The minotaur showed her, feinting like Mithrid had. The girl went to block the switch in direction, but Warbringer feigned again. Voidaran rested against Mithrid’s ribs.

  ‘Again!’

  The clang of their weapons was a constant music between the ring of stones. The others watched. Even Farden, from his growing halo of wood shavings.

  Warbringer’s blows became harder each one that landed. Mithrid soon started to fear each swing as if it were real. The minotaur pressed her back and forth across the grass until Mithrid was drenched in sweat.

>   ‘A sword is still faster,’ said Aspala, now far more awake. She stretched her sore bones as she sauntered over. Warbringer sat to eat while the Paraian began to circle Mithrid. ‘Fast as a knife in most hands.’

  In a gradual and almost ceremonial motion, Aspala handed Mithrid her golden sword. The scimitar was much lighter than she had expected. Perfectly balanced.

  Aspala turned her back, arms wide. ‘Try to cut my throat like Savask tried to do to you.’

  Mithrid tried to grab the woman as a captive: one hand wrapped around her neck, and the sword menacing her throat. Aspala walked her through the steps in brutal efficiency, trapping Mithrid’s sword-hand with one of hers, reached over to seize her collar, and shifting her weight down. No sooner had Mithrid’s feet left the ground was she sprawling on it.

  ‘Good trick,’ she wheezed.

  Aspala took back her sword and helped Mithrid to her feet. ‘Might save your life one day,’ she said with a wink of her mahogany eye.

  Mithrid nodded as she tried to catch her breath.

  ‘Allow me,’ Farden said, drawing one of his borrowed Cathak swords and flourishing it in a figure of eight. Mithrid nodded and took as strong a stance as her dizzy head could muster.

  Farden came at her with a simple cut. Mithrid blocked the mage’s blade, but he reached over the arch of her axe to touch her on the shoulder. The girl hooked the sword away and swung a punch for Farden. She knew she had missed the moment his sword rang against the back of her cuirass. The blunt edge of the Cathak steel came near to her neck.

  ‘You can get closer with a sword,’ Farden lectured. ‘More nimble. Deft.’

  He twisted the sword in his hand and managed to land two blows on her arms before she could even shrug.

  Mithrid’s patience cracked. She tensed the muscle of her mind, spewing shadow from her spare hand. It enveloped Farden, and with the back of her axe, she swung for his legs to teach him a trick of her own.

  Her axe stopped dead, shaking her hands from it and sending her sprawling. When her shadow cleared, Farden’s boot had pinned the axe blade to the grass.

  ‘Seventy years teaches you a thing or two.’ He smirked before handing her axe back to her.

  Durnus was pushing himself up. ‘And several thousand teaches you a few more.’ He rolled a sleeve as his fingers began to shine green with force magick. It seemed to take him some concentration that Mithrid hadn’t seen before.

  ‘If you are all helping her then so shall I! You must hone all your skills, Mithrid, and that means magick—’

  ‘No!’ Farden blurted, levelling his sword against the vampyre’s spell. With the magick fizzling against the steel, he lowered Durnus’ hand. ‘Not tonight, I mean.’

  Mithrid narrowed her eyes. ‘Why not?’

  Her question went unanswered, but she caught Durnus whispering to Farden. ‘Your worries are unfounded, mage. Do not take me for a novice.’

  ‘You dare do anything to her…’ Mithrid heard him warn.

  So it was that she felt a slight shade of unease as Durnus stepped into their makeshift training circle, marked by the clods Voidaran and her axe had carved from the grass.

  ‘What schools of magick have you faced so far? Though my preference has been the subtler arts of space and healing magick, I know most.’

  ‘Fire, force. Spark magick, too.’

  ‘Something more tangible, perhaps.’ Durnus weaved a shape above his open palm. Frosty light traced his movements. Mist swirled until a shard of glacier white ice coalesced in his palm. It shot out, smashing into the broken wall behind her.

  Durnus had produced another shard and was spinning it around his fist.

  Mithrid eagerly reached to strangle the spell. Shadow coursed around her forearms or stretched tentatively into the air. For some reason, the magick was difficult to seize. Slippery as the ice it formed.

  Durnus unleashed the shard, and though it tumbled past her, her shadow did little to stop it.

  ‘Stop this kind of spell at the source, like fighting the archer, not the arrow,’ he said. He slid his hands apart and fashioned a short blade of ice.

  Mithrid tensed. She had to close the distance between them to grasp the magick. Though Durnus blamed the spell, she blamed herself. She felt rusty, though once she had ahold of the spell, she felt a fierce desire to crush it. The instinct did not feel like her own, but the feel of her power overpowering the vampyre’s was stirring.

  Durnus turned his cheek as the ice shard broke apart in his hand. He shook his arm as if he had trapped a finger in a door.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Unharmed, miss, thank you,’ answered Durnus, voice wavering. ‘Let’s try again.’

  ‘I think we should rest. Keep trying tomorrow,’ Farden interjected. ‘There’s still so much we don’t understand about Mithrid’s power. What it draws from. Her potential. Her control.’

  ‘I can control it.’

  ‘Mith,’ Aspala whispered.

  Farden bunched his jaw. ‘Enough.’

  ‘So now you want to be a leader?’ she challenged him.

  The mage took a step towards her. Mithrid clutched her axe close.

  It was Fleetstar raising her head, eyes snapping open, that halted their argument. She stared past them, to a gap in the ring of stone, where a man in a shabby coat had emerged from the mist. He was spinning a dagger around one hand, shielding his hands against the firelight with the other. Several others in similar patchwork clothing gathered behind him.

  ‘A fine and cotton-headed evening to you travellers! How fortunate for you the Gentlemen Thieves have found you rather than another, lesser brand of criminal. Well, well, what have we here…?’

  The bandit’s voice trailed off as he saw exactly what he had before him. His dagger halted mid twirl.

  Mithrid watched his peering gaze drag itself from the shine of their armour to the vampyre, who ignited two spitting fireballs in his hands. His next clue was Warbringer and Aspala pushing themselves from the fireside. The minotaur cast a horned shadow across the Gentleman Thieves.

  If that wasn’t enough reason, Fleetstar reared up, shining almost emerald in the yellow flames.

  The bandit sketched a quick bow. ‘You know, haha…’ he said, laughing cheerily. ‘I do believe we have the wrong campfire.’

  His fellow bandits nodded profusely, tutting at their own stupidity.

  ‘These ruins look all the same. Common mistake! Haha, well. We are immensely sorry to have disturbed you and we’ll be on our way,’ the bandit said with a salute. ‘You have yourselves a fine evening.’

  It was Aspala who began to laugh first, as she settled awkwardly back down in the grass.

  ‘The wrong campfire, indeed.’

  The mirth spread, next to Warbringer. Durnus quenched his spells and showed his fangs. Even Fleetstar uttered a hissing chuckle. Their laughter rang out across the hills.

  ‘Rest, you fools. There will be time for testing ourselves soon, I’m sure,’ Farden said, as he kicked some stones from his chosen resting place.

  Mithrid sat hunched by the fire to eat as the others spoke of old fights and crossings with bandits. While those around her slowly fell asleep, one by one, she clenched and relaxed her fist over and over, spinning black threads around her fingers in ever more complicated patterns.

  They found their mountain shortly after dawn. Or, more accurately, what was left of it.

  Farden had roused them before sunrise. They complained and muttered, but it was inevitable. Half-lit mist spiralled around the draughts of the dragon’s wings as they flew towards the glow of the unbroken dawn.

  Mithrid stared over the dragon’s flanks. Between the threads of fog, she could see the beginnings of marshes and wetlands. Smaller, almost conical mounds poked through the mist banks. More burial barrows. Faint blue lights faded in and out between them.

  ‘Ghosts, Mithrid,’ Aspala explained over the rush of wind. ‘Souls. They wander the desert just the same.’

  D
urnus, his eyes hidden by his dark spectacles, called back to them. ‘Barrow wights, as Hereni would call them. The land she came from is plagued by them. Souls who have not been put to rest by fire, and so are forced to wander until their remains are put on a pyre.’

  The vampyre stared at the ghosts just as avidly as Mithrid did. In Troughwake, ghosts had been a myth and fairytale. Of sailors drowned, calling others to the depths. Bogran had sworn he had seen one once. Mithrid had never believed him.

  Other sights distracted her. Curving bones that rivalled the gates of Lilerosk. These were no ogin, but something perhaps even larger. Something of four legs than two. It looked as if the creatures had come to die together in great numbers. Great tusks still stood upright from their mass graves.

  Dawn’s amber light hurt Mithrid’s eyes after the gloom. Black and ominous against the new sun, she saw the mountain.

  In Troughwake, beetles often gnawed at the furniture. They had the annoying habit of gnawing into the legs of chairs or tables, until one day they would topple over, sending plates, vittles, and occupants flying.

  So it was with this peak. Although Mithrid paled to think what size of beetle or creature could have done such a thing to a whole mountain, at some point in the past it had toppled over. Its jagged black slopes had gone from vertical to horizontal. Its summit now thrust out into the ocean like the bowsprit of a ship. Below, the relentless sea ate away at the mountain’s corpse.

  ‘That’s a drowning giant if I’ve ever seen one!’ Mithrid shouted.

  ‘Drowned, I would say. Two thousand years have passed since Sigrimur.’

  Farden pushed Fleetstar closer to the mountain than Mithrid thought wise. The mist had been burned away by the light of the dawn. There were scattered towns along the clifftops, and deeper to the north, where white mountains crested the horizon. Durnus shouted down to the dragon’s claws, where Farden and Warbringer dangled.

  Fleetstar, barely rested after yesterday’s flight, had no complaints. Although the ground still squelched underfoot, she had saved them a slow trek through the marshes. A sloping swathe of wind-bent grass led an undulating path to the drowned mountain. Now that its rooftops were framed against the yellow morning sky, Mithrid could see a town perched on the mountains northern slope.