by Ben Galley
Mithrid wasted no breath. She put her numb legs to the sand of the boundless landscape and started walking. Her mind was just as numb as her limbs, and though they gradually awoke with use, no amount of concentration could make sense of her mind. The dawn burned a glare into her left eye as she stared at the rippling horizon.
Not a shout chased her. Only the others, walking in single file and matching silence. Although their purpose was clear, their time was no doubt shortening by the second now they travelled by foot. Mithrid felt it. The few times she spared a glance for the north, the others were staring too, where a dark, distant band of a sandstorm lingered. Farden faced ahead, a concerned look on his face that Mithrid neither wanted nor needed. No doubt he had some lesson for her. Some apology or explanation that changed nothing. She knew the best medicine for death: blood.
Mithrid was growing to realise that was her fate. The reasons came with each stomp across the sands. Not glory, but death. To either take lives or have them snuffed out around her. Her father. Remina. Littlest. Inwick. Modren. And now Aspala. The old friend of blame tried to sink its fangs into her, but they were blunted. The mirrors were right: she would see the world burn again for them. That was what they deserved and what she owed them.
Under her punishing pace and an even more torturous sun, they surged through the dunes and white salt flats, where the heat made illusions of lakes all around them. By noon the landscape was growing rugged again. Red sands grew striped with yellow, and then blue, until they walked a rainbow path. Scrub bushes hunkered low in rifts and hollows, as if wilted and baked in the heat. Their purple flowers held no distraction for any of them, even Mithrid.
Not a beast dared brave the heat as they did. A few hawks and vultures paraded above, but not a track but theirs disturbed the sand. The night, however, held all manner of life. Harsh noises and scampering shadows kept their necks sore from turning. Mithrid saw nothing bigger than a wolf. Even then, she did not break pace, holding her axe out low and her hands clawed around shadow.
And still, not a word broke their mourning or exhausted silence. Not a pause to their headlong journey. Even Farden, who looked half-crippled and switched between riding Fleetstar and walking, stayed silently plodding. The mage’s eyes were still clamped on the southern horizon. Durnus’ head was bowed, but Mithrid glimpsed his glowering eyes, yellow and red in the light of a second dawn.
‘Are we close, Durnus?’ Warbringer asked. Her back was bent beneath her hammer. Sand clung to every patch of her hair and skin.
Durnus refused to meet their looks. Instead, he looked to the pursuing storm in the north. It now swept from east to west, bruised dark. ‘I hope so,’ he muttered.
They had no supplies to cook, no inkweld to scour, and nothing but the armour and clothes on their backs and the few flagons of water they had stolen while rushing through Belerod’s camp. Wasting their lead by halting made no sense to any of them, and the decision went unspoken for another whole day, until the third dawn brought them a peculiar chill wind.
The rainbow sands had long faded to burgundy and now grey. Almost black. The sharp heat dulled with it. Clouds streaked the sky, their bottoms dark and heavy. The meagre sun that fell between them brought no heat. It was bliss compared to the sweltering desert and the labour of walking.
The clouds above slowly thickened. The smell of salt came with the wind. The grey land rose up to what looked like the crest of a hill. Black rocks of granite and volcanic glass poked from the sands in scattered, angled shards, like spears against a charging horde. They slipped between them with ease and climbed the ridge of grit. There, the snow began to fall, turning afternoon to evening. Sleet, to be more accurate, so cold it felt like it sliced Mithrid’s hot cheeks.
As Mithrid reached the crest of the hill, she realised it was no hill at all. The pounding of waves grew thunderous as she approached a sheer drop down to a shattered beach of razor rocks and sea-spray. The grey waters were wrapped in the sleet, but from the size of the waves that rolled from the ether, Mithrid felt the trepidation of standing on the precipice of the world.
A sharp ridge of rocks defied the waters to reach a tall turret of stone that braved the ocean’s onslaught. She got the impression more of it had once existed. The island’s sides had been eaten and hollowed by waves, leaving a crooked castle to perch precariously above the maelstrom. Ruins lay crumbled and fallen into the water. Not a single light or flame glowed in the ruin. It looked haunted, never mind deserted.
A crash of armour sounded behind her as Farden fell from the Mad Dragon’s side. Mithrid didn’t move to help, but before Warbringer could reach him, he had crawled upright. Farden looked like death: haggard in the cheeks. Yet more silver had found its way into his jet hair. The bruises of the north still had yet to fade. His hands, free of their gauntlets, were of scrunched paper. Each scar was a purple welt. His nails broken and grey.
He stumbled to the edge to stare at the castle, wordless for some time while he propped himself up on his stolen sword.
‘Is this it? Is this what we’ve struggled for?’ Farden asked. His voice sounded thin.
‘Died for,’ Mithrid corrected him. Hers was little more than a dusty croak. He levelled a glare at her.
‘Azanimur. The Sword of the Elves,’ Durnus breathed. ‘Ivald’s forge.’
‘At fucking last.’
With no more to add, the mage made his way back down the slope, his boots crunching in the half-settled snow and dun grit.
Durnus looked put out. He was not alone. ‘Where are you going?’
Farden didn’t reply. All he did was draw the knife Loki had given Mithrid.
She marched after him. ‘Where are you going, Farden?’
The mage walked a hundred paces until the ridge was almost lost in the haze of sleet and cloud.
‘Speak to me, damn you!’ she yelled at last.
Farden whirled on her, brandishing Loki’s knife. ‘You save that anger for somebody who deserves it, Mithrid. You’ll need it all too soon, I’m sure.’
He raised the blade, making her hand flinch around her axe before he slammed it into the ground. Only its ornate golden hilt protruded from the grit.
Mithrid stared at the knife until a flash of lightning stole her attention. It came from the west, and yet she heard its rumble to the north. She understood nothing but her own impatience and thirst to deal death.
‘To Aspala,’ Farden said as the others gathered around him and the girl. He raised their last flagon of water and dribbled some of it on the cold ground around the golden knife hilt. ‘To a true warrior, a friend, and a believer.’
‘Aspala,’ the others murmured. Mithrid shut her eyes and refused to open them. She looked seething, not soothed over paying respects.
‘What are we waiting for, Farden?’ Durnus hissed. ‘The spear is within our grasp.’
The vampyre was shivering. His sharp nails repeatedly dug into his folded arms. Farden told himself it was the cold, over and over, and not Durnus’ daemonblood burning to be free. So much dangled by so fine a thread, Farden worried even the wrong thought might snap everything he had gambled so far.
‘Redemption,’ was all he gave them. Every second that passed, his stare bored into the skies, waiting and watching. And hoping, while he felt the cold seep deeper into his armour and bones.
The dim clouds had swallowed the coast to the west, bringing an early night with them. The sandstorm closed in from the north. Snow had begun to carpet the desert of rocks and grit. Wave after wave pounded the beaches and cliffs behind them, counting the moments down until every knuckle was white.
‘What of the Doomriddle,’ Warbringer growled, ‘and its promise of death?’
Nobody answered her, least of all Farden. The riddle’s words had plagued his mind since Durnus mentioned it. By their unresponsive clearing of throats, the others had suffered the same malady.
Lightning coursed through the sky, reaching towards them. He did not need his magick to taste the acr
id char to the wind, the metallic taste on his tongue. By his side, Mithrid took a step, teeth bared.
‘It’s time,’ Farden grunted. ‘Time to put an end to this, at last.’
Farden dragged his blade through the dust. Hoarse orders spilled from him. ‘Fleetstar. You will take the others to the Sword. Durnus, you will take these keys and find the three doors. Be quick, now.’
‘And what about you, Farden? You will be stranded here.’
‘Bait.’
The daemon’s fire within Durnus showed itself for a brief moment. ‘Explain yourself, mage,’ he grunted. ‘You are in no condition to fight Malvus alone. You look fit to drop at any moment.’
‘As your king, I don’t need to explain and we don’t have the time.’
The daemon’s spite shone through Durnus’ eyes for a moment. It made Farden’s heart stutter to see it. They stared, and saw the truth of each other: two men, each crumbling from within in such similar, yet different ways. Neither could help nor heal the other.
‘You shun your title the whole way here, only to order me around at the last moment?’ Durnus hissed.
Farden had to turn away. ‘Find that door, Durnus. Have Fleetstar speak to me when it’s done.’
‘You can’t just—!’
‘Warbringer?’
‘I will fulfil my vow,’ Warbringer boomed as she manhandled Durnus away. He fumed, fangs bared, but Farden saw the fleeting worry in his glare.
It looked as though the minotaur could also see the change in Durnus, however much he hid it. ‘To grey-skin and to you, King. You kept your word.’ Warbringer lowered her horns in a shallow bow, Voidaran touched to the rings of her snout. Farden returned the gesture, sweeping as grand a bow as he could despite the constant bonfire of pain in his body.
‘You had best join us, mage,’ hissed Durnus before he was gone, as pebbles and sand tumbled around their feet and hooves. ‘Both of you.’
Farden turned at last to Mithrid. She was a white-lipped pillar of black armour and hair blowing around her face. Green eyes stared through that scarlet fire.
‘Don’t you dare,’ Mithrid warned. The tirade that had been building for days spilled from her. ‘Don’t you dare send me with them. The spear is nothing to me now. I just want Malvus for myself, with nothing but my magick. I know I’m strong enough, and you can’t stand in my way any more. I won’t let you. I can’t stand your doubt, Farden. You filled my mind with glory, with possibility, both here and in Scalussen. Now, for you to hold me back, to distrust and loathe me after…’
Mithrid could have driven the axe into Farden’s face right there and then. A small piece of her even tried.
Farden was laughing.
‘What in Hel are you doing?’ Mithrid spluttered at the cruelty. ‘Are you so broken that you have lost your m—?’
‘You, Mithrid, are exactly the person I want by my side.’
‘What?’
Farden took a deep breath and tasted the electricity in the air. ‘You are destined for power and glory. As much as it may concern me, I believe that wholeheartedly. And despite Loki’s tricks, I do not doubt you, Mithrid. I definitely do not loathe you. I’ve been holding you back until the time was right. Your lust for revenge does not just drive you, it defines you. You long for blood and death, but not to avenge the lives of the lost as you think, but to, in truth, make yourself feel better. You seek revenge to have control over what you cannot control. Death comes for us all, and chasing vengeance for every corpse and loved one becomes selfish. I say this because I, too, let it consume me. It breaks my heart to see you fall into the same ruts as I have. I don’t know better, but I know what you feel. I lost everyone, even those who didn’t die.’ Farden clutched at the gauntlet, where she knew he lacked a finger. ‘The temptation to give into it still lingers, as I may have done in Irminsul. Even now, the same fire still burns inside me. For Modren. For Inwick. For Aspala. But for the rest, too. Those still alive and depending on us. I can only warn you about this path, but right now, I need that pain and fear, Mithrid, all that rage and selfishness storming inside you. Because here, now, you are the only person that can hold Malvus back long enough. Evernia was wrong.’
Mithrid found no spit in her mouth. Her tongue rasped, dry. Farden had floored her with his honesty. All the anger she held for him vanished. ‘Long enough for what?’ she whispered. ‘What right time?’
Farden waved his sword from the storm to the sand. ‘You’ll see soon enough.’
‘And Loki?’ she asked.
‘Ever since that mountain of shale and mist beyond Lilerosk, I knew Loki had sent us here. The knife only confirmed it. Every path we’ve trodden, every struggle. Every sacrifice. It’s all been Loki’s doing. He needed us to find the spear and its resting place. Malvus, like us, is his tool.’
‘And you sound unnaturally calm about that. I thought you despised being a pawn.’
‘You better hope Durnus is right one last time.’ Farden grinned and slammed a fist against the wolf on his breastplate. ‘If Loki wants the spear, then he can have it.’
Before Mithrid could respond, more laughter rang through the rushing air and snow. It was not Farden’s this time, but familiar all the same.
A shape drifted from the haze. Coattails crackled in the growing breeze.
Mithrid leapt forwards, but Farden’s sword blocked her path. ‘Not yet.’
‘Who is that?’
‘That would be Loki, God of Lies. The Morningstar.’
Loki flitted from place to place, the air snapping with magick. He wove a jagged path towards them as he spoke. His voice reached out beyond the wind’s touch, as if he circled them instead of approached. Mithrid held her axe high and ready. Ice flooded her veins as she sought her dark magick.
‘That it would be, Farden Forever King! And Mithrid Fenn, still alive, thank goodness. Tell me it is not just you two that survived? What a shame that would be.’
Farden’s face fell once again deathly impassive. ‘A shame indeed,’ he called back. ‘And where is your new pet? The abomination you’ve created out of our fallen Malvus?’
‘So very close.’
‘Aren’t we all?’
‘How far you’ve come from Scalussen!’ Loki crowed. ‘Just as I trusted you would. Through fire and even Hel you would walk for your friends, Farden. It was charmingly pathetic until now, when I needed such an obsession. And with that vampyre’s keen mind, and this fierce young woman by your side, I knew you would do me proud.’ Loki cast a casual gaze around across the snow and spears of rock, and laid bare his true purpose. ‘Tell me: where is the Spear of Gunnir?’
Farden shrugged. ‘No idea.’
Mithrid spoke up, determined to have her piece in this. ‘We’re lost, sadly. All this way for nothing.’
From his furrowed brow, it looked to Mithrid as if the God of Lies had never been lied to.
‘Ever the defiant jester, aren’t we, Farden?’ Loki snapped though he feigned a grin. He stood not a dozen paces from them now. Mithrid strained every muscle to stay still.
‘Three tasks. Three keys. Three doors. That’s what the elvish book mentioned. Why else would you have come all this way? Why else would you battled from Dathazh to Mogacha, run so far south, it’s become almost north again, only to come all the way to this place? You are a poor liar, Farden.’
Farden was fiendish. ‘Unless we wanted to draw you as far away from your precious Krauslung as we could. To waste your time, perhaps.’
‘All because you thought yourself too smart, that we would meekly do your bidding without realising your plan,’ Mithrid yelled. ‘We knew what you’ve wanted all along.’
Loki curled his hand. The knife embedded within the sand scraped in its grave for a moment before flying back to the god’s grasp. He grinned effortlessly. Behind him, a fierce glow permeated the gloom. Fingers of lightning, red, green, and blue, stretched over their heads to the reverberant ocean.
‘Petty mortals! I am bored with you. Cling
to your pathetic rebellion if you must, Farden and Mithrid, I’ll take the three keys now, or I shall pry them from your dead bodies once Malvus is done with you. I’ve seen your lack of magick, Farden, and how weak you truly are. I have the upper hand, at last.’
Mithrid had never heard the mage’s voice as cold. His words were the razor edges of flint.
‘You won’t live long enough to lay a finger on either of us, Loki.’
‘Farden, King! Mithrid Fenn!’
Their names were uttered in rolling thunder.
Mithrid tensed as she saw Malvus emerge from the curtains of snow. No fenrir paced beneath him now. His own great strides closed the distance between them. The snow melted before his mere presence. Every rune on his foul body was lit brightly and burned through the soiled rags that still clung to him. The very shine of him hurt Mithrid’s eyes. She persevered, not daring to look away.
Tendrils of black shadow flittered around her, poised. The mage beside her did not shrink. Sword and axe were raised and quivering only slight, gold and black steel glinting in the light of magick.
‘Don’t hold back,’ he growled to her.
‘Wouldn’t dream of it, old man!’ Mithrid yelled.
Malvus wasted no time with talk, as Loki was so fond of doing. He raised his hands and sent a wave of magick coursing across the ground, scattering snow and pebbles.
The onslaught drove Mithrid’s heels through the sand. Her magick billowed inches from her fingertips. She barely kept the storm of fire and lightning at bay.
When Malvus broke the spell, Mithrid reeled. She snarled, spinning a shield of shadow just before Malvus hammered her again. Green lightning sought to pry her shield away, wind spells buffeted her. Her knees felt weak already. Farden was behind her, looking grim and determined.
Mithrid remembered his words, and roared as she thought of Irminsul, and how she had dragged up every dark memory to fuel her. She thought of Aspala, dying alone on a dune at the hands of foreign soldiers. Shadow streamed from her. Malvus’ magick shrivelled for a moment. Across the stretch of snow, he bellowed her name as her power stung him.
