The Song of the Ash Tree 03 - Already Comes Darkness

by T L Greylock

  Raef got to his feet and the kin did the same, coiling around him as she rose up to tower over him.

  “You have grown.” He smiled at her. “Now we must put some meat on those bones, give you strength to match your speed.” Raef looked down into the valley, trepidation at what he would find there rubbing away at him as surely as the winter wind. “And I must go back.”

  As if she understood, the kin crouched and Raef swung himself onto her back, the exhilaration at what was to come rushing over him as she unfurled her wings. They were away before he had time to take a breath, diving down the face of the mountain as straight as an arrow and far more deadly.

  The human figures below grew and grew and Raef saw arms point skyward, saw astonished faces take in the sight of him on the kin’s back. They landed on the northern end of the gorge, where the survivors were fewest in number and where the western cliff face had crumbled. But as he walked the length of the gorge, the smoke-colored kin a shadow behind him, he saw the faces of both friend and foe alike. Some were digging, calling to comrades, searching for friends, dead or alive, others sat against the broken, shattered rocks, their faces white with shock. Most stared at Raef with a mixture of fear and awe, but one gave him no notice at all.

  The snake tattooed warrior knelt in the snow, a corpse cradled across his knees. In death Torleif looked at peace, the fear Raef had seen staring back at him in that final moment now closed behind eyelids that would not open.

  Raef stopped and went to one knee, the kin nudging her nose against his back to let him know she was there.

  “Do not pretend to mourn him, Skallagrim.” The warrior’s voice was full of bitter anger. He looked up and Raef saw a face streaked with tears, though the brown depths of his eyes seemed dry now. “You do not deserve to mourn him.”

  Raef fingered the hammer that hung at Torleif’s neck. It was finely wrought, delicate silver stamped with intricate patterns. “You are right.” He met the warrior’s gaze. “I do not.”

  Commotion at the southern end of the gorge drew Raef’s attention and he left the warrior to his grief, continuing on to see what fate awaited him there.

  The shouts were angry ones, but tinged with dread, and men had clustered together, almost close enough to form a shield wall. Raef watched the grey kin fly up to perch above the crowd, then pushed through and found Vakre on the other side, head held high, defiance in his eyes.

  A Vannheim warrior clutched at Raef’s elbow. “He did it, lord, he started it all.” The man’s eyes stared down at Vakre’s feet, and it was only then that Raef saw that snow was melting where the son of Loki stood.

  “Fengar was fleeing. I did what I had to.” Vakre’s jaw seemed to grind together as he spoke, ice against stone, and Raef saw in him the same ruthless, wild, single-minded hunter that Raef had first met in the forest of Balmoran.

  “Is Fengar here? Does Fengar lie beneath the snow?” One man, bolder than the rest, stepped forward. “No, Fengar is out of our reach.”

  Raef’s heart sank in his chest and he looked over his shoulder to the mountain passes that lay to the north. The would-be king would have had many paths to choose from.

  “What happened?” Raef’s question was for all, but it was Vakre he stared at. The son of Loki’s gaze was frozen as thick as a waterfall in winter and Raef knew he would have no more answers there.

  “I will show you.” It was Visna who found the words to answer him. Raef had not seen her, had not heard her approach. She took his hand and led him back through the gorge

  “We have all seen fire burn. Today I have seen fire do things I did not think possible. The flames blazed through rock and snow, shattering the cliff face.” The rocks were streaked black with smoke, Raef saw, licked by fire. “He stood just there,” Visna said, gesturing, “and the ground broke beneath his feet.”

  “Why?”

  “Fengar and the one with the knives got loose, carried past the shield wall by their horses. The lord of Finnmark followed. Vakre was not willing to watch them get away.” Visna pushed hair from her eyes and looked hard at Raef. “He is your friend, I see that. But he is dangerous. A wise man would not be friends with the son of Loki, or of any god.”

  The words were so like the one’s Raef’s father had spoken so long before that Raef heard his father’s voice once more. “And you? Are you not the child of a god?”

  “I was. There is nothing of Asgard left in me.” Visna took Raef’s hand once more. “I fear what Vakre may become.”

  “I cannot believe he intended,” Raef flung an arm out to encompass the destruction around them, “this.”

  “Does he deny it? Do you see regret and remorse in those eyes?”

  Raef had seen nothing but cold fury in Vakre’s eyes, but he was not about to admit that to Visna. He looked north once more.

  “So Fengar is gone, and Ten-blade and Romarr with him. Let the winter take them.” Raef turned his attention back to the gorge. “How many survive?”

  “Tell me how it is that you ride a skeiflyng of Alfheim and I will answer that.”

  “Skeiflyng. So that is their true name.” Raef could not help but feel that knowing the true name of the dragon-kin was a betrayal to Finnoul. He wondered if she lived yet, if devastation had come to Alfheim as Anuleif said, befouled by the wolf Fenrir, broken by giants once more. “She is an old friend.” He did not have the will to say more.

  Visna held his gaze for a long time and then nodded. “If we are lucky, we may dig up a few more before they perish beneath the snow, but I count no more than thirty-eight survivors. Fengar’s men are all but wiped out.” She pointed to a small group that huddled near a pair of nervous horses. “What will you do with them?”

  Raef looked over the eight warriors. They avoided his gaze and their faces were those of men who wait for death. “If they will fight for me, I will not turn them away.” A dark shape in the snow caught Raef’s eye and he knelt to pluck up a black crow’s feather. It was bent and tattered, no longer the shiny piece of plumage that Griva had worn in his hair, but Raef flung it away in disgust. “What of Griva? Is the old snake buried with the rest?”

  “I have not seen him.”

  “Lord.” Dvalarr the Crow approached, his tattoo savaged by a blooming, bleeding gash across his head. A purple bruise was already spreading down to his cheek and up over the top of his scalp. The Crow’s hands were unsteady as he handed Raef something wrapped in a dead man’s cloak.

  Raef let the wool fall away to reveal his sword and axe. The axe blade was crusted with dried blood but the sword shone bright and clean. Raef wiped the axe on the cloak and then secured both to his belt, more comforted by their presence there than he could say, and rested a hand on Dvalarr’s shoulder.

  “I thought these would lie under the snow until spring. Thank you.”

  The Crow nodded and Raef tightened his grip on Dvalarr’s shoulder as he felt the large man sway.

  “Look to your wound, Crow.”

  “It is nothing. It was only a rock.”

  “I insist. The lady Visna will help you.” Visna stiffened beside Raef and he turned to her as Dvalarr sank down into the snow. “You are the sunrise and the sunset and the sweetest cup of mead to him. Be kind.” Visna rolled her eyes with good-natured tolerance and knelt to clean the blood from Dvalarr’s pale skull.

  When Raef returned to the southern end of the gorge, he found Vakre unchanged. He stood apart, stiff and unrepentant, and met Raef’s questioning look with indifference. The crowd of men around him had dispersed as the warriors gathered what they could from the snow. Corpses were discovered, men out of breath and out of time, men who died without knowing that the surface, the sunlight, was less than an arm’s length away. Others would be buried deeper, left to freeze into the ice, their terror preserved for the spring thaw. Raef swallowed, feeling the snow close in around him once more, and wondered how deep he had been.

  One was found alive. Alvar of Kolhaugen’s red glass earring had been ripped from his
earlobe. It dangled now from his hair, caught up in the long tangles that had nearly strangled Alvar. He was blue in the face and his lips were a deep purple as though stained with the juice of blackberries. His horse was found nearby, lanced with a spear through the belly, but somehow alive. Raef leaned close and slid his knife across the horse’s throat with a swift jerk, glad to spare the animal some pain, and he was about to grant Alvar the same peace when a shout rang out over the broken stones.

  The snake warrior had Griva by the neck and the old man was as limp as a meadow flower wilted under the hot summer sun. And yet when the warrior reached for his sword, a flash of white struck first, slicing through the warrior’s arm. In pain, the warrior bellowed and dropped Griva, who squirmed away like a wounded rabbit. The warrior clutched at his arm, blood dripping between his fingers, and Raef, closing the distance between them, saw now that Griva held a sharp wedge of bone, a crude weapon, but deadly.

  “Stay where you are, Skallagrim,” the warrior said, his voice the growl of an angry bear. “The wretch is mine.”

  “Shed my blood and you will lose the favor of the gods,” Griva shrieked.

  “I lost that with his death.” The warrior charged and Griva hopped back, but the blade still carved into his torso, cleaving through flesh and bone to split the old man from shoulder to ribs. Griva collapsed, the bone knife slipping from his fingers, but the snake warrior was not content with that. Howling with rage, he threw himself to the snow and shoved the white blade back into Griva’s outstretched hand.

  “Keep it, maggot, that I might kill you a thousand times again in Odin’s hall.” But Griva was still, his lifeblood coursing from the wound to congeal on the snow, and only the snake warrior could know if the death rattle of Griva’s last breath had come too soon.

  The shadow of the kin’s wings passed over the bloody scene in the snow as she came to land by Raef, a deep hiss in her throat warning off any threat, but all else was silence.

  Raef looked up and down the length of the gorge, taking in the worn, frayed, disoriented faces, and raised his voice so all might hear. “Any man who wants to live, let him follow me. The wolves will be here by nightfall.”

  It was a wretched procession that left the gorge behind and filtered down the alpine valley. Rufnir, acting on Raef’s orders, led the way. Visna and Dvalarr steered the horses that had survived. One carried Alvar of Kolhaugen, who still drew breath through his blue lips. Around them flowed men of Vannheim, of Axsellund, of far-flung places who had followed a king and found death. Raef watched them go from the back of the smoke-colored kin, but the sight of two men in the snow, still hemmed in by the high walls of the gorge, kept him from urging her to fly onward. Instead, they circled to the ground and Raef saw the faces of the two men who had chosen to stay behind. Both filled him with sorrow.

  He went to the warrior of Axsellund first, who had not moved since avenging Torleif’s death. Raef’s presence received no reaction, not until Raef knelt and untied the knot that held Torleif’s silver Thor hammer around his neck. Raef offered it to the warrior.

  “Would he want you to have it?”

  “What difference does it make? I will join him soon enough.” The man’s voice was dull, but it was his eyes that told Raef of the depth of his grief.

  “What is your name?”

  “Eyvind.”

  “You loved him?” The question hung between them and Eyvind looked up but did not answer. “Then live for him.” Raef lowered himself to sit in the snow, tucking his knees to his chest. He kept his eyes trained on Torleif’s face as he spoke. “It is no easy thing. To know you will live the length of your days without a glance at his face, without the sound of his laughter or the sight of his smile. It is enough to draw the life from you, slowly, painfully, leaving you wracked with loneliness.” Raef was quiet for a moment, then leaned forward and pressed the silver hammer into Eyvind’s empty hand. “I see her in the stars, in the rushing river, in all the things she loved in the world. It is not enough. But it is something to live on.”

  Raef let out a heavy breath that clouded the air in front of him. The sky was darkening and the choice was not his to make. He stood and walked away from Eyvind, the snow crunching underfoot the only sound between them.

  Vakre stood at the base of the gorge, his gaze drifting far afield, though whether he watched the horizon or was fixed on something only he could see, Raef could not say.

  “Leave me.” Vakre’s voice was raspy from disuse.

  “Why?” Raef had wanted to be calm, had meant to speak without anger, but all the frustration of the day welled up into his voice. “Why should I? Because you will burn me, too? Because your selfish action sent good men to Valhalla, or worse to a death unremembered, to a cold place far from Odin’s hall? I was there under the snow, Vakre.” Raef was shouting now. “I felt the weight of it, I could see my last breaths before me. Is this what you wanted? To break my only alliance before the mold was hardened? To show the world that the son of Loki is as cruel and thoughtless as his father?” He was ranting, he knew, his scrambled thoughts spilling from his mouth without sense, and it took effort to swallow them back. Chest heaving, Raef held his tongue until he could see straight once more. “Perhaps it is my own fault, my own single-mindedness that has brought us here. You have made me many promises, Vakre, and perhaps it is time I made you one.” Raef looked hard at his friend’s face, willing Vakre to show him something other than stony silence. “Ruin will come to your uncle, if that is your wish. He will face what he has done to you, and he will beg for death. This I swear to you. You do not stand alone.”

  The slivered moon hung low, riding the mountain crests in the eastern sky. A wolf’s howl raised the hair on the back of Raef’s neck.

  “Leave me,” Vakre repeated. “Please. I have broken the trust of the men who follow you. If I stay, I will only do more damage.”

  “They will forget it if I tell them to.”

  Only then did Vakre turn his head and meet Raef’s gaze, and it was as if that single action brought forth a flood of emotion. In Vakre’s eyes, Raef saw fear and sorrow and, most frightening of all, self-loathing. “I heard him laughing. My father.” Vakre blinked and the words rushed out. “The flames, they came before I knew I wanted them. I wanted only to catch Fengar and my uncle, but they blazed so bright that all else was lost to me, all was beyond my control. And then I heard him. And he was proud.” Vakre closed his eyes and Raef felt the wall begin to rise up again between them. “I do not trust myself, Raef. You must let me be, let me go to whatever fate my father has made for me.”

  “No. Your father is not your fate. I will not believe it.” Raef stepped forward and gripped Vakre’s sleeve, pulling the son of Loki close enough to see the flecks of gold in his eyes, even in the growing dark. “I will not.”

  To Raef’s surprise, Vakre smiled. It was small and sad, but there was a kernel of brightness in it, like the scales of a silver fish flashing through the deep blue of a sleeping fjord. “You cannot save us all, Raef, no matter how hard you try. Some people are not meant to be saved.”

  “I will not turn my back on you.”

  “You are a true friend. The singers will spin tales of your glorious victory at the burning lake, of your journey to Jötunheim and back again, of your pursuit of vengeance, of triumph over treachery. But if I could tell them to sing of one thing and one thing only, it would be of this.” Vakre reached out and placed his hand on Raef’s chest. “This heart that beats for others, for the stars in the sky and the green trees in the wind. Even for all the nine realms. It is a great heart.”

  “Come back with me, Vakre. The gods are not through with us.”

  The fire was tall and blazing by the time Raef returned to the eagle’s nest with Eyvind, who had shouldered Torleif’s corpse, and Vakre at his heels, and its light did nothing to conceal the looks of discontent and apprehension at the arrival of the son of Loki. Raef ignored the glances and pushed through the crowd to warm himself by the fire,
watching as Eyvind melted into the group of survivors from Axsellund and the kin settled onto a large flat rock that gave her a vantage point over the entire bowl. Vakre came to stand beside Raef and the warriors closest to them shifted, opening up more space for him, but one, a short, thickset man Raef recognized as being one of Fengar’s stood his ground, his mouth curled in a sneer, and muttered something about Vakre setting his own fire rather than taking the place of a wounded man who needed the warmth.

  Vakre grimaced. “I will go,” he said, and made to move off into the shadows.

  “No,” Raef said, gripping Vakre’s arm. “You will stay.”

  “Yes, stay and roast us over the fire, Lokison,” the short warrior said, growing bold in the face of Vakre’s mild reply.

  “He is ill luck, Skallagrim,” a voice called out. Raef swiveled but could not determine the source.

  “Let him answer for the destruction he has brought.” A few cheers followed this one, and suddenly the warriors gathered around the fire, enemies under the light of the sun, banded together in the light of the moon. Men began to press forward, calling for justice for their lost shield brothers, their voices finding strength in numbers.

  “Silence,” Raef shouted, earning a brief respite, but then the voices swelled and Raef felt the heat of the fire sear his skin as he was pushed closer to the flames. His sword slid from its scabbard in silence, but the blade, bright in the firelight, spoke for him. A ripple of movement beside Raef made him spin, ready to defend Vakre with his own life, but he held back at the sight of Dvalarr, axe in hand.

  “Any man who wants to see the Flamecloak dead will have to get through me,” the Crow said and the crowd grew quiet, though the faces were no less angry.