He would be very tempted. It would lead to many surprises in the lands of Armin.
“Come now,” he murmured. “Ask.”
“How is Lif?” I asked. I turned to Gervas. “Lif is one of your half-sisters.”
“What?” he asked.
“A story I had no time to tell you and Cassia apparently didn’t either,” I said, and Hands was shaking his head.
“Terrible father still, eh?” He laughed. “Lif is doing well. I see them often. Both are alive, and well, and wise and feared. None speak of them, and few know where they live.”
“Your sister,” I told Gervas, “is more frightening than you are.”
He was cursing. Gervas was pulling at two hounds that Hands had whistled to him out of the darkness. Both hated the climb.
I snorted. “You have your dogs,” I said. “Or are they hers? Veleda’s?”
He chuckled. “They are mine,” he said. “I took them to see your girl and Veleda last year. Almost lost the pair. She has a way with beasts. Me included.”
I rubbed my face. “How is she, really?”
“How is she?” he asked. “You want to know how she looks like? She is fat, Hraban. Lif is fat as butter, a child still, but she looks—”
“Stop it,” I snarled. “Is she happy?”
He wiped his ax on the corpse next to him. “She is well, Hraban.” He shook his head. “They have a following of völva, would you believe it?”
“I would,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean she is happy. In fact, quite the opposite.”
“Aye,” he agreed. “Terrible history with them. They have grown in power. People seek their advice. Armin does, for one.”
I smiled. “Does he know who it is he is asking for aid?”
He shook his head. “I know not. Who knows with Armin? Who knows how much he knows or accepts out of necessity? He is far too busy now to know everything. But your daughter, she is a fine lass. She is happy, aye. I shall tell you. So very happy. I need to get out of their tower every now and then, but I check on them…she is beautiful.”
He wasn’t telling me everything. There was a nervous note in his voice, and I knew he was hiding secrets.
They were not mine.
I smiled and kept my eyes shut, leaning close to him. “Does she ever speak of me?”
He shook his head, his dog growling at him. “They said he has his fate, with some other boy,” he murmured. He looked at Gervas and Wulf.
“Other boy,” I said dully. “I asked…she has seen Gervas? And Wulf?”
“Wulf, aye!” he said. “I knew it was a familiar name I missed. I used to know a Wulf, and—”
I pushed him forward. “So, she doesn’t speak of me?”
He said nothing. It was not a ‘no.’
I pushed him.
He looked back at me, and there was a rare, sad look in his eye. “What she says, and knows, I won’t tell you. But she said it is not likely Germanicus shall die by sword or spear.”
I frowned. I had heard that before. “How about an ax?”
He shrugged. “I know not.”
I changed subject. “So, the other one? Veleda.”
“She?” he said. “She is fine too. She has a son of her own,” he said. “Staunch fellow. Almost killed me with a rock once.”
“I envy you,” I said, and thought about what he had said.
A boy.
The line of Tear and Odo was living on, Lok’s cursed bastards.
Save for Veleda, of course, I thought.
“I know,” he told me. “You cannot see them. They are my family more than yours, and it is not their choice, nor yours. I have guarded them well. I have people who do as well. You can trust me on this.”
I pointed my sword behind us. “I trusted you to help me kill Ourbazo and didn’t thank you yet. Thank you, Hands. Though he survived.”
“Welcome,” he murmured. “Pleasure. And you didn’t even hit him, so don’t take that tone with me. Besides, I sent you word all through that winter, after he came back from Luppia, that he had not given up. He came to us, gave us a name, and while he had loosely led the band previously, now he brooked no man going on his own. He told us what he wanted. We all agreed.” He winked. “I’m happy to help.”
I nodded thankfully at him.
He looked up to the mountain. “Why do you need it? What are you scheming? I know only some of it.”
“Why?” I asked. “I am in need of severing Maroboodus from the Semnones. And there are some other plans you do not want to hear about.”
“Nay,” he said. “I want to know what you are planning. Severing Maroboodus the Great from his tribes? Who would…” He squinted. “You are going to go to east with the ring and leave Armin?”
“Curiously enough,” I said. “It is not needed. There is another. I cannot leave Armin.”
He was cursing, and then he pointed a quivering ax my way. “You think you would use that cursed thing again? Even to give it to someone else? That shit-omened thing of…she wouldn’t approve.”
“We need it,” I said. “It is needed. It was on Odo’s finger.”
“Veleda—”
“Veleda, Hands, knows Lok’s curse is never gone. Woden knows it. That ring will be part of it. If not I, then someone else will use it later. I shall go and get it.”
“And you will use it to rip Maroboodus a new arsehole?” he wondered. “I want to know more about this plan.”
“I cannot pay you,” I said. “No more than agreed, and even then, I cannot if I don’t win gold in the war.”
He stared at me with loathing. “You have nothing? You promised me a hundred silvers if I endured with you until… You lied.”
“I did. Adalwulf and Gisil have all my coin. I don’t even know what I have.”
He kicked a rock down to the ravine. “Oh, auroch’s shit, you will pay me,” he said darkly. “I might be old as shit, but I can chop down on skulls just fine, Hraban. I am devious as a weasel. Need I truly sell myself to you, boy? Veleda will be unhappy I am gone, so you will pay me double.”
I nodded. “Double. When we defeat Rome.”
He rubbed his face. “You bastard.” His dogs turned and stood still. He looked down for a while, and we did too. He was murmuring. “That shit is near.”
“Or there is something else out there. Your dogs will keep him guessing,” I said. “Come.”
He gave me a quick glance. “You know Ishild will be down there.”
“Of course,” I said. “And no doubt, we’ll have to fight the shit for the ring. He learnt that Maroboodus is seeking it.”
***
The dogs didn’t make a sound but loped on our sides and didn’t stop again.
Wide Snout was silent and grim.
He had killed men, and he kept looking at the silver rings we had looted from the mercenaries, five of them gracing his fingers. He was shaking his head, trying to push away the horror of the deaths, and I knew he was imagining what it would be like to face someone fairly, in a battle for life, and shield and spear in one’s hands.
I would make sure he would be ready for it.
If we only survived Ourbazo.
The bastard had to be slowed down. He had been wounded many a time. And still, he came.
The man was clever enough to stay hidden, out of sight, entirely gone from the landscape, as if only deer and bears inhabited Godsmount.
The dogs had not lied, though.
Hands guided me, and I recognized the ways we had once used, when Odo had led his maniacs after us. Soon, near dusk, we found the trail to a hidden valley and took the road up. We saw the odd stone arches, broken and destroyed, and I spotted a skull amid grass.
“We did clean up after,” Hands said. “We threw most over the cliffs.”
The valley opened up before us. I pulled at Wide Snout. “Take the dogs and watch the entrance. Keep a close eye on it.”
He nodded, and Hands handed him the long leashes. His horse didn’t like the proximi
ty of the dog and danced away from them, but he turned to watch the entrance dutifully.
I rode in.
There was no more water in the valley. There was the odd, large, round stone plate that covered the middle of the valley and the two small halls, where doorways had crumbed to rotten timber, and birds inhabited the remains. I watched the place where Lif and Veleda had lived in hiding, near the holy place of Woden, the place of worship and of doom, and then I watched the hole, where Ishild had ridden in with her son.
It was dry now. It was a wide crack in the rock and felt ominous and…dead.
I rode to the stone plate, wondering at the flat thing, and the weeds growing from the cracks of it. It looked like arse for the gods.
It was dark, and odd noises escaped it, cold, foul air drifting up.
There, Odo would have sacrificed, and there, Lok’s curse would have taken the first step to overthrow the Nine Worlds and the gods themselves. A hundred years from then, Ragnarök would have been taken place.
So they said.
I knew not if it was true. It had been a tragedy, that year. Poor Ishild, Odo’s sister, and their ill-omened son.
Ishild.
My friend.
She had been too perilous, too damned, afraid and insane.
Now, she was somewhere down there, below.
Hands was looking at the crack in the rock. “You know,” he mused. “We never found out about the hole. Veleda stopped me from going down, and she told me not to worry, that she was dead, Odo as well. She said there was no way to survive going down to Woden’s Shaft. It always made me chuckle, and she would frown.”
I smiled and rode around the hole.
He nodded. “How do you want to do this?”
“You go in, of course,” I said. “And we wait here. That comes with the pay.”
He laughed. “I’ll tie the ropes to a rock, and then I’ll guard your horse.”
He hopped down and pulled the ropes from the pack horse.
Gervas was staring at me with disapproval, and Wulf was riding around the hole, shaking his head. “This is a corpse… in there?”
“I will go,” I said. “If I don’t come back, you get me.”
We stared at Hands working. He was looking down to a hole and throwing down a length of rope. He listened, went pale as he heard the rope striking rock, and looked up at me. “I am not sure,” he was saying, “how we do this.”
“I go down with more rope,” I said. “I need light. Torches. Keep an eye out.”
That Ourbazo was alive, was a dark blot on the already dark mission.
I looked behind. Wide Snout was riding back and forth, the dogs calm. He was looking at the entrance dutifully.
I turned back and jumped off my horse. “We should wait until tomorrow. If the bastard is out there, we should hunt him before—”
At that, Ourbazo attacked.
An arrow bashed into my helmet and threw me down. Hands whirled, ax ready, and Gervas and Wulf turned to face the man.
He was riding like the wind through the arches and was aiming a bow.
Wide Snout was too.
Ourbazo shot first. An arrow cut through Wide Snout’s chest. He sped for us, cursing softly.
Hands rushed the man. His dogs rushed after the man as well, snarling. Wulf threw a spear and pulled ax.
The spear missed, and Ourbazo’s horse crashed past Hands, his foot catching the bounty hunters face while he pulled his sword. He had another on his belt.
He rode at Gervas, and my son fought. His battle rage took him, gave him speed and savagery and he dodged under the sword, and his spear cut at the Sarmatian’s horse. The beast screamed, whinnied in pain, and Ourbazo just barely could keep it on its feet.
He turned it, dodged away from Gervas, and rode at me. I threw my shield up, and the blade cut to the leather. I slammed it at the horse, and it fell.
Ourbazo rolled as he fell, pulled his swords, and faced me and Hands, with Wulf and Gervas rushing him. The dogs were snapping and snarling at him.
He had a ragged wound on his hip, and his thigh was bloodied.
He was looking from one to another, and then, grinning, he sheathed one sword and jumped for the rope. He fell below, through the darkness, and I saw the rope was taut. I jumped forward and hacked at the rope. I heard tumbling in the hole, rocks screeching, a scream of pain, and then laughter, far below.
I spat, dropped my shield, sheathed my sword, and grasped another rope, which I tossed to the hole.
“What are you doing?” Wulf asked.
I tied the new rope down to the old rope, making sure it was solidly tied together, and then, looking at poor Wide Snout, I dropped down to the hole.
“Father!” Gervas called out.
Hands was cursing. “Damned fool!”
I fell against stone and slid down a long way, holding the rope, burning my palms as I descended. My swords scraped against smooth stone, and the darkness enveloped me.
The stench of mold and decay was strong in my nose.
I tried to look around.
I realized I had brought no torches and felt like a fool.
I hesitated, held on to the rope, and tried to hear, instead of seeing. I heard dripping water somewhere below. I could hear, below, far below, something moving.
I went down slowly, as far as I could, and the rope ended.
I groped around, took a loose rock, and dropped it.
It bounced once, then twice, and then clattered on rocks.
It was a long drop. How long? I knew not.
I hesitated, shivered with fear, and let go.
I slid down, bounced off a stone, and fell on my belly.
I cursed the pain on my knee, felt my nose bleeding, and pulled Nightbright.
I hoped it would live up to its name, but there was no light.
Up, I heard someone moving and knew Hands was coming. He had more rope, and I would be saved, unless I died to a sword.
I shifted in the dark, moved carefully, and then struck my head on a low hanging stone.
I heard a hissing sound of pain and pleasure and turned fast, for the sound came from behind.
I lifted my sword, and something passed my face. A sword smashed to my helmet with terrible force.
I fell on my back and rolled down a rubble-filled slope to come to a stop below. I got up fast, I lifted my sword and stabbed at the darkness around me.
I heard the man laughing, not far, not near, and then suddenly, right next to me.
I stifled a yell of distress and stabbed at the sound, thinking for a moment it was Odo’s draugr.
I hit nothing.
I heard a scratch next to me.
I stabbed my sword at the darkness and felt it strike something. The blade jarred on metal, and the something stabbed at me like a bloody fire, pushing a wound in my armored chest, and we recoiled.
We stood there, in the darkness, bleeding. Neither moved, but I could hear his breathing, and he mine. He was panting softly, apparently hurt.
“It is good, Raven, that the darkness guards you. Old men have no business in a game like this,” he said bitterly.
“A young man should die fast,” I snarled, “to spare him the prolonged humiliation of dying to an old dog’s sword. What was your excuse? Your sister, whom I drowned—”
“Coward,” he hissed, and the blade cut the air near my mouth. I stabbed up and missed.
He was still, not moving at all.
“I,” he finally said, “was promised what Temura, our mother, wanted. The bags of gold were part of it, but Borena told us we would be kings and queens again. A kingship of the northern Hermanduri! Maroboodus would have been...will be generous.”
“Dead boys rule nothing,” I told him. “Spare me the story.”
I was trying to move and jarred a rock. I dodged back.
The sword slashed the air near my belly. He cursed. “What are you doing here, Hraban? This hole? It is a fitting tomb.”
I laughed. “A g
reat treasure lies here. Maroboodus would make you king of Quadi for it. He would suck your cock to get it. It is below here, or further below,” I said, sword out. “You die dreaming of such riches, you mad bastard.”
And as I spoke, I kneeled fast.
He attacked, he stabbed and hacked wildly above m, relentlessly. I held my blade up and stabbed up. The blade sunk to something, then I felt a sword rip to my armored shoulder, my chain, and my back. I pushed up and stabbed my blade deeper up and cut to flesh and bone, and the man was howling.
He tried to step away.
I snarled and went forward and up, crashed to him, and we slipped. His blade cut the air above me and crashed into my helmet. I grasped his hair, pulled my sword out, and rammed it up again, through flesh and skull.
I twisted the blade and felt his sword strike my chained back weakly.
The man fell on me and slid to my feet.
I was panting and looking around.
And then I could see.
A torch was suddenly flaring above me and to the side.
I looked up and saw Hands there, holding to a rope with one hand and a torch was on his other hand. Wulf was behind him. He had more rope on his shoulder, and as he saw me, he grinned, and they began tying more rope to the one I had used.
Hands looked down at me.
And at the dead Ourbazo.
“Went at it like small boys, eh?” he murmured. “At least you won.”
I looked down and toed his corpse. His eye was cut, his gut was open, and blue ribbons of bloody guts were oozing out of the wound. He coughed. I kicked him hard and stabbed down at the neck. He shivered to his death.
“Die already,” I murmured, and he did.
“Find the other corpses,” Hands called out. “Remember what we were supposed to do.”
I looked around.
There were many ways down to the darkness, and below. There were ways to the left and right, and the tunnels below the Godsmount looked smooth and almost man-made.
Or, made by something other than man.
I stared at the winding tunnels, and then I walked below the rope.
I looked around and then down and noticed a rolling slope.
Below, just out of sight, I saw a bone.
I looked up at Hands.
He smiled gently and shook his head and let loose rope that settled before me. “They are there.”
The Summer Sword Page 27
