The Legendary Inge

by Kate Stradling

  Gunnar cavalierly tossed his helmet aside. “I see about two dozen of them, yourself included.”

  A sneer leapt to Bergstrom’s face. “Ah, Master Torvald’s other brat. Kill him,” he instructed his men. “Kill them both!”

  The circle of warriors converged. “Osvald’s gone after Signe and Inge,” Raske said to Gunnar as he rebuffed the first attacks. “Get to them. Help them escape.” Then, the swarm of bodies separated them.

  The Demon Scourge of the army well merited his nickname. The traitor guards either fell or fled from his sword.

  “Colonel, catch!” Gunnar called from the door. Raske turned just in time to snag Mercy, lobbed at him through the air. Gunnar disappeared into the corridor beyond.

  The Virtue Sword was like an old friend in Raske’s grip. It almost hummed as it sliced through his enemies. Sometimes he wondered if Master Torvald should have named it Bloodfang after all.

  ***

  A feral growl cracked Osvald’s lips.

  “No! Osvald, no!” Signe cried, and she immediately pushed Mikkel away. “It’s not what you think!”

  “Not what I think?” he echoed. “What do I think, Signe?”

  She swallowed and looked helplessly to Inge.

  “You don’t know Little Brother Mikkel?” Inge asked on impulse. “Should not we as family embrace and rejoice that we are safe?”

  For the second time that night, she had misjudged her audience. While her words absolved Signe’s supposed wrongdoing, they pointed Osvald’s wrath in another direction.

  “I am the only brother!” he hissed. “The only one! Any others must die! Eitr eyth!”

  The poisonous green whip appeared again in his hand. He lashed it even as he listed to one side. Inge dodged out of its path, and the soldiers in the courtyard scattered. Mikkel called for his comrades to stand their ground, but they knew well enough to take cover when magic was involved.

  “Osvald, no!” Signe cried. She alone moved toward the fallen prince instead of away.

  He froze, watching her like a wolf might watch its next meal, his eyes like burning cinders as he stared her down.

  “I was frightened,” she told him, her voice small. “Bergstrom and his men, they frightened me. They were going to hurt me. Are you going to hurt me, Osvald?”

  She held her arms open, vulnerable to any attack he chose to make. Inge suppressed the urge to tackle the princess out of danger’s path. She saw the same struggle flash across Mikkel’s face. Only Signe could handle Osvald. Only Signe knew how his fractured mind worked.

  “Please, Osvald. Please.”

  The acidic green whip evaporated as, in three long strides, he crossed to her.

  “At last,” he breathed, taking her in his arms. She wrapped her own around his waist. “At last, my Signe!”

  He buried his nose in her hair, kissing her head, cooing words of adoration while she clung to him. His blood-stained palm left gruesome marks upon the fabric of her dress.

  The tender embrace was short-lived. One of Signe’s hands moved to her side and then jerked forward with sudden force. Osvald made a strange noise and stepped back. In wonder he looked down at the dagger that protruded from his gut.

  A wisp of smoke rose from Firefly’s edges.

  “Signe?” he gurgled helplessly, and he fell to his knees.

  “I’m sorry, Osvald.” Her voice was rigid as she drew back a pace. “It’s not your right to rule. It’s mine, and I won’t let you or anyone else steal it from me.”

  He keeled over then, dead at her feet.

  Inge rushed to the princess. For all her bravado, Signe was trembling.

  “Bergstrom made it look so easy,” she said, her attention fixed upon Osvald’s body. Tears shimmered in her eyes. “Poor Osvald. If there were any hope for him—”

  “Don’t,” Inge told her. “Don’t question yourself. It’s done.”

  Signe looked up, gratitude on her face. Her focus shifted to Mikkel. He stood motionless, unsure of how to approach the woman he loved when she had just casually stabbed a man to death.

  “My monster was worth a hundred of yours, Mikkel,” she said with a feeble smile. “I think I’ve bested you all.” Then, she crumpled in her grief.

  ***

  “How quickly do the tables turn,” Bergstrom mused from his position by the broken double-doors.

  “Indeed,” said King Halvard on the other side of the room. Somehow, during the frenzy of close combat, he had made his way there and seated himself upon Bergstrom’s makeshift throne, with nary a scratch on his person. Dagmar stood to one side, a neutral expression on her face. Raske stood between the throne and the would-be conqueror; all the other combatants had fallen by the sword.

  “I suppose you’re expecting the one-on-one skirmish you were goading me into earlier,” Bergstrom said.

  King Halvard propped his chin on one hand. “I don’t know that it’s worth my time after watching the dozen-on-one spectacle Leiv just provided me with. It’s a pity, Bergstrom, that in your need to feel powerful, you instinctively surrounded yourself with weaklings.”

  Bergstrom grunted. “Did I? But I have advantages yet to play. Your closest allies were your greatest enemies, Halvard, and they are hardly weak. Isn’t that right, Dagmar?”

  Raske’s stomach dropped. His gaze flew to the royal magician, his revered teacher and sage. She maintained her neutral expression as Bergstrom smirked, as Halvard peered curiously up at her.

  “Didn’t you stop to wonder why she would direct you to surrender yourself to me,” Bergstrom asked, “or why she hasn’t used an ounce of her magic against any of my men?”

  “Well, on that second count, I instructed her not to before we ever came in,” Halvard replied.

  “You fool!” Bergstrom retorted. “Dagmar has been my ally from the beginning!”

  Wordlessly Halvard looked up at the magician. She met his gaze and smiled.

  “How quickly do the tables turn, indeed,” Bergstrom repeated triumphantly.

  “Here’s your half-and-half, Dagmar,” King Halvard told her, as though he had not the slightest care in the world. “You may make your choice and determine the outcome you prefer.”

  “Don’t joke with me,” she said. “You know as well as I do that the unpredictable variables were always Leiv and Ingrid. I may have pointed you down the path you wished to take, Jannik,” she added to Bergstrom. “That doesn’t mean I was ever your ally. Varth veg-inn.”

  She raised her hand with those words. A net of magic shot across the double-doors, barring Bergstrom’s nearest egress.

  His instinctive shock twisted into hatred. “You filthy hag! May you rot in Hell!” With a cry of fury he launched a desperate attack. Raske met him halfway. Their swords clashed, Mercy against the jagged weapon Bergstrom had acquired as the Dragon. Back and forth they went.

  Jannik Bergstrom was every bit a match for Raske, despite King Halvard’s jeer. He forced the younger warrior back almost to one wall before Raske rallied strength enough to rebound. The two swords rang out, each blow echoing in a strident ricochet. Raske, already fatigued, strained to keep up with his former master. Bergstrom was ruthless.

  But then, Bergstrom had always been ruthless, too proud to let a callow youth experience even the slightest triumph over him. For many, learning under such a master might have drilled in a message of superiority between master and pupil. For Leiv Raske, it had drilled in a determination to improve, to surpass.

  As their swords collided again and again, Raske’s memory shifted to those years of training, to countless melees and the conflict of battle. It settled upon a dimly lit corridor, a pool of blood, a lifeless body, and the helplessness that had engulfed him in that awful moment of recognition. If Bergstrom had had his way, Ingrid would be dead, and for what? Free access to a pile of sharp, well-crafted metal?

  The jagged sword cracked and splintered. Its upper half hit the floor and spun away. The lower half, useless for anything now but a paltry defense, clatt
ered to Raske’s feet. Bergstrom raised both of his hands in the air and backed away a step.

  “Mercy, Leiv?” he said, a note of mockery in his voice even as he pled for his life.

  “Yes, Mercy,” Raske replied. Lightning-quick he thrust the blade into Bergstrom’s neck and twisted the hilt.

  The traitor’s body fell to the ground, the head attached only by flesh and sinew.

  In the deathly aftermath, Raske exhaled a controlled breath.

  “I must say,” remarked King Halvard upon his makeshift throne, “that’s not really my idea of mercy.”

  “I’m inclined to agree,” said Dagmar, “though I won’t argue with the outcome.”

  Raske looked to the pair. “Jannik Bergstrom has already received a hero’s memorial, my Liege. How could I allow him to live with the dishonor of a traitor?”

  “Ah,” said the king, enlightenment upon his face. “Killed in mercy. I see. How very wise Master Torvald was.”

  “What did you mean, that I and Ingrid were always the unpredictable variables?” Raske inquired, approaching the throne. “How long have you known about Bergstrom’s treachery?”

  “Dagmar came to me more than a year ago. I did not believe her at first. When I finally listened, his plot was already so deeply entrenched that I could not discern the loyalists from the traitors. You were unpredictable because I did not know what side you were on.”

  “Your Majesty!” Raske protested.

  “He was more than just your trainer, Leiv. He took charge of you when your father died. He was like a second father to you, insofar as I could tell.”

  “And why was Ingrid under suspicion?”

  “Not under suspicion,” Dagmar spoke up. “Unpredictable. She had reasons aplenty to run away.”

  “There was even the possibility that the pair of them would run away together when we sent them up the servants’ passage, remember?” Halvard quipped.

  “Your Majesty!” Raske protested again.

  The king turned kindly eyes upon him. “I didn’t know for sure, Leiv. I couldn’t cast you by the wayside without knowing for sure. If you had been in league with Bergstrom, Dagmar would have continued to play her part as his ally until such a time as she could avenge the crown. Or so she tells me,” he added with a wry glance at the magician.

  She simply smiled, neither confirming nor denying his insinuation.

  “Shall we go find Signe?” Halvard asked her then.

  “She is coming here,” Dagmar replied, “with Mikkel Sparre and his hunting party, and with both of Torvald’s brats.”

  Halvard stood. “We will meet her, then, just as a king should do for his only rightful heir.”

  Chapter 25: Aftermath

  A gentle summer breeze tickled Inge’s nose. She opened her eyes to fluttering curtains that framed a bright window. She couldn’t remember how she had gotten to her bed, but her recollections of the previous night were otherwise clear. The monsters were vanquished—by Mikkel Sparre’s hunting party and others like it—and the Dragon’s army had dissipated into the woods when news of their leader’s defeat had reached their camps.

  At some point she must have hit a wall of exhaustion and succumbed. Groggy sleep still dwelled in her bones. Her gaze traveled around the room to land upon the figure that sat next to her bedside.

  Her brows wrinkled.

  “You look like I feel,” said King Halvard.

  “You’re confused?” Inge guessed. He didn’t look confused. He looked relaxed, as though he had not a care in the world, as though everyone and everything was completely under his control.

  “Worn out,” he replied. “You look like you were forced to run the length of the country tied behind someone’s horse. For as long as you slept, I expected you to seem more refreshed. The morning’s gone already.”

  She sat up on her elbows and fixed him with a sour glare.

  “Oh, go ahead. Call me a lunatic. I already know that’s your favorite name for me.”

  Inge blushed to the roots of her hair. “How could you know?” She had certainly never called him that within his hearing. Had Raske reported her?

  The monarch quelled her fears. “About a year ago, I had Dagmar work me a divination spell across the castle. If something is spoken aloud, I know it. It’s almost absurd how often I have to play dumb.”

  Inge lay back upon her pillow as she digested this information. “Is that why you forbade your servants from speaking while they work?”

  “There’s only so much chatter one man can handle. Besides, I knew that only the loyal servants would obey, and I wasn’t interested in spying on them.”

  “So you must have known all along that Bergstrom was a traitor,” she surmised. “Why did you not expose him sooner? Why allow him as much power as he had?”

  “He was popular with many of my colonels and nobles,” King Halvard replied. “You may not believe it, but he had something of a golden tongue. He knew how to tell people what they wanted to hear, myself included.”

  “You’re right,” said Inge. “I don’t believe it.”

  “That’s because you never liked Bergstrom, and he never felt the need to garner your favor. I’ll give you credit for that—you inherited your father’s good judge of character.”

  She grunted. “Even my father gave Bergstrom one of his prized Virtue Swords.”

  King Halvard chuckled, a rueful expression on his face. “Yes, on my insistence, when I was younger and far more naïve. And, as you so eloquently said, Strength is a common virtue, one that any warrior might yield. I have no doubt that your father knew exactly what he was doing when he chose that name. He was a man of subtleties. I’m certain now that he saw well in advance the fatal flaws in Bergstrom’s character. Would that I had seen them sooner.”

  Inge silently digested this information.

  The king continued. “By the time I realized his true nature, he had already sown the seeds of discord—that I was losing my reason, that my judgment was unsound, that my power had gone to my head—and he had done it so subtly, first as though he were advocating on my behalf, and then for the good of the nation. Had I acted rashly, many would have taken it as proof of his warnings—the crazed king accusing his most trusted advisor. The narrative that he had created was too powerful just to stamp out in one blow without inspiring a dozen new rebellions. One should only rule with an iron fist when absolutely necessary.

  “I didn’t expect him to get Osvald involved,” he added with an unhappy furrow in his brows. “That was my fault, not to recognize sooner the connection between them.”

  “When did you know?” asked Inge.

  “I suspected when the border conflict began. I knew for sure when the first night-walker attacked the castle. Bergstrom’s dealings with Osvald had to occur beyond the castle walls, so they were beyond the range of the divination spell. He did nothing to stave off that first monster’s attack, though. Instead he remained in his office, writing reports or playing with dice while his men died below in the great hall. The men he stationed there, too, were always soldiers who were staunchly loyal to me. He was thinning the castle guard night by night and replenishing it with his own followers.

  “It was my idea to send for Leiv—Raske, that is—to deal with the monster. Bergstrom agreed so readily that I questioned Leiv’s loyalty. I questioned it almost to the end, and to my detriment. Distrust is a debilitating vice. Sometimes I wondered if I was truly becoming the senseless madman of Bergstrom’s devious claims. But then I realized that, even if I was, I was still the king and it was my right to go mad and yet command my subjects’ loyalty.”

  Inge scoffed, unable to contain her cynicism.

  King Halvard didn’t mind. He actually smiled.

  “Why are you telling me all of this?” she asked.

  “I kept you in the dark, and I can enlighten you as I please. Besides, Signe has gone to Sparreholm to flirt with Mikkel, so I’m alone and bored.”

  “The Sparres are back in your good grace
s, then?”

  He sniffed. “The Sparres were never in my bad graces, not really. Count Sparre came to me straightway when Baron Adelborg first approached him. I did wonder whether he was trying to play both sides, I’ll admit, and maybe he was, but he faithfully reported his dealings with Adelborg, from what I can tell, and Mikkel proved to be useful, both in spying on the baron through Lina and in dealing with Osvald’s monsters.”

  “The marriage arrangement was a ruse, then?”

  “On both sides. Adelborg had greater ambitions for his daughter than marrying her into the House of Sparre. I find I don’t object to such an alliance for my own daughter, though. If Mikkel is Signe’s choice, she will be well served for it. Of course, until Dagmar lifts this divination spell from the castle, any flirtations will have to occur elsewhere. There’s only so much a father can stomach. Leiv has gone as well.”

  Instinctively she froze. King Halvard smirked, sure evidence that he knew her feelings for his Captain of the Castle Guard. Inge scowled up at the ceiling. “Gone where? To Sparreholm with Signe?”

  He dashed her expectations to bits. “I’ve ordered him south to negotiate a treaty. With Osvald dead and his monsters scattered, we can resolve this border conflict at last. I’ve sent them Bergstrom’s head and a tribute of ten men plus their families—including the Adelborgs and my own master smith, I might add. Baron Adelborg might not survive the trip, but Lina should make a nice offering in his stead. There’s no reason for them to refuse my generosity.”

  “You haven’t sent Gunnar away too, have you?” Inge asked.

  “No. He’ll remain here, train under a new master and eventually assume the position of master-smith himself. I have great expectations for him.”

  “And what about me? What about the rest of my family?”

  To her astonishment, he clasped one of her hands in a sign of kinship. “You, my dear child, are free to go at last, and you take with you the gratitude of your king and country—not that you care what I think,” he added wryly.