Black River (The Hounds of the North Book 2)

by Peter Fugazzotto

  The last syllable that she sung stuck in her throat, causing the air to drain from her lungs. She could not stop that last syllable. She was cursed with it. She could not close her mouth. Her lungs tightened and shrunk, her throat rose, and her stomach sucked in. She could not stop exhaling. She could not gather a new breath.

  Fennewyn too was caught in an endless word and had collapsed to his hands and knees, eyes bulging, his nails scratching against the stones like an animal at the gates.

  She tried to rise. But she could not. She was losing consciousness. Right before she succumbed to the blackness, she clearly heard the voice that unraveled the world: the voice of Eliode.

  RUNNING

  VINCIUS HUNG FROM the fleeing horse.

  He had a fistful of mane in one hand and the other hand was wedged beneath the strap that held the riding blanket in place. With each fearful stride of the horse, the Apprentice Chronicler was tossed into the air, his feet bouncing off the ground.

  When the mud man had come at him during the battle, Vincius had tried to leap onto one of the spooked horses, and he had nearly done the impossible vaulting onto the back of the beast in a single bound. His hands had caught mane and strap but as he had attempted to time his jump, the horse had bolted. He supposed he could have let go. To do so would have left him at the feet of the mud man. So instead, he clung with all his strength, hoping to put enough ground between him and the mud man.

  Not that he knew where he would go. Already even a short distance away from the tower, the mists had thickened and he had no clear idea in which direction he was being carried. However, he figured that as long as he was being taken away from the warlock and the witch, and the skirmish, which was lost before it even begun, that he would survive. He was a survivor. That much he knew.

  Soon the sounds of the fighting were lost in the wall of mist behind him. With each step, he was escaping. Then the horse stumbled, its foot disappearing deep into a pool of black water. It jerked up suddenly and then rolled with Vincius caught beneath. He shoved at the horse, eyes closed to the muck. He kicked and screamed. Then the horse was on its feet and galloping away.

  Vincius pulled his hand to his chest. His knuckles burned. They were frozen in pain. They had been wrenched sideways in the fall.

  He stood and listened. Nothing but the wind. The Grand Collegium would understand. He would tell them that they were overwhelmed, that the dark magic of the warlock and the witch was too strong, that he was lucky enough to escape but would gladly lead a legion and a band of Chroniclers in an assault on the tower. With numbers they could win. A set of archers would pick off the warlock. A legion would send spears through the hearts of the mud men. An elite force would charge the tower. Redemption would be his. After this, he would petition for a position in Vas Dhurma, somewhere boring and safe. What had he been thinking trying to push that small band against a warlock?

  He had just about turned in the direction in which the horse had run when a figure emerged from the mists.

  It was a Painted Man, small of stature, thickly built, half covered in mud.

  Vincius kept his narrow blade hidden beneath the drape of his cloak. "Why do you follow me? I want no part of the warlock or the tower."

  The Painted Man tilted his head. He drew his sword and continued to close the distance, his feet sinking in the peat so that fetid water rose up to his ankles.

  "I'm leaving. I won't come back," said the Apprentice Chronicler.

  "She said that you will kill her."

  "Who said this? Who would I kill?"

  "She showed me things."

  Vincius backed away.

  "She sees things – far away in the past and in the future. I can't lose her."

  "Just go back to her."

  "I saw the fire, the witches near Cullan town, your black heart."

  Vincius sank up to his knee in mud and when he tried to pull himself out of it his hands sunk in as well. He clutched grasses but they tore from the earth. "I'll change. I promise I will. I'll leave the Collegium. I'll return to Xichil. I'll never come across the Black River again."

  "She showed me a future. Her belly cut open, words leaping from your lips, her daughter murdered, the North lost forever."

  The Painted Man was a few steps away, his eyes scanning the edges of the pool of mud.

  "I can change. It doesn't have to be that way," said Vincius. He pulled his hands from the mud, open, the dagger lost in the pool.

  The Painted Man lifted his head as if hearing something far off. "I don't know what to do. I shouldn't just cut you down."

  "No, no, you really shouldn't."

  The Painted Man dropped his sword onto a carpet of peat.

  Vincius extended his hands. "Help me out."

  The Painted Man was in the air, flying, and he crashed into Vincius. The weight was sudden and shocking. The Painted Man drove him down. The Apprentice Chronicler struggled against the fingers that intertwined his hair. A knee drove into his spine. His head pressed further below the surface of mud. He windmilled his arms, trying to find the Painted Man, trying to find his knife, anything.

  He fought, fought harder than he had for anything in his life, and then he gave up. Watery mud filled his lungs, darkness his eyes, and the screams of his mother and father his heart. Then it all ended.

  BLOOD OF THE NORTH

  HARAD'S BACK WAS pressed against Spear's and Little Wolf's, a makeshift circle to defend themselves against the mass of mud men, when he heard Eliode's voice.

  He saw her first, unscathed at the foot of the tower, head craned upwards, lips parted. At first, he did not hear anything. She simply blew her breath through pursed lips, as if the gentle breeze could somehow topple the tower.

  Then came the sound like a wind rushing far from the Western Seas. It rose and then fragmented into chaos. Suddenly Harad could discern pieces of words tumbling through the wind.

  The mud men stumbled, their arms swung wide of their targets, and their armor sloughed off them. Rock, mud and peat fell in sheets from them.

  "She's broken the magic," said Harad.

  "Killing time." Spear laughed and dashed from the trio towards the fallen men. The Painted Men were on hands and knees, weakened and struggling to rise. Spear waded into them, blade falling and rising red.

  Harad came after him with his hammer but he could not lift it from his shoulder. These were men of the North, different clans, yes, and men who just moments before had been trying to kill him, but he could not swing his hammer at men who could barely pull themselves off the ground.

  Who would sing a song of murder?

  He laid a hand on Spear's shoulder. "You're slaughtering them."

  The former Hound's eyes narrowed. "What else would you have me do, Harad?" He shrugged the hand off his shoulder.

  "It's not right. They're defenseless."

  "Are you mad?" shouted Spear. "Kill them before they kill us. We are still outnumbered, fool."

  But Harad could not bring himself to join Spear and Little Wolf. This was not the way of the Hounds. This was not the spirit of the North. This was not the path of honor.

  He let the hammer fall in his hand from his shoulder to the soft turf at his feet. He was tired. All these years of battling to return here to slaughter Northmen. He turned slowly.

  He stood in a field of corpses. All of the young clansman from Lake's End, except Little Wolf, were dead. They lay twisted across the low grasses, arms fractured, heads cracked open, guts exposed and glistening. Even more of the Painted Men had been killed. Red-haired men, yellow-haired men, men who could have been his brothers or sons. They lay in pools of mud and stone and peat, the magic shed from their skin when spearheads had pierced bellies, when edges of swords have sliced through skin, when Harad's own hammer had crushed skulls into brain.

  Harad touched the sodden Song of the Southern Sword at his side. He had read of the noble battles, of order being returned at the edge of a blade. The words were an opiate. They had soothed him. Th
ey had unfurled dreams to shelter him from the world.

  But the song was a lie.

  The only thing he had brought back to the North was death.

  "Pick up your weapon," said Shield.

  The leader of the Hounds was splattered in blood and streaked in mud. Pieces of flesh stuck to his sword. His shield was stained with the life of others. One of his eyes was swollen, nearly shut, and a gash in his trousers revealed flesh and congealed blood.

  "Pick it up. We're not done here."

  "I am."

  "One last adventure. One last act of heroism."

  "Haven't we had enough, Shield?"

  "This is the song that was meant to be sung."

  Harad laughed, lifting his hands. They were covered in blood, still glistening, sticky with the life of those who had crossed his path. "How deep does the blood soak, my brother?"

  "For Birgid."

  "The blood of the North."

  Shield's fists were gripping the cheeks of Harad's beard. "Snap out of it, man."

  The sky was a perfect blue above them, the kind of blue that brought Harad back to his childhood. He remembered the sky and the forest and the distant mountains reflected in the lake, as if the entire world and the heavens above were at Lake's End. He recalled the icy embrace of the Black River, the waters that separated worlds. He could hear the hiss and crack of the wild river, untamed, relentless.

  The river sang. It sang with words that could not be captured by ink and paper. It sang of the true North.

  The warlock's men, those that had not been cut down, rallied to each other. Most of them bunched by the door of the tower, a last stand against the invaders. A few struggled from the ground bloodied, their life seeping from their wounds.

  The song of the river flooded over Harad.

  Shield and Spear, Urbidis and Pullo and Little Wolf, were facing the last of the defenders. Without the armor of dark magic, the Painted Men were falling. They fought for nothing. They fought for a warlock who had lost his words. But still they stood in that doorway, knowing that to lay down their arms or to run was not an option.

  Harad picked up his hammer. It was heavy as if with the weight of all those over so many years that he had sent to the underworld. He tightened his grip, took three quick sharp turning steps and then hurled the hammer out over the bog. It sailed against the clearing sky before smacking into the soggy earth. It felt good to be rid of it.

  A fallen Northman, still draped in the remnants of mud and stone, moaned from the ground nearby. One hand pressed at a wound, futilely trying to stop the flow of blood that slipped between his fingers.

  Harad knelt to him. "We are all one."

  The Painted Man's words were lost beneath the sound of clashing blades and grunts. Harad lifted the man's lips to his ears but heard nothing.

  Metal flicked against Harad's neck.

  Each individual blade of grass kissed him cold and wet across the face. "Shield," he whispered, "the North. Can you hear its song?"

  But his companion and friend of so many years had his back to him. Harad could not even close his eyes before the life ran out of him, dark red bleeding into the river.

  AFTER THE WITCH

  URBIDIS LEANED AGAINST the stone wall, unable to catch his breath. The grass approach to the tower was filled with bodies and already crows blackened the sky. Once the magic fell off the warriors, Urbidis and the others had sent most of the Northmen to the underworld but a few had retreated into the dark passage of the tower.

  The path to the warlock and witch would not be uncontested.

  Urbidis gathered himself for a final assault.

  The others also stood by the door. Spear, Shield, Little Wolf and Pullo. They were all bloodied, cover in mud and bruises, limping. The young witch stood apart from them, head craned, singing towards the sky. Vincius was nowhere to be seen. He had disappeared with most of the horses.

  Little Wolf hunched on the ground. He held his hands before his eyes. "I can't stop trembling. What's wrong with me?"

  "Breathe, boy, just breathe," said Shield. One of his eyes was completely closed. "How many are left?"

  Spear shrugged. He set his teeth to tighten a bandage around his arm. "I'd say half a dozen but there could be more in there, and gods know what traps might be set."

  "As long as Eliode works her song, we will have a clear path."

  "Are we all that's left?" asked Urbidis.

  "Where's Harad?" asked Shield.

  Then the leader of the Hounds was running back into the field of death, Little Wolf and Spear at his side.

  "He's dead," said Pullo to Urbidis. "I saw him hurl his hammer and then bend to help one of the fallen mud men. The fiend stabbed him in the throat. I didn't have the heart to tell Shield."

  "Don't get too attached to him."

  "He's fought alongside us, Urbidis."

  "He only comes for the witch, and she cannot live."

  "Can't we just let them go? Once we're done with the warlock, it will all be over."

  "She raised the dead."

  "Shield won't give her to us."

  "You weren't there," said Urbidis. "She made dead people come back to life."

  "I am tired."

  "The men who served beneath me died. They fell to swords and spears, bled out, heads crushed, and she dragged them back out of the underworld. She brought life back to where it does not belong. She is evil. She must be stopped."

  "I can't kill Shield."

  "You just watch my back. You can do that for your commander, can't you, Sergeant Pullo."

  "This won't ever stop, will it?"

  Urbidis shrugged and even though his sergeant stood a few paces from him, on the other side of the doorway, the commander knew that he was alone. In the end, he would have to drive the blade home – in the witch, in Shield, in anyone who stood in his way.

  Pullo was nearly done. Urbidis had seen it in other men when the killing compounded. He witnessed men throw down their swords as a line charged. He had seen one man kneeling on the chest of enemy, unable to finish him. He inspected empty tents in mist filled mornings, knowing that some men would rather be hunted down and killed as deserters than to face their fears.

  Most men were weak and he expected them all to break at some point. The giant Harad had. What fool throws away his weapon and helps an enemy in the middle of a fight? Pullo tottered on that edge having grown too close to an enemy.

  But it did not matter. As long as Pullo protected the back of Urbidis, the commander would set things right: he would kill the spitters of dark magic and lay the deserter in a pool of his own blood.

  Shield, Spear and Little Wolf came back. Shield cast his eyes to the top of the tower, to where his witch Birgid had stood.

  "No use waiting anymore," said Shield. "Today is as good as any other day to die."

  With those words, the leader of the Hounds vanished into the darkness beyond the doorway. Pullo was about to slip in after him when Urbidis's hand on his forearm stopped him. Little Wolf and Spear followed Shield into the tower.

  "Best for us to follow," said Urbidis. He let Pullo go in before him, because Urbidis only trusted himself.

  DOUBTS

  SHIELD WAS BLIND with sorrow as he entered the tower.

  Only moments before, he had cradled Harad's head in his hands but it was too late. The last of his faithful was gone.

  "I am sorry, old friend," he had said through his tears. "This was not how we should have returned to the North."

  "Never should have left." Spear, standing next to him over the body of their fallen comrade, had looked mangy, his hair growing back in patches, large sections of skin bloodied and raw. He reminded Shield of the dogs that would sometimes show up at the clan village, dogs that were not their own, but stragglers from another village, outcasts, survivors.

  "There is no walking back into the past."

  Spear laughed.

  "Would it have been any different?" Shield asked.

  Spear had
grabbed Little Wolf by the elbow and led him away from the body. Alone, Shield had nothing to say to Harad. His friend was dead. They had returned to the North and their lives fell apart. He thought back on Hopht and Vas Dhurma. Their lives had vanished from them long ago. When was it that they had ceased to be the Hounds of the North? When was it that they had simply become old men, of no use to their masters, forgotten and scorned by those that they had left behind?

  He laid Harad's head on the ground and crossed his arms over his broad chest. He draped his beard so it covered the gash in his neck. His hammer was nowhere to be found. He would search for it later and burn it with Harad, a warrior's pyre. Harad would want his hammer with him.

  Shield pulled the book from the shoulder bag. The pages had melted together with the blood, the mud and the water. Harad had hoped to gift a song to the North. Shield separated two pages. The words were lost, dark smudges.

  Shield had stared at the tower, Urbidis and Pullo heads together at the door, Eliode at the foot of the dark stones her voice invisible like an ever present wind. Little Wolf limped alongside Spear, held up as they approached the tower.

  Then Shield returned, stepped first into the tower.

  How could Harad have ever hoped that his book would revive the North? It was empty of heroes.

  TRAP

  SPEAR FOLLOWED SHIELD into the darkness.

  Inside the tower shadows lay deep, the only light coming from the narrow doorway and a small fireplace opposite. He hesitated as his eyes adjusted. Black shapes lined the walls. How many waited just beyond his sight?

  Little Wolf stuck too close to Spear, his breath hot on the older man's neck.

  "Back off, boy."

  "Where are they?" the young clansman asked.

  The ground floor of the tower was empty.

  This lower floor of the tower was filled with sacks and barrels, food no doubt to hold them off against the seasons and any who ventured close to them. Spears were stacked upright against the near wall. Shields were strewn about the floor. Blankets and furs were piled in one corner. This was where the Painted Men lived.