The Drinnglennin Chronicles Omnibus

by K. C. Julius

  “And he will honor his promises?”

  He leaned back. “He has no choice. He is bound.”

  The woman made a rude sound. “We both know he can do as he pleases. He is, at last, in the prime of his power.”

  “He is bound.”

  “As are you,” she reminded him. “As are we all, in one way or another.”

  He felt a surge of loathing for her, for her hungry devotion to Lazdac as if this adulation would somehow make her more worthy in the Strigori’s eyes. Lazdac will use you, as he uses us all. Then we shall see what your adoration has reaped.

  But he kept his expression neutral. He had need of her, at least for a little while longer. “We must consider how we shall finish what we have begun.”

  This time the woman laughed outright. “It won’t be so easy now, will it? You should have listened to me. We could have dealt with them before—”

  He reared up from his seat and slammed his fist on the table. “Cease your harping, woman! Is that the only song you sing? We weren’t to know they would be so chosen.” He sank back down across from her. “Dragonfast are not immortal, and these cubs present no threat. They are young and untested.”

  “Thus we have no way to determine how dangerous they will prove to be,” she countered. “He will have to deal with them, if we do not.”

  He heard the censure in her voice, and felt a flicker of dread.

  She leaned forward, her slender hands gripping the table. “And the dragons?” she whispered. “Has he designs on them?”

  How little you know Lazdac, he thought, to ask such a question. He knew how she longed to join in spirit with one of these creatures, how deep her craving was to wield their power. He met her shining gaze sternly. “Are you prepared to take what is rightfully yours? You must be certain your folk will side with us when it begins.”

  “With us? With me, you mean.” The veil fluttered ever so slightly as she exhaled. “I shall have an army behind me, never fear.”

  From the distant temple came the sound of chimes. At the stroke of twelve, the woman rose. “What about you?” she said. “Are you prepared to take what is not rightfully yours?”

  She left him without waiting to hear his answer.

  “I am ready,” he murmured. “Ready to take it all. And you will live just long enough to bear witness to it. But not a breath more.”

  Chapter 1

  Fynn

  Scrambling up the steep trail, Fynn was the first to the headland. After more than three months away, the longboats had returned. He squinted down at the bright water, trying to distinguish his father and Jered from among the men moving on the deck of their flagship, Ydlyia. The order to let fall the oars had been given, and the shore boats were making steadily for the harbor just north of the cape. There was still time to get their attention.

  Fynn unfurled Aetheor’s standard—the great white bear rampant, an axe in its massive paws. It had replaced Lothiar’s fiery eye after the former yarl fell in battle some years before Fynn was born. He waved the banner, struggling to keep it aloft, and was rewarded for his efforts when one of the distant figures leapt to the stern of the ship and flailed both arms in response.

  “Jered!” Fynn shouted. There was no possibility he’d been heard, and yet his heart warmed when his half-brother cupped his hands around his mouth and called something back.

  “You fairly flew up the bluff!” Einar complained, puffing up beside him.

  Fynn whirled toward his friend. “I saw Jered! Come! If we don’t hurry, we’ll miss the vallinin!”

  “I just got here!” Einar grumbled, but he took up one end of the standard.

  They plunged downhill and made the harbor just as the first of the shore boats reached the pier, the Yarl of Helgrinia at its prow. In his ermine cape, Fynn’s father cut a fine figure. His bright blue eyes were alight with pleasure, and with his great height and broad shoulders, he looked like a god.

  Jered stood at the yarl’s side, and Fynn sent up a prayer of thanksgiving for their safe return home. Beyond the Helgrin colonies along the occupied coastline of Gral, the men had surely been raiding to satisfy their lust for blood and pillage. To be a Helgrin was, above all else, to be a warrior.

  The jetties of Restaria teemed with women awaiting their husbands and sons. Wylda, Jered’s mother, held the place of prominence at the front of the crowd, as was her due as the yarl’s wife. Her thralls surrounded her, their short-cropped hair and plain cloaks in sharp contrast to her furred finery. Fynn felt a pang of misgiving when he realized Aetheor’s standard should be beside her—but it was too late for him to take it forward through the dense throng. Perhaps it wouldn’t be missed in all the tumult of the homecoming.

  Fynn felt a sharp jab in his ribs, and Einar inclined his head toward the low wall lining the Ylve, the river that fed into the harbor. Fynn nodded, and they perched upon the wall with a fine view of the incoming boats, the standard propped between them.

  “Look!” Einar pointed to a landed craft. “They’re bearing Kimble’s father on a litter. But he’s singing, so he can’t be too badly hurt. And there’s no blue flag hoisted anywhere that I can see. No one’s died!”

  Fynn kept his eyes on his father’s boat. Aetheor Yarl disembarked first, formally saluted Wylda with three kisses, then made his way through the cheering crowd, clapping shoulders and speaking to friends along the way. Bursting with happiness and determined to put himself in his father’s path, Fynn slipped off the wall and took up the standard. Einar scurried after him and helped him plant the pole between them, and as Fynn had hoped, the yarl saw it and headed their way.

  Fynn drew his shoulders back, wondering if Father would notice how much he’d grown in his absence.

  When his father came to a halt before him and held out his arms, Fynn managed to hold his ground for several heartbeats before flinging himself into them. The banner, forgotten, was saved from toppling to the ground only by Einar’s quick grab.

  “Ho, ho, my lad!” His father held him at arm’s length and frowned. “What? Still no beard?”

  Fynn laughed. “I’m only eleven, Father! Even Jered didn’t have a beard at my age.”

  “Indeed I did!” Jered grabbed Fynn by the arm and rubbed his bushy chin against Fynn’s cheek before swinging him into the air.

  Fynn shrieked with delight. “Did you kill many Gralians, Jered?” he asked when his feet found the ground again. “Did you capture any thralls?”

  His smile faded as Wylda appeared at her husband’s side.

  “My husband, my son,” she said, ignoring Fynn. “You must both be weary and in need of refreshment. Will you not bathe, and then come to the longhouse?”

  The yarla’s pale eyes, rimmed with white lashes, always made Fynn think of dead fish. Father had married her more than a score of years ago, when they were both sixteen, but despite the winters he’d seen since, the yarl’s beard was still golden, and his handsome face, although lined by sun and wind, was youthful. The years hadn’t been as kind to Wylda. Her yellow braids were streaked with white, and she had put on flesh.

  My mother is far more beautiful, Fynn thought. The most beautiful woman in the world. Unlike the fair-haired Helgrins, her tresses were so black they shone blue, and she didn’t braid them in the local fashion, but let her hair tumble like a midnight waterfall to her waist. Her eyes were the color of the summer sky, fringed with sweeping dark lashes, and her lips never needed to be stained with berries, as Wylda’s thin ones clearly were now.

  Mamma would be waiting in their home on the hill for the yarl to come to her.

  As if reading his thoughts, Father ruffled Fynn’s hair, then gave him a gentle push toward Einar. “See that my standard is returned to its rightful place, lad, but first inform your mother the fleet has come safely home. She is well?”

  When Fynn nodded, his father clapped Jered on the arm. �
�Let’s to the bathhouse, my son, to wash away the brine.”

  Fynn turned to do his father’s bidding, but not before he caught Wylda’s icy gaze upon him, her mouth turned down in distaste, as though bitter words lay unspoken on her tongue.

  “She really doesn’t like you,” Einar muttered as they jogged along the path toward the ridge.

  Fynn shrugged. “That’s her problem.”

  In truth, though, the yarla found ways to make life difficult for Fynn and his mother whenever her husband was at sea. Wylda wouldn’t dare do anything to outright harm them, but her undisguised loathing and the far-too-frequent “mishaps”—the fouled water, the slaughtered hens—were reminders that she considered them interlopers in her life.

  Which was absurd. Fynn was the yarl’s son, even if he’d been born out of wedlock, and his mother had dwelt in Helgrinia since she was fifteen, when she was taken in a raid on Drinnglennin.

  Fynn knew the story, but not from Mamma. She had never cared to share the details of that raid. It was Teca, a thrall who’d been captured as a child with her, who’d told him how Mamma’s costly dress and jewels had marked her as highborn. As such she was spared the fate of most women and was brought before Aetheor, where her exquisite beauty enchanted him. Despite Wylda’s initial insistence that Mamma be made a thrall, the yarl chose instead to make her his mistress.

  At first, Father installed his foreign lady in a small cottage—but when she bore him a son, he built the manor she and Fynn now lived in on the hillside above the town. It was designed in the Gralian fashion, with a roof constructed from thatch rather than wood, and a cooking ell rather than a central fire so that the main quarters were free from the smells of roasted meat and smoke ever-present in Helgrin houses. Tall windows made all the rooms light and airy, and there was a full veranda for enjoying the long summer evenings. On winter nights, the three of them—Fynn, Mamma, and Father—could lie on the broad settee, swaddled in furs, and watch the windlights flicker and dance in the north.

  Many of the townspeople believed that Mamma must have cast a spell on his father to bind him so tightly to her. In fact, Fynn had been taunted with this nonsense for as long as he could remember. He would always protest, hotly, that his mother needed no magic to hold the yarl—that she was good and beautiful, and anyone who truly knew her found her easy to love. Some of the boys were silenced by his fierce defense, but others scoffed at him or made lewd comments. Helgrins didn’t speak much of love; war and glory were their driving passions.

  For the most part, Fynn and his mother were shunned by folk in Restaria when the fleet was at sea. His only real friend was Einar, whose own mother had forbidden him to even enter Fynn’s house—which was why Einar always waited outside, as he did now. No one wanted to get on Wylda’s bad side. But today none of this mattered, for now Father was home, and Fynn and his mother would be treated with careful respect once more.

  Fynn hurried to his mother’s chamber, where he found her with Teca, who was assisting her into a gossamer sheath. Breathless from his run, he paused at the door, breathing in her delicate perfume.

  “You’ve come to tell me your father is home,” Mamma guessed, in the lilting tongue of her native island. “Does he look well?” She nodded to Teca, who silently left the room.

  “Yes! Jered does too.” Fynn felt his grin slip and he dropped his voice. “Father asked after you in front of the yarla.”

  “Ah.” Mamma lowered her gaze as she stepped into her silver slippers, but not before Fynn saw a slight frown crease her brow. “Well, it’s done. Hopefully he’ll be here long enough for her to forget this.”

  But she knew as well as Fynn did that Wylda would add this slight to the long list of grievances she harbored in her jealous heart.

  “How do I look?” Mamma did a little spin before him.

  “Like a faerie queen!” Fynn declared. “But will you not wear your jewels, Mamma? Father’s given you so many!”

  Her laugh was low and musical. “And I expect he has new ones for me today.”

  “You don’t need jewels to make you beautiful, Mamma.”

  She hugged him close. “You’re becoming a charmer, just like your father! Soon all those pretty words will be saved for a girl your own age.”

  Fynn scoffed at the idea. “You’re my girl!”

  “For now, yes.” His mother smiled.

  They walked together out to the salon, from which they could see Einar loitering in the yard, holding the yarl’s banner. Fynn felt a guilty jolt in his stomach.

  “I’m to take Father’s banner to his longhouse.”

  “Then off with you, my boy!” Mamma pushed him playfully toward the door. “The yarl’s wish is your command!”

  Fynn paused on the threshold. “He’ll come to you soon, Mamma.”

  “Yes, my son, he will,” she replied, her smile radiant. “Now go!”

  * * *

  In the yard of the yarl’s longhouse, Fynn was met with dark looks from the thralls. He soon discovered why. One of the household had been beaten for the missing standard. Fynn asked to see the unfortunate man, and was directed to a bench behind the stables, where a slave lay bloodied and bruised.

  Abashed, Fynn knelt beside him, removed a silver bracelet from his wrist, and pressed it into the man’s hand. “I’m sorry,” he whispered in Drinn.

  The thrall smiled through his swollen lips. “’Tis worth the beating to receive this,” he croaked, clasping the ornament. “I’ve a yearning to buy me freedom one day. Come and take yon banner any time ye please, lad, if this is how ye’ll repay me for me pains.”

  Fynn gratefully shook the man’s proffered hand.

  When he rejoined Einar in the courtyard, he learned that his father and brother had already entered the longhouse, into which he had never been invited. Disappointed to have missed them, he decided to seek out Jered’s best friend, Ragnarr, who’d also been on the raid.

  Fynn parted with Einar, who needed to return home to welcome his cousin back from the voyage, and found Ragnarr right where he’d expected: at the Kaupanger Inn, sipping ale beneath the newly leafing birches.

  “Gods’ teeth!” cried the young warrior, rising from his bench to grip Fynn’s shoulders. “You’ve grown a hand since the last time we met! Have you been gorging on whale blubber these past months?”

  Fynn flushed with pleasure as Ragnarr ruffled his hair and ordered his companions to make way for him on the bench.

  “An ale here for our yarl’s son!” Ragnarr commanded, and a barmaid hustled over with a great foaming mug. The girl’s saucy smile faded as her gaze landed on Fynn, and he realized she’d been expecting to find Jered instead. She set the mug before him with thinly veiled disappointment and flounced away.

  “Another of your brother’s conquests, I’d say.” Ragnarr gave a rueful laugh. “He’s got beauty, brawn, and brains, damn his luck!” He rubbed a hand across a scar that ran from below his eye to his chin. “Alas, I have to make do with just two out of the three.”

  “Two?” Otkell shook his shaggy head. “I’ll give you brawn, but that’s the whole of it!”

  “Never mind him, Ragnarr,” said Konall, a seasoned fighter a few years older than the rest of the men. “Otkell’s just jealous he hasn’t your mark of honor from battle. Of course, if he’s ever to earn one of his own, he’ll have to start wielding the sword in his hand instead of the one in his breeches!”

  All the men guffawed at this, Otkell the loudest. Fynn joined in, then grasped his mug with both hands and hefted it to his lips. He was no stranger to drink, but what was served at home was watered, whereas this was pure, strong ale. He gulped the frothy brew greedily.

  “Ho!” cried Ragnarr as Fynn plunked the goblet down with what he hoped was a manly swagger. “You’ll be drinking us all under the board soon!”

  “Speak for yourself, Ragnarr,” said a familiar voice.
A large hand reached over and lifted Fynn’s mug. “I think you can spare a bit of this for a parched man.”

  “Jered!” Fynn beamed up at his older brother, who was fresh from the bathhouse and dressed in soft deerskin breeches and a lawn tunic embroidered with braiding at the neck. His fair hair was in a single braid down his back and his beard was newly trimmed. Like his father, he stood nearly two meters tall. Several of the barmaids were eying him with frank approval.

  “So, did you?” asked Fynn, repeating his question from earlier in the day. “Kill many Gralians?”

  “A few,” replied his brother offhandedly. He nudged Otkell over and took a seat.

  “Your brother’s being modest.” Konall raised his mug to Jered, and the murmured conversation around them died. “He was a wolf among the dogs of Gral! He slayed one cur who was about to bite my head off with his axe. I owe you my life, Jered Aetheorsen. It is ever after yours to command.”

  Jered lifted Fynn’s ale. “We are all the yarl’s to command.”

  “To the yarl!” cried Ragnarr, and the men echoed his salute.

  The drink had left Fynn with a pleasant glow, and he felt a rush of pride to be the son of the yarl. He reached over to reclaim his mug and grinned when Jered raised an eyebrow before surrendering it.

  Fynn took several deep gulps before Jered took it back. “I think that’s enough for you, Flipper,” said his brother quietly, calling him by his childhood nickname. “Our father has gone up the hill, and I expect he’d like to see you. It won’t reflect well on either of us if I have to send you home in a barrow!”

  Fynn leapt to his feet. “Enjoy the rest of my ale, brother,” he said with a grin, then he was off at a run.

  * * *

  Fynn maintained a steady trot up the steep trail overlooking the harbor, but for the second time that day, he arrived too late to see his father. The stillness in the manor told him that his parents had already withdrawn to his mother’s chambers.

  Now Fynn would have to wait until morning to see him. At least he could count on Father staying a few days more at the manor, then dividing his time between the yarla and Mamma. Fynn liked to think his father preferred the quiet and comfort of their home on the hill, where he returned most nights, to the smoky crowded hall he shared with his fish-eyed wife and all her kin.