The Drinnglennin Chronicles Omnibus

by K. C. Julius

  Fynn had never seen his father so angry.

  Aetheor Yarl kept his voice low. “I know you for what you are, Aksel Styrsen—a blackguard who would have all that I’ve fought for handed to him in a golden horn! When my sister’s husband died, his people joined mine in proclaiming me as yarl. I hope when I rise to Cloud Mountain, they will follow my son Jered, should he continue to be a leader of men. There’s no song in my bard’s repertoire about Aksel Styrsen, nor is there likely to be.” He thrust his nephew away, but the anger in his voice did not lessen. “My man Urgar reports that you’ve been pilfering from the storehouses in Serdor these past months. The only thing that stayed his hand from separating your thick head from your neck is our kinship. But now you will answer to me.”

  For a long moment, the only sound in the room was Aksel’s ragged breath. A flush of defiance rose in the younger man’s cheeks, and Fynn’s eyes followed his cousin’s hand, which had fallen to the hilt of his sword.

  And then just as swiftly as it had fired, the blaze in Aksel’s eyes cooled. He dropped smoothly to one knee before his kinsman. “You cut me to the quick, Uncle.” His smile managed to convey both hurt and conciliation. “I have never coveted what is rightfully yours. I only sought to ease the diversion of your manpower and resources required to maintain control of the colonies, and to do so, I had to feed my men.”

  Father tore a gleaming band from Aksel’s arm. “Since when do Frendenskons eat gold?” he growled.

  There was no mistaking the flicker of fear in Aksel’s eyes. “My yarl, I beg your forgiveness for my transgression.” In the unbending silence, he slowly rose and extended his hand. “Please, Uncle, let us not quarrel.” He tilted his head to the chairs crouched by the hearth. “May we not sit and drink together, as you and my mother’s first husband did on so many occasions?”

  Fynn thought this showed sly cunning, for Lothiar had fostered Aetheor when he was young, and had been like a father to him, and of course Brulind was Aetheor’s own sister.

  “I’ve news,” Aksel added, “which I hope will please you.”

  Father pointedly ignored his nephew’s proffered hand but lowered himself into a chair.

  When Fynn moved to stand behind it, his cousin smiled at him. To Fynn, it looked a false smile. “I should like to become acquainted with this young fellow,” Aksel said. “It seems he favors his mother.”

  “I have my father’s nose,” Fynn retorted.

  Aksel threw back his head and laughed. “And his bold spirit, I see!” He refilled Fynn’s barely touched goblet. “Let us raise a glass to the fair lady all the same—Jana, isn’t she called?”

  Father’s stern expression softened slightly. Even this far from her, Fynn’s mother could work her magic on him. After a slight hesitation, he lifted his ale.

  Fynn did the same, saluting his absent mother, grateful that she hadn’t tried to prevent Father from taking him voyaging. Since Teca’s assault, it seemed Mamma understood he was no longer a child. She’d watched without comment as he trained day after day, honing his swordplay and skill with his axe, and she’d offered no argument when he declared he was joining the ranks of men who fought under his father.

  Father drained his goblet. “You mentioned news, nephew.”

  “Indeed! My recent guests have convinced me that Drinnglennin is ripe for pillage. Their High King is not long for this world, and with his nobles squabbling over who will replace him, it’s likely civil war will follow Urlion’s demise. Most of his vassals are currently in Drinnkastel for a tournament, leaving their lands in the charge of their reeves.” A note of yearning crept into Aksel’s voice. “I have always held you in the highest esteem, Uncle. It’s high time we sailed together! Should we not seize this moment to join our forces and reap the bounty of the Isle?”

  “I was not aware you had forces of your own,” growled Aetheor, “as all Helgrins owe their first allegiance to me.”

  Aksel bowed his head in acknowledgment. “I see that I must further earn your trust. I only refer to the men of my hird and those of the southern lands under my guardianship for you.” He lifted the pitcher of ale and refilled the yarl’s goblet.

  Perhaps, thought Fynn, watching him pour, he means to make Father careless. He smirked at the thought, for he had often witnessed his father drink great horns of mead throughout a night and still command his senses.

  “You can consider my trust in you restored by your actions, not empty words,” said Father. He drank deeply from his cup.

  Aksel dipped his head humbly. “I will not disappoint you again, Aetheor Yarl.”

  Father grunted, but appeared to accept him at his word. “Did these Albrenian guests happen to mention where Drinnglennin might be most vulnerable?”

  Aksel’s smile widened. “As a matter of fact, they did.” He sat forward, his protruding eyes glistening. Fynn felt a wave of distaste for the man, and revised his earlier opinion—his cousin looked more like a pig than a bull.

  As Aksel launched into a description of places and people unknown to him, Fynn wandered to the window. His restlessness did not go unremarked by his father.

  “You should go out and explore a bit, while the light holds, my son. You can ask Urgar for a thrall to accompany you.”

  Happy to be excused, Fynn offered his cousin a polite, if stiff, nod. But he wasn’t interested in exploring, and he didn’t need a thrall to guide him. He simply followed the clash of steel and the calls of men training.

  * * *

  Fynn woke in the night in an unfamiliar bed, to the ache of his tired muscles. From behind the curtain, a woman’s soft laugh was answered by the low rumble of his father’s voice.

  Fynn lay wide-eyed after that, trying to reason away the sudden cold fury sweeping over him. His father spent nights with Wylda, but that was his duty—she had been his wife before Mamma came to Restaria, and had borne him a son.

  Fynn had been in the company of Jered and his friends often enough to know that it was a man’s nature to pursue and enjoy women—the more the better. But knowing this didn’t diminish the sense of betrayal he felt at the moment on behalf of his mother, even when he considered that she might not see it as such.

  Or at least she would never let on if she did. He recalled Teca’s harsh description of Mamma’s life, for it was never far from his thoughts these days.

  She’s as much a thrall as I am, for all her comforts and her jewels—naught but a pretty bird in a gilded cage.

  He rolled over and wrapped his arms around his head, but while it shut out the short, sharp gasps from the other side of the room, Teca’s voice could not be silenced.

  * * *

  They sailed for Serdor the next day, and if the yarl sensed his younger son’s reserve, he didn’t remark on it. The ocean air, warmed under the summer skies, gradually lifted Fynn’s spirits as he allowed his thoughts to drift in the wind. Ydlyia, named for the sea goddess who walked the waves, coursed southward, leaving Thorpe and the previous day’s unpleasantness behind.

  Aksel had been sent back to Frendensko, where Father would call in after he’d inspected the rest of his Gralian colonies. It wouldn’t take long, for a Helgrin longboat could cover over fifty nautical miles in a day, if the winds were with her. And Ydlyia was as sleek as a seal as she danced over the waves. Fynn whiled away the day watching the coastline slipping past and playing dice with his father’s hirdsmen. Once night fell, he listened to the men’s tales of the sea monsters that supposedly inhabited these waters. When his eyes threatened to drift closed, he retired to his bedroll and was rocked to sleep by Ydlyia’s sway and dip, then woke at first light with the taste of salt on his tongue.

  By the time their fleet rowed into port late the following afternoon, the shadows cast by the white towers of Serdor Castle were lengthening. Fynn and his father went at once to the quarters in the tower kept ready for the yarl. Serdor was much grander t
han Thorpe, and Fynn’s pulse quickened as he stood at the window, taking in the city’s alabaster stonework and spiraling walkways lined with bright banners. The great circular fortress, ringed with newly dug ditches and Helgrin- constructed walls, looked formidable, and the River Meneuve, on its southern border, meandered like a silver seam through green hills.

  Beyond the city lay golden fields rolling into the hazy distance. Stands of trees cropped up here and there, so different from the forests of Helgrinia. Restaria was surrounded by pines, cedars, hemlocks, and spruce, with the occasional oak, like the great Wurl—but here in Gral, leafed trees dominated the wooded groves, and the spreading meadows seemed to go on forever. Fynn found so much open space both alluring and unsettling.

  When he said as much aloud, his father laughed. “The harvest from your beautiful fields will fill our storehouses in a month’s time. That is, provided we keep marauders at bay.”

  “You mean the locals? Are they not all thralls?” Fynn had assumed the Gralians had long since fled, and any of them left now wore iron collars. The people who had greeted their arrival were all southern Helgrins, stationed here to administer the captured town.

  Father’s face darkened. “Those within the city limits are, but Gral is overrun by bands of rogue knights, loyal to no one, not even their king. They swarm over the land like locusts, destroying everything in their paths just for the pleasure of it, and pose the greatest threat to the success of our colonies here. Within the town walls we’re protected, but the crops are vulnerable, and to patrol them requires more men than I’d like to spare. Until the wheat is scythed, bound, and moved inside the walls, we must be on our guard.”

  * * *

  Father’s warning proved prescient. It was but a few days later that Fynn heard the horns sounding the alarm, and a score of those patrollers whom Father had mentioned pounded onto the training grounds where Fynn was sparring with Clodrik, one of the yarl’s hirdsmen.

  His father came stalking down the broad stairs from his hall, and upon hearing that a band of Gralian knights had been sighted in the area, he issued his orders.

  Then he turned to Fynn. “You might as well come along, but you must keep well back when we engage.” He flashed him a quick smile. “Don’t look so disappointed. Even Jered didn’t fight at your age.”

  Father called for his horse, and Fynn scurried to find one of his own, along with the rest of his father’s men. When he was mounted, he accepted the helmet, short sword, and shield a thrall handed up to him. He wore no body armor, nor did any of the others, for most of their fighting was done at sea. On a longboat, anything that weighed a man down could spell his doom.

  The Helgrins streamed out the town gates and surged to a gallop past carpets of purple hyacinths and rippling fields of wheat. Surrounded by the men of his father’s hird, Fynn felt his heart swell. At last he was going into battle, even if he would not fight this day.

  Not this day, but surely the next, he thought fiercely. Soon I will prove myself to them all.

  On the horizon, a tendril of smoke spiraled upward. “Let’s hope we’re not too late,” called Father, spurring his horse on.

  But it soon became apparent that it wasn’t the wheat that had been set alight; it was a scattering of crofts, flames licking at their sides. Fynn’s throat burned from the acrid smoke as his father silently waved his men forward.

  Jofling, the grey-bearded man assigned to guard Fynn, signaled to him to rein in. “We’ll follow in a bit,” Jofling assured him.

  They didn’t have to wait long. A sudden shout in a garbled tongue was followed by the blood-curdling battle cries of Helgrin warriors as they called on their gods. Jofling grinned at Fynn, then urged his horse forward. Fynn followed, and they edged through the trees until they could see the yarl and his men fighting in close quarters with Gralians.

  Metal resounded on wood as blades met shields, mingled with war cries and the groans of dying men. Some of them had dismounted, their swords biting into flesh on the upward swing and slashing to the bone on the downward. Already the stench of exposed entrails was drawing flies to swarm on the wounds of the fallen. It made Fynn’s stomach churn, and he swallowed hard.

  Fynn watched as Fablor, nearest their hiding spot, slashed away at a knight on a black stallion. With a mighty blow, he succeeded in separating the Gralian’s hand from his arm; the knight’s shield fell to the ground, a fountain of blood spurting from the stub dangling from his shoulder. Fablor’s axe flashed again, finishing the job by hammering through the injured man’s collarbone deep into his chest. The knight slumped over as his horse wheeled and trotted a few paces away, its sides heaving.

  It was clear even to Fynn that surprise and superior skill at arms would determine the Helgrin victory this day. The renegade knights had long preyed on defenseless peasants and had grown overconfident and lax. Although they outnumbered the northerners two to one, the Gralians clearly hadn’t expected to meet the swords of seasoned warriors.

  The battle was nearly over when a rustle of movement caught Fynn’s eye. From one of the cabins of wattle and turf, a child peered out. After a fraction of a second’s eye contact, the small head disappeared.

  “I think we can safely enter the yard now,” said Jofling.

  They walked their mounts past the handless knight, who lay face-down in a spreading pool of his own blood, and rounded the corner of the hut. From here Fynn finally spotted the yarl, locked in conflict with a fat, black-bearded knight. As the Gralian slashed the air with his sword, Father’s axe descended, severing the mesh of the knight’s mail to hack through sinew and bone. It was a death blow, and the big man thudded to the ground. Fynn guessed this must have been the Gralian leader, for once the knight fell, his remaining companions wheeled in retreat toward the woods. Father and his men pounded after them, cutting down every last man before they could reach the trees.

  Then the victors began to strip the bodies, and a swift dagger’s thrust snuffed the light out of the pleading eyes of the wounded. Fynn saw Knut struggling to get a ring off a lifeless hand before uttering a frustrated oath and carving off the whole finger. There was a wealth of plunder to be had, and the men grunted with satisfaction as they worked. Father did not join in the scavenging; a portion of each man’s take would go to him in any event, as was the law.

  When Arne made for one of the huts with several others of the hird, Fynn suddenly remembered the child inside it. He heard a hoot of excitement and his throat closed. He shot across the yard and pushed his way through the men into the cramped shelter.

  A thin woman was crouched in the corner, bits of straw in her hair and a baby at her breast. A slender knife trembled in her hand. The child Fynn had seen through the window huddled behind her.

  The woman’s terror-stricken eyes darted across the faces of the men, then lit on Fynn. She cried out and fell at his feet.

  Fynn felt a hand drop on his shoulder. “Come with me,” said Father.

  Fynn looked up. “What are they going to do to them?”

  “What men do while the heat of battle still courses through their veins. Come away now.”

  “What about the baby? What about the girl? She can’t be more than three!”

  “Come away, Fynn,” his father repeated.

  “No!”

  Around them, the men fell silent. No one opposed the yarl—not even his bastard son. Fynn braced himself to receive the blow he knew he deserved.

  But instead of striking him, Father said, “Very well. You shall stay, and you shall watch, as you wish.” He nodded to Fidor, then left the hut.

  Fidor stepped toward the woman, his hands already working the ties of his trousers. With a cry, she tore the baby from her breast and thrust it to the child behind her. Scuttling along the wall toward the door, she dragged the girl with her. Delhorn laughed and blocked her path.

  The woman dropped the knife and scrambled
to Fynn, repeating the same unintelligible words over and over. When she saw he didn’t understand, she snatched the baby from her daughter and held it out to him.

  As Fynn raised his hands to take the babe from her, Delhorn’s blade descended over his shoulder. The baby’s head rolled at his feet, its tiny lips still pursed to suckle, its blood spraying them all.

  The mother was shoved back onto the straw, where she lay splayed under Fidor, and Delhorn turned his attention to the girl.

  With a cry of protest, Fynn lunged for the child. Ignoring her scratches and bites, he wrestled her into a choke hold and drew his own knife. The child went limp, and Fynn reeled toward the men between him and the door.

  “No one touches her!” he shouted.

  Fidor rolled off the woman. As Grint took his place, he pulled up his trousers. “The yarl won’t like it,” Fidor said. “Leave the girl with me, boy. I’ll see she gets a clean death.”

  “No one is killing her!” Hot tears rolled down Fynn’s face, but he didn’t care. “Finish your rutting, then let them go!”

  Fidor inclined his head toward the woman. Beneath Grint, she had stopped struggling. “That one won’t be going anywhere. She’ll wear the iron collar. As for the girl, she’s too young to be of use, nor can she stay with her mother. She’ll be left to fend for herself. It’s kinder to kill her now.”

  Fynn backed toward the door, his blade still threatening. The child offered no resistance as he dragged her out into the light.

  No one followed them.

  In the yard, some of his father’s men were dousing the smoldering fires. The charred woodscent mingled with the briny sweat in the girl’s hair. Fynn reached up with one hand to wipe away the traces of his tears, and the child ducked under his arm and scampered away. Fynn started to give chase, until he saw the girl was running toward his father, who sat on a boulder eating a handful of grapes.

  The child saw him too, and her footsteps faltered. Then Father smiled and held up the grapes, and the girl toddled in his direction.

  Fynn found himself rooted in place as his father bent forward and offered her the whole cluster. She grasped it in her tiny hands and gave a little laugh, like a tinkling bell in the summer air. As she brought the fruit to her lips, she turned to look at Fynn, and Father’s blade slid, like a whisper, across the folds of her little throat.