Brotherhood Saga 03: Death

by Kody Boye

“I hope so,” Odin sighed.

  He took one final look back at his father before both the stable and his childhood home faded from view.

  Directly before them, the ghostly village lingered on, completely white and covered in snow.

  Guess this is it then, he thought.

  “On the road again.”

  They cleared the Felnon forest in but a morning’s travel and broke out of the opposite side of the woods by the time the sun passed halfway through the sky. A bit disheartened and already missing home, Odin kept to himself and stared at the path—which would, in but a few days’ time, lead them to the capital.

  “Everything all right?” Virgin asked what seemed like countless silent hours later. “You’re being awfully quiet.”

  “I’m just disappointed that he didn’t want to come with us.”

  “He seems a bit stubborn in that regard.”

  “He’s lived in Felnon almost his whole life. He won’t leave until the day he dies.”

  “Some people are like that,” the older Halfling mused.

  Nodding, Odin shook his head, then allowed his eyes to fall to the horse and reins beneath them, his attention immediately settling on the snow at their horse’s and the way it twinkled like a thousand diamonds on a dark night. The affect, almost-blinding, forced him to reorient his head to look at the horizon, which did little to douse the snow’s intense scrutiny.

  This is mad, he thought.

  Why now, of all times, was he sensitized to light?

  Behind him, Virgin shifted and took a deep breath, then expelled it so close to his ear that Odin could hear it whispering by his head. Shortly thereafter, the Halfling turned his head and sneezed, a sound which sent the blackbirds in the nearby trees into the sky with curses following their ascent. “Sorry,” Virgin said, sniffling what sounded like a nose full of snot back into his head.

  “You know that can make you sick, right?”

  “I don’t have a handkerchief to wipe it on.”

  Odin reached down, fumbled through one of the saddle’s many pockets, then returned with a simple white rag, which he passed to Virgin with little word in response.

  A short moment later, Virgin reached forward to place the rag back into the pocket and said, “Thanks.”

  Odin only nodded.

  All one of them needed was to get sick.

  Everything will be fine.

  He had no concern about his or his companion’s health, as he’d immediately remedied the potentially-dangerous situation by having Virgin blow his nose, and while that didn’t necessarily protect him from any sort of illness they could succumb to from the cold, at least it gave them one form of precaution.

  Odin bowed his head.

  Virgin snaked his hand around Odin’s waist and pressed it to his abdomen.

  “I’m sorry you’re upset,” the Halfling whispered, bowing his head into the hollow of Odin’s shoulder. “You’ll see him again. We can always go this spring.”

  “I know. It’s just… troubling… leaving him there all alone by himself.”

  “Do you have concerns about the midwife?”

  Her again, Odin thought, cursing himself for having such repugnant thoughts about the woman whom in part had raised him.

  In all his life Karma had never done a single wrong to him—had never, in the slightest, raised her hand to discipline him, had never yelled or stormed or raged over an action he had committed or even attempted to school him in the ways of life before they were necessary. As a mother-figure, she could have had the best there was, as there had never been a time where he’d been uncomfortable around her up until just a few days ago. Why now, of all times, should his opinion change?

  Because she knows.

  Did she, though? Just because she spoke of death and what it meant to move on did not mean she had the slightest idea that he planned to try and resurrect his father. She’d never spoken of the Sight, and even if she had it, she didn’t have proof that he was going to attempt what he wanted to do.

  “She doesn’t know anything,” he mumbled.

  “Sorry?” Virgin asked.

  Odin shook his head.

  After setting his sights back on the terrain, he settled his mind and tried not to think about anything but the venture before them, even though it held consequences he rather not face if he were allowed to decide his fate.

  “You’re nervous,” Virgin said. “I can tell.”

  Be that as it may, Odin could do little in deciding what his facial expressions happened to show. He turned his eyes up from the burning fire and tried his hardest to placate any form of emotion from his companion’s face—first by pursing his lips, then by clamping his jaw together, followed by a short but direct approach of narrowing his eyes. That seemed not to settle the older Halfling’s mind, as shortly thereafter he allowed his eyes to fall to the pot and began to stir the soup within it.

  He knows you’re worried about what’s going happen once you get back to the capital. Why don’t you just come out and say it?

  Of anyone in this world, he could depend on Virgin for anything—even, he regretted, confiding in him about the anxiety he held about passing through the town’s gates and entering the royal grounds.

  “Odin?” Virgin asked.

  “I’m just worried about what might happen when we get to the capital,” Odin sighed, rocking back and forth on the globes of his ass and trying his hardest not to break down into some absurd catatonic emotion.

  “What are you worried might happen?”

  “Getting arrested, for one.”

  “For what?”

  “Treason. Deserting my kingdom. Leaving active service in the midst of war.”

  “You had a mental breakdown. No one can blame you for what you did.”

  Really? Odin thought.

  The last time he checked, deserting any sort of active duty was grounds for arrest, if not complete banishment from the kingdom itself.

  “Your king is not called kind for no reason.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of, Virgin.”

  “You’re worried that war might have changed him.”

  “Why shouldn’t I be? I might get confined to the outskirts of the castle. I might not even be able to share my room with the king after the little stunt I pulled.”

  “Worrying about it isn’t going to make it any better.”

  “What am I supposed to do?”

  Rather than respond directly, Virgin lifted a bowl from a set of dinnerware, poured some soup over it, then rounded the campfire and seated himself beside Odin, where he then placed the bowl with a spoon in Odin’s hands and set an arm around his shoulder.

  “Thank you,” Odin whispered.

  “What I think you should do,” the older Halfling said, “is stop worrying about what may or may not happen. Worrying is only going to make you react adversely to whatever slap on the wrist your king might give you. Panicking is not the way to go about handling your concern.”

  “I know.”

  “What you might consider is thinking about how you’re going to present the case to your king. There may be a meeting with the court regarding your actions, your disservice to the kingdom and your refusal to abide with active military conditions. If there is, you need to be in the best frame of mind possible. That doesn’t mean freaking out over whatever they might say to you.”

  “All right.”

  “When you go back to the castle and report to your king, just be simple and upfront—say the man you only recently found to be your father died in a tragic accident and it drove you mad, which is in part true because you fled from the country based on circumstance and went to the Abroen to find answers. You don’t have to explain little things, like what exactly you did there for the near-year you were there and whom you happened to meet. You don’t have to say anything about the Neven D’Carda, entering into a fellowship with the royal magistry or even being attacked by the Nagani and forced to undergo treatment. You don’t have to say anyt
hing you don’t want to, and while I’m not necessarily telling you to lie, I want you to know that it’s ok to dodge around certain questions or twist the truth if you think it might save you a harsher punishment.”

  “I don’t want to lie,” Odin sighed, spooning soup into his mouth, “but if they’re thinking about sending me to jail as a slap on the wrist, I’ll say anything to keep from being locked up.”

  The smile Virgin offered did wonders on Odin’s frame of mind.

  Thank you, he wanted to say, then leaned forward and planted his lips firmly against Virgin’s, for all that you’ve just said.

  Instead of resorting to lesser, more primal urges, Odin set the bowl in his lap, leaned into the Halfling’s side, then closed his eyes, all the while listening to the crackling kindling.

  If he allowed himself the peace to decipher what could happen within the next few days, there was a one-hundred-percent chance that he just might be able to fall within the king’s favor.

  It appeared on the horizon within two days following their exit from the Felnon Forest. Tall, majestic, a faint shadow across the horizon that seemed to beckon anyone forward with its presence alone—the highest tower that Odin himself had once been encapsulated within would, in the coming days, begin to glisten like a pearl beneath a looking glass set under the sun, and when it did it would truly mark the fact that they had arrived within the Golden Country.

  “I’ve never seen a structure so big,” Virgin said, his voice struck with awe.

  “That’s where I used to be held,” Odin said, raising his hand to point at the top tower that lingered on the horizon like an ominous beacon, “when I was imprisoned for believed danger to the kingdom.”

  “And look at you now. I bet that’s a great feeling, knowing you gave a big ‘fuck you’ to the kingdom for what they did to you.”

  “I don’t really consider it any sort of comeuppance.”

  “You have to be joking.”

  “I’m not. Miko… I mean, my father… tried to teach me to learn from my mistakes and not allow those from someone else to affect my life more than they should.”

  “I would have liked to have met your father.”

  “So would I,” Odin sighed.

  He tilted his head up to regard the scenery and realized they would soon be arriving at the castle. How much it changed he couldn’t be sure, but from what little Parfour had explained, a village was being built outside the city walls. It would have to be great, he imagined, to hold so many people, and given the lack of space within the walls themselves, it was any wonder such measures hadn’t been taken beforehand. The kingdom had, stood for some thousand, if not seven-hundred years. To think they hadn’t expanded in that time was something he couldn’t comprehend.

  Maybe it just takes time to get around to certain things, he thought. Maybe… just maybe…

  “Things will be just fine when we get to the capital.”

  Virgin set a hand on his shoulder.

  “Everything all right?” Odin asked.

  “Everything’s fine,” Virgin said.

  Odin couldn’t agree more.

  He dreamed of a figure lingering at the edge of the wood and watching him from the hollow depths of its gaunt, near-featureless eye sockets.

  In the face of such a horrible monstrosity, who stood several heads taller than Odin, what he felt could have been described as a mixture of awe and terror. He was not, in normal terms, afraid of what he was seeing, as the creature seemed no more than a confused misanthrope who had stumbled across and now felt the need to scrutinize him from a distance. The awe itself came from some unknown source Odin couldn’t decipher, despite the fact that the creature seemed to be a flesh summon that had taken on a ghastly shade of grey.

  Where could he be to be in this strange, wonderful place? For all he knew, he could’ve been standing on one of the Judarin Isles, looking upon a creature in the very wood Idlis had once said death would come into his life, but he couldn’t be sure. It was no traditional plane of the forgotten. The trees were not dead, there was no barren ground, no skeletons upon which the world was built. This place seemed normal—magic-lined, even, as static clung to the air like some blood-sucking slug that made the hairs on his arms stand on end.

  What are you? Odin asked, his lips mouthing the word, but his throat not producing the voice.

  The creature cocked its head to the side like a curious dog and then reached forward with one long, emaciated arm. The effort alone looked like it would crack its bones and splinter its fingers, which appeared ready to burst if even flexed, and as it pressed its thick-nailed hand forward, Odin couldn’t help but wonder how long this thing had been dead—if not for years, then possibly centuries.

  Could, he wondered, the body retain muscle after such a long time, if nature were to let it be?

  Unable to comprehend the situation, Odin steadied himself and reached for his swords—both of which, he noticed a short moment later, had gone missing.

  Where the hell am I?

  The trees above lingered close, their branches downturned, their needles like daggers, and miniature rodent-like faces looked up from the dark and hollow places beneath the trees, their eyes glowing gold in the strange twilight produced by a mist that rolled low to the ground. They seemed to be watching, waiting, staring, saying things he could not understand, as in their voice they said chirp chirp chirp, but were he to understand, and were he to know the talk that rodents talked, they would probably say, Come to us, Odin. Come to us. for it was the things that rodents said in the dead of night and the awful fright, who spoke of whim and wonder as beneath the full-blown moon they ate the innocent lamb.

  Had he the inclination, and had he the desire to crouch and shroud himself within the curls of the old maiden’s world, Odin could’ve touched the mist and took it into his hands, as it seemed so thick and volatile it could stop him in his path.

  No, he thought, shaking his head, reaching up to grab his hair and taking several steps back as the creature tall and emaciated slowly began to advance upon him. No… no… leave me alone!

  It can’t be, he whispered. It can’t—

  A pair of arms latched onto his shoulders.

  Odin propelled himself forward.

  Directly in front of him—on his knees, hands latched around his upper arms—was Virgin, eyes alarmed and hair in disarray from lying prone. “What’s wrong?” he asked, blinking.

  “Bad dream,” Odin said, grimacing as a bead of sweat ran down his nose before dripping onto his lips. “It’s all right. I’m fine.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  Leaning back, Virgin balanced himself on the soles of his feet and looked at the tent’s mesh behind Odin’s head, his face immediately contorting into a frown soon after.

  “Are you all right?” Odin asked.

  “I heard you mumbling and thought I’d see what was happening.”

  “What did I say?”

  “You kept saying, ‘No, no. Leave me alone.’ I thought something had snuck past me and was messing with you in your sleep.”

  “Don’t worry. Nothing’s in here.”

  I hope.

  What could the thing he saw in his dream have been—a summon, one of the wandering undead, an apparition made of flesh and bone come alive meant only to destroy his sanity, or could it be something else, something that had been purposely manufactured to watch him beyond the realm of the dead?

  “Whatever it is,” he mumbled. “It wasn’t good.”

  “It sure as hell wasn’t,” Virgin agreed. He settled the brunt of his weight on the flats of his feet and sighed. “Are you going to be all right?”

  “I’ll be fine, Virgin. Don’t worry about me.”

  “I’ll give you a few more hours of rest, then I’ll wake you up to switch watches.”

  “All right.”

  “Try to get some sleep,” the older Halfling said. “And try not to have any more nightmares while you’re at it
.”

  “I’ll try,” Odin said.

  Virgin nodded, took one last look at Odin, then exited the tent.

  Odin leaned back and closed his eyes.

  The night couldn’t get any worse, could it?

  It could have been described as something marvelous and wonderful and ethereal all at the same time. Upon the horizon, and through his scope of vision, it appeared out of the mist of the midafternoon winter day like some great find after hundreds upon thousands of years of searching. Tall, breathtaking, made of wood in the area’s color of strong tan-brown and capped with roofs that appeared to be shingles obviously crafted with care—every house that lingered on the side of the road had been constructed with such care that it seemed a God Herself had touched down upon holy ground.

  As he looked upon the constructs before him, it seemed to Odin that his kingdom had become all the more beautiful in a time of war and when it seemed everything would simply collapse.

  “It’s so,” Odin began, then stopped.

  His breath lost, his mind an entertained fantasy in which he was the noble hero returning from exile, he tightened his hand on the reins and grimaced when Virgin set a hand over his abdomen, but nothing was lost in the moment where it seemed everything would begin to cave down—a cape, pulled onto a stage, to hide something that had only been constructed with one purpose.

  In the road before them, a group of children played, casting snowballs at one another and crying out in joy when one hit the other. Small dogs ran behind them and darted at the concentrated orbs of snow in an attempt to stop them in midair. Each jumped like a champion, spinning through the air, and landed on their sides or feet in great clumps of explosions, marking upon the land a territory ruled by happiness, and once more they would continue when the next ball was thrown. Odin half-expected one of the children to fall to their knees after being struck with the snowballs, but never did that occur, for it was the innocent that played without contempt, the righteous that always shined, and the young that always stood their ground even if it was not their own.

  On the sides of the streets, women, likely mothers, watched with their arms crossed over their chests, each engaging in light dialogue and desperately trying to avoid the activity.