Runeblade Saga Omnibus

by Matt Larkin

  The pock-marked man nodded hesitantly. “Verniamin.”

  The tunnels connected to the bath house, leading up into a basement where furnaces heated the waters. The workers down here—slaves, probably—studiously ignored his passage, trained, no doubt, to not meet the gaze of anyone coming up from the tunnels. One would assume that normally included only vampires.

  Orvar trod up the stairs and out of the back rooms into the main hall. Curtains blocked off several disparate pools, a few of which were lit by large windows. Other pools, mercifully located on the interior, were lit only by braziers.

  A slave bearing a jug passed by, a naked girl of maybe fifteen winters. Orvar snared her elbow.

  She uttered a yelp of surprise, quickly stifled, and stared at her feet.

  “Where do I find Verniamin?”

  At that, the girl started to look up, apparently thought better of it, and pointed at one of the curtains. A pool in the middle of the hall. Excellent. Orvar released the slave and strode through the curtain.

  A half dozen naked men and women lounged waist-deep in the pool. One man leaned against the side of the wall, a woman draped over his shoulder and whispering into his ears. He—and several others—looked up at Orvar’s entrance and sneered. Maybe at him coming in clad at all, much less in travel-worn clothes, or maybe at him being a foreigner. Hardly mattered, really. Either way, their disdain only made this all the sweeter.

  Orvar kicked off his boots, then hopped in the pool without bothering to remove aught else. Mud from his trousers immediately spread around the waters.

  “What’re you doing?” one of the men demanded.

  Orvar looked to him. “Verniamin?”

  This one glanced at the man by the side of the pool, with the woman. That was who Orvar had figured, but best to be certain first.

  He snatched the closer man’s throat and drove him under the waters, holding him there while fixing his gaze on Verniamin. The woman next him shrieked and scrambled out of the pool. Another man and woman blundered gracelessly for the steps.

  Orvar ignored them. “I understand you have information.”

  “You’re one of them.”

  “Distant cousin. I’m going to ask you a question now. You’re going to tell me the truth. And then I’m going to leave. If any step in this process does not go as I have laid out, you will find it unpleasant. Do you understand?”

  Verniamin nodded. “For fuck’s sake, let the man live.”

  Vengeance. Vengeance. Vengeance.

  Orvar had almost forgotten about the fool he was drowning. He jerked the man up from under the pool. The bastard was already still in his grasp. With a shrug, Orvar released him. “A group of North Realmers came in two days ago, on a ship from Kaunos. They stirred up trouble and then they vanished. So, tell me, peddler of information, where did they flee?”

  The man’s eyes widened a hair. “You mean those imbeciles who broke into Tanna’s tower. Word is they were grabbed in the undercity by … those seeking favor with another of the Patriarchs.”

  “Which Patriarch?”

  “Lord Nikolaos, according to rumor.”

  Orvar frowned. Did that mean Hervor was dead? What would this Nikolaos do with foreigners who tried to kill another lord? He hadn’t handed them over, that much Orvar was fair certain of.

  Not granting Verniamin another glance, Orvar left the pool.

  “Our society is complex,” Tanna said. “Built upon traditions left over from civilizations that turned to dust ages before the coming of the mists. From eras no one remembers, even among my kind. And from them, our customs have blossomed like a garden full of creepers, densely intertwined until we are all choking one another, unable to so much as move.”

  Orvar glowered, sitting upon one of the Patriarch’s lush couches in a hookah den beneath his palace. The couch wasn’t comfortable. Naught could ever make Orvar comfortable. His existence was made of pain. “Until an outsider like me comes along to hack away at the excess.”

  Plumes of smoke from the hookahs drifted around the vampire lord, though he seemed not the least affected by them. “Perhaps, but as I said, we are intertwined. Any such weeding must be done with utmost care, lest you harm growths we hold interest in.” The vampire too reclined on a couch, sipping from a goblet Orvar seriously doubted held wine. Crimson droplets dribbled down Tanna’s chin. “Nevertheless, an outsider might have his uses. Perhaps, when our mutual enemies are dead, you might find long-term employment in the society of your … hmm, kindred.”

  Orvar was fair certain Tanna had intended to say “betters.” Vampires might well have had more powers than draugar. They certainly seemed to find eternity less unbearable. But the idea of serving the decadent, self-important lord indefinitely tasted like ash. Indeed, it took studious effort to keep the disdain from his face. “We’ll discuss the future once the present has been attended to.”

  With the hand holding the goblet, Tanna pointed his index finger at Orvar. “You still plan like a mortal. Perhaps in time you will learn to machinate on a grander scale.”

  Keeping the sneer off his face was getting harder and harder. Orvar didn’t give a troll’s shit about manipulating societies from the shadows or Miklagardian courtly intrigue. Or this decadent absurdity Tanna lived in. Beside the hookah den lay a massive harem with unclad women and girls from all over the world. Even if Orvar’s cock still worked, who the fuck needed forty different women? Did Tanna even know all their names? No, only one thing mattered to Orvar.

  Vengeance. Vengeance. Vengeance.

  Naught else could ever stand next to that all-consuming need. If he was finally sated … it was hard to even imagine that. “What does Nikolaos want with Hervor?”

  Tanna shrugged dismissively. “Perhaps he means to abet her attempt to assassinate me.”

  “You don’t seem overly concerned about that.”

  “Whatever Nikolaos’s play, he wouldn’t dare strike against me himself. That leaves only mortals. Barely worth considering. Besides, I already have an agent among them. When they come, I’ll be waiting.”

  19

  Innumerable books, scrolls, and loose parchments ringed the shelves of the vampire archives. A library unlike aught Starkad had ever seen. Presumably, Arete had brought him here to try to impress him. Since Starkad couldn’t read, the effect might have been somewhat less than the vampire had hoped for.

  She ran her fingertips over the spines of several books in a row. “Some of these are written in languages so old no one living would even recognize them. Scribed in paper so ancient, we dare not open the volume for fear it would crumble to dust.”

  “What’s the point in a book no one can read?”

  “Because these preserve thousands of years of history, tradition. Not only of the vampire race, but of the race of man. Of truths about your own past that you cannot begin to imagine.”

  Starkad shrugged. “They don’t preserve aught. If no one can look at them without destroying them, the history is still just as lost.”

  “Funny, I said something similar when I first came here. And now the civilization that destroyed my world is another fading memory to your kind.”

  “My kind, huh? In one breath you speak as though your human life matters, while in the next you talk as though we are entirely different species. Which is it?”

  Arete smiled, shook her head, and offered no other answer. Instead she strolled over to a table and sat on its edge. “It’ll be evening very soon. We are children of the night. Soon, Tanna will grow more active. Already, our servants whisper of his agents hunting you. If they do not know you are here, they soon will.”

  Efficient, but not really surprising. “We want to draw him out anyway. Maybe I should help the others get ready, though. If it’s almost time …”

  “We have a little while yet.” She cocked her head to the side. “Something strikes me, Starkad. You’ve had a long life. That much I could garner from your blood. Long for a human man, at least. A mere blink of the eye
to an immortal.”

  “So?”

  “So, what if it could be so very much longer? Indefinite, even?”

  Damn. She meant if he became like her. Deathless, but not really alive either. Starkad shook his head. “Not sure I’d want to live forever.”

  “What?” Arete made no effort to cover the shock on her face. “Why ever not? Do not tell me you truly believe human fancies about some glorious afterlife awaiting those who live and die well? As a being who has seen the dark of the Otherworlds, I assure you, naught better than this life awaits you beyond.”

  Now there was a sobering thought. The brutal, bloody, merciless world of men was as good as it got? Starkad shook his head. “Long life has cost me rather much already. Prices I paid willingly, without really understanding their weight. Things I’d have to carry with me down through the years. I walked away from immortality once already.”

  Arete rocked back as if uncertain whether to ask what he meant. She apparently decided against that, because she hopped off the table. “Then maybe it is time for you to get your people ready for the attack. We leave in an hour.”

  Starkad stared at her as she left. A strange creature, for certain. She’d drank his blood when torturing him. A day later, she was—apparently—offering him immortality. Why? Did she truly taste something so very tempting inside him?

  It hardly mattered. At least he kept trying to tell himself that. But her words had rent something open in him. Something that had to wonder if maybe some part of what she’d said about his need to wander might be the truth.

  If maybe he’d been searching for something all this time. Something that dwelt here in Miklagard.

  In the main hall, Starkad found Hervor grunting as she tried to wriggle on her mail. All their gear, weapons, and armor lay in a pile on the floor, apparently returned to them. Starkad strode toward Hervor and helped her ease into the armor.

  “Shoulder acting up?”

  “They had me hanging by my arms.”

  “Me too.” Brought back visions of being tortured in the Otherworlds, in fact, though he had no desire to speak of it.

  “And the bitch bit me.”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s it?” Hervor demanded. “Yeah?” She jerked her mail down then stepped back to glare at him. “So we’re not even going to discuss her coming out of your room, face glowing like she’d had the best fuck of her immortal life?”

  He flinched. “Have I given you reason to mistrust me?”

  “No!” she snapped, like that alone was enough reason to be angry with him. She groaned. “No. But I hate this city and I tire of watching the people around me eviscerated by horrors most people cannot even imagine.”

  Starkad scratched his beard. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying this plan is mist-madness. Tanna tore through us once already, and then he didn’t know we were coming. Now he might be suspecting us.”

  “No. Not inside his own palace, not until it’s too late. Besides, he surprised us, too. None of us were prepared to face a creature of such speed or ferocity. Now we are.”

  Afrid snorted behind him. “We shouldn’t be doing this. We should be looking for a way out of Miklagard.”

  Starkad spun on her, stared hard until the other shieldmaiden looked away. “Maybe you weren’t paying attention, but I gave my oath. In blood. I do not break my vows.”

  “She’s just scared,” Vebiorg said. The varulf hadn’t bothered with armor. In fact, she wore a robe like Nikolaos’s, maybe for the ease of shedding it so she could shift. For all Starkad knew, the varulf could smell fear.

  And he didn’t blame them for being scared. None of them. But it was what it was. “Look, none of us knew what we were getting into when this started. But we’re here now, and the only way out is through.”

  Win was leaning against one of the columns, arms folded, staring at Starkad. “You have something to add, prince?”

  “Just that Tanna killed people we cared about, we loved. It’s true most of all for Baruch and myself, but true regardless. Honor demands we avenge them.”

  Hervor flinched. Maybe as scared as Afrid. Starkad knew neither of them were cravens. He wanted to tell Hervor they’d been through worse, but he wasn’t sure that was true. Of all the Otherworldly threats he’d overcome, none matched the speed, strength, and ferocity of these vampires.

  Arete seemed to materialize out of the shadows by a column. “It’s time. We’ll go by way of the undercity.”

  Starkad nodded. “Lead the way.”

  The tunnels beneath Miklagard must’ve stretched on for hundreds of miles, if not more. They seemed nigh to endless, in fact, though Arete seemed to know where she was bound. She kept a half step ahead of Starkad, guiding him, with the others behind. She didn’t have a torch—nor seemed to need much light—so he held one. Him and several others behind him.

  Hervor and Win were next in the line, the two of them muttering about what an abominable place Miklagard was. Much as Win’s blind faith in the Aesir irked Starkad, the prince had seemed almost broken by Nikolaos’s claims that Odin had been here not long before and limped away like a whipped hound.

  Nor was Starkad quite certain what to make of such a tale. The way the Patriarch told it lent credence to the story. Maybe that was how Odin had sent those cryptic warnings to Starkad about this place. If so, it would’ve been rather opportune had Odin bothered to explain in a hair more detail just what Starkad was walking into. Indeed, had the Ás king lured Starkad here directly in the hopes of reclaiming Mistilteinn for the North Realms?

  That much seemed quite likely.

  So, then, if he was to believe the Patriarch, Odin had come to Miklagard and barely survived. The man had angered the Patriarchs, but not enough that any of them launched a war against Odin’s followers. Odin, possibly reeling, had next guided Starkad here. Had made a nominal attempt to warn him about the vampires, but couldn’t or wasn’t willing to offer details.

  Starkad had to believe Odin wanted him to succeed in claiming the runeblade. So why hadn’t the Ás done more to ensure that happened? The man may not have been a god—not the way Win and Hervor thought—but his motivations were nigh as unfathomable as a true being of the Otherworlds.

  “Reckon this might even be worse than Pohjola.” Höfund said. The big man was the only one who seemed little unnerved by Vebiorg, so the two of them were talking together. “Can’t say as I’ve ever smelt worse than this, me.”

  “Imagine how it smells to a wolf.”

  “Huh. Worse than to the rest of us, I reckon.”

  Arete fell back beside him and leaned in close. “Your companions are colorful. Vibrant, even. But are they really your equal? Are they the kind you will be happy spending long years beside?”

  “Some of them.” Could Hervor hear Arete? The shieldmaiden seemed deep in her grumblings with Win. A small blessing, honestly. The last thing he needed now was her taking offense—justified offense—at Arete’s attempt to undermine her.

  “Truly?” Arete asked, as if genuinely shocked at his response. She pointed to a side tunnel. “We must pass through a section of the sewers, I’m afraid.” The vampire stepped up onto the wall, deftly avoiding walking through the muck.

  Starkad glowered. No one else in their party would be half so fortunate, of course. No, best to get it over with, though. He hopped down in the filth that splashed up on his shins before settling back down around his ankles.

  “Oh, Odin’s lumpy stones, Starkad!”

  He didn’t glance back at Hervor, not wanting her to see his grin. Sometimes her reactions alone made a hardship worthwhile. How strange, really, to have so many men swearing by the name of a man he’d met. Starkad remembered when Odin had been chosen as King of the Aesir, back before most of them had even heard of Idunn or Yggdrasil or imagined men could become immortal.

  How different his life might’ve been had he stayed among them. He’d given up immortality because of Vikar and grew to resent him for it
. And now he was giving up a second chance at it for Hervor. He swore to himself he’d never resent her for that, though. He was making his own choices.

  Behind him, his companions sloshed through the dank tunnel. Even the banter had died down. Perhaps opening their mouths to talk while wading through shit stretched even their natures beyond the breaking points. Starkad did not mind the silence.

  It gave him time to think, though, which could prove dangerous. Hervor had made it clear she wanted him to give up his wanderings. Having tried—repeatedly—he knew himself well enough to know that wouldn’t take. Maybe Arete had spoken the truth in supposing that was less a curse and more his own nature being dissatisfied with what he’d gotten out of life since leaving the Aesir.

  But if so, that was a bitter draught and he’d prefer not to swallow it.

  He was making his own godsdamned choices. And if it so mattered to Hervor, he’d make another go at sticking in one place. Maybe they could make a home for themselves, even if he could never give her children.

  “We’re nearly there,” Arete said after a long stretch of silence. She stepped off the wall and onto another mostly dry surface, leading them through a tunnel. Eventually, she paused at a ladder on the side of the wall. “Tanna’s palace will have wards of its own. They prevent me from entering without his permission. But you, humans, will be unaffected.”

  “What about me?” Vebiorg asked.

  Arete sneered. “I doubt a Patriarch concerns himself with dogs.”

  Vebiorg cast a vicious smile back at the vampire, shoved her aside, and grabbed the ladder. She stopped, though, looking at the trapdoor. “Is this one going to be locked, too?”

  “Surely even a dog can break a lock.”

  “No, wait,” Baruch said. “Let me try picking it. Less noisy.”

  Arete chuckled. “A thief. How wonderful, dear Starkad. You truly do have an interesting team on your hands.”

  Starkad glared at her. She was not making this any easier.