Fafnir gave a nod and the dwarf with the axe tossed it to him. Catching it cleanly out of the air, Fafnir swung, severing the wight's head in one swift motion. The body fell heavily to the ground and moved no more. The guards dropped their chains with relief and one of them went to retrieve the head from the surf.
Flyn returned Coalspur to its scabbard, only taking his eyes off the fallen wight when Fafnir again began to address them.
“Too long have my people suffered this plague,” he said solemnly. “Too long has this curse endured. And too long have I sought the three that can help me end it. You ask why I have need of you, Bantam Flyn and Ingelbert Crane? I need you to free the dwarrow from this doom.”
“How?” Flyn asked.
Deglan jerked at his arm. “Dammit Flyn, shut your fool mouth!” The gnome stepped forward and thrust a finger at Fafnir. “You wanted them to understand. Then tell them all of it, dwarf! Tell them why your kind are so afflicted.”
“As you say,” Fafnir nodded, turning away from the incensed gnome to look at Flyn and Inkstain. “History is an elusive thing. Even we immortals must make use of myth and legend to help us understand the great distances of the past which have moved beyond the reach of our knowledge. I can only relate to you what we dwarrow have come to believe, and I wager even the venerable Master Loamtoes has not the age to claim authority over the events of creation.”
Flyn glanced down at Deglan after this remark, but the herbalist only fumed and held his tongue.
“Airlann is called the Source Isle of Magic,” Fafnir continued. “But before it was risen from the waters, Magic had another home.” The dwarf gestured out across the ocean, pointing to the north. “Middangeard. The world was new, untamed, raw, the very materials used to create it were unrefined. To guard and harness these primordial powers, Magic created eight beings, four mated pairs, and entrusted each pair with an Element. The two elves were granted Earth, at that time little more than unforgiving rock. To the dragons, Magic gave the molten beginnings of Fire.” Fafnir then gestured to Hafr, who stood picking his teeth, barely listening to the tale. “Frost was bestowed to the giants, not yet the softened brilliance that would become Water. The last Elementals were a pair of great birds, their true names lost to time, and they were given mastery of the maelstroms and gales, the savage forbears of Wind.
“Each Elemental pair gave birth to a race of mighty children and Magic slept, entrusting the world to the care of these beings. After untold centuries, the races quarreled. A war broke out between them and alliances were made. The elves and dragons melded their strength while the giants and the great birds united against them. The conflict put the very world in peril and needed to end, but neither side showed signs of relenting. Locked in a cycle of destruction, the end of all life drew near. And then a group of elves changed their allegiance, leaving their kin and dragon allies in order to join the giants and birds. This act shifted the balance and victory was at hand, the end of the calamitous war. But Magic awoke and, finding its creation in near ruin, was displeased. It ended the war between the Elementals and turned its ire upon them.”
Fafnir paused for a moment, his gaze growing distant and when he next spoke, bitterness had leaked into his voice. “But not all were punished. The dragons, and the elves who remained by their side, were spared. These Magic favored and allowed them to flee Middangeard, creating a new home for them. Airlann. Those left behind, the giants, the birds, and the brave elves who dared seek an end to the war, were stripped of their Elements and left to languish in a land laid to waste.”
“The dwarrow,” Inkstain said, his face full of discovery. “You were once elves. The elves left behind.”
“Yes,” Fafnir said. “Our forms became stunted, the grace and beauty of the elves snatched away. The giants too, diminished. However, not all of the Elementals allowed their powers to dwindle so easily. The mother of the great birds, fearing the loss of her immortality, drained the gift from her children. When that source was spent she used the last of her Magic and turned it on the dwarrow, placing upon us an enduring curse. My ancestors were weakened from their transformation, vulnerable, and could not stop the fell craft that descended on their bloodline. As they died, the vættir rose and marched to the call of the matron bird, tirelessly following her voice that drifted on the vestiges of the wind she once controlled. They seek her out, our dead, and when their steps bring them to her at last, she feeds upon them, devouring the last glimmer of their immortality to preserve her own. Once, eons ago, she had a true name, but now we dwarrow know her only as the Corpse Eater.” Fafnir fixed Flyn with a hard stare. “She is the bane of my race. And the mother of yours.”
“What?” Flyn said, unable to keep the incredulity from his voice.
“The coburn,” Fafnir told him, “are the children of the great birds.”
“Madness,” Deglan said dismissively. “Madness wrapped in toad shit! The coburn were not even discovered until the Rebellion.”
“So the elves say,” Fafnir returned. “They kept them hidden, bringing them out of Middangeard and secreting them across the Tin Isles, using their most potent spells to conceal them. The evil rituals used by the Corpse Eater to steal the immortality of the coburn drove her mad and plummeted her children into barbarity. She remains little more than a beast, but over the slow crawl of many years, the coburn have overcome their savagery. Yet, only when the elves had need of the coburn did they reveal their existence to the world.”
“The Rebellion,” Inkstain said and looked over at Flyn, his mouth agape. “They established the Valiant Spur and marshaled the coburn against the Goblin Kings.”
“They used them,” Fafnir said with a sneer. “As is the way of the huldu.”
“And this is all lies,” Deglan snarled. “As is the way of dwarfs. Come, Flyn. There is no more need to listen to this.”
Flyn gently shook his arm out of the gnome's pulling grip. “Wait. I have never heard of any of this. Not as myth, tale or fable. None of my brothers in the Order have made mention of it. How is that possible?”
“Because you are the first to hear it, Bantam Flyn,” Fafnir replied. “The Corpse Eater stole the truth from the coburn when she cast you into brutishness and long did your race dwell in ignorance born from that betrayal. The elves chose to keep the secret, to what end I cannot say. Long did it take my people to rediscover your origins, as much was lost to us during our fall.”
“Why reveal it now?” Flyn asked. “And why to me?”
Fafnir bowed his head for a moment and took a deep breath. When he looked up again, his face was suffused with hope. He looked at Inkstain. “Master Crane, you know the dwarrow tongue. Please, translate for me.”
Inkstain swallowed hard, casting a nervous look at Deglan. When the gnome offered no objection, the chronicler nodded.
Fafnir walked back to the corpse of the prisoner. The guards had rid the body of its chains, but otherwise had done nothing to arrange its position. The head had been dumped unceremoniously nearby. Fafnir looked down at it for a moment and then began to speak slowly. Flyn understood none of the words, but the tone was one of great reverence and he noticed the dwarf guards bow their heads. As Fafnir spoke, Master Crane listened intently. The chronicler began to translate the runecaster's words, hesitantly at first, but he soon grew confident and his speech affected the same solemnity as the dwarf's.
“Woe to the dwarrow,
Our dead rest not,
In earth, in stone,
Nor under waves.
Neither flame, nor rot,
Our cold flesh touches,
Nor worm, nor crow,
Dine within our tombs.
We are food for one,
Wind's ancient mother,
Called to her gullet,
We march on blackened feet.
All are risen,
All go forward,
In death enslaved,
A feast of corpses.
Till the end of days,
S
he will glut upon us,
So that she may live,
Last upon the earth.”
Fafnir turned away from the body and slowly approached. He stopped before Flyn and raised his hand, gently placing it on the sheathed blade of Coalspur and once again spoke in dworgmál. Inkstain echoed him in the tongue of the Tin Isles.
“To see her slain,
a blade must be wrought,
three must be gathered
And the eater sought.”
Flyn met Fafnir's gaze and was surprised to see the dwarf's eyes well with tears, though he allowed none to fall. His voice faltered when next he spoke and though the language was strange, the sound of pain was unmistakable.
“Her bane to be forged,
Tempered and cooled,
Eight times in the hearts
Of beloved issue.
One you must find,
Among her lost children,
To wield this doom,
And see mother slain.”
The dwarf then stepped away from Flyn and stood before Inkstain, continuing to speak. The chronicler grew troubled as he translated what was spoken directly to him.
“Of the two others,
A man there shall be,
Mortal and shunned,
Friend to folk Fae,
Though weak he seems,
Ever on his shoulder,
Winged and deathless,
A watcher will sit.”
To Inkstain's obvious relief, Fafnir then stepped away and motioned up at Hafr. The giant attempted to feign apathy, but Flyn detected a hint of uncertainty in his face. He wondered how much of this the brute had heard before.
A great champion,
To complete the three,
Guided by lust,
For glories new.
Though strong of limb,
A mile-tamer gone,
Deep in the horns,
All foes to the ground.”
Fafnir lowered his arm and encompassed them all with a searching look.
“These hunters bound,
Together in purpose,
Shall seek with blind eyes,
The eater of corpses.
Upon frosty bough,
And rime ridden root,
And there decided,
The fate of our race.
Follow you this skein,
To seek such an end,
To set these links fast,
And make you this chain.
Heavy is the burden,
Long shall be the search,
Many paths unwoven,
Many lives undone.”
With that, both dwarf and man ceased speaking, leaving only the sound of the wind and the shushing surf. Fafnir gave Inkstain a nod of gratitude. Flyn looked down and found Deglan deep in thought, his jaw bulging as he clenched his teeth, chewing upon some vexation.
“You are not just a wizard,” the gnome said. “You're a bloody Chain Maker.”
Fafnir said nothing, regarding the herbalist with a calm confidence.
“Care to explain, Staunch?” Flyn asked.
“Deluded dwarf prophets,” Deglan answered sourly. “Believe they can see the fate of individuals and manipulate them. Bring them together for whatever damn, dangerous purpose they are obsessed with seeing come to pass.”
Flyn saw the two dwarf guards bristle at this and one of them made an aggressive step forward, but Fafnir halted him with a word. The affronted guard stepped back, his face still wroth.
“Master Loamtoes,” Fafnir said with grim humor. “You perfectly display why I must travel in the guise of a steel peddler.”
“So you are what he says,” Flyn pressed.
“I see the potential in certain beings,” the dwarf conceded. “Those whose destinies may be intertwined with the Corpse Eater's destruction.”
Flyn gave the dwarf a dubious grin. “May be?”
“I am not always correct,” Fafnir admitted without sign of shame. “Many times the true nature of the augury has escaped me or I have misinterpreted the meaning of its words. There are few clues about the intended coburn, so I forged the sword and entrusted it to your Order in its earliest days.”
Inkstain piped up. “The tapestry! Of the Battle of the Unsounded Horn. It is the same sword.”
“Indeed,” Fafnir affirmed. “There were many potent warriors amongst the first knights, but I had no way of knowing which would be the destined hand, so I left it in the keeping of the Valiant Spur, letting fate pass it from hand to hand over the centuries while I sought the other pieces.”
“The mortal man and the great champion,” Flyn said.
“Just so. But fate cannot be rushed and for a long time I wandered, keeping track of those with promise, but never able to bring them together. And then, several years ago, I found who I believed to be those prophesied. Both in Airlann.”
“Faabar,” Deglan muttered, casting a baleful eye at the giant. “That is why you gave him that sword. You can sense the weapons you have forged. You wanted him to come with you. The great champion.”
Fafnir nodded.
“A mile-tamer gone,” Deglan said derisively. “A mile-tamer is an old soldier's term for leg. It is a bloody play of words.”
“What we in Middangeard call a kenning,” Fafnir agreed.
The gnome threw a hand in the giant's direction, pointing at his peg. “This legless oaf fits your little omen. But Faabar's leg was not injured when you first met him.”
“True,” Fafnir replied. “But I saw the potential in him, nonetheless. And as you saw, he was indeed hurt. It was part of his fate. When I returned with the blade and heard of his wound, my certainty grew. And when the boy Padric arrived with the piskie, I saw the links at last begin to fasten.”
“Piskie?” Flyn said, looking down at Deglan, but the gnome would not meet his eye. Flyn knew the name Padric. Padric the Black. The man he had almost killed at Castle Gaunt, presuming him to be Jerrod's heir before the truth of Pocket was revealed. “You mean Rosheen?”
The dwarf smiled slightly. “Winged and deathless.”
“The lad joined us on the hunt for the Unwound,” Deglan said slowly. “You encouraged him to follow us, so you could get Faabar and him together.”
“I did. But their fates, though intertwined, were not bound to the Corpse Eater. I brought the piskie to Black Pool where I sensed the coburn sword to now be, in hopes that the other two would find their way there. Little did I know that the fomori had been killed and Padric was sinking deeper into his true fate. However,” the dwarf said, looking at Flyn, “I did get to set eyes on the new bearer of the sword and I knew the blade had finally found its chosen wielder.”
Flyn looked at the weapon in his hands. It had been with him every day now for years, but suddenly it appeared to him a strange intruder.
“I found Hafr in Middangeard soon after,” Fafnir continued. “And realized that 'deep in the horns' was not a reference to a fomori's age, but another kenning—””
“That he's a bloody drunk,” Deglan cut in, looking at the giant with disgust. “This is madness! By your own admission you have been wrong before. How can you be so certain now?”
“When you seek the proper cure for an illness, Master Loamtoes,” Fafnir replied, “are you not certain once you find it?”
Deglan stared hard at the Chain Maker for a moment, struggling for a retort. “I cannot listen to any more,” he said at last. He wheeled on Flyn and Crane, thrusting a finger up at their faces. “You two should not believe a word of this! But just in case you are fools enough to, I hope you remember the last line of that convenient little prophecy.”
The gnome turned away and stalked off down the beach, back towards Skagen. Flyn watched him go, feeling the fool. Try as he might, he could not recall the final words of the augury. He turned to Inkstain and the chronicler must have read the confusion on his face.
“Many lives undone,” the man told him and ducked his head as he passed, following Deglan's tracks i
n the sand.
Flyn was left alone with the dwarrow and the giant. Fafnir must have been right about fate. Flyn could not force his feet to go after his friends.
SIXTEEN
There were no answers!
Ingelbert flung the tome off the table with a swipe of his arm, along with the low candle, empty cup and full plate. All spilled to the floor in a heap of graceless noise. Immediately regretting his outburst, Ingelbert looked surreptitiously around, but in the raucous din of the Wreck, his loss of temper went unnoticed. Sliding off the bench, he bent down and retrieved the book from the pile of flung food, dismayed to find grease on the pages and spattered wax from the upset candle. With a groan, he tried to undo the damage, but his efforts were feebly ineffectual. The stains were already set into the vellum. Not bothering with the rest of the discarded items, Ingelbert rose and set the tome carefully on the tabletop before flopping back down onto the bench. He stared at the sullied binding morosely. What was wrong with him? Never in his life would he have dared treat a book so. He once handled even the banal ledgers of the Valiant Spur with great care. Now he was dumping a centuries old tome onto the floor of a tavern with the table scraps. And that, disturbingly, was the least of the changes he was manifesting.
What had happened in Gipeswic? To the clavigers, to the giant, to him? Horror and death and the release of fell powers. But how? Was it the book? If so, the pages offered him no clues. They lay splayed before him, unfathomable and inert. Since his abduction, Ingelbert had found no time to study the runes, but now that the truth of the dwarf's actions had been confessed he was determined to bury all the remaining riddles.
Deglan had been in no mood for more discourse after the revelations upon the beach and retired to one of the mariner's huts after seeking, and gaining, an assurance from Ingelbert that he was not fool enough to embark on the dwarf's deluded geis. Ingelbert did not fully share the bigoted gnome's skepticism, but he agreed readily. He had no intention of going anywhere save a quiet place to be alone. In the end, he found neither solitude nor silence.
The crude domiciles in Skagen were owned only by occupancy and the swell of men from Deglan's ship and Fafnir's crew had filled the available huts. Already, quarrels had broken out between the sailors over the lack of lodging. Ingelbert had been left with no other choice but the Wreck. For several hours, he drifted in the miasma of unwashed bodies, boiled fish, stale grog and fresh piss, trying to focus on his task. Before his time in Gipeswic, he would never have dared to enter a place such as this.
The Errantry of Bantam Flyn Page 28
