“I have him, Sir Flyn.”
Flyn turned at Inkstain's voice and found the chronicler staring at nothing. He was perfectly still, paying no mind to the fact that he stood ankle-deep in the frigid waters of the brook. His eyes suddenly regained focus and he gestured down the length of the gully.
“That way.”
“You are certain?” Flyn asked.
Inkstain nodded. “Gasten tracks him.”
Deglan made a noise in his throat, scanning the branches above with disdain. “That damn bird is the only animal in this forest.”
“Fafnir and we four are all that draws breath here, Master Loamtoes,” Inkstain replied, his voice steady and distant.
The gnome cast a dubious frown the man's way, then turned his attention to Ulfrun. “That water looks to get deeper ahead. I don't fancy wading balls-deep down an icy stream. Do you mind?”
Ulfrun laughed, shaking her head as she bent to scoop Deglan up. “Saving your manhood by carrying you like a babe.”
“Contrary to his bones,” Flyn remarked, adding his own laughter.
Deglan tried to cast his own barb, but was cut short as Ulfrun hoisted him up to sit upon her shoulders, holding him steady with one arm gripped against his ankles. The gnome shifted dizzily for a second, then looked down at Ulfrun's ember-colored hair.
“You just be sure and watch for low-hanging branches,” he warned her.
“Low-hanging?” Flyn mocked. “Staunch, you are now twice my height.”
Deglan glowered down at him. “I can spit really far from here, Bantam Flyn.”
Flyn let out one last chuckle, then proceeded to lead his little band down the gully. The water did indeed grow deeper, but they managed to find footing on the narrow banks and the thicker patches of ice. The slope to their left gradually receded, while the one they had descended grew steeper. Flyn took them up onto the left bank as soon as he was able, leading them away from the water at Ingelbert's direction.
The trees thinned, giving way to a vast, hilly clearing. A cold fog had settled within the cavity, idly caressing the uneven ground. Flyn could not see the far side of the clearing, nor much of anything beyond the reach of his sword.
Through the shifting fog, he could just make out a vast shape, a dense darkness in the ethereal white. Looking back, he caught Inkstain's eye and the man nodded grimly in assent. Flyn took a careful step forward, scrabbling up and over a rise of loose soil. He picked his way through furrows and shallow pits, getting fleeting glimpses of the terrain when the fog fled, only to rush back in and lay claim to the sight of the elusive ground. The mouldy aroma of stale earth grew potent and Flyn heard Deglan coughing somewhere behind him. Slowly, the shadowy bulk before him became more defined, and soon distinct shapes swam out of the fog. Great, broken branches and thick, exposed roots, and between them a trunk so large it rivaled the girth of a castle drum tower.
It was the remains of a tree. A huge, gnarled tree, felled and uprooted, impressive even in ruin. It lay upon a towering mound of grey, fetid earth, a bier of upturned soil foul to behold, for scattered in the dirt Flyn saw faces. Sightless eyes and mud-choked mouths, hair and beards caked with the muck of centuries. Heads. They were all severed heads.
As Flyn drew closer, the mist gave way, as if it had wanted to shield him from this grisly sight, but now that he had come, heedless, it could no longer bear to remain. Flyn's talon sunk into something giving and he looked down to find a hand sticking up through the dirt, coal-black nails at the ends of pale, stiff fingers. That one hand, once perceived, heralded the revelation of a thousand of its fellows. Everywhere there were limbs. Arms and legs half buried, the stalks of countless corpses liberated from the dirt. None of the bodies had heads.
Flyn paused upon a low rise, a rise compiled of death, and surveyed the horrible ground, the work of a mad ploughman, unearthing a crop of nightmare.
They were all dwarrow, the bodies. Male and female, many clearly, awfully, children. Despite the rank dirt, despite the obscuring fog, their faces were always visible, white flesh staring with empty sockets.
“No bones.”
Flyn jerked and found Deglan standing beside him.
“These,” the gnome gestured weakly at the bodies, “have been dead for uncountable years, but...the flesh remains.”
He was right. There were no skulls, no protruding rib cages. The dead flesh was aged, but preserved. Flyn felt sick. He had witnessed death in many ugly forms, even delivered it himself on occasion, but this was unlike anything from a battlefield. This was an obscene, purposeful display of something best left hidden. An untold number of lost lives, dismembered by those who loved them, who feared them. This was no memorial, no shrine to grief, it was the banished shame of a plagued people, unearthed to further their torment.
Flyn felt Deglan bump his leg purposefully and looked over to find the gnome pointing to the crest of the great mound. There, with head bowed before the remains of the great tree, stood Fafnir. Flyn did not approach him, nor did any of the others. Only Inkstain's owl dared intrude, callously perching high on one of the fallen branches. At last, the runecaster turned to face them, looking down from the awful hill with eyes filled with tears.
“Is there no end to what my people must suffer?” Fafnir asked, his voice thick with sorrow. “Is it not enough that our dead rise to murder us? Must we also endure those we have ingloriously laid to rest be so despoiled?”
None gave voice to an answer.
“Now you shall learn why I have taken such steps to bring you here,” the Chain Maker continued, his eyes slowly sweeping over each of them in turn. Flyn resisted the urge to step back when the wizard's burning gaze rested upon him. “We dwarrow lived with the shadow of the Corpse Eater's curse for thousands of years before the augury came to me, and I have pursued it tirelessly since. Always searching, always hoping for those who would bring an end to the blight of the vættir, but I could never gather the chosen three. Those I believed to be the foretold slayers proved false, or died, or became entwined with greater fates. I had to learn patience through the bitterness of repeated failures. But I had faith in my people, in their resolve to outlast the curse. So long as the hearts of my kin remained steadfast, time was on my side, and this belief bolstered me through centuries of fruitless searching. And then, only a year ago, time began to run dry. The dooming of the dwarrow was proclaimed with the sound of falling trees.
“This,” the dwarf said, gesturing mournfully at the fallen trunk and twisted limbs, “was once a Warden Ash. One of twelve trees planted by the huldu to keep our dead from rising.”
“The elves gave them to you?” Deglan asked, his usual rancor gone.
“Yes,” Fafnir replied with naked scorn. “But only after we came to their aid in the wars with the Goblin Kings. Our estranged kin finally deigned to help us, but their beneficence was not born from pity or charity. No, Master Loamtoes, the Wardens were not gifts. They were payment of the debt they owed.”
Flyn was no scholar, but even he knew the elves owed the dwarrow much at the end of the Rebellion. Dwarven warriors turned the tide at the raid upon the Sullied Gorge and liberated the iron mines north of Black Pool, slaying the Toothless One in the process, one of Jerrod's most feared disciples. No doubt many of Inkstain's histories would credit the dwarrow with saving the Source Isle.
“Irial Elf-king himself came from Airlann at war's end,” Fafnir continued. “Back to long abandoned Middangeard where we knew only Winter, and sowed the seeds of the Wardens in the soil of our ancient burial grounds. Fire cannot consume dwarrow dead, so we were forced to behead our fallen, but with the blossoming of the elves' trees we were saved from such butchery. We began to lay our lost to rest with dignity amongst the roots of the Wardens, trusting in the Magic of the huldu to keep them in the Earth. The Warden Trees were as immortal as those who planted them and grew larger, stronger with each passing year. The Corpse Eater remained alive, but fewer were able to answer her call, fewer marched on black feet to
her gullet, killing as they went. Some dared hope that we were at last delivered, that the Corpse Eater would be starved out and succumb to mortality.
“I warned against such folly, knowing she could only die at the hands of those I continued to search for, but few gave ear to my entreaties. The Warden Trees were protected by the most potent of huldu enchantments, repelling any who tried to harm them, destroying those who persisted. Mortal man came to fear them and shunned the places where they grew. My kin grew complacent, and reduced the guards upon the Trees. Fools that they were!
“I was away in the Tin Isles when word reached me that one of the Wardens had fallen, its garrison slain and then risen, along with the dead so long housed within the barrow beneath the Tree. Those responsible for this evil transgression could not be found and soon another Tree fell. And another, yet still the defilers remained a mystery. Nine have been left broken upon the ground with nary a sign of those who swung the axe. Until now!”
Fafnir cast an arm across the clearing, the gesture born of rage and triumph. “This was the tenth Tree to fall and it shall be the last! Skrauti tells me that the body of a man was found here, and wisely was it left unmolested until my arrival. Search it out. Search it out and we shall finally discover who so affronts the dwarrow!”
Gasten found the corpse within minutes, but Ingelbert said nothing. He was not sure why, save for a desire to look the dead man over before the dwarf arrived. Through the owl's eyes he saw him, hanging by the neck from a tree at the far edge of the clearing, too distant to be clearly seen from the mound and further concealed by the fog. Ingelbert made sure the others were busy in their own searches before following the owl's path. He picked his way across the corpse-strewn terrain, less repulsed by the profusion of bodies than was normal, and keenly aware of an overall detachment from the surrounding horror. He even kicked a head out of his path before he could stop himself, turning quickly to ensure Fafnir had not witnessed the disrespect before moving on.
Unlike the dwarrow dead, the hanged man was not immune to the effects of rot, though the lack of animals in the Fatwood had helped keep him more or less intact. The flesh was waxy, mottled with stains of black and purple. Wisps of pale hair clung to the scalp. He was not suspended from any great height, more trussed up for display. Ingelbert doubted he had strangled. His head was thrown back, the mouth still agape, though the lips had drawn back tightly with decay to reveal bad teeth. Likely he died from the shock and blood loss of the disembowelment he had suffered. As Ingelbert stepped around the spill of frost covered entrails, he saw the man's limbs had also been broken. A series of brutal tortures to produce a painful death, but performed quickly. An example.
“I see you found him.”
Ingelbert did not startle. Gasten had warned him of Deglan's approach, sending a quick vision pulsing through his head. It was the first time the owl had done that, but somehow it was not surprising.
“Yes,” Ingelbert said, turning slowly. “I, um, am not much of a whistler. I don't suppose–?”
Deglan stuck two stubby fingers in his mouth and turned towards the clearing, blowing a piercing sound through the air. As they waited for the others, the gnome scrutinized the corpse.
“Poor bastard,” he said simply.
Ulfrun was the next to arrive, followed by Flyn and Fafnir together. The dwarf wasted no time, striding up to the hanged man and producing one of the stones from his pouch. Ingelbert made sure he caught sight of the rune carved on its surface. Certainly not one he had seen before. The runecaster then snatched off one of the dead man's decrepit shoes and seized the tumid, black toes between his fingers. He squeezed until the rotting flesh burst, allowing the vile ichor that oozed forth to coat his thumb. This he rubbed over the runestone, staining the carved sigil which instantly began to smoke. Holding the stone close to his lips, Fafnir inhaled deeply, drawing the thick, putrid fumes into his mouth and nostrils. Slowly, steadily, he exhaled and the smoke drifted up to the face of the hanged man where it entered his mouth as if he still drew breath.
Fafnir took a step closer to the swinging body and spoke to it in the tongue of the fjordmen. “What were you called in life?”
The corpse's head twitched on its stretched neck, the stiff jaw creaking. The black smoke drifted lazily out of the slack mouth, sliding over the grinning teeth. The voice choked out from behind a bloated tongue.
“Otkell.”
Ingelbert heard Deglan curse behind him, muttering in distaste.
Fafnir resumed his questioning. “Who felled this Warden Tree, Otkell?”
“Not I,” the dead man groaned through his constricted throat. “Refused. Others...too craven.”
“What others?” Fafnir demanded.
“Thralls,” the corpse gagged the word out.
“You were commanded to destroy the tree?”
“I did not. Feared the curse. More than his sons.”
Ingelbert saw Fafnir stiffen at this. Behind them, Flyn was asking for a translation, his voice edged with doubt. Ingelbert ignored him.
“Whose sons?” Fafnir hissed. “Who held you in thrall?”
The dead man's jaw clicked, the words boiling out of the smoke behind his frozen scream. “Crow Shoulders.”
Ingelbert jumped back as Fafnir, with a howl of wordless fury, ripped his sword from its sheath at his side and sliced upward in one motion. The wide blade caught the hanged man in the ribs and cleaved the dead flesh in a vicious arc until it slashed directly through the rotting body, the keen steel emerging from the opposite collarbone. The lower half of the corpse fell to the turf, while the remaining arm, shoulders and head swung violently on the end of the noose. The smoke fled the dead man's mouth in a billowing rush, escaping through the branches above.
Fafnir stood transfixed, his blazing eyes upon the swinging remains. For a moment, Ingelbert thought the dwarf would again assault the carcass, but then he inhaled deeply, sheathing his sword.
“What by Earth and Stone was that all about?” Deglan demanded.
Ingelbert turned to face his companions, finding Flyn and Deglan in complete puzzlement. Ulfrun was grimly silent, though Ingelbert knew she understood the speech of Middangeard men. She volunteered nothing, waiting on Fafnir.
“He gathered slaves,” the dwarf said quietly. He spoke the tongue of the Tin Isles, but his words seemed meant only for himself. “Forced them to fell the Trees, knowing it would kill them. But they rose again. The song of the vættir calls mortal man to rise from death. That was why we found nothing!”
“Who?” Flyn pressed, stepping forward, forcing the dwarf to look at him. “Who is doing this?”
“Arngrim Crow Shoulders,” Fafnir replied, still entranced by his own black thoughts.
“You know him?” Deglan asked.
The Chain Maker nodded. “A strong man and a great jarl. His enmity for the dwarrow runs deep.”
Deglan's face grew sour. “What did you do to him?”
Fafnir was upon the gnome before anyone could react. He snatched Deglan by the throat, pulling him close and dragging him back out into the clearing, wrestling him around to face the field of exposed dead.
“What slight deserves this?” Fafnir screamed. “Tell me, elf's pet! Should we pay thus for the pride of mortals? TELL ME!”
Flyn was upon them now, struggling with Fafnir to release the gnome, who was now fighting to breathe. Try as he might, the coburn could not break the dwarf's hold.
Ingelbert stood watching. He should do something, he knew. Certainly interposing himself physically would be useless, but he felt he could stop the dwarf if he so desired. Turn the bones of his hands into wax or perhaps cause thorns to grow beneath his skin. The runecaster was so distracted with his petty anger, he would be unable to properly ward himself. Still, Ingelbert did nothing. He found he was intrigued by the shade Deglan's face was turning. The feeble scrabbling of his fingers across the dwarf's unrelenting grip. The gnome so often allowed his caustic tongue to wag without thought, it was a wo
nder no one had strangled him before now.
It was not until Ulfrun stepped in that Ingelbert realized he was viewing the struggle through Gasten's eyes. He recoiled from his cruel apathy, fleeing the owl's head and returning to his own shuddering body.
The giantess had shoved Bantam Flyn aside and crouched to place her formidable hands on the dwarf, though she exerted no force upon him.
“Chain Maker!” she said strongly. “Enough. This is unworthy of you. Let him go.”
Fafnir ceased his throttling at Ulfrun's words, the rage falling from his face as his grip around Deglan's neck loosened. The herbalist reeled away, coughing as he dragged air into his lungs. Flyn helped steady him, casting an angry look at the runecaster.
“You—” the knight began, but Deglan grabbed his hand, cutting him off.
“No,” the gnome said through a raw throat. “Let it be.”
Flyn relented, though the wrath returned to his face each time he looked upon the dwarf.
“We should leave this place,” Ulfrun insisted. “It serves no good to linger.”
Ingelbert glanced up to the bough from which the remains of Otkell still swung. There, sitting upon the coils of rope which had hanged the poor man, was Gasten. The owl's imposing, orange eyes looked into Ingelbert's with palpable judgment and he quickly turned away to join Flyn by Deglan's side.
The Errantry of Bantam Flyn Page 34
