It was true. After the battle with Torcan Swinehelm's goblins and the awakened Forge Born, Deglan had been too busy with the wounded outside the citadel. By choice, he never set foot within the cursed walls of the Goblin Kings' stronghold.
Deglan shook his head, his jaw slack. “Rosheen said—”
Slouch Hat cut him off. “Ah, yes. Padric's piskie paramour. Well, I suppose I should grant her some accuracy. I was dead. Destroyed by the sorcery of the gurg child as I tried to remove Jerrod's crown from his head. I thought it only right, as it was my body that was used to place it on the poor boy's brow. It was killing him and I felt remorse.”
Slouch Hat shrugged his narrow shoulders and turned away. He peered for a moment at one of the draugr. When he spoke again his voice was sorrowful.
“It was a cruel fate. That the boy should be half-Fae. The heir to the iron crown, poisoned by his birthright. I tried to save him, Deglan. But he had other designs.”
Deglan kept his face passive. He had not been there, but knew the events well, having been told them by Flyn and Corc, Curdle and Rosheen. They had all been killed, or near to it, swatted down with dread powers turned upon them by Slouch Hat, who was possessed by the vengeful spirit of Jerrod's bed-slave. Pocket had saved them, keeping the crown upon his head so he could use its Magic to restore the lives of his friends at the cost of his own. Or so Slouch Hat believed. Only a few knew the truth that Pocket had lived despite the grievous harm inflicted by the evil artifact.
“He restored you too, then” Deglan said. “Before he died.”
Slouch Hat laughed. Even during happier times in Hog's Wallow, it was not a sound Deglan found pleasant.
“No,” the husk said. “No, my salvation came from a different source. Though, admittedly, they shared a bloodline.” Reaching up with a hand made of bound twigs, Slouch Hat removed his namesake. Beneath, upon the bare, rumpled dome of the husk's stuffed head, was a simple iron band.
Hissing between his teeth, Deglan took an involuntary step back. “Jerrod's crown.”
“Yes,” Slouch Hat said mournfully. “My fate appears bound to the lineage of vile men.”
“You are damn well serving one now,” Deglan groused.
The husk replaced his hat with slow deliberateness. “My kind was created to serve, Deglan. And only my first master was a good man, though even he was drawn to the study of the warlocks' origins. After his death I was passed down from one bucolic wretch to the next. Arngrim Crow Shoulders is no different from the rest, he just commands warriors instead of sheep.”
“Crow Shoulders is not the mystery,” Deglan spat back. “He wants revenge, the same useless balm that humans and immortals have been applying to their pain since the birth of the world. It is you I do not understand!”
“My motivations are far more intricate. I would not waste time in an attempt to explain them.”
“Toad shit!”
The curse caused Slouch Hat's face to crinkle with amusement. “I know you, Deglan Loamtoes. For all your many thousands of years, you are not a complicated being. Your judgment is as blunt as your speech. You are adept at healing and long-practiced in hating, but there is little more to you. That is why I know you are telling Crow Shoulders the truth. You will aid him, if you can save your companions, and that will spare your life. Do not concern yourself with why I help the fjordman. Simply be glad I choose to help you.”
“You want to help? Bloody help me escape! Earth and Stone, Slouch, we were friends once!”
“And that friendship is what prevents me from such schemes. Where would you go, Deglan? In the wastes of Middangeard escape is only another form of death. Better to stay a hostage and live. Have faith in your plan, keep true to your word. Convince your friends to leave the runecaster's side, so that you may return to the Tin Isles, to Airlann, where you belong.”
“Then come with me! Leave this madness behind!”
“I cannot. I am needed here.”
Deglan issued a disgusted groan. “Why? So you can command Crow Shoulders' corpses with that pederast's crown?”
Slouch Hat ignored this.
“Go home, Deglan,” he said, nodding at the back of one of the draugr. “For some, it is already too late.”
With that, the husk walked away and Deglan stared daggers at his thin form until he was lost from sight. After a deep breath, Deglan made his way slowly around to the front of the dead man Slouch Hat had indicated, a cold weight in his gut. The draugr's head turned to follow him, only resting when Deglan stopped to face it squarely. The thin, black hair was matted with frost, the jaw twisted into a permanent snarl.
“I am sorry,” Deglan said softly.
Hakeswaith stared down at him, his eyes filled with more hatred in death than they ever held in life.
TWENTY SEVEN
Flyn had only dwelt five days in the Downward Fields before his armor was ready. He was roused early by a knocking upon his door, followed by the appearance of one of the dwarrow smiths who had taken his measure in Reginn's throne room. Suspecting this signaled the end of his respite, Flyn strapped the elven spurs to his feet and shouldered his sword before following the artisan out the door. A short journey brought them to a stifling forge where the other armorers waited, along with Hengest Half-Rune. The beardless dwarf's hair was fully washed of dye and shaved so short only a stain of black stubble covered his scalp. He had also abandoned his rude, sleeveless coat in favor of sturdy, somber-colored robes. A stout staff rode his fist, its top affixed with a heavy mace-like head fashioned out of steel in the likeness of a ram.
“Sir Flyn,” Hengest said in greeting.
Flyn gave him a courteous nod, but was too captivated by the new coat of mail hung upon the arming stand to say anything. No mortal smith could have completed a hauberk in so short a time, especially not one of such beauty. The thick rings were enameled white and woven so tightly together the metal looked almost like cloth. Shining spaulders added protection at the shoulders and a new belt encircled the waist, a dwarrow hand axe hanging from its frog. A pair of vambraces waited upon a nearby table.
“Remarkable,” Flyn breathed, running a hand over the rings and nodding gratefully to the smiths. “Truly you are masters of your craft.”
The dwarrow accepted the praise with humble bows, then quickly set about helping Flyn into the quilted gambeson before lowering the hauberk over his head. Though far from weightless, the mail was astonishingly light. Flyn had not worn armor since fighting Gallus. The feel of it was emboldening. He strapped the vambraces to his forearms and flexed his fingers. The smiths also provided him a new surcoat of heavy wool, dyed a cold grey. Lastly, Flyn slung Coalspur's harness across his back.
There was a brief exchange between Hengest and the smiths in dworgmál.
“They wish to know if any adjustments need to be made,” Hengest translated.
Flyn took a moment and moved about the smithy, rolling his shoulders .
“None,” he answered with a small laugh. “Though likely I am the only one surprised.”
“Very well,” Hengest said. “Then we are to meet the others.”
With a final bow of gratitude to the armorers, Flyn followed the runecaster out of the smithy and they walked to Hriedmar's Hall, where Fafnir waited. Inkstain and Ulfrun were not far behind. They appeared much improved by the sojourn here, especially Crane, whose normally wan and worried face now wore a healthy flush. He was heavily dressed and laden with his book satchels, further evidence that their convalescence was at an end.
For his own part, Flyn was reinvigorated and eager to take up the quest once more. Warmth and wine were welcome comforts, but idleness was the thief of courage. It ushered in too much deep thinking, which only watered the blossoms of doubt. Flyn was glad he had learned some of Sir Corc's patience, however grudgingly, but now was not the time for such a virtue. Only a swift end to this quest would set Flyn on the road to retrieve Deglan and, after, the road home.
Of all assembled, Fafnir looked the le
ast rested. Indeed, the Chain Maker appeared more haggard than ever. The black wires of his beard were wild beneath his alarmingly pale and haunted visage. His garb was fresh, but his back drooped under his new cloak. Only the wizard's eyes remained strong, his gaze steady as he looked over his chosen champions.
“My friends,” Fafnir intoned. “I hope you have not found the hospitality of the dwarrow wanting. It is unworthy recompense for what you have already endured for my people. And yet I must beg more from you. The final measure of our journey is at hand. I tell you with certainty it will only grow more treacherous from here. No servants, guards or retainers shall accompany us. I will not risk any more of my people. Nor shall I offend your bravery with offers to abandon what we have begun. Know that if we succeed, you three will forever have the loyalty and gratitude of the dwarrow to call upon at your whim.” The wizard gestured at a pile of baggage resting nearby. “Sleds will only hinder us in the upcountry, so we must each carry our own provisions. Come.”
Without another word Fafnir grabbed one of the packs and began leading the group through the great hall. Slinging his own pack across his back, Flyn was suddenly grateful for the axe at his belt. The bag of provisions resting over his sword harness would make Coalspur slower to hand, for the entire harness had to be unslung in order to draw the massive blade. Fafnir was well ahead by the time Flyn got his kit properly situated. Hengest was a few steps behind his former master, while Ulfrun tarried some distance at the rear. Flyn found himself walking next to Inkstain.
“You seem hale,” Flyn said, thumping the chronicler on his shoulder.
The man accepted the friendly cuff with a slight smile. “Yes. And you?”
“Plied with endless drink and well-fed,” Flyn replied with a chuckle. “For so dour a people, the dwarrow are generous hosts.”
“I see they have armed you well.”
Flyn breathed a dramatic sigh. “Yes. I told them it would make a better tale if I fought the Corpse Eater wearing nothing but my feathers and a smile, but they insisted on the mail. I see you are still dragging half the Roost's library along. Surely King Reginn would keep the annals safe until we return.”
“I cannot part with them,” Inkstain answered simply.
Flyn found the man's response a little troubling and decided it was time to face Deglan's warnings.
“Well,” he said, “I would rather see you wed to your books than that owl.”
Inkstain expressed a hum and then was silent for a long moment. “Have you ever loved another, Bantam Flyn?”
The question caught Flyn off-guard and almost made him laugh. In truth, he did not immediately understand what the man was asking. Certainly, Flyn held deep affection for Deglan and, though he had known him only a short time, Inkstain as well. He loved Milosh as a father, Gulver and Tsura as siblings, bonds of fidelity that later extended to include Corc and Pocket. The love of his mother was now little more than an echo in his heart, one which, when thought upon, pulsed through his body as a pang of comfort and loss, gratitude and regret. So yes, he had loved and continued to love.
But something in Crane's voice hinted at a more visceral affection. It was this question that Flyn hesitated to answer. He had known lust as every coburn knows it, as a primal urge rife with red violence. In Gallus' clutch, it had nearly caused his destruction. Mating for a coburn was not about love, as it could be for other races. It was about conquering and controlling. Denying another male access to the possession of a female was more important than the need to experience physical pleasure or the desire to father children.
Inkstain waited on his response, his expression a mix of embarrassment and pride.
For an answer, Flyn gave him a conspiratorial grin. “Ingelbert Crane. You learned to sing.”
The jest cracked the chronicler's timorous face into a self-conscious smile. “Yes. I, ah, I suppose so.”
“What are you two clucking about?” Ulfrun called up to them, her voice playful.
“We,” Flyn tossed over his shoulder, “were simply extolling the wonders of this underground sanctuary.”
“You should visit the baths,” the giantess replied quickly.
Flyn stifled a snort. Poor Inkstain was hopelessly outmatched, the fortunate fellow. Flyn gave the man a nudge with his elbow.
“You hear that? The giantess thinks we need to smell sweeter.”
Inkstain ran a hand through his straw-colored hair and produced a nervous smile. “I, um, I have been to the baths.”
To spare the man, Flyn hid his amusement by walking backwards so he could face the giantess.
“I am afraid you mistake tactics for uncleanliness, Breaker,” he told her, putting just enough emphasis on the name for innuendo and making Ulfrun smile. “Where we are bound, I see an advantage in smelling like a troll.”
“Do not insult trolls so, sword cock!”
“Pardons,” Flyn bowed at her without breaking stride. “Let us simply call my lack of washing a blow struck in the war against vanity. I was far too comely as I was.”
Turning back around, Flyn affected his swagger to give Ulfrun a display of his tail feathers and was rewarded with a bawdy whistle. Though he refrained from teasing Inkstain further, Flyn could not help but smile. Small wonder the habitually doleful chronicler was suddenly so transformed.
“I am happy for you, Master Crane, truly. But you have not answered me.”
“But I have,” Inkstain replied. “Though I admit a certain tendency towards tergiversation.”
Flyn felt his brow wrinkle. “Did you just sneeze?”
The chronicler smiled, but his voice was sober. “Gasten will return. I am certain of it. I still do not understand his origins, but I know what he is. Power. Dominion. Protection. For me, these are seductive. But now I have a talisman against such forces.”
“The charms of a giantess,” Flyn said approvingly.
“Partly,” Inkstain admitted. “More than that, it is knowledge. Knowledge that I am not irrevocably corrupted or, more importantly, that I am not so hopelessly dissimilar from others as I once believed.”
Flyn started to respond, but was interrupted by Ulfrun stepping between him and Crane, laying her hands on their shoulders.
“If you two are composing ballads in my honor, I demand to hear them.”
In good spirits, the three walked together, Flyn and Ulfrun jesting while Inkstain basked comfortably in their levity. But while Flyn's tongue produced puns, his mind swam with memory. Inkstain's revelation had stirred the dregs of lost days to the surface.
Flyn had lain with a female. Once, many years ago, during his time with the Tsigani.
Milosh had docked at a human village which was home to a handful of escaped beldams. They were good workers come harvest time, so the villagers suffered their presence, but required they live on the outskirts of the community, lest some wandering male tried to claim them for his clutch. Human farmers were not about to fight a coburn on the hunt for fresh mates, no matter how helpful the females were. The beldams eked out a rough existence, though far better than the one they would have endured in some tyrant's birthing hut. Flyn still recalled the sudden, mysterious excitement which had come over him when Milosh arranged for he and Gulver to visit them. They went separately, of course, and Milosh set sail before the sun was up the following morning, lest Flyn or Gulver feel a desire to return and try to dominate the females. It was a dangerous chance the beldams had taken, and Milosh too. For the female coburn, the willingness to take that chance was born from desperation, but for Milosh it was simply a necessary risk. He believed if Flyn and Gulver were to join the Valiant Spur, they needed to know what it was they were forever renouncing.
The time Flyn had spent within the embrace of the female was a treasured memory, but one which he seldom recollected. It was too dangerous to dwell upon, the very thought enough to foment an unreasoning rage. He and Gulver had come to blows over the least thing for a fortnight after their respective couplings. Once, Milosh was forced to
call upon Pali to separate them. Many times since his night with the beldam, Flyn wished he had remained ignorant of such pleasures. More times, he wished she was again lying within reach.
Flyn's remembrance and his steps were soon brought to a halt.
Fafnir had led them to the western edge of Hriedmar's Hall and entered a wide, level corridor thick with dwarrow coming to and fro. Many pushed carts or drove wains pulled by mules and muskox. Amongst the loads Flyn saw bundles of oats, barley and rye, alongside baskets full of hazelnuts, plums and bilberries. Many wains were given over entirely to the transport of turnips and cabbages, piled high behind the driver. Though traffic moved in both directions, Flyn noticed most of the laden wagons came from ahead, their drivers making for Hriedmar's Hall.
“Now here is a tide of plenty,” Ulfrun announced, frowning down into the passing wagons.
“Back to the surface we go,” Flyn said, clapping Inkstain encouragingly on the back. “Back to the cold.”
“I do not think so,” the man replied. “Not yet.”
It took some time to traverse the busy corridor, but it at last debouched into the first natural cavern Flyn had seen since coming underground. Unequivocally larger than Hriedmar's Hall, the cave spread out into the distance, the ceiling completely lost in towering darkness. Flyn stood stunned, but it was not the enormity of the place which caused him to marvel.
Where a moment before he had trod on flagstones, Flyn now found his talons striding over ground thick with strangely luminescent grass. Rolling plains sprawled out before him, dotted with thickets. Exchanging an awestruck look with Inkstain, Flyn and his companions followed Fafnir to the crest of a low hill. There was no sun, yet they could see far into the distance. An endless patchwork of cultivated fields lay next to rushing streams, little more than glittering ribbons in the distance. Somehow, the vegetation itself shone, imbued with a pale, inner fire. The light did not radiate, but was enough to reveal the individual blade or leaf which housed it. It was as if the land had leeched the stars and moon from the heavens, leaving a black void above an idyllic valley awash in purloined light.
The Errantry of Bantam Flyn Page 49
