by John Gwynne
Lykos turned away, his mind reeling.
He was at the tower of Brikan, on the edge of Forn, and escaped from there. So it is possible that Maquin is out there. And if he is out there, then maybe so is Fidele . . .
And now he no longer felt bored. He felt scared, and excited.
Alive.
Lykos frowned at the screams. He was back in the great courtyard, listening to a man as he was slowly impaled upon a spear.
Movement drew his eye and he saw Nathair striding from the courtyard, a few of his eagle-guard about him.
Doesn’t have the stomach for this kind of thing. Some men are just not equipped to rule. I wonder what Calidus promised him to convince him to stay.
Calidus was still there, though, standing by the stable-blocks, staring at the remaining prisoners as they were led from the courtyard, still over two hundred of them left.
Lykos saw Cywen amidst all of the prisoners, dark-haired, face pinched and eyes grey with the horror of it all.
It can’t be a pleasant way to start your day, watching a comrade skewered, and listening to them beg and wail and plead. Not a lot of dignity in that death.
Cywen walked past Lykos, her head bowed, and then Calidus was stepping out towards her, grabbing the scruff of her shirt and dragging her across the courtyard. Lykos hurried after them, intrigued by this display of emotion.
A chance at some entertainment, at least.
He caught up with them in the shadows of a stable door.
‘Where is your brother?’ Calidus was hissing in Cywen’s face, bending her backwards with his grip on the back of her neck.
‘Where is he? Why does he not come for you? For them?’ He waved a hand in the general direction of the screams. ‘He is supposed to be the Bright Star! Saviour of the world, defender of the innocent!’ He was spluttering now, voice rising.
Cywen just stared at him with hate-filled eyes.
Calidus seemed to run out of energy and released Cywen with a disdainful flick of his wrist, sending her stumbling. She righted herself and began to walk after the other prisoners. After a couple of steps she stopped.
‘You should be glad Corban has waited so long,’ she said. ‘It means you’ve had a few extra days of life.’
‘Huh, please,’ snorted Calidus.
‘Be sure of this: when he does come, it is you he will seek out. You slew our mam. He won’t forget that.’
‘I am counting on it,’ Calidus said. He reached inside his cloak and pulled something out, an old flower, purple and prickly.
A thistle?
Calidus twirled it slowly between finger and thumb, something of his old mocking smile returning.
Cywen looked at the flower, confused and frowning, then her expression changed. To fury. She launched herself at Calidus, but he lashed out with a hand, connected with her cheek, sending her to the floor. As she tried to scramble to her feet Calidus nodded at a Kadoshim in the shadows, who sprang agilely forwards and dragged Cywen from the courtyard. She was spitting and snarling like an alley-cat as she disappeared around a corner.
Lykos walked out of the sunshine into the cool of Drassil’s great hall.
The steps were wide, arched in a gentle half-circle around the hall, so big they were more like tiered seats that led down to the sunken floor of the chamber. Above him was a curving stone wall, with staircases spiralling upwards around it to disappear into cunningly fashioned towers. The floor of the chamber was sunken into the earth, wide and flat, periodically dotted with fire-pits.
At the chamber’s centre was the trunk of the great tree, mottled and dark, wider than Jerolin’s feast-hall. Huge knots studded the trunk, bark peeling, trails of leaking sap dried hard. Here and there were black holes, indentations bored into the tree by bird or creature, squirrel or owl. Even as Lykos looked, he saw a brightly coloured chaffinch swoop down from the chamber and alight on a hole’s rim, pause for a moment, its beak full with straw and moss, and then hop into the darkness.
At the trunk’s base, growing out of it, or so it seemed, was a carven chair, filled with the skeleton of a giant, held there still by the spear that had struck the death blow.
Skald, the giant High King. Skewered like a slaughtered pig. How the mighty can fall.
Either side of the chair, skeleton and the spear, two new objects had been placed. On one side the starstone axe was now hanging from a hook that had been hammered into the trunk, a heavy chain wrapped around it. And on the other side was the cauldron, huge and black, taller and broader than a giant, squatting like some great bloated toad.
Before the gathered Treasures there was a table, long and wide. A meeting table, and standing leaning against it was Calidus.
Lykos walked down the stairs and across the flagstoned floor.
Calidus ignored him and Lykos poured himself a drink from a jug on the table, dark red wine. He took a sip, slurping loudly and then smacking his lips. Calidus looked at him as if he were an annoying insect.
Which I probably am to him, with his great plans.
Lykos took another drink, smacked his lips louder.
Calidus tutted. ‘You should stop doing that,’ he said. ‘It may get you killed one day.’
‘Stop what? Drinking wine. That’s a little harsh, I have few pleasures in life and—’
‘Not drinking wine.’ Calidus looked at him; the intensity of his attention made Lykos uncomfortable. His face was scarred from the burning Veradis and Alcyon had treated him to, half his face blackened and melted like wax, his silver hair reduced mostly to stubble now. He was no longer handsome, as he once had been.
‘I speak of your tendency towards deliberate provocation and goading,’ Calidus continued. ‘It is a bad habit of yours.’
Lykos raised an eyebrow at that, then shrugged.
He’s probably right.
‘I’ll drink quieter,’ he said with a smile, then drained his cup. ‘What are you looking at?’
‘Skald, the starstone spear, the axe and cauldron, the great tree. So much history, and yet this same war is being fought.’
‘Aye. A little closer to being over now, though, eh?’
Calidus ground his teeth. ‘Closer, but still so much to do.’
‘That’s not what I wanted to hear,’ Lykos said sullenly. ‘I don’t like this place. My men don’t like this place. They are dying, whether out on your patrols, or gutting each other over a game of throwboard.’
Without Lykos really seeing Calidus move, the Kadoshim was nose to nose with him, a hand about Lykos’ throat, and Lykos was stumbling back into the table.
‘You think I care what you want to hear?’ Calidus hissed. ‘What you or your men like?’ The grip around Lykos’ throat tightened. ‘I don’t want to be here, either, amongst you vermin, consumed by your petty desires. Better for me if you and all your kind were slaughtered and hanging on hooks, ready for the feast.’
He needs me. He will not kill me.
With an act of will Lykos stayed motionless, forced himself not to struggle or retaliate.
Then Calidus was no longer there, the vice-like grip on his throat gone. Lykos slumped forwards, coughing.
‘I did not mean to offend you,’ Lykos wheezed when he had enough breath in his body.
‘I overreacted,’ Calidus said, not looking at him, but gazing back at the skeleton of Skald and the Treasures again.
The closest I’ll get to an apology.
Calidus looked up at the sound of footsteps; Lykos followed his gaze. Nathair was walking through the open doorway and down the steps towards them, his usual honour guard behind him, Legion at his side. Somehow the Kadoshim always looked bigger than the others – something about the way he walked, a barely contained power exuding from him.
Perhaps because there are so many Kadoshim spirits crammed inside the one body.
The cloud of ever-present flies buzzed around the creature.
‘Good, we can begin, then,’ Calidus said, waving for Lykos to sit, as if the violence
he had threatened a few moments ago had not happened.
Lykos did sit, pouring himself another cup of wine and leaning back in his chair, resting one boot upon the wooden table.
So, let’s see what revelations and delights this meeting will bring us. And you, Calidus, I will add your name to those I am looking forward to killing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
NATHAIR
‘Wait for me here,’ Nathair ordered Caesus as he strode down the steps of the great hall, Legion beside him. His captain and the eagle-guard with him stopped on the stairs.
So, Lykos is here already. That makes a change. He’s usually the last, and staggering.
Nathair reached the table and sat. He saw that a cup of wine had already been poured for him. Lykos gave him a grin and raised his cup. Nathair had to control himself so close to Lykos, resisting the urge to pull out his sword and gut him.
He wed my mother. Just the sight of him makes me feel sick to my stomach.
Calidus had explained that it had been a political move, a way of strengthening the bonds between Vin Thalun and Tenebral.
But Lykos and my mother! And I saw the way he looked at her during the trial in Brikan.
‘It’s good wine, my friend,’ Lykos said to him, drinking from his own cup and spilling some wine into his beard. Nathair stopped his lip from curling.
A small sip of wine. He did not want his wits clouded when he was around Calidus.
Nathair considered his allies. A drunken pirate. A demon-possessed attraction to flies and a half-burned Kadoshim. How have I sunk so low?
It was not the first time he’d asked himself this question; the feelings of shame and self-loathing bubbling up within him were old and familiar.
How I long for the days when Veradis and I were leading our warband on a great adventure, and Calidus was a mere counsellor. He felt a hot rage at the way he had been manipulated, manoeuvred.
No. Stop. You must focus on the details, he told himself. You have made your choice, walked your path. Now focus on how you will win. Then, when this war is done . . .
‘Welcome,’ Calidus said. ‘I have some news.’
‘I hope it is about how we are going to destroy our enemy, camped out in the forest and doing considerable harm to my men every time they venture out of the gates of Drassil,’ Nathair said.
‘And mine,’ Lykos murmured.
Calidus frowned. ‘The survivors of our enemy are proving difficult to root out, and becoming a distraction to our patrols, it is true.’
‘Distraction?’ Lykos said, quietly, under his breath. ‘If you class death as a distraction, maybe.’
Calidus gave Lykos a lingering look, laced with malice.
‘Whatever word you use to describe our enemy, they are a problem that must be dealt with,’ Nathair said. ‘We need more men; that is the answer. The only answer.’
‘Which is why we need our allies to arrive,’ Calidus said.
‘You could send out the Kadoshim,’ Lykos said. ‘I’m sure they would relish the opportunity of more battle. Is that not so, Legion?’ Lykos asked the Kadoshim.
‘I would delight in the death of my enemies,’ Legion said, his voice deep and grating, a hint of many voices, a choir of the damned. ‘In their destruction, the rending of their flesh and the breaking of their bones—’
‘Yes, yes, yes,’ Calidus interrupted. ‘We understand your enthusiasm, Legion. But the answer is no. I will not send out the Kadoshim on this mission. There is more important work for them to do.’
More like their numbers are dwindling and you would not risk them, especially when you have warbands thousands strong full of Vin Thalun and my valiant men of Tenebral.
‘But I would squeeze the eyeballs from their heads, suck the marrow from my enemies’ shattered bones,’ Legion grumbled.
Calidus held up a flat palm and he stopped.
‘Lothar and Gundul have been building roads for almost half a year, now,’ Nathair said. ‘Why do they even persist, when we have the tunnels?’
‘Because most of the tunnels are blocked,’ Calidus said, ‘and not just by rubble. There are creatures living beneath Forn that it would take a warband to destroy. Besides,’ he continued with a wave of his hand, ‘the tunnels were built in a different time. We need Lothar’s road: it will connect us to the south, a straight road to Helveth and thus Tenebral. And Gundul’s to the south-west, speeding us access to the great plains of Carnutan, with their herds of auroch for supply runs. We have Jael’s road to the west almost complete. Once Lothar’s and Gundul’s roads reach us the Banished Lands will open up to Drassil. The roads are essential.’
Nathair nodded. ‘How much longer will it take them to reach us?’
‘That is the news that I spoke of,’ Calidus said. ‘A messenger arrived from Lothar soon after dawn. He has informed me that Lothar is thirty leagues south, making good progress, and with him he has a warband of approximately three thousand swords.’
Now this is better news.
‘And what of Gundul?’ Nathair asked.
‘There is no word from Gundul,’ Calidus said. ‘I have sent messengers in search of him.’ He shrugged. ‘He should be closer than Lothar.’
‘I have some news, too,’ Lykos said, still slouched in his chair. ‘Maquin was involved in the strike against our patrol yesterday.’
‘Maquin?’ Calidus frowned.
‘A prisoner escaped from Tenebral in the company of Veradis and the warband of Tenebral.’
Maquin, beyond these walls. Then that means . . .
Mother. And perhaps even Veradis.
Nathair felt his guts twist, gripped the table’s edge, thought for a moment he was going to vomit. He took deep breaths.
They cannot be fighting against me.
He had been pleased when he’d heard of his mother’s escape, had not liked at all the thought of her in Calidus’ power.
Calidus was staring at him.
‘Maquin, you say?’ Nathair managed to stutter, trying to act normally, to control his feelings.
‘Aye. The Old Wolf, as my men are fond of calling him.’
‘If that is true,’ Calidus said, ‘then the warband of Ripa is most likely with him.’
‘Then we should do all that we can to speed Lothar and his warband to us,’ Nathair said.
‘Perhaps,’ Calidus said. ‘I can see the benefit of him and his men being here, but let us not forget what our goal is.’
‘To find the Seven Treasures, Calidus. That is the endgame, is it not? Bringing Asroth into this world of flesh.’
Besides him Legion shifted in his chair, growling enthusiasm for Nathair’s statement.
‘That’s correct,’ Calidus said fiercely. ‘That is why we are here. Thus far we have three of the Treasures: cauldron, axe and spear.’
‘Three of seven,’ Nathair snorted. ‘What of the others?’
Calidus gave him a cold, heavy-lidded stare.
‘I have reason to believe that the cup and necklace will be ours soon. Or in my agents’ hands, at least.’
That’s better than I thought.
‘And the final two – torc and dagger?’
Calidus scowled at that.
‘That is the other reason that I have summoned you to this meeting.’ He was silent again, hesitating. Eventually he spoke. ‘I have been searching for a room within Drassil. I believe it will contain clues as to the whereabouts of the last two Treasures.’
‘What room?’ Lykos asked.
‘It is the smithy where the Seven Treasures were forged,’ Calidus sighed tiredly.
‘Then we will help you search for it,’ Nathair said. ‘The more eyes and hands searching, the sooner it will be found.’
Calidus frowned. ‘Just so,’ he said.
‘And what of the new arrivals beyond our walls,’ Lykos said. ‘I suspect they will not just sit around doing nothing.’
‘What can they do?’ Calidus asked. He looked hard at Lykos, then sighed again, seemingly bor
ed of talking over such mundane matters. ‘All right, as I can see you will not let this issue go, I shall take steps to deal with our unwanted woodland guests.’ He cupped a hand to his mouth. ‘Trigg,’ he called, ‘come down here.’
Trigg appeared on the staircase, tall and gangly, the half-breed who had shown them the secret tunnel to Drassil. Nathair had not seen her since they’d arrived, but obviously she had stayed around.
She approached them, her face broad and angular, her limbs long and already knotted with sinuous muscle.
‘Aye,’ she said hesitantly to Calidus.
‘Trigg,’ Calidus replied. ‘I seem to recall that you are very good at sneaking around in the forest, spying on people and not being seen.’
Trigg shrugged, an admission.
‘We have some unwanted guests camping on our doorstep. Out in the forest, and we would like very much for you to find them for us, so that we can go and kill them.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CORBAN
Corban stepped into the courtyard of Gramm’s hold.
I suppose it shouldn’t be called that any more. Instead it is the first settlement of the Jotun clan this side of the river since the Scourging. Or so Mort told me.
Four nights had passed since Corban had watched the host of the Jotun crossing the stone bridge, leaving the Desolation behind them. The red-haired giant was standing behind him now, scowling at Corban as if he was a rat in his grain barrel. Mort did not talk much, not as much as Varan, anyway.
Corban found that very frustrating.
I need to find Varan, see if he’s more forthcoming. First of all, though . . .
He looked around the courtyard and settlement, eventually seeing a stack of iron rods that would suit his purposes. Corban hefted one. It was heavy, the balance all wrong, but it was the closest he was going to find to what he needed.
What are they forging with all this iron? I doubt it’s ploughs for farming the land.
‘What do you want with that?’ Mort asked him suspiciously.
‘Well, I’m not going to try and bludgeon my way out of here with it, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ Corban said. ‘Come, I’ll show you.’
