The High-King (Isolde Saga Book 5)

by Robert Jones

  The northern gate was worse. The bodies that had fallen had been trampled into the ground by the passing of thousands of boots. Harald knew Sigurd was one of them, but he dared not look for the Jarl, he couldn’t let his heart bear that pain. They slipped out the front gates and the northern field was alive with movement.

  Harald shuddered at the sight of the grey draugrs moving silently at their task. Their leathery skin so taught around their frames that they looked like walking skeletons as they silenced the wounded and ripped apart the catapults. Harald’s eyes scanned the scene, there was no great army here anymore, and as he kept looking, his breath was almost taken away when he spotted the figures of an old couple walking toward them. It was Skaldi and Ama.

  ***

  "What are you smiling at?" Wulfric growled at Ama.

  Harald shrunk at his words fearing the retribution from Ama's sharp tongue, but the old crone just kept grinning as she and Skaldi made their way toward them.

  "I am smiling because the king is dead!" she laughed as she said it, the sweet laughter of an old lady seeing her work come to fruition.

  "Our girl is dying back there, crone!" Wulfric yelled.

  "No, Wulfric," she said and Harald saw the surprise on his face at the woman using his name. "Our Isolde lives! She was always going to live, and now she lives free!"

  Ama laughed again and even tried to do a little twirl. Skaldi was beaming a wide smile as he took Harald first in a great hug and then Wulfric.

  "You did well, my friends," he said to them both.

  Wulfric pulled away from Skaldi and Harald could see the maddening confusion on his face, like a bull that had been nipped too many times by little terriers.

  "Why are you both so damn happy? Don't you see what has happened here?"

  "Wulfric," Harald hissed, unable to keep the infectious smile from his face. "She is Ama... the Blind Seer..."

  Wulfric's mouth shut tight with the sound of a clop and he looked at the little old lady who laughed.

  "I am so sorry," he began but Ama cut him off before he could go on.

  "You're a good man, Wulfric," she said. "Now, stop your worrying. Isolde was never going to die today... but that didn't mean she was safe from danger."

  Skaldi cleared his throat.

  "We were worried that the King might have taken her... that would have been a disaster. But he tried to kill her instead!" Skaldi's face went from faux-fear to a joyous smile at the last sentence.

  "Kill her!" he laughed. "Thank the fates for that, the old fool."

  Harald didn't understand anything that they were saying, but as the old couple laughed and joked he couldn't help but feel his own spirit rise. He felt like a boy again, safe under the protection of his grandparents.

  “Where are our dwarf friends?” Harald asked with a smile. He had been looking out to the field but couldn’t see either of them.

  “Oh, yes,” Skaldi said with a joyous tear in his eye. “They got called away by Krazkul. But they said ‘tell the young ’uns that we know they’ll win and we’ll come see ‘em after.’ That was their words not mine,” Skaldi tried to breathe through the giggles and managed to control himself as an approaching hiss, like the rustling of dried grass swept over them. Harald turned and felt his heart jolt at the sight of the draugr, standing one step away. The beast was nightmarish, the twisted remains of sinewy muscle and leathery skin wrapped over bone. It's bright blue eyes never blinked and burned with an intensity of life that was unnatural.

  Ama took the Book of the Dead out from her robes, and with her milked over eyes, opened it toward the end and began to read.

  "Et nunc absolvo vos ad somnum aeternam..."

  The draugr's long sigh sounded like a release to Harald's ear, and he watched as the hundreds of the animated corpses fell weak at the legs and collapsed into small piles of skin and bone.

  "Rest easy, my friends..." Skaldi murmured under his breath.

  "Goosegrass," Harald said, suddenly remembering the task at hand.

  Skaldi patted the little sack hanging from his shoulder and buried in his robes.

  "I've been collecting it since we parted," he said with a calming smile. "More than enough to go around..."

  They left the northern gate and returned to the city. The jovial spirit of Ama and Skaldi quickly drifted away as they stepped over the bodies of the fallen and took in the true extent of the damage. With the morning sun hidden high behind clouds in the sky, a new picture of destruction was being painted. The light snow hid the worst of the death, but still, it was evident in the smell of meat and the heaviness in the air.

  "We are lucky," Skaldi said solemnly. "The fall of Bezhaal broke the courage of the goblins. This could have been a lot worse."

  Ama nodded, but Harald could only think that it was bad enough as it was.

  "She is a hero," Ama said. "You are a hero, Harald."

  "I don't feel like a hero," he replied, suddenly feeling the exhaustion from the night before. His body ached, the cuts stung, and his bruises began to throb until he only wished he was sleeping somewhere warm.

  Ama smiled. "Most heroes don't..."

  They walked slowly and Harald noted that the townsfolk had come out in greater numbers. They were working as teams, carrying the bodies of the wounded in pairs. He watched them move gently, respectably, and noticed that there were just as many men in the dark blue of Skalloway being helped as there were in the yellow of Harkham.

  The group moved past the wounded and down to the southern quarter where they piled into the house where Isolde was being held. Amroth was sitting on the bed beside her as they walked in. He was fidgeting with the silver pin in his hand and smiled mournfully when he saw Skaldi.

  "My old friend," he said and stood to take the old wanderer in an embrace.

  Skaldi squeezed him back and asked about Isolde.

  "The pin went deep," Amroth explained. "She has lost a lot of blood, but she will live. By some miracle, the pin missed her womb and only barely scratched her guts. She will be fine with rest."

  But Isolde wasn't fine with rest. She slept through the first day and night and never stirred in the morning. Harald did his best to stay by her side when he could, but as the second and third day passed by with no sign of her waking, he was forced to help with the town.

  Wulfric was helping with the building of the great pyre. That was when he found the broken body of Jarl Sigurd. He hadn't said anything to anyone about it but carried the body in solemn silence, tears streaming down his cheeks. That was how Harald found him, and together they took the Jarl's body and put him on the stacked wood with the full honours befitting his deeds in life.

  There were five fires in total. They were huge funerary pyres that burned through that night and well into the next day. No one had dared attempt to count the number of the dead, but it was clear that everyone had lost at least one person close to them.

  The grieving went on and slowly the city began to rebuild, but a week on from the fight, Isolde still had not risen.

  "We cannot stay here," Skaldi said. "We should take her back to Eyndale and hold council when she rises."

  "And what if she doesn't rise?" Ama asked quietly.

  "You said that she wouldn't die!" Harald hissed at the old lady.

  "She's not dead..." Ama said hopelessly.

  The room fell silent and everyone watched Isolde. Her eyes still flickered in the action of deep sleep and her breathing was quick. Every time she rolled or twitched, Harald's heart leapt, but she never actually woke up.

  "Let us take her home," Skaldi said softly and Harald knew it wasn't a question, but an order, and it was the only order that made sense.

  CHAPTER IX

  The dreams were surreal and Isolde couldn't keep track of everything that she was seeing. In one moment she being chased by demons through the empty streets of a deserted city and then she was back at home arguing with her father. The dreams would bounce around, she saw a thousand marching men below her in a va
lley, and then she was back in that city, fighting the High-King.

  When she woke, the first thing that crossed her mind was the sweat-soaked bed she was lying in.

  It took her a moment to realise she was in her room. She was lying in her sweat soaked bed. For a moment she thought it had all been a dream, her heart fluttered, but when Skaldi walked in with his eyes nearly popping from his head, her heart sank and she realised that it had all been real.

  "Isolde," he croaked and he swooped down to her with open arms.

  He was warm and dry, and the hug made her realise how clammy she was.

  "Rise slowly," he said, "you've been asleep for some time now."

  "How long?" she asked suddenly feeling the weakness of her muscles.

  "Two weeks to the day," he replied and helped prop her up with a pillow.

  "Two weeks..." she repeated barely believing it.

  "Yes," Skaldi went on. "Two long weeks, you would sleep and dream, and thrash about at times before kind of half-waking up. You never really opened your eyes, but would murmur for food or water before falling asleep again."

  Isolde felt so confused as her mind raced to catch up. It felt like only yesterday that she had been challenging Hrothgar.

  "How did I get home?" she asked.

  "Slowly," Skaldi chuckled. "Very slowly, and in the back of a wagon."

  "And Harald?" she asked quickly, suddenly realising the last time they had spoken was as he stood in the shieldwall.

  "He is fine, Isolde, just fine. I believe he will be coming to check on you soon, but he is busy at the moment."

  She let her shoulders ease back into the pillow and rested the back of her head on the hard wall. With tender fingers she felt her stomach, it was rising and she opened her eyes suddenly to the change.

  “You are beginning to show,” Skaldi said with a fatherly smile.

  Isolde nodded silently and rubbed the smooth skin.

  "What happened?" she asked honestly.

  Skaldi took a deep breath but before he could begin, a little old lady poked her head through the door and with a smile that showed the few teeth she had left, she squealed.

  "Isolde!"

  It was Ama, and the hunched back woman hobbled over to her and sat beside Skaldi as she put a hand on Isolde's forehead. As soon as the woman's hand made contact, Isolde felt a wave of energy wash over her, like the darkness in her heart slipped away and was replaced by a vigour she had thought she had forgotten.

  "Feeling better?" Ama asked.

  Isolde smiled at her.

  "Good, because there is a lot to do, and everyone has been waiting for you."

  Skaldi cleared his throat, "perhaps we might give her the chance to regain some strength, Ama, hmm? Maybe fill her in on what has happened?"

  Ama clucked her tongue at Skaldi. "Nonsense, the girl is fine, aren't you, Isolde?"

  Isolde gave a smile and a nod.

  "And there is no time to catch up with everything. Have you been in the great hall? Harald is doing a fine job for a young man, but the Jarls are growing restless. The people need Isolde now, not later."

  Isolde's head reeled as she tried to keep up with what Ama was saying.

  "Why do they need me?" she asked honestly.

  Skaldi put a loving hand on her shoulder. "Your father passed, Isolde. He died like a hero and was given the warriors dues, but with him gone, the Jarldom has passed to you."

  The words seemed to wash right over her. He was dead… her father was dead. What did that mean? She felt nothing, she wanted to be sad but the shock was sudden and yet she knew he had died all along. Her eyes were distant as his last loving look to her flashed before her. She shook her head, she would deal with it later.

  "Passed to me?" she asked trying to understand the words.

  "And with Hrothgar dead," Ama said, "there is a gaping void that now needs to be filled. There is no High-King, and the Jarl's want you to fill the role."

  Isolde shook her head, her heart suddenly racing in her chest.

  "I don't want to rule," she said.

  "Just come to the hall," Ama replied, "speak to the Jarls. They have all come, Aba reared his fathead a few days ago, Folke and Halvar came down with you-"

  "Folke?" Isolde asked quickly.

  "Yes, Jarl Folke of Helby," Skaldi answered and Isolde felt light headed all of a sudden. "Do you know him, Isolde?"

  "We fought in the city together," she said in a daze, remembering the bloody streets and fighting.

  "There are others as well," Ama went on. "Jarl Vuk of Unster, Hilde from Firth..."

  "And don't forget Amroth and Narbeth from the Watcher's Wood..." Skaldi added.

  "Oh and Jarls Ivar and Velga from the north. They've come to parlay a truce..."

  The names whirled in Isolde's head and suddenly she couldn't breathe. She was hot and sweating under the blanket and felt like she was about to collapse.

  "I don't want to rule," she said again desperately.

  Skaldi and Ama murmured for a moment and Isolde sighed.

  “I need to go clear my head,” she said.

  ***

  Isolde slipped out of the jarl’s hall alone and walked down the snow-sprinkled steps to the town below. The people stopped and watched her as she passed them in their chores and some even beckoned a hello. She smiled as she passed and gave courteous nods, but her mind was whirling with the thoughts of the future.

  They want me to be High-Queen…

  She couldn’t quite grasp the idea no matter how hard she tried. What did it even mean? What would she have to do? She left the village with its chimneys smoking into the winter air and its hardy folk behind and let her feet decide where to go. So much had happened since she had left, so many people had died trying to fight Hrothgar. Even Eyndale felt skeletal in its inhabitants, half of them now resting forever at Harkham.

  Her thoughts had run away with her, and before she knew it she was crossing the forest’s threshold into the Watcher’s Wood. She looked up at the great sentinel trees and gazed deep into the woods and she realised that they weren’t as foreboding as she once remembered. Her legs carried her up the hill as though they had a will of their own, but she knew where they were taking her and she let them.

  Gareth Nuir, the long forgotten standing stones, half taken by the woods, yet still standing their ground within the ring of trees that encircled them. The birds sang their morning songs as she moved between the cracked stones. Each of them had a god of their own, engraved deeply in ancient times and now worn and half lost. She moved to each in turn, thinking about what it meant to rule people. They would hate me… she thought as she traced the cracks of one of the gods. They would hate me because I wouldn’t know how to give them the things they need…

  “I thought I would find you here.”

  The voice made Isolde jump and she spun on her heels to see Skaldi standing beside a stone. His long grey robes looked much the same as they always had as they clung to his tall bony frame.

  Isolde sighed a long breath. “I don’t want this Skaldi. I just want to live in peace and quiet…”

  Skaldi nodded and slipped down the stone to rest his back against it as he sat on the bed of pine needles.

  “I know you do,” he said slowly. “And I did warn you about this before we set out. Do you remember?”

  “I didn’t understand,” she said as she slumped down next to him on the soft ground. “I thought…” she paused a moment. “I thought… that it would be different. That proving myself to my father… to myself… that I would be respected.”

  “You are respected,” Skaldi replied.

  Isolde shook her head. “They respect me because I killed a king. But what do I know about ruling? What do I know about royalty or all the things that come with it?”

  “What did you know about killing kings?” Skaldi asked. “You have time to learn, Isolde. You wouldn’t even be alone, you will have people there to help you.”

  “Would you be with me, Skald
i?”

  “No,” he said solemnly and lowered his eyes. “No… I have business in the south. There are bad tidings there… but I would be back to see you from time to time.”

  She nodded silently and they let the moment drift.

  “Would I have to leave Eyndale and live in Ravenscar?” She shuddered at the thought of ruling from the cold stone towers there.

  “The High-Kings of old all did,” Skaldi answered. “The city is called the Gateway to the North, from there, you could rule the land, it’s a choke point where you could control the comings and goings of all.”

  Isolde shook her head slowly. “Why would I want to choke the land or control the people?” but then it dawned on her. “Why are you testing me, Skaldi? Do you think I would be that kind of queen?”

  Skaldi chuckled. “Not at all,” he said. “I know what kind of queen you would be. I am not really testing you, Isolde. I am trying to get you to see what kind of queen you would be. The people don’t just want a good ruler, they need one… they need you.”

  “But the people don’t even know me.”

  “Don’t they?” he asked with a cocked eyebrow. “They saw you lead in Harkham, they saw your compassion and selflessness. The stories of your journey are on the tongues of everyone.”

  Isolde nodded at the words but didn’t know what to say.

  “The journey is not over,” Skaldi said. “In many ways, the hardest part is about to begin, for out of the ashes of Hrothgar’s tyranny, you now have to build something new, something better.”

  Isolde shook her head. “You don’t understand,” she said and tentatively touched her stomach. “When my child is born, he will take my life. What queen would rule for such short a time knowing she was going to leave her people? Can’t I spend the little time I have left in peace?”

  Skaldi laughed heartily and Isolde felt the blood rising to her cheeks.

  “Why are you laughing?” she snapped.