Legacy of Moth

by Daniel Arenson

  "My beard," he said, raising a tattered piece of hair like some old toupee. "I tore it off myself. With my old hands." His voice shook and tears filled his eyes. "They slew so many. My wives. My children. All dead. All dead, Torin." The king fell to his knees, chest heaving with sobs.

  Torin patted the man on the shoulder. The clouds parted above, and a golden sunbeam fell upon the ruins. Torin looked and saw that in its light lay the corpse of a great bear, a creature large as a whale. He approached slowly, solemnly, and climbed onto a pile of rubble to stare down at the beast.

  "Gashdov," Torin whispered. "The god of Verilon. He has fallen."

  King Ashmog came to stand at his side. "You were supposed to save us, Kava Or," he said to Torin. His tears streamed. "You tamed Gashdov. You were prophesied to lead us to victory. And now my kingdom has fallen. Now my god lies dead while I, a man, linger on."

  A deep, haunting pain filled Ashmog's eyes, and he tossed back his head and raised his arms, and he roared, a roar that shook the ruins, the roar of a bear.

  "And I will die with him!" Ashmog cried. "I will die as he died."

  The king tossed down his war hammer. With bare hands, he raced across the ruins toward a fragment of wall where Radians archers stood. Arrows flew, piercing King Ashmog, but still he ran. More arrows slammed into him. He ran onward, howling as if he himself were a bear, and reached the wall.

  The Radians cursed and drew their swords. Ashmog scaled the crumbling wall, pierced with many arrows, bellowing with rage. He reached the top and crashed into the Radians, knocking them down, snapping their necks, biting into their throats, roaring as a wild beast until one man finally cut him down, cleaving his skull with a sword.

  Ashmog fell from the wall and lay upon ruins, one more corpse, one among the countless.

  Torin and Cam looked away. And they scurried on. Always. Live as rats. Hunt the rats. Survive another hour. Another turn. Until more troops arrived and maybe they had food, maybe they had more arrows, maybe they would die instead.

  There was no more city to defend, only a nightmare, an afterlife of terror and endless pain.

  Until they found hope.

  Until they found a family.

  It was snowing that turn. It was not yet winter, and yet it was snowing; perhaps the sky had collected so much ash it rained down, flakes of the dead. As the skies seemed to fall, it was under a burrow—a little hovel between two collapsed walls—that they found them.

  It was Torin who entered first, seeking food, perhaps wafers from the pocket of a dead man, perhaps mice or beetles, perhaps—and some turn he knew it might come to that—a corpse not yet rotted. And there he saw them. Two figures huddled together, clad in robes, gaunt, eyes huge and haunted.

  "Linee," Torin whispered. "Omry."

  The Queen of Arden stared at him silently. Her face was pale. She tried to speak but nothing left her lips. Prince Omry reached out a frail hand as if begging for food.

  "Linee?" rose Cam's voice behind. "Omry?"

  They turned toward him and the king's eyes watered. Cam raced forward and embraced them.

  "My wife!" Cam cried out, tears falling. "My son! My son!"

  As they embraced, rage filled Torin, and jealousy, and hatred, and he trembled. Why was his wife not here? Why not his daughter? Where were Koyee and Madori?

  But then they pulled him into their embrace, and he wept for them too, and he held them close.

  "Come," Linee whispered. "We have a tunnel. We wait here sometimes for rain. Worms sometimes come out here in the rain, and they're good to eat. Come deeper."

  They followed Linee down a crude crawlway and into a chamber. It was barely larger than a carriage. Two other souls huddled here: little Nitomi and towering Qato, the dojai of Ilar.

  The Elorians stared at Torin with huge, glowing eyes.

  "Torin," Nitomi whispered. The little woman sat wrapped in a cloak, shivering. For the first time since Torin had known her, the loquacious dojai had spoken only one word.

  "Qato scared," whispered her giant companion.

  Torin reached into his pockets and pulled out the loaf of bread. He had found it on the corpse of a new Verilish arrival. He had hoped to savor it, to save it for a special occasion; he supposed that occasion was now. They split the bread between them, and they ate silently. There was nothing to drink.

  "What do we do?" Linee asked. "The men stay and fight for the smithies, for the smelters, for the mines. At least they did at first. I think now they stay for pride, for desperation, for fear . . . maybe simply because after so much bloodshed, they've forgotten another life. Do we stay and fight, Torin? Do we surrender? Do we flee?"

  Torin look at her. He thought back to the first time he had met Linee—a beautiful young queen in Kingswall, silly and flighty, a girl who chased butterflies and loved talking of cupcakes and rainbows. Now her face was ashen, her eyes sunken, her hair scraggly, a ragged survivor. He could scarcely believe this was the same carefree girl he had known.

  "The woods are swarming with Radians," Torin said. "Even if we made it south to Kingswall, that city is fallen. The Sern River must be rife with their ships. Perhaps there's nowhere left to go." Torin looked at a hole in the ceiling. A single ray of light fell through, and he saw a single patch of blue sky. A finch fluttered across it, a speck of gold, a symbol of life and hope. His eyes dampened. "There is still hope here. There is still life. We're still alive. I would have us stay and fight. And live. And see birds again, and smell flowers, and eat fresh bread, and live as we once did."

  "Can there ever be such life again?" Linee asked.

  "I didn't think so many times," Torin replied. "When I fought in Pahmey and saw that city fall to Ferius, I didn't think life could ever rise again. When I watched Yintao burn to the ground, and we fought along the Red Mile, I didn't think there could be more joy or light in the world. Yet we found new life, even after all that death, even after Bailey and Hem fell." His throat tightened. "We survived that war, and we found new life. And we planted new flowers and watched them bloom. And we brought new life into this world. Madori. Tam. Omry." He smiled at the young prince. "And we learned something: There is always hope."

  "There is always hope," Linee whispered.

  Clouds covered the sky outside. The ray of light vanished. Boots marched above and they heard the screams of a thousand more dying men.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN:

  THE LOST HARP

  North of Orida and all other lands of Moth, the Orin's Blade drove into ice and would sail no more. The longship had reached the top of the world.

  Eris gazed at the wilderness before him. Sheets of ice stretched into the horizon, leading to distant mountains. White hills and boulders spread for miles, and gusts of wind raised swirls of snow. Behind him lay the ocean; before him the arctic.

  "The land of giants," he said.

  He was thankful for his thick fur cloak; through sheer willpower he stopped his teeth from chattering. His men looked just as cold; frost clung to their mustaches and beards, their faces were pale, and they tightened their furs around them.

  Only Yiun Yee, a daughter of the endless night, seemed unaffected by the chill; her homeland was always frigid, and she still only wore her white silk gown. While her body was perhaps not cold, her demeanor was. Eris tried to meet her gaze, but she refused to look at him. For the past few turns, she had barely spoken to him, had shifted aside when he drew near.

  She's still upset about the beast I slew, Eris thought. Why would Yiun Yee not understand that he had tried to save her? The serpent had nearly crushed their ship. It had tossed him into the waters and turned toward Yiun Yee. Yet when he had plunged his blade into the creature, saving her life, Yiun Yee had wept, had struck him, pitying the dead beast.

  He sighed. He was a warrior. What did he know of pity? He believed in strength. In justice. In noble deeds. His father had cut Yiun Yee, so he had cut his father down. The sea serpent had risen to strike, so he had slain it. And it seemed Yiun Yee stil
l begrudged him both acts.

  Eris looked at his hands. They were calloused, blood-stained hands. The hands of a killer, yes, for he had killed with them many times. But they were also warm hands. Hands that longed to hold Yiun Yee, to caress her, to love her. They were hands that had claimed the Meadenhorn, that he would see cleanse Orida of evil.

  Yet she only sees the bloodstains.

  He strapped his shield across his back, climbed out of the longship, and landed on the ice. He looked back to his wife and his Oringard. "We walk from here. We're close."

  They followed, taking with them their meager supplies: the last few skins of ale, a few fur blankets, what bundles of firewood remained, and what fish they had caught in the sea. Eris left two men to guard the longship—both had been wounded in the battle with Torumun, and the trek through the ice would only weaken them. The rest trudged northward into the endless white.

  They walked for hours, their fur cloaks soon coated with frost and snow. A single banner rose above them, displaying an orca upon a white field. The arctic spread on. Drifts of snow. Great pillars and plains of ice. A bright white sun that would not warm them. The longship vanished behind them; the white would not end. Eris felt so small here; him and his men, such doughty men, were but specks here, lost in the wild.

  But they were not the only life here. A turn into their march, they saw polar bears ahead, creatures that no longer lived in Orida; old pelts of their fur were all that remained of them back home. They shot one down with his arrows, and they camped for a short while, built a fire from their remaining logs, and ate the animal's meat. They walked on.

  Ice.

  Snow.

  Shivering cold and endless white light.

  As he trudged forward, covered in frost, the visions keep appearing before him; the arctic was a blank canvas for his memories. He kept seeing it again and again: returning home as a hero, only to see the Radian banner in his hall, to find his mother dead, to find Iselda, sister of a tyrant, in her place; his father swinging his sword and cutting Yiun Yee; Eris's own sword impaling the king, the blood that washed his hands, the terrible guilt, the sin of patricide he would never be cleansed of. It was a white land but his memories were red.

  He looked toward Yiun Yee. Throughout his long years in shadow, seeking the lost horn of Orin, he had found comfort in her, a love and light that had guided him even in the darkness of endless night. And now, more than ever, he needed that comfort from her. He was tall and strong, among the mightiest fighters in his realm, but he needed her. And perhaps more than the blood on his hands, more even than the fall of his kingdom, he grieved for the coldness he now saw in her eyes.

  "Yiun Yee," he said softly and drew nearer to her. "For long turns you've walked in silence, alone, no longer at my side. I cannot bring the wingless dragon back to life, but please do not let your love die too. Will you forgive a foolish warrior? I'm a man of the sword, not the heart; that you knew when we wed. Please, Yiun Yee, be my heart. Be the soul that I lack. Don't walk without me."

  She lowered her head, and when she looked back up, tears filled her large indigo eyes. She stepped closer to him, and she held his hand. "You do not lack a soul, my husband," she whispered. "And you do not lack a heart. They call the cruel heartless. They call killers soulless. It is not so. Those whose hearts hurt, whose souls suffer— they shed more blood than heartless or soulless men."

  "Will you then heal this heart, mend this soul?"

  She nodded silently, a tear on her cheek, and squeezed his hand. They walked onward together, hands clasped.

  They had walked for another turn, maybe two, before they reached the city of giants.

  Had Eris not read about this place in countless epic tales, he might have thought it simply part of the wilderness. There were no buildings here, no roads, not even any tents or caves. But here was a city nonetheless, the place he had read about as a wide-eyed child, dreaming of adventure. Great henges of blue ice rose upon hills, each shard taller than the palace of Grenstad back home. Though the ocean was many miles away, the skeletons of whales rose from the ice, half-submerged, their ribs forming archways like the naves of temples. A great animal's skull, large as a mead hall, stared at the approaching Oridians, its fangs thrust into the ice like two columns. Chunks of ice and stone lay strewn here in a field, and mountains rose all around like the walls of a great fort.

  "Jotunheimr," Eris whispered in awe. "The land of giants."

  Yiun Yee tightened her silk robe around her. "I see no one."

  The Oringard glanced around with darting eyes and hefted their shields. Their hands strayed near their swords and axes. The old tales spoke of Orin taming the giants to his cause, leading them to cleanse Orida of spirits and ghosts, but in even older tales the jotnar—giants of the arctic—were vicious beasts who crushed the villages of men and fed upon the bones of children. Even under Orin's command, they were said to have gone into great rages, as likely to slay their allies as their enemies.

  Eris took a step closer. He passed under the ribs of a whale, walking deeper into this land of bones and ice. The crystals of a henge rose to his left. Shards of shattered ice lay ahead like felled trees.

  He raised the Meadenhorn above his head. "Jotnar! Hear me. I am Eris Grimgard, son of Bormund, defeater of Veniran the Half-Troll, slayer of the dragon Imoogi, descendant of Orin himself. I bear the Meadenhorn. Rise and meet me!"

  Only a breeze and rustling snow replied.

  No giants.

  A dead city.

  "This is a graveyard," said Halgyr. The beefy captain of the Oringard stared around with narrowed eyes. "Nothing but bones. The jotnar have left this place, if ever they lived here."

  Eris shook his head. "They're here."

  He took a step deeper into the jagged landscape, and before him he beheld a great pillar of ice, twice the height of a man, and within it shone a golden harp. Light gleamed through the crystal and gilded the harp strings like sunlight upon dewy cobwebs.

  "The Harp of Lin Shai!" Yiun Yee whispered in awe. "It once was played in the halls of Leen, but it was lost to us many years ago. They say that only the royal family of Leen could play its music, and that any other musician, gifted as he or she may be, would produce only jarring notes." Her eyes watered. "It was a great heirloom of my family. And here it is, frozen in the northern sunlight."

  She placed a hand upon the ice.

  Trapped within the pillar, the harp glowed. The crystal emitted a single note, high and pure.

  Yiun Yee gasped and withdrew her hand.

  The landscape began to shake. Cracks appeared in the ice. Snow shifted. Rocks flowed down rising slopes. The henges of icy shards creaked and tilted. The landscape groaned like a creature awakening from slumber.

  "What happened?" Yiun Yee whispered.

  "I think you just rang the bell over their front door," Eris said.

  The land trembled. Cracks raced across the ice, and the skeletons of whales shifted, their spines clattering and rising as if still alive. The icy shards forming the henges began to rise, growing taller, tilting and clinging together, taking new forms. Rocks rose into the air, flying toward the shards and snapping into place. Snow swirled and bones drove through ice like knives into flesh.

  Eris gasped. The Oringard drew their swords. Before them, the ice, bones, and rocks clumped together, forming a score of giants.

  The jotnar were craggy, weathered creatures. The bones of whales creaked within them, visible through their cracked, icy flesh. Frosted beards hung from their stony cheeks, and rocks shifted and grumbled within their bellies. Icicles formed their claws and teeth, and their faces were long, ugly things like ice grown over corpses. They drew nearer, hulking, staring down at Eris and his companions.

  One among them wore a crown of icy crystals, and within each crystal rose the bones of a man's arm and hand. This jotun was taller than the others, and frosted hair fell across his rocky shoulders. A small heart, no larger than a man's fist, beat within his opaque
chest, a pulsing red clump that spread out swirls of blood. Here stood Ymir, King of Frost, Lord of the Jotnar.

  "Who has played the Harp of Shadow?" rumbled the giant, his voice like avalanches, like cracking boulders. "Who has woken us from our long sleep?"

  Eris stepped closer to the frosted king. The jotun towered above him, thrice his height, the blood of his heart trickling down through his frozen limbs, red serpents trapped in ice. "Hear me, Ymir, King of Frost! I am Eris, son of Bormund, descended of Orin who once led you to battle. I—"

  "Who led us?" King Ymir's voice rose in a thunder, a sound so loud cracks raced along the ground, and Yiun Yee covered her ears with a grimace. "No mortal born of woman's womb has ever led the jotnar, for we are gods of the north, deities of ice. We answered Orin's plea for aid, for he was a noble man with god's blood."

  "His blood flows within me," said Eris, remembering again how he had stabbed his father, how the blood of Grimgard, his royal house, had covered his hands.

  "The blood of Orin has been diluted," said Ymir. "It is like a sculpture of ice, once grand, chipped away year after year, left to the mercy of the wind and winters, until it grows so small it becomes but a forgotten lump in an unforgiving hinterland. Thus has the House of Grimgarg fallen from glory, remaining but a band of islanders who'd sooner guzzle mead in thatch-roofed huts than ride to glorious battles or heed the council of their gods."

  "I would heed your council were you to give it," said Eris, "were you to sit in our halls as you did of old, sharing your wisdom. If you would aid me now, as you aided Orin, I would see you returned to the Orinhall, honored guests, and would share our mead with you from the fabled horn which I bear." He raised the Meadenhorn again. "But the Orinhall has fallen to evil. Iselda, the Witch of Radian, has tempted my father, and then my brother after him. You spoke of Orin's blood diluted; she would pump that blood full of poison, forever vanquishing any hope of House Grimgarg's return to its old glory. If you still care for the blood of my house, for the descendants of Orin whom you've aided before, return with me now to my isle. Orin called upon you at his hour of greatest need, and you rid his land of the spirits that tormented men. Return with me now! Help me fight, jotun. Help me cleanse my hall of the sorceress, of the eclipse banner that hangs upon its walls."