by T L Drew
‘Yes, Your Grace.’ The soldier below the decks was quick to move towards the stairs and climb on to the decks, where another body moved down into the small, dark cabin.
‘You look better,’ the familiar voice said, a man moving himself from the darkness of below the decks into the lantern light at Thorbjorn’s bedside. He was a taller man with white furs over his broad shoulders. Andor Grey appeared in the lantern light, taking a seat next to Thorbjorn and placing an icy hand upon Thorbjorn’s shoulder. The king smiled with relief. ‘I was worrying about you.’
‘I am truly lucky to see you again, cousin.’ Thorbjorn said through sore lips, his voice hoarse and gruff.
‘You’re lucky to be alive,’ the king said, ‘you were found by fishermen in Albon waters – he said you were barely alive when he found you and sent a raven, having seen a reward for the safe return of the Sky Knight. Aela’s silver feathers saved your life – he saw them from his boat in the light of the sun.’
‘Did Aela make it?’ Thorbjorn asked, knowing the answer before he even heard the words.
Andor shook his head with sorrow. ‘I was not the man to find you – the man who did said he did all he could for her. She had been in the water for too long, arrows stuck inside of her.’
Thorbjorn was quiet for a long moment. He missed her already. He loved the bird like she was blood.
‘The man fished her body from the water – she is on board. We’ll bury her in the Frey,’ Andor spoke after a silent moment. ‘We will sail past the kingdom within in the next few days; there are a lot of griffins there. Perhaps she was born there.’
Thorbjorn’s eyes found Andor’s. ‘She would have liked it there.’
‘What happened to you on that island?’ Andor asked quickly. ‘You wrote to me. You said you would be back within the week, and you never came home. So much has happened and I needed you. Then you were found you in the ocean, floating, arrows in your bird?’
Everything came flooding back all at once; the fear, the pain and the death. Goran and the Afterling and all he had heard. ‘Words cannot explain how terrible that night was, the night I sent you that letter.’ He remembered running painfully through the forest. He remembered the look upon Goran’s face, the blood and the anger. He remembered the frightful kraken ripping men from the sands and pulling them below the surface of the water, drowning them, eating them. ‘A terrible war is going to fall upon us, Andor. I think you and I are going to be in deep shit within the coming months.’
‘War?’
‘The slaves escaped the mines,’ Thorbjorn began to explain from his bed, his voice dry and hoarse as he struggled to speak. ‘Your brother broke free from his chains and he found me. He frightened Aela away from me. The fool tried to kill me and came to no avail, but then everything went wrong, so terribly wrong.’
‘Goran is free?’ Andor asked, like there was a sour taste on his tongue.
‘His freedom is no longer the concern,’ Thorbjorn said with regret, thinking back to that night. ‘He has an army of Afterling behind him, preparing them for war against us, and that ring...the ring is more dangerous than any of the Afterling. It can do terrible things. I saw what Goran is capable of with it on his finger.’
‘I know what it can do,’ Andor admitted, his face firm. ‘It’s dangerous – more than my brother realises. Let’s pray he does not learn to use the full extent of its power.’
‘He’s learning.’ Thorbjorn assured the King of Askavold.
‘I knew if we left him alive, a day like this would come.’ Andor admitted angrily, sitting himself upon a rough stool at Thorbjorn’s bedside, placing his head in his hands as his elbows dug roughly into his thighs. ‘I should have killed him there and then, with my father, with Winterthorn. Why did I listen to Abigail? Why did I believe her when she said she was going to kill him?’
‘Because you care for her, and you wanted to make her happy.’ Thorbjorn was certain. Andor did not argue with him.
‘It is done now, and Goran is coming for me...we have to be ready when he comes.’
‘He’ll build an armada. Solitude has the slaves and the resources.’ Thorbjorn was certain, thinking back to all he had seen, all they were capable of.
‘That gives us time, once we return home.’
‘And my father has a ring of his own,’ Thorbjorn remembered, thinking of Hakon. ‘Perhaps we can fight fire with fire.’
‘No,’ Andor said surely, his voice wavering, as though there was something he had not yet told Thorbjorn. ‘Your father has…betrayed us.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Thorbjorn uttered, his eyes perplexed as he stared at his cousin from the confines of his bed. He heard a deep, pained sigh slip from Andor’s lips.
‘He has seized the city…Margot and Hakon took it from me the day I left…why did I not lock them both in a cell before I departed?’ The king asked, almost as though he spoke to himself. ‘But we have much time to speak of Tronenpoint, and your father…there is little we can do in this moment, not until we return. There is much I must tell you of him. Right now, we have other matters that are of greater importance, more important than your father, more important than my wife, and more important than my brother. Now is not the time to be concerned with my brother’s return as we sail far from where they are heading. In this moment, we have a more concerning matter at hand. Would you care to walk with me, Thorbjorn?’ Andor asked his weak cousin. Thorbjorn pulled himself to a shaky stand on the wavering ship and followed the king carefully towards the steps. Thorbjorn found himself struggling to move towards the deck, pulling himself up each step as he grasped desperately on the rough rope. Although he was still weak, his body was healing and his stomach was full. His throat was no longer as dry as it was when he first awoke.
They were met with light rain as they made their way onto the deck. Thorbjorn Grey recognised the dark plains of Albon over the side of the ship. The eastern kingdom was a bleak one, plagued with endless marshlands and baron fields. The mountains were black, sheer and daunting. Dormant volcanoes plagued the dark lands and a deep crashing sound echoed through the air as grey clouds washed the skies. He was relieved that the ship had already sailed past Solitude Island, although Thorbjorn was quick to wonder why they sailed north. It was the first moment since Thorbjorn had awoken that he pondered why the king had left his city and sailed around the harsh seas. Andor wasn’t sailing to Solitude to eliminate the Afterling as he’d hoped.
‘Where are we going?’ Thorbjorn asked as they walked passed the soldiers on the deck and leaned their bodies against the wooden railings. Andor was staring out to sea in the direction of the open northern sea. All they could see was water before them.
‘We sail to North Rock, Thorbjorn.’ Andor said quietly, his voice haunted. ‘It will be a long journey. It will be months before we return home.’
‘North Rock?’ Thorbjorn questioned with bewilderment. He remembered North Rock well; he had visited King Ragnar’s castle hundreds of times in his youth before the Great War, the great palace on the mountaintop, overlooking the northern seas, cursed men and women everywhere he looked. Even mortal men loved the palace; there had been many loyal men who were not of cursed blood that followed the old king. North Rock had been beautiful, but it had been abandoned since the old king’s execution. Thorbjorn wondered what could cause the King of Askavold to travel so far for a palace of ghosts. Although he knew in his heart why Andor would want to go, it was strange he would put himself in so much danger and leave his own city. ‘What is so important in the north that the king must leave the safety of his city, to allow it to be stolen?’
‘A queen,’ Andor’s eyes moved to Thorbjorn with worry. ‘Caeda...Lienhart.’
Thorbjorn said nothing. He gazed upon Andor’s face and saw the fear in his eyes. His stomach was in knots. ‘Shit,’ was the only word that came from Thorbjorn’s mouth. He leaned forward and rested his arms over the ship, exhaling a deep breath.
‘We all wished to see Kodran pa
y for his crimes against Ragnar, and he paid for his crimes with his life; this is what the she does not know. She believes that Kodran is alive and well, and ruling over the six kingdoms. She has threatened to take the realm if need be with fire. I won’t let that happen.’
‘This is a suicide mission,’ Thorbjorn was quick to say. ‘This is nothing more than a trap, I fear.’
‘Everyone in my council has already urged me not to sail north, but I didn’t listen. I need to go.’
‘If you tell her the truth, you might stand a chance–’
Andor Grey cut off his cousin’s frets. ‘–Go back to bed, Thorbjorn. You need your rest.’
NAZIR
His tongue had almost slipped the truth from his brutalised lips in his weeks of torture. Nazir’s mind was almost as broken as his body was, void of his finger nails on each hand, his body was laced with cruel cuts and his feet bore deep holes that cut through him, only thin blooded bandages to conceal them. In his dark, dank cell, the young man tried to clean his wounds with what water he could find; he did not want to die of infection, despite the pain that raked his body which almost made him wish he was dead. He would rather die than let his tongue slip the king’s secrets.
Nazir lay in his cell, staring at the dripping ceiling as his beaten, broken body lay upon damp straw, dreaming of a time without the pain; he was certain that within the coming weeks, he would meet his end, and as he lay in his cell, punctured with holes and void of the nails of his fingers, he promised himself he would never speak – he would die before he told Margot Rose and Hakon Grey any of Andor or Jorgen’s secrets. Nazir held many of them in his mind, secrets that could end Andor and Jorgen’s lives if the secrets were to become known.
He lay in a dirty cell with his body exposed to the bitter cold and his head pounded with ferocity. I will never tell a soul, he thought as the winter bit at his muscles and numbed his body, his wounds burning. Hakon would come again, return to Nazir’s cell with a new device, a new weapon to hurt him with, and Nazir’s time was running out. He dreamed of escape, wishing he could return to the time when he was free to leave the city before he had been cruelly captured. If he didn’t die from Hakon’s torture or the infection, the cold of the south would surely take him.
Nazir heard footsteps once more and drew his body to a painful stand. The nineteen-year-old knight had to steady his broken body against the damp stone walls, the pain in his feet almost too much to bare. The footsteps came down the narrow stone steps which led from the confines of the Stone Keep, menacing and quick, followed by steel boots upon the rock. His heart pounded in his chest. Nazir braced himself, took a deep breath, braced himself for what was to come, and waited for the skeletal man to appear. You won’t talk, he told himself, desperate, biting his swollen lip between the lack of teeth that remained from Hakon’s merciless torture, don’t tell them what you know – take the truth to the grave.
However, Hakon Grey did not come. A masked man appeared in front of Nazir, walking angrily down the ebony stone steps and followed by four men in hooded cloaks. All of the men before him wore colourless masks behind the silk, concealing their faces from Nazir’s weary eyes, the black cloaks shimmering in the light of the dull iron lanterns that hung upon the damp stone walls. A man pulled a key from his tunic and stared into Nazir’s tired dark eyes. ‘Fill a satchel with food, clothes and a weapon,’ the masked man commanded one of his companions as he placed the key in the lock and turned. A loud clicking noise echoed from the cells. The cell door unlocked and he pulled it wide open. Nazir stood still, his frozen, bare feet in the rotting straw as other prisoners in the cells began to shout and scream at the masked men, begging for a release. The men did not move, only standing before Nazir, their faces hidden. The man with the key shouted back to one of his companions. ‘Make sure the bag is full; Nazir is going to need everything he can carry.’
‘Who are you?’ Nazir trembled, confused, his hands finding the metal bars of his cell to balance him, urging his abused body forward. The masked man reached into the cell and grasped Nazir’s bleeding arm, pulling him from the metal bars and towards the bottom of the stairs as one of the hooded men did as their masked leader commanded; he filled a brown satchel with apples, carrots and several bottles of ale, a handful of dirty farmer’s clothes and a small rusting dagger, sealing the bag once it was full. He brought the bag to his masked leader, and the masked man handed the satchel to Nazir, pushing it into his hands.
‘The king fucking warned you to leave the city you stupid, stupid boy,’ the masked man sighed, grasping the black pelt of wolf fur from his own shoulders and wrapping it around Nazir’s cold body.
‘King Andor didn’t warn me away, he asked me to stay here–’
‘–The true king,’ he interjected. ‘The king of the western lands, Jorgen Black. He warned you many months before, before the destruction of Solvstone.’
Nazir’s eyes widened. ‘Jorgen sent you?’
‘If you had of listened, he wouldn’t have needed to.’
‘I’m sorry, I should have listened.’ Nazir’s body shook with pain as he was forced into the clothing of the common folk, rapid and panicked as the masked men appeared to fear the return of the city guards. Nazir wondered what they had done to buy themselves some time to free him from his dank cell. They forced him into rags that were barely better than those he already had, but they were void of bloodstains and dirt. The furs around his shoulders concealed his wounds. The masked leader pulled a hood over Nazir’s battered head.
‘Fret not,’ the man said, dropping his hands from Nazir’s shoulders. ‘There is still hope for you yet. The king needs you.’
‘Are you freeing me?’
‘A man in Grey armour will be here in a moment; he’s going to escort you out of the city.’
‘And where shall I go?’
‘Head north and then west; find Jorgen Black in the White Woods – and you must pass on a message – tell our king that they know you are coming.’
‘Who?’
‘Hakon Grey and the queen know,’ he said with fret. ‘They are allowing you to be freed. They will try to follow you. Head north then west,’ he repeated, ‘and make certain they do not follow you, however hard they may try. Tell the king the truth, when you find him, so that he can be ready when they come, should you not succeed.’
‘I will – you have my word.’ Nazir said as a western man disguised in Grey armour appeared down the winding steps. The colour of his skin showed he was not truly a southern man, but neither was Nazir, and he had been living in the south for many years. He hoped no one would notice.
‘We do not have much time,’ a hooded man intervened, his hand upon Nazir’s shoulder. ‘Leave now, and do not disappoint. Safe travels, and my sincerest apologies for all harm that has befallen upon you.’
‘I will not forget your kindness.’ Nazir said to the men.
The disguised soldier quickly led Nazir from the cells and out of the sight of the masked and hooded men. He led him through the empty guard’s barracks where the smell was worse than the cells and into the open air, where the snow was blazing down upon their bodies and blurring the city from their eyes. A blizzard was coming, and it was coming fast. Nazir knew he must be swift to leave the south before the storm hit the city in full force.
‘Keep your head down – if we are stopped, I am a guard escorting a prisoner to his new barracks.’ The disguised guard uttered, looking over each shoulder, making certain that they were not followed, even though they were aware of the self-proclaimed king and queen’s intentions – to follow Nazir to learn of Jorgen’s whereabouts. ‘We have disguised one of our own to look as you look…we pray they follow him, instead.’
Nazir did as the man commanded and lowered his head, following the western man as they stormed through the snow and the empty streets, Nazir following closely behind with the masked man’s dark furs tightly wrapped around his shoulders and the satchel in his hands. Shutters of stony houses were sealed
shut, and for the first time since Nazir had come to the city, he saw no poor freezing to death in the streets, thanks to the new king – although he knew it would quickly change, with Margot and Hakon seizing control over the wintery city.
They reached the gates of Tronenpoint, already wide open to the outside world, awaiting Nazir’s leave. He laid eyes upon a man who was dressed as he was in the corner of his eyes, disappearing into the distance, his skin the same colour as Nazir’s and a hood covering his head from the sight of man. The disguised soldier led Nazir reluctantly through the gates, turned to the young man, and took a deep, chilling breath. ‘You have been told the location of our king?’ He asked as he gazed at the young man’s face.
Nazir nodded his beaten head. ‘North, then west…I’ll stray from the roads. How can I ever repay you, and your friends?’
‘By helping our king win this war,’ the man said in a gruff voice. ‘Now go, before the old man smells your trail.’
The young second in command of the king’s guard was quick to turn on his heel, the white snow clinging to his deep black hair. ‘I’ll do what I can, don’t you worry.’ Nazir moved swiftly, the crunching snow under his boots and he saw the western man march back through the gates and into the city of Tronenpoint. The gates closed behind him, leaving Nazir to wonder if that was the last time he would ever see the city again. He saw the man who dressed as he dressed disappearing in another direction, on a more open path, as Nazir darted for the trees.
Nazir turned to face the outside world beyond Tronenpoint. All he saw was snow, trees and cobblestone paths. Behind the city were vast mountains; upon the mountain tops were the Craghollow ruins, a once giant, grand city that stood so tall that it disappeared into the clouds. Instead, Nazir trekked forwards. He walked down an outgrown path that cut through the centre of the White Woods, tall pine trees lased with thick snow. He peered back over his shoulder at the city, wondering if he would ever return; Nazir had lived inside of the city since he was a young orphan boy, having sailed across the frozen sea from the Isles of Mór. He had made a life for himself – alone – in Tronenpoint, where the orphaned boy had eventually become a legendary knight under Thorbjorn Grey’s command, but now he was nothing and leaving Tronenpoint brought him nothing but great sorrow, despite fleeing from further pain. His heart was heavy and his body was cold to the bone. The numbness of the cold granted him a slight relief from the pain as he limped in his agony through the rough undergrowth and the tall, white pine trees.
