Sword of Doom

by James Jennewein

  “It is said,” Lut continued, “that he who possesses Draupnir goes mad with jealousy, for he suspects that everyone is plotting to take his treasure away.”

  “I wouldn’t be mad. I’d be happy,” said Drott. “I’d share my gold with everyone.” Drott caught a doubting look from Fulnir. “Did I not share my hunk of cheese with you last week?”

  “The moldy part,” Fulnir griped.

  “I’m sure Godrek has no plans to share the gold with anyone,” Eldred snapped. “With such wealth in hand he’ll raise an army. No earthly person or kingdom will be safe from his tyranny.”

  “So the rune sword leads to this lost treasure. What was my father doing with it?” Dane asked, almost afraid to hear the king’s answer.

  The king looked at Lut, gathering his words. “Years ago Voldar was a far different man from the one you knew as your father. We had heard talk that he had found a map to riches of some kind and had left to seek it. And after a long absence he returned here, entrusted his war chest to me, and left, saying only that he had found love and was bent on keeping it. ‘There is no greater treasure than love.’ Those were the last words he ever spoke to me. I released him from service, and that was the last I saw of him.”

  “Why did he not throw away the rune sword, instead of leaving it in the chest?” Dane asked. “I mean, if the treasure is cursed and whoever possesses it goes mad—”

  “Perhaps he never knew of its magic,” Eldred answered. “Or if he did, perhaps he wisely resisted its call. Or maybe lacked the courage to seek out the treasure to which it led. Godrek, however, is not a man given to fear. He will stop at nothing to seek this Draupnir. And if he succeeds”—the king’s face went pale—“it will mean the ruin of my realm and all others.”

  “My lord, we must speak!” Dane heard a voice say. He turned to see a man in a dirty cowled robe, staff in hand, leading two other men in similar robes across the floor. As they approached, Dane’s nose was assaulted by an awful smell, and he shot a look at Fulnir, thinking he might be the culprit. But Fulnir also wore a sour look—which meant even he was repulsed. The robed men, who Dane now realized were the source of the smell, came and bowed before the king. “We have read the omens, lord king!” the one with the staff proclaimed.

  “Have you now, Sandarr?” the king said in irritation, roused from his moroseness. “Yet you gave me no warning of Whitecloak’s treachery. Is that not your job description, to foresee the future?”

  “My lord, I beg you remember our admonition,” mewled the one called Sandarr. “We said, ‘The answer will be written in blood.’”

  “Bah!” the king spat. “You could have just as easily said, ‘Beware Godrek!’ That would have been more helpful!”

  Lut stepped forward, crinkling his nose from the stink. “My lord, we waste precious time. You must send men after Godrek now.”

  Sandarr looked indignantly at Lut. “Heed not this rustic charlatan, lord king. I’m sure his methods of divination are laughably primitive.” Sandarr pointed the end of his staff at Lut. “Begone, you feckless fool! Or I shall visit you with great boils and pustules!”

  Lut just looked at him for a moment, then turned to the king. “You’re actually paying this man?”

  “Him and his assistants,” the king grumbled. “But it strikes me that a change might be in order.”

  Sandarr indignantly jutted his chin toward Lut and harrumphed. “Perhaps you’d like to tell us your methods of prognostication.”

  Lut said simply, “I read the runes.”

  The cowled ones hooted in laughter. “The runes, you say!” mocked Sandarr. “How quaint!”

  “Let me guess,” Lut said. “You consult pig innards?”

  “Chicken entrails,” one assistant said with a snooty air.

  “And I, maggots on rotting meat,” sniffed the other.

  “And I,” added Sandarr, waving his staff in Lut’s face, “have had enormous success with sheep’s eyes floating in sour milk—a technique far beyond your silly runes.”

  Having had enough, Lut grabbed the staff and thumped Sandarr across the skull. It made a sound like an axe handle striking a hollow log. Sandarr just stood there, too shocked to move. “Begone, the lot of you!” Lut thundered. “Your fakery delays us! Begone!” Within moments the cowled figures and their odors were sent fleeing like rats before a flood.

  “I should have done that long ago,” Eldred said with a slightly amused smile. “Now, where was I?”

  “Dispatching men after Godrek,” Lut said.

  The king thought for a moment, his brow knitting. “Godrek is cunning and ruthless. I would have to send fivefold the men that he has to have a chance against him. Even then he would probably kill them all or recruit them against me. No, Godrek will return, and I must keep every man within these walls to defend my kingdom.”

  Dane approached the king, flaring in anger. “Your kingdom? What of my mother’s life!” Two of the king’s household troops came forward, thrusting lances at Dane’s chest.

  “Emotion has clouded his judgment, sire,” said Lut quickly, pulling Dane away. “He means no disrespect.”

  “But your majesty, we are here at your behest, are we not?” Dane said. “And so it seems only right that you then share blame for my mother’s capture!”

  Two more guards advanced on Dane, seizing him, but Eldred waved his hand and ordered them to stand down. There was a tense moment, the king gathering his words. “I pity your mother’s plight, son,” he said at last, “but it is as I said: Every man I send after Whitecloak will either join him or be killed. What would you have me do?”

  Dane nodded, respecting the king’s sincerity. And so what he said next he said with the utmost calm and control. “My lord, if you will provision us, I will hunt down and kill Godrek Whitecloak.” Dane caught jeering looks from two guardsmen; clearly they believed him too callow for such a daunting task.

  “Kill him?” the king said. “I don’t think you understand, son. Godrek and his men are death merchants. Masters of warcraft and weaponry. He has butchered more men in a single day than most men ever do in a lifetime. I’ve seen him in many a duel and—”

  “What will you offer for his head?” Jarl stepped forward with his usual swagger, flanked by Rik and Vik. Catching his eye for an instant, Dane surmised that Jarl wasn’t about to let Dane get all the glory by going on a suicide mission alone.

  “Very well,” the king said with a sigh, realizing his admonitions were useless. “I will pay one hundred silver pieces for Godrek’s head.”

  William stepped from behind Ulf. “B-begging your p-pardon, my lord,” he said, his voice quavering. “But I was the thrall of Thidrek the Terrifying, and I saw him offer five hundred pieces for a one-armed horse thief.”

  Murmurs of disbelief ran through the room, Dane as shocked as everyone else that a mere stripling lad would be so brash as to imply his eminence the king was being miserly. King Eldred’s cheeks darkened. He stared hard at the boy, but William didn’t blink.

  “No disrespect, sire,” William continued, “but you have to admit Godrek’s head is worth at least twice that.”

  The king’s eyes bulged. “You have dangerous gall, boy!”

  “Three times!” said Drott, coming to the boy’s rescue.

  “Yes, sire,” said Fulnir, chiming in. “It was you yourself who said Godrek was such a death merchant, a master of warcraft and—”

  “Fine!” Eldred barked. “A thousand pieces for the man who brings me Whitecloak’s head! Make it two thousand pieces! Not that I’ll ever have to pay it!”

  “You are a most generous king,” William said, bowing. “I will sing your praises to my dying day.”

  “Pursue Godrek and that day shall arrive sooner than you think,” observed King Eldred the Moody.

  12

  A MYSTICAL MISUNDERSTANDING

  A gust of icy wind blew open his coat as Dane reached the top of the riverbank, still feeling a fierce pain in his arm from his fall down the cr
evasse. He set down the bucket of water he had brought for his horse and, pulling up his woolen hood, stood a moment, taking in the scene. A hazy sun hung low in the western sky like a shimmering bronze medallion. Looking southward, down the sparsely treed ridge line that ran alongside the winding river, he saw Fulnir, Drott, Ulf, and the others all spread in a line, tending to their horses and their own thirst as well. And he could still see, far on the southernmost horizon, the dot that was Skrellborg, the king’s fortress whence they’d come.

  All day they had ridden, and all of it uphill. Soon they would have to find a safe place to build a fire and camp for the night, somewhere near the water but wooded enough as well. With winter coming on, ice had begun to form on either side of the river, growing wider and thicker the narrower the river became. He looked upriver, into the rolling hills that lay northward, past the tree line to the icy peaks beyond. Were they headed on the proper course? What would Godrek do to his mother? And what would happen when he did catch up with the man—how would he fare against one so heartless?

  That morning they had set out on their journey from Skrellborg, following the runic inscriptions Dane had marked on the leather lining of his cloak. Deciphered by Lut, the message turned out to be a cryptic verse:

  Travel east or west or south

  And ye’ll not see the Serpent’s Mouth.

  To go forth to find Draupnir

  Face you must your darkest fear

  O’er moonless water, white as bone,

  Find the secret writ in stone.

  Though the words Serpent’s Mouth had disturbed him, reminding him of his dream, Dane joined his friends in the daunting task of decoding the message.

  “‘Travel east or west or south,’” said Fulnir, as they huddled in a circle outside the fortress, “‘and ye’ll not see the Serpent’s Mouth’?”

  “Well, that’s easy,” Astrid had said. “It means we go north.”

  “But north of where? And what is the Serpent’s Mouth?” asked Dane, remembering the sword hilt. “Does it mean the serpent on the sword itself? Or…” A frustrated silence had followed; no one seemed to know the answer.

  Then Lut had spoken.

  “My father’s father, Umleth Blacktooth, was something of a fisherman. All day he spent in his skinboat, plying his trade up and down the waters of this very region. He was a bad fisherman, but he did love his rivers. Whether shallow or deep, marshy or swift, he loved them all.” The others had begun to roll their eyes, expecting another of Lut’s rambling stories that went nowhere. Dane knew better.

  “He would say that a river is like a person,” Lut told them. “And that each had a character all its own. Umleth named each river according to its own particular nature. If I’m not mistaken, the name he gave to the river that lies north of here was the Coiling Snake.”

  “So the Serpent’s Mouth is the end of the river,” said Dane, solving the riddle. “And when we reach the end, it’s there we’ll find the ‘moonless water.’”

  “What about the facing-your-darkest-fear part?” asked Ulf. “Is that something we should discuss now, or—?”

  Jarl threw back his hair and declared, “Let us hie to the hills! And may our blades find Godrek’s head!” And without another word, they had mounted their horses and begun the trek northward, Dane letting Jarl, Rik, and Vik ride out in front at first, to let them feel that they were somehow in charge. By noon, they had found the serpentine river and followed it to the spot where Dane now stood. He bade everyone remount and move on, wondering again what lay ahead.

  Just before sundown, in a tiny grove of alder and pine beside a bend in the river, they stopped to make camp, everyone too weary to go on. Still atop his horse, Jarl began to give orders to the others. “You and you—gather some wood!” “You two—set up the tents!” “You there—get started with the meal!” Catching irritated looks from Ulf and Fulnir, Dane just shrugged as if to say that it was better for Jarl to be bossy about the little things than about anything really important.

  Joining Drott and William in the woods, Dane began to help them collect wood for a fire, pulling down dead tree limbs and chopping them into kindling. He quelled their complaints about Jarl, complimented William on his diligence with his long-handled axe, and thanked him for his challenge to the king back in Skrellborg.

  William grinned and said, “The king could well afford it.” And as Dane turned to begin work on another tree, he found Astrid was already there, chopping off the lower limbs with one of her hand axes. They worked together, side by side in silence, until Astrid finally spoke.

  “It’s sweet,” she said, nodding to William, “the way he looks up to you. They all do, you know. They’d rather follow you than Jarl any day.”

  “Even after my performance at Eldred’s banquet?”

  “You mean when you puffed up your heroics and became a vain, self-lauding ass?”

  Dane smiled. “Exactly.”

  “I think they forgive you.”

  “Do you? I see you still wear the locket.”

  She fingered the locket for a moment, thoughtful. “Do I have reason to remove it?”

  “No. I’m more sure of that than ever.”

  He held her look, the birdsong in the treetops all at once going still, and for a moment it seemed they were alone in the world, she and he enfolded in the glow of affection they felt for each other. And then the spell was broken by a clamor of voices from the camp.

  As he and Astrid came back into the clearing, Dane could scarce believe his eyes. Beside the supply sled, surrounded by Lut, Fulnir, and the others, stood Kára, the very girl he thought he was finally free of. Wrapped in the finest white fox-fur hat and coat, she was complaining that she hadn’t eaten all day and was so ravenous she would die for a plate of hot mutton stew. “The quicker the better,” she said, “and don’t forget the vegetables. But no radishes or carrots; they don’t agree with me—and no greasy meats, either; they’re bad for my skin. Oh, and a double mug of mulled cider with just a pinch of cinnamon, and a clove or two if you have it.”

  Rik and Vik stumbled over themselves to fetch it all for her. Seeing Dane approach, she threw her arms round him, kissing and hugging him so tightly, he had to pry himself free of her.

  “Well?” Kára pouted. “Aren’t you glad to see me?”

  But before Dane could speak, Jarl arrived on the scene and erupted. “What is she doing here?”

  Kára spun on Jarl, her eyes afire. “She? You will use proper language when addressing a princess!”

  “Do forgive me,” said Jarl with a courtly bow. “Is pompous brat a better term?”

  Astrid laughed. Kára now turned to Dane and ordered, “Put this man in chains for his impudence.”

  “Princess, no one is putting anyone in chains,” Dane said. “In fact, we don’t have any chains.”

  “Well, you can just behead him.”

  “Princess,” said Dane delicately, “might you perhaps tell us why you are here?”

  She began to explain, rather melodramatically, how she hated her life in Skrellborg, could bear it no longer, and craving the company of real adventurers, she had hidden in the supply sled beneath the folded canvas tents. There she’d lain all day long, quietly enduring the bumps and lurches along the way, her mind alive with visions of what she would encounter in the days ahead.

  “But what of your uncle the king?” Jarl growled. “When he discovers you missing, he’ll know exactly where you went! He’ll send men after you—and no doubt blame us for your escapade!”

  “My uncle will send no one. He left this morning to raise troops in the west lands. And he gave orders that no man remaining was to leave the fortress. By the time he returns, I’ll be so far from home, there’s no way he’ll find me. Isn’t it delicious?”

  “It stinks!” Jarl bellowed. “You’re just one more mouth to feed. A drain on our resources. Excess baggage that’s just going to slow us down and make us more vulnerable than we already are!”

  “Exce
ss baggage!?” Kára seemed about to explode.

  “You’re going back,” Jarl said, “and if you refuse, I’ll tie you to a tree and leave you here.”

  “You just try it,” Kára shot back.

  “Now where was that rope?” Jarl said, starting for the sled.

  “I can easily tell Uncle you kidnapped me,” said Kára with an arched brow.

  Jarl froze in his tracks. He looked in shock at Dane and the others. Would this mollycoddle be capable of such a bald-faced lie? “I will tell Uncle, ever so tearfully,” she continued, sniffing mock tears, “that you were angry with him for not sending troops with you. So you seized me—took me hostage—with plans to sell me and raise money for more men. Such treachery would never be forgotten, much less forgiven. For as long as you lived, there’d be prices on your heads.”

  Kára stood there, arms folded, a proud, self-satisfied smirk on her face. Then Astrid spoke, casually running her finger along the sharp blade of her axe. “Perhaps you should consider this, princess. If you died out here and the wolves ravaged your pretty bones…who in Skrellborg would even know what happened to you?”

  Kára held Astrid’s unblinking stare. “I had thoughts of making you my maidservant, but you prove too coarse even for that lowly a position.” Astrid’s eyes flashed, she raised her hand at Kára, and the girl rushed to Dane for protection, throwing her arms about him. “I am Princess Kára of the Skrellborg royal house!” she spat to all. “And I bid you build a fire—now—for I am cold!”

  Dane just stood there, sheepish, Jarl and Astrid staring daggers at him. What was he to do? He looked to Lut for help, but the old one merely shrugged and tottered away, leaving it to Dane to figure out for himself. Yet another moment that made Dane hate being a leader.

  Astrid lay awake in her tent, listening to the low murmur of the river, too upset to sleep. For hours she had lain there, turning this way and that beneath her furs, her mind astir.

  That night they had debated what to do with the stow-away. Sending her back to Skrellborg would take horses and manpower, and their ranks were too thin already. Also there was her kidnapping threat to consider. Jarl argued that they should just hang her upside down from a tree and let the wolves and wights have at her, but Dane had insisted that that was too harsh. At length it was decided: They had no choice but to take her along. And although Astrid knew there was no wiser alternative, she could not help but notice how hard Dane had argued for it.