Ruin

by John Gwynne

  I need one of those horses, else I’ll never make it to Forn.

  He was a good rider, had been trained by the best since he could walk, and even the prospect of riding bareback didn’t put him off too much. He looked about, then dashed away from the gates. Almost immediately he heard the sound of hooves, behind and to the left, closer with every heartbeat. He dived forwards, rolling away from hooves that thudded about him.

  The horse was reined in, a warrior in chainmail leaning in his saddle to snatch at him.

  ‘Come here, you little brat,’ the warrior snarled, ‘or I’ll put my spear through you and we’ll see how you squirm then.’

  Haelan rolled away and then Pots was standing over his head, snarling, teeth snapping and fur bristling at the horse and rider. If he had not felt such overwhelming terror Haelan would have laughed.

  ‘Have it your way,’ the warrior said, hefting his spear.

  Then a sword-point burst through his chest and blood exploded, showering Haelan and Pots.

  A hand shoved the dead warrior from his saddle and a man took his place, long arms reaching down for Haelan, a familiar face staring grimly at him.

  Tahir.

  Haelan just stared at him, not sure if he was dreaming.

  ‘Take my hand, Haelan,’ Tahir said, and he did, was swung up into the saddle, and Haelan was hugging his shieldman tight, then they were riding, Pots running alongside them. There were other riders about them, warriors from the hold who had ridden with Tahir and Wulf in search of Swain and Sif. Haelan caught a glimpse of Swain and Sif in the saddle of another horse, and Wulf, leaping from his saddle, staring at the shattered gates of his home, tears streaking his cheeks. Wulf looked back at his children as they rode away from the hold, then he turned and strode through the smoke-wreathed gates. Haelan tried to tell Tahir, but all that came out was a sob, then everything became a blur for him, the wind whipping tears of his own from his eyes.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  ULFILAS

  Ulfilas kicked his horse on, sword arm rising and falling, the man running from him crashing to the ground in a tangle of boneless limbs. All about him his warriors were swarming, the courtyard seething with combat, riders spilling around the sides of the feast-hall where Gramm’s men were starting to break and run. Behind him a bear bellowed, making his head rattle inside his helmet.

  Would I stand against such a foe? He was glad that he did not have to find out, and respected these men of Gramm’s who stood against such overwhelming odds. That didn’t stop him killing them, though.

  He saw a knot of them rallying about a bear, the one whose rider Gramm had killed. Six or seven men were forming a crude half-circle, one stepping in to stab with his spear, the bear lunging at him as he jumped away, another moving close on the other side, bloodying the animal again, enraging it.

  That is the way to kill a bear, usually. Wear it down, bleed it until it’s weak. But not bears like this – it would take a moon to weaken that beast.

  Ulfilas spurred his horse on and rode at the men about the bear, slashed one across the skull, the warrior’s iron helm ringing as he dropped, dead or unconscious. They turned on him and Ulfilas dragged on his reins, his horse rearing, hooves lashing, sending men stumbling back into the range of the enraged bear. A paw whistled through the air and a man fell, eviscerated, another caught in its huge jaws, ripping flesh and crushing bone. The survivors broke and scattered. Ulfilas allowed himself a satisfied grin, until he saw the bear lumbering towards him.

  He felt his horse panicking beneath him, shying away, and he had to yank on the reins to bring it under control, the bear looming closer.

  Then another bear filled the gap between them, the Jotun warlord Ildaer upon it. He shouted words in giantish at the enraged bear. It seemed to calm, marginally.

  ‘He is mad with grief, his rider slain,’ Ildaer said to him.

  Do bears feel grief? Ulfilas rode towards the feast-hall, passing another giant who knelt upon the ground, cradling the corpse of the giantess that Gramm had slain.

  Another brave deed. Songs would be sung about that leap, tales told around the campfires this night.

  The courtyard was less frantic now, full of the dying rather than the fighting, combat drifting around the edges of the hall and amongst the outbuildings. More bears and their giant riders disappeared behind the feast-hall, part of the dozen more Jotun who had arrived with Ildaer at dawn.

  ‘No mercy,’ Ulfilas cried to his warriors. ‘Find the child.’

  He dismounted, warriors falling in behind him, and approached the broken form of Gramm, who lay where he had fallen. Ulfilas stood over him, knew that the man was finished. Blood dribbled from his mouth and nose, his skin was ashen and pale. Broken ribs poked through the ruin of his flesh and leather war gear.

  That was where Ulfilas kicked him.

  Gramm screamed, eyes snapping open.

  ‘Where is he?’

  Gramm’s eyes took a moment to focus. Ulfilas pulled his helmet off, hair sweaty and plastered to his head, but he saw recognition dawn in Gramm’s eyes.

  ‘Jael’s dog,’ Gramm whispered.

  Ulfilas kicked him again.

  ‘Where is the boy?’

  Gramm just stared at him.

  Ulfilas turned to Ildaer, sitting upon his bear.

  ‘Ildaer, this is the man who killed your kin – Ilska was her name, if I remember right.’

  ‘You do,’ Ildaer growled, small eyes fixing on Gramm.

  ‘He was lord of this hold, and if anyone knows where the child is, it is him. Would you help me here?’

  ‘I will.’ Ildaer swung a leg over his saddle and slipped to the ground, pulled his war-hammer from a leather sleeve and strode over, his blond warrior’s braid swinging.

  ‘Inside this hall a giant’s war-hammer and the skin of one of your bears are nailed to the wall,’ Ulfilas said.

  Ildaer’s eyes narrowed at that. He laid his war-hammer upon the ground, grabbed one of Gramm’s hands and heaved him from the ground, slamming his body against one of the broad columns that flanked the feast-hall’s steps. A cry of pain whistled from Gramm’s lips. Ildaer drew a dagger from his belt, as long as a short sword, and slammed it into Gramm’s forearm, halfway between wrist and elbow, impaling him against the column. He left him dangling as he searched the ground for another weapon, lifted a spear and impaled the other arm beside the first, hanging him like a snared hare.

  ‘Feel more inclined to tell me where Haelan is?’ Ulfilas asked, climbing steps to look Gramm in the eye. Gramm spat blood in his face.

  Ildaer punched Gramm in his broken ribs, sending him swinging. Gramm screamed, loud and long.

  ‘Where is he?’ Ulfilas asked again.

  Gramm squeezed his eyes shut.

  ‘Speak, giant-slayer,’ Ildaer grated, ‘and the hurt will end.’ He pulled his arm back for another blow.

  ‘NO!’ someone screamed from behind them. At the same time something whistled past Ulfilas’ ear and slammed into Ildaer. The giant staggered forwards a step and dropped to one knee, a single-bladed axe buried in his back, high, between his shoulder and spine.

  Ulfilas turned and saw a man running at them, pulling another axe from a strap on his back. He was wrapped in fur and leather, with dark hair and eyes, body knotted with thick muscle.

  Gramm’s son, Wulf.

  Wulf threw the second axe as he ran, this one at Ulfilas, but his warriors were moving protectively about him. One stepped in front of Ulfilas, at the same time raising his shield. He was too slow and took the axe in the face, collapsing in a twitching ruin.

  Ulfilas snarled and drew his sword, beside him Ildaer plucking the axe from his back and calling out in giantish, his bear moving to him.

  Other warriors converged on Wulf, two reaching him at the same time. Wulf ducked, a sword and another smaller axe in his hand. He hamstrung the first warrior with his axe, slit his throat as he fell, swirled around the next one, burying his sword in the man’s belly, ri
pping it free as his momentum carried him on, eyes fixed on Ulfilas. He was thirty paces away, powered on, blocked a sword blow with his blade, buried his axe in a neck. Fifteen paces away.

  Ulfilas felt a ripple of fear, welcomed it as an old friend, set his feet and lifted his blade.

  Then someone crashed into Wulf, one of Ulfilas’ men, wrestling him to the ground, another appearing, clubbing him across the back with a spear-butt. More swarmed upon him.

  ‘Don’t kill him,’ Ulfilas yelled as Ildaer strode over, blood streaming from the wound in his back, tossing Wulf’s axe away as if it were a child’s plaything. He grabbed a fistful of Wulf’s hair and dragged him to the feast-hall steps, lifting him to look in his eyes.

  Wulf was semi-conscious, eyes flickering, a cut on his scalp sheeting blood. Ulfilas slapped his face and his eyes snapped open.

  ‘Say hello to your father,’ Ulfilas said.

  Wulf stared at Gramm, impaled to the feast-hall column, blood drenching his arms. He was looking back at his son, tears in his eyes.

  ‘My boy,’ he whispered ‘. . . shouldn’t . . . come back.’

  Wulf kicked and writhed in Ildaer’s grip, spat and cursed. The giant held him tight, only laughed.

  ‘Perhaps you should join your father,’ Ildaer grunted, pinning both of Wulf’s wrists together with one huge fist. He strode up the far side of the steps to its opposite column, bending to pick up a spear as he went, and in one blow pierced both of Wulf’s palms, stabbing the spear into the column. Wulf stood with his arms raised overhead, blood running down the column, eyes fixed on his da.

  ‘Now,’ Ulfilas said, ‘I shall ask you both. Where is Haelan? Hiding in some bolt-hole? Where is he?’ He looked between the two men, father and son, could see the defiance in their eyes. He sighed.

  I am a warrior, not a torturer. Where is Dag when he’s needed? Nevertheless, Ulfilas knew his duty, and he knew that he could not return to Jael without Haelan’s head, or else there was a high chance he’d lose his own, and that was not an option.

  ‘I am going to torture one of you until the other speaks. This will bring me no pleasure. It will be best for you both to speak now and avoid the unnecessary pain.’

  Neither answered him. He drew his knife and walked up the steps to stand halfway between them. ‘Who shall it be?’ he asked.

  ‘I know where he is,’ a voice shouted, someone stepping out from behind a wain. A youth, tall, fair-haired and long-limbed.

  A girl?

  The youth walked towards them, something in her stride seeming wrong, somehow, different. As she drew closer Ulfilas saw that her arms were corded with thick muscle, her face flat planes and sharp angles.

  Like a giant.

  ‘What are you?’ he asked, frowning.

  ‘My name’s Trigg,’ the youth said. ‘I’m a half-breed.’

  Ulfilas noticed Ildaer cocking his head to one side, studying this new arrival with interest.

  I didn’t know such a thing was possible.

  Trigg reached the wide steps and stopped.

  ‘Why would you offer up this information?’ Ulfilas asked, himself as suspicious as the girl appeared to be, half expecting some kind of trap.

  ‘They have mistreated me all my life,’ Trigg said, pointing at both Gramm and Wulf.

  Fair enough.

  ‘We gave you a home, treated you well,’ Wulf yelled at her.

  ‘You mocked me, scorned me, beat me,’ Trigg said, her face cold, holding Wulf’s gaze.

  ‘Where is Haelan, then?’ Ulfilas asked.

  ‘Trigg,’ Gramm breathed, ‘don’t.’

  Ildaer cuffed Gramm across the head.

  ‘He’s in the cellars, I saw Gramm go down there, heard them talking.’

  ‘You traitorous half-breed, curse you, I’ll kill you,’ Wulf yelled.

  ‘Take me to them,’ Ulfilas said. Trigg strode up the steps into the feast-hall, Ulfilas and Ildaer behind her, Wulf’s screams following them. They passed through the hall, dead men lying on tables, others between the tables, through a wide door into the kitchen, ovens cold. A pile of barrels were massed in one corner and Trigg pointed at them.

  ‘Trapdoor’s under them.’

  Ildaer tossed them aside in a few heartbeats to reveal a trapdoor. Ulfilas threw the bolt and lifted the door, hefted his sword and walked down steps into a dark, musty room, pale light leaking in from some kind of grille at the far end of the room.

  ‘There’s no one here,’ he snarled after searching it thoroughly. Then he saw the open grate and a barrel underneath it and ran back up the steps two at a time. The half-breed girl was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘He must be close,’ he snarled at his men as he ran out into the courtyard. ‘Tear this place apart.’

  He strode to Gramm. ‘Where would he go?’

  ‘He’s . . . gone, then,’ Gramm breathed. He had the gall to smile. Ulfilas felt a rush of frustrated rage, edged with fear of failing his task.

  ‘Ildaer, your giant-kin’s bear – he grieves for his rider?’

  ‘Creach, aye, he does,’ Ildaer rumbled. ‘We raise our bears from cubs, our bonds are strong.’

  ‘Then have some vengeance for your bear.’ He pulled his knife from his belt and punched it into Gramm’s gut, ripped it across so that intestines spilt about his boots like writhing snakes. He stepped away to the sound of Wulf and Gramm’s screams mingling.

  Ildaer barked something in his guttural tongue and the riderless bear shambled forwards.

  ‘Feasta,’ Ildaer said and the bear sank its jaws into the pile of intestines, eating them with a disgusting slopping, sucking sound that turned Ulfilas’ stomach.

  Gramm screamed louder, again and again, Wulf weeping and cursing.

  ‘Lord Ulfilas,’ a warrior called down from the wall. ‘There is something you should see.’

  ‘What? It better be to do with the child,’ Ulfilas growled as he strode to the steps. The heat of battle was fading and he felt a chill wind now.

  Ulfilas reached the walkway and looked where the warrior was pointing.

  It was north-west, beyond the pastures and outbuildings of the hold, towards the river that separated Isiltir from the Desolation. A ship had appeared, sleek-hulled and shallow-draughted, rowing hard, even as he watched a black sail being furled and the mast coming down for the ship to slip beneath the stone bridge that spanned the river. More ships appeared behind it – four, six, until they numbered eight in total.

  I recognize those sails, and those ships from the battle at Dun Kellen. The Vin Thalun, servants of Nathair. Why have they been sent here? Has Jael communicated with Nathair, said that I need help? He felt a stab of anger at that, followed by a flush of pleasure that the hold was all but conquered. They are too late. We need no help. Distant sounds of battle drifted up from the slopes beyond the feast-hall, edging through the buildings and warehouses that led to the river. It will take some time to flush all resistance out from this rats’ lair, but their back is broken. Only the child to find.

  Gramm’s screams still rose up from the courtyard, rising now to a hoarse, high-pitched shriek. The bear had worked its way through the piled intestines, had followed their trail up and was sticking its jaws into the wound in Gramm’s belly. Wulf hung limp as he watched. Ulfilas winced. I should go down there and put him out of his misery. He regretted his moment of anger.

  The child. Where is he?

  ‘Ildaer,’ he called down from the wall. ‘Your bear, could he find Haelan’s scent?’

  Ildaer nodded, climbed back into his saddle, and then his bear moved off, disappearing behind the feast-hall.

  Ulfilas’ thoughts shifted to practical details and he thought of setting up a perimeter around the hold to prevent the chance of Haelan slipping away in any confusion. Perhaps I could use these Vin Thalun newcomers. He looked back to the ships, saw the first one docking against a quay, a boarding ramp sliding across. Figures began to disembark, too far away to determine details, but something niggled at
his mind. Two hounds leaped from the first ship as the other ships began to thud against other quays. One of the hounds was enormous, white furred and exuding power even from this distance. He stared harder, eyes narrowing.

  Are there giants amongst them? Jael had mentioned to him that Nathair had giants amongst his allies. But why are they here? He felt a seed of doubt squirm in his belly.

  ‘Lord Ulfilas,’ the warrior beside him said.

  ‘I know,’ Ulfilas murmured. ‘A strange shipload.’

  ‘Not the ships, lord. To the south-west – there are riders approaching. A lot of them.’

  Ulfilas turned away from the ships and looked to the south-west. The warrior was right. A cloud of dust hovered above a smudge on the land, and now he could hear the faint rumble of hooves.

  Who are they?

  ‘Blow your horn; gather the warband,’ he said as he tugged his helmet back on.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  TUKUL

  ‘Looks like we’re in for a fight,’ Tukul said to Coralen and Enkara, the three of them riding at the head of their column. He glanced over at Coralen and saw she was buckling on her wolven gauntlet with her teeth. He grinned.

  I like this girl. She will be a fine match for Corban, and they will have strong children. Well behaved, unlikely; wayward, perhaps; fiery and stubborn, definitely. He had said as much to her on their journey across Isiltir, but she had blushed as red as her hair and threatened to cut his tongue out with her wolven claws if he said such a thing to her again.

  Fiery.

  He smiled at the memory of it.

  As soon as he’d seen the smoke rising from Gramm’s hold he’d known something was wrong. He had a hasty conversation with his sword-kin.

  ‘Do you want me to scout the hold out?’ Coralen had asked him.

  ‘That would be sensible,’ Enkara said.

  ‘Sensible be damned,’ Tukul said. ‘Gramm is my friend, and he may need help.’ He shrugged. ‘We will go and help him.’ He’d ordered the spare horses that they’d alternated riding across the length of Isiltir left in the pastures before Gramm’s hold, giving Shield a fond rub on the nose.