The Shadow's Heart

by K J Taylor

  But this time the smell was far stronger. He would have tried to avoid it, but he soon found that he would have to walk right past it if he wanted to stay on course. So he followed the stench, remembering that word healers used to describe odours that were bad enough to cause illness. Miasma.

  Kullervo clambered over a heap of rotten wood, and found an appalling sight.

  Right on the very edge of the city, still perched precariously on the rickety planking, was a house — or the remains of one. Two walls were still standing, opposite each other, but the one that had run along the city’s edge was gone, and Kullervo could see over the darkened landscape beyond.

  In the middle, between the jagged, half-burned walls, were the bodies. Dozens of human corpses in various states of decay, deliberately piled up on what had once been a floor. Only one of them was separate. It was a smaller body, a child, laid in front of the doorframe, which was still standing.

  Kullervo stood there, dumbstruck. He couldn’t imagine why anyone would do this. Why carry the dead all this way, right to one of the most dangerous spots in the city? Surely people would leave their dead friends somewhere holy, like wherever the city’s temple was or had been. But instead they’d brought them here, to what looked like nothing more than somebody’s burned-out house, and not even a very big house at that.

  Grim insight took hold of him then. Holding his breath, he went closer and peered at the ruins. The light was nearly all gone, but his eyes were strong enough to make out the faint marks of letters on the walls.

  He couldn’t read very well, but he knew enough Cymrian letters to work out some of what had been daubed or cut into the charred wood.

  BURN FOREVER.

  A cuRSe on yoU.

  freeze in the void Aren Cardokson

  Kullervo clasped his hands together, and lowered his head as if in reverence. He had found his father’s old home, and now he saw what Roland had meant. The people of Eagleholm knew who had destroyed all their lives, and they had come to curse his memory and to desecrate his home. Laying their dead at his doorstep, where they belonged. And this was what Kullervo had come so far to find.

  Despair overtook him, and, not caring if anyone saw him, he knelt in front of that horrible temple of death. He tried to say something, maybe even pray — though not to the gods, not even now. But his words died in his throat, where the lump that had been there ever since his talk with Roland finally came loose.

  Kullervo covered his face with his big, clumsy hands, and cried.

  ‘Kullervo? Are you all right?’ A nervous voice intruded on him.

  Kullervo raised his head, and turned it to see Red picking his way through the rubble. The boy looked very pale, but he was determined enough to keep on toward his friend. ‘Oh, Gryphus … gods … what is this?’ he mumbled, looking as if he were about to vomit.

  Kullervo managed to stand up. ‘Don’t look at it, Red.’

  But Red came to his side anyway, and stared up at him with concern. ‘What were you cryin’ about? Did you know any of them?’

  ‘No.’ Kullervo rubbed his face. ‘Did you follow me here?’

  ‘Yeah. I wanted to see where you was goin’.’

  ‘Here,’ said Kullervo. ‘I was going here. But I wish …’

  Red couldn’t quite bring himself to look at the corpses. ‘This is where your dad lived?’

  ‘Yes.’ Kullervo shuddered.

  Red made himself look, and immediately started to retch. ‘Oh Gryphus … it stinks!’

  ‘I know. You don’t have to stay here, Red.’

  ‘Then let’s go,’ the boy said at once. ‘Let’s go back to Roland’s place.’

  ‘In a little while,’ said Kullervo. ‘I want to stay here for a bit. I need to … think. But you don’t have to stay with me. Why don’t you go over there and wait for me? I need to be alone for a while.’

  ‘All right,’ said Red.

  ‘But don’t go too far,’ said Kullervo. ‘This place isn’t safe.’

  ‘Don’t worry; I ain’t stupid,’ said Red. ‘Anyway, there’s nothing but rubbish around here, and it’s too dark. I’ll go … there.’ He pointed to the pile of wood Kullervo had climbed over before. ‘Liantha said it would be good if we had more wood, so I’ll look an’ see if any of it’s good for burning.’

  ‘You do that,’ said Kullervo.

  Once Red was out of sight on the other side of the woodpile, Kullervo turned to look at the house again. Night had all but come, and only the faintest grey glow was left in the sky. Ignoring the stench, he went as close as he could and reached up to touch the doorframe. It swayed alarmingly when his fingers brushed it, but didn’t fall, and he guessed it must have been very sturdy once upon a time. As for the walls, they were thin and rotting, full of holes, and the small talons he had in place of fingernails scratched away flakes of charcoal. He wondered when the house had been burned, and who had lit the fire. Most likely, after the Eyrie had been destroyed and people had found out who had done it, a mob would have gathered here. Maybe they had been hoping to find the wretched Northerner who lived there, but by then he was already dead, so they must have burned his house by way of revenge.

  Kullervo tried to imagine what his father might have been like in those days. He couldn’t have always been the bloodthirsty monster he had become. Nobody was born that way. Had Arren Cardockson ever been a good man? Roland had made it sound as if he had. But something had happened to him, something so horrible it had driven him mad, something that had put so much hatred into him that the Night God had found him worthy to be her creature.

  Roland had said that the entire city had been what destroyed Arren, or the people who lived in it maybe. Laela had told Kullervo what she knew about their father’s background, but it wasn’t much. Just that he had once been called Arren Cardockson, and had lived here. And died here too.

  It was all too easy, Kullervo thought, to think of his father as just a monster, or as an evil man. But once Kullervo had killed people, and even though he hated the memory of what he had done, it was a dark reminder of how easily it could happen. In the right circumstances, anyone could become a murderer. And the circumstances here had been terrible. They must have been.

  ‘I wish I could have known you,’ he said aloud. ‘I wish I could have understood. I’m trying to.’

  He didn’t know what he should do, but despite the darkness that had made the house nothing but an outline, he couldn’t bring himself to leave just yet. He had come so far, but now he didn’t quite know why, or what he had planned to do when he got here.

  He stood there by the doorframe for some time, almost as if he expected something to happen. But nothing did, and by the time an impatient Red came to check on him, he had realised that nothing was going to happen. He had come here for nothing.

  Red had an armload of wood that must have passed muster, and he kept a good distance away from the defiled ruin. ‘Can we go back now?’ he asked.

  Kullervo shook himself. ‘Yes … yes, we should go. I’m sorry I kept you waiting.’

  ‘It’s all right.’ Red almost fled from the stench.

  Kullervo cast one last glance at the house he could barely see any more, and followed. That was my inheritance, he thought. All my father left me was a heap of dead.

  But it wasn’t in Kullervo’s nature to mope for long. He hurried on after Red, not wanting to lose track of him when they could both get lost in the dark. Fortunately Red seemed to know which way he should go, because he headed straight back toward the Hatchery without much hesitation.

  It was only a short journey, even in the dark, but along the way Kullervo quickly noticed that he was being watched. On both sides of the road, people had begun to appear in doorways and windows. Most of them carried burning pieces of wood from the fires he had seen, and their faces looked glaringly pale in the gloom. Gaunt faces, hollow-eyed from starvation, some of them pockmarked by disease. The eyes looked like black holes, all staring straight at him without expression.
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  Kullervo tried not to look back at them, but it was all he could do not to run the rest of the way to the Hatchery.

  There, thank goodness, the lamp was still burning. Resling and Keera were both asleep in a corner. Seerae had moved away to the opposite side and was talking to Liantha in a low voice. Roland was still sitting in the spot where he’d been before, but there was no sign of Senneck.

  Kullervo went straight to Roland. ‘Where’s Senneck?’

  Roland jerked slightly, as if waking up. ‘Eh? What’s that, lad?’

  ‘Senneck,’ said Kullervo. ‘Where did she go?’

  ‘Oh, she’s gone next door,’ said Roland. ‘Back to her old quarters. But she needs to be alone now. Don’t go over there, Arren, or you either, lad.’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Kullervo. ‘She’s not sick, is she?’

  ‘No, no, but she’s laying her eggs now, and we all know how dangerous it is to disturb a female when she’s doing that.’ Roland looked sternly at Red. ‘And don’t you go thinking you can sneak a look either! She’ll attack to kill if she sees you.’

  Red shivered. ‘I won’t.’

  Kullervo sat down beside the old man. ‘I hope we can carry the eggs with us; she didn’t say if she wanted to hatch them here too, but there’s no way she could. There’s not enough food here.’

  ‘No, not at all,’ said Roland. ‘But eggs can be carried if they need to be. In fact …’ He struggled to his feet, supporting himself with a stick, and shuffled off into the back room where he lived.

  He was gone for so long that Kullervo started to worry, and even got up to go and see if he was all right, but he returned at that moment, carrying a misshapen leather object.

  ‘Here,’ he said, handing it over. ‘An egg bag. Hadn’t used it in so long, or not for eggs, anyway — had to empty out some books first!’

  Kullervo examined it. It was indeed a bag, but a huge, square one, whose insides were divided into six heavily padded compartments. The flap that closed it was even more padded, and fitted with no fewer than ten buckled straps. Clearly, nobody wanted the contents to even shift around.

  ‘See? It’s insulated to protect the eggs,’ said Roland. ‘One in each space, so they don’t crack together. You warm it up on the fire first; the padding holds the heat very well, I’ve found.’

  ‘Can we have it?’ asked Kullervo.

  Roland laughed his wheezy laugh. ‘Not likely I’ll ever need it, lad!’

  ‘Thank you.’ Kullervo put the bag aside. ‘Listen … when we leave, I want you to come with us.’

  ‘What?’ Roland shook his head slowly. ‘No, no, I can’t leave. Too old now, not strong enough for travelling, and old Keth died a long time ago, so there’s nobody to carry me.’

  ‘I’m sure Senneck would agree to carry you,’ said Kullervo. ‘You shouldn’t stay here; it’s too dangerous right on the edge, and you can’t have much food left.’

  ‘Not much,’ replied Roland. ‘Only what still grows up here in the rubble. But this is my home, lad. Been my home now for eighty-odd years. Too late for leaving now.’

  ‘But don’t you want to meet Flell’s daughter?’ said Kullervo. ‘She’s Queen of Tara, you know, and I’m sure she’d love to hear you tell her about her mother. She never knew her. And besides, she could give you a much better home.’

  ‘I don’t know …’

  ‘At least think about it,’ said Kullervo. ‘I really don’t want to leave you here in this place when I could help you get away. And Liantha could come too,’ he added.

  Roland rubbed his eyes. ‘I know she’d like to go. She’s always said she wants to see a proper city again some day. I suppose I could think it over. But for now I should probably get some rest. Old men need their sleep!’

  ‘Of course.’ Kullervo smiled. ‘Do you want me to help you to your room?’

  ‘I’d appreciate it,’ said Roland. ‘I never was too proud to ask for help, not like you, Arren. Pride was your downfall, you know.’

  Kullervo almost laughed out loud at the irony of that as he helped Roland up. Arren might have been too proud for his own good, but Kullervo had almost no pride at all.

  Roland leaned on his stick with one hand and let Kullervo support his other arm, and the two of them made a slow and careful trip toward the back room.

  And then, a scream came from the adjoining room.

  Kullervo and Roland both froze. The scream came again.

  ‘Senneck’s in trouble!’ said Kullervo.

  Roland gave his arm a reassuring squeeze. ‘Laying troubles, lad. They happen all the time, but we aren’t allowed to help. It’s an insult to the mother’s pride, you see.’

  Kullervo reluctantly agreed, and might have gone back to helping Roland, but then the scream came a third time. This time it was louder, and this time it was a word.

  ‘Kullervo!’

  ‘She needs me,’ Kullervo said sharply. ‘Red! Come here, now!’

  The boy came running. ‘What should I do?’

  ‘You look after Roland,’ said Kullervo. ‘I have to go and help Senneck. Don’t come after me, any of you!’

  Resling and Keera had woken up, and both looked anxious. Liantha and Seerae, breaking off their conversation, glanced at each other.

  ‘Stay here,’ Kullervo told them fiercely, and ran into the other half of the Hatchery.

  But what he found there was not what he had expected at all.

  People had invaded the building, a whole group of them. They carried burning torches, and many of them had weapons. They were closing in on the nesting place where Senneck lay, and Kullervo heard her hiss a warning at them.

  He ran forward. ‘Get away from her!’

  The people ignored him. They entered the nest, as if they couldn’t hear Senneck’s threats at all, and their weapons plunged downward.

  Simultaneously, Kullervo heard a shout from behind him, back in the chick room. Panicking, he darted back to the main entranceway and saw more people coming in from the street outside. They too were armed.

  Old Roland took a step toward them and held up a wrinkled hand. ‘Stop!’ he said. ‘I don’t have any food for you, I swear — ’

  A heavy wooden club hit him hard in the face. He fell backward, and in an instant chaos broke loose. Keera and Seerae both charged at the intruders, bounding straight over Roland’s body as if he weren’t even there. But the ragged people did not run away, or even show much fear. More of them were coming in.

  Back in the adult chamber, Kullervo could hear Senneck screaming as she tried to fight in the midst of her laying. He saw Red try to run for cover, yelling for help. Liantha, madly diving into the mass of attackers to rescue Roland. Resling, drawing his sword as two scrawny men advanced on him. So far, nobody seemed to have noticed Kullervo.

  He never knew why he thought to do what he did next.

  Rushing forward, he shouted at the top of his voice. ‘You! Southerners! I’m here! Here!’

  People turned to look at him.

  Kullervo hoped that the torchlight was enough to show his bony features and his black hair.

  ‘It’s me!’ he yelled wildly. ‘Arren Cardockson! I’ve come back to kill you all!’ And he even laughed, wildly, as he imagined his father might have done. ‘Come and get me!’

  It worked. Hands rose to point at him, and shouts began.

  ‘It’s him! He’s here!’

  Hatred rippled through the mob. Forgetting whatever they had come here to do, they rushed straight at Kullervo.

  Kullervo ran back into the adult chamber and charged at the people attacking Senneck. ‘I’m Arren Cardockson!’ he shouted at them. ‘Come and fight me, you Southern scum!’

  Then they, too, were after him, and he put his head down and ran straight out of the building and into the street.

  There were more people out there — the same people who had watched him in the street.

  They closed in on him.

  Kullervo had no weapon, or much knowledge of how to
use one. But he didn’t need one. His mouth stretched into a mad snarl, and for the first time he gathered up his new strength and unleashed it with full force.

  The starving survivors were no match. Kullervo lashed out with his talons, and followed up with massive punches. He grabbed people in his oversized hands and hurled them aside, and as others struck back with their weapons and he felt the pain, his griffin side took hold and he went berserk.

  Losing himself in a haze of fury and fighting madness, he slashed with his talons as a griffin would, and even bit with his jagged teeth, drawing blood more than once.

  He was barely even aware of it when the others came out of the Hatchery to help him. Keera and Seerae charged in, and Resling and Liantha as well. Even Red came, wielding a knife he had picked up somewhere.

  But Kullervo’s madness was his downfall. Heedless of any need to protect himself, or do anything but mindlessly hurl himself at anyone who came near, he couldn’t keep going forever. A blow to his leg made him stumble, and in that instant something flashed and tore down the side of his face.

  ‘Blackrobe!’ voices screamed, as mad as he was.

  Something else hit him in the back of the head and he fell.

  He felt other blows strike his body as he lay there, and knew with a distant, serene certainty that they were killing him. Taking their revenge at last.

  After that there was only fading pain, and a darkness that seemed to pull him in with icy hands.

  Come to me, a voice whispered. Be with me now, now … claim your inheritance now …

  No, Kullervo whispered back. Never …

  Then be dead, said the voice.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  ENDINGS AND BEGINNINGS

  Light returned to Kullervo’s eyes in a thin sliver, and his senses came back confused. Pain shuddered through his limbs and face, but despite his confusion and the knowledge that he was hurt, he made an effort to get up.

  ‘He’s awake!’ someone yelled. The voice felt painfully loud.