Outsider

by Klaire de Lys

  Contents

  Title

  Copyright

  Map of Amenstein

  Glossary

  Prologue

  Agroku

  Picking Up The Pieces

  Leaving

  Both Afraid

  The Knot

  A Little Magic

  The Outlander

  Skad Löfgren

  Angu Worms

  Make Me Strong

  Danger

  Secret

  Fireflies

  Five Questions

  The Salt Monasteries

  Winter

  Exposed

  A Master

  Conversations

  Plans

  Helpless

  Always An Outsider

  Questions

  Ruins

  Acknowledgments

  Web Links

  by

  Klaire de Lys

  All Rights Reserved.

  Klaire de Lys reserves the right to be named as the author of this work under the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988.

  Copyright © 2014 Klaire de Lys.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by photocopying or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author.

  Glossary

  Axti (Elvish):

  Frǫðleikr: Magic People

  Korro: Stunted

  Matir: Mother

  Mewa: Dirty

  Mál (Dwarven):

  Agroku : Goblin Leader

  Blanda blóð: Mixed blood

  Brojóta burðr: Rape Child

  Faðir: Father

  Fé: Dwarf money

  Goðgá: Blasphemy

  Heit: Rare dwarf money

  Miðsumar: Midsummer

  Ósómi: Disshonoured

  Sváss: Beloved

  Feoh: Human Money

  (Due to restrictions in the Kindle software certain names originally containing macron's will differ from the paperback version)

  Astrid didn’t say anything.

  Knelt on the ground with her eyes half closed, tears streamed down her face. She tried not to sob out loud but couldn’t stop herself releasing the repressed pain she felt at seeing her old home after so many years.

  Once again she was a small child, helpless and terrified. It had been forty years since that warm day in the middle of the summer; forty years of struggling to kill that frightened child inside of her. Scar after scar, and one reckless adventure after another, to try and make herself tougher and stronger. So many years of tenacity only to become completely unravelled the minute she stepped into the glade.

  Before her lay the crumbled remains of an old stone building built around a pine tree. The stairs that circled the trunk were charred and covered with ivy, the roof had collapsed and barely a whole stone wall remained. Even the two small rooms that had been built high up in the tree tops were concealed by the fast growing tendrils that snaked around the entire tree and the ruins surrounding it. Although the plant had destroyed her old home, it also held it together. She lifted her eyes to one of the rafters being held in place by a curtain of green, which hung down like hundreds of small arms from the branch above it and swung side to side in the wind.

  Another ten years and it would all be hidden. The ivy would slowly grind its teeth through the stone and beams until nothing remained.

  It had been a day much like this; calm and sunny. The sounds of birds and wildlife; Arnbjörg and Sylbil laughing inside the house while she tried to catch a butterfly outside. Sylbil’s quiet song-like laugh was so different to Arnbjörg’s. His was deep and bear-like; like the rumble of a thunderstorm trapped under a mountain.

  Even then, as a child, it would have been impossible for her to not notice the striking differences between her parents.

  Sylbil was a good two heads taller than Arnbjörg despite being short for an elf, with poker-straight hair the colour of charcoal and bright forest-green eyes. Arnbjörg’s hair was a coppery brown, which at times in the sunlight looked blonde. It was thick hair with tight stubborn curls, which he would often tie back tightly in a thick braid to keep it from falling in front of his face. He often threatened to cut it all off and wear his hair like the humans apparently did, short and manageable. His grey eyes sparkled every time he said this, and Astrid and her mother would laugh, knowing he would never do it. Long hair was important to the dwarves. Short hair was not only a sign of immaturity, but in an adult it was a sign of shame. And Arnbjörg was far from ashamed of his choices.

  Being just seven years old at the time, and a half dwarf, Astrid did not have the height of her mother, taking more after her father in terms of stature and physical strength. But her ears were pointed like an elf's, and she had the mannerisms of an elf. Her hair was a raven black like her mother’s and fell around her full cheeks in wild and untamed curls. One of her eyes was grey like Arnbjörg’s, the other was a bright forest green like Sylbil’s. She was a half-blood.

  Before she saw them, she had heard the loud thunder of their iron hooves on the ground and the shouts of people approaching. Loud angry voices.

  She remembered being frightened of the noise and had accidentally crushed the butterfly’s delicate wings in her hands as a loud holler made her jump. Quickly letting it go as she ran towards the house, the butterfly fell to the ground and fluttered its crushed wings pitifully on the dirt.

  In the house, she had jumped into her father’s strong, dwarf arms. Sylbil had grabbed her bow that hung by the door and hurriedly pulled an arrow to the string before rushing outside. Arnbjörg had reached for his hammer axe and lowered her to the floor, telling her to stay inside. His deep, gravelly voice had tried to sound calm and reassuring but Astrid saw the fear in his eyes. He had squeezed her small, pudgy hands reassuringly before rushing out after his wife, closing the door behind him. The steel latch fastened with a firm click.

  It was over; they had been found.

  The last eight years had been kind to them; almost perfect. When her parents had left their people they had believed that the Aldwood was far enough away from both the elves and the dwarves to be safe from retribution.

  Both the dwarves and the elves were afraid of the forest. Fables in both their kingdoms told of Haltija and Frǫðleikr spirits living there - spirits that had once been caring and peaceful but had turned vengeful and angry after an old war, centuries ago. A war too long gone for anyone to remember.

  Nobody would look for them. Not here...

  Or at least that was what Arnbjörg had told his wife every time he saw the familiar, worried look shroud her face when she had held Astrid and had rocked her by the fireplace in the chair he had made for her, staring vacantly into the red flames.

  ‘We are hidden here!’ he would say. ‘Don’t worry sváss! Both our people have better things to do than to look for us!’

  Astrid would look up at her parents, ask them what was wrong, and they would both force a smile and tell her it was nothing, that everything was fine.

  Arnbjörg pretended to think his wife was foolish and teased her constantly for it; Sylbil pretended to be annoyed by him, but secretly enjoyed it. As long as he teased her then at least she could pretend that her fear was unfounded.

  Pretending was their way of coping with the worry that haunted their every dream.

  Had they just been a simple healer and a common guard they would have been left in peace. Shunned, but left to live their lives. But a union between a high ranking dwarf noble from Lǫgberg and the would-be elf queen was not just a rejection of cultural tradition, it was an abomination. A death wish.

  Astrid looked up again at the ruins and another sharp stab of emotional pain burst from her chest. Each time s
he thought the pain couldn’t get any worse, another wave hit her, a numbing pain that transformed into a sharp stab, as if a fine needle was being pushed into every single nerve.

  Barely six feet in front of her, a forty year old thistle bush grew, its prickly coarse flowers half smothered by a white jasmine that had grown with it. The small, delicate flowers surrounded the tough green and red thistle bush and covered it with white blooms. Both plants had their roots knotted over what had once been her parents’ crude graves. Now, barely a small mound remained, her parents’ bodies having long since been claimed by nature. The sweet jasmine scent filled the air and images of her mother laughing with the flowers entwined in her hair flashed through Astrid’s mind. The flowers of the house of Jikka.

  Astrid had stayed by the door at first and had heard the horses and ponies thunder into the clearing, their hooves making the ground shake. The animals’ braying was almost as loud as their riders’ voices as they shouted obscenities at Sylbil and Arnbjörg in Mál and Jaxeti. She may not have known what the words meant, but she understood the hatred behind them.

  She had heard shouting; steel clashing against steel. Strangers screaming. But what scared her enough to make her run outside was the roar of her father’s voice as he yelled her mother’s name.

  ‘Faðir?’ Astrid had whispered, terrified.

  Without even thinking, she had rushed up to the table and dragged a chair towards the door. Struggling to move it, she had pushed and pulled with all her might, the heavy chair only moving a few inches with each step she took.

  Finally, she had shoved the chair into place and scrambled onto it, slipping at first and scraping her knee on the edge. Ignoring the pain, she frantically reached for the lock and pushed it up. The door swung open a little, and almost falling from the chair, Astrid threw it open and ran outside. But barely a few steps past the doorway she stopped abruptly and stared in horror.

  The elves and dwarves, interrupted by her presence, turned to look at her, their faces twisted in anger and disgust.

  Sylbil and Arnbjörg had gazed up at her from the ground, their faces pained as they struggled to smile at her. The elves and dwarves encircled them and Sylbil tried to hide her severed hand, the bleeding stump clenched against her chest. Arnbjörg held his wife tightly against him, his strong arms wrapped protectively around her to shield her from further blows.

  They hadn’t said anything despite wanting to tell her so badly that they loved her, to not be afraid, that everything would be alright. But they couldn’t. Astrid saw the words forming in their eyes but they said nothing. She saw them slump to the ground, something impaled between them and glinting in the sunlight.

  Screaming their names, Astrid had raced towards them, not caring about the large she-dwarf who stood between her and her parents. She just wanted them to hold her and tell her everything was alright.

  Snarling in disgust, the dwarf had kicked her hard enough to knock the wind from her lungs and Astrid fell back. She saw the flash of a blade pass across her face and something hot ran down her lips. A bitter, coppery taste filled her mouth. Reaching up, she’d stared in shock at the bright red blood on her fingers, and holding her mouth she had scrambled away. But the dwarf had laughed and followed her, her sword raised, her grey eyes glinting under her helmet.

  Astrid ran her fingertips over her lips and felt the dent in her skin where the blade had cut through. The wound was healed now, just a delicate, faint silver scar remained.

  She was a child who had grown up secluded in a forest. She hadn’t understood hate, she had never experienced it. But she knew the people walking towards her that night had wanted to kill her. She had screamed for her parents, and screamed louder as she saw the trickle of dark blood staining their clothes between them. Sylbil’s eyes had closed first, her father being the last to die. Looking up, his grey eyes had fixed on her, his half elf daughter. Both of them had tried to say so much in that split second, but their eyes had frozen and glazed, the light behind them fading.

  ‘Come back!’ Astrid said out loud to the memory re-playing in her mind.

  The pain in her chest grew, a hollow burning fire threatening to consume her. She fell to her hands and knees as she remembered the deep, death rattle of her father’s voice before the light at the back of his eyes dimmed and vanished. ‘Please! Please don't die for me!’ she begged to the silence. Falling to the ground, she curled up like the lost little child she was inside.

  Their faces blurred in her memory. She could see the way she had felt so clearly. The love and safety. The earthy smell of her father’s cloak and the scent of the jasmine flower in her mother’s hair. But she couldn’t see their faces. Like a smudged oil painting, each time she tried to remember clearly even just one of their features, their faces just became more and more hazy. But their faces, the faces of the people who had destroyed her life...theirs she remembered perfectly. Every tiny detail was burned into her mind to haunt her. The elf, tall, almost as tall as her mother. His face uncovered like the other elf soldiers he had around him. Pale porcelain skin, pure black hair and cold green eyes staring down at her in disgust.

  The she-dwarf, her hair a light blonde and tied into several elaborate braids, which hung down from the opening in her helmet. Grey eyes like her fathers.

  Hunched over on the ground, Astrid sobbed, unrestrained. The loneliness and fear of the years she had bottled up rushed from her in an unrelenting deluge.

  ‘Please Faðir! I'm scared! I'm so scared! I don't know what to do!’ she cried, reaching for one of the thistles, a jasmine tendril wound around it. She ran her fingers over the plants, trying to imagine they were her parents’ blurred faces.

  One of the soldiers, an elf, had stopped the she-dwarf walking towards her, had stepped in front of her with his long curved sword raised, ready to strike her first, ready to cut across her neck like he was cutting grass, with not even a flinch of hesitation on his face. To him, Astrid was Mewa: dirty, a blight of nature who should be eradicated.

  The sword came down...

  Like the sound of wind rushing through the trees, a black cloud had risen from the dirt around Astrid. Time seemed to stop, the air stilled, and even the horses silenced for a brief moment. The black dust looked almost like two long, thin hands stretching up around her.

  Then with a shrill roar, the cloud had closed around the elf, circling him like a whirlpool at a terrifying speed, and the elf within shrieked in terror. Flecks of blood splattered Astrid’s face. The sound changed from a sharp whistle to a screech, like thousands of sharp little blades being scraped over a smooth rocky surface.

  She could still hear his terrified, gurgling screams in her mind, see the cloud dissipating, the torn, bleeding pile of pulsating flesh that remained on the ground. Even his armour and swords were torn to pieces. Skin, bone and armour.

  The other elves and dwarves had stood in stunned silence, staring at her. A look of rage crossed their faces and a dwarf ran forward in anger only to meet the same fate. Astrid screamed, soaked in their blood, the ground around her flecked with red. The black cloud circling her like a snake would not allow any of them to approach her without ripping them to shreds.

  Without a single word, they had suddenly left. The elf spat on the bodies of her parents as he turned to go. After mounting their horses and ponies, they rode off in silence, with the horse of the two who had been killed by the black cloud following them.

  For a few moments she had done nothing, fear paralysing her. Then, after several minutes, she had crawled forward with blood trickling down her neck from her split lip. She reached out and laid her hand on her father’s face. His body was still warm.

  ‘Faðir? Matir!’

  Nothing. Crawling closer, she noticed the blood spreading through the fibres of their clothes over their chests. First she shook her father, begging him to wake up. After a few vain attempts , Astrid crawled over to her mother. She grabbed her shoulder and shook her. Sylbil’s body slid back a little, exposing th
e double ended dagger which was impaled between both of them, the blades piercing their hearts. Astrid had stared with wide-eyed horror as her parents’ blood settled in the deeply carved runes etched in the handle. A blue glow circled the blade.

  ‘Faðir! Matir!’ she had screamed again. Her tiny little voice was high pitched and panicked as she shook her mother’s head as hard as she could before she finally resorted to hitting her. She prayed with all her might that she would wake up and yell at her for being so rough. Anything, anything but this!

  There was nothing. Silence. The air had seemed to be getting colder and Astrid’s eyes had darted around in fear as she weaved her fingers through her mother’s hair. Grasping it tightly, she’d looked around at the empty glade.

  She was alone.

  Agroku

  A few months ago…

  ‘Are you sure about this?’ Halvard asked quietly under his breath. ‘You know Áfastr is just going to try to mock everything you say.’

  Jarl nodded. ‘I have to! I have to try!’

  They had been waiting for over an hour now, the line in front of the gates already long before they had arrived. Dozens more filed up behind them and Jarl leant patiently against the wall, his arms crossed, and stared vacantly at the floor. Halvard, far less patient, paced up and down, grumbling that they should have been let in earlier.

  Behind the great stone doors of the hall, Jarl could hear the court guards moving to open them, and he quickly straightened his tunic. He was tempted to leave his tattered cloak with Halvard but decided against it. They should see the cloak, see where the Dip wolves had torn and sliced their claws across it. Maybe in some small way it might influence them to see sense.