‘But you will meet the thing one day,’ Ulrich said in a low voice. ‘Perhaps you might ask him?’
‘What?’ Albine asked and eyed me strangely. ‘Meet … it?’ Ulrich and Dana were the only ones in the group who really knew about my plans. Ulrich did, as he had both killed and revived me once with both Euryale’s deadly and life-giving blood, and I had told him after that, and Dana knew after our chat in the sea.
‘I will speak of it later. Gods know if I get to see the undead thing,’ I said dryly. ‘If we get out of here alive, perhaps I shall ask it for all its secrets. It might know some great stew recipes. I’m sure it’s very talkative. But for now, be careful. This is a death trap.’
‘Undead thing?’ Albine asked, wonder in her eyes. ‘And you are not lying, either.’ She would know, her skill made her a very hard person to fool.
‘The captain,’ Dana said with a smirk, ‘has made plans to keep you safe, we heard. He is planning on helping us, then?’ She gave Lex a small grin, and I saw the boy straighten his back, hurt. ‘He has—’
‘Stop it, Dana!’ I said, too loudly, and heads turned, and I whipped my face forward. ‘He will help us,’ I told them. ‘He has no love for what you just saw, Albine. He loved a human once.’
‘Perhaps he shall—one day— again love a human,’ Dana went on softly, and I gave her a furious look.
‘What has he promised?’ Lex asked, his voice full of distrust and his tall frame erect with worry. I felt nauseous, for I liked him. Not enough to love him, not like that, perhaps, but what was love anyway? He was asking me many things with that question, but I would only answer one of them.
‘We will leave in the night. He—’
Some of the crew climbed to the foredeck. One was an older man with a battle scar across his face, another a very young woman who glanced at me with curiosity. They began to fix the square-rigged foremast, and we went quiet. The ship’s pilot, a tall man with watery eyes, guided the ship northeast after the island, and it was obvious where we were going.
The Scorpion’s Bridge.
There was a deadly looking fort on a promontory just to the north of the harbor. There was a military harbor by the fort and a small quayside that was ringed with walls and square towers of white make. Flags of the Coinar lords were flapping lazily in the wind. There was the elaborate silver lizard on black. ‘Dangerous looking thing,’ Lex whispered. It was. The ship hauled closer to the fort. Its walls were tall and meticulously smooth; all the plants had been removed from its sides. On the battlements, one could see troops of guards marching, and a flute was playing somewhere inside. The men wore black and silver, or elves, I was not sure. Elves, likely.
We came to the harbor; the ship was slowly rowed to a quay and moored there. It was a silent dock, and elves stared at us, curious but dignified, and the only sound was the creak of the ship and the clink of the crew’s chain. Men ran to carry planks; ropes were flying through the air so the ship could be tied down and anchors were lowered. The crew was carrying sacks, armed and armored. They wore spears and halberds, axes and swords, and there were no elves with Ompar’s crew. The men assembled on the deck, a guard of silver and black-armored elves came aboard, and the first mate pointed his finger to the quay. I nodded and looked at my friends. ‘Stay meek. And we get out of here.’
‘Meek we shall be,’ Albine said. ‘And we will lick your pretty shoe if you wish it.’
‘Let them pet you,’ Ulrich added. ‘If they like.’
We clambered down the plank, and the crew set out to guard us. They surrounded us in a column and waited. Then I saw Ompar come down with Tiria. He wore red and black armor of leathers and ring mail, his throat covered by a golden gorget. He looked like a king. Tiria looked furious, and it dawned on me she had discovered the Charm Breaker was missing. She avoided looking at us, her beautiful, yet haughty face turned to her brother with rage and suspicion. The other sister, Hannea, was not in sight. I squinted around. A well-laden road ran up to the fort and there, high above, I saw a blue-dressed female ride in. So, Hannea had left earlier. Ompar gave a command, and the men began to march with a dull clink of armor, and Tiria followed sullenly.
The day was hot, and the air on the shore was heavy and oppressive. Our robes were too thick for the climate, even if they had kept us alive in Euryale’s cold island, and we sweated like pigs. I did as well, especially with the armor. The hill was steep, and soon we were all puffing, though while my friends had received training with weapons that past year, I had studied. I knew swords, thanks to Father, but I was out of shape. Perhaps the Rot had something to do with that as well.
The gates were framed by tall pillars, and on top of those burned white lights. They were made of Glory, a beneficial, peaceful spell, what Euryale called the Gift, opposed to Fury, which were spells meant to kill and destroy. The globes would light the area nicely come night. Guards in dark robes stood on pedestals on either side, elves with tall bows and short swords and two with no weapons at all. Nobles, maa’dark, mages. The men around us made no sound, apparently used to the discipline of living under Coinar rule and knowing when to be quiet. It made sense while on land. The gates swung open. We marched through and came to the courtyard. We saw the great central keep and the high walls. There were mirrors set on pedestals on the walls, used for signaling. Great ballista and catapults were oiled, darker than night and deadly looking, somehow much more so than the cannons in our own world. Archers walked the walls in step, dozens of them. They were elven troops, long hair cascading down their backs and over their armor. The yard was a training ground, where around two hundred elven warriors were standing in columns of four, presenting arms to their tall officers.
Ompar walked into the fort after us. His officers came with him, and our troop of one hundred men stopped in the middle of the yard.
The gate closed.
We heard a bar being secured in place outside, curiously. I turned to look that way, and half a dozen guards stood around Ompar. Tiria was sidestepping him with a vengeful smirk. Up on the wall, there was Hannea. Her blonde hair was whipping in the wind as she pointed a finger at me.
‘What is this?’ Ompar roared and pushed at the halberds that were holding him still. ‘I want to speak to the Lover, Kalisar, the commander of the fort. Now!’
‘He is not here,’ Hannea yelled down nervously. ‘Our cousin has been detained for now. This matter requires a steady hand and an elf who will not let you talk your way out of this.’
A door opened to a tower up on the parapet, next to Hannea. A tall, broad elf stepped forward, and I sensed all the humans stiffen at the sight of him. He was a dangerous sight, indeed. His mask was made of a simple black iron that left his mouth uncovered; his hands were covered with long black iron gauntlets, and he wore a prominent silver belt, and a thin saber, and his armor was silver and black. I saw Ompar curse with rage and fear. ‘Strife,’ he whispered, and I guessed this was the brother of his that had killed his wife on the orders of Danar Coinar. He was the Lord of the City, and what would normally have no interest for him, that day was his most important business.
I had a queasy feeling I had been betrayed.
Ompar looked up at Strife and Hannea, gathering his resolve and spoke up, despite the fact he must have known it to be futile. ‘Will you let us rest or shall I get upset? I am son of Danar, same as you. This is my property.’ He nodded at us.
‘No, it is Father’s property,’ Strife said.
Ompar again pushed against the halberds. ‘What is this?’
‘Ask Tiria,’ the gruff voice said, nodding at her. ‘She is our sister, and I think better loved by Father than either one of us. You are useless and soft; I am heavy-handed and not very subtle. But they needed something like that today, so here I am. Our cousin is having a holiday in Father’s cells. And why? As you know, there is something in your possession that does not belong to you.’
‘I didn’t take the Charm Breaker!’ Ompar lied.
Strife sno
rted. ‘We will see about that, but no, this has little to do with that. Tell me, why did you shelter the Hand of Life in your cabin? Why did you not tell your sisters about her? That smacks of treason. Mother would have been disappointed, brother.’
Ompar was fidgeting for a moment. His eyes met mine, and I think there was a touch of terror there. ‘Prepare,’ I whispered to my friends. The men around us turned around, confused. They held their weapons laxly, not expecting to defend us, but there was something strange in the air, something dangerous.
Tiria clapped her hands. ‘Hand of Life!’
The elves turned to face us. Every single elf in the yard, the walls, and towers were looking at us. Ballista were suddenly manned and aimed down. A pair of swords were placed on Ompar’s chest. His swords were torn out and thrown to the dust. Tiria looked at us, tilting her head as she stood to the side. She nodded at me. ‘Are you her?’
I turned to look at her. ‘Who?’
‘Her!’ she shrieked. ‘Come here.’ Her eyes flickered to Ompar, and an elf prodded a sword to his side as the lord tried to break free.
‘You should reconsider this, Tiria. They are my prisoners,’ Ompar said with a deadly, steely voice that made Tiria shiver visibly, but only for a second. ‘You are making me your enemy.’
She pointed a finger at Ompar. ‘Stay still, Ompar, my love. Your part in this is over. But if you do not, I shall forget our common blood. It is thin at best, anyhow.’ The threat was clear. Ompar was her brother. She did not care. The Hand was more important.
I took steps forward. ‘I am she.’
‘She was right,’ Tiria said softly, excitedly. ‘The armor is hers. Few have seen it, but I guess it could be true what I was told. I know none else can wear it. Imagine that. We were in Himingborg to bargain for you, and then you end up in our hands in the middle of the sea. But we were promised a subservient Hand of Life. You seem rebellious. You apparently escaped. Is this so?’
‘Yes,’ I said darkly. ‘We escaped.’
The elf commander of the city was fidgeting, his iron mask going from human to human, but Hannea whispered to him and calmed him down. Tiria was nodding sagely and walked to me. I held my peace, hesitating as her hand shot up. She tore the cowl down and leaned toward me. She whispered, ‘Euryale said she would control you. Now she seems to have failed. How are we to make sure you will obey us?’
‘In what?’ I asked her. ‘Murder, warmongering, and robbing?’
She grasped my helmet, and her eyes burned with brief fire. ‘We are going to rule the land. All of Aldheim, unlike the Bardagoon have done, and with some new radical ideas. There will be no more wars. We will break the land and then rule it with the gods, eventually. Now, finally, a Hand of Life is with us, and she can change things. We have allies, First Born Euryale one of them, and the Feast will be different this year. The odds are in our favor. You will first secure the lands and the houses to us, and then the gods.’
‘I’ll not murder Almheir Bardagoon,’ I said stubbornly though my heart was beating hard. ‘Nor will I give your lord my support. None of the northern lords will see me standing beneath the Coinar banner, and they won’t let you take the land. Never. And I think Euryale is after something but not likely something you desire, and—’
‘I said we had a deal with her,’ she said softly. ‘She wanted to help us. We worked with her. And now perhaps we don’t. As for how to control you? She told us how she was going to keep you in line when we asked.’ Her eyes sought out Dana. Then Lex. Then she smiled. ‘Though perhaps you have reconsidered? You spent an awful lot of time with the human-loving simpleton. You know he has a history of soft-hearted feelings for the simple folk.’ She looked at her brother.
You bitch, Ompar mouthed as he guessed what Tiria was saying.
She ignored him and chuckled. ‘Yes, but a bitch to rule vast lands. To imagine. A human Hand of Life,’ she sneered. ‘It defies senses. Good sense, at least. Frigg would be mortified, I am sure, of the blasphemous Cerunnos Timmerion. He made a mess with his tinkering. Horrible mess. Happily, we will have a helmet to cover your heritage, you will prove yourself by your gifts, and all should be fine. As for obedience, we will do what the Devourer did. You see what I mean.’ She nodded at the Tears. ‘They will stay here, and you and we and our other conspirators you have not yet met will finish the deal. It will bring about a great change in Himingborg during the Feast of Fates. In the end, we will control the land, and then perhaps the gates shall be opened.’
‘You threaten Dana,’ I stated. ‘Truly, she thought I would be a burden on her. Again she is the tool to make me a servant.’
‘Threats to Dana did not work before, though,’ Tiria giggled. ‘You risked all despite her. So, we keep the lot under lock and blade. See if their combined lives will be more important to you than hers alone.’
‘And you call yourself a noble?’ I smiled coldly.
‘Yes, human,’ she whispered. ‘It is what I am. It means I have to be harsh, where many would be kind. For my house, for glory, for our rights. Now. Your sister. She will stay in here, and so will they. Until our business is concluded.’
‘How did you find out about her? You don’t know the armor!’ Ompar yelled, growing impatient. ‘You never studied. Never! You spend your time torturing cats and making Hannea afraid of you.’
She turned to him. ‘Humans,’ she smiled. ‘They are our tools and not our friends, dear brother. They are loyal dogs, and you love such dogs. Some dogs bite their masters. Some bite their friends.’ Her eyes flickered back towards the men of Ompar, and to my friends. I hesitated. They did not betray anything. One of us told her? Was it Anja? Did she have a deal with them? Anja did not look at me but stared at Tiria. Guilty? Not guilty?
Ompar shook his head, and I shuddered. ‘Very well. What do you propose to do? Keep them for Father? And I shall be sent away with my men, jeered by the family during the supper? I’m fine with not seeing your faces. Especially his.’ He looked up at Strife. ‘Not that he would dare show it anyway.’ The iron mask was nodding slowly, and he was flexing his gauntleted hands.
Tiria faced her brother. ‘We shall wait for him here. Then we shall go and make history. We do not have much time.’
‘Move those robed humans to the Wyvern’s, the elf called Strife yelled out and pointed his gauntlet at my friends. The elven guards walked forward and began pushing them, and I joined them, but Tiria pulled me around.
‘You shall stay with me, dear girl,’ she purred. ‘But first. Look at this, so that you understand what it means to disobey a Coinar noble. Think of this as we travel and you think about betraying us. You no doubt saw imaginary ways of torture with the Devourer? We have a great imagination as well, but sometimes a simple application of arrow and spear works just as well.’
‘What are you planning, you she-snake?’ I asked.
Hannea looked at Tiria and hesitated for a moment. Then Tiria nodded. Ompar snapped his head up to Hannea and Strife, then back to his crew. Tiria was smirking at him. ‘No witnesses, brother. Some might know she is the Hand and a human. Cannot risk it.’
‘No!’ Ompar screamed and charged with his sword, past the surprised guards.
Strife waved his hand.
Three ballista opened fire on his crew. Each fired a dozen deadly shafts. First, there was an eerie series of clicks, and then a thrumming, buzzing sound as the air was filled with dark javelins. Blood spattered the cobblestones as the projectiles tore into the crew of the Arch. Screams filled the air. Arrows rained down. Tiria pulled me away with surprising strength and stepped forward. She, like Strife, was Embracing the Glory, and braiding spells together. I felt them and saw them do it in my mind. There were dead men and women on the ground, wounded rolling in dust, warriors bleeding and Bulathon was roaring orders and pulling at his crew for the wall where the ballista could not reach them easily. I noticed there was a doorway there, and that is where he was headed for next.
It was a treacherous, brutal, shocking,
and unfair attack. That doorway was their only chance.
They did not have one.
Elves marched forward in a shieldwall. Elves emerged from the doorway, shields and spears out. The air crackled and our hair was standing on its end as Tiria released a spell of energies pulled from the ice side of Glory. I cursed myself as she let go of it. I should have pulled at the weave and broken it, but I was far too shocked by the sudden butchery. She had mixed gentle winds and vapors and ice, and lightning zapped from her hand, and it was a deadly power indeed. The crackle of energy near deafened us, the boom did, and we were all dizzy and nauseous as a flash of light tore through twenty men. The charging elves cringed away, and the humans suffered. Men toppled, charred. Bits of steaming flesh rolled on the cobblestones; someone was shrieking in horrid pain. The smell of burnt flesh filled our nostrils. Then, Strife released a wondrous, deadly spell of fire. It left his gauntlets and then it was a spiral in the air, like a snake and it obeyed his commands. His gauntlets glowed. ‘What the Hel is that?’ I muttered in shock, unsure if I had actually shouted as my ears rang.
I could not see the spell after the snake sprung up. I had seen it cast, but then it was a sentient living thing. It came from the gauntlets and the mask. They were an artifact, like the Charm Breaker and the Silver Maw.
The fire snake ripped through the air and for the crew below. It enjoyed the carnage, at least, judging by the fiery snake-grin and it clearly anticipated its kills, tormenting the humans. It entwined around a pair of human sailors, burning them into a single, screaming torch and then ripped through the wooden shield of a burly warrior, and then to his belly, igniting him from inside.
Some thirty men were scrambling into a wall of shields, herded by the elven troops, their tall spears flashing as they slaughtered the humans who were too slow to run to their friends. The shieldwall tightened around the men and women and it was indomitable, superbly efficient, deadly as the longhaired elves herded their prey for the final stand. They were agile and fast fighters, and the crew had no chance at all. The warriors were in no hurry, as the archers were still releasing arrows at the crew, the elven faces like stone, showing no emotion. The fire snake ripped to the group of people, and the man who had been working on the foredeck pushed the familiar young woman away. She was likely his daughter. Then he died, as the molten worm burrowed into his chest and exploded out of his skull, and I sensed Strife’s happiness up on the wall with the terrible, disheartening, and moral-breaking kill. Bits of burning bone and flesh scattered all over the yard, and the girl shrieked.
Eye of Hel: Stories of the Nine Worlds (Ten Tears Chronicles - a dark fantasy action adventure Book 2) Page 7
