by Ben Galley
Tyrfing and Farden donned the helmets and slung the cloaks over their shoulders. While Tyrfing kept a wary eye on the soldiers up ahead, Farden reached out to gently grab the skinny arm of the rearmost captive in the sorry line, an older man with a long waterfall of silver-blonde hair. Gentle Farden may have been, but the man still yelped like a stung hound.
‘Shhh!’ Farden hissed as quietly as he could. Tyrfing ducked as one the soldiers looked back down the line.
‘I’m sorry,’ gasped the poor man, screwing his eyes shut. ‘Whatever it is, don’t hurt me!’
‘Pipe down,’ Farden whispered in his ear. The mage shook him lightly, and gradually the man cracked open his eyes. There was no fist hovering above him, no blade tickling his chin, just a man with a face from the mainland, an Arka man by his paleness. The helmet only covered his brow and his cheeks. It was plain even in the tepid torchlight. The Siren’s eyes widened, and he opened his mouth to accommodate the enormous smile that was spreading across it.
‘Thank Thr…!’ he cried, too loud for comfort. The mages winced. Farden clapped a hand over the man’s mouth and shoved him back into the line. The other Sirens around them were none the wiser. They glanced fearfully over their shoulders. All they saw were two soldiers in helmets; the light was too bad and their hatred too strong to notice any different.
The soldiers, however, had heard the noise over the shuffling, murmuring procession of feet. One of them broke off and stood aside, waiting for the line to work its way past him. Farden saw the figure lingering ahead, passing time by whacking random captives with the flat of his sword blade. There were bars of steel riveted to the mail on his shoulders. Some sort of rank.
Farden’s chest tightened under the pressure of the distinct lack of options. The corridor was doorless, windowless, and straight. He leant close to his uncle, eyes still on the soldier ahead. ‘Erm,’ he began.
‘Hold tight,’ came the order.
Farden frowned. ‘Hold tight to w…’ Tyrfing clamped a hand on his shoulder and a searing pain delved into his body, making his face convulse and his arms shake.
‘Stay still. Keep walking,’ Tyrfing hissed in his ear. It was all Farden could do to nod and not cry out. As the soldier drew near, the pain faded just enough to allow him to stop gurning. He kept his mouth shut and his hands clamped around his sword, waiting for the inevitable havoc to unfold, as it surely would.
It would have been a sore understatement to say Farden was a touch surprised when the soldier fell in alongside them, calm as a cobble. Farden kept his head forward, looking instead with his eyes, straining so much they ached. Tyrfing’s hand was still gasping his shoulder in a grip that a troll would have been proud of. Tyrfing’s armour had completely faded in colour. In fact, it didn’t even seem to be the same armour any more. It was a pale shirt of dirty mail, complete with a tabard bearing the device of some clan. Farden flicked his eyes down at his own attire and found he was wearing the same. His Scalussen armour had completely disappeared. Farden wiggled his left hand into view and saw that it was scaled, and grey. Despite the pain, Farden smirked to himself as he recited a bit of Albion nonsense in his head. No better guise than a shapeshifter’s hide.
‘Giving you trouble?’ asked the Lost Clan soldier, aiming a kick at a nearby captive. His accent was thicker than the ice he hailed from. So thick it was almost another language. Unperturbed, Tyrfing took a breath, and replied in an accent every bit as thick. Farden had to hold himself from laughing with joy.
‘Not a bit, sir. Not a bit,’ grunted his uncle.
‘Make sure you keep it that way. Don’t want a riot on our hands.’
‘No sir.’
From the corner of Farden’s eye, he could see the soldier lean past Farden to examine him. He nodded but kept his eyes straight.
‘New recruit?’ he asked Tyrfing, noting the hand on the shoulder.
The Arkmage nodded quickly. ‘Green as they come. Too many bodies for one day,’ he said.
‘Hmm, blood-sick. We all got it at some point, didn’t we?’ hummed the soldier. ‘Well,’ he said, talking to Farden. ‘You toughen up, you hear? We don’t want any pale-scales making liabilities of themselves.’
‘No sir,’ Farden replied, as loudly and as boldly as he could. The pain strangled his voice.
He heard the soldier nudge Tyrfing before he left. ‘He’ll soon get used to it. After what I hear Lord Saker has planned.’
The name was a ricochet of an arrow, bouncing around the inside of Farden’s skull. Saker. There it was: the name that had been tickling his memory for the past few hours. Saker.
‘Oh yes?’ Tyrfing asked, but the soldier was already walking back down the shuffling line, tapping his scaled nose.
‘Oho yes,’ he chuckled, and that was that. ‘You keep these ingrates in line, you hear?’
‘Yes sir,’ chorused the mages.
Once the soldier was out of eye and earshot, Tyrfing dragged his hand from Farden’s shoulder. Farden felt a strange weight lift as normality came flooding back into his body. It wasn’t without its own brand of pain. It was like having a sword pulled out once it had been driven in. Both hurt, each in different, sickening ways. Farden wheezed as he watched his grey hands fade back to red and gold. He could feel his face contorting and shedding its scales. Farden wiped a drip of sweat from his brow with a shaky hand.
‘Does it feel like that every time?’ he gasped as the final dregs of pain evaporated.
Tyrfing shook his head in a nonchalant sort of way. ‘You get used to it.’
Farden didn’t bother asking how. He tapped the captive Siren on the shoulder and the man slowed his pace. He was wise enough to remain calm this time, and facing forward.
‘Who in the name of Thron are you?’
‘Passers-by,’ said Tyrfing.
‘We came to speak with the Old Dragon,’ Farden replied.
The Siren snorted. It was a cold sound, hard as flint. ‘Then I wish you the very best of luck.’
‘Why?’
‘Last I heard, he was being held in the great hall. We haven’t seen him in a week. They say Saker and his Fellgrin killed him.’
‘Why? What happened here?’
The Siren shrugged. ‘I’m just a cook. What should I know of the whys and hows? One day was normal. The next, the Lost Clans are at our gates, begging for sanctuary against the snows and the ice. Towerdawn gave them the shelter of the lower slopes. Gave them grain, breads, water. Before we knew it, they had taken the mountain for themselves.’
‘But why? You must know.’
‘I told you, I’m a cook, not a soldier. And that has kept me safe so far, so I’m not going to start acting like one, if that’s what you’ve come for.’
Tyrfing leant forward. ‘What are they doing with you?’
‘They march us back and forth. Make us work the kitchens.’ The Siren shrugged. ‘If you ask me, not much has changed.’
Farden put his hand on the back of the man’s head and twisted it sharply to the left, where a man’s broken body lay in a doorway, a twisted picture of death. A smear of something brown and flaking painted the door behind him. ‘Save for the hazardous working conditions…?’ Farden whispered.
The Siren wrinkled his nose. ‘We keep our heads down and our scales in one piece. Do what we’re told. They give us beds, food, clothes. Treat us fine, save for the occasional beating. Could be worse,’ he said, drawing a few stares from the others in the line. Their colourful eyes were as sharp as pins.
Farden shook his head. ‘I suppose it could. There could be more spineless lizards like you amongst this sorry bunch,’ he said. There were murmurs of agreement from the back of the line. The man’s scales flushed a paler shade.
‘Well…’ was all he could stammer. He looked down at his shuffling feet and said no more.
Tyrfing leant close to his nephew. ‘I think it’s time we made our exit. Before they expect a rescue.’ His words may have had a cold edge, but the Arkmage was right;
the stares from the others were becoming desperate. Elbows nudged. Lips mumbled. Something about a pair of saviours.
They were not in a position to be saving anyone, never mind in any great quantity. Not yet.
Farden nodded and sidled away from the line. With his eyes he tried to convey to the Sirens that they would return, just in case any of them began to try to run or shout. Luckily, they seemed to understand, and under the wincing gazes of a score or so, Farden and Tyrfing slipped into the darkness of another stairwell.
Farden stood in the milky light of the fog-strangled day. With one hand he pinched and rubbed at his eyes. With the other he held himself up against the glass of the window, trying to act casual, fresh. He was anything but. Could this mountain have any more stairs? he inwardly gasped.
‘Ready?’ Tyrfing was hovering nearby.
Ready to keel over. ‘Absolutely. Let’s go.’
‘Good man.’
And on they went, padding even softer than before, as if the air was thinner as well as brighter. There were fewer shadows here, thanks to the thick windows that punctured the walls. Fewer shadows, but fewer places to hide.
Farden found himself peering down side passages and out of windows. His bearings were nowhere to be found. ‘When was the last time you were in Hjaussfen?’ he whispered.
‘The anniversary of Towerdawn’s coronation.’
Farden pulled a confused face. ‘When was that?’
‘Five years ago.’
‘How much of this rabbit warren can you remember? Do you know where we are?’
‘There must be a thousand miles of corridor and hallway in this mountain, Farden. I doubt even the oldest dragons have seen every one of them.’
‘Hmph,’ Farden sighed. He took a moment to gaze out of a nearby window, smeared with dust. It was at that precise moment that a pale dragon skimmed the mountainside, flashing past the glass. Farden leapt back, his sword almost falling from his hands. But the beast had already vanished into the fog. ‘Too close,’ he muttered.
Tyrfing took the lead, and they walked one behind the other, sidling along the hallway like crabs along a tideline. ‘How are you feeling?’
Farden rolled his eyes. ‘I wish people would stop asking me that.’
‘We’ll stop when you start feeling better.’
‘I do.’
‘This family has never been good at lying.’
‘Had enough practice.’
‘Hmm,’ Tyrfing said no more.
‘I feel tired. Like I spent the whole of yesterday exercising.’
‘Funny, that.’
‘Apart from that, my wounds are healed. My headache seems to have given up on me. The nevermar seems to have gone.’
‘Hmm,’ his uncle hummed again. ‘Sounds too soon to me. Do you feel weak? Dizzy?’
‘Only when I stand up.’
‘Memory?’
‘Coming back. Slowly,’ Farden replied, wondering if that was a good thing or not.
‘Magick?’
Farden tapped his teeth together in thought. ‘Long gone.’
‘And how that upsets me, to think you might have eradicated it for good. I hope you’re wrong.’
‘So do I,’ Farden unsure if that was a lie or not. He was still so torn over the thought of his magick. Old habits. They’re an inch from immortal at the best of times.
The mages crept on, and as they crept, they turned to making up their minds about the mountain and its madness. It was a coup, pure and simple. The Lost Clans had come to claim the warmer climes, the palace of the Old Dragon, the finer half of Nelska. Farden wondered why. From what he remembered, and that was patchy at best, the Lost Clans were not bitter about their northern habitat, nor their southern cousins. He wondered what had changed in the last decade and a half. Then he remembered Saker, and the look in his eyes as he had talked of the Old Dragon, of Farfallen. There had been no respect in them. Farden remembered a feast with dancing, witches, and boxing. He thought of Farfallen laughing and drinking and felt a pang of hurt flash across his chest. Damn memories, he cursed inside his head.
‘Either it was a small force that took Hjaussfen, or they’re all holed up in the palace,’ muttered Farden, changing subject for himself.
Tyrfing snorted. ‘Luckily that’s where we’re headed.’
Farden prodded him as he passed to take the lead. They had found yet another stairwell, and took the stairs as quickly as they could. ‘I’m being serious. The mountain doesn’t feel invaded. It feels abandoned.’ Farden was right. Apart from the contingent they had met in the lower levels, and the occasional echo of something distant, Hjaussfen was silent and empty. Almost eerie.
Tyrfing nodded. ‘A lot of Sirens have been forced to the mainland or Talen due to the ice. The Long Winter hadn’t given up on the north as easily. Even at the coronation the crowds were thin. The dragons were few. Painfully so. Durnus always said that Towerdawn had inherited a dying breed.’
‘That makes me sad.’
‘Let’s hope this coup isn’t the first nail in their coffin.’
‘Not if we can help it.’
Tyrfing pulled a wry face and shook his head. ‘Farden,’ he said, ‘we’re here for Elessi. Keep that in mind. Save the maid and the world first, like you said. Then you can think about the Sirens.’
Farden didn’t reply to that. He was too busy walking straight into a slumbering guard.
The eerie silence was shattered in a moment, trodden to dust. Farden fell head over heels with the guard, armour crashing onto the stone. Their armour was somehow entangled, mail caught on plate. They thrashed and flailed but neither one broke free. It was one of those moments in a fight where all technique and skill evaporates and all that is left is vicious, desperate thrashing, where both parties know that only one will emerge alive.
The guard knew it all too well. He came awake in seconds. Farden’s sword had already slid away across the stone. He recklessly pounded his opponent in the face with one hand while trying and failing to peel himself free with the other. The guard was shouting something garbled, trying to seize Farden by the throat. Leather gloves soon found an unprotected neck. The mage suddenly found himself being strangled. Farden kicked and hammered with all his might, but the guard refused to budge. He gripped even tighter. Farden’s armoured finger found an eye socket and plunged into it. The sound he elicited was akin to a wolf howling around a mouthful of broken crockery. Farden pressed and pressed, deeper and deeper, until, just as the blood was beginning to run, the man let go. As he rolled away, Tyrfing found his gap, and despatched the man quickly with a shimmering hand to the face.
Farden gingerly touched his throat. ‘And just to think,’ he wheezed. ‘You almost stayed on the boat.’
‘You’re welcome.’ Tyrfing eyed the corpse grimly. It was an ugly sight, face caved, a bloody mess of white gristle and wet crimson. He sniffed and recoiled. The guard had soiled himself in death. Such was battle. ‘We need to hide the body,’ he said, though he didn’t make a move to do so.
‘We don’t need to do anything else but disappear. You could have heard that struggle from the summit. We need to leave,’ Farden replied, getting shakily to his feet. As if to prove him right, the sounds of marching feet began to echo down the hallway. Tyrfing and Farden groaned. ‘See?’
Tyrfing waved a hand. ‘I see alright. This way!’
They scuttled off in the opposite direction of the approaching noise, as softly and as quickly as they could manage. It didn’t take long for a shout to hurtle down the corridor after them. It just made the mages run faster.
They took the first left they could find, and then the next right, and so on, zig-zagging through the granite depths as fast and as erratically as they could. When they finally stopped for breath behind a door to a modest bedroom, they found themselves wrapped in silence again.
‘Let’s not make that mistake again,’ Tyrfing said. Farden nodded, still massaging his bruised neck.
It took them over an h
our to worm their way up, one level at a time. Slowly but surely, the fortress granite paled into the palace marble. The corridors lifted their rafters and shuffled their walls aside. Windows became stained and grander. Torches became more frequent. The rooms they spied grew larger. Soon they found themselves creeping through a Hjaussfen they remembered.
It was plain to see that the mountain’s lustre had flaked. Call it age or neglect since the coup, but the palace lacked some of the glow Farden could vaguely remember. Perhaps it was the distinct lack of bustle, or dragons. Whatever it was, it was sad to see.
Unfortunately for the two mages, the higher they climbed into the mountain, the more numerous the soldiers became. Soon they were running out of places to hide and rooms to duck into. It was only a matter of time before they stumbled across a guard post, or a banquet hall full of unfriendly individuals. Now and again they caught sight of a Lost Clan dragon and its rider. They sauntered about the hallways, leaking a confidence that only such an existence can summon. The riders all wore bearskin, leather, and bare chests, even the women. They looked decidedly tribal, in their furs and skins, with their rings of leather-bound teeth around their necks. The dragons were typical of the northern breed; shorter, stockier, with dark eyes and scales like knotted wood. They were the colour of wet clay, muddy snow, ivory, or thumbed charcoal. Such a contrast to the rainbow hues of the Hjaussfen dragons. Farden couldn’t help but eye their curled horns and claws as they tread the marble floors.
Soon enough, they came across another line of sorry prisoners being shepherded along. These were cuffed and chained with iron. Farden peeked out from an alcove as they passed. They were riders by the looks of their scales and colourings. More than a few of them looked badly beaten. Every so often, one would turn a head and look back the way they had come, wearing a face so uncomfortable and pained that Farden could almost taste it himself. The soldiers flanking them would bark something and jab a stick at them, and the rider would turn back. It could have been a trick of the mage’s ears, but he swore he heard something roaring somewhere in the mountain. There were echoes of hammers too, and shouting. A cacophony muffled by the rock.
