by Ben Galley
Farden pointed at it. ‘Tell me you haven’t got that beast drunk.’
Eyrum shrugged. He wore his axe between his shoulders. Its scarred blade shone in the torchlight. ‘I can neither confirm nor deny,’ he said.
Farden sauntered over to him, wading through the deep and hearty conversations that only strong liquor, excitement, and spare time can nurture. The Written were sprinkled here and there, being surprisingly social for their class. They shared tables with the Sirens. Soldiers sat around in clumps, polishing swords or armour and chatting idly while they worked.
‘We made good progress today,’ Farden said, tapping Eyrum’s cup with his own.
‘Slow but steady.’
‘Wins the race?’
Eyrum shook his head. ‘Must be an Arka fairytale. Ours are different.’
‘How do yours end?’
‘Dragons always win.’
‘Makes sense.’
And so their conversation went. Stabs of humour and dialogue flew back like two fencers parrying and trading blows, circling something more solid and serious at their centre, like a pit filled with sabre-cats, or something, Farden didn’t know. He just knew there was something niggling at his confident clarity. Something beginning to mar it.
‘I could use a smoke,’ Farden said to Eyrum, once their exchange had died a little.
Eyrum dug into his jacket and fished something cracked and battered out of it. Farden squinted at it. Supposedly, it could be called a pipe, if a pipe were something that had survived a hundred battles and a ride down a cliff-face in the back pocket of a heavy, seven-foot tall Siren warrior. Farden fished his own out, a slender little skald’s pipe, and led Eyrum out of the tent.
The difference in volume between the tent and the cold wastes was astounding. It was near-silent outside the sealskin. Around them, the other sleds and their tents sparkled like little islands in the rose-tinted half-dark. A few figures shuffled across the ice, minding their own business. Above, the stars were punching through the tender bruised sky and beginning to twinkle. Farden reached for his tobacco and handed it to Eyrum. The Siren wrinkled his nose. ‘Never liked Arka stuff. Tastes like salt.’
Farden chuckled. ‘Suit yourself. I could say the same of Siren tobacco. What’s it made out of, seaweed?’ he asked.
Eyrum smiled. ‘Not entirely,’ he said. He did a strange thing next. Strange, considering how much time had passed between them, and how habitual the casual movement was. Eyrum finished packing his pipe and offered the bowl to Farden, for him to light. He caught himself halfway there and made it look like an impromptu stretch. ‘Sorry,’ he grunted, sensing how obvious he had been.
‘No need,’ mumbled Farden. ‘Just not the best timing.’ He ducked inside and brought out a whale-tallow candle. The two men held their pipes to it.
Eyrum grunted again. ‘I assume you are speaking of the other mages, and the magick in the air?’ he asked.
‘I am,’ Farden replied between puffs.
‘And I assume you cannot feel it like they can.’
‘Two right so far. Try for third?’
‘And that worries you.’
‘We have a winner.’
‘And here was I believing we came outside to be serious,’ said Eyrum, running his hand over his grizzled face. His grey scales rasped against his rough hands.
Farden sucked his pipe and blew a smoke ring at the stars. ‘We did. My apologies. Heimdall is right. I use humour like armour,’ he replied, with a hint of a sigh.
Eyrum pointed at the twinkling lights above. ‘Do you remember when you and I first looked at the stars?’
Farden nodded. ‘It came back to me the other day. My memories are like that these days. Dribs and drabs. I remembered I pointed out the First Dragon.’
‘That you did.’
Farden clacked the end of his pipe against his teeth. ‘Now I look at them and I wonder which ones I can trust. Which ones are enemies. Which ones are walking amongst us now,’ he wondered, trying to trace a myriad of shapes at once. They all jumbled into one. The stars in the north seemed different somehow, brighter, closer. He abruptly blinked his way out his reverie. ‘Speaking of stars, where’s Loki?’ he asked.
Chapter 22
“Even daemons like to barter.”
Albion adage
Loki was deep in the frozen copse.
Nobody had seen him leave. Not a soul. All far too busy with their drinking, or their shivering. The cold had come with the night, settling in like the cruel smile of a returning king. Loki felt it, but snubbed it. What was cold to a shadow? What was cold to a god?
Piebald ravens croaked in the frozen branches above. Little showers of powdered ice drifted down from where they hopped and scraped.
Other things lingered in the forest too. Loki could feel their presence now they were so close, and he to them. They were well masked, but he caught glimpses of their horns, their eyes, their teeth, their tendrils and hulking fists. Dark things, hiding in the snowy shadows. Old things. Lost things. Unspeakable things.
Loki found a glade made of ice, with stark trees like pillars, strewn with dead pine cones. The ravens held court above, peering down at this bold newcomer, this unwelcome visitor to their dark places. He should have stayed with the lights! They crowed in their own rasping tongues. He would have been safe there! No longer!
Loki could feel them before they appeared. He held his hands out by his side, empty and as white as the snow. He closed his eyes, and soon enough he felt the hot stink of the creatures creeping into the glade, drifting like smoke on a stolen breeze.
He barely flinched when the hot claws encircled his neck. Breath like grave-dirt rattled through fangs, mere inches from his nose. Loki opened his eyes and flashed a smile.
‘Little god,’ said Hokus, baring all his teeth in reply, many eyes winking in sequence. ‘You are brave indeed.’
‘Foolish, if you ask me, brother,’ sniggered the darkness behind his wings.
Loki fearlessly pushed the claws aside, his hands stinging at the contact. ‘Both, by my reckoning. And great things have been made on the backs of either,’ he said, in a low voice.
Eyrum took in a deep breath of cold air through his nostrils. His chest swelled like a fermenting barrel. ‘Who knows? In one of the sleds, I believe,’ he said.
Farden squinted into the darkness between the sleds and beyond. A faint fog seemed to have risen from the ice, somehow. Night was truly falling now. Nothing could save it. ‘It serves to keep an eye on that one,’ he muttered. ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about him.’
‘And what of Heimdall? Do you treat all gods with mistrust or is it just Loki?’
‘Heimdall is fine. Although he has disappeared as well.’
‘I heard he is with your uncle. It seems the magick is having an adverse effect on him.’
Farden raised an eyebrow. ‘How can that be?’
‘Explain yourself, godling. Shadow-creature. Why have you called upon us?’ challenged Valefor. ‘You, of all creatures? The other two I expected, but not a godling. One of the stars.’
‘Because of her,’ Loki said, pointing into the gathering darkness behind the daemon. If he was afraid, he didn’t show it. He stared back at his sworn enemy with a cold, calculating stare, sneeringly confident.
The daemons looked around, as if they had been interrupted during an innocent stroll through an abandoned glade. ‘Who?’ they asked in tandem.
Loki folded his hands behind his back. ‘Let’s not play dumb, shall we? You wouldn’t dare get so close with all of… this,’ he said, gesturing to the things in the shadows. The edges of the glade creaked. The frozen pines had nothing to do with it. ‘Without her efforts, the mages would be setting fire to it this very moment. Heimdall may be clouded by the magick, but it’s not yet that strong. These woods reek of ancient malice. She must be smothering it.’
Hokus was now circling him. Valefor simply prodded him in the chest. ‘Let us assume you are right, for now. So, godl
ing. You called us. We are here. Why?’
‘If you dare feed us lies, we will feed you,’ Hokus said to the darkness, and it growled with a score of voices, if they could truly be called voices. The ravens squawked hungrily.
‘Something tells me this shadow doesn’t want to go back to the sky. Not yet,’ Valefor chuckled.
Loki took a breath.
Farden exhaled and watched his breath rise into the diamond-speckled sky. ‘So we’re blind? He sees and hears nothing, due to the magick? Sometimes I wonder why these gods fell from the sky at all.’
‘Because their fates hang on the next few days as much as ours does. You are here. So are they. It is the way of it.’
Farden shrugged at the big Siren’s wisdom, irrefutable as always. Immovable as the man himself. He stared out at the moonless night, peering into the cobalt-slate of the ice fields. Only a few shadows dominated the night, picked out by the eager stars, the dull reflection of the rocky mountains in the distance, and the silent pine copse barely a mile away. Farden stared at the latter and blew a smoke ring to frame it. ‘It’s too quiet tonight.’
‘What did you expect, on the ice fields?’
‘Something, at least. In the deserts, there was always something hidden somewhere. Skulking under the sand. Ensconced in a gap in the rocks. Skittering through the shadows just beyond the campfire,’ Farden mused. He nibbled the end of his pipe. ‘Sometimes I wish I had a dragon’s eyes.’
Eyrum grunted.
The pines swayed like sick spears above them, reaching for the stars. Valefor tried his hardest not to look up at them. He could feel their stares already. No need to meet them when he didn’t need to. He looked instead to Hokus, and found his comrade staring right back at him, wearing something of the same expression. It took a lot to surprise a daemon, and this was the third time they had been surprised in as many weeks. The daemon counted them silently.
First, the godblood armour on the girl’s father.
Second, the call of the godling.
Third, the godling’s demand itself.
Steam and smoke bubbled from Valefor’s mouth as he exhaled. Even the edges of the glade seemed a little nervous suddenly. Curse their ears, those that had them. ‘Let us get this straight.’
‘Be my guest.’
‘You want us, or rather, our esteemed companion,’ at this point, none other than the esteemed companion herself, Samara, strolled from the shadows to get a better look at the audacious demand-maker, ‘to bring your body down from the stars…’
‘Where it should stay with the other corpses,’ Hokus spat an interruption.
‘…along with ours.’
Loki clicked his fingers. ‘That’s exactly right.’
Farden grimaced. He felt the unease in his gut. Every moment that he stared at the pine copse, a two-headed monster of suspicion and curiosity grew a little bigger in his mind. He kept his eyes on it, as though it might sneak off if he turned around, as he apologised.
‘Sorry,’ he said, quickly. ‘I didn’t mean to dredge up that conversation.’
Eyrum looked at the sky. ‘They’re somewhere. I can feel it. Towerdawn is a good Old Dragon. He would not have wasted their lives for any small reason. That, and he has the fastest of all Nelska with him. I highly doubt any of Saker’s could nip at their tails. That fjtchol,’ Eyrum muttered something better left untranslated. Farden didn’t ask.
‘I believe you. A lot has to be said for feelings,’ he replied. His pipe had gone out. He tucked it in his pocket instead of finishing it. Eyrum was still puffing on his stubborn Siren tobacco.
‘Whilst we are on the path of awkward subjects…’
Farden sighed. ‘Oh, not you as well. I’ve already had this from Roiks, Inwick, Lerel… I’m dealing with it. You lot don’t understand what I’ve set myself up for. It’s…’
Eyrum put a big heavy hand on his shoulder and squashed the fire out of him. ‘I know you can do it,’ he said.
‘I…’ Farden paused. He hadn’t expected that, but it was welcome all the same. ‘I hope so.’
Eyrum sniffed, following the mage’s gaze to the distant copse. ‘What exactly is your interest in those trees, mage?’
Farden didn’t know, but for some reason he started walking towards them. ‘I have no idea, but it’s bothering me. Too quiet. Too close,’ he said.
‘Well, isn’t that something,’ said Hokus. The daemons narrowed their eyes, silent. Samara spoke for them. She strode out of the inky darkness, bold as ever, and looked the god up and down. He was a small man. Shabby, by his coat and wind-strewn blonde hair. Tallish too, but he was a grown-up, and they always were. Intimidating? Hardly. She marched up to him and brought her face to his chin.
‘Why should I help you, traitor?’ she challenged.
‘Because I have delivered your father,’ shrugged Loki. An old woman, face creased in wrinkles and limp hand clutched to her side, emerged from the shadows behind her. She looked fearful. Loki saw her biting her lip.
Samara spat in the snow. ‘You need to get your facts right, god. My father is dead.’
Loki smiled up at the daemons. ‘Oh, did you not tell her?’
‘Tell me what?’
Hokus waved a claw. ‘The god is babbling, Samara, confused. What is it that you have brought us?’
‘Why, I’ve delivered the whole group to you. The Written, Arkmage Tyrfing, my brother Heimdall, and Farden, of course. Minus only Ruin. No doubt why you’ve brought such, hungry, companions,’ Loki looked around at the fidgeting edges of the glade.
‘And what do you get out of this bargain?’ demanded Samara.
Loki’s smile faded all too quickly, replaced with something hard, like flint. ‘Is there anything else? I was born a shadow. This earth gave me a thirst I didn’t think possible. It’s time this shadow felt flesh.’
‘Farden? Where are you going?’ Tyrfing coughed as he poked his head out of the tent. He had heard voices. Eager voices.
‘Stay inside, uncle, where it’s warm. We’re investigating this forest.’
Tyrfing made as if to follow but began to cough instead.
‘Stay inside, uncle,’ Farden repeated. He strode to the edges of the camp. Others had gathered there. A Written. One of the sailors. A handful of snowmads. They were whispering to themselves, craning ears to the fog, scratching heads.
‘What’s all this?’ Farden asked, making several of them jump.
‘Voices sir, on the breeze.’
‘What breeze?’ Eyrum asked.
Farden turned around very slowly.
Loki was still talking. ‘I can give you a power you haven’t felt in millennia.’
‘And what is that?’ Hokus sneered, as if the god couldn’t even give them a limp handshake.
Samara wrinkled her nose. ‘What could you possibly give us?’
‘Souls,’ said Loki, as simply
Valefor cackled, the ravens with him. ‘We take them as we please. Like we always have. Along with the prayer.’
Loki sighed. ‘By sword and claw, one by one. Am I right?’
‘It worked well before.’
‘I have something more dependable in mind.’
Samara looked to the daemons and then back to the god. ‘Like what? What’s this bastard talking about?’
It was Loki’s turn to jab someone in the chest. He put his finger in the shallow of Samara’s shoulder and kept it there. ‘Just you worry about bringing my body down, when I ask for it. Understand?’ Loki was lucky Samara didn’t gut him right there and then. She would have managed it, judging by the venom in her eyes, if she wasn’t so stunned by his boldness. Loki even had the audacity to wink. He pointed back through the silent trees, spying the lights and glow of the camp. ‘Have fun.’
Crunch, crunch, crunch, went the ice under Farden’s quickening boots. Eyrum pounded along behind him, a growing entourage of mages and snowmads behind them. Something was in the trees. Farden was sure of it now. His borrowed sword glinted in the star
light. A sudden wind whipped across the ice, bringing the creaking of wood and the chattering of branches to his ears. The chattering of teeth and fangs. ‘Stay close,’ he ordered. ‘And be ready!’
‘For what?’ Eyrum whispered.
‘Nothing, I hope.’
‘Calm yourself, girl!’ Lilith whined from the gloom of the pines.
‘Farden will die tonight!’ Samara screeched. She was beyond listening. The wind whipped up the ice and needles into a frenzy around her as she stood arms stretched to the shadows. They whined and scratched the ground for her as the magick surged. The daemons looked undecided, but still they grew, swelling up to nudge the branches with their glowing shoulders. The pine copse shivered and howled around them.
Loki stood calmly amongst it all, watching the flashes of eyes and teeth as they flew from the shadow. He heard the tips of the pines crack as dragon’s wings clipped them. He watched them all as they followed Samara out onto the ice, one by one. Her skin was already crackling with lightning, like a beacon in the night. Sparks of fury hissed.
Only Valefor stayed long enough to say anything. He spoke through his veil of burning smoke. ‘We have a deal, god,’ he said, before leaving. ‘But you had best deliver.’
‘Oh,’ Loki smirked. ‘I will.’
Chapter 23
“Carry with ye a silver mirror at all times! For the lycan is a terrifying foe, much more so that its vampyre cousin. Only a pure silver surface may deflect its terrible visage, and break the transformation! Ignore the tales of silver blades; only a mirror may save ye, verily, and a fleet foot. Travel only on a moonless night, as the milky glow of our heavenly sister doth hold sway over our lycan foe, and causes him to turn so! Unlike a vampyre, it is a creature caught betwixt its curse, half man, half beast, and never quite either. Its poison is held both in its fangs and its claws, and its roar can be heard for twenty leagues! Death is most preferable to the lycan curse. Should ye meet one bereft of a silver mirror, pray ye to the gods for a swift end!”
