Ingelbert looked desperately around. The draugr were slowly coming closer, rusted weapons clutched in desiccated fists. He could no longer see Slouch Hat through the bodies. Fafnir kept trying to stand, but his legs would not support him. His breath sounded wet and labored.
With shaking hands, Ingelbert threw open the flap of his satchel and removed the heavy ledger. Propping the spine on his forearm, he allowed the book to fall open, placing his free hand on the pages. He closed his eyes, trying to rid his mind of the approaching corpses. He thought of the eyes he had seen in the Downward Fields. Those gorgeous, lustrous eyes that seemed to hold the wisdom of ages imprisoned. He willed them to appear, but only succeeded in summoning them to his imagination.
Opening his eyes, Ingelbert stared at the pages, searching for aid. The runes remained fixed to the page, an innocuous accounting of provisions.
The draugr closed in and panic seized him. He snatched his knife from its sheath and sliced the meat of his palm, slapping the wound onto the pages.
“Wake!” he screamed.
His blood stained the vellum, barely flowing in the cruel cold.
“Wake! Please!”
A shadow fell over Ingelbert and he looked up to find Slouch Hat standing over him. The draugr had ceased moving. The husk reached down and plucked the tome from Ingelbert's unresisting grasp.
“What,” the husk mused, “do you have here?”
He flipped idly through the pages, his sack face creasing with interest. After a time he peered over the splayed tome.
“Tell me, chronicler. Do you know what these pages contain?”
Ingelbert lifted his chin pridefully. He was no wizard. He was nothing that could stand up to this warlock. But he always had knowledge and, in this quest, had discovered a mote of courage. This husk would see both before the end.
“It is an elven ledger,” Ingelbert replied with the sureness of expertise, “dating from the Battle of Nine Crowns. Once, it was protected by a spell of occlusion, but I unraveled it, so that the contents could be read. You hold an accounting of the stores of armaments and provender quartered by the grand army of Irial Ulvyeh and his allies during the final days of the Pig Iron Rebellion. That book is the property of the Order of the Valiant Spur and in my safekeeping.” He held his injured hand up. “You will return it to me.”
Slouch Hat made no move to comply, his eyes returning to the book. “My first master was a scholar. The man was obsessed with the history of the Rebellion, especially the Battle of Nine Crowns. Two armies marshaled that day, one of Red Caps, the other of allied Fae, but they did not meet. No, instead it became a duel of royalty. The sovereigns present on that battlefield met to treat, but the talks descended into violence. Do you know the names of those august peers who fought that day, Master Crane?”
Ingelbert stared up at the husk, trying to read his intent. His question sounded earnest, not mocking or scornful. Still, Ingelbert could not discern why he asked it. That sack face betrayed nothing, but so long as they conversed, Ingelbert remained alive. He could hear Fafnir still fighting to breathe, lying upon the snow. Perhaps he would recover given enough time. If Ingelbert could provide that time, the runecaster might find a way to defeat this warlock.
“Jerrod the Second had been murdered in Black Pool,” Ingelbert replied, his voice measured and steady. “Thrown from the Tower of Vellaunus. The Gaunt Prince was left to lead the Red Caps alone and it was he who met with the other eight lords. Princess Aillila Ulvyeh represented the elves. Allied with her was the gnome king, Goban Blackmud, Vindwor Secret Keeper, high-king of the dwarrow, a human lord known as Tattered Iefan, the self-styled Coburn King, the queen of the sylphs–”
“You are a learned man,” Slouch Hat cut him off, his eyes never leaving the book, “and far too intelligent not to have guessed at the true nature of this book. I am certain you know it is more than a tally of arrows and radishes. Forgive me, but it is too dangerous to leave in your keeping.” The husk snapped the ponderous book shut with one, reedy hand. “It shall remain with me. You would be unwise to remain here. I am only taking a small contingent of the draugr into the Gale. The rest will soon be beyond my control. I hope you can drag the dwarf to safety before they are free of restraint.”
Slouch Hat turned away and the draugr parted to let him pass. Ingelbert sprang to his feet, rushing at the husk's exposed back. A draugr bashed him with a rotting shield before he went two strides. He fell back to the snow, his head ringing. Blood filled his mouth and his vision swam with sickly radiant blotches. By the time his sight cleared, the draugr had reformed themselves into a barricade. Slouch Hat was gone, along with the tome.
Ingelbert grit his sore teeth in fury. That book was his charge. The husk was nothing but a thief! A pilferer of relics! He was no better than some fjordman raider, plundering what he did not deserve. He thought himself clever, wielding stolen sorcery, but Ingelbert knew him for what he was, a pretender to power. He would show this ragged scarecrow what came of such arrogance. He would teach him the price demanded by delusions of ill-gotten Magic.
The sound of buffeting wings was welcomed by his ears. He looked skyward to see a black shape swooping towards him. The aches in his mouth vanished, replaced by sharp pains in his shoulder, which he ignored, and a familiar weight. He did not even bother to glance at Gasten as he rose to his feet, allowing the owl to feed off his wrath. Vengeful humors coursed through his blood, stemming from the talons that punctured his flesh and befouling him to the core. Ingelbert did nothing to curb their corruption. Within, he envisioned his fluids turning black. Stained. He embraced the change and banished the chronicler. Ingelbert Crane was of no use here. He much preferred that disparaging sobriquet created by the stinking coburn. Ingelbert had thought it foisted upon him, not realizing the advantage in such titles.
Under Inkstain's gaze, the surrounding draugr began to bloat, their cadaverous forms rapidly putrefying despite the cold. They swelled, as if under the heat of an oppressive summer sun. Their degraded mail split against the pressure of bursting flesh. The nearest draugr began to collapse, spilling chill-stiffened entrails upon the snow. He walked through the opening, stepping on the grisly piles.
“Slouch Hat!” he sang out.
He laughed as the husk, mere steps from entering the Mother's Gale, whirled around. The woman next to him also turned, her eyes widening as she beheld the crumbling draugr.
“You are like some favored farm animal,” Inkstain chuckled. “Named for your most prominent feature! Did you truly think, Slouch Hat, that you could take what is mine?”
“Very well,” the husk said regretfully, and waved his hand sharply.
A torrent of unseen sorcery tried to tear Inkstain in half. He weathered the pain, laughing through his clenched jaw. Gasten beat his wings in complaint. The Magic faded and Inkstain took another step.
The husk's face creased with uncertainty. “Fafnir was right. You are far more than you appear. Perhaps this is safe with you. Take the book and go.”
Slouch Hat extended his arm, offering the tome back.
“That?” Inkstain sneered. “The tally of arrows and radishes? That is nothing. I want what is mine. What you hide beneath your peasant's hat. It should have come to me. And I will not allow you to place it on the head of some laundress with diluted blood.”
“How could he know?” the woman hissed, gripping Slouch Hat's arm.
“You are so fond of history lessons, husk,” Inkstain wheedled. “Tell me, do you know the names of the august peers who survived the Battle of Nine Crowns?”
“There was only one,” Slouch Hat replied, his words slow with uncertainty. “Goban Blackmud, the gnome king.”
“It seems,” Inkstain said, stepping nearly within arm's reach, “that is no longer true.”
Slouch Hat's eyes fell upon Gasten. “You!”
“Give me my crown, straw man.”
“No!”
The husk dropped the tome and threw his arms protectively around
the woman. The snow burst upwards as Slouch Hat's feet left the ground. He launched himself backward into the air, holding the woman close, cradling her head as their flight took them into the Mother's Gale. Caught in the currents of the whirlwind, they rose higher, spiraling deeper into the storm. Inkstain watched them dwindle as they rose, pulled towards the towering eye, where they were lost from sight.
He snorted, impressed with the husk's mastery of the crown's powers. Eschewing the pull of the Earth was difficult. This body was not yet up to the task, but that did not mean Inkstain could not follow.
He turned briefly, amused curiosity bringing his gaze to Fafnir. The dwarf still lived, sprawled upon the snow. Inkstain had destroyed only a few dozen of the draugr, and the remainder, free from the husk's influence, were stalking towards the runecaster.
Inkstain grimaced. Dwarrow were loathsome creatures, reduced to scribbling Magic upon rocks and trinkets. This one would besmirch the world no longer. As soon as the dead men reached him, he would be butchered. Inkstain turned his back on Fafnir and, stepping over the green tome, entered the Gale.
He strode through the fury of the maelstrom, making his way assuredly for the slopes of the nearest peak. The winds may well have been the breath of a babe, for all they hindered him. He was shielded in sorcery. The nearly solid barrier of blowing snow blinded him, but he neither stumbled nor halted. He could smell the wickedness that dwelt within the vale of the mountains. It guided him, seduced him. Soon, he came to a cave and left the screaming vastness of the storm behind, entering a dark gullet of stone and ice twisting deep into the mountain. He walked on.
The maze of caves did not confuse him, guided as he was by the alluring beckon of death. The most direct route to the vale brought him through a large, foul smelling cavern. The air was heavy with musk and excrement and decaying meat. Wrinkling his nose in distaste he began to traverse the expansive chamber. Movement caught his eye along the cave walls. Great, lumbering shapes with sloping shoulders and protruding brows moved away from him, spooked by his presence. Inkstain stopped in the center of the cavern and smiled.
Mourning trolls.
There were eight of the brutes, every one a male. The giantess had warned Ingelbert of their kind. These dull, crazed creatures had lost their mates and congregated in the depths of mountains to share their madness and hide from the face of the sun. Though barely taller than Inkstain, they were nearly as broad as they were tall. Any one of them could pulp a man's skull with one, knuckle-dragging hand. The thews of their arms were capable of crushing a grown bear. Yet they cowered, peering at him with frightened eyes from behind their filthy, lank hair. Even their dim, tormented brains could sense the danger he posed, their savage instincts warning them not to challenge his trespass into their lair. He toyed with the notion of bending the trolls to his will, but quickly dismissed the thought. Day still reigned outside. If he compelled the beasts into the sun of the vale, they would become stone. Amusing, but a waste.
Inkstain left the cave, left the trolls cringing in the darkness. He needed no minions. He needed only this body and the Magic that now made it mighty. That presumptuous husk thought to palaver with the Mother of Gales. Inkstain would immolate him and retake the crown, use it to make the Corpse Eater his slave. As for the woman who accompanied the husk, she would become his consort. The scarecrow had been leeching her blood to fuel his craft, but there were other ways, older ways, to wrench power from her body. A husk was ill-equipped for such methods, but surely the body of Ingelbert Crane could be made to take her, willingly or unwillingly, and plant the surest means of true resurrection.
No longer would he be imprisoned in books or languish in the corpses of birds. No longer would he suffer the feeble forms of scribbling annalists. Through the womb of his own distant progeny would he return. He would claim all that was his by rights. The crown. The goblins. The Source Isle. All of this he would place under his rule and more. The world would remember his name and shudder at its utterance.
He would once again be the Gaunt Prince.
THIRTY TWO
The Corpse Eater swooped down upon the vale.
Flyn watched as she left the heights of the massive tree almost leisurely, allowing herself to fall for half the distance before throwing back her wings to slow her descent. He heard her feathers snap the air and held his ground, gazing up at the beast he was meant to slay. From her high perch, the beast had appeared large. As she drew nearer the earth, her true size came into daunting focus.
Each of her feet could easily have clutched a bull, the curving talons as long as Coalspur's blade. Just before the great bird touched ground, her wingspan swallowed the sky. Flyn flung up a warding arm against the onslaught of snow kicked up by the sudden burst of air and heard the ice crackle as the Corpse Eater found purchase on the frozen turf. As the upset snow began to settle, Flyn swallowed hard.
The Mother of Gales towered over him, keeping her wings unfurled in a threatening posture. Her head lowered at the end of a long neck, drooping from the hunch between the massive bird's protruding shoulders. Flyn doubted even Coalspur could sever that neck in one blow, for the appendage was thicker than a battering ram. Both the beast's head and neck were bald, covered only in wrinkled, flaccid flesh, the unhealthy hue of decaying meat. A desiccated wattle hung from beneath her cruelly hooked beak, but otherwise she resembled a monstrous, deformed vulture. The plumage of her wings was impressive, but elsewhere her feathers grew sparsely. Patches of filthy, bone-colored down grew at her chest, the hunch of her back, and between her legs, but everywhere else the pale skin was left exposed, hanging slack over the bones. For all her size, the Corpse Eater's body was wasted and sickly. Even in the frigid air, Flyn could smell the sour reek of her feathers, the odor of malingering disease.
Opening her massive beak, the Corpse Eater hissed at him, a long grey tongue emerging to drip a foul ichor upon the snow. The stench of the grave wafted from her maw, the opening as large as a castle door. Flyn steadied himself against the noxious vapors, but did not take a single step backward. He held Coalspur before him, knees bent, ready to move. At the end of her sinuous neck, the Corpse Eater's head began to sway, the motion reptilian. Her unblinking eyes took turns watching him and her wings slowly drew close to her body as she settled. She took a step to the side, leveling her head with Flyn, keeping just out of his reach. He prepared for the strike that was sure to follow, hoping he was quick enough to dart out of the way before that terrible beak could snap him in twain.
But the beast did not lunge.
She merely watched him, displaying more in those black eyes than the vigilance of an animal. There was interest, even fascination.
Flyn used the time, quickly assessing a means of attack. A drawn out battle with this immense creature would only end in his defeat. If he seized the initiative, he might dive beneath her head and roll beneath her breast. A quick thrust would see this monster done, if he struck true. Fafnir had said that Coalspur would shatter once it pierced the monster's heart. No doubt it would take the entire length of the massive blade to reach that vital organ. Flyn was wary to make a move before he knew his foe's speed. To rush in could be his death. So too would be his end if he delayed overlong.
Flyn tensed, readying his charge.
A sibilant echo drifted into his ears. The sound was unbalancing and Flyn fought a sudden wave of dizziness. He shook his head violently, trying to rid himself of the sound and keep his focus on the Corpse Eater. She had not moved, simply continued to watch him, her head moving rhythmically. Flyn waited until he could again hear only the wind, but no sooner had the strange echo faded, then it returned. He reeled, now aware that the undulating whisper was in his head. Words drifted out of the nauseating din.
Why. Come. Offspring.
Flyn struggled with the new sensation, trying to keep his other senses dominant while this voice intruded directly into his mind.
Why. Seek. Me.
The Corpse Eater regarded him with predatory c
uriosity, her eyes articulating the questions where her tongue did not.
Questions.
Flyn hoped that meant she could only speak to his mind, not read his thoughts as well. If his foe knew his every intent, this battle would be brutal and brief. Flyn hesitated. He had not expected a conversation. Fafnir had said that the Corpse Eater was nothing now but a crazed beast. The Chain Maker, it appeared, was mistaken. The hissing in his head grew insistent.
Why. Come?
“Earnestly?” Flyn replied, finding his voice. “I wanted to know why, if we coburn are truly your creation, I cannot fly? All these fetching feathers, but no wings! Seems a shame, that.”
The Corpse Eater seemed to consider his question, her dulled brain working at his speech. At last, she formed a response.
Magic. Demanded. Lesser children.
Flyn stifled a chuckle. The old girl may not have been mindless, but she clearly did not comprehend levity.
“That is how I have oft viewed myself,” Flyn sighed with a careless shrug. “A lesser child. Alas. Oh well, no harm done. I quite like having arms. Hands are good, too. They hold swords.”
From beyond the Corpse Eater, movement caught Flyn's eye. All across the vale, the vættir were approaching, abandoning the tree to march towards the creature which silently beckoned them. Fafnir's daughters had only just reached the roots when the Corpse Eater landed. They now turned, retracing their steps. The Corpse Eater paid them no notice, keeping her gaze fixed on Flyn.
The voice returned to his head, less disorienting now that he expected its presence.
Your ever-life. Gone. Offspring. I cannot return it.
“Is that what you think I seek?” Flyn mused. “Immortality would be wasted on me. I make a habit of putting my life in constant peril.” He slowly swept his gaze over the immensity of the creature before him. “Obviously.”
Then. What?
Flyn tightened his grip on Coalspur. “An end to life-eternal, Mother of Gales. Yours.”
The Errantry of Bantam Flyn (The Autumn's Fall Saga) Page 58
