Blood Storm: The Books of Blood and Iron

by Steven Harper

  “Understandable.” He poured more ale into Danr’s horn. “But I can understand your lady’s problem, at least a little.”

  “Yeah?” Danr leaned toward him, curious. “How?”

  “Just look at you!” Hector raised his horn yet again, and Danr obliged him with another drink. “You’re half troll. Not a lot of people like half-bloods. They’re an abomination. I don’t feel that way, of course, but I’m sure you’ve seen it.”

  “Sure,” Danr said dryly.

  “There you are, then.” Hector scratched his chest. “Once she marries a half-blood, all those people will see her as a traitor to humans. And since you’re famous, they’ll all know about it. No way to escape it. Must be hard for her.”

  Half-blood. Traitor. The words stabbed Danr with an icy dagger and he sat still as a winter boulder. That was it. Hector’s words made cold, terrible sense. Really, it made a number of thoughts rush together, like streams trickling into a gushing river. Aisa was angry about the merfolk, yes, she was, and she was nervous about marrying a half-troll because of the shit it would bring into their lives. Would their marriage last with people always judging them, attacking them, making both of them outsiders the way he was now? Still, she had indeed said she would marry him, if he asked. That was hope. A tiny fleck of warm hope. If only he could figure out what to do with it. He sat up straighter.

  “Too bad you can’t be, I don’t know, fully human or something,” Hector continued with a pull on his ale. “No one would recognize you, and the half-blood problems would just … vanish. Poof.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “Well, we’re what the Nine made us, and no changing it.”

  “You’re awfully forward for someone we just met.” Talfi hadn’t touched the food. “You say you spotted us across the room? This dark room? With Danr wearing his cloak?”

  “You have keen vision,” Ranadar agreed.

  Danr ignored them. Fully human. How had he not thought of it before? Being half human and half troll was really the source of everything that had gone wrong in his life. He wasn’t entirely welcome among either race, only half welcome—ha!—which was as much to say he wasn’t welcome at all. He only had half a relationship with Aisa. Really, he only had half a life. What he really needed was to be fully one thing or the other. Then he could live his life, a full life, in peace. But that wasn’t possible.

  Or was it?

  Hector reached up to clap him on the shoulder. “I can see you’re deep in thought, my friend. Maybe my advice was the right thing, eh? Glad an ordinary man could help a true hero.”

  Danr blinked at him. The man had been helpful indeed. And extremely coincidental. With only a moment’s hesitation, he closed his right eye and looked at Hector only through his left.

  Through his left eye, he saw Hector. The first thing he saw was … the truth. The man wasn’t lying or misrepresenting. He was telling the truth as he knew it. Danr also saw things he had missed before—the exacting cut of Hector’s clothes, the ease with which he carried himself, the hidden pouch of money in his tunic. This was a man of great wealth, and he had acquired it himself, not through inheritance. And Danr saw more.

  The light dimmed and the air chilled despite the fire. Gooseflesh crawled over Danr’s skin. Darkness oozed through Hector like a rotten worm. The darkness coiled around a strange power, a presence, a thing Danr couldn’t put a name to. The thing had no shape. It was possible Hector didn’t even know it existed, wrapped in darkness as it was. It wasn’t alive. It wasn’t magic. It was a part of Hector himself, a terrible part of the man. It was hunger. This man was never satisfied with anything. He had devoured people, families, and businesses, and still he was hungry. He could devour a town, a city, a country, and never be satisfied. What was more, this man knew it, knew himself, and didn’t care in the slightest. Nausea clawed at Danr’s gut. He tensed and his guard went up. Hector might have been telling the truth about Aisa’s fear, but there was more here than Danr wanted to become involved with.

  “What’s the matter?” Hector asked.

  And from under his hood, Danr had to answer, “You’re a rich man, Hector, but you don’t appreciate your wealth because you always want more, and more, and more. The darkness and the hunger you carry inside will turn on you like a pair of starving dogs. I don’t want to be near you, and you should leave this table before I hurt you to make you go away.” He met Hector’s eyes and crushed the drinking horn in his fist. It popped like a dead bone.

  “Danr!” Ranadar said, more than a little shocked. Talfi’s eyes likewise widened.

  Hector seemed unruffled. He took a sip of ale from his own horn. Only Danr’s left eye noticed the slight tremor in his hand. “So. You may be right.”

  “I’m right. Leave now.”

  “Does any of this make my advice about your young lady wrong?”

  The true word popped out. “No.”

  “Think on that, then. Consider it my gratitude for saving the world, even if you’re cruel to me in taking it.” He drained the last of his horn and left the table. Danr watched pointedly until he left the tavern. Only then did he let out the breath he was holding. The air warmed again.

  “That was cruel,” Talfi said once the front door had shut. “Even if he was suspicious.”

  “If a terrible man asks me a terrible question and gets a terrible answer, he deserves what he gets,” Danr said bluntly.

  “What did you—” Ranadar began, but Talfi clapped a hand over the elf’s mouth.

  “Don’t ask. He’ll tell you.”

  Danr shuddered. “He was a bad, bad man. I don’t know why he wanted to talk to me. He was grateful, and that was the truth, but more than that I can’t say.”

  “Will you eat the meal he bought?” Ranadar gestured at the table.

  “Sure.” Danr shoved some bread into his mouth. “The food is good, even if the man is bad.”

  “And will you take his advice as well?” Ranadar added archly.

  Danr thought. The question didn’t require a true answer—there wasn’t one yet—so the words didn’t push themselves from Danr’s throat. “Maybe. If he’s right.”

  “You’re the truth-teller,” Talfi said, still watching the door. “Can’t you tell if he’s right?”

  “Usually not until it’s too late,” Danr said mournfully. “The truth doesn’t always tell you everything you want to know.”

  “Who does know, then?” Ranadar seemed unwilling to let the point go. The damn elf always had to be right. It came of being Fae. Or a prince.

  But Danr had to answer Ranadar’s question. “Death knows.” He rose from the table, his meal only half-eaten. When you were unsure what to do, move forward, and no sense putting it off. “Let’s go see her. Now.”

  “Now?” Talfi stuffed more meat in his mouth and followed it with a gulp of ale. “Shouldn’t we wait for Aisa?”

  “She doesn’t like going,” replied Danr.

  “Does anyone?” Ranadar muttered.

  “Of course not,” Danr was forced to say. “Don’t be an idiot.”

  “I only meant—”

  Talfi put a hand over his mouth again. “Haven’t you learned anything in the last year, Ran? Never argue with a truth-teller.”

  “I have a question of my own, Ranadar.” Danr leaned over the elf, using his height and bulk and the elf’s lifetime of mistrust for the Stane. Danr liked Talfi. Ranadar, on the other hand, he tolerated only because Talfi was in love with him, so he felt no guilt about pushing Ranadar around. Well, maybe a little guilt. But well within tolerances. “Can you Twist now?”

  “I dislike doing it in the city,” Ranadar answered. “You humans”—his lip curled—“use so much iron, and it drains the ambient power away. Some days, it is painful to be here. With all this iron about, I can only Twist short distances, and my glamours are weak.”

  “But you can Twist,” Danr pressed.

  “Yes.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  “What, here and now?” Ranadar
’s tone was halfway between jovial and serious.

  “Only a fool would Twist in a roomful of people.” Danr spat the words like hornets. “You aren’t a fool. Except when it comes to your family.”

  Ranadar sucked at his teeth and actually reached for the bronze dagger at his belt. Talfi put a hand on his arm.

  “Danr,” Talfi said warningly. “You’re going too far.”

  Danr sighed. It was always like this. He was surprised he had any friends left after this past year. It was probably another reason why Aisa didn’t talk to him about what was bothering her—whenever she asked a question, he had to answer, and it always seemed he had to answer with the harshest truth he could. He backed up a step. “I’m sorry. I can’t always help how the words come out. Talfi was right, earlier—don’t ask me a question if you don’t want a faceful of truth.”

  Ranadar’s face relaxed, but with effort. “Right.”

  “Anyway,” Danr said quickly with a glance about the tavern. It wasn’t particularly crowded at this time of day. “Let’s go back to Mrs. Farley’s and see what Death has to say.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Up on the slate roof of Mrs. Farley’s boardinghouse, the air was a little cleaner and the street noises were fainter. Heavy clouds had moved across the sun, and Danr was glad about that—he didn’t need a hat or cloak to shield himself against the damn headaches. A flock of pigeons flapped overhead, and Danr peered dubiously over the edge of the roof. Unsympathetic cobblestones lay a leg-breaking distance below, while the rough wall of Old City rose high and hard behind them.

  “Explain to me again why we have to jump,” he said slowly.

  “Up here, we are farther away from the iron.” A breeze teased Ranadar’s red hair. “What with all the pots and pans on Cook Street, I can barely work up a glamour, let alone Twist. Some days I wake up with a headache that won’t go away.”

  “You do?” Talfi looked concerned. “I didn’t know that.”

  “I did not want you to know,” Ranadar replied. “You like the city, and I like that you like the city. Iron and all.”

  Talfi was looking agitated now. “But if you’re in pain—”

  “I am an elven prince, even in exile,” Ranadar interrupted. “I do not burden others with small troubles. In any case, there is enough energy up here that I can Twist the four of us, but the gate will have to open there.” He gestured to a spot just below the lead gutter.

  “This is wrong.” Kalessa spat over the edge. “Aisa should be here.”

  “Aisa’s busy,” Danr said. “You yourself said. And I want to take care of this. Now.”

  “You mean you want to take care of it without her around,” Kalessa contradicted.

  Danr clutched his sack, a patched, ragged affair that had accompanied him across Balsia, under the mountain to Glumenhame, across the orcish lands of Xaron, and even to the elven land of Alfhame, and back. It had carried clothes, food, a golden torch, and a magic box. Currently, it carried the squid’s beak and the ink sac. Danr hoped the latter wouldn’t leak. Yuck.

  “I don’t need to do everything with her,” he said. “And I want to handle this by myself. A betrothal present, yeah?”

  Kalessa looked torn, as though she might dash away in search of Aisa. She had nearly done so when Danr came up to her and Aisa’s room to fetch the beak and ink, but Danr had stomped up to the roof before she could object much. After a moment’s hesitation, she set her mouth and stayed where she was.

  “Do it, Ranadar,” Danr said.

  “The Twist will only stay open a moment, so jump when I say.” Ranadar inhaled and made a series of gestures Danr couldn’t follow. No glowing lines trailed the air, no bell-like sounds chimed, no air rushed. There was nothing at all that Danr could see. His heart beat faster. If Ranadar made a mistake—

  “Jump!” Ranadar barked.

  Kalessa leaped off the roof without hesitation, trailing her auburn braid. Talfi dove after her. Both of them fell, then vanished as if the air had swallowed them. Danr gulped and clutched his sack tighter. Shit. Stane were heavy, not well built for swimming or climbing—or falling. The street below him rocked dizzily. Even though he had seen Kalessa and Talfi disappear, his every instinct begged him, screamed at him not to jump. He would plunge to the stones, and they would crush his bones to—

  “Jump!” Ranadar shouted again.

  Danr forced himself to the edge. He hesitated half a second longer, one foot over three stories of empty air, then jumped.

  He fell for a long, sickening moment. The ground rushed up at him, hungry and hard. Terror clawed at his chest. He had jumped too late. He had missed the Twist. He was going to hit. Then the world wrenched. Light exploded around him, and he felt as if he were being pulled in a hundred, a thousand, a million directions. He was every point in the universe, or every point in the universe was him. He was a great tree, branching in an infinite number of directions. He was near to losing himself in the diverse paths. Then a seed sprouted, one tiny bit of time and space that was stronger than the others. Gratefully, Danr grabbed it, used it to will himself forward. With another wrench, the world turned inside out, and Danr landed with a thud on a hard stone floor. A moment later, someone else thudded next to him.

  Nausea squeezed his stomach, and his gorge rose. He swallowed hard, willing himself not to throw up. Not here, not now. Slowly, he pushed himself upright. He was in a cave, one with a rough floor and earthen walls. Tree roots twined thick through the ceiling, some as small as a finger, others thicker than the squid’s tentacles. Soft light pushed through the roots, illuminating the cave, but not painfully so. The cave smelled faintly of fresh mushrooms, which Danr liked.

  An unornamented door made of wood with stone lintels and a dark window of precious glass was set into one wall. Beside the door on a plain table stood two lit candles, one silver and one gold, and between them lay a scarred, rusty battle-axe. The Iron Axe. It looked as though it had lain there for centuries, but Danr happened to know the Axe had been there for little more than a year.

  Between the table and door in a rocking chair sat a plump, motherly looking woman in a red dress with an ivory shawl thrown over her shoulders. Danr rocked uneasily, trying to control his nausea and show respect at the same time. Gray braids, pinned up, framed the woman’s face, though her features were somehow thrown into shadow by the candles. A soft clicking sound filled the cave. The woman was knitting. Her bone needles moved in and out, up and down, never slowing or ceasing.

  The others, including Ranadar, were also getting to their feet. The woman watched in polite silence until they had managed it.

  “I feel like I should offer you something. Hot tea or little cookies or the skulls of your enemies,” she said, and her voice was as low and rich as the liquid stones at the center of the world.

  “No, thank you,” Danr managed. “It was quite a trip.”

  “It amazes me that I got us here,” Ranadar said. His face was even paler than usual. “Usually, only the most powerful of trollwives can Twist someone to Death.”

  The woman gave a gentle smile that didn’t chill Danr at all, no, it didn’t. “I’m hurt that you don’t trust me. I told you last time that I would bring you here the next time you Twisted through the branches of Ashkame. Did you doubt the word of Death?”

  “Not for a moment, great lady,” Ranadar said with a courtly bow, and Danr felt a twinge of envy. What a fine thing it would be to show good manners and lie like that again.

  “This one’s a keeper, Talfi,” Death said, still knitting. “Don’t let him go.”

  Talfi was leaning against a wall, working his jaw as he tried to keep his own gorge from coming up. “Wouldn’t dream of it, ma’am.”

  “Can we get on?” Kalessa asked. Her arms were crossed, and if the Twist had bothered her, Danr couldn’t see it.

  “Impatient,” Death observed. “But I understand. Even my time is limited. Did you bring them?”

  “Yes, lady.” Danr fished the squashy sac and t
he sharp beak from his bag and approached the rocking chair. The stony floor felt rough under his bare toes, and the roots on the ceiling brushed the top of his head. It was both homey and surreal, comforting and awe-inspiring at the same time. He was walking toward Death herself, the end of all that lived, the final darkness, the guardian who watched the portal to Vik’s realm. But she looked like someone who might at any moment leap up to check the stew kettle or bustle off to milk the goats. Danr wondered if she really did milk goats somewhere, and what those goats might look like. He decided he was better off not knowing.

  Danr had first visited Death last year, after the Stane had chained her up and she had asked Danr to find the Iron Axe, the only object that could cut her bonds. After he had helped her, she had given him and the others a fine reward and then said she would call on them again, if they were willing. In the last year, she had called on them two other times, as it happened, and her requests had been instrumental in delaying their arrival in Balsia. This, the third time, was perhaps the oddest. Why had Death wanted parts of a giant squid?

  “Set them on the table, dear,” Death said. “I don’t mind the squishy.”

  A moment’s fishing in the sack brought out the smelly objects in question, and Danr set them on the table between the candles next to the Iron Axe. He shuddered at the sight of old blood on the Axe’s blade, remembering where it had come from.

  “Why did you want these, ma’am?” Danr asked. “It seems like you could get this kind of thing on your own.”

  “They aren’t for me, sweetie.” Death’s face was still in shadow, but Danr got the impression she was smiling at him. “The ink is actually a present for someone else.”

  “I don’t understand.” Danr shook his head.

  “That’s all right, I don’t mind.” She finished a row on her knitting and started another. “Where’s Aisa? I was looking forward to trading insults.”

  “She was occupied, lady,” Kalessa said. “I could try insulting you, if you like.”

  “Thank you, but it won’t be the same,” Death sighed. “That girl’s tongue can snap monkeys out of the trees. It’s no wonder you fell for her, dear.”