She had not seemed optimistic about the last point.
They should just obey, the nobles.
But, no, they were reluctant. Baduhanna was right. There might be a civil war, if things didn’t change. We could not afford one, though.
I was the king. That was all there was to it. The remaining Helstroms, they plotted. The fake king Crec’s wife, Hilan, led them, and while she was no draugr, she either didn’t think her husband was one either, or just refused to let go of the stolen crown, anyway. She was as power-hungry as a greedy, spoiled brat-child.
She could simply be thrown in the Mad Watch jail, with her sons. But Baduhanna needed her, damn her. We needed the noble armies.
Black Grip, the ancient, half-sentient gauntlet, a mighty artifact of the Kings of the North, felt suddenly warm in my hand. The simple-looking iron artifact, crafted far in the ancient past by the best dverger smiths, could feel the presence of other jotuns, and I knew Balissa, the last of my kin, was close. She had been scouting in Alantia, our eastern county, but was apparently coming back. She was a wiser, far older warrior, but I was the King of the Clan, and King of the men of Red Midgard, and hunting for vermin when I should be helping Baduhanna plan was wrecking my thin nerves.
She was ruling my city, and I was skulking in dirt, purging the Under City like a cleaning lady scrubs a shitter.
And yet, I knew there was a point to it. “It is necessary,” I whispered. These men below the city would hurt us. While the dverger were closing all the ways into the city under the walls, these men might help unseal them. The Five Rings of Dagnar were vulnerable, as long as there were Hammer Legions under the walls and the streets.
I cursed and prepared to poke the listening dverg anyway. I pulled my hand back, because Thrum’s eyes opened; the glittering dark orbs were round with surprise, his dark face turning to me. “Well, Danegell. They are there, again. They just came back, my lord.”
“King,” I growled. I had grown sensitive about that.
“King Danegell,” echoed Sand, my friend, a draugr since Lith and Taram’s betrayal of him, but still someone I trusted with my life. He looked like he always had—a burly, rough, blond boy. But, under the spell, he was a corpse walking. The dverger shifted as he spoke, disapproving of him, fearing him. No doubt Baduhanna hoped one of them would make an end of Sand. And Shaduril, when she returned. Baduhanna had no patience for my love for the two.
With good cause, I thought. The draugr had to obey the older, nobler draugr, but Sand had not been given orders to oppose me. Neither had Shaduril. And they had helped me with Dagnar, against Taram, Balan, and Lithiana Blacktower. And both were my friends. I loved … had loved Shaduril. I smiled. At least she would be safe when she returned. Only the jotuns could change shape, truly change into most anything living, but Shaduril had Lithiana’s magical artifacts, the earrings that allowed her to look like another female. It was only an illusion, only for women, and only could assume female looks. It allowed her to even sound like whomever she mimicked, and it would keep her safe as she walked the streets. It had already gotten Lithiana killed, and fooled me into bedding the wrong … draugr.
I shuddered with disgust at the memory.
Thrum laughed and pulled me out of my thoughts. “Concentrate, my friend. And as for the crown? Stop being a scatter-brained orc. Wanting something doesn’t make it so. You should know better, eh? You are no King of Dagnar, but you are the Clan-King to Balissa, and General to us. I will call you the a damned wart-arsed Prince of Gods, if you want me to, but I’d really concentrate on kingly deeds, if I were you.”
“You are not.”
He sighed. “I would stop brooding, as opposed to dreaming of the crown. That’s with Crec anyway. Probably wipes his undead snot on it. Listen—”
“I am the King of Dagnar,” I insisted like a child, and felt like an idiot. The looks on their faces told a plain story. They also thought so.
Thrum shook his thick head. “You are a fool-king. You are opposed by so many of the humans. The goddess wants to resolve things peacefully, but this will mean your whole kingship is being wiped under the dusty carpet.” He snorted. “A true jotun would break some skulls to make his claim. A true jotun’s crown is made of the bones of his enemies, and his throne sits in a pool of cold blood. You are soft. Stop expecting Baduhanna to hand you your crown. Your grandfather died in her hands, and Father locked her up for some thousands of years. And now, let us get back to this business, Lord … King.”
Sand laughed softly at my discomfort with my own troops and walked around, his feet bare. He had taken to wearing no footwear, and he was busily staring at his footprints in the dust. The dead were obsessed by odd things, their past and present goals, yearning to obey and achieve things they, for some reason, thought important. Sand’s wishes were a mystery, but at least he was my friend.
As long as he didn’t meet a draugr who outranked him, I thought, I’d be safe.
“Just call me ‘King,’ Thrum, and that’s a start, eh? Others will hear it. Where, exactly, are they?” I asked him. “How many are there?”
Thrum spat in a corner and nodded up the street. “As we knew, this bunch has been changing positions, damn frantically, over the past days. But, they keep coming to where they have been before, because they don’t know the place too well. They have a base in that old crumbling tower,” he grunted and gestured to the north, beyond some streets. “Hundred. Maybe less?” He shrugged, as if it didn’t matter if there were a thousand angry legionnaires there.
“You sure they are there now?” I asked him, my eyes well accustomed to the dark. Jotuns, like the dverger, could see in the shadows. Sand could as well, even better. And yet, the dverger saw signs I missed. I had not seen any signs of life in this part of the city, but the dark-dweller claimed he had heard the stones speaking. I thought of spells I might use, and knew, in the end, we’d have to go in the old fashioned way. There would be only one door. The enemy was human, and not prepared for someone who could change shape. I might try the roof, if there was one. I saw his sulky frown, and knew he would not take kindly to me doubting his skills again. “So they are there. How do we go in?”
“You force your way in, my king,” he said, with a dark grin. “You walk up, then bash in the door, and stomp over to them,” Thrum murmured. His kin rumbled assent. “You open them boys up, stop their breathing, and drag the remains out so someone can come and clean them away. Then, we are done here. We are nearly finished sealing the ways out. We also built traps on the tunnels which show most of the weaknesses. There are plenty that lead outside the walls, but none remain.”
“Right,” I said. I was unhappy with their bravery. Their methods worked, but I also needed all of the few thousand dverger alive for the future wars. And, I liked them. “We should find a way to ambush them. We need no more losses.”
Narag snorted as he saw my struggle. “Don’t worry about it, boy-king,” he said annoyingly. “In the end, few of us will be left standing. Think of it this way. Those who go to Hel early, will get to rest first.”
I didn’t so much as nod. As a king, I should have solutions to such problems. I should protect those who followed me.
“We are going?” Narag asked.
“Wait,” I said.
“You need to piss first?” Thrum asked, with a high, annoyed voice. “They might move away soon. Perhaps they are just picking up supplies.”
“This is the last group?” I asked them.
They both sighed. Thrum finally nodded, after chewing an imaginary stone between his jaws. “Look, we have done everything we can. We have killed these people. We have secured the city. In the end, only the old tavern in the harbor will have a viable route down to the Old City. You know that one? The End of the Road?”
“I know the place,” I said.
“Yes. And we have built the magically sealed room near the Tenginell House Crypts, as you asked. You know how to access it. The grave, the bone, the song.”
“I know it,” I said. I had asked them to build a place where I might keep secrets, where one might hide. A place where Baduhanna couldn’t enter. I had wanted it to be a place close to my dead kin. There was no route from the magical room into the Tenginell Crypt, but I felt they were close, father, mother, and my dead kin. And, if Shaduril brought any of the treasures I hoped she would find, that’s where they would go. They would be my hoard, and something I hoped I could use to gain leverage to grasp power that belonged to me. Baduhanna would be unhappy, but she would not be able to get in. I’d do much to take my father’s throne.
“Right,” he said stiffly. “It took a week and many old spells. And not only that, we work upstairs as well. We guard you and the Tower. We buried your kin and our hundreds of lost there with your father in the Tenginell Crypts.” He frowned at me. “You weren’t there. We put your father next to your mother’s skeleton. Even Baduhanna was there.”
I said nothing. Despite wishing to be close to them, I had avoided the crypt itself, and had no fond memories of it. I made no excuses and that fact made him mellower. He went on, but with a kinder tone. “We have done all we can to strengthen the city defenses. After this battle, it’s up to the gods, luck, people with weapons, and you and Baduhanna what takes place next. Baduhanna and whoever will rule the city will tell us what to do. Let’s just kill these boys and get some rest from the toils, before the real challenges, eh? And even the dverger grow short of patience when a king starts to get cold feet. We have ale to drink.”
“Let me go and have a look, at least,” I told him. “Before anything else happens.”
“Baduhanna won’t like it,” he growled. “You’re not expendable.”
“Neither are you,” I retorted. “No matter what you say.”
He looked at me like I was drunk and mad at the same time. “Sure we are. Our oaths make it so. We are soldiers, tools, and tools get used until they break. Your grandfather used his armies like dice on a gambling block. He roasted us. He ground us to bone-dust. Your dad, Morag, wouldn’t have minded losing some either. All of the Hel’s generals spent our lives ruthlessly. We got paid for it. And it is as it should be, you milk-drinker. Human generals are no different. You are soft as a bone.”
“You already called me soft,” I said coldly. “And I didn’t like it then. And besides, bone’s not soft.”
He looked at me oddly. “Yes, it is.”
“What other generals?” I asked him, giving up the argument. “I know father was one, grandfather even more. Were there others?”
He scowled, spat, and waved his head. “No time for stories of the past. You take a seat, and we’ll break ‘em. Cheer us on. Forget the other generals. We served your father.”
I felt lost and troubled, and I could not forget the past either. Father had led his kind, mercenaries, our clansmen, a huge army against humans in the wars of the past. He had fought against Baduhanna, who had been champion for the Aesir and Midgard. She had nearly destroyed all my family in Dagnar, where Father had trapped both our mercenaries and Baduhanna for long years with a unique spell of Black Grip.
There had been other armies of Hel? Other armies in Midgard?
I hoped I’d figure out the truth after Shaduril retrieved the vast hoard of magical artifacts from Balan’s workshop, and the Book of the Past, where the Blacktowers had recorded the known history of the north. I had stolen and hidden it in a tree, and Shaduril should be back any day.
“No?” Narag asked, having witnessed the look on my face. “He thinks Morag led all the charges against the enemy shields in the past. He thinks he can do it better, probably. The boy’s a damned mushroom. Won’t survive to see his one thousandth year.”
“At least I’m doing it differently. I am different. I was born a jotun, and raised as a human,” I told their incredulous faces. “The Sorrowspinner, that damned ring, mostly blocked my powers all my life.” I stopped. I wondered where the dreadful ring had ended up. It had fallen in a pile of corpses, and I had not seen it since.
For now, I had to break the enemy.
“Yes, you are different,” Thrum huffed. “Uglier than most your kin. Otherwise, you should know better. And if you get buried early, you are different indeed. No legacy, no deeds of note, no pretty bard singing of your deeds, except perhaps a mocking song of a jotun with a twisted sense of honor. A minor lord, you will be remembered as. A king is not a hero. You’ll know what I mean. Your queen knows this. Be hard. Let others die for you.”
“She’s a hard one,” I murmured, thinking about the Aesir who sought to defend men against Balic, but was entirely ruthless in her tactics. She had promised mercy to a contingent of Hammer Legionnaires trapped in the Gate district, and then hung them from the wall, claiming she had spared them torture, which was merciful enough. Father would have loved her, I thought, chuckling. In fact, he had tricked and fought her, and I was now force-married to the demi-goddess.
I had a lot to learn.
I was the odd one out. I was the jotun raised as a man, a thief rather than a warrior, and the one who had railed with the mobs against injustices of the crown and the nobles against those who had nothing.
I’d also have to be seen as a fighting king.
The humans would understand that. They listened to Baduhanna, because she was unearthly beautiful, and wielded dreadful power. In me, they saw deceit and danger. They’d have to see hero, as well as the King. Thrum was wrong. “Nonetheless, I’ll go and have a look. I’ll have magic and strength to—”
“You are not invincible when you shapeshift,” Thrum sighed. His warriors were nodding, almost in unison. Thrum thumbed the dverger. “The lads have seen jotuns die aplenty. Your father fell, most of your brothers. It’s a miracle you are alive, after all the mad things you pulled earlier. The dead one might be stealthier, if you insist on scouting them?” He nodded at Sand, possibly hoping he would fall.
I frowned at Sand. He had draugr magic, as many of the dead could bring together spells from some darkest pits of Muspelheim’s fires, and old ice of Nifleheim, but Sand had affinity and skills in the shadows, spells which made him a deadly fighter in the darkness.
Sand was nodding, pulling at an exceptionally sharp short sword of dverg make. He had picked it up after the battle, and Thrum was not happy with it. “Sharp enough to skewer Odin’s steely nuts, like all our weapons, and not meant for the others,” he muttered as he gazed at the blade, and I ignored his complaints. There was something of the Bear in Sand, Sand’s father and a man Mir had used as a cover for her king-killing plans. The Bear was dead now, and so was Sand, but he looked as ready for a fight, as his father always had.
He was looking with longing at the dark walls, the shadows, and I knew he had an urge to do exactly at Thrum suggested. Slink in the dark, slay the foe, scout, and terrorize them. That was Sand now.
All he had once wanted was a house of his own. A noble house.
Now, he wanted the tunnels for his own. I knew it. He wanted a thief’s guild to rule.
I didn’t trust him to go in alone.
“We’ll go together,” I told him.
Thrum complained with a low voice, and then spoke plainly. “Baduhanna’s worried about the draugr. She hates that Shaduril is gone with just minimal supervision. Few of ours don’t mean a thing if she betrays them. Baduhanna knows about the earring, by the way. Hates it. Baduhanna doesn’t like the dead sneaking off. And what if there is a powerful draugr where she went? The two legions had no draugr kings or queens in the battle. Where are they, eh? In fact, they might be in that tower. And Sand? He shouldn’t meet them. The stones didn’t say there is one, but there could be. Stones are slow and say little. Baduhanna—”
“Shut up, already. You sound like a broken toy,” I murmured, and Thrum frowned again. He pulled out his ax, his sixty warriors lifted their sturdy spears, the very best weapons in Midgard, and waited. I rolled my shoulders. “Early burial or not, I’ll go and see. It’s my job this night. I’ll sniff out any trap
s and surprises, as best I can. I wish to spare your lives for later, Thrum.”
“Later? Fine. Sounds more like a king,” Thrum chuckled. “Be quick about it.”
I nodded and took a step forward. My armor, and the sword of the dead Black Brother, Bjornag, glittered in the small amount of light, as I walked to the shadows and changed. I had been man-sized, my brooding face a smaller version of my normal twelve-foot-tall jotun’s, my long dark hair in a ponytail, but now, I fell on my fours, and the magical armor and the weapon changed with me, enhancing my armor and claws, and my hair twisted into a scaly frill. Such was the skill and magic of the best dverg smiths of past times. The weapons and the armor strengthened my new form, and I felt the incredible power surge in my limbs.
I transformed into a black lizard, a Sauk, with an elongated snout, twice the length of man, and took to war. It was a peculiar feeling, being an animal and a jotun at the same time. The instincts and abilities of the form invaded your mind. You knew how to move like a lizard, how to use your limbs proficiently, and yet, you were also clumsy with the execution, uncertain of your limitations, and there were plenty. My first time flying had been a near disaster. Lizard was a simpler thing to handle, but still not easy.
I shuffled forward, scuttled over the floors and left the dverger behind. I went past a block of buildings and saw a corner. I rushed by it, stepped on a loose boulder and my long tail beat the wall with a slapping sound. I froze, Thrum groaned, and Narag was laughing hollowly. I ignored them. My sharp lizard eyes stared at the structure not too far, and I smelled and sensed heat there. A squat tower loomed, and something flickered in the higher level. A window was opened, and a man in dark Hammer Legion armor peeked out. His black helmet and round shield clattered in the stone as he stretched his neck out. He disappeared back inside, and called out curses. I almost began to move out of the shadows, hoping to slither along the walls for the tower’s wall, and take to the top.
The Queen of the Draugr: Stories of the Nine Worlds (Thief of Midgard - a dark fantasy action adventure Book 2) Page 2
