“I’ll not tell you any names,” Hilan cackled.
I swallowed the bitter taste of betrayal. “You do not have to.”
“No?” she asked. Her eyes were glinting with humor.
I shook my shoulders, trying to relieve the stress and fear. “You were alive that night. You betrayed Red Midgard willingly.”
She sighed. “I only wanted what they gave Crec. That is all. I wanted the same blessing.”
“And is it a blessing now, you witch?”
“No, and yes,” she said uncertainly. “I miss some things.”
I placed my sword on her chest. “The draugr who you were with. The draugr who grabbed Shaduril and made her obey. Who is she?”
Quiss looked confused. “She? What do you mean?”
I poked a finger at the Regent. “Hilan was alive, you see,” I said. “Hilan was afraid, breathing, and she was kneeling to this draugr. She wasn’t dead, like she is now. See?”
Quiss’s eyes shot open with shock, as she understood the problem. “No!” she said. “And we are in bigger trouble than we thought.” Quiss looked her with horror.
Gorth looked confused. “So, what is going on?”
“Mir,” I said. “Mir Blacktower is in the city. The self-proclaimed Queen of the Draugr.”
Hilan cackled. “I won’t tell you! But, it is hot, a child would say!”
“Only she can resurrect the dead, other than Balic,” I breathed. “She is back here.
Balic wanted her to fix what her family messed up,” I said. “Right, Hilan? Mir was sent away by Balic, after she had prepared the city. Then those preparations failed, and she was summoned back, right? She came, and made you her puppet. She returned the day Shaduril came back. She tried to murder me, but at least made sure I’d rush after my own death, if they failed. Balissa saved me, but her plans were elaborate.”
“Possibly?” Hilan said maliciously.
“She has Shaduril?” I asked her.
“Very possible,” she laughed. “Shaduril met someone down there after she came to the city.”
“She is here, preparing the way for Balic.”
“And more,” Hilan said, with a wink. “Balic she must obey, but she has her own agendas. Here, there, up, below. She can be anywhere.” I resisted the urge to step on her face.
“She is in the Old City. Hiding there. Opening a way for Balic.”
“Good guess, King,” Hilan said. “Possibly? But, what can you do? She is the Queen of the Draugr.”
“She is a pretender,” I muttered. “Special, but not the Queen.” I turned to Quiss before Hilan could answer. “We have to get down, and find her.”
“We go for a hunt in the dark?” Quiss asked, her face pale. “In the shadows? For a draugr? We have no idea what’s down there.”
Gorth was cursing. “We are basically as dead as this creature.”
Quiss waved her hand. “Let us go.”
“You will lock her up?” Gorth asked, gesturing for Hilan. “What about the old one?”
I shook my head. “She will stay here.”
Hilan was looking up at me with an evil smirk.
That, at least, was something I could deal with. I stood up. “Not you, Regent. Gorth.”
“What?”
“We are not as dead as she is,” I said, and hacked down with the sword. The head came free, and rolled down the corridor, bouncing crazily. It crashed into the room below, and Ragga screamed. “Ragga!” I yelled down at him.
“Lord?” he asked. “There is a head here!”
“Hide the corpse of the Regent. Then stuff Lord Ikar in a dungeon, and set your brothers to watch him. Tell them to turn people away. They must tell people the Regent told everyone to stay far from the prisoner. Then, I have a mission for you.”
“Yes, King,” he answered. “But, won’t they think it odd, if the Regent stays here?”
I nodded at the corpse. “Quiss? Mind dressing into her robe?”
She didn’t look happy, but did, and pulled the cowl over her head. She nodded, and we set out to kill Mir, the self-proclaimed Queen of the Draugr.
CHAPTER 18
We made our way through the corridors of the jail, where men silently guarded, all eyes on us. Quiss was covered in a robe, her face hidden. The guards bowed to her, and scowled at us.
We got out without trouble, and walked down the streets to the Third Tier, to the House Tenginell, and found it had been totally collapsed. Baduhanna had made sure the dead jotuns would not be despoiled. “I’m surprised,” I murmured, “she didn’t burn their corpses.”
“Maybe she wanted to respect your ways? Perhaps there is a heart in her chest, after all? And she thought she’d have the Black Grip anyway,” Quinn suggested, and elbowed me. “Stop worrying so much. How do we get down there?”
“There was no way down there in here. Just wanted to see the house,” I said, relieved. “The dverger shut down most of the ways, as I told you, but there is the one I know about. An old tavern. They left one route down, and that’s it. We go through the harbor,” I answered. “We must get to the dverg stronghold to pick up the artifacts. Shaduril said she left them with the dverger. And then, we have to find Mir.” She saw the hopeless expression on my face.
“Stop worrying,” she said. “Let Gorth worry for us.”
“I shall try,” I said, glancing at the big man, who, indeed, looked worried. “I’m worried for Mir, and she probably has Shaduril down there as well. We have to fight them both. But let’s go. There is nothing else to it.”
“Hope it’s nice and dry,” Gorth complained. “We won’t make it back, and I want my grave to be comfortable.”
“We try to find an appropriate spot, should it come to that,” I told him. “And the draugr might just incinerate the lot of us.”
“There is that, at least,” he said, and gave me a leer I took to be a smile. For some reason, it made me feel better.
We made our way to the harbor. Gorth walked before us, his head twisting right and left, like an owl on a hunt. At the market, we took to the seedy alleys of the slums. We navigated the destitute streets, took ways even the cats avoided, but found no trouble. Then, I saw the familiar, once glorious, junction, with moldy statues, though this time, no gentle music was playing, like it had the last time I had been there. The remains of the tavern called the End of the Road came to sight, and from there, the Grim Jesters had once ruled under Valkai the Heavy, and, in truth, Mir. Down below the place, began the road to her, though I was not sure where that road was, exactly. While clearing the Old City of the Legionnaires, the dverger and I had trekked up and down the Old City for days. And yet, the old city had once been far grander than then new one, hugely massive, and I begged I’d find even the main street.
We entered the derelict tavern, and found a way in under a coffin. It was dark, but we grabbed old torches from a counter nearby, and lit them. Quiss frowned at them. We had no choice, anyway. Light we needed, and it would have to be risked. I carefully led us down, until we reached an ancient alley of a forgotten city. There, we took twisted turns, got lost twice, and finally, thanking Odin, I recognized a yellow-bricked building from the one time I had walked the place.
We went on, the men were cursing softly for the muck and the filth. The silent, wrecked houses leaned over the street, as if to smother our spirits. We found a crossing, with a mold and fungus covered fountain. An ancient tavern, with a silver harp drawn on the wall, came to sight, and it felt especially gloomy. There was no music sweetening our walk, no children running around the corners, or even thieves lurking, like it had once been. Now, there were rats, dogs, and cats, and some of the houses had burned down. Somewhere, the Queen of the Draugr held court. Soon, a heap of wooden remains of a roof blocked the way. We had to push and pull at the rotten pieces, until finally, we staggered through.
As we made our way forward, Gorth slapped a hand on my chest.
Far in the darkness, a light burned, and then went away. If I guessed r
ight, it was somewhere near the junction of the main street and the smaller ones which led to the dverg fortress.
“We are going that way?” Quiss asked.
“Let’s go see what it was,” I said nervously, and they walked after me. “Draugr need no light, right?”
“No. They would not. Unless they cast a spell,” Quiss answered unhelpfully.
We sneaked on, with torches held low. Motes of dust could be seen on the pillars of light, which stabbed from streets above for the murk in the underworld of Dagnar. We trekked for a long time, and Gorth occasionally stopped to look for signs he would recognize. He was constantly complaining. “It’s not enough we have to serve in this filthy armor, and then, we escort a wet-ear lad around, like we would young nobles looking for a brothel. Now, we hunt for shadow in the darkness.”
Quiss giggled. “You have never had any difficulty finding a brothel.”
Gorth scowled at her, and took the lead towards a set of alleys. He turned left, then right, like a dog seeking a scent, his beard jutting darkly, and suddenly, like a hound, he barked happily.
The main street opened up before us, in all its decayed brilliance.
It was thirty feet wide, and ran slightly uphill. There were brown-bricked mansions, with rows of broken windows where cats prowled. Most had burned during that long ago war, and there were storefronts with ancient signs.
“Wine,” Gorth muttered, seeing one such dusty sign with clear desire for ancient bottle. The remains of a stable stood to the side, with the elongated lizard-bones amidst mud and remains of a stall. On one doorway, lay bones of a man.
“A museum of death, this,” Quiss whispered, looking up and down the street. Above us, not too far, rumbled a cart in what was probably the Second Tier of Dagnar. “There are buried cities across the Verdant Lands, but I’ve never visited them.”
Gorth nodded up the alley. “We aren’t too far from where the light flared.”
“Let’s us see,” I said. Gorth grunted. He walked up, and we followed, and then, after a while, he lifted a hand and froze.
There, in the middle of the street, was the mangled remain of something with a head, arms, but no feet. It was smoking, with a hole in its back.
It was hard to decide what it had been. Young, old, man or female? There were shreds of meat, clothing, and flesh around the corpse in a meaningless mess. The men stopped and didn’t make a sound. Quiss walked forward, and poked it with a sword.
I shook my head. “That must be from above. A thief, looter? A guard? Checking on the doorways the dverger built.”
“It’s not fresh,” Gorth muttered. “Save for the burning hole in the back, it looks far too ripe for a recent kill. Maggots and all. Could be weeks old, and then the rats and the dogs have been gnawing on it.”
I stared at the corpse and the shreds of meat. There was an old, long slash across its back. Sword?
Quiss pulled at me. “It doesn’t matter. We have to get up there.”
“Yes,” I agreed, and moved away, until I noticed Gorth hadn’t budged.
Gorth was still by the body, inspecting at it. “It matters.”
“Huh?” I asked him. “Why?”
“It’s not human,” he said. He lifted the skull. Half the face was there. It had a beard, a dark skin, and thick lips. “What’s this creature?”
“A dverg,” I breathed. “A dverg. Rotten and dead. Weeks dead.”
“Did any of them die weeks past?” Gorth asked.
Many had died in the battle for Dagnar, and I indicated so.
They had been buried in the House Tenginell vault near the dverg magical room, though the crypt had had no access to the Old City.
And yet, a corpse was there. It meant Mir had gotten in anyway. With Hilan’s help, she had gotten in, probably through the ways below, and there, my father, mother, and a small army of dverger rested.
Had rested. They had gotten to the corpses, and I was sure that’s where we would find the enemy.
Quiss muttered. “The draugr have plenty of grudges. Perhaps one of them murdered this one? Just now?”
I felt the hair stand up in my head. “Look,” Gorth said, all irony and sarcasm gone from his voice. He was all business, tense as an attack dog. He pointed a finger at the corpse. And then, he traced a set of muddy prints, which led to the darkness up the hill.
“He used to poach in our woods,” Quiss whispered, as she kneeled next to me. “That’s how we found him.”
Gorth shook his head. “Anyone can see there are prints. Half blind can see them. But, there are some prints here, which will make us all unhappy. Very unhappy.” He pointed a finger at the side.
A gigantic footprint marred the barren dirt.
A jotun had walked there. I could only pray it was Balissa, hunting for Mir, but likely, it was not.
***
We sneaked in the shadows like rats, sniffing and squeezing our way forward, with as little noise as possible, and only had one torch burning. Eventually, we reached the remains of a royal tavern, where I had escaped Mir’s gang, months past, and walked on, passing it. We entered a burned down part of the city. That part was so badly mauled, it was likely an army or two had gone looting and burning through the area in the past. Soon, though we found better-preserved houses, which looked almost habitable.
Then, finally, I knew exactly where we were. “There,” I said, as we saw the tower where we had killed the Hammer Legionnaires. “We go past, and then to the right.”
“Footprint,” whispered Gorth, and indeed, we saw marks, and some were large as jotun’s. We took care after. Every misstep, every breathed curse, made us stiffen with fear. Even the never ceasing sounds of life, which echoed from above to the depths of the Old City, made us flinch. Nonetheless, we walked us the street towards the dverg fortress, and probably the excavated crypts of my family. We dodged from portico to portico, taking to an ancient alley running parallel to the old main street. None spoke, but our swords and spears were at the ready. Every dark shade, a shadow that shot across slightly lit part of the alleys, made the weapons twitch. Gorth was ahead, slinking forward like a huge rat, though such stealth was probably useless in a land so perfectly built for the dead. Our torch was burning low now.
Dead in the dark.
I had fought Taram in the Tower of the Temple.
He had disguised himself perfectly with the shadows, struck from the darkness, had killed mercilessly, and nearly gotten away. Only my newly found skills had saved and aided us.
Skills I had mostly lost.
The Captain stopped, and raised his hand. We slunk along silently, looking left and right, making sure no weapons connected with stone or steel, and kneeled next to Gorth. “Put the torch out,” he hissed, and a man struck the torch into mud.
Ahead, there was the old crossroad, with the fountain. Light eerily illuminated it from above, and such pillars continued up the street.
A dverg was ambling past it.
His face was half gone, his armor ripped. After him, walked a dozen like him, in various stages of death, their weapons glinting, speaking gutturally amongst themselves. Most all could probably Kiss the Night, as the dead called the use of magical power. Some could have done it before they died.
They were walking carelessly, looking around casually, and their eyes were flashing evilly. We waited, holding our breaths, until they passed the fountain on their way for the dverg-built magical room and possibly the crypts. “Make no sounds,” I whispered. “Not a damned sound.”
“Shut up,” Gorth hissed. “Not even a fart from any of you. I’ll run the man through who so much as smiles.”
We waited, until they disappeared.
“They know where the dverger built the base,” I said. “Shaduril, if she serves Mir, will have told them, though she didn’t know how to get in. They are headed that way. And the crypts are close. Let’s go.”
We picked our way carefully, keeping the distance, but close enough to see their shadows. Going in the d
ark without light, save for the stabbing pillars of Lifegiver from above, was risky, and we made too much noise. The city changed, the alleys turned wider, and a great, ancient marketplace opened up. The dead walked up to a familiar stairway, and disappeared, one-by-one, into a hole.
A steady, rhythmic sound emanated from the opening, and obviously, a mighty work was ongoing.
“Make sure there are no guards before you go to the hole,” Gorth whispered.
“How?” I asked, and put a hand on Quiss’s shoulder. “I have to go in anyway. You seek cover by the stairway. I’ll see what is out there.”
“Can’t go alone,” Quiss hissed. “Why did we come here, if—”
“I’ll go with him,” Gorth said reluctantly. “He’d get lost in a closet.” His eyes squinted. “The sound has stopped.”
Indeed, the digging noise had ceased.
I nodded at him gratefully, and we went forward, sneaking from shadow to shadow. I watched the others find cover at the bottom of the stairs, moving like the pirates, thieves, and rogues they were. I climbed the stairs after Gorth. Gods, but I missed my skills, especially the wolf form, which slunk in the night like a breath of darkness, and detected everything.
Gorth pulled me up, and I was whispering. “There should be an end of the road, and that’s where they built this magically sealed room.”
He snorted. “There’s no more end of the road. And it’s no road. It’s a chamber.”
I crawled next to him, reaching the top of the stairway, and saw what was going on.
The dverger had tried to open the hideout. All the earth had been removed from the stone doorway, leaving only the magical walls standing, and the door made of gravestones. The work had gone on, delving into the sides of the doorway, into walls themselves, and support beams dotted the shadows, as the dverger had excavated like moles, trying to look for an entrance. They had even dug below and above, as well; leaving the sealed room totally bared, save for thin walkaways around it.
They had not gotten in, because they had died before it had been constructed, and didn’t know the rhyme.
The Queen of the Draugr: Stories of the Nine Worlds (Thief of Midgard - a dark fantasy action adventure Book 2) Page 22
