The Queen of the Draugr: Stories of the Nine Worlds (Thief of Midgard - a dark fantasy action adventure Book 2)

by Alaric Longward

  “Yes,” I said.

  She shook her head, rambling on. “She went back and picked them off from the body. Bury them. They are evil things. You had Mir and Lisar fight each other?”

  I nodded, stroking Baduhanna’s hair.

  “That was well done, Maskan. Very well done.”

  “Not well enough,” I said, mourning Baduhanna.

  Balissa looked away, her undead heart still touched by what she had done, as she was shaking her head, sorry. “Shaduril was her guard, her doppelganger, I was her secret. Despite everything, if she and Shaduril fell, to her fellow draugr or you, I would still be here, obeying her order, long after she was gone. Never trust a draugr to have only one plan. Remember that from now on. Even Balic might surprise you.”

  “And Mir is happy now?” I asked, as I lay Baduhanna to her side. She was so small. “She is caught, and will fall, won’t she?”

  She nodded. “The true Queen of the Draugr, when released, will smell Mir’s touch in Morag. And she will force Balic to tell her everything. She will know Mir killed her great foe, not Balic the Pretender. All Mir wanted was … everything? The city, the honor, the title. She was obsessed by being what Balic is. She is, still. She has done all she can. I—“

  “Silence,” I said harshly. I shook my head.

  She didn’t shut her mouth. “What do they have now to oppose Balic and to stop the Queen of the Draugr from coming back? None,” she said, the undead part of her pleased by the fact.

  “Kill her,” I whispered

  The troops moved. Spears stabbed as Balissa, who kept her eyes on me, as they put her down with savage stabs. She looked at me as they did, and mouthed: “I’m sorry.”

  “They are all sorry after,” I said bitterly.

  I sat there, next to Baduhanna’s corpse, feeling alone and scared, as the armies gathered around the hill. I wiped my tears, bled still, wept, and cursed, until Quiss kneeled next to me. Thrum was there as well. “Will you live?” he asked

  “I think I will,” I answered. “But—”

  “They need you,” Quiss said softly. Thrum kneeled next to the Aesir, and grabbed her bag. She looked at Thrum’s deft fingers working, and spoke as she placed a hand on my shoulders and squeezed. “This Balissa was wrong. So wrong. As I was saying earlier. They have a Hero. The living have a fine Hero.”

  “What are you doing?” I asked Thrum in horror, as he tugged Baduhanna’s pouch off her hip. The nobles moved threateningly for him.

  “I am taking this for you,” he said, as he pulled the finger sized, Balan corrupted scepter of rulership of Red Midgard, from her bag. “It had been your father’s. Now, they need a king, like it or not.”

  I looked around at the stunned, stricken faces. “We have nothing. They have everything.”

  “We have you,” she said sternly. “We have the people. What else do we need? We cannot rely on her anymore.” She placed a hand on Baduhanna’s. “You must decide, and pick up her shield and sword.”

  I got up, and stood weakly.

  I was brutally scarred in face, arms, nicked, slashed, and bleeding still, and the nobles, nearly all their highest lords dead, the commoners, ragged and sad, stared at me. I let the staff grow in my hands, and though none of the people had known the artifact since it had been stolen twenty years ago, it was royal and tall, glowing with power.

  Ragga placed the shield on a standard next to me, and the shadow fell over Baduhanna.

  “Crown!” yelled a girl. “Give him the crown!”

  “Crown to the Jotun!” another answered.

  The yells resonated in the valley, startling flocks of Black Peaks to flight, and the eerie sight of the billowing cloud of birds, a living thing like an ethereal god, heralded my rise to the throne of Red Midgard. I accepted it with a heavy duty, and let Thrum and Quiss arrange everything, while I mourned next to Baduhanna.

  ***

  A day later, the armies were near Hillhold that the enemy held. The armies were mustering, troops moving, and winter was blowing snow and wind over the land, making it misery for the winners and the beaten alike.

  I had a mission. I would go over the mountains, to clear the way for us. And first, in Dansar’s Grave, I had a duty.

  I sat on a horse, and looked down at Mir.

  She sat there, miserable, bound with steel, her hands behind her back, legs slowly mending, but still unable to stand. That was fine. I preferred the creature as she was, sitting unceremoniously in mud. Before her was the Red Pillow, the judgment stone of the fortress, where criminals were habitually executed.

  I gazed at Mir, rage bubbling in my throat, as the dverger grabbed her, and slammed her to her knees, grasped her hair, and smashed her face to the block.

  “Congratulations,” I told her. “I am sure you have nothing left to achieve in Midgard, oh Queen of the Draugr.”

  She smiled. “I always have goals. I am not Balan, who only wanted to sit on the Rose Throne. I did well, considering the limitations. Balic was always commanding me, but he was careless. Too used to his underlings back in the Verdant Lands, eh? Draugr’s orders have to be specific,” she explained. “Didn’t Balissa tell you? We stretch and struggle under the yoke, and try those bounds, but we cannot break them, not fully. Shaduril, Lith, all stretched my orders, like I did Balic’s. I did very well, in the end. I wish I had not gotten caught. I am sure Hel will reward me well, though. How did you—”

  “I loved Shaduril, once,” I told her coldly. “There is no beauty in you, just madness and greed. And if you try to fool a shape changer, you have to think again. And you were too happy. You shrieked with joy over Aten-Sur’s death. And then, you smiled when I hugged Quiss. Shaduril would not have done that. But yes, you did well, Mir. Hel will kiss you.” I pulled out something from my pouch. It was dry, blonde hair. I tossed it before her. “When you burned her, you left a bit of your girl behind.”

  I didn’t expect remorse. For some reason, seeing none made me pity her. She was licking her lips.

  “May Hel kiss me? She will,” she said simply astonished. “I had not thought about that. Indeed, why seek the approval of the Queen, when Hel herself can make me one in Helheim.” She turned her eyes on mine. “I had not … thank you, Maskan, my boy.”

  “I hope you find the mad goddess to your liking,” I said.

  She smiled gently, her hair pillowing down the stone. “The last of the Blacktowers. Another great House is dead. Very few left.”

  “We shall have others,” I told her. “I will choose them.”

  She gazed up at me unkindly. “King of the Wreck. Nothing more, dear Maskan. But I guess I can be a bit proud. I did raise you, eh?”

  “Be what you want.”

  “And as for love for Shaduril? Bah! Do not lecture me. Your love is thin as paper. You fell for my girl, then you let the demi-goddess have you, and ultimately chose Quiss,” she said. “You rejected her, because she is what she is. Instead of hiding her away from the rest of us, loving her, despite everything, hoping against all hope the gods might restore her one day, you flinched away from her. Your love was shallow.”

  “You killed my family,” I told her, looking away, a brief stab of guilt in my gut. Was she right? Was my love shallow? I ignored the stab, and spoke on. “I could never forget Morag’s death. Loving a Blacktower was impossible after. It changed me. In fact, everything changed. And yes, perhaps I am weak. I cannot love a corpse. It was a dream. I’m a shallow jotun.”

  She nodded. “So, let me dream,” she said coldly. “None can stop them, when the Queen of the Draugr returns. Fight, but it is futile.”

  “None can help us?”

  She shook her head on the block. “She is the Queen of the Draugr. The real Queen. There is no King. Only children playing royals. Read her story in the Book of the Past. None shall be able to defeat her.”

  “Father did defeat her,” I said. “Grandfather.”

  “They merely managed to shut her away, before she killed most of them.” She
laughed.

  “I’ll make sure she doesn’t get released,” I hissed. “And if she does?” I patted a bag on my side. “We did read the Book, a bit, or my future wife did. I read of Medusa,” I told her. “A general of Hel. One had to wonder if they have had a change of heart, if they indeed still live. Is Medusa still servant of Hel? Is she alive? Perhaps we shall see.”

  She smiled uncertainly. “You are grasping at straws. I wish you fortune as you try, love. You will live the rest of your days in sorrow and misery, regretting your many mistakes.”

  I shook my head at her. “You were once a mother to Shaduril. Once, you were a person who worried about other things than Hel’s approval, or your glory. When you go, find your girl in Helheim. Tell her I wish I had known her long ago,” I said thickly. “Before she died. I wish I had grown up in father’s castle, and seen her in the court, when the Blacktower’s were kind and simple nobles of a minor house. I wish I could have admired her in her splendor, as she laughed at my stupid jokes. I wish I had known her even a day before Hel took you. But that didn’t happen. You, love, are but a sad whisper of the past, a creature, which has no business with the living. But, you see, I’ve learnt something. A king makes mistakes. And, unlike the others, he cannot afford to dwell on them. I sentence you to death, finally.”

  “Love her well,” Mir said dryly. “This Quiss. And beware of Sand. He hates her. Send Mir Blacktower, Queen of the Draugr to Hel, and call me that on my headstone.”

  “I will not,” I said, and nodded at the dverg lord.

  Thrum lifted an ax. Mir hesitated, and kept her head on the Red Pillow, the stone cold and frosty under her cheek. Thrum brought the ax down on her neck.

  Mir, headless, slumped.

  I stared at her for a time, not really sure what I felt. Numbness, and terror were supplanted by the need to vomit. We had lost Baduhanna, and we had a terrible war to fight in the North. It was Winter, it was far, we had but remains of an army, and Balic and Crec would be waiting.

  All we had was one wounded jotun. And a nation of angry people. It would have to do.

  Thrum nodded at me, eyeing the gore on the ax. “So? What next?”

  I shrugged. “I’ll talk to the General. That Aten’s general who sent word.”

  “His troops will join us,” he said. “I am sure of it.”

  “What we need,” I told him, “is the fleet of Aten. That shouldn’t be a problem, you think, since Quiss is on our side?”

  She smiled, and led me away from the Red Pillow. “No, I hope not.” He hesitated.

  “Yes?”

  “Hillhold,” he answered. “They say they saw Lisar Vittar there. I believe the lad who saw her. She leads the troops out there. It will be very hard to take the fort.”

  I cursed, and shook my head. “I will find a way to take Hillhold. No matter the odds.”

  I changed into a raven, and flew east.

  Dagnar was still burning.

  The story continues in the Sons of Ymir, early 2017

  A WORD FROM THE AUTHOR

  Greetings. Thank you for reading this book. I hope you enjoy it and also read my other series below, and especially The Ten Tears Chronicles, which is related to this series. When you have completed the story, I would appreciate if you could take the time to rate and review the story on Amazon.com and/or on Goodreads. This will be incredibly valuable for me going forward. I want you to know how much I appreciate your opinion and time.

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