Queen of the North (Book 3) (Songs of the Scorpion)

by James A. West

  “Make mock if you’ll,” Algar said, face twisted into a sneer, “but prudence guided me to lay in wait and end your reign over me.”

  I say fear made you hunker in the shadows with your dagger. ‘Twas fear and cowardice that made you plant the steel in m’back instead of m’heart!

  Algar remembered the day in question, hearing her speaking with a man at the door….

  “Come again after dark, an’ m’sweet boy will be ready to gobble yer cock,” she had purred.

  The man had laughed, a shrill, tittering sound. “That’ll make me just like one of those highborn fools! Would you be m’lady … after?”

  “Better than that, I’ll be your queen.” After their uproarious laughter subsided, she quaffed a cup of wine, drizzling some across the tatty yellow silks straining to contain her flaccid breasts. The man tried to lap up what spilled, but Algar’s mother swatted him. “Want a taste o’ these, I’ll need a bit more silver.”

  No silver was forthcoming, and the man departed. Algar waited until his mother sauntered past his hiding place, then crept out of the shadows behind her, the steel he had so carefully sharpened coming alive in his hand. The keen blade sliced and plunged, first through her silks, then through her doughy flesh. And when she lay on the dirty floor of their hovel, her eyes rolling in pain and confusion, he watched her spreading blood overrun a scatter of coins just beyond her outstretched fingers. It was the price paid for him to pleasure a man. The price was not in silver or gold, but mere coppers. He took those coins for himself, and then soaked her in lamp oil. She was begging weakly for mercy when he set her alight….

  Got nothin’ to say for yerself, boy? the ghost of his mother drawled now, her harridan’s voice ramming against the inside of his skull like a cold iron bar.

  Algar smiled wanly up at the wet snowflakes beginning to sift down. “I wish I’d never been born, you bitter old cunt.”

  Her laughter echoed through his mind. Well, you was born, and it weren’t no great pleasure to push you bloody and screaming into this world, m’sweet bastard boy.

  “I have another wish,” Algar said, bringing the memory of killing her to the forefront of his mind, concentrating on it so strongly that she could see and smell and hear even the finest details. “More than anything, mother, I wish I had gutted that last buggering bastard and burned him next to you.”

  Howling obscenities, the harpy that had birthed him faded into the deepest wrinkles of his mind. It struck him that one day he would be spirit, much as she was. Could one spirit torture another? Perhaps one day I’ll find out, he thought, not displeased by the prospect. For now, he had more important matters to attend to than the ghost of his mother, and that was looking after the only other person he hated as much as her. Rathe Lahkurin.

  Parting the collar of his tunic, he used the proper words to summon the lesser magic of the Spirit Stone. There was no pain in the swirling mass of cloaking shadows, nor were there any wandering spirits.

  He set out at a ground-eating trot. When cloaked in shadow, he could move as effortlessly as a night breeze, never tiring. As poorly as Edrik and his fellows rode, it didn’t take him long to catch up. Algar slowed a hundred strides behind the riders, for strong light revealed his secret.

  Over the remainder of the day, the snowfall increased, coming down in thick flakes that quickly filled tree boughs and covered the frosty ground. Algar paused once to contact Brother Jathen with the seeing glass, but as he was about to trace the proper rune, he decided the monk needed a lesson in patience, and put the milky orb away.

  Chapter 13

  Queen Erryn’s army marched along a precipitous trail that led through plunging chasms of rock and ice. At times, the wind blew so hard that the men had to hold to one another to keep from being swept off the narrow track and into a shrieking white oblivion. At other times, they bored through snowdrifts so high and deep they might have been mountains themselves. They climbed ever higher, working doggedly to tamp a path for their queen and the supply train.

  Day had passed to night and back to day, before Erryn and her army came to a ravine that ran flat and true, like a road. Rocky walls towered overhead, giving the army a reprieve from the howling voice of the storm. Mile by mile, the ravine narrowed to no more than twenty strides at its widest. Until Erryn saw the glyph-carved guideposts, each of carved graystone wrapped in bands of black iron and standing some twenty feet tall, she had come to believe that General Aedran was leading them to a frozen doom.

  As they drew closer to the ancient guideposts, Erryn made out a tumbledown wall of rough stone farther on partially blocking the way. A pair of stubby towers loomed above the wall like ghosts, their square crowns shattered by some forgotten battle.

  “The oldest stories say those who first crept into the Gyntors from the Iron Marches did so to escape the wrath of plundering dragons,” Aedran said, as they rode between the guideposts.

  “Dragons?”

  “Aye.” Aedran pointed to one of the ancient markers. Ages of harsh weather had worn its glyphs smooth, but the images of winged serpents rising above flames were clear enough. A battered iron dragon emblazoned the top of the marker, its jaws stretched in a silent scream and wings spread for flight. The rest of the carved impressions were strange to Erryn’s eye, perhaps a written language, or perhaps arcane symbols that no longer held any meaning.

  “If only to bring us fire,” she said with a violent shiver, “I could hope there are dragons hereabout.”

  “I’ve never seen a dragon,” Aedran admitted, his tone suggesting that he didn’t believe in such creatures. “As to fire, I hold little hope that we will find anything to burn, save the wood we carry for cooking, and our lamps and candles.”

  Erryn hid her disappointment. “At least we can get out of the wind and snow,” she said, struggling to remember what warmth felt like.

  “The storm might prove the least of our troubles,” Aedran warned, his voice almost lost under the sharp exhalations of a Prythian work-chant. Hah! they cried as one, the sound rumbling off the walls as the tampers slammed their iron-headed tools against the snow. Sensing a destination, excitement had invigorated the usual monotony of their shouts.

  Erryn twisted in the saddle. “You keep warning of troubles, but I’ve yet to see any—other than the weather. I’m starting to think there’s nothing to fear.” The more she thought about it, the more sense it made. What could possibly live in such a miserable place as this?

  Aedran fixed his gaze upon her. His mask of Prythian bravado had vanished, leaving his features engraved with dread. “These mountains are cursed, every inch of them. The paths I kept us on until now were the safest … but now safety lies far behind us.”

  “If coming here is so dangerous, wherever here is,” Erryn said, waving her hand over their bleak surrounds, “then why did you agree to my order?”

  He studied her for a long moment, his eyes a vibrant blue over the top of his scarf. “On occasion, the idea takes me that there must be more to a man’s life than gold and glory, more than fighting for the sake of both.”

  Erryn stared, still not sure what he was getting at. Truth told, he sounded like a philosopher belly deep in a barrel of brandy.

  Aedran suddenly frowned. “Oh, shit on it all! What it comes to is that you were right, and I was wrong. Without shelter, we’ll freeze solid. When the men went missing and those horses froze to death, I got it into my head that I’d rather freeze myself, than face whatever might lay off the path. For a time, I lost sight of Ahnok’s demands, and I forgot who I am as a man of Pryth. For a time, I was afraid.”

  “What’s your god of war have to do with it?” Erryn didn’t worship any particular god, though on occasion she had shared a scrap of food with a hungry waif in order to gain the favor of Ilix, the patron god of thieves.

  Aedran shrugged. “Given a choice between a meaningless death, such as freezing solid, or dying while battling an enemy, a trueborn Prythian must always choose to fight, as Ahnok demand
s of the warriors who follow him.”

  Erryn found herself nodding at the sentiment, but while trading doctrines kept her mind off the cold, she had greater concerns. “Do you know what awaits us … what dangers?”

  “Hard to say. Could be we face nothing worse than the storm. Could be we’ll all meet terrible ends that no man has ever imagined.”

  “You could say the same about most anything,” Erryn said. “Surely you can do better.”

  “I told you the Gyntors are cursed—something even you should know, seeing as you’ve lived your life in their shadow.”

  Erryn’s shrug opened a gap in her cloak and let in an icy draft. Shivering, she pulled it tight again. “I’ve heard stories and told a few, along with everyone else, but I’ve never seen anything to prove they were true.”

  “Be glad you haven’t,” Aedran said. “By dark sorceries or endless seasons of cold, it makes no matter what changed those who keep their lairs in these mountains. I’ve crossed some of those who live deep in these crags, and they’re no longer men. Long ago, they shed the cloak of humanity in favor of donning the skins and the ways of beasts. They hunt the night like wolves, seeking prey, even if that happens to be their fellow man.”

  Erryn felt his fear eating into her; she saw behind her eyes packs of crazed men draped in tattered hides, running over the snow on the hunt; saw them dragging down some weary traveler, ripping and clawing—

  He’s just trying to frighten me, she thought, shoving the images away. Erryn sat straighter in the saddle. “An army of Prythians can defend themselves against anything that lives here.”

  “Not everything that walks these lands lives as we live,” Aedran said, facing ahead to look over the bent backs of the soldiers clearing the way.

  “I have no fear of the restless spirits,” Erryn said.

  “We shall see.”

  ~ ~ ~

  A broad vale hazed by streamers of snow opened beyond the ravine. A mile farther on a mountain rose up, its peak lost in the clouds. Lower down, long blades of ice and slumping brows of snow draped the face of a fortress wall several shades darker than the granite outcrops and promontories surrounding it. Something about its sweeping curves and sharp ridges made Erryn uneasy.

  “Have you been here before?” Erryn called above the wind, which had grown stronger, now that they had escaped the ravine.

  “No,” Aedran said. “But I’ve heard stories of this place. It is named Stormhold.”

  “And what do these stories say?”

  Aedran pointed out the twin ridges sweeping down off the mountain to embrace the vale, their rough backs marbled with ice and drifted snow. “I’ve heard that the arms of Kiniss guard it well, and that she always welcomes the lost.”

  “Kiniss ... a goddess?”

  Aedran eased his mount closer to Erryn’s, until their knees were brushing. “Aye. She’s one of Dargoth’s Thousand Daughters. Dargoth, the God of the Mountains, is insatiable. To avoid the temptation of laying with his daughters, he struck all his daughters’ wombs barren, and then sealed them with fire and molten rock.”

  Prythian gods, Erryn decided, were as demented as Prythians. “If Kiniss welcomes the lost, she’s a friend of mine.”

  Aedran’s laugh carried above the wind. “The Thousand Daughters are also insane—seems they didn’t appreciate their father’s treatment. Kiniss may welcome the lost and weary into her embrace, but at best we have even chances of her letting us go.”

  “You Prythians need friendlier gods,” Erryn said.

  Aedran laughed harder. “Ofttimes we rage against the gods as much as each other—all the gods save Ahnok, that is, for what fool would fight the God of War?”

  What fool indeed? Erryn thought, thinking if anyone would challenge gods, it would be a Prythian.

  A cloud of snow billowed around them, its touch flailing exposed skin with a thousand needle teeth. When the air cleared, Erryn saw that they had ridden amid a group of ancient catapults, their huge wooden arms gray with age and rot. Some of those arms stood tall, aimed at Stormhold. Others lay broken. More siege engines poked up out of the snow, too old to make out what they had been. It was plain that a great battle had taken place here, but the victors hadn’t bothered to clean up afterwards.

  What if there were no victors? Erryn wondered. Then, Are we riding over the ancient bones of dead soldiers? If so, who were they?

  She glanced sideways at Aedran. “So when your, ah, man-beasts aren’t busy eating folk,” she said, “do they pass the time by attacking strongholds?”

  Aedran shot her a hard look. He had pulled off his scarf, and already frost coated his short beard. “Make mock if it eases your mind, but if you ever see eyes in the night creeping close, or hear the gnashing of teeth in your ear, you’ll find all your laughter’s as useful as a bucket of piss.”

  Erryn grinned behind her scarf. “If that happens, you’d better be near with your blade.”

  “I cannot promise sharp steel will serve any purpose.”

  Erryn decided she had heard enough, and fell silent.

  It took an hour for her army to carve a path to the base of Stormhold. Where she might have expected stout walls of rock quarried from the mountain itself, Stormhold’s wall was iron. Above it soared four dragon towers. Their toothy jaws gaped, as if roaring into the faces of long dead enemies. Rows of horns studded their sleek skulls and snouts, but a final, larger pair swept back from behind their eyes. The face of the wall and the soaring parapets were covered in sharp-edged scales the size of shields. Interspersed throughout were arrow loops, most sealed with thick shutters. The tampers halted before a windswept ramp leading to a massive gate also forged of pitted black iron, and embossed with thick serpents.

  “How can men fashion iron so?”

  Aedran gazed up at the dragon towers. “Some say Stormhold was built when gods walked in flesh, long before the Fourth Age of Sorcery, an age when those who wielded magic rose above all men and claimed for themselves crowns and thrones, and later enthralled their subjects and free dragons.”

  “Stormhold does seem to be a place fit for gods,” Erryn agreed, having never heard of a time when gods walked the world, or the Fourth Age of Sorcery, let alone the other three. To her there was the present and the mythical olden times, the birthing bed of all stories.

  “Tales claim many things,” Aedran said with a dismissive shrug. “I assure you, neither magic nor gods built the walls of Stormhold, but men alone.” She gave him a dubious look, and he added, “When men share a will, they can create things of beauty and wonder, things most folk would think impossible.”

  Erryn glanced again at the wall. “I’d like to meet men who can make such things.”

  “One day,” Aedran said, face solemn, “when you’ve conquered all the realms your heart desires, I’ll show you the wonders of Pryth.”

  Do I really want to conquer entire realms? He spoke as if he knew her heart, but she felt otherwise. Defeating King Nabar and gaining the northern reaches of Cerrikoth is enough, she told herself. Aloud she said, “I thought Pryth was only filled with warriors.”

  “Aye, it is, but those warriors are also craftsmen—workers of wood and stone and metal. It just happens that the making of war guides the souls of my people. One day, that won’t be so.”

  Erryn considered Aedran’s fur and leather armor, and the intricacy of the scales covering his chest. She thought about how eagerly the Prythians had thrown themselves into building up Valdar’s defenses, and how easily they had fashioned what they needed for the journey into the Iron Marches. “When there are no more wars to fight, what’ll you make then, if not new wars?”

  A troubled frown knotted his brow. “Our ancestors learned half a thousand years gone that peace is a double-edged sword. Those stories tell of the peace that came after learning the forging of iron. During those days, we trusted neighboring realms, traded openly and fairly with them. Together we built great cities, sailed distant seas, explored strange lands that have
been forgotten since the Age of Despair.”

  Age of Despair? Erryn mused, wondering why she had never heard of all these past ages. Could it be that Aedran was a learned scholar? She almost laughed aloud at the idea, but a sudden disquiet stifled her mirth. Who is this man I’ve placed at the head of my army?

  Still looking over the wall of Stormhold, Aedran didn’t notice her meditative silence. A score of Prythians had begun using the butts of spears to chip away the layered ice welding the great iron gate shut. The rest of the warriors lined either side of the ramp, watchful for danger.

  “Those days of peace and fortune before the Age of Despair have no formal name,” Aedran continued. “But I’d call those days the Time of Fools. Riches flowed easily with the discovery of forging iron—everyone wanted and needed it, you see. There was so much wealth that common peddlers would rival today’s kings.

  “In time, folk grew fat and lazy. Leisure became their first and truest love. Men forgot what it was to earn their keep.” His mouth turned down at the corners. “While my ancestors lolled about, their allies plotted, seeding themselves deep into every facet of my people’s lives. Then the day came when those friends turned their knives and swords against my forefathers—a treachery some whisper that was planned from the beginning.”

  Aedran’s blue eyes, bitter as a midwinter dawn, locked with Erryn’s. “The peace my ancestors bought with iron and goodwill ended with gutters running with blood. Along our highroads, babes torn from their mothers’ breasts were hung upon lances like wailing banners. Our men, bloated and fearful after generations of ease, fled instead of dusting off long unused swords. They feared the implements of war, you see, more than war itself. Many were slaughtered wherever they hid. Many more were caught and made into eunuchs, and spent the rest of their days serving their new masters.”

  “What of the women?” Erryn asked, captivated.

  Aedran’s jaw worked. “It’s no lie that women suffer the most in war.”