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

by James A. West

  “He’s saying something,” Erryn said.

  Aedran took a measured step closer to the fallen man. He curled the fingers of both hands around the hilt of his sword. “You’re a fine warrior. The glory you have heaped on Pryth and your clan has bought you a place of high honor at the feet of Ahnok. No man could ask or hope for more.”

  Zander’s wolfskin cloak continued to shudder and bulge, as if his muscles had taken on a life of their own. His lips pressed tightly together on a worm, pinching it in half. The loose end fell to the snow and thrashed. He inhaled sharply through the devastation of his nose, making a high whistling sound. “.…m-me!” he managed.

  Aedran took a steadying breath and raised his sword.

  Zander’s face strained. “Get it out of me!” As that cry echoed away into the night, he fell limp.

  “Hold!” One Eye Thal burst out, halting Aedran’s sword from falling.

  A black claw had sheared cleanly through the silver-gray wolf pelt covering Zander’s back. The man whimpered when an opposing claw joined the first. The rest of the men scrabbled back, faces stricken with revulsion.

  Erryn stood fast, held as if by chains of frost. Through the numb terror seizing her heart, she realized the claws were actually pincers … so like those she had seen surrounding the mouth of the caterpillar that had dropped to her shoulder in the cold halls of Stormhold. But these are much larger!

  Zander flailed, and it seemed as if he was trying to get to his knees. A high-pitched whistling sound, just at the edge of hearing, escaped his throat. The Prythians dropped their weapons to slap their hands over their ears. Erryn, still rooted to the spot, mimicked them, but the sound knifed effortlessly into her skull.

  “Joraxa!” someone cried, barely surmounting the piercing wail.

  Without warning, the Prythian ranks shattered, the jostling men rushing into the forest, some so fear-blinded that they slammed headlong into tree trunks. Some got back on their feet and ran on. Others lay still where they had fallen, groggy, moaning.

  The shriek rose higher, bringing tears to Erryn’s eyes, making her bladder feel swollen. Her gritted teeth ached to the roots, seemed to vibrate in time with the sound coming from Zander.

  Not Zander, she thought. The thing inside him!

  The shrill screech cut off, leaving only the noise of men running for safety, floundering through deep snow, cursing in fright; men who until now had always gone eagerly to battle for her, for themselves, for gold and glory; her army of brave Prythians, fleeing, leaving her to her own fate. All had fled, save Aedran and One Eye Thal.

  “What is it?” Erryn sobbed, as a flat, bloody skull the size of her open hand began to tear loose from Zander’s body. A cluster of eyes, glittering like wet obsidian, nested in the creature’s sloping crown. Though they seemed to stare blindly, she knew they had marked her. Below those eyes, the creature’s great pincers snapped together over a smaller, gnashing set.

  “Joraxa,” One Eye Thal said, staring as if mesmerized, “the spawn of Gamanas, Keeper of the Grave.”

  The tip of Aedran’s sword stabbed into the snow with a fateful clank. “I never believed the stories of the great iceworms. I never….” He trailed off, his face that of a man beaten.

  “Kill it!” Erryn ordered.

  One Eye Thal looked to her, his face serene. His voice was calm, soft, and absolutely resigned. “’Tis us who’ll die, for the venom of a Joraxa makes a man as stiff as stone … at first. Then the worm drags him deep into the frozen earth, below the roots of the hardest frost. And there, his flesh begins to melt, like hot tallow, until naught but bones remain—bones a Joraxa makes into cradles for its unholy brood.”

  “Are you mad?” Erryn stumbled back from him, back from Zander, back from the thing gradually curling free from his skin. “You must fight. We all must fight! Kill it!”

  “There’s not much point fighting iceworms,” One Eye Thal said in that calm, dead voice.

  “You must try!”

  One Eye Thal’s lopsided smile was ghastly in the dappled light of the rising moon. “Soon, it will set to hunting us, following the heat of our blood as a hound follows the scent of a stag. If we run now, some of us might escape. All the rest will gather at the feet of Ahnok—”

  Erryn’s slap rocked his head back, made his gray hair fly. She had not known she was going to strike him, but seeing some of that submissive light flee his good eye, she slapped him again, hard enough that her palm stung. The third time she drew her arm back, he caught her wrist.

  “You’d have us fight our doom?” he demanded, spittle flecking his lips.

  Erryn glanced at the creature. It had risen a foot out of Zander. She swallowed her fear. “I command it, you cockless old fool! Now unhand your queen, before I hew off your wilted stones!”

  That seemed to sting him more than her slaps, and he looked to Aedran. “This brazen wench is the true Queen of Pryth, just as you said she’d be!” He shoved her into Aedran’s startled arms. “Take her, boy, and keep her safe. Run as fast and far as you can. If any of us survive, I’ll find you!”

  Before Erryn knew what was happening, Aedran lifted her, his strong arms holding her to his chest like a nursing babe. Then he was plunging through knee-deep snow. One Eye Thal struck off in the opposite direction, howling a battle cry, but going wide around the iceworm.

  The Joraxa was still coming out of Zander, birthing itself from the man’s corpse, rising into the frigid moonlight. Its pincers snapped together … spread wide … snapped together, the rhythmic jarring motion flinging shredded meat and blood.

  Aedran wheeled around a cluster of naked birch trees and sank to his hips in an unseen hole. Erryn didn’t regret losing sight of the Joraxa. Cursing and straining, Aedran clambered up and out of the snowy trap, still holding Erryn to his chest. The only aid she could provide was to wrap her arms tight around his neck. Aedran changed course again, and Erryn’s breath caught when the Joraxa came once more into view.

  By now, it had uncurled to half the height of a man, and was reaching higher in a waving, serpentine motion. Its segmented body was a collection of overlapping plates the color of old bronze—below the glaze of repulsed terror encasing Erryn’s mind, she knew that was not its true color, for Zander’s blood slathered the creature. Finger-length spines ran like hackles down the creature’s back. Dozens of insectile limbs were unfurling from its belly, each tipped with a stubby triad of clutching talons. It lifted its head and loosed another of those whistling shrieks. Erryn almost screamed when she heard an answering cry, and then another, and another. It’s calling to its kindred! Then, nearly too terrified to imagine the question, How many are there?

  Erryn soon lost sight of the iceworm, though she could still hear it and the others, their cries punctuated by softer, barking chirps. Aedran quickened his pace, loping along in jouncing strides, his harsh gasps filling her ears.

  Chapter 28

  At length, Aedran stumbled and collapsed on top of Erryn. Gasping an apology, he rolled onto his back in the snow. “Can you run?”

  “Yes,” she said, her mind filled with gruesome images of the iceworm climbing out of Zander’s corpse. A mercy that I can no longer hear it.

  Aedran used a tree limb to stand, knocking loose a drift of snow that fell over them both with a muffled whoosh. The fluffy cold struck Erryn like a slap, and she scrambled to her feet.

  The iceworms might have fallen quiet, but there were other noises in the moon-stippled forest. Faint sounds of men crashing through brambles, calling out to one another. Some of those who were closer snarled and cursed, much as Zander had before he fell.

  Aedran took her hand. “Let’s get a little farther.”

  They went together, him hauling her through snow that reached almost to her waist. Before she had been too frightened to feel the cold, but now its bitter touch began sinking into her limbs, stiffening them.

  You cannot stop, she chided herself. And you cannot make him carry you again. This last angered
her, for she knew in her heart that she had been letting Aedran and the rest of her army carry her ever since claiming Valdar and naming herself queen. So far in her short rule, she had done very little to mark herself out as a good and strong queen.

  As she considered this, her anger rose higher, firming her resolve. Soon, she was matching Aedran stride for stride. With her lesser stature, the effort overstretched her endurance, left her chest heaving and her heart thumping, but she was willing to pay the price. Each time she faltered, she thought of what One Eye Thal had said. “The worm drags him deep into the frozen earth, below the roots of the hardest frost. And there, his flesh begins to melt, like hot tallow, until naught but bones remain—bones a Joraxa makes into cradles for its unholy brood.” Those nightmarish words gave her strength to continue, where all else might have failed.

  Erryn and Aedran kept on until the moon had climbed high into a sky filled with broken clouds, slashing the forest in silver and black. Erryn’s legs had gone numb as sticks, and her chest ached from drawing in huge breaths of freezing night air. Despite all her inner scolding, she was about to beg Aedran to stop. He must have sensed her fading, and halted at the edge of a snowy meadow before she could.

  “What now?” Erryn gasped.

  Instead of answering, Aedran studied the clearing. In the chilly light, Erryn recognized elk tracks and another set that might have been made by a frost leopard, or a bear late to its winter den. Swooping trails left by hares converged on the handful of gray-black briar thickets, each bowed heavily under snow. The faintest tracks were those of birds and mice, meandering in all directions. If any men had moved through here, they had not done so since the last snowfall.

  Erryn glanced again at Aedran, poised to flee in any direction he pointed. Looking at his face, she realized there would be no more running. He means to make a stand here.

  Aedran turned his head toward a stand of trees. Erryn followed his gaze, but saw nothing alarming.

  “That you, lad?” came a soft voice, so close that the speaker might have stood at Erryn’s side. She loosed a startled yelp and spun, nearly losing her footing.

  Aedran dropped a comforting hand on her shoulder and drew her closer. “One Eye Thal is a master at making his voice sound as if he’s somewhere other than he is.” Louder, Aedran said, “Aye, you old bastard! Who else would be guarding our queen?”

  Relief and gladness filled Erryn’s heart at the sight of the captain creeping out of the gloom between two pines. More men materialized behind him, a long chain of them that quickly spread out to form a wide but sparse perimeter around the meadow. The moonlight was strong enough that Erryn recognized Captains Kormak and Romal, but there was no sign of Murgan. Counting heads, she estimated that One Eye Thal had brought near a hundred men with him.

  The captain waded closer through the snow, every motion calculated, as if stalking game. He doesn’t trust his eyes. Erryn could not blame him, not after what had become of Zander.

  He halted within arm’s length, head thrust forward, his good eye squinted down to a slit, peering first at Erryn, then Aedran. She returned his scrutiny. Blood flecked his gray beard—Zander’s blood—but nothing about him seemed out of character.

  The grizzled warrior straightened. “So, lad, is this the best place you could find?”

  Aedran spread his hands in apology. “The finest battlefields aren’t usually discovered while running through the night.”

  “And rarer still after getting routed,” One Eye Thal put in with a rueful snort. “S’pose it’ll have to do.”

  Aedran studied the diminished army. “So few.”

  “Truth told,” One Eye Thal said, “other than those I have with me, I’m not sure I’d want to see anyone else, especially any of those who got bit back in Stormhold. Course, those fellows stayed away.” He waved a hand over the men who had joined him. “These lads are free of bites and otherwise hale … though, a couple shit themselves. I cannot hold that against them, as I damn near soiled my own trousers when that Joraxa crawled out of Zander.”

  “What’s getting bitten have to do with anything?” Aedran asked.

  One Eye Thal stroked his chin. “My mind’s been turning ever since I got on your trail, and it seems to me—” he cut off, his brow knotted up like a fist. Aedran waited calmly, but Erryn felt as if her skin were crawling off her bones. She knew the old captain was about to say something neither of them wanted to hear.

  “Those caterpillars in Stormhold,” One Eye Thal began again, “must’ve laid eggs, or some such, inside Zander … and mayhap a lot more of us.”

  “Eggs?” Aedran asked, doubtful.

  “Aye, lad. Lucky for us, it seems only one egg can turn into a true Joraxa.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “I’m not, but having more than one of those beasts growing inside a man would make for cramped quarters, don’t you think?”

  “Maybe,” Aedran allowed, running a hand over his lips. “But if you’re right, then a lot of our brothers are infested.”

  “Aye, we could have near on half a thousand iceworms roaming the forest already.”

  Aedran looked troubled. “None of the stories I’ve ever heard mention how to kill a Joraxa.”

  “Not a one,” One Eye Thal agreed with a hard smile. “All I’ve ever heard is how folk end up melted down into spots of gravy to feed the little ones.”

  “Then how do we kill them?” Erryn asked.

  “With steel and wits,” One Eye Thal said. “Leastways, I hope that’ll work. If not, we’ll end our days as wormshit.” He laughed wildly, as did Aedran. Not for the first time, Erryn wondered what Prythians thought so humorous about dying.

  Aedran sobered. “Best get a few bonfires going. They might help—” He cut off when One Eye Thal went rigid as a post. “What is it?”

  “Something’s watching us.”

  “Anything watching us this night, is also hunting us,” Aedran said.

  Erryn saw that both men had drawn their swords. She followed suit, the short sword Nesaea had given her feeling like a chunk of useless iron in her hand. One day I’ll learn the use of this thing, she thought. A far less pleasant idea followed. But only if I survive the night.

  They stood stiffly for a long time, but nothing moved in the forest, and none of the men guarding the edge of the clearing raised an alarm.

  “Have half the men gather all the wood they can find,” Aedran ordered One Eye Thal. “Keep the rest on watch.”

  One Eye Thal spun away and began bawling orders.

  Erryn, feeling useless, watched and waited.

  Chapter 29

  In short order, the Prythians had carved out and smoothed a wide area at the heart of the meadow. They used excess snow to build a broken circle of steep-walled ramparts divided at four points by roaring bonfires. Ramps on the inside led to the top of each section of wall, where guards stood watching the forest. Outside the ramparts, below the watchmen’s feet, bristling hedges of wooden spikes waited to impale enemies. Men not looking for iceworms continued cutting down small trees to use as spears and to feed the fires. If they were to survive till dawn, Aedran had told the soldiers, they would need constant fire and light. None of them needed another reason to gather as much wood as they could.

  Erryn stood near the bonfire at the center of camp, first warming one side, then turning to heat the other, her eyes following the ongoing preparations.

  “If any of us are still alive come morning,” she said to Aedran, “what then?”

  Aedran surveyed the men and the fortifications. “We’ll make all haste to the River Sedge.”

  And to my surprise, Erryn thought, not really caring what awaited her there. “The caterpillars at Stormhold were drawn to our heat,” she said, looking at the fires set between the ramparts. At first, the flames had melted the edges of the broken walls, but once the flames died back a little, the wet sheen had become a glaze of ice. “Fire is sure to attract them.” She meant it as a warning, but Aedran w
as of another mind.

  “Aye, that’s my hope. With any luck, the iceworms will come and die upon our blades. That’s better than us hunting them.” Without warning, he moved off to speak with One Eye Thal, Kormak, and Romal. So far, Captain Murgan was still absent.

  Watching him go, Erryn again drew the sword Nesaea had given her. The hilt was cold through her gloves, but the weight of the weapon, the promise of its keenness, calmed her. She wondered if Lady Nesaea ever felt unease when she ceased being the mistress of a troupe of entertaining women, and became a general commanding a company of skilled warriors.

  Erryn decided Nesaea knew nothing of nervousness. In all she did, the woman was the picture of confidence and poise. No one would ever catch her shaking in her boots on the eve of battle.

  Not like me … so afraid that I’m near to pissing myself. Erryn wished she could feel some of Nesaea’s sureness. Right now, she couldn’t help but pray all this was a terrible dream from which she would soon awaken.

  But this was no dream.

  To her mind, that left only one choice. A queenly choice.

  When Aedran and One Eye Thal returned, they both glanced at her sword, their eyes approving. Their expressions changed when she said, “We must retreat.” The command sounded frail to her ears, uncertain, but it was out now, and she felt as if a crushing weight had lifted off her chest.

  “Where would we go?” One Eye Thal asked, giving no indication that he agreed. Aedran was also looking at her, his features unreadable.

  To him she said, “You mentioned there was something waiting for me at the River Sedge … a surprise. If by that you meant safety, then we should make for the river at this very moment.” Now her voice sounded surer. “Even if there’s no safety at the river, we should still retreat, lest I lose what little is left of my army.”

  One Eye Thal glanced at Aedran. “You told her?”

  “Not enough to spoil anything,” Aedran answered, flashing an unconvincing smile.