The Book of the Sword (Darkest Age)

by A. J. Lake

  He had gone. A figure that was too tall to be her father stood before the rock, tethered to the stone by a single chain. He seemed to shift and flicker as she looked at him, almost as if he were burning. There was a voice in her head screaming at her, telling her she must do something, but she could not remember what it was, and could not make out the words.

  In front of the chained figure, only a few paces away, Eolande stood like a stone, facing the man who had thrown Elspeth down. She saw, with a dull surprise, that it was Cluaran. What was he doing here? And had he just called Eolande ‘mother’? He was holding the Fay woman by the shoulders, shaking her and shouting into her face.

  ‘How could you do this?’

  ‘But I have to free him.’ Eolande’s voice was bewildered. ‘I have worked so long for this! Cluaran – do you not know your own father?’

  NO! screamed the sword in Elspeth’s head, and her gaze snapped to the chained figure at the rock. She could see his face clearly now: a handsome young man, his eyes slanted and flame-yellow. As she watched, his mouth turned up in a mocking smile.

  Cluaran was staring at Eolande, still gripping her shoulders. ‘Mother …’ he said at last, his voice almost gentle, ‘My father is dead. You know that.’

  Eolande tried to pull away from him, shaking her head. Elspeth stared past them both, at the chained man. My father is dead…

  Loki! The sword shrieked in her mind. The deceiver! He must not trick you again. Kill him, now, while one chain remains!

  Elspeth found that she was on her feet. She took a step forward, then another, bringing her alongside Eolande. The Fay woman seemed not to notice her: she was talking, pleading with Cluaran, but Elspeth could no longer hear her.

  Strike! the sword cried. Close your eyes and strike!

  Over Eolande’s shoulder, Cluaran threw Elspeth one glance of desperate appeal. Please, kill him!

  The chained man at the rock smiled still wider. Elspeth looked full at the fiery, grinning face, no longer certain if the voice she heard was Ioneth’s or her own. He takes life, and gives back lies. KILL HIM! And now she was darting forward, the sword blazing in her hand.

  ‘Good. Good!’

  Loki’s voice rang out, rich and powerful as a bell, in the heartbeat before Elspeth reached him. It reverberated through the cavern, sounding in her very bones. (No! Ioneth screamed. Don’t listen!)

  Loki looked down at Elspeth, ignoring the sword, and reached out a hand to her. ‘Come to me, child. I still have need of you.’

  And he was her father again: on the day she first learnt to swim, his face blazing with love and pride as he held out his dripping arms to pull her up from the water.

  Elspeth clenched her eyes shut. Now! Ioneth screamed, and the sword surged in Elspeth hand as she leapt blindly forward to strike.

  She felt the blade make contact, with a clash as if it struck sparks from stone. There was a cry of triumph filling her head, and all around her a howl, so shrill it could not be human.

  Her enemy was standing before her, hands by his side, his candle-flame eyes wide with shock as he looked down at the long gash down his shoulder and chest.

  Strike again! Ioneth’s voice rang in her ears. Strike now! And Elspeth raised the blade and drove it straight at Loki’s heart.

  Loki was quicker. With the speed of a snake he darted aside and lunged at Elspeth, catching her sword hand and forcing the blade up between them. The smile had gone from his handsome face, and the yellow eyes blazed at her.

  ‘Now,’ he breathed, ‘come to me.’

  Ioneth’s song of triumph had become a shriek of terror. A bolt of agony shot down Elspeth’s arm, as if every nerve was being pulled from her.

  Help me! Ioneth screamed through the roaring in her head. Elspeth – hold on! And she tried to pull back, to stand against the demon’s force, though her arm was withering in the fire, and her eyes blinded by searing light.

  There was a sound like a high, clear bell, or like a smith’s hammer giving one final tap. The sword shuddered violently in her hands and shattered, fountaining into a million motes of light which winked around her before dissolving into the air. They faded, and faded, until there was nothing left but darkness.

  Edmund had watched it all through the curtain of flame, standing with Cathbar and Fritha at the edge of the fiery river. He clenched both hands into fists as Elspeth ran forward, but did not dare to utter a sound. When his friend wounded Loki, then lunged at his heart, Edmund had wanted to shout in triumph – but the demon had caught Elspeth’s hand, and a moment later the sword had burst into a glittering cloud, and vanished. It was not until he saw Elspeth fall to the ground that Edmund cried out. But there was nothing he could do.

  Loki was glowing as if lapped in flames. His face convulsed in fury as he glared down at the motionless figure of Elspeth, his whole body seeming to swell with rage. The iron band around his neck, the only thing that still kept him tethered to the rock, swelled with him, and he raised his hands to tug at it.

  ‘He’s still bound!’ Cathbar cried.

  But Ari, beside him, groaned. ‘No. That chain was fixed by a mortal man, Brokk. I saw him do it. The other chains were cast by gods, long before. That one alone was made anew during the last battle.’ The pale man’s voice was dull with despair. ‘It will not hold!’

  The wolfish grin was back on Loki’s face as he turned to inspect the chain that linked the band to the rock.

  Cluaran leapt to his feet, his dagger drawn in one last desperate attack, but Loki knocked him to the ground as casually as a man swatting a fly. The demon took up a double handful of the chain, strained for the space of a heartbeat, and broke the links. The clatter as the twisted metal fell on to the rock echoed around the cavern.

  Loki stood for a moment more surveying them all: Elspeth and Cluaran on the ground; Eolande standing as if turned to stone, gazing at him; and the others, watching helplessly from beyond the burning river. He sighed, throwing his head back as if in ecstasy. A broad, delighted smile spread across his handsome face; spread until it was no longer handsome; the lips stretching too wide for a face to bear them; the teeth flashing sharp as a wolf’s.

  And then the whole face was growing. It filled Edmund’s vision, eyes stretching like flames in a wind, the hair writhing and leaping like a bonfire. Edmund leapt back – the burning eyes seemed to be looking directly at him. Loki’s body billowed upwards like smoke as he swept them an ironic bow. He turned and strode away down the river of fire, growing taller with each step, the rock on each side seeming to melt away before him.

  Then there was only the red-lit stone, as solid as before, and an echo of mocking laughter.

  So it’s over, Edmund thought. What will happen now? Images flashed through his mind, of flame overwhelming the snow plains, of burning trees and houses. He forced the thoughts away. Elspeth was still lying on the rocky floor beyond the flames; a small, twisted figure, so still … She can’t be dead. She can’t!

  Eolande had run to the edge of the burning river and was gazing down it, her face blank with disbelief. Cluaran was pulling himself to his feet, groaning. He looked at the empty chains dangling from the rock; he walked slowly to one of them and fingered the cut edge, as if to feel where the sword had sliced.

  Behind him, Elspeth stirred, her empty right hand clutching the air. Edmund, watching, gave a cry of joy, and Cluaran turned to look at the girl. He bent over her hand, turning it in his own, and Edmund saw his face twist with grief. He lowered his head for a long moment. Then he lifted Elspeth in his arms and carried her to the wreck of the stone bridge.

  ‘The girl needs aid,’ he shouted. ‘Ari, can you get us across?’

  Edmund turned to Ari. ‘What can I do?’

  ‘Collect more stones,’ Ari told him. ‘Big ones – and hurry. We have to leave here.’

  They used one loose rock to chip out another, passing them along to Fritha and Cathbar, who threw them into the fiery stream. It took longer without Eolande’s charms; the
Fay woman was wandering along the rock face, running her hands over the surface as if looking for an opening, oblivious to what the others were doing.

  At length the flames were quelled enough to allow Cluaran across. He handed Elspeth to Cathbar, and looked back across the burning river. But Eolande seemed not to see or hear him, and after a moment’s hesitation he turned back to the others.

  Cathbar laid Elspeth gently on the rocky ground, rolling up his cloak for a pillow. Her hand was burned red, and her face was paler than Edmund had ever seen it. She hardly seemed to be breathing. He leant over her, searching for any stir of life.

  ‘Don’t die, Elspeth!’ he whispered.

  ‘She is strong, your friend.’ Edmund looked up to see Cluaran’s companion, Ari, beside him. The pale man bent over Elspeth, feeling for a pulse in her wrists. ‘I have seen some among our people like this, when they escaped the hungry ghosts. Her spirit may yet return.’

  Elspeth’s chest was rising very slightly. As Edmund watched, her mouth opened and he heard a faint, rasping breath. ‘You’re safe now,’ he told her, but there was no sign that she could hear him.

  ‘So she’ll recover,’ Cluaran said to Ari. It was a statement, not a question, but the minstrel’s face looked set and grim.

  Ari hesitated before replying. ‘I think so,’ he said at last. ‘But few who touch Loki come away unscathed.’

  Cluaran nodded, his face unchanging. ‘And the sword is lost,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sorry, Cluaran.’

  For a moment Edmund saw pity on Ari’s face – pity and grief. Why grieve for a sword? he wondered. When Elspeth could still be in danger?

  Cluaran was gazing bleakly back at the rock where Loki had been chained. Edmund, following his gaze, saw that Eolande was still standing at the rock, muttering to herself and weeping softly. Cluaran made no move towards her.

  ‘Cluaran,’ Edmund said hesitantly, ‘is Eolande really your mother?’

  The minstrel nodded. ‘Yes. My mother … and Loki’s slave.’ His voice was very soft, and he did not turn to look at Edmund. ‘He tricked her: it was my father she saw in those chains. He must have told her he was Brokk, and that she could free him with the enchanted sword.’ He ran a hand over his face. ‘And so she sent Torment to wreck Elspeth’s father’s ship, and then to carry the two of you here from Venta Bulgarum. She even sent books to Orgrim, that would help him serve Loki’s dark purpose. She did all this for the sake of a man who has been dead one hundred years.’

  For the first time he turned to show his face, and Edmund flinched at the raw sorrow in his eyes and the line of his mouth. ‘Try not to hate her too much. You can see he has driven her mad.’ He went back to staring at Eolande as she felt her way along the rock. ‘All those years,’ he muttered. ‘All that time she stayed here alone with him.’

  Cathbar’s voice behind them made Edmund jump. ‘Should we not be leaving here? The fire is growing.’

  He was right, Edmund realised. The air in the cavern was heavy with the smell of burning, and the ground beneath him was hot through the soles of his boots. The black walls seemed to smoke as if the rock was scorched. And all around them, under the ground and behind the walls, was a low rumbling, growing louder and deeper.

  ‘Loki is waking the volcano,’ said Ari.

  The fiery river that separated them from the rock was overflowing its bounds; as Edmund stared in alarm, a trickle of molten stone spilled out along one wall, and the flames rising from the surface rose higher, beginning to overwhelm the rickety bridge. Cluaran leapt up and was across the stones in two strides. Eolande had stopped inspecting the rock surface and was staring down the river of flames to where Loki had vanished.

  ‘Brokk, where have you gone?’ she sobbed. ‘Why have you left me again?’ She did not turn when her son reached her.

  ‘No … no …’ she mumbled, as Cluaran dragged her towards the bridge. ‘I must wait for Brokk. He will come back to me. Leave me!’

  Cluaran hauled his mother over the shifting stones and flung her into Cathbar’s arms, ignoring her cries. The flames closed in on the minstrel as he threw himself after her, catching and spreading up one of his sleeves; then the other. Not an illusion this time, but real, burning. Edmund and Fritha rushed to help him beat out the flames, while Ari lifted Elspeth. She moaned faintly, and hung limp in his arms.

  ‘I’ll lead,’ the pale man said. ‘Edmund, Fritha, light the torches and follow.’

  As Edmund gingerly held his torch to the leaping flames at the edge of the river, he saw a hair-thin line of red at the base of the rock beyond it. He did not stop to see if the crack was growing: he knew it meant that the mountain was about to burst open in a tide of burning liquid rock.

  Ari had already entered the tunnel with Fritha close behind him; the smoky glow of her torch was diminishing into the darkness ahead. Edmund cast one more look around the cavern before following them. The flames leaping from the fiery river were a solid wall now, taller than a man, and the heat from them hit him in the face like a slap. Cluaran and Cathbar were half-dragging, half-carrying Eolande away from the flames, while she struggled and held out her arms to the now obscured rock. Glowing tendrils snaked across the ground as if pursuing them.

  Edmund turned and plunged into the tunnel. Eolande’s cries echoed in the close space as she was dragged after him. And then the rumbling behind them became a roaring, and the ground shook under their feet as they ran.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Loki will break his chains again, as the Fay foretold. Even now his power shows itself: the mountain glows; the dragons will fly again. But the sword that can kill him is forged.

  Old as I am, it is my task to kill him. I will go alone. If I cannot pierce his flesh, I can bring his accursed mountain down around his ears. The sword will cut through stone, at least.

  To Eolande, whom I abandoned; to Cluaran, my Starling; whom I betrayed: my love and sorrow. May you live long and safe, and may you come one day to forgive me.

  Elspeth stirred. There was a dull, regular pounding in her ears; she floated in the midst of it, bodiless. Walls of grey ice rose all around her, but it was hot; a stream of fire flowed through the cave’s centre, its flickering red light dancing over the ice walls and rock floor.

  But where was the great rock beyond the fire – the rock where Loki was chained? She had been fighting Loki, Elspeth remembered: she had wounded him; and then …

  Where was she? This place was smaller than the cavern beneath Eigg Loki, and it was full of metallic din. But she knew she had been here before. And then she saw the forge set up over the fiery stream, and she remembered.

  The old smith, Brokk, was shaping the sword. He worked as if there were nothing in the world but the hammer and the glowing strip beneath it, his gaze fixed on the white-hot metal. The clangs from his hammer were as regular as heartbeats. And she could feel her heart beating now … not her heart, but that of the woman, watching …

  She stood pressed against the ice wall: her back chilled; the heat of the fire in front eating into her skin through the thin shift. She would have to go closer to it in a few moments; the stone and metal would become part of her, and the fire too.

  The demon murdered my brothers and my father, she reminded herself. He killed my whole race. And I can stop him for ever…

  When Brokk called to her, she stepped forward without hesitation. The pain as she caught hold of the blade was beyond imagining: she felt her skin melting; the heat scorching through her veins; burning her very heart … And then she was ice again, whirling motes in the air, and the pain was far away. Nothing was solid: nothing but the blade, which glowed like living crystal; her only centre; pulling her in.

  Suddenly something was calling her back. With an effort, she opened the eyes that had been hers, and looked at the young man shouting outside the circle of light.

  It was Cluaran, her beloved, his face riven with sorrow.

  She had never lied to him, but she had not told him why s
he was coming here. He would have done everything in his power to stop her

  ‘Take me instead!’ he was sobbing. She felt a rush of tenderness for him. If she could only have made him understand how important this was; the countless people their sacrifice would save. But she only had the strength to murmur a few words of love and farewell.

  Her body faded behind her as the sword received her. She was a weapon from this moment; her whole being bent on a single purpose: to destroy, and to save what was left of her people. But his last words stayed with her, filling her with a pain she had thought she would never feel again: sorrow, and loss.

  Ioneth! Don’t leave me …

  Elspeth opened her eyes with a start. She was bent double over something warm and animal-smelling and being carried, fast and jerkily. She was draped over a horse’s back, and the whiteness jolting past beneath her was snow. She tilted her head to see the horse’s brown neck and head, and the figure of Cluaran, leading it on a short rein over the snow fields. A wave of remembered sorrow overtook her as she looked at his bent head. She had left him … no, Ioneth had left him. He had watched as she gave herself to the sword, and he was powerless to stop her. Is he still grieving? she wondered. Her hand hurt, and another question came to her: what had happened to the sword? She could not remember clearly what had happened in the cave under the mountain: she had struck at her enemy; she had wounded him, surely … but after that came a blank. Had Ioneth fulfilled her purpose?

  Did I kill Loki?

  Someone squeezed her hand. Out of the corner of her eye she saw that it was Edmund, his face grimy and his fair hair matted with soot and ash.

  ‘Edmund,’ she tried to say. ‘What happened in the cave?’ The words would not come out clearly, and she could not be sure he had understood. He seemed about to speak, but then just gave her a lopsided smile and pressed her hand again.