Talus and the Frozen King

by Graham Edwards

  'Me,' she said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  Bran had been listening hard to Talus's story. Much of what the bard said made sense—seemed obvious, actually. Bran wondered why he hadn't worked it out for himself. Right from the start he'd been suspicious of Mishina, but he'd put those feelings down to his general mistrust of shamans.

  Bran had never needed magic men. His own relationship with the spirit world had always been a personal one: just him and the sea-guardian Mir, out on the waves together.

  Until Keyli had died; after that he'd turned his back on Mir for good.

  Yet, even though Talus had explained Mishina's role in what now appeared to be not just a single killing but a complex plot, Bran still didn't know who the killer was. Until the massacre at the totem pit, he'd been convinced it was Sigathon. But now ...

  'Tharn won't be able to hold himself back much longer,' said Lethriel. She'd risen to a crouch.

  'I should go to him.'

  Bran pulled her down. 'Are you crazy? Do you really want to throw yourself into the middle of all this?'

  She looked at him with tears in her eyes. 'I'm already in the middle of it.' But she stayed all the same.

  Up on the wolf's-head crag, Talus was speaking again:

  'Alayin speaks the truth. With all his brothers dead, the killer would become king. More importantly, he would be free to take the hand of the woman who stands beside me: Alayin, daughter of Farrum, king of Sleeth. However, Alayin was more than just a prize.'

  'What are you saying, bard?' Tharn's voice exploded like thunder across the crater. Lethriel flinched.

  Talus stared across the henge directly at Bran. Last time their eyes had met, the bard had winked. Now he just looked tired and sad.

  'Alayin was a reward,' he said. 'Enough!' came a voice from somewhere to Bran's right. Bran looked that way just in time to see a man step out of the shadows beside a henge-post so contorted by wind and weather that it was more holes than wood. The man was unusually tall.

  Cabarrath's long furs were wet with blood. The axe he carried dripped a red trail in the snow. His brow hung low over his eyes, which were lost in darkness.

  'You say what you say, bard,' said Cabarrath, 'but how do we know your words are true? You are a teller-of-tales, after all. How do we know this is not just another of your stories?' He stopped, his body rigid but for the hand that held the axe, which was shaking. Blood splattered from the edge of its stone blade.

  'Because I look with my eyes,' Talus replied. He seemed unperturbed by Cabarrath's unexpected arrival.

  Cabarrath looked across the henge to where Tharn was standing. Arak stood close at the side of his brother and king. Like Cabarrath's, his axe was trembling.

  Tharn nodded, once.

  'And what do your eyes see, bard?' said Cabarrath.

  'When he was stabbed,' said Talus, 'Hashath managed to scratch his attacker's face.'

  Tharn made a strange barking sound. 'You can you know this? You were not there!'

  'I found flakes of mud under the dead king's fingernails when I examined him in the cairn.

  Whoever killed the king did so with his face hidden under a coat of paint.'

  'Mishina!' Tharn bellowed. He advanced between the wooden pillars and entered the clear ground inside the henge. His axe swung.

  After a breath, Arak scurried after him. Cabarrath held his ground, but his grip tightened on the handle of his axe. Bran raised his hand to touch the bump on the back of his head. Had Cabarrath noticed him hiding here with Lethriel? He hoped not.

  Following their king, the Creyak warriors moved forward. Somewhere in the Creyak lines, a drum began to beat, then another. A low humming echoed across the henge, rising and falling in pitch as spears thudded on the snow-covered ground.

  On the opposite side of the henge, Farrum's men raised their stone weapons in response.

  Unlike their enemy, they made no sound. Somehow their silence was more threatening.

  Talus opened his arms. Wind gusted through his motley robes, opening them like wings.

  'Stop!' he cried.

  Incredibly, everyone stopped. If Bran hadn't seen it for himself, he wouldn't have believed it: this scrawny bald man in his tattered collection of skins holding sway over two armies that were ready to tear each other to pieces. How did he do it?

  'Mishina is a man of many colours,' Talus went on. 'Enter his house and you will see them all, as I did. Blue, yellow, white, black ... but nowhere in the home of the shaman did I see the colour of the paint I found under the fingernails of the king.'

  Tharn and Cabarrath shared another inscrutable look. Between and around them, the entire henge was silent.

  'What colour was it?' said Tharn.

  'Red,' said Talus, and Bran knew instantly who the killer was. From the look in Tharn's eyes, it was obvious Creyak's new king did too. Cabarrath's expression was impossible to read, because already he'd turned his face away and started marching across the henge towards the spot where Tharn and Arak were standing.

  Farrum moved his hands, sending a signal to his army. Six of his warriors broke from the horde to join him and Mishina at the sacrificial boulder.

  'Explain!' Cabarrrath roared at Talus as he walked towards his brothers. His long legs ate up the ground. He raised his axe, spraying more blood through the air. 'Do not start another of your games.'

  'Oh,' said Talus, 'I'm afraid that a game is exactly where this does start. A game for two opponents that uses coloured stones: some black, some red. The opponents wear the colour of whichever stones they take as their own.' Cabarrath halted halfway across the henge. 'I know this game,' he said slowly. 'It is played by Sigathon and Arak. Sigathon always wears black. And Arak ...'

  Tharn had stepped back into the shadow of the nearest pillar. Now he was a dark, menacing shape looming over Arak. Only the tip of Tharn's stone axe was in the moonlight. It seemed to burn with cold blue fire.

  Cabarrath started marching again, straight towards Arak, towards whom all eyes had now turned.

  Arak started to edge backwards.

  'Do not move, little brother!' Tharn roared. His face was lost in the shadows. Bran could only imagine the expression he wore: rage, grief, despair ... perhaps all of them at once.

  Arak halted. Bran thought he was crying, but it was hard to be sure. Cabarrath was almost upon him.

  'Do you know this, bard?' said Tharn. 'Do you know this to be the truth?'

  Talus bowed his head. 'Yes.'

  Cabarrath covered the last few paces to where his youngest brother was standing at a dead run. He swept up Arak in his long arms and held him tight. His face was a mask of misery.

  Bran watched as Arak went limp. So that was it. It was all over. The truth was finally revealed, and the killer was caught. So why did he feel dissatisfied?

  'Tell the rest of it, bard,' said Tharn from the shadows.'

  Talus spoke fast. 'Before he killed his father, Arak drugged himself with greycaps. This took his fear of the ancestors. Even now you can still see the effect of the drugs: the blacks of his eyes are large; his arms and legs are restless. He gave drugs to Sigathon too—an even bigger dose; did you not notice how quiet Sigathon had become? This was the only way for Arak to hide his plans from his twin, at least until the time came to kill Sigathon too.

  'Arak killed his father with a bonespike he'd stolen from his brother Gantor—a clever way to move the blame if the weapon was ever found. But Fethan found him before he could drag the body away. I do not know what story Arak devised, but Fethan was loyal enough to keep quiet about what he had seen. And, later, to take the blame for it.'

  'Arak was always Fethan's favourite,' said Tharn. He sounded broken.

  'Well then. Finally we come to Farrum. The night his boat arrived, I remarked to my companion, Bran, that it lay strangely low in the water. It was clearly heavily laden, yet there appeared to be only eight men aboard. When he explored the boat later, Bran found a secret space under the deck. It was t
here that Alayin had hidden herself.'

  Talus tugged gently on the rope he was using to hold Alayin captive ... except Bran now saw that the rope wasn't knotted at all but hung loose around her neck. Why wasn't she running? Unless ...

  'What Bran failed to notice,' Talus continued, 'was that the secret space ran the entire length of the boat. It was big enough not just for Alayin, but for the small army you now see before you.'

  Tharn's voice floated out from the shadows. It might have been the voice of a ghost. The hairs on the back of Bran's neck prickled.

  'Why?' said Tharn. Who was he addressing? Talus or Arak? There was no way to tell.

  It was the bard who offered the answer. 'If Arak killed both the king and his sons, Farrum would reward him.'

  'How?'

  'By giving him Alayin to marry. Arak would rule Creyak in name, but, thanks to the new alliance, the real power would lie with his father-in-law. Creyak would be conquered not by force of arms but by love.'

  Talus lowered the bonespike and dropped the rope. It slithered from where it had hung over Alayin's shoulders. She stood tall and proud, her neck long and her head high.

  'One thing puzzles me,' said Talus. 'This was a difficult plan. It needed someone at the centre to make each thing happen at the right time. Someone to pass word between Creyak and Sleeth.

  Someone to supply Arak with the greycaps—and no doubt reassure him that the spirits would be indeed gentle with him when he finally entered the afterdream.'

  Talus cocked his head like a heron assessing its next meal. 'I know it was you, Mishina. I know you helped Arak become a killer—likely even tempted him into it. I know you encouraged Farrum. When the men from Sleeth were trapped in the totem pit, I know it was you who helped them out—no doubt with Arak's help. Who struck you and prevented you from escaping with them then? Was it Sigathon, I wonder, come to his senses in time to stop you, but too late to save himself? These details do not matter. Here is the puzzle: why would you do all these things?'

  A gust of wind blew through the henge. Tendrils of fog lifted briefly over the distant cliff edge, then fell away. Mishina's long robes billowed around him. The shells on his staff jangled.

  'The all-seeing bard is puzzled!' said Mishina. 'How charming. Do you really not know what drives a man like me, Talus?'

  'I do not care for games, Mishina,' said Talus. Bran wondered if the bard really was puzzled by Mishina's motives, or whether he was playing an intricate game of his own.

  'Ah, you see?' Mishina said. 'You did know after all.'

  'Explain yourself.'

  Mishina spread his arms in an expansive gesture that took in the entire henge and all the people in and around it. 'They do not understand people like you and me, Talus. They do not appreciate the breadth of us. They cannot imagine how deeply, desperately dull our lives must become.'

  He spat on his hands and wiped them down his face. When he held up his palms, one was streaked blue, the other black.

  'Who can blame men like us for having a little fun? You have your stories, Talus. As for me ... yes, I have my games.'

  It was clear to Bran that Mishina was trying to rouse the bard to anger. It didn't appear to be working.

  'Is that all this is to you, Mishina?' Talus said. 'A game?' Mishina continued to wipe the paint from his face. 'Games are all I have, bard,' he growled.

  'Don't pretend you don't have your own.'

  The shaman was prowling now, clearly cross—perhaps because of his failure to provoke Talus. Or perhaps, Bran thought, because he'd just been cornered into confessing his crimes before a line of the strongest warriors in Creyak. Not to mention his king.

  Which, he suddenly realised, had been Talus's goal all along.

  Lethriel tugged at Bran's arm. 'Fethan,' she said, pointing.

  For a moment, Bran saw nothing. Then a clot of dark hair moved behind Tharn's ranks.

  Below it, mostly in shadow, was a blood-streaked face: Fethan. The only other surviving brother.

  Bran had wondered where he'd got to.

  The moonlight glanced off Fethan's upraised stone axe.

  Fethan broke into a run. His axe lifted higher. He broke through the line of warriors; they spilled aside, taken completely unawares. Fethan covered the last few strides to where Cabarrath stood holding Arak and swung his axe straight at Arak's head.

  Cabarrath whirled round, taking Arak with him. As he did so, his feet slithered on the ice.

  Arak dug in his heels and shoved backwards with all his strength. Cabarrath went sprawling on his back, Arak landing on top of him hard enough to send the breath in the tall man's lungs jetting out in a white cloud.

  Fethan's axe sliced through the air just a hand's breadth from where Arak's head had been.

  Arak sprang to his feet, landing square on Cabarrath's heaving chest. He fumbled at his brother's waist; when he stood upright he was holding a short spear tipped with grey flint. Fethan, still recoiling from his monumental axe-swing, shifted weight frantically from one foot to the other in an effort to maintain his poise.

  But his attempts were in vain. He'd poured all his weight into that single swing and now he was hopelessly off-balance. Like Cabarrath, he slipped on the treacherous ground.

  He fell straight on to the tip of Arak's spear. Arak cried out—whether in triumph or anguish, Bran couldn't tell. Fethan collapsed, the flint blade buried deep under his left collarbone. His weight carried him forward. Arak backtracked, fighting to stay upright on the slippery ground and simultaneously tugging at the spear. Finally he managed to yank it free. Fethan collapsed on top of Cabarrath, his blood staining them both.

  Holding the spear aloft, Arak turned a slow circle in the snow. His lips were drawn back from his teeth. He looked terrified.

  Then, with a scream, he ran straight into the shadows of the henge-pillar where Tharn was standing. Black shapes flailed in the darkness. Bran strained to see what was going on. Lethriel was on her feet.

  A man stumbled out from the shadows and into the moonlight. His arms were loose; his face was a mask of shock. Dark blood stained the furs that encircled his belly.

  The man was Tharn.

  The new king took three tottering steps into the henge before he fell to the ground, limp as seaweed.

  Lethriel shrieked and sprinted out over the snow-covered grass. Bran reached out his good hand too late to pull her back.

  Arak was still screaming. He leaped over the fallen bodies of his three brothers and bounded into the henge. When he reached the middle, he sprang up on to the sacrifical boulder. He raised the bloody spear over his head and howled like a stricken wolf cub. The howling went on and on, and the spear swung slowly in the moonlight, and the blood of the king dripped down, slowly turning the ice on the boulder's surface from white to red.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  With an almighty roar, Tharn's warriors surged into the open space contained by the henge's ring of wooden pillars. A scant breath later, Farrum's men followed suit. Leather boots kicked up snow; stone weapons sliced the air. The two armies met behind the great central boulder, breaking against each other like waves in a storm-tossed ocean.

  Talus watched in dismay as the battle played out. Flint blades cut through fur and into flesh.

  Men howled like wolves. Arms grappled, hands grabbed hair, gouged eyes. Compared to the war in the desert, this was nothing but a skirmish. But already men lay dead on the icy ground, and many more would fall before this night was out.

  A few of the Tharn's men broke away from the main group. Axes raised, they made for Farrum, leader of the invaders from Sleeth. But Farrum's boatmen had formed a protective wall around the old man and they deflected the Creyak marauders with ease.

  Lethriel, meanwhile, had reached Tharn's stricken body. She fell at his side, sobbing. Nearby lay Cabarrath, almost hidden beneath Fethan's bleeding body, just as Arak had been hidden by Sigathon's near the totem pit. Were either of them still alive? There was no way to tell.

  A
s more men fell, Talus's horror grew. This was all his fault. If only he'd been quicker to solve the riddles Creyak had posed him then all this might have been avoided. Perhaps he could find a path across the battlefield to the stricken brothers. He was responsible for all this; perhaps there was a life he might still save.

  Alayin's cries alerted him to trouble closer at hand. Three of Farrum's men had crept up on to the rocky crag behind them. As Talus turned, one of them clamped his arms around Alayin's waist.

  She thrashed, trying to escape, but the second man grabbed her feet and lifted her completely into the air. Between them, they carried her swiftly down into the henge.

  The third man stayed behind. He grinned through the scars on his face. In his right hand he held a flint knife; in his left was a vicious-looking bonespike, much like that one that had killed Hashath.

  Talus—acutely aware of how close he was to the edge of the crag—picked up the rope that had been draped around Alayin's neck. The Sleeth man advanced. Talus drew back his arm and lashed the rope forward. At the last moment he flicked his wrist back. With a sound like a lightning strike, the rope cracked against the side of his attacker's face. Blood welled between the scars. The man took a stumbling step back, his mouth drawn down in surprise and pain.

  Talus snapped the rope again. This time the Sleeth man dodged, avoiding the blow. The rope cracked in empty air. His grin returning, the man extracted a knotted-wood club from beneath his robes and swung it at the bard's middle. Talus sucked in his belly and felt the end of the club graze against his robes. The man swung again, this time aiming for Talus's head. Talus dropped low and wondered if this was the day he died. Already he was breathless, and this man was fast.

  With an animal shout, Bran raced up the side of the crag. To Talus, it seemed as if his companion wasn't climbing the rock but flying over it. The Sleeth man turned, wrong-footed. Bran lowered his head, dropping beneath his adversary's clumsy swing and driving the top of his head into soft belly and bones. With an explosive sigh, the man flew backwards over the edge of the rock. The club flew too. Both hit the snow simultaneously. Neither man nor weapon moved.