"We'll wait out the storm on land," the captain said. "But we're not following you. This storm's unnatural."
"You did all I asked." He turned and began to trudge up the steep roads that had once been filled with life. Now only icy wind and rolling debris greeted him.
Memories of the year before flooded back. He had seen these docks from the back of a giant eagle. Now where was Kafara? No way to contact her or Turo, and in desperate need of help, he cursed her disappearance. The signs of the war were still evident in scorched ground and broken wood rotting in mud. As he trudged up to where the original wood hall of Norddalr had been, he spotted white bones hiding in the grass or half-buried in dirt. The hall itself was a sunken mass of broken timbers, all the useful wood long since hauled off. Even a barbarian king, it seemed, insisted on leaving the grizzly mementos of war in place.
He did not know the route overland, having relied on Kafara to fly him wherever he had needed to go. Now he stood with Grimwold draped in his arms like a sagging bolt of cloth. His inhuman strength allowed him to carry Grimwold and his mail without any effort, but he was not nimble as he skirted the wreckage. He stumbled more than once and nearly dumped Grimwold into the pit where Norddalr had collapsed.
"If you fall in there, then you're staying until someone else pulls you out." He continued along a path that bored into the mountains. Along the way he found patches of grass that had been leeched of life. Unlike the normal grass that browned with the approach of winter, these patches were dry and withered. Salt filled the spots. Here is where trolls that had once been men dissolved under salt he and Kafara had dumped from the air.
The winds eventually died down and the sky cleared. Lethos assumed his fishermen were now abandoning him to whatever fate awaited him on Norddalr. It was late afternoon and the sun was already low on the horizon. It glowed like a yellow eye angered at having been hidden for so long. Mountains cast long shadows over the rocky path he found after a bumbling search. He was certain this led into the mountains where the fortress of the High King lay.
He wondered where the guards were. Perhaps the strong winds kept them off duty. Still, it troubled him that a raiding ship was able to land without so much as a fishing boat to intercept him. That was more unnatural than the storm. He passed between the rocky shoulders of walls carved into the mountains. He entertained himself along the way by searching for signs of the army that had passed this way last year. The rocky ground did not absorb much, and so discarded shields, lost helmets, bits of cloth and wood littered the path. Eldegris had been busy reconstructing his kingdom, but had apparently not ordered anyone to clean up his front doors.
He arrived at the first curtain wall, and he stood amazed. "This is not good at all," he said.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Lethos stood holding Grimwold and stared up at the stone fortress of Norddalr. The soaring wall and gate had been demolished. The ground in front of it had been torn up. The iron doors were twisted and blown open. The breaches in the wall showed fresh, bright rock where it had only recently been shattered. He stood at least five minutes gaping at the destruction. He called out to the tower that still had its lower levels intact. No answers came from the slitted windows overhead. He did not expect any. The place seemed abandoned.
A year ago trolls and angry barbarians had swarmed beneath this gate. In the fields surrounding it Grimwold had defeated his possessed sister, and atop it Eldegris had slain the blood sorcerer Amator who had cursed Lethos with his Minotaur shape. Now it was eerily quiet as he picked his way through the gap. Dust was still in the air, even though the wind had died to nothing.
Bearing Grimwold in his arms, he felt stupidly like an intruder. He should have been challenged or at least spotted. There were other towers. Why was he slipping into the fortress unopposed? The successive walls were intact, but the gates had all been blown open as if an invisible fist had slammed through them. The flanking towers squatted empty and dark. He continued through until he came to a large yard that surrounded the main fortress. He stood in the pool of shadows, surveying the damage.
An impractically high tower loomed over him as Lethos leaned back to look up. Its soaring height reminded him of Amator's tower from Raffheim. Debris and massive stones littered the yard. Barrels, carts of straw, and crates lined the walls. All signs of recent life. A sour note hung in the air and Lethos gagged when he recognized it.
It was blood. It was the same burnt, sweet blood he had scented when Amator had used his magic. The bull within him stirred at his stench, and he felt a sudden urge to roar.
He set Grimwold down, wishing he had worn his sword or at least strapped one to Grimwold. Now he had only a small dagger at his waist, and touching that did not make him feel safer. The doors to the fortress hung open, a yawning blackness waiting to swallow him whole.
"Over here!" The female voice was a desperate whisper, but he heard it. Lethos nearly jumped, whirling around to find the source. "In the hay cart."
He followed the woman's desperate voice, peering at the hay cart until he noticed two startling blue eyes staring at him from within the yellow straw. He approached her warily, checking the walls above for a trap. But he was soon taking her cold and trembling hand and hefting her out of the straw.
"You are the one who aided my father in the war of the trolls," she said as she brushed straw out of her full, golden hair.
"You are High King Eldegris's daughter," he said. She stood over him on the cart, looking down on him like the subject he was. He recognized her immediately, for she was as powerfully beautiful as her mother, Queen Siffred, and had the commanding aura and set jaw of her father. Though her green dress was stained and covered in straw, and her startlingly blue eyes were wide with terror, she still carried herself with dignity. Her hand rested on a dagger sheathed at her hip.
"Where is my father? What happened to the others?"
"I'm wondering the same, my lady." He didn't know how to address her, and thought it bad form to not remember her name. The High King had so many children, how could he be expected to remember them all. He had a son, that was about all the detail Lethos could muster.
The princess's eyes lingered over Grimwold's body, but Lethos saw her dismiss him as she continued to scan the grounds. "He was killed before my eyes, right there."
She leapt from the cart and strode with as much purpose as her form-fitting dress allowed. The bull spirit had him focus on her body when he needed to understand what she was saying. He shook his head.
"Stay down," he said through clenched teeth. The princess stopped and looked at him. He gave a weak smile. "What do you mean your father was killed?"
Giving him an appraising look universal to all nobility, barbaric or civilized, she raised a thin eyebrow at him. "It is as I say. My father and scores of his best men came from those doors to face the invaders. He was cut down right here."
"Yet there is not even a drop of blood here, my lady. Though the air smells of it."
She crouched down, touching the dirt with her hand. "The ground is disturbed here, and there are footprints all around."
Lethos opened his mouth to congratulate her on noticing the obvious and ask her to confirm if the sky was indeed blue. Yet he just smiled. She was royalty.
"They came out of Urdis's finger. It smashed the curtain wall and then dropped seven strange men into the courtyard. My father opposed them." She stood and stared defiantly at Lethos. He had no answer for the fire he saw in those eyes. This woman believed what she said. How could he deny her, having seen far stranger things. He could change into a Minotaur. Nothing was stranger than that.
She explained how she had fallen from the tower into the hay and the men did not see her. The leader was called Avulash, and he used a strange black mist to kill all her father's men. Lethos shuddered at that, remembering too clearly Amator's blood magic. She described her father's death, and though she breathed heavily she did not cry like the weak princess he expected her to be. She had apparently bla
cked out after her father's murder, for the next she remembered Lethos had carried Grimwold into the empty yard. At last she paused, her heart-shaped face flushed pink.
"My name is Valda, and you are Lethos?" He nodded. "Thank you for listening to this. I know it sounds unbelievable, but it is what I saw. And one more thing. I spotted a ghost ship on the water. It was as big as a castle, with five masts and three banks of massive oars."
Lethos's hands went numb. Ice began to trickle along his spine and he had an overwhelming urge to place Grimwold in hiding.
"We've got to get out of here," he said. "Quickly, into the fortress then go into the left corridor. Do not waste time."
She stared at him, but he was already scooping Grimwold into his arms. He flopped like a rag doll and his chain mail crunched as Lethos dropped him on the cart. As he shoved Grimwold under the hay, he noticed the black spot on his chest had darkened. The dull ache in his own chest, however, remained the same. Once satisfied Grimwold was hidden, he sprinted after Valda. The cold trickle of ice made him shiver. Inside the fortress his eyes were unadjusted to the dark, but he turned left on instinct.
Metal scraped and clanked as seven armored forms passed his hiding spot in the dark hallway. They seemed like men, but Lethos felt a wave of cold in their wake. Valda crouched next to him, her cool hands on his back. She patted him frantically as if to silently confirm these were the killers of her father.
Once they had passed, Lethos followed them out, keeping low so as to remain unseen. The men had assembled in the courtyard, their armor glaring in the light. One man approached Grimwold's hiding spot, and Lethos's heart jumped out of his neck. The strange man went to the cart that hid Grimwold and began to pull aside the hay.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Syrus crawled on the beach, shivering, every joint of his body a flare of pain. Sea water dribbled from his beard onto the sand, and he felt warm blood seeping from his shaved head. It ran down the back of his neck onto his shoulders. Salt and dirt mingled on his tongue and his eyes burned. He shimmied out of the surf onto the gritty sand of the thin beach, alternately choking and laughing as he did. Fieyar had preserved him. She was not finished with him.
He still had a purpose and a duty to fulfill. He had survived the terrorizing plunge into a cold ocean, an invisible hand raising him to the surface rather than drowning him. At least that was the only explanation he could conceive. He did not know how to swim, so what else could have saved him? He then endured what felt like days clinging to a slimy cold rock as the violent storm subsided. Once the sky turned blue again he chanced grabbing a floating tree limb and riding it to the shore.
The limb was now discarded in the lapping surf and he rolled out of the water onto his back. His clothes were torn and clinging to his body. Nature had stripped him of anything he owned but for his boots and clothes. In the blue circle of sky above, dark clouds slid across his vision and dots of birds began to circle him. Sunbirds would have no mercy, swooping down on his face to peck out his eyes. The thought alone provoked him to crawl again, then to stand with the help of a gray rock jutting from the sand.
A large crack in a red cliff wall hid in the shadows. It was the entrance to Tsaldalr, remembered from the map he now had lost. The pain of losing such an artifact hurt worse than the bruises covering his body. It might still have held secrets, but it was the property of the sea or the wind now. He shambled toward the crack, the cool shadow making his wet body shiver harder. It was low tide and the entrance was easily accessible. When the tide rose, he figured from the stains and shells clinging to the walls that it would be inaccessible on foot. The water would be over a normal man's head.
The bottom of the crack was wide enough for five men, and he slid inside to total darkness but for a thin shaft of light piercing the roof high above.
"Thorgis?" His voice echoed around the chamber. All he heard was the sloshing of his feet through cold puddles and the persistent drip of water. He would need plenty of dried wood for a fire as well as light. Besides, with Thorgis missing his first duty was to locate the reticent prince. Turning to push his way back out of the cave, a voice echoed back to him.
"Syrus? Over here!"
Thorgis appeared across a natural cave that was much wider than Syrus had guessed. He stood atop was seemed an ancient ledge with a ramp that had been carved from the wall. Holding aloft a fitfully burning torch, he smiled. His fine clothes were now ragged, and his right sleeve had been torn away at the shoulder. His hair was matted to his head, aging him to look more like his father. The orange light shifted shadows around his face and splashed light onto the wall behind him, revealing a darker passage.
"You survived!" Syrus began to pick his way across the cavern floor. Shallow puddles remained, but he was careful not to step in any water in case it was deeper than it seemed. Once he crossed to the ramp, he said, "I thought you'd have died for certain."
"I thought the same for you." Thorgis held his torch high and out of the way. His smile changed his complexion entirely. Gone was the pensive, weary man, and now a more innocent, simpler boy stood in his place. Eldegris's sword remained on his back, and Thorgis's ordinary sword was sheathed at his side.
"You were not hurt?" Syrus looked him over, and but for a few cuts and bruises he was whole.
"I was lucky. A bolt of lightning struck at my feet, and sent me flying over the cliff. I landed in the water, and I swear to you some hand guided me to the shore. It was Danir himself, I'm certain of it."
Syrus smiled and patted Thorgis's shoulder. "I took a less dramatic dive into the water, and I too felt as if something had guided me onto a rock. I clung to it until the storm passed."
"There's more at work than we know," Thorgis said. He pointed the torch into the passage. "I found an old campsite beyond this passage. We're not the first people here. There is still wood and oil within, and garbage from the last visitors."
"Then we should see what we can make of this place. Have you started a campfire yet? We should dry out these clothes and be ready for when the tide rises again. We have no provisions now."
Thorgis scowled and nodded. "That storm, I've never seen anything like it. What was it?"
"The Finger of Urdis," Syrus said. "Perhaps the god is jealous we are close to his secrets. He was the prime god of the First People, the Tsal. He shapes his finger into a destructive wind, and you've seen what it does. It is rare but not unheard of for Urdis to strike when he thinks no other god is watching."
"But ...," Thorgis closed his mouth and shook his head.
"What? Were you hurt after all?"
"No, but, I think Urdis himself might have descended in that storm."
Syrus's stomach burned at the thought. He believed the gods still watched their people, but for Urdis to walk the world again seemed impossible. No god walked the world any longer. Kafara and Turo had imitated the Great Shark during the war of the trolls, and that was as close to a god as anyone had seen in ages.
"Why would you think Urdis descended in the storm?"
Thorgis tilted his head and averted his eyes. He reached back with his free hand and touched the bottom of his father's sword. "When we were running from the storm, just before lightning blew me into the air, I looked back. A swirling cone of wind was eating the forest trees and I swear I saw the form of a man moving within it. A glow as bright as lightning filled it, and in that instant the shape was clear. Then I was blinded and thrown into the air."
The words echoed around the cave and neither Syrus nor Thorgis spoke. Syrus had no answer for this. At last he broke the silence. "Show me the campsite and then we will see about food."
The hall Thorgis led him through was wide and cool. The torchlight flowed across carvings on the walls of ancient runes and strange geometric patterns. The patterns seemed to writhe with the torchlight. While Thorgis seemed to ignore them, Syrus wished he could stop and examine them more closely. He imagined all the secrets such carvings might hold. He only now began to realize he was in a
place that had existed since the first age of the world, a time when the gods and their people were still young. Here wisdom and history lay hidden for millennia in the shadow of Avadur's grandest city. Had he only known!
They emptied into an even larger cavern with a sandy floor that had worn away in patches to reveal brown stone etched with more geometric patterns. High above, a crack in the ceiling allowed sunlight to spill inside. Perhaps these cracks had once been windows crafted by the original builders. Syrus searched the darkness above, circling in the dank, cool air of the vault. The ceiling must have been over a hundred feet high.
"The campsite is small, and in this corner," Thorgis said. "Mostly junk, but the firewood is welcomed. If I had my striking iron we could start a fire. We'll have to do it another way. I've only searched close by, so not sure what else might be here."
Syrus noticed an outcropping of rock with rough stairs worked into the side. It formed a natural stage that overlooked an empty stretch of cavern that shaded off into dark. Thorgis noted him studying it.
"I haven't been up there," he said, waving at the outcrop. "But beneath it there are old blood stains all lined up in rows, like something was there and had blood splashed over it."
As soon as Thorgis said the word, Syrus picked up the note of blood in the air. It had been a faint, disturbing scent that fought with the earthy odors of the cavern. His memory flashed again to the stories Grimwold had told of blood magic and Amator's creation of a troll army. Had this been the place where he performed such dark magic?
A sudden clank of metal echoed from beyond the hall they had just left. Syrus and Thorgis faced each other at the same time. Syrus's heart thundered in his chest, and he hoped that the sound was from some unnoticed artifact that had been disturbed and finally fallen.
The Children of Urdis (Grimwold and Lethos Book 2) Page 8
