Jane squealed with delight when she saw the shield lying next to me. “That’s perfect,” she said.
“It does fit your aesthetic, doesn’t it?”
“Oh, look at you with your big words.” She grinned at me. “That spear had better not be for you. You’ve had enough fun with spears for a while.”
“No, not for me.”
“Sig?” she asked, cocking her head in that way she had, the way that meant if I answered wrong, I’d be in for a talking-to.
“No, not for him, either.”
She shrugged and went back to looking at her pretty shield. She strapped it to her arm and pretended to clock me with it. “Yeah,” she murmured. “That’ll work good.”
We all laughed, even Kyellroona.
Everyone found something—even if it was only a bauble—except for the Alfar and Meuhlnir. Althyof jingled as we walked out of the cave, but he assured me he could still dance.
No one mentioned the scroll case, not even Jane.
With our goodies stowed away or put on, we returned to the main tunnel of the cave where Kuthbyuhrn awaited us. I approached the huge bear and put my hand on his furred shoulder. “Thank you, my friend.”
He chuffed through his nose. “Now, I have to thank you, to which you will thank me, which means I have to thank you… Perhaps, instead, we should agree we’ve helped one another, and we are both happy with the exchange.”
“Good idea,” I said around a lump in my throat. “I will miss your company.”
Kyellroona shuffled up to us. “I hope you, your mate, and your cub will come visit us again, Hank.”
“We’d enjoy that.” I grinned up at her. “I’m not sure when we will be able to—our lives are a tad up in the air at this point.”
“Uhrluhk,” she said and chuffed through her nose.
“Uhrluhk,” I agreed. “But when we are able, we’ll come back. I promise.”
“Good,” said Kuthbyuhrn. He shook his great, shaggy head. “But before you go, I need to warn you. The Great Forest of Suel lies beyond this cave entrance.”
“Yep, and it’s where we are heading. We plan on traveling north through the Forest, and farther north from there.”
Kuthbyuhrn clacked his teeth together and glanced at his mate. “That is…difficult to hear. The Great Forest of Suel has turned dark…evil. Inside the heart of the Forest itself, where sunlight never reaches, the plants and animals have…changed, and not for the better. No honorable animal resides inside that place—not anymore. Do you understand?”
“It is said the Forest and all that lies inside it is linked to the Dark Queen’s being, and that while it once reflected her purity and goodness, now it reflects the darkness that consumes her from within,” said Veethar. “Pardon me for eavesdropping.”
“No, not at all,” said Kyellroona. “It pleases us to speak to those who can speak to us.”
“And, Forest Lord, what you say is the right of it,” said Kuthbyuhrn. “It used to be an idyllic place, and we often enjoyed spending time there with our cubs. But now…”
“I understand,” I said. “We will be careful.”
“Please do,” said Kyellroona. “And watch your cub with sharp eyes. There are many things that attract a cub’s attention in the Great Forest of Suel, and all of them are lures to draw him away from his parents. Trees to climb. Hives that look ripe with honey. Dens in the ground that look warm and inviting.”
“We will watch him. He loves being around you, even if he can’t speak to you. He thinks you are both magnificent.”
Kyellroona made a burbling sound, somewhere between the thrum of an idling big rig and a lion’s purr and looked at Sig with a smile. “Please tell him we feel the same way,” she crooned.
“I will. Thank you—”
“We agreed…” said Kuthbyuhrn with a fang-filled bear smile.
“Yes. Uh… We appreciate being able to travel through your domain, the gifts, and the friendship.” Beside me, Veethar nodded and put his hand on my shoulder.
“Uhrluhk,” said Kuthbyuhrn and chuffed through his nose.
“Uhrluhk,” I said and raised my hand in parting. The two bears watched us go, waving a paw in a human-like fashion every time I glanced back at them over my shoulder. I emerged from their cave, into the artificial gloom of the Great Forest of Suel, with a lump in my throat.
Thirty-seven
A perpetual gloaming enshrouded the Great Forest of Suel. Branches and boughs from the crooked, black-barked trees twisted into a solid ceiling high above our heads. The trees twisted as they rose toward the sky so that there wasn’t a straight trunk in sight. Some had open, weeping gashes through their bark. Despite it being spring, fall leaves coated the ground in a thick carpet—far too thick to be from a single fall season.
Besides the noise we made—the jingle of harness and arms, the clop-clop of the horses’ hooves on the soft ground, and the occasional cough caused by the stench of the place—a combination of a butcher shop’s offal and a cesspit—silence reigned inside the Forest’s dark confines as if no animal sounds, no bird calls, no sound of wind cavorting amongst the trees dared disturb the eerie stillness. The canopy blocked all light from the sun—not a single ray of light penetrated it. It seemed to loom over us when we looked up, making for a low, cramped ceiling. The cave had felt more open and much more inviting.
Veethar’s face twisted in a perpetual scowl, and he spent his time muttering to himself, often using foul language in its strongest form. Everyone gave him a wide berth, even Frikka, and he rode ahead, glaring at the trees, the ground, the underbrush.
The animals walked about in an almost perpetual state of alarm. Keri and Fretyi whined, barked at the foul wind, or snarled at shadows almost constantly, and Slaypnir’s ears swiveled this way and that like frenetic radar dishes as he snorted and blew. No one spoke much, too busy concentrating on not turning around and galloping back to Kuthbyuhrn’s cave.
The trees hunched over us as if they leered at us and watched our progress. Crooked branches dipped from the canopy, like stalactites, like reaching, skeletal arms. The leaves underfoot compressed beneath the horses’ weight, but as they stepped away, the leaves sprang back, leaving no trace of our trail. I had the intuition that if we scraped away even a thin layer of those leaves, we’d find the corpses of animals or birds, or maybe thick, foul flesh, soaked in half-congealed black blood. Those were the kinds of thoughts the Great Forest of Suel inspired—dark, dreary, disconsolate.
When we broke off for the night, we set up camp in near silence, whispering only when we had to as if everyone were leery of waking something—or someone—up. Gathering enough wood for the evening’s fire took no time at all—there were fallen branches everywhere as though a monster storm had passed through a day before—but getting the fire lit turned out to be much more difficult. The black bark and red wood resisted flame. After the fire died for the fourth time, Meuhlnir pointed at it and growled, “Predna, damn you!” The fire burst into green and blue-tinged flames, and the smoke smelled like a slaughterhouse, but the fire stayed lit.
The fire did little to relieve the gloom—it almost made it seem worse. The five-hundred-pound weight of my exhaustion and pain settled on my shoulders. The puppies wouldn’t venture more than a yard away from me, whining and looking at me with alarmed eyes as if there was something I could do to make the Great Forest of Suel a nicer place. I dropped to a log next to the fire and petted the pups.
Althyof sank down next to me on the log. “This forest is dark like a cave, but I’ll tell you, I’d rather be back on that damn boat.”
I grunted my agreement, scratching Fretyi’s ears. Keri cocked his head at Althyof like he couldn’t understand how a Tverkr had snuck up on him.
Althyof picked up a stick.
“You don’t want to—”
He threw the stick, and Keri attacked his feet. Althyof chuckled—the closest any of us had come to laughing that day. “Got him trained up right, I see.”
>
“One does what one can,” I said and tried to grin.
“Are you going to tell me about the scroll?” he asked.
“What? Oh. Sure.” I tugged the scroll case around from my back and opened its clasp. I pulled out the scroll and handed it to the Tverkr runeskowld. “I looked at the first page but no further than that.”
Althyof unrolled the scroll and gave me a look, tapping his finger against the scroll a few times before rolling it back up and handing it to me.
“Well? What do you think?”
“Nothing,” he said. “The scroll is blank.”
My stomach dropped, and my mouth dried like a parched desert wind blew. “No!” I murmured. I unrolled the scroll until I saw the runes on the first page. “Not funny,” I muttered.
“Not meant to be,” he snapped. “I can see nothing written on that page.”
“What about these?” I asked pointing to the first line.
“Blank page. You can still see runes?” he asked, head cocked to the side, index finger tapping a rhythm on his thigh.
“Yes.”
He tilted his head back and looked up at the canopy above us. “You have a very rare thing in your hands, something I haven’t even heard about for ages.”
“Yeah?”
“I’ve never seen one before, personally, but what you have there is a puntidn stavsetninkarpowk.”
“Unless I misunderstood the usage, that means, ‘idiomatic grimoire,’ right?”
He pursed his lips and shrugged. “As good a translation as any, I suppose.”
“Okay, what does it mean?”
“It means that the kaltrar contained on that scroll belong to you, and only to you. I don’t know this for sure since I have no direct experience with the things, but my master taught me that the owner of a scroll such as that can’t even teach the kaltrar to another. They are yours, and yours alone, Hank.”
“When I read the first line, something forced me through the rest of the section. Runes popped into my mind like fireworks and seemed to cast themselves.”
“And the rhythm?” Althyof asked, staring at his palms.
“Yes, there was a rhythm to it.”
His favored me with a curt nod. “There you have it. When you read that first page, you bound the scroll to you—and only you.”
I looked down at the scroll in my hands. “And if I never read the rest of it?”
“Then you never do, and no one else does, either.” Althyof hitched his shoulders and brushed his hands together as if he were knocking dirt from his palms.
“Awesome,” I grumbled. “I’m leery of reading anything else. I don’t want it to suck me in and…I don’t know…release a plague or something.”
Althyof shook his head. “That isn’t what you should fear, Hank.”
“No?” I asked, eyebrows arched.
“No. What you should fear is that you are not ready for the kaltrar. Once you read it, you can perform it, or at least try to.”
“This gets better and better.”
Althyof nodded. “It might be better to put it away until you’ve mastered the craft. Don’t let it tempt you.”
I grunted and turned my attention back to scratching Fretyi’s ears. I swear if varkr could purr, he would have done it.
“Heed me, now, Hank. Put it from your mind, bury it deep in your pack and try not to focus on it. The temptation will be hard to resist—it will call to you, will seem to be the most reasonable solution in the world, but it will be the most dangerous until you’ve mastered the craft.”
“I hear you, Althyof. Believe me, I’ve had my fill of the mystical right about now.”
Althyof shrugged. “Okay, we’ll consider it settled for now. But promise me this: come to me before you attempt to read the next kaltrar. Let me judge whether you are ready.”
“Sure.”
Althyof regarded me with a solemn expression. “I hope you can resist its call.”
I shrugged, more than a little uncomfortable. Until he’d said anything, the scroll hadn’t weighed on me at all. In fact, I’d almost forgotten about it. But since he made such a big deal, there was a kernel of curiosity growing in my mind about the damn thing.
“It’s settled then.” He glanced around. “So…when are you going to ask me?”
“Ask you what?”
“To enchant the spear for Jane.”
“Is it that obvious?” I said with a grin. “I thought I was so sly.”
He shrugged and raised his eyebrows.
“It might be a good project for us to do together. This is what I want…” I sketched a series of runes in the black dirt between my feet.
“You will have to tell me about these dreams, Hank,” he whispered. “Rub that out. This isn’t the place to leave such things out in the open.” He hefted the spear and looked at me. “You are on the right track. Keep working on it. Once we leave this carnival of foulness, we can revisit the idea.” His stare lingered on my face, eyes flicking from feature to feature, and his expression was grim. A smile cracked his facade of disapproval. He made a show of nudging my arm with his elbow. “The worst that can happen is you blow yourself up.”
“Uh…”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to do it for you?” His eyes twinkled with mirth.
“Don’t make me sic Keri on your ankles again,” I said with a grin to match.
He held up his hands as if in surrender. “Anything but that! I like these socks.” He pulled up his leather pant legs to reveal one green and one blue sock. “It’s hard to find a matching set such as this in Nitavetlir.”
“Matching?” I asked. “You’re not colorblind, are you?”
“What? Green matches blue! I suppose you are the same as all those grumpy bastards back home…I suppose you think each sock should be the same color.”
“That’s the general idea, isn’t it?”
He smirked, thrusting out his chest. “Not if you have confidence! Not if you want to make a statement! Not if you are fearless!”
“Get him, Keri!” I said, and Keri growled his puppy best.
“Keri understands. That’s why he’s only growling rather than biting at my beautiful socks. Don’t you, Keri?” Keri cocked his head at the Tverkr, one ear flopping to the side, the other over his head. Althyof looked at me. “That’s varkr for yes.”
“If you say so.”
The Tverkr winked at me and left to go set up his bedroll.
“Well, what do you know?” I murmured, my hand going to the scroll case. For a moment, my hand tingled as if I were touching a live wire.
Yowrnsaxa served a cold supper that night, despite all the work that the foul-smelling fire had required. She said the fire didn’t burn hot enough to cook, and, if I’m honest, it didn’t burn hot enough to ward off the chill, either. But, then again, maybe the chill lived inside our minds rather than on the wind.
“How long will we be in this ugly place?” asked Sig, eyeing the darkness beyond the edge of the firelight.
“Five days, perhaps,” said Meuhlnir.
“Five days?” After he’d spoken, Sig’s face suffused with hot blood.
Yowtgayrr leaned over and grasped his shoulder. “It’s an unnatural place, Guardian of Victory. Don’t be ashamed of feeling uncomfortable here.”
“Why did you call me that?”
“It’s what Sigurd means,” I said.
“Oh. Why didn’t you tell me that before?” he asked, turning his best glare on me.
“I didn’t know.”
Veethar stood and stalked away from the fire.
“He feels it the most,” said Frikka. “He said the land itself has been corrupted. Nothing follows natural patterns here.”
“Let’s get through as fast as we can,” said Jane as she pulled me up, dragging me off to bed with a stern glance at our son and a chin-jerk toward his own bedroll.
If the Great Forest of Suel had been uncomfortable during the hidden daylight, at night it was downright gha
stly. The deformed trees creaked and moaned in a wind that never seemed to reach the ground. It took hours for me to fall asleep, and when I finally did, it was a restless, uncomfortable slumber.
Thirty-eight
A cold wind lifted my feathered body skyward, and I opened my wings, cupping them for maximal lift. I rose through the dark canopy of the Forest, sometimes passing right through thick branches.
Once I broke above the trees, the Great Forest of Suel stretched away toward infinity in every direction—as if the dark place had eaten the entire world. A cold fear settled in my guts.
I was alone in the sky—at least as far as my hawkish vision reached—and the only noise came from the persistent wind that bore me aloft. It was as if the world slept beneath the tight canopy of the trees and would never wake. I glanced down at the treetops, sure that monsters and creatures straight out of myth were staring up at me, but there was nothing and no one.
I called out, and my voice sounded like the rumbling crrruck of a crow or a raven. Onward I flew, flapping sable wings to gain extra speed. The wind picked up at the same time as if it understood that I wanted to go faster.
I soared over the treetops, heading north, alone in a world of trees. I wondered if this was how Alfhaym looked from the air.
In moments, I reached the sea to the north—the Stormur Syow as Meuhlnir named it. Thanks to my recent knowledge of the Gamla Toonkumowl, I now knew what that meant: Tempest Sea. Given the dark, angry clouds hanging over the water, it was well-named.
Looking down, my eyes traced the edges of a safe harbor—a large, protected bay the shape of a three-leaf clover. Below me, moored at docks, or anchored in the bay proper, bobbed thousands of dragon ships, and onshore staggered and lurched thousands of troops from multiple races: Svartalfar, demons, men, trolls. Most seemed drunk, or otherwise intoxicated by whatever means suited them.
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