But still, without examining the slowthar in detail, I’d never understand who they belonged to. But getting a sense of the physicality of the individual: height and weight was easy. Their self-image, perhaps.
That helped—at least I didn’t spend a bunch of time trying to track Yowtgayrr or a random female frost giant. Gazing around, focusing on racial type and height alone, I found the slowthar of another male Isir.
“I think I have him,” I said. “I’ve got to look deeper to make sure it’s the right Luka, though.”
“Are you sure this is the right Niflhaymr?” asked Jane.
“Yes. I cut the proo back through time to the point right after we departed. I could still catch a whiff of your hair when I arrived.”
“Oh. Well, I hope that’s a good thing.”
“As I am contractually obligated to say, you are perfect, dear, and so is your hair’s scent.”
“Aren’t you also contractually obligated to wash my dirty socks?”
“Let’s not get all crazy. Let’s not get all carried away with the joy of my success as a psychic bloodhound.”
“Speaking of that,” said Althyof. “Can we get back to it?”
“Yeah.” I turned back to the slowthar and focused on the one that belonged to an Isir male that wasn’t me. I skimmed its surface, and without meaning to, I thought about the events that had taken place on Roanoke Island, about how easy it had been to be there as the events unrolled. Luka was always so devoted to Hel… He seemed oblivious to how she used him, how she treated him. Everyone knew love was blind, but even so, his devotion to her had always struck me as so…excessive.
I dipped into the slowthar—and that was the sensation of it: dipping my cupped hand into a stream of running water—and tasted the first memory I encountered.
I grimaced. “It’s Luka, all right.”
“You can track him?” asked Jane.
I meant to answer her, but a set of images in the stream drew my complete attention—images depicting Hel in a rage…
Twenty-two
The queen fumed, fury wafting off her like the shimmer of heat from desert sand. She paced back and forth—a tigress testing the limits of her cage.
“My Queen,” he said. “Come and rest. There’s nothing we can do—”
“Don’t you think I know that, Luka?” she snapped, whirling to face him. “Hadn’t you considered that I know we’ve lost this war?” She flung her hands up and out, toward the besieged city gates. “Can I not hear the assault on my gates? Do I not know my army lies broken on the plains beyond?”
“I didn’t mean to—”
“No,” she sneered. “No one ever does, and yet here we are.” She stomped her foot. “Where is the damn smith? Has he overcome his natural stupidity?”
“I’ll go see, my Queen,” said Luka. He left the throne room, barely keeping his sigh a quiet one. Unhappy bitterness seemed to govern Suel’s moods these days—ever since Meuhlnir and his ilk had split away in open rebellion. That would upset anyone, he thought. But she seems upset by more than that. He strode through the halls, his long legs carrying him at a rapid pace to the smithy he’d had built near the dungeons.
Vuhluntr was a proud man, but the queen would have her bespoke sword, and Luka was going to get it for her, even it if meant Vuhluntr died on its completion.
He reached Vuhluntr’s cell and rattled the bars with both hands. The smith was sleeping! Anger burned in Luka’s veins akin to Greek fire atop water: unquenchable, unstoppable. “Get up!” he screamed.
Vuhluntr rolled to face him, his face slack, serene. “What is it?”
“The sword! Have you finished it?”
Vuhluntr yawned and blew a raspberry. “My marriage? Has it happened?”
Luka scoffed. “That ship has sailed, Master Smith. Around the same time I hamstrung you and gifted you with those scars on your back for your impertinence.”
Vuhluntr shrugged. “And yet you demand what I was to give you as if the deal is still in force.” He swung his legs out of bed and sat up, glaring at Luka. “It isn’t!” he hissed. “I will fulfill no part of the previous deal, but remember you and she broke the terms!”
“Is it so?” asked Luka in a deceptively mild voice. “You would have us wed Freya to you against her wishes? You would have a wedding night by rape?”
Vuhluntr scoffed. “She would have done her duty if her sister truly desired it. But the queen didn’t, did she? She promised whatever I asked, hoping I would complete the sword before I discovered her deception.”
Luka smiled, but it felt ugly on his lips. He snapped his fingers at the guard, and with the cell door unlocked, swept inside and grabbed Vuhluntr by the jaw, lifting the brute of a man off his small cot without effort. “Banter.” Luka spat onto the filthy floor. “Negotiations have ended.”
“Is that what we were doing?” mused Vuhluntr.
“Now is the time for work, Smith. She will have her sword. You will forge that sword, and you will finish it tonight.”
Vuhluntr hung limply from Luka’s one-handed grip. “No, I don’t think I will.”
Luka pulled the man’s face close to his. “There are worse things than being hamstrung and jilted.”
“Many, I’m sure,” murmured Vuhluntr. “But none of them will force me to forge a great work for your queen.”
“My queen? She’s your queen as well, worm!” Luka’s anger took hold of him, and he dashed the smith to the cobbled floor. His boot arced out and connected with Vuhluntr’s belly. “You will forge the sword,” he hissed. “You will do it tonight, or I will serve you to the queen for breakfast.”
The icy calm had burned off Vuhluntr’s face, and fear crept into its place. “You… You wouldn’t dare break the Ayn Loug.”
Luka grinned a lupine grin. “Have you not heard, Vuhluntr?”
“Huh-heard what?”
“Oolfur,” whispered Luka, and his grin stretched wider. The prayteenk dug its claws into his flesh, but it was almost pleasurable now. He arched his back against the pain caused by the rapid growth of his bones. He grimaced as fangs pushed his human teeth from his jaw, and he slurped his own blood as if it were a fine wine. His perspective changed: Vuhluntr was smaller, farther away; he had to bend forward and still his back scraped against the cell’s ceiling, his arms felt long and spindly, but the claws at the ends of his fingers felt perfect. He traced the edge of Vuhluntr’s jaw with one cold talon, leaving a slick trail of blood in its wake.
The feeling of the oolfur form struck him as tantamount to godhood—real godhood. Powerful beyond measure, an unstoppable force dedicated to the queen’s service. With a bark-like grunt, he snatched Vuhluntr’s ankle and dragged him to the smithy, flinging him toward the anvil. One-handed, he scooped up what would be a double-shovelful of fuel for the forge and slapped it into the combustion chamber.
With a snarl, he jerked Vuhluntr to his feet and shoved him toward his Tverkar-forged smithing tools. Luka pointed at the mound of coal and forced the word “predna” through his tortured throat. Flame leapt toward the ceiling but died back almost before the sound of the word had faded from the air.
Vuhluntr wiped his hand across his bloody face, wincing when he brushed against his nose. “Why do you do this?” he asked. “Why do you go to such lengths?”
Luka growled deep in his chest. He didn’t want to answer such questions, especially not when asked by a peasant such as Vuhluntr. He didn’t even want to remember what he’d already done for her, let alone what he would do. What he felt for Queen Suel…the power of his feelings overshadowed everything else in his life. Her happiness defined his life now, everything else was inconsequential.
Vuhluntr shrugged and picked up a lump of iron, scrutinizing it. He slid the metal into the hottest part of the fire. “Not much to do until that gets hot,” he muttered, darting a glance up at Luka’s mongrel face. He flopped a hand in Luka’s direction. “You’ve made your point. You could at least offer me some conversation.”
Luka snarled, but truth to tell, being fifteen feet tall inside a place built for humans lacked certain comforts. “Mathur,” he growled and prepared himself to suffer through the prayteenk for the second time in ten minutes.
Vuhluntr watched him change, his eyes darting back and forth from Luka’s face to his snapping joints, to the pile of wolf fangs accumulating at his feet. “How can you stand that?” he asked.
Luka grunted. “Each change takes a significant amount of energy. I grow hungry, Smith.” He cast a baleful, meaningful glance at Vuhluntr. “If I have to make another change soon, I might not wish to control my hunger.”
Vuhluntr blenched and took a half-step back, but an expression of bravado settled onto his features in place of the blanch. “You can’t kill me, sir. Who would make your precious sword if you did?”
Luka let a wolfish smile crack his face and a ferocious light burn in his eyes. “I don’t have to kill when I dine.” He chuckled as Vuhluntr paled even more and pointed at the man’s left thigh. “For example, it strikes me that with a stool, you could work metal without the benefit of that leg.”
Vuhluntr turned away and made a show of checking the fire and the lump of iron inside it. He strode around to the opposite side of the forge and pumped one of the twin bellows-bags with each hand in an alternating rhythm. “I’m rather fond of my limbs,” he said without meeting Luka’s gaze.
“And I’m rather found of Queen Suel’s happiness,” grated Luka. “See to it we are both pleased with your results.”
“Did you know the attack on the city would happen with such speed?”
Luka shook his head. “She misled us—the woman you wanted to marry.”
“And how is the beautiful Freya?”
“Suffering for her deception.”
Vuhluntr met his gaze at last. “I hope you will not allow the marring of her beauty?”
Luka smiled crookedly. “Still interested? After all this?”
Vuhluntr shrugged. “I’ve never begrudged forging the queen a sword as she describes. I love the work. This is a payment dispute, and that’s all.”
“A payment dispute,” chuckled Luka. “Make sure your work pleases us and perhaps something will be worked out. The queen is less…interested…in what her sister wants at this time.”
Vuhluntr nodded and checked the lump of now glowing iron again. “Almost ready to begin,” he said.
Luka nodded, but his mind had already turned from the conversation. It didn’t interest him much, outside of being a way to add a touch of happiness to the queen’s life. He tried to recall the point when Suel’s mood had changed for the worst. Her personality had taken on a darker cast, ever since the initial conversations between Luka, Suel, and Vowli that had led to the breaking of the Ayn Loug, but her mood had remained positive until sometime during the war.
At the start of the war, she’d been the same mischievous, fun woman. The pranks they’d played—on Vowli, on Meuhlnir, on the rebels…they had shown the queen’s underlying happiness in a lousy situation. But those teasing moments had grown fewer and fewer and had stopped altogether at some point, and Luka had missed the reason.
“…does she want it that way? The design seems so…so specific.”
“What?” Luka shook his head. “Oh. A Svartalf runekastari named Ivalti provided the description. He will enchant the blade after you’ve finished. She told him what she wanted, and he told her what it would take.”
“And what was it she wanted this blade to do?”
Luka narrowed his eyes at the smith and pursed his lips. “Why should I discuss the queen’s wants with you?”
Vuhluntr shrugged. “You needn’t. But as a craftsman, it might help me ensure the success of the blade if I understand its intended uses.”
Luka grinned and glanced down at the flames. “This war tears our land apart. Divides our people. Over what? Over an ancient law the purpose—the very meaning—of which has been lost over the centuries. The two armies equal one another in all essential aspects, being as they are, made up of close to equal numbers of Isir and complementary armies of the other races.” Luka looked at the man shrewdly. “I’ll tell you something only the queen’s most trusted advisors know. But I warn you, Vuhluntr! No one knows this, so if it gets out, I will know where the leak is, and I will plug that leak.”
Vuhluntr nodded.
“We can’t beat them.” Luka laughed at Vuhluntr’s expression. “It’s okay, though. They can’t beat us, either. It’s a stalemate, but a stalemate that will drive this culture to ruins, exhausting Osgarthr’s resources, driving the Isir race to near extinction.” Luka paused and sucked in a breath. Could that be it? Could the moment Suel realized we were dooming the Isir by fighting this war be the moment where the dark bitterness began to fester?
“Ah,” said Vuhluntr. “It’s ready.” He withdrew the lump of glowing iron from the fire using long silvery tongs that almost glowed in the firelight. Holding the lump still, he thwacked it with a hammer made from the same shiny metal as the tongs. Sparks flew, and the iron morphed, to take on a smoother, more blade-like shape. Even after only one blow of the smith’s hammer, the lump was less of a lump and more of a rough blade shape. “You were saying?”
“A dilemma faces the queen—one that has no answer: allow the dissidents to do as they please, lock the Isir into a pointless conflict that will only culminate when no more Isir remain to fight, or abdicate her throne and allow everything she’s built to fall to ruin.”
“Yes,” muttered Vuhluntr as he drove the silvery hammer into the iron once more. “But how will the sword help?”
Luka chuckled. “I’d thought that part would be obvious.”
The smith shrugged.
“Here’s a hint: we will name the sword Kramr.”
Again, the smith shrugged.
“Ah,” breathed Luka. “Sometimes I forget you karls don’t learn the Gamla Toonkumowl. The name means ‘wrath.’”
“I see,” said Vuhluntr as he rained hammer blows down on the iron, whose shape was becoming that of a fine longsword with a rapidity that amazed Luka.
“I will use it to decapitate the rebel snake. With it, I will kill my brother, Meuhlnir.”
Vuhluntr’s gaze darted up to Luka’s face before slipping back down to his work.
“That should upset me?” snarled Luka.
“No. I care nothing about such things, Lord. I’m here to forge a sword, not to comment on its use.”
“Is that so?” snapped Luka. Why does this man infuriate me? he asked himself. Why should I care what he thinks? He’s a karl for Isi’s sake, and a mercenary one at that…selling his skills to whoever will pay him the most.
“Yarl Luka,” said the smith between hammer blows, “I make weapons of war. Weapons for taking lives. I’ve made weapons for assassins, for generals, for kings and queens. I know what my work facilitates. If it bothered me, I’d make jewelry.”
Luka scoffed and turned away, but the man’s words made sense. Why does it seem everyone is judging me in this? Am I to live forever in the shadow of Paltr’s death? Forever known as no better than a fratricide? He shook his head. Does anyone think that except me?
Behind him, the hammer blows continued to ring on the iron lump. Vuhluntr’s breath rasped in his throat. “You work fast, once you start,” said Luka.
“Indeed,” gasped the smith. “I must work while the ore is suitably malleable. That’s a secret few master smiths will utter.” The hammer blows stopped, and the iron rasped as it slid back into the grate holding the fire. “Many smiths of lesser quality push the limits of malleability, but the Tverkar taught me it’s better to reheat more often than to gain a few extra hammer blows on increasingly brittle metal.”
“Indeed?”
“Yes. The trick to evaluating a smith—even before you’ve seen his finished product—is to assess the color of the glow left in the ore when he returns it to the fire. It should be the color of old blood. Anything else and the smith is le
ss than a master to my eye. Red, the metal is still hot enough to work. No glow left, and the metal is far too cool and will yield a more brittle product.”
“What color was the iron when you returned it to the fire?”
“Blood red, of course.”
“Of course,” murmured Luka. “How long?”
“Until I’m finished?” asked the smith.
“Yes, until you finish your work.” Luka turned back to the smith so he could watch his expression.
The smith shrugged. “It goes well. I will finish the rough shape of the blade with this subsequent heating. I will form the tang, as well. The heating after that will yield a folded, sharper blade. Do you have the material for the crossbar? If I heat it now, I can work it while the blade regains color.”
Luka grunted. “You make it sound as if you will finish this tonight.”
Vuhluntr nodded. “I will, except for polishing the blade and adding the gold inlays.”
“Why lay up in the dungeon for weeks if you could have finished the sword in a day or two?”
The smith smiled. “My Tverkr master taught me to never work if the payment was in dispute. It’s a policy that has served me well in the past.”
Luka turned cold, merciless eyes on the smith’s face. “Do we need to discuss that again?”
“No, Yarl,” said Vuhluntr. “We will proceed knowing that the Lady Freya is again within these walls and that the queen is less…tolerant…of her sister’s views on marriage.”
“Very well,” said Luka. “Finish your work.” He motioned for a guard to take his place and left the smithy behind, long legs consuming the distance between the dungeon and the palace proper in the space of a few breaths. This will please Suel, he thought.
Twenty-three
The memory left me a little shaken, to be honest. I wasn’t used to thinking of Luka as a man swayed by his emotions—except maybe his rage. That worry about Hel would so consume Luka shocked me a little. That he felt pangs of guilt about the murder of Paltr, and about the plan to murder Meuhlnir. “Strange,” I muttered.
Blood of the Isir Omnibus Page 117
