Beasts of the Frozen Sun

by Jill Criswell

  It was too much—expose Madoc, get to Ghost Village, find Garreth, free the Daughters of Aillira, save my island from the Dragon. I was one girl, and not even a warrior. How could I accomplish such feats? But how could I live with myself if I didn’t try?

  Quinlan tipped his head back. “Gwylor help us,” he prayed.

  I thought of the ruins, of Aillira dying from an adder bite and Veronis rotting in his prison-realm.

  Help us? No. Gwylor wouldn’t.

  REYKER

  The ship rocked beneath him. Reyker closed his eyes, breathing in the briny air, tasting salt on his tongue. His mind returned him to a place he did not want to go: Lira, strung up like a carcass, blood flowing down her back. I feel every blow as if it is my own flesh being torn. I cannot move. I cannot get to her. All I can do is add my scream to hers.

  Reyker’s eyes snapped open. Waves rolled across the dark ocean plains, smacking into the hull. He stretched his sea legs, moving as nimbly on the pitching ship as he could on land. The cog was taller and wider than the knarrs and longships he was accustomed to. He circled the upper decks again, checking the riggings, squinting at the stars to ensure their course was true. Trying to keep his head clear, but the image was always there, lurking—Lira, bound and bleeding.

  He pressed his hand to the silver medallion hanging over his heart.

  I’ll come back for you, Lira, army or no.

  They were headed northwest, to Iseneld. It would take a few more days to reach, even with the wind in their favor, but he felt his homeland calling. As he drifted farther from Lira, his only solace was being closer to home.

  The other men on deck watched Reyker warily. They’d left him unchained but allowed him no weapons. Wherever he went, an armed man followed. His constant pacing unnerved them. When he spoke in their language, they stared like he was some sort of demon trying to steal their souls.

  This alliance wouldn’t work. Not if the clans of Glasnith and Iseneld couldn’t trust each other. How could such enemies ever become allies?

  It was the next day when they spotted the other ship, just a speck on the horizon behind them. They watched the ship creep closer as the sun slid lower, the blue veil of night casting a pall across the wide expanse of sea. The ship’s silhouette faded to a shadowy smudge, but by this time they knew it was following them.

  “One of yours?” the other men asked suspiciously.

  Reyker shook his head. He knew the look of his people’s vessels, the patterns they made cutting through water. Even with darkness and distance, he could tell this one was different.

  “No innocent fishing boat, that,” said the Selkie warrior, who had spent the voyage looking far too green for a man who lived beside a maelstrom. “Rovers?”

  “Not this far out,” Reyker told them. “There are no close shores yet, nothing but islets with hermit priests. Marauders wouldn’t venture such a great distance from settled lands.”

  “It’s a caravel,” said the warrior from the Hounds of Vengeance later, when the ship drew close enough to make out its three towering masts and triangular sails. The others murmured in nervous admiration. “No wonder they caught us.”

  A long spur was rigged at the waterline on the enemy ship’s prow. The caravel pulled abreast of the cog, two dozen men scrambling across its deck, fumbling with the sails so it turned into the cog’s broadside. The ship headed straight for them, gaining speed.

  “Assassins.”

  They’d all been thinking it, but when Reyker spoke the word aloud the other warriors stood up straighter, fingers on their swords. Readying for a battle that would likely send them to their graves. They were fifteen men in a smaller, slower ship.

  “Well, invader.” This warrior was from the Cast of Hawks or Kettle of Vultures or something of that nature—these men took such pride in their silly mascots. “Suppose we’ll have need of your skills.” He handed Reyker a sword.

  Reyker looked into the man’s face, bowing slightly before accepting the weapon. This was how you made allies out of enemies. Unite them against a common adversary.

  The caravel was bearing down on them. “Hold on!” Reyker called.

  They braced for collision. The caravel’s spur rammed the cog with the grating sound of shivering wood. The force of the impact was like smashing into rocks, knocking both ships off course. Reyker and the other men were thrown hard against the bulwark. When he picked himself up, Reyker saw the two ships were stuck together. Men from the caravel scaled the gunwale, shields and weapons drawn.

  “Mercenaries,” the Selkie snarled when he saw them. “The Ravenous. Filthy cannibals.”

  Reyker had overheard tales of the mercenary clans from the Sons of Stone. He’d seen some of them at the conclave, but none who looked like these men. The warriors boarding their cog had long beards and were dressed in leather vests and woolen kilts. Their heads were shaved and painted with bright red stripes that looked like blood. They carried scythes instead of swords.

  Reyker and the rest of his crew raised their weapons, rushing forward to meet the Ravenous head-on. They fought side by side, crossing blades with the enemy.

  The black river rippled through Reyker, keeping him focused. He sliced a man’s throat. Pierced another’s heart. Kicked one over the gunwale, the man’s body slamming into the small gap between ships before sinking beneath the water. But for each mercenary who fell, another rose. There were too many. Reyker’s companions died around him.

  He was defending a strike from above by one mercenary as a second man sliced a blade across his leg. A third snuck behind him, smashing the handle of a scythe against his skull.

  His grip loosened. His sword was knocked away. He was shoved, pinned down.

  The Ravenous traversed the decks, pouring containers of foul-smelling liquid across the planks. One man stood out among them, his posture rigid, his mouth a grim line in his weathered face. The other men saluted as they walked past, calling him captain.

  “Toss the bodies on our ship,” the captain said. “We’ll have a feast on our sail home.”

  The mercenaries laughed. Two of them yanked Reyker to his feet. “What about this one, Captain?”

  “It’s no good eating frost giants. They taste like a frozen pig’s arse.” The captain spit, drawing his scythe. “I’ve a message for you, beast. From Lord Madoc.”

  The scythe stabbed into Reyker’s chest.

  He drew a hissing breath. Blood flowed from the wound, splashing across Lira’s medallion. The captain ripped out the blade and tore the rope from Reyker’s neck, holding up the bloodstained circle of silver. “We’ll make sure this is returned to its rightful owner. Torin’s sweet little daughter can wear it as she warms the Dragon’s bed.”

  A growl burst from Reyker’s throat as he barreled forward, breaking free from the men holding him, slamming into the captain. They landed in a sprawl and Reyker rose, pressing his knee over the captain’s throat.

  Mercenaries dragged him back. The captain sat up, touching his tender throat. “Tie him up,” he said. “Let the frost giant burn.”

  Sulfur and oil, some devilish incendiary—that was what he’d smelled before, what the mercenaries had doused the decks with. The last mercenary off the cog set it alight, and the flames spread quickly, crawling from bow to stern, engulfing sail and mast. The smoke was suffocating. Reyker used his teeth to work his hands free from the hastily tied knots that bound him to the railing. With no other options, he vaulted over the gunwale into the water.

  The cold cut deep, like diving into broken glass. He unlaced his boots, relinquishing them to the sea. The caravel had detached itself from the disabled ship and was gone. The cog was now a sinking mass of blackened timbers and shuddering flames, lighting the dark with an eerie orange glow, like a colossal funerary candle.

  Reyker treaded water, sputtering, each breath causing spasms of pain. For the first
time since he’d left Iseneld with the Dragonmen, he called upon his gods. All-God Sjaf, guardian of the sea. Velkk, champion of warriors. Efra, goddess and protector of young lovers. Help me, he prayed.

  He waited, but no answer came.

  The steaming vessel disappeared below the waves. Lost in this vast darkness, with nothing but the winking stars for company, Reyker was as alone as any man had ever been. He had faced death before, and in those moments he had longed for it, or accepted it, or, at most, held it at arm’s length. But now, he raged.

  “You will not leave me here to die!” he told the gods. “When Draki is dead and the world is safe, you can have me, but you will not take me this night.”

  He forced his arms to slide through the water, forced his legs to kick, even though there was nowhere to swim to. Above, the green and violet lights of the sky-well flickered to life, mocking him; he’d been so close to standing on his home shores.

  Reyker pressed a hand to his chest wound, where the medallion had been.

  Lira.

  He stared into the lights of creation, the realms from whence his ancestors came, and an image flared across the sky—Reyker, standing in a storm, crossing swords with Draki. His unfinished destiny.

  His muscles cramped, so numb he no longer felt the cold.

  As if the veil between life and death had lifted, specters drifted along the water in a slim longship, drawing closer, their bone-white fingers reaching for him. He prepared to fight them with his last dregs of strength. “You cannot take me. I will not die here,” he told them.

  “No,” a specter replied. “You will not.”

  My chest throbs. I’m freezing, shivering, my blood flowing into the sea in dark red clouds.

  I woke up gasping.

  Something was wrong. Something had happened. The dream was too real—it had felt the same as being inside Reyker’s soul. Was he lost, hurt? Or worse?

  I opened my mind, reaching for him across the distance …

  Finding nothing.

  One week slipped by, and then another.

  Bit by bit, I healed and grew stronger.

  I tried to convince myself that the unsettling dream of Reyker was the product of worry, nothing more. Quinlan had left, promising to return soon to help me escape from Stony Harbor, into the Green Desert. In the meantime, I’d spent my days watching Madoc’s comings and goings as discreetly as I could, but he’d done nothing suspicious yet.

  Eventually, the chieftain deigned to visit me.

  “I heard your health had improved,” he said. For some reason Torin wore a suit of chain mail over his tunic. I thought of how he’d argued with himself while he’d whipped me and wondered how much his madness had worsened.

  I sat tall in my chair. “What do you want?” I couldn’t look at him without seeing the knout in his hand. It sent fresh pinpricks through the flesh of my back.

  “I …” He stopped, glancing around the room as if surprised at where he was. His face twitched and he bent over, gripping his knees. “I’ve done terrible things. I hurt you, Lira. I know that. I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t stop.”

  His voice changed. The cold confidence was gone. His eyes were wide, the deep brown of molasses, with no hint of black vines.

  “Father?”

  “I only wanted to protect our clan, to protect you and Garreth. At the Culling, Gwylor showed me who I must be, what I must do.”

  “Father, listen to me.” There was no telling how long he would be free of the darkness. I had to get through to him. “Madoc sent weapons south to the mercenary clans to bribe them. He’s plotting to overthrow you. You must lock him up before it’s too late.”

  “I can’t.” He stared at his hands. “Every man has an instinct for wickedness—a desire to take whatever he wants, to crush all who defy him. Good men can suppress it, but once it’s free, there’s no shoving it back in its cage. That’s what the Culling did to me.”

  “You can fight it.” He was Torin of Stone, our greatest commander, the strongest man among us. I put my hands over his. “I’ll help you.”

  “Oh, Lira. You’ve no idea. The power. The control. I …” Father’s face reddened with shame, but when he spoke, there was joy. “I like it.”

  “You like it?” My fingers clenched into fists. “Attacking your children. Burning our home. Making me your hostage. All because you like feeling powerful?” My voice rose from a whisper to a shout. “A good man would fight it. A good man would never stop fighting.”

  His chin dipped. “You’re right. And now you know.” When he lifted his head, black thorns crowned his pupils. “Deep down, your father was never a good man.”

  I sifted through memories of Father, sitting with my brothers and me beside the hearth, teaching us legends of our gods and ancestors, riding through the forest with us. He wasn’t perfect, but he’d loved us. He was a good man.

  Or had he pretended all along?

  “If you give in to the god of death, then you are not my father! You’re nothing but a weak, broken coward who failed your clan and your family.”

  His face, his eyes—they were as expressionless as a corpse. What would it look like, if I dared to touch his soul? Would there be any trace left of the man I’d known, or would I find only Gwylor’s strings, wrapped too tightly around Torin to ever release him?

  “Your disdain should mean something to me,” he said, “but it doesn’t.”

  He left without another word.

  Too angry to cry, too restless to stay here, I strapped my knife on beneath my skirt and walked to the cells, where I’d sought solace each day since discovering Reyker was gone. The cell seemed to hold his scent, just as the dirt floor held the imprint of his body where he’d slept so many nights. I lay next to it, stroking my fingers through the dirt. I whispered my hopes and fears, as if he could hear me.

  Where are you, my wolf?

  When I woke, it was dark. Hours must have passed. I sat up, blinking, startled to find Madoc standing on the other side of the grate, holding an oil lantern.

  “Dear, sweet Lira. You couldn’t have played your part more perfectly if I’d written it for you myself.” Madoc’s eyes were black pits amidst the shadowed lines of his face.

  Outside, I heard the rumblings of a coming storm.

  “What are you talking about?” I tightened my cloak around me.

  “When I convinced Torin to let you teach the beast our language and instructed your escorts to leave you alone in the cells with him, I never imagined how quickly your sickness for each other would grow. Or how thoroughly it would distract your father. The look on Torin’s face when I presented his precious deflowered daughter was priceless. For that, I’d have let you live. You are my blood, distasteful as that fact may be. But you had to tell Torin that I conspired against him.”

  I had left the grate open, but now it was shut. I pushed it.

  Locked.

  “Where’s my father?”

  “I convinced Torin to march the Sons of Stone to Stalwart Bay, to help the bay clans launch an attack on the invaders. Unfortunately, they’ll never arrive. A legion of Dragonmen awaits them in the Green Desert with orders to leave no survivors.”

  “What?” Panic fluttered its wings beneath my breast. “You sent them to a slaughter! How could you betray your own people?”

  “I only want what’s best for my island.” Madoc opened the collar of his tunic. “Would you like to see what else I’ve done?”

  He grabbed my hand and jerked it through the bars, placing it against his chest. I didn’t want to look, but I had to.

  I sank into Madoc’s soul.

  The inside of his soul was a massive castle, its walls lined with spikes—heads were impaled on each spike, wearing the faces of the Sons of Stone. The iron portcullis protecting the castle shuddered and rose. Out of the depths of Madoc’s soul s
lithered deeds and whispers, swarming around me like wasps, so fast I could hardly absorb them.

  His sins spread out before me: bribes, theft, blackmail. Using Dyfed to smuggle weapons. Feeding Torin’s fragile, ravaged mind with disastrous lies. There were so many misdeeds it was hard to focus, though I saw the threads knotting together, how so many of them led back to manipulating his way into an alliance with the mercenary clans.

  One crime stood out from the others like a flare at night, like Madoc wanted me to pay close attention to it. A command he’d dispatched: Sink the ship.

  I snatched my hand away and the castle disappeared. “What ship?”

  Madoc held something aloft. A medallion. “I told the mercenaries to bring me proof the deed was done.”

  The world tilted. I braced a hand against the grate to keep from falling. “No.”

  He tossed the medallion in front of the bars, and I scooped it up. The rope was broken. Blood had drained into the carving and dried there, staining it the color of the real thorntree. Another flash came to me, from the medallion itself. The image ripped through me: A blade slides into a man’s chest. Pain. His heart’s blood, spilling forth.

  Just like in my dream.

  Reyker. My wolf. My love.

  “No!” A crack of thunder punctuated my cry. My heart twitched like a dying animal.

  “I couldn’t have your beast complicating things. I already forged a deal with the Dragon.” Another sound rose beneath the growling storm: distant, muffled screams. “The beasts will do what they do best. Burn. Kill. Destroy. Stony Harbor will blaze so brightly the Sons of Stone will see the flames as they’re massacred. They’ll die knowing everything they love is gone.”