Sons of Ymir

by Alaric Longward

  They looked incredulous at the words.

  “Never,” said the scar-faced jotun. “Never in a million years. How could she?”

  I lifted small bit of wood. I whispered words and struck it on the ground. Grinlark was there, proud and tall, and I showed the Black Grip. “The enemy is moving. Your kin betrayed you, like mine did. It is time we build something worthy, together. Grinlark is yours. And the Black Grip is mine.” I pulled Opar’s head from the bag and dropped it before them. “I am your king, Asra is your queen. And, together, we shall find a cause worth following.”

  “What cause is that,” a female asked, her red hair swaying as she shook it. “We came here as mercenaries. We came here to serve Hel, and perhaps our gods. We took the north and lost it. Should we fight to save it? Should we truly save the humans? Should we fight for riches?”

  “We shall fight,” I said simply, “for jotuns. We shall fight like jotuns fight, and we shall be unnecessarily cruel. I have a plan. It will likely kill all of us.”

  They stood still, silent. Then, the scar-face took a step forward. “If Asra agrees, we agree. But she had better agree, then, we say yea. They have been whispering of Opar, and his dark thoughts. If the plan is one that will get us killed?” He spat. “That’s the kind we like.”

  I smiled. “Listen.”

  ***

  Later, I flew along the coast, then over the sea, and finally, seeing the Blight, the mountains cutting deep into the sea, I found a beach where I landed.

  I fell in the shallows, and then, dragging myself up, I finally found some peace, holding my belly, which was … moving.

  I sat on the sand and admired the Black Grip. I searched it for an answer to my pain, the poison coursing in my veins, and laughed bitterly at the thought of my victorious dance after I killed the dragon. I had failed, and I had succeeded, and I would still die, unless something saved me.

  I touched my throat and winced at the pain.

  I sought for another answer in the Black Grip.

  There were still none. If my plan worked, and things were as I had seen, I might have a chance. It would call for good timing, bravery, jotuns, dverger, and betrayal. I would be a jotun, and for a moment, the thought made me happy, free of doubt, and fears.

  I fell asleep, and in the morning, I saw our fleet rowing past for north.

  It was the day the enemy would take Mara’s Brow.

  It was the day I’d live, or die.

  CHAPTER 18

  The fleet was soggy and weather-beaten. There were armored throngs of men and women huddling on the decks, everyone miserable with cold and hunger. There were people of shattered villages, sacked towns, captured cities. There were seven thousand of them, and my nearly two thousand dverger. Some of the people had been left in the villages along the way, too sick, or the boats too leaky to go on.

  Not one of them should be there. They had suffered too much.

  But humans were my meat, and I cared not.

  We were lucky no enemy fleet of fighting ships had seen them.

  Galleys would have stopped the transports and would have driven them to the rocks, but Rhean and Balic’s plans had not considered a rabble of rag-tag soldiers beating their legions in the south.

  We had a chance.

  Thrum and Nima were on deck of a blue galley and pointed a finger my way. I hid the bite-marks on my arm and got up, feeling pain in my gut. I lifted my gauntlet to the sky, and they greeted their king, banging on the shields. I waded out to the water and got pulled on deck.

  Nima looked at me and shook her head. “You never look rested, Maskan.”

  “I’ll rest in my grave, unless I get raised. Asra?” I asked. They blinked. “Quiss?”

  “Below,” said Thrum. “She’s still in the net. Gets irascible when you try to feed her. No trouble otherwise.”

  I chuckled and made my way below.

  “What is the situation?” Nima called out, joined by Hal and the generals of the army.

  I stopped, midway down. “We must get there fast. There is …” I began and didn’t know what to tell them of the great terrible army of draugr marching to Ygrin. Instead, I spoke of the immediate battle. “There are over fifteen thousand enemy making a diversion on Falgrin. Crec is going to see Falgrin’s army betrayed and humiliated, and ours as well. In the meantime, the enemy … a terrible enemy is going to take Mara’s Brow with infiltrated draugr and cavalry. We shall have to hurry. We shall have to save Falgrin’s army. We must kill Crec. After that?” I shrugged. “We shall see. We must hurry. Now. Let me speak to her.”

  “You need bandages and stiches, Maskan,” Nima called after me, and I heard her speaking to Tris, calling me a fool.

  I found Asra in a hold, and she sat up as she looked at me. Her eyes were round with surprise, and her eyes went over my disheveled condition.

  They settled on my gauntlet.

  I went to her and cut and pulled the net off her. It took time, a long time, and I finally managed it.

  She didn’t move. She simply stared at me.

  “Your father,” I said, “and brothers,” I added, “died heroes.”

  I handed Grinlark to her. She stared at it in shock. “You killed him?”

  “He died a hero,” I said. “I was too late. I will probably die as well.” I showed her the wounds on my arm.

  “He died a hero?” she asked, holding the staff, her eyes on my wounds. “Was he going to betray us? And why did you give me this?”

  “Because you are right,” I told her. “We need a new cause. A new king and a new queen.”

  “And Rhean,” she said darkly.

  “With time, I might forget her,” I told her. “I gave her a present. She will die slowly.”

  She stepped up and kneeled before me. “What do you wish to do? You have been poisoned.”

  “Listen,” I said, and turned my back on my father’s love for Midgard and the people I had once called mine.

  He had failed. So had the Sons.

  I found Thrum and spoke to him at great length. He bowed. Then, I found Urac, who was seasick and then solemn as he listened to me. He kneeled.

  ***

  We rowed on, and not far, just beyond the Blight, the mountains that ended abruptly in the sea, we saw the north through snow whipping across the slopes. We came in sight of a high plateau and a ravine with steep sides, where River Aluniel marked the border. A fortress lay on Red Midgard’s side of the river and was called the Hearthold, and Mara’s Brow was impressive and high on the other. It consisted of three round keeps around a large one and was made entirely of white and light gray rocks. Flags of Falgrin’s many lords flew on top of it, a duke ruled it, and the Queen Mara, for Falgrin always had a queen called that, was absent, as the central keep had a blank, black flag. Falgrin’s troops patrolled the land on their side, riding the ravine’s edges, looking down to the river and the beaches.

  They had a good reason to.

  What they thought was Balic’s army, was moving up the steep hillside for our fortress.

  There were around four legions of the enemy. Three were ones we had not fought, and one was a mix of many, including Malingborg’s own. There were fifteen thousand of them. The ships had been their camps, and many had been dismantled for firewood. They had been there for a long while. You could see corpses on the hillside where skirmishes had taken place.

  The rowers, thousands of them, were now hauling gear and supplies out of the ships into a makeshift fortress in the middle of the beach. That camp, too, had been built of dismantled ships. They were abandoning the defensive tactic, would distract Falgrin, and were not going anywhere.

  The distraction was working.

  On top of the plateau, we saw Crec’s great, filthy flag and a milling mass of our own troops who thought he was the king, and a just, brave one at that. There were Hawk’s Talon, the Gray Brothers, and the Heartbreakers lined up. On the bridge milled Falgrin’s local legion, marching to the battle. They had feared Crec’s army
for a while, confused by the legions marching north, but with the arrival of the Hammer Legions, they had no reason to doubt our alliance.

  We watched them for a moment. I turned to Nima and the generals. They looked up at the mass of the enemy struggling up the hillside and our people waiting on top.

  Hal was shaking his head. “A massive battle. Hopefully, the last one. I am really tired with this war.”

  The generals, soldiers, both, didn’t say a thing, but I sensed they hesitated and agreed.

  Nima looked dubiously at the troops, and the hundreds of ships along the beach. Ours would fill it. “What if they turn about and rush us?”

  “We’ll die,” Hal said.

  “What if,” Tris, not part of the military, but still loud, “Red Midgard on top actually beats the enemy and thinks the Six Spears are still an enemy legion?”

  “We’ll die,” Hal repeated with little emotion.

  I pointed my ax at the massive wooden fort on the beach. “We shall drive the sailors away. Then, we hold the fortress. We shall rally on it, if we must. You will march the men up that hill, and archers go first. You will make life miserable for the foe. Crec, no doubt, will order our men off the field and will abandon Falgrin, but that is not the only battle. We must make sure the keep doesn’t fall. The enemy is inside already, ready to open the gates.”

  They didn’t look happy with the prospect of the battle they would bleed in not really being the only battle. “Inside?” Nima asked.

  “They will come for Mara’s Brow. The battle is important. We must kill Crec and defeat the legions. But we also cannot lose the fort. The main battle will take place up there,” I murmured. “Out there in the gate to Mara’s Brow. So, I shall deal with that. I will try to get there and so will the dverger.”

  They looked at me like I had lost my mind.

  Hal looked at Thrum. “They are coming with you? Where…how will you get there? We need you and them in the battle.”

  “You need swords, bow, and courage, not me,” I answered dryly. “Didn’t you hear me. The fort must not fall. We’ll march over the river, on the beach, and up the hillside there.”

  “It’s impossible,” Hal said, eying the steep incline.

  “If I die, follow Queen Nima,” I told them. “Keep steady. March at the enemy back and link with Falgrin. Send men to tell the generals Queen Nima rules, and they should obey them. I will guide our troops up the hillside. The Duke of Mara’s Brow doesn’t know the dverger, they might not listen to reason and might think we are against them. I shall find a moment to take down Crec. Nima shall wear the crown he stole from my father.”

  She nodded, a fierce smile on her face. “We shall do well.”

  I smiled. “Yes, love. You shall.”

  She stepped closer to me and hesitated. “I have something to tell you. It is about Nallist and—”

  “No time, love,” I told her. “Later. Take us on the beach.”

  The ships turned, one by one, and aimed for the beach. There, in a chaos, they disgorged the men, and the entire beach was so full of ships, the enemy and ours, that on the right edge, our ships and men were intermingled and fighting. Most of the enemy were trying to rush to the fortress, but some loved their ships more. In places, we had to abandon ships in the surfs to get to the beach.

  By the time, we had unloaded our troops, the enemy was already halfway up on their long climb up the slope. In lines of shields, the four legions, Malingborg’s included, were going up with single-minded drive, ignoring us and their sailors below.

  The sailors, a few thousand strong, kept the fortress. It was built of makeshift wood and broken hulls of the ships, and I saw fear on the many faces looking over the parapets. Their spears glittered bravely in the morning light as they looked up at their men, hoping for salvation, and then at the mass of our men, and they knew there was no hope for them.

  We marched forward, and Hal led the assault, leaving the Stone Watchers marching behind them. The men of Fiirant and Alantia were staring at their enemy, moving forward in a mass of shields. They marched straight for the fortress. The enemy, without any ceremony, released arrows, and light ballista fired deadly stone balls which tore to our ranks. Ten fell, then lines of men. Our men screamed, and the battle, surprising both our people and the enemy on the hillside, began below them.

  The men I had led to victory in Nallist were hungry, lean, wounded in body and mind.

  They were also soldiers now. They knew the war would end after blood had been spilled.

  They suddenly broke ranks and rushed through a hail of arrows. They rushed forward like mad dogs and began surrounding the fortress. The enemy threw javelins now and, as our men climbed the ten-foot-tall wall of wood, soon began hacking down with axes.

  I watched stoically as men fell. They struggled, died, and soon littered the edged of the fortress.

  “They’ll break,” Nima said coldly. “Soon.”

  Indeed, our men were swarming up the sides, furious at the resistance. They climbed like ants, and soon, in many places, they took the fortress walls.

  Soon, the gate facing the slopes was pushed open, and a stream of men surged out, only to be cut down by archers. On and on they came and scattered, threw away their weapons, and our men began killing them as they tried to get past our ranks. Hundreds got past anyway and rushed up the hillside.

  I turned Nima around and smiled at her. “Take them up and fight well. They will be fully encaged. Find Crec’s crown after he is dead, and our generals. Fare well, brave Nima the robber.”

  She looked serious and smiled. “I shall. I shall do my best, Thief of Midgard. For Red Midgard, we shall both rule.”

  “Aye, for it,” I told her, and kept marching. The army killed off the wounded in the fort, and the slope and the beach, and then was being called to colors. Slowly, Hal and the others managed to start pulling the people into their ranks, and Nima was running back and forth, yelling at them to hurry. Some companies of archers began jogging up the hillside.

  We marched in a block of steel, Thrum and me. We looked at the calm river ahead and the waters from the western hills as they rushed for the sea over the rocks and the beach. There, sailors were wading through the sandy creek and climbing out. Aluniel wasn’t a terribly large river. It would be in the spring, but now, it was lazy and partly iced over. The depth of the water was the least of our worries. The slope for Mara’s Hold, which was a terrible climb, was also in range of the Falgrin’s archers.

  “Looks like a place to die in,” Thrum muttered. “Finally. I’m almost done nursing you, my king. They won’t take us as friends, will they?”

  I shook my head.

  “And when we get up, if we do, you are saying there’s a place to go?” he asked.

  “You have a job to do.”

  He nodded, unhappy. “I don’t like hope, King. It is easier to seek death until you die. But we obey. It will cost us dearly. The ballista shall be in place.”

  “We need luck as well as ballista,” I said miserably, and nearly threw up as I felt the cold pain in my belly shifting. It was almost as if it was moving.

  “Speaking of ballista,” Thrum muttered. “They are looking at us. They don’t like what they see.”

  I looked up. The ballista in Mara’s Brow, on one of the three forts around the central one, had lots of activity on the walls. Some of the ballista, far above us were firing. They were testing the range, and the bolts struck the river not too far away. It was clear they were jumpy with Hammer Legions out to kill them and could make no heads of tails what was going on in the plains and the beach.

  “You said they’d be busy,” he said. “You said they’d not have too much time to worry about our lads.”

  “They will be,” I told him. I was looking up and saw Asra flying far above. She was banking in the winds, and then, she seemed to plummet.

  It was time. I knew what she had seen.

  She would see a horse-army of draugr, riding from the north, where they
had been hiding. With them, would be Euryale, my father, my mother, perhaps, and possibly Rhean, should she still be alive.

  I felt the burning pain in my belly and grimaced at the fear. I’d have to survive a bit longer.

  We splashed into the river. We stomped through the mud and the sand, waist deep for me, and neck high for the dverger.

  Ballista bolts began landing amongst us. One smashed down a wide dverg so fast, it seemed he was never there. He simply disappeared under the water. A scream and a splash turned our heads, and we found a headless dverg floating on the river for the sea, his armor dragging him down. The first dverger were climbing out of the river and already were going for the rocky hillside. I frowned as I watched it. The terrible climb led up to the Mara’s Brow, and it seemed like a man would die of exhaustion climbing it. Not the dverg, of course, or a jotun in his prime, but I wasn’t. Arrows were now falling on us. There were archers on the bridge, where their legion had passed over to stand near Hearthold.

  There were horns braying on Red Midgard’s side. There were more calling out on Mara’s Brow.

  I knew what that meant.

  They, too, had seen the draugr army. Ten or more ballistae were now being split between us and them. On the other parts of Mara’s Brow, the garrison would be frantic, looking out at the mass of their foe that was coming from nowhere. Some ballista were hauled about in the parapets and then pulled away to face a new threat. Asra was now flying over something far away, beyond the fortress.

  The troop began stomping up the hillside in one solid mass. Some were falling and saying nothing as they did.

  I turned to watch behind. There, the legions were soon at the top. Falgrin had nearly deployed near the bridge and on the left flank of our legions, which stood proudly.

  Arrows were flying back and forth, and soon, javelins would tear the heart out of both formations. The draugr would kill many. Our men would hold and butcher the tired legionnaires below.

  That is, if they were led by a true king.

  Something took place near Crec’s flag, and I saw many other standards dipping.