The Grim Company

Dark Omens

Yllandris turned to the man in the bed beside her. Magnar watched her from beneath half-closed eyes. His deep breathing was the only sound within the bedchamber. Outside the storm raged on, the shrieking wind a terrifying animal that threatened to tear the roof from the Great Lodge and reveal their nakedness to the world.

‘You are troubled,’ she observed. The mingled smells of sweat and sex and smoke created an aroma that was not altogether unpleasant. She placed a hand on his face. His cheeks were smooth. Many Highland men wore their beards long in celebration of their manhood, but Magnar had always kept his face clean-shaven. It was a brave choice considering his youth, an open invitation to scorn from the older chieftains. It seemed the young king had confidence enough not to care.

‘I am uneasy,’ he admitted. His steely grey eyes held a hint of worry. ‘The Shaman summoned the Brethren away from the High Fangs. What right does the Tyrant of Dorminia have to demand our Magelord do such a thing?’

Yllandris remembered the ease with which the frail old man had turned Shranree’s magic against her. The senior sister of the Heartstone circle was possibly the most powerful sorceress in the High Fangs, yet Salazar had handled her as he might a child — and, moreover, he had been near exhausted while he had done so.

‘I cannot say, my king. The ways of Magelords are not easily fathomed. Did the Shaman give any indication when they will return?’

Magnar shook his head. He was a handsome man, with a strong nose and jaw. His torso was lean but well muscled and his chest still glistened with sweat from their recent lovemaking. She felt her body stir as she gazed upon him.

‘We may be without our sacred protectors for some time,’ said the King. ‘I have instructed Orgrim to post additional men on the northern and southern borders of the East Reaching.’ He paused for a moment and sighed. ‘The Foehammer was not happy with the order.’

‘Orgrim took the greatest losses at Frosthold,’ Yllandris replied. ‘And the East Reaching has suffered the most in recent years. The Foehammer does not want to expose his largest settlements to the Devil’s Spine by posting his men to the frontiers.’

King Magnar nodded. ‘That was the gist of his argument. Yet the East Reaching is the barrier between our nation and the horrors that lurk in the Spine. I cannot allow demons to wander unchallenged into the other Reachings.’

A howling gust of wind rattled the roof once more and Magnar sighed again. ‘I’ve done my best to win the respect of my chieftains. It is no easy thing to stave off famine and keep the tribes from each other’s throats while managing the Shaman’s whims. He listens to me sometimes, but still… I feel as if I am caught between a cave bear and a pack of wolves. I try to placate the former while the latter look for any opportunity to pounce.’

Yllandris was puzzled. ‘You rule with the Shaman’s blessing,’ she said. ‘Who would dare try to depose you?’

‘Krazka One-Eye and Carn Bloodfist, to name but two. Many desire the throne. The Code dictates that all men and women swear allegiance to the king — yet it is also written that a weak king must be usurped for the good of the nation.’

‘And the Shaman is the arbiter in such matters,’ Yllandris said softly.

‘If another proves himself more worthy, the Shaman will not hesitate to replace me.’

‘As you replaced Jagar the Wise?’

Magnar nodded. ‘I did not seek the throne. Jagar was dying. His rule had outlasted that of any previous king. The Shaman could have chosen any one of the ten chieftains.’ He looked up at the ceiling. ‘Yet out of respect for my father he chose me.’

‘Out of respect for your father?’ Yllandris repeated, shocked. ‘But what he did to him… The Shaman wants nothing more than to see your father dead.’

‘Yes,’ Magnar replied. ‘He does. But that anger is born out of the love he once held for him. Father was the closest thing to a friend the Shaman has known. He did not expect the answer he received from his champion when Beregund rebelled. And it was a rebellion. The Green Reaching intended to break the Treaty and begin a civil war. The Shaman’s response was justified.’

He burned your mother alive, Yllandris thought, but wisely she held her tongue. Instead she said, ‘Do you know where your father might be hiding?’

Magnar shook his head. ‘The Unclaimed Lands, perhaps. The Brethren hunted him for two years without success. His companion is a tracker without peer.’

His companion. The Wolf. The man who freed the Sword of the North from his prison was almost as infamous as Kayne himself. Horribly burned and with a savage temper to match his prowess, no one would have guessed he would be the one to enact a daring rescue. Apparently he had owed Kayne a debt from many years past.

Yllandris had set eyes on the Wolf only once, a few months before the trial of Brodar Kayne. The thought of two Highlanders somehow evading the Brethren for months on end was difficult to credit — yet the memory of his scowling visage, so utterly implacable, convinced her that this was a man capable of anything.

When it came to the likes of Brodar Kayne and Jerek the Wolf, it seemed even the will of a Magelord could be defied. The thought gave her pause.

The King was still staring at the ceiling, a strange expression in his remarkable eyes. Yllandris decided to take a risk. She needed to know. ‘It must be hard for you,’ she said carefully. ‘What happened to your father. What was done to your mother.’

Magnar looked at her. His expression was unreadable. ‘Do you think me a monster?’

The question shocked her. She stared at him for a moment, lost for words. Not a monster. My father was a monster. ‘I do not judge you,’ she said carefully. ‘You did what was necessary. Your father was guilty. Your mother…’ She trailed off, unsure of how to proceed. This was so very delicate. She still desired his attentions, didn’t she? She thought she did. There was no sense in angering him. Yet…

He watched his mother burn.

‘My mother…’ Magnar said, and she could hear the pain in his voice. ‘Some things a king must do haunt him forever. It could not be helped.’

Yllandris stared at him. She remembered cowering in the corner of her small bunk, listening to those awful cries. It was the silences that followed that had terrified her the most; the moment those appalling noises ceased and her father had walked back out into the night. That handful of steps to the crumpled form of her mother — like walking out onto a frozen lake, not knowing if the ice would break and the darkness would swallow her up. Until one night it had.

That was helplessness. What Magnar spoke of was cowardice. She couldn’t stop the words from bursting out. ‘You’re the King,’ she sneered. ‘You could have stood up to the Shaman. How could you allow your own mother to be consumed by fire?’

Magnar’s face darkened. ‘You know nothing,’ he said angrily. He rose up from the bed and began pulling on his clothes.

Yllandris pushed herself up, reaching for her silk robes and the shawl that lay in a heap beside the bed. ‘What of Krazka?’ she asked, more quietly. ‘He raped her, didn’t he? Before she was brought back to Heartstone. How can you stand to look at him?’

This time Magnar’s anger was not so restrained. He grabbed her hair from behind and pulled her around to face him. His eyes were iron fury. ‘Krazka is the most powerful chieftain in the High Fangs,’ he said, his voice shaking. ‘You think it’s easy for me to listen to his counsel? I want nothing more than to cut out his black heart. Were it not for the Shaman’s bargain and the risk of civil war-’

A sudden howling interrupted him, so loud that the walls of the bedchamber seemed to shake.

‘The Shaman’s bargain?’ Yllandris was intrigued in spite of the painful grip Magnar had on her hair. She could thrust him away with a brief unveiling of her sorcery, of course, but that would amount to treason — punishable by death. Fortunately the King seemed to realize he was hurting her. He let go and stepped away.

‘There are many things you do not know. It is best if you leave my presence immediately. You presume too much.’

Yllandris was about to give an angry curtsy and storm off when they both heard the shouts and screams from outside.

‘What is it?’ Magnar demanded. His guards had their hands on their weapons and were staring up at the sky as if their eyes could pierce the flurry of snow billowing from the dark blanket of grey above them. Yllandris stood beside the King, shivering. It was late afternoon, but it might have been the middle of the night for all the visibility the snowstorm provided.

‘We’re under attack,’ shouted a nearby warrior. He had a longbow pulled back and an arrow ready to loose at any moment. ‘It struck from nowhere. Pulled Varamus into the sky and tore him clean in half.’

‘It took my girl,’ a woman cried. She was on her knees in the deep snow, her head in her hands. A score of men emerged from the blizzard, all with arrows nocked and ready. The biggest of them approached; she recognized Yorn. His hands were covered in blood.

‘We’ve got a score dead already. The demon’s snatching up folk and scattering parts of ’em all over town. We can’t get a clear shot on the thing.’ He shook his head and spat. ‘It’s huge. Wings like a bat, with talons that can rend a man in half.’

‘Gather a hundred men,’ Magnar ordered. ‘Split them into groups, five men each. Have them patrol every part of town until the fiend is spotted. Yllandris, gather the rest of your circle. I want this demon blasted out of the sky.’

She did as she was commanded, hurrying off towards the small hill overlooking the west side of Heartstone. As it happened, Shranree and two other sorceresses were already on their way to the Great Lodge. They almost ran into her moving in the opposite direction.

‘Sister, what is happening here?’ asked Shranree, in between gasps for breath. She frowned suddenly. ‘You appear rather inadequately garbed for this inclement weather, I must say.’

Yllandris sighed. She had hoped the woman’s near-death experience at Mehmon’s trial might have sapped some of her hubris, but the leader of the Heartstone circle was already returning to her overbearing self. ‘We are under assault,’ she replied. ‘A winged demon haunts the skies above us. I believe it was the same monster that attacked the Brethren some weeks past.’ The same monster that was watching us at Frosthold. She decided to say nothing of that.

Shranree clapped her hands together. ‘Dastardly fiend! Does it seek to take advantage of the Shaman’s absence? Come, sisters. We will hunt down this demon and make it sorry it ever left the Spine.’

There was a shout from somewhere to the north. The four sorceresses hurried towards the sound. Along the way they passed the remains of a Highlander, his belly opened to reveal steaming entrails. Yllandris wiped snow from her eyes, squinting to catch sight of the men ahead of her.

Suddenly a body crashed down into the snow nearby. They rushed over, but the man was dead before he hit the ground. A massive wound almost split his torso in half.

‘It is above us,’ Shranree whispered. A band of men appeared, Yorn leading them. Thurva was with the group. She saw her sisters and hurried over to join them.

‘The thing is so fast,’ she said breathlessly. ‘My magic could barely touch it. The men’s arrows have little impact. If only the Brethren were here. Or the Shaman.’

‘They are not,’ said Shranree. ‘And so we must deal with it ourselves.’

The air rustled ominously. There was a dark streak in the sky far above and then the fiend was there among them, its taloned foot closing around the unfortunate warrior next to Yorn. The man screamed and spewed blood as those terrible claws sliced into his body.

Yllandris gasped, horrified at the sheer size of the demon. It must be twenty feet tall. Its wings were wider still. The head was part human and part reptilian. Three red eyes filled with malevolence stared out above a mouthful of pointed teeth resembling ivory daggers. A snaking tail whipped the ground with enough force to pulverize flesh and bone.

The warriors released their arrows. Most bounced off the thing’s black hide. A couple lodged in its scales to no discernible effect. The warriors threw their useless bows to the ground and drew their swords, closing to surround the creature, but with a single mighty beat of its gigantic wings it rose above them and they were left to stare up at it helplessly.

Shranree threw her arms into the air. ‘Sisters, link with me,’ she shrieked.

Yllandris closed her eyes and did as the senior sister commanded, feeling her magic drain into the older woman. Shranree gasped as the power filled her. Flame danced around her hands and then lanced towards the winged horror. The demon hissed as the fire wreathed its midnight form. With another beat of its great wings it took to the skies, dropping the lifeless corpse of the Highlander like a broken doll.

The fiend disappeared from sight almost immediately, swallowed up by the relentless blizzard, but Shranree was not done. Shrieking in ecstasy, she sent the dancing flame up and after the apparition. A couple of seconds passed and then, like a rope, the flaming lasso tightened.

There was an enraged hiss from high above them. With a tugging motion, Shranree yanked downwards and the black colossus was brought crashing to the earth, the chain of fire wrapped tight around its legs. It smashed into a tavern in an explosion of flaming debris. A loud cheer went up and suddenly Heartstone’s warriors were converging on the fallen demon, swords and axes bristling.

The fire wreathing Shranree’s hands flickered and disappeared. She sagged in exhaustion. Yllandris, too, felt drained to the point of collapse. The magic they had expended in bringing down the fiend had sapped the last reserves of her power. It was all she could do to turn and stare at the wreckage through the waning snowstorm.

The burning ruins of the tavern shifted suddenly. Somehow the fiend was still alive. It rose, staggered a few steps, and then beat its ruined wings. Dust and rubble exploded from its blistered skin. In a lurching run, it turned and fled north towards the main gates. Arrows rained down around it, but even with its grievous injuries the demon easily outpaced the pursuing warriors. Yllandris watched on, horrified. What manner of creature can survive such punishment?

The sound of horses caught her attention and she turned to see Magnar seated on his mighty stallion, the Six mounted behind him. The King raised his sword in the air. ‘I will hunt the demon down! Any man who wishes to join me is welcome. I want that bastard’s head above my hearth.’

There was a loud cheer as the King and his elite guards passed through the town towards the gates. Men went to fetch their horses or banded together to set off after the royal war party. Within half an hour, almost every warrior in Heartstone had departed to join the hunt. Those that remained behind began the task of clearing the streets of the dead and putting out the fires that had erupted in the wake of the demon’s plummet from the sky.

Yllandris counted over forty dead. Men, women and children — the fiend had not discriminated in its brief tour of destruction. One demon did all this, she thought. The spirits help us if more of those creatures emerge from the Devil’s Spine.

Shranree strode up to her as she was dragging the corpse of a teenage boy from the rubble of the tavern. The older sorceress was tired and covered in sweat but her eyes were bright. Revelling in your triumph, no doubt. Will you shed a tear for this family inadvertently killed by your hand, Shranree? I doubt it.

‘You did well, sister,’ said the rotund woman with a smile. ‘Perhaps you will indeed make a worthy sorceress one day.’

‘I can only hope.’

Shranree looked around at the blackened corpses and tutted. ‘If they had been out there helping during the attack, they would have avoided this unfortunate end. I believe there is a lesson to be learned here.’

Yllandris gritted her teeth. ‘I suppose so.’

‘This latest incident demonstrates the need for more sorceresses in the city.’

That was something Yllandris could agree with. ‘Yes, sister.’

‘Perhaps when the King returns you might speak with him? I suspect he would be most receptive to your counsel. After all, you share much, do you not?’ The woman’s expression was unreadable.

‘I do not understand.’

Shranree smiled sweetly. ‘Why, a young man’s desires are vast and often indiscriminate. And of course, one should always strive to please her king in every way possible.’

‘As… as you say, sister.’

‘Still,’ Shranree continued. ‘One must also respect tradition. A sorceress may not marry. It weakens the magic, you know.’ She went silent for a time. When she spoke again, her eyes were hard. ‘Put aside any girlish fantasies you may be harbouring about our handsome young king. You are mine until I deem you worthy, and quite frankly that may very well be never.’ She sighed suddenly. ‘Really, Yllandris. Do you seriously think Magnar would consider marrying you?’

Go jump off a cliff, you spiteful old hag. ‘He enjoys spending time with me. I listen to him. I provide him the comfort he needs.’

Shranree shook her head and sighed in exasperation. ‘So would a whore.’ She turned and waddled off, casting a distasteful glance at the bodies of the family that had run the tavern.

Yllandris watched her leave. When Magnar came back she would apologize for her earlier remarks. He would forgive her, she knew. He cherished her honesty. He had his faults, but Magnar was young, handsome, and above all he was the King. And for her that meant one thing.

I will be Queen.