The Liar's key

SIXTEEN

They gave us a cave opening onto the dreary slopes of Halradra, with views of unrelenting pine forest. I lay down exhausted and tried to get comfortable and fell asleep within moments.

“This spear you found in the cavern. .” Kara’s voice.

I jerked awake, disoriented, discovering that it had grown dark. Kara had lit a fire at the cave entrance and sat close to the flames, examining one of the last rune tablets still depending from her braids. “I didn’t find it in the cavern.”

“You were lying on it, you said.”

“I found it in my dream. I took it from the warlord.” It sounded foolish even to me. It must have been on the floor, discarded as inedible by the troll that killed its previous owner. Only it hadn’t been. I’d seen it in Grandmother’s memories, down to the last detail.

“It’s hard to believe it was just left there,” Snorri said, moving from the gloom, his face now lit by the fire.

“It wasn’t. It was in my-”

“Show it to me again.” Kara held out her hand.

I drew in a great sigh and rolled into a sitting position, drawing the spear from beneath me.

“Gungnir!” Tuttugu said, eyes wide, as I held it up.

“Gungnir to you too.” I yawned and rubbed my face.

“Odin had such a spear. Thor had Mjölnir, his hammer. His father held the spear, Gungnir.”

“Oh,” I said. “Well, I doubt it’s that one.”

“It is a hell of a spear, though.” Snorri leaned forward and took it from me.

“Keep it.” I warmed my hands. “I haven’t entirely trusted a dream since I met the Ancraths’ pet mage, Sageous.”

“It doesn’t make sense for a Slov warlord to be carrying a Norseman’s spear.” Kara frowned at the weapon as Snorri turned it around, examining the overlay.

“The gods sent it to us.” Tuttugu nodded, as if this were a serious suggestion. “Perhaps Odin himself.”

“Gods know we need a weapon,” Kara said. “If Snorri’s set on leading us into Kelem’s lair. . What do you plan to do if Kelem says no? What if he just turns you into a column of salt and takes what you’ve brought him?”

Snorri narrowed his eyes and tapped the axe beside him.

“Kelem wouldn’t be able to count Skilfar young if all it took to detach him from life was a sharp edge.” Kara held her hands out and Snorri passed her the spear across the flames.

“And a spear will do the job better than an axe?” he asked.

“Myths cast shadows.” Kara held the spear before her and the fire played its shadow across her face. “All the treasures of the sagas cast many shadows and even their shadows can be a deadly weapon. And to cast the darkest, sharpest shadow you need the brightest light. Darkness and light bound together can be a potent force.” She glanced briefly between Snorri and me. “A spear like this. . with a bright enough light, could cast a shadow of Gungnir. A thing like that would make even Kelem pause!”

“Great, let’s go back to Skilfar and ask her if-”

“I could do it.” Kara cut across me. “If I do it now, before the Wheel’s touch has left me and my magic fades to what it was.”

“Would the shadow-spear last any longer than whatever Osheim did to us?” Snorri asked.

The völva nodded. “It will be anchored by more than my spell.”

“The gods didn’t send that thing.” I snorted and bit off the rest. It wouldn’t do well to tell them their gods were heathen nonsense.

Kara ignored me and stood, still holding the spear. “Best be done quickly. Take hold each end.” She nodded at me and Snorri.

We did as we were bidden. I made sure I got the blunt end. It looked every bit as fearsome a weapon here, with the firelight playing over the silver-steel runes cladding its dark timber, as it had in the warlord’s hand.

Kara took a step back and brought out the chunk of orichalcum, driving the shadows back as it lit in her hand.

“Hold the spear steady, so the shadow falls between you.” She raised the orichalcum. “Keep it close to the ground. . Turn your heads away and don’t move.”

And without warning the metal in her grasp ignited into a white incandescence turning the whole world blind. The last thing I saw was the spear’s shadow on the floor between us, a black line amid the brilliance all around. I gripped the spear for all I was worth and found it crumbling away beneath my fingers as if the light had burned out its vitality leaving only ash.

“Christ, woman!” I pressed the heels of my palms to my eyes. “I can’t see.”

“Shush. Wait. You’ll see again soon enough.”

My sight returned slowly, blurs at the edge first, light and shade, then colour. I could see the fire, and the glow in Kara’s hand. The blurs resolved into edges and I saw that of the fist-sized ball of orichalcum she’d been holding only a fraction remained, a shining bead no bigger than an eyeball, as if the rest had burned away.

“Now, that’s a spear worthy of a god!” Snorri straightened up having taken from the place where the shadow fell a new spear, seemingly taller than the old, the design similar but with something fierce added to the mix so that the runes about it seemed to shout their message, the wood between them darker than sin, the silver-steel burning with its own light.

We sat awhile, watching Snorri hold the spear. It grew darker. I fell asleep.

• • •

The week Gorgoth said it would take the duke’s men to arrive turned out to be four days. Four days turned out to be three days too long-and I spent the first day sleeping.

Our beds were heaps of bracken, heather, and the occasional spiky sprig of gorse, all looking to have been yanked up, roots and all, still with the earth fresh upon them. Dinner predictably was goat, presented raw, and still eyeing us with that faintly surprised expression it wore when the troll ripped its head off. Breakfast was goat too. Also lunch.

I woke before daybreak on the second day and lay unmoving as the predawn began to reach in, blunt-fingered and finding only edges. Time passed and I saw, or thought I saw, amid the greyness, a deeper shadow, sliding toward the lump I took to be Snorri. The gloom seemed to knot about. . something, concealing it, but leaving enough of a hint to draw my eye. Perhaps if I weren’t dark-sworn I’d have seen nothing. The something, or the nothing, gathered itself as it drew close to Snorri and rose above him, and still I lay, paralysed, not with fear but with the moment, held by it in the way that a waking dream can sometimes trap a man.

Dawn broke, no rays of sun reaching into our cave, only a different quality to the light.

“Knocking.” Snorri sat up, muttering. “I hear knocking.”

And just like that the strangeness left me and I could see nothing more sinister than Snorri, rubbing the sleep from his face, and Kara leaning over him.

“I don’t hear anything.” She shrugged, perhaps a flicker of irritation on her brow. “I need to check those wounds. Today I’ll make a poultice.”

• • •

The morning of that second day Kara trekked down the ashy shoulder of the mountain to a level where plants dared to grow and returned hours later carrying a linen pouch stuffed with various herbs, barks, flowers, and what looked suspiciously like mud. With these she proceeded to treat the wounds our Vikings had sustained, the slice above Snorri’s hip proving the most serious. All I could plead was skinned knees of the sort little boys endure. I probably sustained the injury falling to my knees to plead for mercy or praying to an uncaring God, but to be honest I had no recollection of it. Either way I got no sympathy from Kara who fussed around Snorri’s over-muscled side instead.

Aslaug didn’t return to me that second night either. The first night I’d fallen asleep before sunset and lain so dead to the world it would have taken a full-blown necromancer to have roused me. The second sunset though, when Aslaug didn’t appear, I wondered if Loki’s daughter were still angry about me diving through the wrong-mages’ arch. Since the alternatives had all appeared to end in gruesome death it seemed unreasonable of her to object, but she had been set against it at the time. Temper or no temper it struck me as odd. Aslaug had been so eager to return that first day ashore after being denied my ear for so long by the magics set around Kara’s boat. I chalked it up to “women” and told myself she’d come round in the end. They always do.

In the gloom and boredom of our cave I replayed those memories of my grandmother at Ameroth Castle more than once. In truth, when my mind turned toward the events of the siege’s last day I couldn’t stop the carnage playing out behind my eyes. I wondered once more how I could have managed to avoid the story for so long. But then again I have been accused in the past of being a little self-centred and my only interest in the family’s glorious history was to know where they’d buried the loot. Come to think of it, there was a song about the Red Queen of Ameroth but I’d never paid any real attention to the words. .

I thought of Grandmother with her long-laid plans, her strange and creeping sister who ran her spell through me and Snorri, and of Skilfar, ice cold and old beyond the lives of men.

“Kara?”

“Yes?”

I tried to find the right words for my question and, failing, settled for using the wrong ones. “Why did you decide to become a witch? You know they all end up weird, yes? Living in caves and talking gibberish while they gut toads. . scaring honest folk. When did you decide, yes, toad-gutting, that’s the life for me!”

“What would you have done if you hadn’t been born a prince?” She looked up at me, eyes catching the light.

“Well. . I was. . destined to be-”

“Forget divine right or whatever excuse your people use-what if you weren’t?”

“I. . I don’t know. Maybe run a tavern, or raise horses. Something to do with horses.” It seemed a silly question. I was a prince. If I wasn’t then I wouldn’t be me.

“You wouldn’t pick up your sword and carve yourself a throne then? Regardless of your birth?”

“Well, yes of course. That. Obviously. Like I said, I was destined to be a prince.” I’d rather be destined to be a king though. But she had me right-I wouldn’t cut myself out a kingdom, I’d work with horses. Hopefully riding the beasts rather than shovelling their dung. But better wielding a shovel than a sword.

“I was born to peasant stock, thralls to the Thorgil, the Ice Vikings. I could tell you that I had a hunger to know things, to understand what lies behind what we see, to unlock the secrets that hold one thing to the next. A lot of the young völva apprentices will tell you that kind of thing, and a lot of them mean it. Curiosity. It’s killed more cats than dogs have. But the real reason? For me at least-I’ll tell you honestly, because you should never lie on a mountain. Power, Prince Jalan of Red March. I want to take my own share of what you had given to you with your mother’s milk. There are bad times coming. For all of us. Times when it would be better to be a völva, even if it means being a scary witch in a cave. Better that than a peasant working to scrape a life from the ground, head down, as ignorant of what’s coming as a spring kid is of the farmer’s knife.”

“Ah.” I hadn’t an answer for that. Every royal understands the value of ambitious men, and the danger inherent in them. The courts of the Broken Empire are packed with such. I had half-imagined that different forces drove those who toyed with the fabric of the world and dreamed of strange and frightening futures. . but perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised to find ambition, the simple greed for power, at the bottom of that too.

• • •

By day three I got so bored that I let Snorri talk me into trekking up to the crater a thousand feet above us. He brought the spear, using it as a staff to lean on, and limped along favouring his good hip, setting a pace that I could match for once. The boy came with us, scampering ahead over the rocks.

“A good kid.” Snorri jerked his head toward Hennan, waiting for us up the trail.

“Don’t let the trolls hear you call him a kid. They’ll gobble him up in two bites without even wanting to know who’s trip-trapping over the bridge.” I looked at the boy, hunched and windblown. I supposed he was a good kid. I’d never really had occasion to think of children as good or otherwise, just small and in the way, and remarking loudly about where I was touching their big sister.

We came up through gullies, deep-scored in the black rock. Up between the serrated teeth of the crater rim, and gazed down at a wide and unexpected lake.

“Where’s the fire?” I asked. The lack of smoke rising overhead during our climb had already made me suspicious. I’d missed out on looking down into Beerentoppen’s crater when Edris Dean force-marched me up the damn thing, and frankly I’d been grateful not to have to climb the last hundred yards to the rim. I remembered though that smoke had escaped Beerentoppen, to be scraped away by the wind, trailing south like a bald man’s last wisps of hair. Labouring up Halradra I expected to be rewarded with some fire and brimstone at the very least.

“Long gone.” Snorri found a seat out of the wind. “This old man has slept for centuries, perhaps a thousand years or more.”

“The water’s not deep.” Hennan from further down the inner slope-the first thing he’d had to say all day. Odd when I considered that the defining characteristic of children for me had been how seldom they shut up. He was right though, it looked to be little more than an inch or two of water spread across a huge ice sheet.

“There’s a hole out near the middle.” Snorri pointed.

The reflected light had disguised it but once seen it was hard to know how I’d missed it. A carriage and four horses could have fallen through it.

I remembered Gorgoth’s words. Two fire-sworn disagreed. “Perhaps that’s how the trolls ended the fire-sworns’ argument.” A bucket of cold water to separate two fighting dogs-an entire lakeful to end a battle that cracked the world deeply enough to let us spill out into it from wherever the wrong-mages’ arch had sent us.

The boy started to throw stones out into the water, as boys do. I half wanted to join him, and would have if it had involved less effort. There’s a simple joy in casting a rock into still waters and watching the ripples spread. It’s the thrill of destruction combined with the surety that all will be well again-everything as it was. A stone had fallen into my comfortable existence at court, so large that the waves washed me to the ends of the earth, but perhaps on my return I would find it as before, unchanged and waiting to receive me. Much of what men do in later life is just throwing stones, albeit bigger stones into different ponds.

Snorri sat silent, the blue of his eyes a shade lighter with the reflection of the sky in the lake. He watched the waters, watched the boy, arms folded. The wind reached around the rock he’d set his back to and threw his hair across his face, hiding his expression. I’d seen him step away from Hennan, more than once, leaving his care and safety to Kara or to Tuttugu. But he watched him, every time he thought himself unobserved, he watched him. Perhaps a family man like Snorri couldn’t help but be concerned for an orphan child. Perhaps he thought his care a betrayal of his own lost children. I’d never really seen how family works-not out in the world, without nannies and nurses paid to do the job in place of parents, so I couldn’t say. If I was right it seemed damned inconvenient though and an expensive vulnerability. All those years spent training, all that skill at arms, just to let a little boy get under your guard and weigh you down with his wants.

A few moments later I picked up a loose stone and lobbed it over Hannan’s head, out across the lake. The question was never if I would throw a stone, just when.

• • •

We stayed up on the crater rim until the sun began to fall and the wind grew chill. I had to call the boy back from whatever silly games were occupying him at the lakeshore. He’d found a twig somewhere and set it to sail where new melt water had gathered on the ice.

He came running up between us, Snorri staring into the distance across the valleys choked with forest, and me huddled in the blanket that was serving me as a cloak.

“We’re going down already?” He looked disappointed. “I want to stay.”

“We don’t always get what we want,” I said, remembering as the words left my mouth that he didn’t need advice on hardship from me. He’d watched the man who raised him die within moments of our acquaintance. “Here.” I held out a silver crown between two fingers to take his mind off it. “You can have this coin, or you can have the most valuable piece of advice I own, something a wise man once told me and I’ve never shared.”

Snorri looked around at that, taking in the two of us with a raised eyebrow.

“Well?” I asked.

Hennan furrowed his brow, staring at the coin, then at me, then at the coin. “I’ll. .” He reached out, then pulled his hand back. “I’ll. . the advice.” He blurted it out as if the words pained him.

I nodded sagely. “Always take the money.”

Hennan looked at me uncomprehending as I stood, pocketing the coin and pulling my blanket tight. Snorri snorted.

“Wait. . what?” Hennan’s confusion giving way to anger.

Snorri led the way and I followed.

“Always take the money, kid. Bankable advice, that.”

• • •

By the time Gorgoth finally reported that the Danes had been spotted entering the forest we were all eager to be on the road again.

We left on a dreary late afternoon with a north wind raking rain across the slopes. The plan was to travel by night on our long journey but the earliest part of the route, down from the Heimrift, lay through lands so sparsely populated that the Danes said that there was no need for concealment. My bet was that our escort just didn’t want their first meeting with a horde of trolls to be in the dark.

Still wearing what we’d escaped the wreck of the Errensa in we wound our way down the black flanks of Halradra toward the pine forests in the valleys below. Snorri kept us at the rear of the column and we counted one hundred and forty of the beasts as they left the caves, hissing at the light. An eerie thing to follow a hundred and more trolls, creatures few men have ever glimpsed even in ones or twos, and fewer men have lived to speak of. We five made more noise than they did, with barely a sound passing between the lot of them. And yet the exodus proved orderly and swift. Kara maintained the creatures must speak together in some manner beyond our hearing, without the need for words. I offered that sheep will form an orderly queue to leave their pen and they’re just dumb animals. A troll at the rear turned his head at that and fixed those wholly black eyes of his upon me. I shut up then.

Once within the shelter of the trees Gorgoth called a halt and the trolls spread themselves about, breaking noisy paths through the dense thickets of old dry branches.

“We will wait here, as agreed,” Gorgoth said.

How he knew where to wait I couldn’t say. It looked like a random piece of forest to me, indistinguishable from any other, but I was content to wait now that we were out of the worst of the wind and rain. I sat against a tree, my wet shirt sticking unpleasantly to me. If it weren’t for the presence of a hundred trolls I would have been fretting about pine-men and other horrors that might lurk in the shadows. Snorri and I hadn’t had good experiences with the region’s forests on our journey north. Even so I leaned back and relaxed, not caring how bad the troll stink got. A price well worth paying for peace of mind.

“. . man in charge. .” Tuttugu chatting with Gorgoth a short distance from me. The two of them seemed to get on well despite one being a vast devil wrapped in a red hide, and the other a fat ginger Norseman not reaching up much past his elbow. “. . duke’s nephew. .”

A ripple of unease ran through me, as if a stone had dropped into the recently calmed pool of my peace.

“The duke’s nephew what?” I called out.

“The duke’s nephew is leading our escort, Jal, they should be here soon,” Tuttugu called back.

“Hmmm.” It seemed fair enough. Only fitting that a Prince of Red March should have a noble in charge of escorting him safely home. Albeit a minor noble. Duke’s nephew. . somewhere a bell was ringing.

I shrugged off my unease and sat watching Kara watching Hennan while the rain dripped on me through the dense needles above. After a while I spotted the troll-stone that must be the reason for the place having been chosen as our rendezvous. An ancient and weathered chunk of rock, moss-covered and bedded in the ground at a slight angle. I could tell it was a troll-stone by the way it bore not the slightest resemblance to the trolls to either side of it.

• • •

“Horses! They’re coming.” Snorri stood, spear in hand, his axe now secured across his back with an arrangement of goat-hide thongs he’d fashioned during our stay in the cave.

Seconds later I could hear them too, branches snapping as they forced a passage through the trees. A short while later the first of them came into view.

“Hail, Gorgoth.” The man sounded uneasy. I could see three of them in total, all mounted, pressed close together by more than just the trees. All around us black shapes moved in the shadows. The horses seemed even more nervous than their riders, the scent of troll making them roll their eyes.

They came closer, all of them in wolf-skin cloaks, round shields on their arms, helms not dissimilar to the Red Vikings’, close-fitting, bound with riveted bands of bronze, eye guards and nose-piece reaching below the rim and elaborately worked.

“Good to meet again.” Gorgoth lifted one of his huge hands in welcome. “How many are you?”

“Twenty riders. My men are down on the forest road. Are you ready to go?”

“We are.” Gorgoth inclined his head.

The riders tugged on their reins but, as they turned, their leader caught sight of Snorri, pushing from the trees.

“Who are your guests. . Gorgoth?” I heard the hesitation as he fought to give the monster some honorific, but failed.

My unease returned. The man looked to be young, of medium build. His golden mane spread across his shoulders. That struck a sour chord.

In my moment of hesitation Snorri came to the fore, grinning, showing his teeth in that way of his that mysteriously turns strangers into friends in such short order.

“I’m Snorri ver Snagason, of the clan Undoreth from the shores of the Uulisk fjord. This is my kinsman Olaf Arnsson, called Tuttugu.” He spread a hand toward Tuttugu who stepped from behind Gorgoth, picking twigs from his beard.

Kara came forward, as ignorant of protocol as the rest of them. A prince should take precedent and be introduced before commoners. I’d thought even commoners knew that!

“Kara ver Huran, of Reckja in the Land of Ice and Fire.”

That was new! I’d assumed she came from one of the Norseheim jarldoms. I’d met the occasional sailor in Trond who’d been to the Land of Ice and Fire, but very few. They called the crossing treacherous, and when a Viking says treacherous you know it means suicidal. Little wonder she seemed so at home living in caves on volcanoes.

I cleared my throat and stepped forward, wishing that I could make my introduction from horseback and at least look the fellow in the eyes, or better still look down at him.

“Prince Jalan Kendeth of Red March at your service. Grandson to the Red Queen.” I normally don’t mention Grandmother, but having seen how she took her name I thought it might add a little weight to my own.

The slightest nod of the head and the duke’s nephew reached up to remove his helm. He shook out his hair, sitting the helm upon the pommel of his saddle and turning to fix me with his blue-eyed stare. “We’ve met before, prince. My name is Hakon, Duke Alaric of Maladon is my uncle.”

Shit. I forced myself not to say it out loud. I’d met him at the Three Axes on my first day in Trond. In the space of ten minutes I’d managed to slam a door in his face, break his nose, and have him harried from the tavern as a charlatan.

“Delighted,” I said, hoping that my role in his disgrace still remained vague in his mind. I’d shown him up for a liar seeking to make himself out the hero. At the time I’d been very pleased with myself, using Baraqel’s power to heal Hakon’s injured hand and give the lie to his claim of being bitten by a dog whilst saving a baby. After all, he was showing off. Any fool can get bitten by a dog. Besides, it had looked as if he might steal Astrid and Edda away from me before my charms had had a chance to work.

Hakon narrowed his eyes at me, two furrows appearing amid his brow, but he said nothing more and turned his horse away, and off we set, following the Danes down to the road.

“Handsome fellow,” said Kara as she stepped after Gorgoth.

Snorri and I swapped a glance at that. Mine said, “See, this is why I had to mess with him in the first place.”

• • •

We didn’t see much of Maladon beyond what lay illuminated by torchlight during our journey or the isolated moorland where we made camp by day. I counted it no great loss. I’d seen all I wanted to of the Danelands on our flight north the previous year. A dour land full of dour people, all wishing they were proper Vikings. The Thurtans weren’t any better. Worse if possible. My Nobles’ Guide to the Broken Empire entry for East Thurtan would be “Similar to Maladon but flatter.” And for West Thurtan, “See entry for East Thurtan. Boggy.”

Aslaug did not return though I waited for her appearance each sunset. Twice I heard a faint knocking as if far off someone were pounding on a heavy door, but it seemed that somehow our flight from Osheim had finally broken the bond the Silent Sister had forged between us. Perhaps Aslaug and Baraqel emerging like that to battle the Hardassa had torn them from me and Snorri, both of us emptied, or free, depending how you viewed it.

In truth I missed her. She’d been the only one of them to see my true worth. On our second night out from the forests of Maladon I lay huddled beneath my cloak, plagued by a thin rain, and imagined what Aslaug would say if she found me there.

“Prince Jalan, sleeping on the ground among these men of the north. Don’t they realize that a man of your worth should be hosted in the finest halls this land has to offer?”

• • •

As much as I missed Aslaug it was good that Baraqel had been banished from Snorri. “Watch him, Jalan,” Aslaug had said. “Watch the light-sworn. Baraqel knows that key will open more doors than just the one Snorri seeks. Kelem’s mines hold many doors. Behind one such door Baraqel and a host just like him, just as righteous and quick to judge, wait their chance. Come dawn he’ll be whispering again in Snorri’s ear, slowly turning him, until he sets Loki’s key in that lock and Baraqel’s kind come pouring out-not offering advice any more, but issuing sentence and execution.”

I eyed the largest of the sleeping lumps. Aslaug had made it all sound very convincing but Snorri was a difficult man to steer along any path other than his own-I knew that from personal experience. Still-it pleased me that Baraqel was gone.

Somewhere the sun set and the distant knocking faded to nothing. I looked over at Kara and found Hennan looking back at me, snuggled up against the völva in her bedroll. He watched me with his unreadable stare and after a while I shrugged and went off to water a tree.

• • •

Night by night we crossed first Maladon and then the Thurtans. Duke Alaric’s close alliance with the Thurtan lords meant he considered himself responsible for the safe passage of Gorgoth and his brethren through those lands-a matter of honour and one that Lord Hakon repeated to Gorgoth on more than one occasion.

“If so much as a goat or sheep goes missing from a herdsman’s flock it would be as if Duke Alaric himself had stolen it,” Hakon said.

Gorgoth had simply inclined his great head and assured him that there would be order. “Trolls were bred for war, Lord Hakon, not theft.”

Hennan came into his own on the march, uncomplaining about the miles, still with enough energy to run around camp come dawn, badgering the Norsemen for stories. He spent time with Gorgoth too. At first the monster’s interest sparked my suspicions but it seemed he just liked the boy, telling him tales of his own, of the mysteries and wonders to be found in the dark places beneath mountains.

• • •

As the march continued I concentrated my resources on seducing Kara. Even though she made not the slightest effort to make herself alluring, still she managed to torment me. Even though she was as grubby and unkempt as the rest of us, lean, hard-muscled, shrewd eyed, I still found myself wanting her.

Despite the obvious negatives-being scary clever, knowing far too many things, seeing through me on almost every occasion, and being more than happy to skewer straying hands-I found her excellent company. This proved to be a new and rather confusing experience for me. Having Kara entertain twenty Danes with bawdy tales around the fire felt rather as if on a boar hunt in the Kings Wood outside Vermillion our quarry stopped running, sat down, and, pulling out a pipe, proceeded to discuss the merits of veal over venison with us, opining about the best wine to serve with swan.

Snorri, who until Hakon’s arrival I had counted my rival in Kara’s affections, seemed strangely guarded around the woman. I wondered if he were still bound by Freja’s memory, faithful to a dead wife. He slept apart from us, and often his hand strayed to pat his chest where the key hung beneath his jerkin. On the rare occasions I rose before Snorri I sometimes saw him wince, stretching his side as if the poisoned wound that Baraqel had diminished in Osheim were returning to plague him.

• • •

The nights of marching passed slowly. East Thurtan turned into West with only an increase in dampness to mark the change. We walked, my feet grew sore, and more and more I wanted a horse to carry me.

We’d spent our first night crossing West Thurtan and had little to show for it save for muddy boots. I’d had about as much of Lord Hakon’s antics for Kara’s benefit as I could stomach-he was holding forth on classic literature now as if he were some shrivelled dame let out for the day from her book tower-so I sought distraction with the only one of our monsters that could speak.

“What waits for you and your subjects in the Highlands, King Gorgoth? I don’t recall hearing that the Count Renar has a reputation for hospitality. .”

“I’m no king, Prince Jalan. It’s just a word that proves useful for the moment.” Gorgoth held his hand out to the fire, so close it seemed impossible the skin wasn’t bubbling off his fingers. The three digits, stark against the blaze, made something alien of him. “It’s King Jorg who rules in the Highlands now. He has offered us sanctuary.”

“Trolls need sanctuary? I- Wait, Jorg? Surely not that Ancrath boy?”

Gorgoth inclined his head. “He took the throne from his uncle by force. I came north with him to the Heimrift.”

“Oh.” For a moment words escaped me. I’d imagined Gorgoth born among the trolls, though I’d given no thought to how he came to language among them, nor to his knowing the ways of men sufficient to negotiate with dukes and lords.

“And yes, trolls need sanctuary. Men are many and take strength as a challenge, difference as a crime. They say there were once dragons in the world. Now they are gone.”

“Hmmm.” I couldn’t find it in myself to be sorry for the plight of the persecuted troll. Maybe if they were more fluffy. . “This Jorg of yours, I’ve heard tales of him. Queen Sareth wanted me to put the scamp over my knee and tan his hide. I would have too-very persuasive woman, Queen Sareth.” I raised my voice, just a notch, nice and subtle, so Kara wouldn’t miss my talk of queens and princes. “Beautiful with it. Have you ever. . well maybe not.” I remembered Gorgoth wasn’t the type to be getting invitations to court, unless perhaps it was in a cage, as the entertainment. “I would have taught the boy a lesson but I had more urgent business in the north. Necromancers and unborn to put in their place, don’t you know.” My adventures may have been an unrelenting misery but at least I could now pull “necromancers” out to trump my opposition in any story of daring and adversity. Gorgoth might be a monstrous king of trolls, but what would a cave-dweller like him know of necromancers!

Gorgoth rumbled, deep in his chest. “Jorg Ancrath is wild, unprincipled and dangerous. My advice would be to steer well clear of him.”

“Jorg Ancrath?” Hakon, catching the name, broke off from his discussion of the finer points of some tedious verse from the Iliad. “My uncle says the same of him, Gorgoth. I think he likes him! Cousin Sindri was impressed with the man too. I’ll have to take his measure myself one of these days.” The Dane stepped over from the fire-all golden hair, square chin, and shadows. “And you thought to put him over your knee, Prince Jalan?” I heard Snorri snort in the background, probably remembering the truth of the matter and our hasty exit from Crath City. “That might be difficult. The man put an end to Ferrakind. .”

“Ferrakind?”

Kara answered. “The fire-mage who ruled in the Heimrift, Jal. The volcanoes fell silent at his death.” She watched me from the shadows, just the lines of her face caught in firelight. I could see her smile echoed on the faces of many of the Danes.

“Ah.” Damn them all. I stood up, blustered about needing a stretch and stalked off, leaving them with a defiant, “Well, Queen Sareth didn’t seem to think much of the boy.”

• • •

As the nights stacked up one upon the next and we drew ever closer to the Gelleth border I seemed to be making slow progress on my other journey-the one toward Kara’s furs-though unsettlingly I had the feeling of being the one steadily reeled in rather than having hooked my prey with the old Jalan charm and being the one to draw her to me.

To add to my vexation, whilst Kara mysteriously began to look my way and offer me the kind of smiles that warm a man right through. . she also seemed to see right past my normal patter, laughing off my lies concerning devotion and honour. Often she would ask me about Snorri and the key: the circumstances by which we acquired it, the ill-advised nature of his quest, and my thoughts on how he might be deflected from it. As much as it irked to be talking about Snorri with a woman yet again, I enjoyed the fact that she was seeking my opinions and advice on the matter of Loki’s key.

“A thing like that can’t be taken by force,” she said. “Not without great risk.”

“Well of course not-this is Snorri we’re talking about. .”

“More than that.” She moved closer, lowering her voice to a delicious husk beside my ear. Memories of Aslaug stirred somewhere low down. “This is Loki’s work. The trickster. The liar. The thief. Such a one would not let his work fall to the strongest.”

“Well, to be fair, we weren’t exactly gentle when we took it!” I puffed out my chest and tried to look nonchalant.

“The unborn captain attacked you though, Jalan. Snorri merely took the key from his ruin. It wasn’t his purpose-he didn’t attack the unborn for the key.”

“Well. . no.”

“Trickery or theft. Those are the only two safe options.” She held my gaze.

“If you think those are safe,” I said, “you don’t know Snorri.”

• • •

At the same time that I felt my connection with Kara strengthening, she seemed more charmed each passing day by the annoyingly handsome Lord Hakon. Every night the bastard would demonstrate some new virtue, with consummate skill, and make it seem a natural revelation rather than showing off. One evening it would be his deep tenor, perfect pitch, and command of all the great songs of the north. The next it would be defeating everyone but Snorri, and some ogre of a man called Hurn, in an arm-wrestling contest that he had to be coaxed into joining. Another night he treated us to a great show of concern for a man of his who fell prey to sudden head pains-debating herb-lore with Kara as if he were an old-wife called to treat the invalid. And tonight Hakon prepared a venison stew for us which I choked down and forced myself to call “passable” whilst only iron will prevented me demanding a third helping. . the best damn venison I ever ate.

For the duration of our penultimate night of escort Kara walked at the head of the column with Lord Hakon who came off his high horse to stroll beside her. The night proved warm, the going easy, nightingales serenaded us, and before long the pair of them were arm in arm, laughing and joking. I did my best to break up their little head to head of course, but there’s a kind of cold shoulder that a couple can offer a fellow that’s hard to get around, particularly with twenty mounted Danes staring at the back of your head.

On our final day we rose in the late afternoon, our camp a meadow beside a stream, the day warm and sunny, new blossom on the trees. Less than ten miles lay before us to the Gelleth border where Lord Hakon and his Danes would take their leave, and I was going to be heartily glad to see the back of them. Snorri and Tuttugu no doubt would happily have walked to Florence with the heathens, having spent the whole journey so far swapping battle tales. The Danes had a great love of sea stories and the old sagas. Snorri provided the former from personal experience and Kara the latter from her vast store of such trivia. I half thought some of the duke’s men would volunteer to join the Undoreth and travel with the Vikings, such was the level of worship on display. . Even Tuttugu got made out to be some kind of hero, beaching on the shores of the Drowned Isles one season, battling dead men on the Bitter Ice the next, making his last stand against the Hardassa by the Wheel of Osheim. .

I yawned, stretched, yawned again. The Danes lay around the ashes of the morning’s fire, horses tethered to stakes a little higher up the gentle slope, the trolls mostly hidden, sprawled in the long grass closer to the water. The day had been almost hot compared to those before it-a first touch of summer, albeit a pallid northern excuse for one.

An evening “breakfast” was prepared at leisurely pace, with nobody seeming in a hurry to depart. Tuttugu brought me over a bowl of porridge from the communal cauldron and a fellow named Argurh led his horse across from the herd for me to look at. That was the one thing the men of Maladon conceded I might know something about-horseflesh.

“Favouring his left he is, Jalan.” The man manoeuvred his grey around me, bending to tap the suspect fetlock. I suppressed the urge to say “Prince Jalan.” The further south we got the more the tolerance for such failings fell away from me. In the Three Axes I’d suffered the Norsemen’s “Jal”s just as I’d suffered the winter, a natural phenomenon that nothing could be done about. But now. . now we were closing on Red March and the summer had found us. Things would change.

“See? There, did it again,” Argurh said. The horse took a half step.

From the corner of my eye I spotted Kara on the move, the bedroll she’d been given tucked under one arm, walking off into the long grass down toward the stream, wildflowers all about her, butterflies rising-

“And he’s somewhat windy in his bowels.” Argurh, in my face again, wittering on about his nag and closing off my view.

“Well.” With a sigh I turned my attention to the horse-better to get a look before the light failed. “Walk him around over there. Let’s see him move.”

Argurh led him off. It looked as though the gelding might have a thorn just above the hoof or taken some knock that had left it tender. I motioned him back. I could sense the sun lowering behind me and needed to get the horse sorted before it set. Although Aslaug had not returned, and even the knocking had ceased, I always felt a hint of her presence as the sun fell and any animals around me became skittish.

“Hold him.” I kneeled down to check the foot. From under the beast’s belly I spied Hakon brushing himself down. He’d tied back his hair and washed his face. Highly suspicious in my view. When a man out in the wilds bothers to wash his face he’s clearly up to something. I manipulated the joint, muttering the sort of nothings that calm a horse, fingers gentle. A moment later I found the end of the spine just below the skin. A scrape of my nail, a quick pinch and I had the thing out. A vicious thing, over an inch long and slick with blood.

“Let it bleed,” I said, passing the thorn to Argurh. “Easy to miss. The problem’s above the hoof often as not.”

I stood quickly, ignoring his thanks, and moved away from the camp, crouching to shred a poppy through my fingers.

“Aslaug!” The sun hadn’t touched the horizon yet but the sky lay crimson above the Gelleth hills rising to the west. “Aslaug!” I needed her then and there. “It’s an emergency.”

Kara hadn’t just wandered off into the meadow with her bedding. Hakon wasn’t just prettying himself up in case we met some Gelleth border guards, and the Danes weren’t being painfully slow to get ready just out of laziness. If there’s one thing I can’t stand about licentious behaviour, it’s when I’m not involved.

I glanced toward the west. The sun’s torturous descent continued, with it now standing a fraction above the hills.

“What?” Not the word, not even a whisper of it, but faint unmistakable sound of inquiry, deep inside my ear.

“I need to stop Hakon. .” I hesitated, not wanting to have to spell it out. The devil’s supposed to know your mind, I always thought.

“Lies.” So faint I might have imagined it.

“Yes, yes, you’re the daughter of lies. . what about them?”

“Lies.” Aslaug’s voice came on the very edge of hearing, the shadows reaching all around me. I wondered what had left her so mute and distant. . It wasn’t temper that kept her from me-she had been shut out somehow. . “Lies.” They have a saying in Trond-“lie as the light fails”-those lies were supposed to be the ones most likely to be believed.

“But what lie should I-”

“Look.” The word seemed to take all her strength, fading into nothing at the end. For a moment it seemed the shadows flowed, coming together with a singular direction. A direction that led my eyes to a lone and stunted willow growing beside the stream some two hundred yards from where Kara had been headed. Though I could see no sign of her-the hussy would be lying out of sight. .

“There’s just trolls sleeping down there though.” Hakon wasn’t stupid and it would take more than stupid to go poking a troll.

No reply but I recalled not so long ago what Aslaug had said, crouching beside me, mouth beside my ear as the sun went through its death throes. “You would be surprised what I can weave from shadow.” I wondered if she were planning to do some weaving tonight. Some trickery perhaps? She could want for no better canvas than the black hide of a troll. . A sense of urgency stole over me. It seemed as if Aslaug had warmed to the task. It was, after all, a wicked one.

I lurched to my feet. Hakon was already on the move, passing by the outermost of his men, pausing to swap a joke. Heart hammering, I hurried to intercept him whilst doing my best not to look as though I were hurrying. That’s pretty difficult. I don’t think I pulled it off. I caught him just beyond the camp.

“Yes?” Hakon gave me a distant look. He’d never accused me of malice over the affair at the Three Axes, or indeed acknowledged that the incident ever took place, but I could tell he had suspicions. Even now, with Kara waiting for him, he didn’t relax enough to gloat but regarded me with caution-once unbitten, twice shy, I guess.

“Just came to congratulate you, best man won and all that, spoils to the victor. She’s waiting for you over yonder.” I waved a hand toward the willow. As I spoke the words I felt Aslaug repeat them, wrapping the dark luxury of her voice about each syllable. It sounded as though she stood closer to him than I did-as though she whispered the last word into his ear.

For a moment Hakon just frowned. “You have very strange ideas about what is and what isn’t a game, prince. And no human should be referred to as spoils.” For a moment I worried he was going to hit me, but he stalked away toward the willow without sparing me another glance.

• • •

“A good night for walking!” Snorri hefted his pack. The Danes had purchased clothing, equipment and provisions for us in the last town we passed by. Using my money of course. “Across Gelleth and we’ll be back in Rhone before you know it. Jal loves Rhone, Tutt, just loves it.” Hennan looked up brightly from his bedding. “It’s good there?”

“If ever a country needed stabbing, Rhone is it.” I spat out a flying insect that decided to commit suicide in my mouth, possibly two, midges rising with the evening. Snorri seemed unaccountably cheerful. At least Tuttugu eyed me with a touch of sympathy.

“You’re not worried for our völva’s safety out there all alone with the night falling?” I poked at Snorri, wanting him to share my misery.

Snorri shot me a look under his brows. “She’s hardly alone, Jal. And it’s the things in the dark that should be scared of a völva, not the other way around.”

Young Hennan watched us from beneath his blanket, still not having bothered to rise. He shifted his gaze as we spoke, as though he were weighing us up and deciding what path to choose.

Somewhere out in the gathering gloom a shriek pierced the evening calm.

“I rest my case!” I said, spreading my hands. Snorri was already past me, axe in fist, Tuttugu hurrying along in his wake. For my part I was less keen to follow. The night holds all manner of terrors-and besides, the scream came from the direction of the willow. Hennan made to follow but I stuck a leg out in his path. “Best not.”

I have difficulty imagining the scene but all I can conclude is that Aslaug wove the shadow well. Very well indeed if she could make a reclining she-troll look like Kara’s inviting silhouette. Quite in what manner Lord Hakon offended the she-troll was never made entirely clear but it seems his advances were sufficiently impertinent to occasion the troll’s sticking of a sizeable willow branch into one of his orifices. Again the detail was never laid bare for us but suffice it to say that the escort ended in that meadow and Hakon was not riding when he left, but walking very carefully.

In the uproar immediately following the incident I took the opportunity to suggest to Gorgoth that he lead his people west rather than wait for the Danes’ outrage to reach boiling point. Gorgoth took the advice and I went with them, thereby avoiding having to hear all the names Hakon might call me, and of course avoiding the effort of trying not to smirk while he did it.