Red Queen's War: The Liar's Key Part 8

Knui moved quickly. I aimed at him as the only chance for stopping my headlong dash. He'd already advanced a couple of yards and was unslinging his axe when, totally out of control, I cannoned into him. Even braced against the impact, Knui had no chance. Wiry and tougher than leather he might be, but I was the bigger man and carrying more momentum than anyone on a mountainside would ever want. Bones crunched, I carried him backward, we held for a broken second teetering on the cliff edge, and with a single cry we both went over.

Hitting Alrik had been harder and more painful than I wanted or expected. Hitting Knui proved much worse. Both were gentle taps compared to hitting the ground. For the second time in under a minute I pa.s.sed out.

I came to lying face down on something soft. And damp. And . . . smelly. I couldn't see much or move my arms.

"Get up, Jalan." For a moment I couldn't understand who was speaking. "Up!"

Aslaug! I couldn't get up-so I rolled. The softness proved to be Knui. Also the dampness and the smell. His face registered surprise, the expression frozen in. The back of his head had . . . spread, the rocks crimson with it. I struggled to my knees, hurting myself on the stones. Aslaug stood beside me, against the cliff, her head and shoulders rising above the edge where Knui had stood. Shadow coiled up about her, vine-like, her features darkening.

"Y-You said the drop was fifteen foot!" I spat blood.

"I was next to you, Jalan. How could I see?" An infuriating smile on her lips. "It got you moving though. And any fall on a mountain can kill a man, with a little luck."

"You! Well . . . I." I couldn't find the right words, the fear had started to catch up with me.

"Better get your hands free . . ." She pressed back against the stone, crouching now, indistinct as the horizon ate the sun and gloom swelled from every hollow.

"I . . ." But Aslaug had gone and I was speaking to the rocks.

Knui's axe lay a little further down the slope. I shuffled toward it and with considerable difficulty positioned myself so I could start to saw at the hide strip around my wrists, watching all the while for other Harda.s.sa men or Edris himself to come running into view.

Even a sharp axe takes a G.o.d-awful long time to cut through tough hide. Sitting there by Knui's corpse it felt like forever. Every few seconds I let my gaze slip from lookout duty to check he hadn't moved. I had a poor record with killing men on mountainsides. They tended to get up again and prove more trouble dead than alive.

At last the hide parted and I rubbed my wrists. Looking up, Aslaug's second lie became apparent. She had said if I head b.u.t.ted Alrik where she pointed that he wouldn't be getting up again. Yet there he was, standing at the top of the four-foot "cliff" that Knui and I sat at the bottom of. He didn't seem pleased. More importantly, he had his hatchet in one hand and a wide-bladed knife with a serrated back in the other.

"Edris will want me alive!" I considered running but didn't want to bet against how well Alrik could throw that hatchet. Also he could probably catch me. I thought about the axe lying on the rocks behind me. But I'd never swung one. Not even for splitting logs.

The Viking's glance flitted to Knui, lying there with the rocks painted a dark scarlet all around him. "f.u.c.k Edris."

Two words told me all I needed to know. Alrik was going to murder me. He tensed, readying himself to jump down. And an axe hit him in the side of his head. The blade sheared through his left eye, across the bridge of his nose, and stopped midway along the eyebrow on the other side. Alrik fell to the ground and Snorri stepped into view. He put one large foot on the side of Alrik's face and levered his axe free with an awful cracking sound that made me retch.

"How's the Sea-Troll?" Snorri asked.

"I'm fine! Thank you very much." I remained seated and patted myself down. "No, not fine. Bruised and d.a.m.n near murdered!" Seeing Snorri suddenly made it all seem much more real and the horror of it all settled on me. "Edris Dean was going to gut me with a knife and-"

"Edris?" Snorri interrupted. "So he's behind this?" He rolled Alrik's corpse off the drop with his foot.

Tuttugu came into view, glancing nervously over his shoulder. "The southerner? I thought it might just be the Harda.s.sa . . ." He caught sight of me. "Jal! How's the boat?"

"What is it with northmen and their d.a.m.n boats? A prince of Red March nearly died on this-"

"Can you carry us away from the Red Vikings?" Snorri asked.

"Well no, but-"

"How's the d.a.m.n boat then?"

I took the point. "It's fine . . . but it's about a spear's length from the longboat that these two came in." I nodded to the corpses at my outstretched feet. "And there are over a dozen more with it, and two dozen on the mountain."

"Good that Snorri found you then!" Tuttugu rubbed his sides like he always did when upset. "We were hoping they'd come ash.o.r.e somewhere else . . ."

"How-" I stood up, thinking to ask how it was that Snorri did find me. Then I saw her. A little further back from the edge from where Snorri and Tuttugu looked down on me. A Norse woman, fair hair divided into a score of tight braids, each set with an iron rune tablet, a style I'd seen among older women in Trond, though none ever sported more than a handful of such runes.

Snorri saw my surprise and gestured at the woman. "Kara ver Huran, Jal." And at me. "Jal, Kara." She spared me a brief nod. I guessed her to be about halfway between me and Snorri in age, tall, her figure hidden beneath a long black cape of tooled leather. I wouldn't call her pretty . . . too weak a word. Striking. Bold-featured.

I bowed as she drew closer. "Prince Jalan Kendeth of Red March at your ser-"

"My boat is in the next cove. Come, I'll lead you there." She pinned me with remarkably blue eyes as if taking an uncomfortably accurate measure of me, then turned to go. Snorri and Tuttugu made to follow.

"Wait!" I stumbled about, trying to gather my wits. "Snorri!"

"What?" Glancing back over his shoulder.

"The necromancer. She's here too!"

Snorri turned back after Kara, shaking his head. "Better hurry then!"

I set both hands to the top of the "cliff" and prepared to heft myself up onto the slope above when I saw my sword hilt jutting over Alrik's shoulder. He lay on his side, not far from Knui. Above the nose his head was little more than skull fragments, hair and brain. I hesitated. I'd killed my first man with that sword, albeit mostly by accident-at least he was the first one I remembered. I'd notched that sword battling against the odds in the Black Fort, wedged it hilt-deep in a Fenris wolf. If I'd ever done anything that might truly count as manly, honourable, or brave it was done holding that blade.

I took a step toward Alrik. Another. The fingers of his right hand twitched. And I ran like h.e.l.l.

NINE.

Deep gullies, rain-carved through ancient lava flows, brought us down to the cove where Kara's boat lay at anchor.

"It's a long way out," I said, peering through the gloom. The footing in the gullies would have been dangerous in full day. Coming down in deep shadow had been practically begging for a broken ankle. And now with the night thick about us Kara expected me to swim toward a distant and slightly darker clot of sea that was allegedly a boat. I could see the gentle phosph.o.r.escence of the waves as the foam surged over the jagged rocks where the beach should be, and beyond them . . . nothing else. "A very long way out!"

Snorri laughed as if I'd made a joke and started to strap his weapons onto the little raft Kara had towed ash.o.r.e when she arrived. I hugged myself, shivering. The rain had returned. I had expected snow-the night felt cold enough for it. And somewhere out there the necromancer hunted us . . . or had already found us and now watched from the rocks. Out there, Knui and Alrik would be stumbling along our trail, oozing, broken, filled with that dreadful hunger that invades men when they return from death.

While the others prepared themselves I watched the sea with my usual silent loathing. The moon broke from behind a cloudbank, lighting the ocean swell with glimmers and making white bands of the breaking waves.

Tuttugu appeared to share some of my reservations but at least like a walrus he had his bulk to keep him warm and to add buoyancy. My swimming might accurately be described as drowning sideways.

"I'm not good in the water."

"You're not good on land," Snorri retorted.

"We'll come in closer." Kara glanced my way. "I can bring her closer now the tide's in."

So one by one, with their bulkier clothing on the raft in tight-folded bundles, the three of them waded into the surf and struck out for the boat. Tuttugu went last and at least acknowledged how icy the sea was with some most un-Viking-like squeals and gasps.

I stood on the beach alone with the sound of the waves, the wind, and the rain. Freezing water trickled down my neck, my hair hung in my eyes, and the bits of me that weren't numb with cold variously hurt, ached, throbbed, and stung. Moonlight painted the rocky slopes behind the shingle in black and silver, rendering a confused mosaic into which my fears could construct the slow advance of undead horrors. Perhaps the necromancer watched from those dark hollows even now, or Edris urged the Harda.s.sa toward me with silent gestures . . . Clouds swallowed the moon, leaving me blind.

Eventually, after far longer than I felt it reasonable for them to take, I heard Snorri calling. The moonlight returned, reaching through a wind-torn hole in the clouds, and the boat resolved from the darkness, picked out in silver. Kara's looked to be a more seaworthy craft than Snorri's rowing boat, longer, with more elegant lines and a deeper hull. Snorri ceased his labour at the oars still fifty yards clear of the sh.o.r.e and the hidden rocks further in. The tall mast and furled sails wagged to and fro as waves rolled beneath, gathering themselves to break upon the beach.

"Jal! Get out here!" Snorri's boom across the water.

I stood, unwilling, watching the breakers smash, collapse into foam, and retreat, clawing at the shingle. Further out the sea's surface danced with rain.

"Jal!"

In the end one fear pushed out another. I found myself more afraid of what might be descending from the mountain beneath the cover of darkness than of what might lurk beneath the waves. I threw myself into the surf, shouting oaths at the shocking coldness of it, and tried to drown in the direction of the boat.

My swim consisted of a long and horrific repet.i.tion. First of being plunged beneath icy water, then thrashing to the surface, gasping a blind breath and finally a few seconds of beating at the brine before the next wave swamped me. It ended abruptly when a hooked pole snagged my cloak and Snorri hauled me into the boat like a piece of lost cargo.

For the next several hours I lay sodden and almost too exhausted to complain. I thought the cold would be the death of me, but hadn't any solution to the problem or the energy to act on it if an idea had occurred. The others tried to wrap me in some stinking furs the woman had stashed away onboard but I cursed them and wouldn't cooperate.

Dawn found us adrift beneath clear skies a mile or two off the coast. Kara unfurled the sail and set a course south.

"Hang your clothes on the line, Jal, and get under these." Snorri thrust the furs at me again. Bearskins by the look of them. He pointed to his own rags flapping on one of the ropes that secured the sail. A woollen robe I'd not seen before strained to cover his chest.

"I'm fine." But my voice emerged as a croak and the cold wouldn't leave me despite the sunshine. A few minutes later I s.n.a.t.c.hed up the furs with poor grace and stripped, shivering violently. I struggled to keep from toppling a.r.s.e up between the benches, face in the bilge water, and I kept my back to Kara since a man is never flattered by a cold wind-not that she seemed interested in any case.

Wrapped in something that used to wrap a bear, I huddled down out of the wind close to Snorri and tried not to let my teeth chatter. Most parts of me ached and the bits that didn't ache were really painful. "So what happened?" I needed something to take my mind off my fever. "And who is Kara?" Did he still have that d.a.m.n key was what I really wanted to know.

Snorri looked out over the sea, the wind whipping a black mane behind him. I supposed he looked well enough in that rough-hewn barbarian sort of way but it always astonished me that a woman would look twice at him when young Prince Jal was on offer.

"I think I'm hallucinating," I said, somewhat more loudly. "I'm sure I asked a question."

Snorri half-startled and shook his head. "Sorry, Jal. Just thinking." He slid down closer to me, sheltering. "I'll tell you the story."

Tuttugu came forward to listen, as if he hadn't seen the tale unfold before him the previous day. He sat tented in sailcloth while his clothes flapped on the mast. Only Kara stayed back, hand on the tiller, gaze to the fore, occasionally glancing up at the stained expanse of the sail, pregnant with the wind.

"So," began Snorri, and just as so often before on our travels he wrapped that voice around us and drew us into his memories.

Snorri had stood in the prow, watching the coast draw near.

"We'll beach her? Yes?" Tuttugu paused by the anchor, a crude iron hook.

Snorri nodded. "See if you can wake Jal." Snorri mimed a slap. He knew Tuttugu would be more gentle. The fat man's presence cheered him in ways he couldn't explain. With Tuttugu around Snorri could almost imagine these were the old days again, back when life had been more simple. Better. In truth when the pair of them, Jalan and Tuttugu, had turned up on the quay in Trond Snorri's heart had risen. For all his resolve he had no love of being alone. He knew Jal had been pushed into the boat by circ.u.mstance rather than jumping of his own accord, but Tuttugu had no reason to be there other than loyalty. Of the three of them only Tuttugu had started to make a life in Trond, finding work, new friends, a woman to share his days. And yet he'd given that up in a moment because an old friend needed him.

An hour later and the beach lay far behind them. Snorri had climbed high enough to break clear of the pines, thick about Beerentoppen's flanks. Tuttugu came puffing from the tree-line a minute later. They turned north and wound around the mountain on a slow and rising spiral. Snorri aimed to bring them to the north face where they could ascend directly, searching for the cave. They saw few signs of life, once an eagle, wings spread wide to embrace a high wind, once a mountain goat, racing away across broken slopes that looked all but impa.s.sable.

Within two hours they had the north to their backs and were ready to climb in earnest.

"Troll country, I'd say." Tuttugu took a suspicious sniff, nose to the wind.

Snorri snorted and put his water flask to his lips. Tuttugu had never so much as smelled a troll, let alone seen one. Still he had a point: the creatures did seem to like volcanoes. Wiping his mouth Snorri started up the slope.

"There!" After another hour's clambering Tuttugu proved to have the sharper eyes, jabbing a finger toward an overhang several hundred yards to their left.

Snorri squinted. "Could be." And led off, placing each foot on the treacherous surface with caution. Between their path and the cave lay a dark scree slope where any slip would likely see them sliding halfway back down in an ever-growing avalanche of loose, frost-shattered stone. Twice Tuttugu went down sharply on his backside with a despairing wail. Their luck held though and they made it to the firmer footing at the base of the cliffs into which the cave was set.

Snorri led again, Tuttugu in his wake sniffing. "I can smell something. It's trolls. I knew it." He fumbled for his axe. "b.l.o.o.d.y trolls! I should have stayed with Jal-"

"It's not trolls." Snorri could smell it too. Something powerful, animal, the kind of rankness that only a predator can afford. He shrugged the axe from across his shoulders, and took it in two hands, his father's axe, recovered from the Broke-Oar on the Bitter Ice. Slow steps took him closer to the cave mouth, the dark interior yielding secrets as it grew to encompa.s.s his vision.

"Hel's teats!" Snorri breathed the oath out before closing his jaw, which had fallen open. In the shadows a monster slumbered. A hound that might stand taller than a shire horse, and wide as the elephant in Taproot's circus. It had that blunt yet wrinkled face of dogs bred for fighting rather than the hunt. One canine, of similar size to Snorri's fingers and thumb all funnelled up together, protruded from the lower jaw, escaping s...o...b..ry jowls to point toward a wet nose.

"It's asleep." A hoa.r.s.e whisper at his shoulder. "If we're very quiet we can get away."

"This is her cave, Tutt. There aren't going to be two. And this must be her guardian. It's not here by chance."

"We could . . ." Tuttugu rubbed furiously at his beard as if hoping to dislodge an answer. "You could lure it out and I could drop a rock on it from up there!" He pointed to the cliff top.

"I think that might . . . irritate her. I've met this woman, Tutt. She's not someone you want to irritate."

"What then? We can't very well walk up and pat the puppy."

Snorri took a hand from his axe and dug beneath his furs to touch Loki's key. Immediately he felt them, Emy, Egil, Karl, Freja, as if it were their skin beneath his fingers, not the slickness of obsidian. "That's exactly what we'll do."

With the need to run trembling in every limb, Snorri advanced into the cave, axe lowered, quiet but not creeping. A few yards in and he sensed he was alone. Turning, he beckoned Tuttugu. The other half of the Undoreth stood no further forward than when they last spoke, huddled in his leathers and quilted jacket, arms so tight about himself he almost squeezed his bulk thin. Snorri beckoned again, with more urgency. Tuttugu offered a despairing look at the heavens and hurried into the cave.

In close file the pair of them trod a silent path toward a tunnel leading from the back of the cave, some yards past the vastness of the dog. The size of the beast overwhelmed Snorri's senses, the powerful dog-stink, the warmth of its breath as he pa.s.sed within feet of that great muzzle. His back sc.r.a.ped the cave wall with each step. And at the closest point one huge eye rolled open amid the folded topology of the dog's face, regarding Snorri with an unreadable look. For a moment he froze, hand tight on his axe, raising the weapon an inch or two before remembering how poorly it would serve him. With his gaze fixed on the tunnel mouth Snorri moved on, Tuttugu wheezing behind him as if terror had taken hold of his throat.

Twenty paces later they stood out of the hound's sight in a tunnel too small for any pursuit. Snorri felt his body unclench. When the Fenris wolf came for him he had been able to attack, channelling his energy into the battle. Holding back all those instincts had wound every fibre of him to within a hair of snapping.

"Come." He nodded ahead to the glow reflecting on the tunnel walls.

Another convolution of the pa.s.sage brought them to a cavern, lit from above by fissures running through the thickness of the mountainside to a distant sky. A small pool lay beneath these vents, glowing with the light. The chamber, large as any jarl's hall, lay strewn with the business of living. A pallet heaped with bed furs, a blackened hearth by some natural chimney in the rock, a cauldron before it, other pots stacked to one side, here and there sea-chests, some closed, others open to display clothes, or sacks of stores. Two women sat close together in oak chairs carved in the Thurtan style. Between them they held a scroll, the younger woman tracing a finger along some line of it while the elder watched and nodded.

"Come in if you must." Skilfar raised an arm. Her flesh lay as white as it had when she held audience amid the conjunction of Builders' tracks, guarded by Hemrod's plasteek army, but it no longer smoked with coldness. Her eyes held that same wintry blue but they were the eyes of an old woman now, not some frost-sworn demon.

Snorri took a few paces into the chamber.

"Ah, the warrior. But no prince this time? Not unless he filled out . . . a little." Skilfar c.o.c.ked her head, looking past Snorri to Tuttugu, trying unsuccessfully to hide in his shadow. The younger woman with the braided hair put down her scroll, unsmiling.

Snorri took another step then realized he still had his axe in hand. "Sorry." He secured it across his back. "That beast of yours scared the h.e.l.l out of me! Not that an axe would have helped much."

A thin smile. "So you braved my little Bobo did you?" Her glance flitted to the entrance behind him. Snorri turned. A small dog, stubby-legged, wrinkle-faced, and broad-chested had followed Tuttugu. It sat now, looking up at the fat man with sad eyes, one tooth protruding from its lower jaw above the folds of its muzzle.

"How-"

"Everything in this world depends upon how you look at it, warrior. Everything is a matter of perspective-a matter of where you stand."