The Hunter Victorious (25 page)

Even before the ground had finished its terrible dance, the
ceiling had begun to fall, huge chunks breaking off and falling upon the helpless throng below. Relatively porous and lightweight,
the rock was still heavy enough to cause death and maiming when it landed on soft and vulnerable flesh.

The carved panels shook loose of their bolts in the blink of an eye and were hurled into the room by the heaving rock with
much the same momentum as a stone skipping across water. Heads were lopped from shoulders, limbs sliced from bodies, and bodies
themselves neatly portioned. The panels were slippery with blood, their figures coated in crimson robes when finally they
came to rest.

The statues were probably responsible for causing the most deaths, for when they toppled, they crushed everything that came
between them and the lowest point in the room. When the first tremor came, the statues began to rock on their pedestals. A
few fell, but it was the second tremor that set them all in motion. Down they came, rolling and tumbling, falling and crushing
those unfortunate enough to be in their path. Had there been many survivors, some few might have gained an ironic bit of humor
out of the fact that their families were able to strike out, figuratively speaking, at those who had stood between them and
the throne.

But when the earth ceased its dance of death, there were too few left alive to appreciate such irony. Those few who had lived
were more concerned with escaping the chamber that was now little more than an enormous burial chamber. Here and there were
moans and cries issuing from the tumbled rock, and an occasional arm or finger probed the darkness signaling for help. A few
bloodied and battered survivors stumbled over the debris, ignoring or incapable of hearing the cries for help as they made
their way toward the exit.

Oddly enough, as these things go, Skirnir and Otir Vaeng had both been spared, had come through the devastation with
barely a scratch between them. Who was to say why such a thing had happened. Was sparing their lives a gift from the gods…
or, as some later suggested, a punishment?

Many good men perished in that brief twitch of the earth’s flank, but also many who had schemed and abetted the most evil
of plans.

Skirnir had stood riveted beside the throne when the earth gave its first tentative shake. He alone seemed to comprehend instantly
what was happening. A second before the ceiling began to collapse, he seized the king’s arm and began to pull at his listless
body, trying to get him up out of the throne and out of the chamber. But it was too late.

Perhaps realizing that he would never succeed in moving the man to whom his life was linked, he heaved Otir Vaeng out of the
throne without explanation, ignoring the pain he had caused to the swollen arm and the curses that followed. With a superhuman
burst of strength, he overturned the throne, which was carved out of the granite that composed so much of the planet, and
shoved Otir Vaeng beneath it just as the first rocks began to fall. He himself received a painful blow on the ankle as he
tucked himself into the tiny bit of remaining space, but it did not matter compared to the death and destruction that was
taking place all around them.

They remained huddled in their tiny shelter, their oasis of safety, long after the final rock had fallen—Skirnir from fear,
Otir Vaeng from shock and despair. He had been warned and he had ignored the warnings. He alone was responsible for the deaths
that had occurred. His pain-filled mind took the next step as he realized that surely the damage and losses had not been restricted
to this one chamber alone.

Closing his mind to the agony of his own body as well as the screams that surrounded him, he forced the terrified Skirnir
out from under the safety of the throne. It was difficult,
for the throne was surrounded and nearly mounded over by the remains of the statues which had come to rest against the throne
like so many dead bodies.

Finding their way out of the dimly lit chamber was a horror in itself, for the way was clogged with fallen rock, broken statues,
and,.worse… broken bodies. Each face, bearing the wounds and terrible expressions of death come too soon, were silent accusations,
blows that struck Otir Vaeng’s heart and left indelible wounds. The open, lifeless, staring eyes seemed to ask him why their
loyalty had brought them death. Their mouths, framing gaping, silent screams, seemed to cry out the anguish of their betrayal.
Each body, each terrible recognition, was a loss that hammered at Otir Vaeng, driving nails of pain into his heart.

The dead were the faithful, the loyal cadre of men who had entrusted their lives and the lives of their families to him on
the dying earth. They had cast their fate with his and had the courage to take to the stars. The way had not been smooth;
it had been hard and filled with trouble and danger. There had been dissension and anger, but in the end they had always trusted
in him and followed where he had led.

And this was where he had led them in the end, into death. Had the carnage been incurred in honest, open battle or even defying
the odds of space, he could have borne it. But this was senseless, inexcusable death brought on by nothing so much as his
own vanity.

The wise old lions such as Saxo and Brandtson had argued against the construction of the room, but he had ignored their advice
and ridiculed them for their efforts. If the truth were known, Otir Vaeng enjoyed the struggles of the Thanes as they attempted
to maneuver themselves closer to the throne. He enjoyed watching the changes in the statuary; he thought of it as little more
than a giant game of chess. But the worst of it were the remaining reliefs, which stared down upon
him, mocking him. If the gods had indeed brought them to Valhalla, it must have been Loki, for only that god of mischief would
play such a trick upon them. But even though they displeased him, he had not ordered their removal, for to do so would be
an admission that he had been wrong, and that was unthinkable.

Tears were streaming down his face by the time he and Skirnir reached the doorway. It too was blocked by debris. A few survivors
had reached it before them and were doing their best to clear it. Blood was streaming from their wounds, and one of the men,
Reynold Anderson, was working with but one good hand, his other arm hanging uselessly at his side. He had always been one
of Otir Vaeng’s staunchest allies and could be counted on to support his every move. But now Anderson would not even meet
Otir Vaeng’s eyes, did not appear to hear his voice when he was spoken to, and worked without ceasing like an automaton even
though he must have been in extreme pain.

Otir Vaeng did not persist in his attempts. It was clear, even to him, where the blame lay, and no amount of self-delusion
would change the facts.

The door was uncovered after a time and Otir Vaeng joined in the efforts to remove the injured. He did not leave until the
last of them had been carried to the hospital, which by this time was overflowing with casualties from other areas. Only after
the last of the Thanes had been gently laid on makeshift pallets did Otir Vaeng allow Skirnir to lead him away to his own
quarters.

He would not permit his personal physicians to touch him, brushing them and their cries of concern off like annoying insects.
In a tone of voice that was softer and less officious than any they had ever heard him use, he urged them to take themselves
to the hospital and make themselves useful.

He seemed strangely removed from the circumstances, almost
as though he were thinking of something else. He did not even seem aware of his own wounded arm, which had saturated the few
bandages that he could bear with a stinking excrescence of pus and blood. The dark red streaks now extended the length of
his arm and spidered up over his shoulder. The pain had to be excruciating, but Otir Vaeng gave no sign.

Skirnir was beside himself. Otir Vaeng paid no more attention to him than a dog pays a flea. He was a minor annoyance and
no more. The shape-changers, those strange men whose violence always lay just beneath the surface ready to erupt, seemed to
blame him in some way for what had happened. They paced the king’s chambers, which strangely enough had suffered no damage,
and cast evil glances his way. Skirnir felt that if he did not remove himself, and quickly, they would kill him, or worse,
and there would be no one to stop them. They were strange, terrifying men with odd powers that not even Skirnir could understand,
and he was afraid of them.

Mumbling a few words to the king, who dismissed him with a twitch of his fingers, Skirnir hurried to his own chambers, pausing
nervously, casting an uneasy eye in all directions as he unlocked the multiple safety devices that he used to protect himself
from his fellow man.

Despite his position, Skirnir possessed only the smallest of rooms, for he had no wife or family. The room, small and dark
as it was, contained only a single narrow bed, a sturdy table, and a lamp. That was all, except for the treasure which he
had so carefully amassed.

He sat on the bed amid the rumpled, unwashed bedclothes and without really seeing them ran his fingers through piles of coins
and unset gemstones which he had carefully pried from their settings, all looted from the burial urns and skimmed from the
treasury.

There were many such mounds in the room, each wrapped
tightly in waterproof laminates and then bound with cloth into brick-sized bundles. They were amazingly heavy for their size.
This was Skirnir’s treasure, his booty, his safeguard against disaster, the nameless dread fear that haunted him whether waking
or sleeping. Only the heavy, solid feel of gold was able to assuage that fear.

Skirnir sat in the darkness, fondling his gold and thinking about what had happened. Even though he had not ventured into
the heart of the cone, he knew from the number of casualties and from the fragments of stories he had heard that the damage
and death had been widespread. It was a situation that had to be handled carefully and quickly before it escalated in the
wrong direction. A wise man could turn such a disaster to his benefit, and Skirnir definitely thought of himself as such a
man.

Someone or something had to be blamed for the catastrophe; it could not be allowed to pass as a meaningless occurrence. The
people needed someone to blame, to fix their anger and their grief upon. Someone expendable, someone whose death would benefit
Skirnir. And Skirnir knew just the man for the job.

Braldt was sitting in a corner of his cell when the quake
struck, his back against the wall. Mirna had been standing beside the narrow door talking to Gunnar Bakkstrom, doing her
best to charm him into adding something extra to their meager rations.

It was a game that Bakkstrom seemed to enjoy, a game with the added twist of bending to his will the proud woman who had once
been his mistress, something he had never been able to accomplish when Mirna was free. Then, all too often, it had been he
who had begged for her favors… and been refused.

Yes, Gunnar Bakkstrom was enjoying this turn of events, but still, even though she was a captive and facing certain death,
the cursed woman still retained that stiff-necked, arrogant tilt to her head, a way of speaking to him with a curl to her
lips and a glint in her green eyes that did not exhibit the fear and respect that he would have— The floor suddenly twisted
beneath his feet.

Bakkstrom slammed against the door frame hard—hard enough to numb his arm from the shoulder all the way down to his fingertips.
He stared at Mirna in amazement. How had she caused such a thing to happen? He struggled to gain his balance, to force his
arm to answer his commands, but nothing happened. He was reaching for his knife when the door was
thrust open, striking him a painful blow on his wrist. He staggered back under the momentum of the body that hurtled through
the open door. He caught a glimpse of hate-filled eyes, lips drawn tight across teeth bared in a snarl, and then he was thrown
to the floor with a strength equal to that of his own.

Gunnar Bakkstrom fought from a sense of duty, allegiance to king and throne, and also because he was a man who enjoyed inflicting
pain upon others. But Braldt fought not only for his survival, which certainly hung in the balance, but also out of hatred
and frustration. Gunnar Bakkstrom served quite nicely as the focus for the accumulation of anger and rage that had built within
him. The Scandis had destroyed his life and his world. Even if he was able to do no more, he would have his revenge upon at
least one of them.

Mirna was not a squeamish woman. She had seen more than her share of bloodshed and mayhem in her life, had indeed been the
cause of much of it, but never had she seen a fight such as the one which took place before her now as Braldt and Bakkstrom
fought for supremacy on the still trembling ground.

Bakkstrom soon realized that this was no normal contest of strength and wills. Nor was Braldt the usual easily vanquished,
easily intimidated opponent. How had the man slipped his bonds? He felt Braldt’s hands around his throat and for the first
time, a cold thread of fear lanced through Gunnar’s bowels as it occurred to him that it was actually possible that he might
lose! Now allegiance to king and duty vanished, replaced by the much stronger allegiance to life itself.