The Long War 01 - The Black Guard (23 page)

Three Ranen warriors sat at a small table off to the side and all looked up as Halla approached. She recognized two of them as Rulag Ursa of Jarvik and his son Kalag. The third man carried a huge axe across his back and Halla guessed he was their axe-master. Rulag and Kalag both had deep green eyes, a remnant of the old thain of Jarvik, Golag Emerald Eyes, a man who’d been hanged by Rulag from his own dragon ship’s mast when he’d stolen control of the town. The Order of the Hammer had condemned the family of Ursa to bear forever the same deep green eyes, to mark them out as the killers of their thain.

The axe-master strode towards Halla. ‘This is a place for men, one-eye. You may wait outside until we need a serving wench for our meat.’

Wulfrick stood next to Halla. ‘You see, you’re not the first to arrive this morning, nor are you the first to be told to wait.’ He ignored the axe-master of Jarvik.

Halla looked past the axe-master and let her gaze flow over Rulag and his son. ‘When some men get here, I’ll gladly serve them,’ she said. The insult was deliberate.

Kalag, a man of no more than twenty years, stood with anger and roared, ‘I will cut out your other eye, red woman, and see how quick your tongue is then.’

Halla smiled. ‘The young lord seems to have forgotten his manners. With his father’s permission, I’ll gladly teach him the proper way to address an axe-maiden of Rowanoco,’ she said, casually removing her battleaxe.

Wulfrick laughed at this, but put a restraining hand on Halla’s shoulder. ‘Enough, it’s too early and too cold to be killing lordlings,’ he said, with a relaxed wave of his hand, which was sufficient to give Kalag pause.

Rulag, the lord of Jarvik, was smiling and had not taken any great offence at Halla’s words. He stood and ushered his son back to his chair. ‘Apologies, Master Wulfrick, my son is exuberant when talk of battle fills the air. We were discussing the deployment of our ships along the Fjorlan coast and your woman interrupted at a tense moment. Kalag is a little anxious that he won’t be at the vanguard of the fleet, at least until we pass Samnia.’

Kalag had a petulant expression on his face as he sat down and turned his fiery glare away from Halla.

His father slapped him on the back. ‘Cheer up, son, one-eye here would have cut your cock off before you had a chance to draw your axe,’ he said with good humour.

The Jarvik axe-master still stood close to Halla and his stare remained hostile. As Rulag resumed his seat, Halla took a step forward and stood nose to nose with the axe-master.

‘Your lord may call me what he wishes, little man,’ she said, staring him down. ‘You, however, will address me as Lady Halla or axe-mistress.’ She paused, deliberately sizing him up. ‘If you call me one-eye again, I’ll kill you… and I won’t break sweat doing it.’

Rulag and Wulfrick both laughed at this, though the axe-master of Jarvik looked as if he were about to burst with rage. Halla didn’t soften her gaze as she spoke. ‘Go on, call me one-eye again…’

Halla was not the equal of these men for strength, but she knew that she was faster and more skilful.

Rulag also knew this and he barked at his axe-master, ‘Jalek, sit down.’ The lord of Jarvik then turned to Wulfrick. ‘Fun as all this cock waving is, do we know when Lord Algenon will be returning?’

Halla shot a dark glare at Wulfrick. ‘He’s not here?’

‘I did tell you to wait, but you’re an impatient sort, Halla,’ he replied with a smile.

‘Father’s gone to see the monster man,’ said a child’s voice from the back of the feast hall and Ingrid Teardrop, little wolf of Fredericksand, walked towards the seated men.

Halla was slightly uncomfortable in her presence, as Ingrid idolized the axe-maiden. They had met only a few times, but she constantly asked questions about combat and about the traditions of Rowanoco.

The child came to stand next to Wulfrick and smiled warmly at Halla. She wore simple clothes of spun wool and a tight-fitting cloak crested with wolf fur. She was barefoot, as was often the case, and Halla thought how cold her toes must be.

‘I might attach a troll bell to your ankle, little wolf; that way you won’t be able to sneak up on people,’ Wulfrick said with the stern look of a favoured uncle.

Ingrid was abashed and looked down at the floor. ‘But it’s harder to listen to what you’re saying when you know I’m there.’

Rulag Ursa laughed loudly. ‘Algenon has a budding spy,’ he said, chewing on a piece of crusty bread. ‘She can join that Karesian troll cunt and go spy on the Ro.’

Both Wulfrick and Ingrid glared at the lord of Jarvik, and Halla sensed that both of them liked
that Karesian
, whoever he was.

Ingrid turned back to look up at the huge figure of Wulfrick. ‘He’s nice, isn’t he? Don’t we like Hasim?’

‘Whether we do or not we should mind our manners around children,’ the axe-master said, without averting his glare from Rulag.

Halla smiled at him and placed a hand on his shoulder, causing Wulfrick to turn away. ‘As I said, men seem to be in short supply in this hall at present,’ she said quietly enough for the lords of Jarvik not to hear her properly.

Ingrid interposed herself between Halla and Wulfrick and looked up defiantly at Rulag. ‘Well, we like Hasim and my father likes him too.’

Rulag scowled at the three of them and his son looked deeply offended. He threw his half-eaten bread down on a map of the Fjorlan coast and rose from his seat.

‘Master Wulfrick, I can say what I please to whomever I please and there is nothing you or your…’ he glanced first at Halla then at Ingrid, ‘your women can do about it. Now where is Lord Algenon? I tire of being made to wait.’

Wulfrick smiled, but made a slight nod of deference to Rulag, and Halla thought he appreciated his position as axe-master was insufficient to challenge a battle-lord. He turned and looked down at Ingrid.

‘Would the
monster man
be Samson?’ he asked the girl.

Ingrid simply nodded.

The lords of Jarvik exchanged glances at the mention of the old-blood and Kalag stood from his chair. ‘He takes counsel from the liar? Are not the Order of the Hammer sufficient wisdom for him?’

‘He’ll be back soon, my lords. In the meantime, he has left instructions about the deployment,’ Wulfrick said while untangling his legs from Ingrid. ‘Little wolf, please go back to bed, and no more spying.’ He gently shoved her towards the back of the hall and, after looking hurt for a moment, she rushed to the door that led to her home.

Wulfrick turned to Halla. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to wait outside,’ he said plainly. ‘You haven’t even agreed to join us yet.’

Halla considered saying something cutting, and even thought about making a fuss or accusing Wulfrick of having insulted her, but she bit her lip and decided to save her anger. With a shallow nod to Rulag and his son she strode from the feast hall.

Her father was dead and she knew she would get no answers as to why, whether she was insistent or not. As she opened the huge wooden doors and felt the freezing air hit her face, she hoped only that her father had died to secure an honourable cause and that Lord Algenon was worthy of her axe. The way south to Ro Canarn was long and treacherous, passing dangerous semi-submerged rocks, sheet ice and dense fog. If she was to take her people and their ships through such dangers, she needed to know it was worth the risk. Her father’s sea charts were familiar to her, but she was no expert and would need Borrin’s help if she was going to join the fleet.

Somewhere, deep in the back of her mind, Halla found the idea of such a voyage exciting. She’d never sailed past Kalall’s Deep or seen the icy straits of Samnia where, according to half-whispered stories, the blind, mindless Krakens still dwelt, a remnant of the Giant age that Ranen sailors sought to avoid.

* * *

Algenon Teardrop, high thain of Ranen, had a master. To the people of the Freelands, the thain of Fredericksand was the all-high of the dragon fleet and lord of all free Ranen. The reality was that Algenon himself was not a free man. He was bound to the service of Rowanoco in a way that no priest of the Order of the Hammer could hope to understand. He could not summon the battle rage or heal wounds by channelling the voice, but he was compelled to follow a more literal avatar.

He’d risen early, before first light, and walked into his town. With his black hood obscuring his face, Algenon was an anonymous presence in the quiet, snow-covered streets. He’d walked past the steel shops where the furnaces were already lit and working. He’d taken time to stop at Alguin’s Mount, where the Ice Giant supposedly first appeared to the Ranen, and now he waited outside Rowanoco’s chapel.

The sun was just peeking over the high plateau and the snowy forests beyond were glinting in the light. Fredericksand was a beautiful place in the autumn months, before the ice took hold completely. Algenon knew that within a few months no ship would be able to launch from the Fjorlan coast, and only Volk ice-breakers would be able to traverse the sea. The ice that came each winter was the greatest defence his realm had and, once the passes of the Deep Cross were iced over, no army could march north.

Algenon judged that he had waited long enough and banged his fist against the small wooden door that led down into the chapel. The building was built largely into the rock, with only a small white dome protruding above the ground. All chapels to Rowanoco were like this, unadorned buildings dug into the stone of Ranen. The only sign of its importance was the shallow stone relief of a hammer etched on to the surface of the dome. The wooden doors required all who entered to duck, and the stairs down were steep with worn, rounded edges.

Algenon banged a second time and added a solid kick. Samson the Liar did not sleep and Algenon could only assume that the old-blood was making him wait on purpose. He may have been summoned, but he was still high thain of Ranen and wasn’t prepared to let Samson treat him like an errand boy.

The doors began to open and Algenon wondered how Samson had managed to ascend the stairs so silently. The double doors were shoved roughly outwards, pushing snow across the street, and a huge head poked out of the darkness.

Samson the Liar had the blood of Giants, something the people of Ranen considered both a great gift and a tremendous curse. Through a thousand thousand generations, Samson could claim to be related to the Ice Giants that lived in the lands of Fjorlan before the men of Ranen. He was huge in size, approaching nine feet tall, but ungainly, and his limbs were swollen and oversized rather than in proportion. He was flabby, with little muscle, though still immensely strong. His hair was grey and his beard covered much of his face and neck, making him look like a wild man as he grunted at Algenon.

‘The exemplar is here,’ he said in a voice deeper than any man, and waved an enormous hand at the thain. ‘He comes in, out of the cold.’

Samson loped back down the stairs. He was bent over and needed to use all four of his limbs to crawl up and down the narrow space, though his shoulders still rubbed against the wall and gave the impression that he was squeezing himself down a tunnel too narrow for his passing. Algenon ducked under the door frame and steadied himself before gingerly descending the stairs after the old-blood.

‘Samson, is there any way you could walk backwards down these stairs so I’m not faced with your enormous arse the entire way?’

Samson craned his neck round to peer back up at the thain. ‘He is in bad spirits,’ he said, before hurrying down the stairs with unusual dexterity for a man of his size.

Algenon was more tolerant of Samson than were many others, but he still disliked his peculiar manner. Across the north of the Freelands maybe five men in recent memory could claim to be true old-bloods, and all of them had displayed the same swollen appearance and strange speech patterns. Samson was the oldest known – several hundred years by his own reckoning – and was the only one ever to be permitted to live in a town. Algenon knew of another that had once haunted the woods of Hammerfall, a feral creature known as Louhi the Beast – more of a wild animal than a man. Al-Hasim used to talk about a Karesian old-blood he’d known near the town of Rikara in the south. Those with Fire Giant blood in their veins were even more unstable, and the man had been known for waylaying and eating travellers before he was executed by the Hounds of Karesia. As far as the thain knew, the men of Ro had hunted down and killed any men with Giant blood long ago, and Samson and his Ranen kin remained the only real legacy of the Long War.

At the bottom of the narrow staircase the chapel was warm, heated by the ever-burning brazier that Samson maintained. The rocky cave had smooth walls and low passageways leading in a web out from the central chamber. Few men were permitted to enter, and most preferred simply to stand around the dome if they felt the need to pray. Rowanoco was not a demanding god to worship and just required that his followers take time to drink, feast and sing, as had always been the Ranen way. The priests of the Order of the Hammer were the only men to show any formality in their worship, and even they tended to merely drink, eat and sing in greater quantities.

Samson had been allowed to live in the chapel by Ragnar Teardrop some fifty years ago and, though the men of Fredericksand knew he was down there, he was a largely invisible presence to all but Algenon.

The thain stood in front of the fire and warmed his hands, giving Samson time to haul his enormous bulk around the cave and get comfortable. The old-blood had a simple bedroll and a wooden table, upon which were a meagre amount of personal possessions: a small hourglass, a book of poems and a ruby pendant, each with their own significance to Samson. On the floor sat a huge war-hammer, an ornate weapon with well-worn silver engravings of Giants in battle, and to the old-blood’s left sat a simple cooking pot. It was a humble place for a mighty being to live, but Algenon knew that Samson had little need of comforts and was happiest when at rest.

‘The exemplar has done well,’ Samson grunted as he sat on the stone floor.

‘Will you now tell me more, or should I take men to their deaths ignorant?’ Algenon was not bitter, but neither was he naive and he knew how important such information could be.