Chapter Fourteen Felnir #2
“As I recall, the Kearling did not value shiny metal and jewels as we do. And I don’t believe this to be entirely a map.” He held his lamp closer to a long procession of stick figures. “See how they’re rendered, as if they’re walking away from the north. This is as much a story as it is a map.”
“A story of what? Their gods? This is their Altvar Rendi?”
“No. This is their own tale, a great saga of how they came to these lands. It is my theory that the Kearling migrated from the north centuries before we came here. And they didn’t sail.” The old man’s nail scratched at the stick figures. “They walked.”
“That would mean they came across the Swathe,” Felnir said. “It’s supposed to be impassible.”
“Not to them, it seems. And if they did come here from the northern lands you see in your visions, my king, it could be their route that leads us there.”
“Leads us…” Felnir breathed, leaning closer to the carvings, “… to Guthnyr.”
He felt a pulse from the sword as his eye tracked over the markings.
It hadn’t spared him during this siege, filling his dreams with ever more confusing and disturbing visions of his brother’s plight.
Once it had shown him confronted by a snow cat of impressive size, only to deny Felnir the sight of what came next.
Other dreams lacked the same clarity but at least confirmed his brother still drew breath.
“Can you plot it?” he asked Wohtin, moving back from the wall to look upon the carvings in full. “Create a map of your own based on this?”
“It will take study, and time.”
Hearing the doubt in the old man’s voice, Felnir regretted once again the loss of Elvine Jurest. It seemed to him that a task such as this would have been easy for her, although she couldn’t attempt to parse the Kearling’s language.
For the first time, Felnir was glad he hadn’t succumbed to Sygna’s suggestion that he banish Wohtin.
The devious old bastard did have his uses after all.
“I doubt the Silver Dove will allow us such leisure,” Felnir said. Reaching for the sword, he drew the blade a few inches so its glow illuminated the cavern. “It occurs to me that I have not yet received a fulsome explanation from you as to what this weapon truly is.”
Attuned by now to his king’s changing moods, Wohtin began to edge away. “A gift from the Altvar…”
“Enough of that bilge, old man! If the gods be real, and I hope they are, I’m certain I would sense their touch upon this thing. I do not. When it’s in my grasp I feel none of Ulthnir’s wisdom and love. Only purpose. And at times, a desire to indulge cruelty. It wanted me to kill Beyorn.”
“That may have been a mercy. The man is patently mad, and I know madness well.”
“And I know war. That’s what this thing revels in.
Only in battle does it glow brightest, and every victory brings more devotion from those that gaze upon it.
So…” he stepped closer to Wohtin, pulling the sword clear of the scabbard and holding the blade up before the old man’s nervous gaze “… I will have you tell me what it is. By what conjuration was the sword brought forth?”
“I told you the tale before. Velgard set me to finding a path to the Altvar, so that he could beg for the tools he needed to craft the world they had ordained for the Ascarls. But it was not I that reached between the worlds to retrieve them, but Moyirn. I suspect only he knows their true nature.”
Wohtin flinched as Felnir held the sword closer to his face, the softly glowing blade almost touching his skin. “You are a man of much learning,” Felnir said. “Speculate.”
“This… artefact clearly has an effect on those who come into proximity with it. Not all, but many exhibit devotion towards its wielder far beyond the normal loyalty of a subject to their king. I doubt this is accidental. You spoke of sensing purpose within it. This is pure conjecture, but I suspect each of the three gifts was created for a purpose. What it might be, is impossible to say, my king.”
Letting out a dissatisfied huff, Felnir stepped back from the old man. The cavern darkened as he slid the sword back into its scabbard. “Quicken your studies of this place,” he said, moving to the tunnel mouth. “I want that map.”
His dream that night was less troubled than before, but equally mystifying.
His brother looked upon what appeared to be a large hall glowing red with the light of many fires, yet it didn’t burn.
Not fires, Felnir realised, making out the sight of smiths labouring at bellows to stoke stone circles filled with blazing coals. Forges.
He watched his brother approach a rack of swords, all gleaming with unnatural brightness in the glow of heated coals.
A young woman stood there, her brow furrowed as she touched a hand to one of the blades.
She possessed the comeliness that invariably attracted Guthnyr’s attentions, but Felnir saw neither lust nor calculation in his brother’s gaze, only concern.
“You should rest,” he said, settling a gentle hand on the maiden’s shoulder.
“Do you imagine Ruhlin knows any rest?” she replied.
Felnir could see the fatigue etched into her youthful features now, eyes dull and cheeks hollowed for want of sleep.
Yet there was a determination there too.
“Besides,” she went on, “when I sleep my dreams are troubled.” She uttered a brief, mirthless laugh.
“It seems I’m capable of conjuring all manner of torments for my husband… ”
Her voice was abruptly drowned out by a persistent, loud hammering. Felnir looked to the forges, expecting to see a smith pounding at heated steel, instead he was confronted by a pall of mist that swiftly coalesced into Falk’s weathered and concerned features.
“Sorry, my lord,” he said as the last dregs of sleep slipped away. “But you must come.”
Felnir groaned, sitting up on the narrow cot where he made his bed.
He had taken to sleeping in a small room in one of the towers near the lower wall.
There were grander and better furnished quarters in the upper tiers but he needed to stay close to the site of battle.
“It’s not low tide yet,” he said, casting a glance through the tower’s narrow window at the still dark sky.
“True, my lord,” Falk confirmed. “But they’ve come again nonetheless. And this time they seem to finally know what they’re about.”
The six ships of the Silver Dove’s fleet wallowed in the swell as they attempted to remain above the submerged causeway.
Their task was complicated by the additional weight they carried.
Each one was crammed with warriors and sat so low in the water the waves continually lapped over their rails.
Further out to sea, the rest of the enemy fleet were busy transferring the balance of their warriors into an armada of boats.
Their intent was starkly obvious. Once the tide lowered the six ships onto the causeway, those aboard would disembark and attack the Aryngyr in concert with the boat-borne comrades.
Come the dawn, the defenders would be facing an assault more than double the size of any that came before.
With less than an hour before the tide turned, Felnir ordered his entire menda roused and set them to the task of tearing down the empty storehouses on the lowest tier.
The resultant stone was piled up on the battlement alongside several cauldrons of boiling water.
He also sent Vehldur with six hundred warriors to garrison the next tier.
“If they break through hold the gate open as long as you can,” Felnir told him. “But don’t hesitate to seal it if they get too close. Regardless of who might be on the other side.”
He held Vehldur’s gaze, ensuring he understood his king’s instruction. Although not one of those ensnared by the sword’s glow, the man remained a loyal captain and his assenting nod was slow in coming.
“Don’t worry,” Felnir said. Resting a hand on Vehldur’s shoulder, he leaned closer, dropping his voice, “I can run with the best of them when the need arises.”
He placed Beyorn in the courtyard at the head of a four hundred strong company of warriors.
Like their captain, they all exhibited a similar pitch of fanatical devotion to their king.
If the attackers succeeded in breaching the gate, Felnir knew they could be counted on to put up a sacrificial pitch of resistance, buying time for the rest of his menda to flee to the second tier.
This tactic stirred some guilt, but also a measure of relief.
Throughout the siege, Beyorn’s actions had been indistinguishable from those of a man intent upon his own death.
Repeatedly, he had hurled himself into the fiercest combat, at times so deranged in his battle fury that he had to be restrained from leaping over the wall.
Looking down at Beyorn now, Felnir saw a broad, anticipatory smile upon the young warrior’s lips.
He wore no helm and only light armour. Curiously, his repeated brushes with death had resulted in only a few minor injuries and some of his comrades exchanged whispered musings of the Altvar’s favour.
Others, veterans better acquainted with the vagaries of war, muttered about the luck of the mad.
The old man was right, Felnir mused, nodding in acknowledgement as Beyorn met his gaze, his smile becoming fierce. Death will be a mercy for him.