Chapter Twenty-Nine Felnir
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Felnir
Never one to stint in response to his king’s command, Beyorn set about fulfilling Felnir’s wishes with an energy that was matched only by his ruthlessness.
He began by dispatching messengers to all corners of Vorunvahl, calling for only those of the stoutest hearts and strongest bodies to join the Sea King’s great sojourn across the Swathe.
Given the region’s dire reputation, Felnir expected the response to be meagre.
In fact, within eight weeks, over five thousand hopefuls had presented themselves at the King’s Hall in Speldhelven.
Many were drawn from the ranks of Felnir’s existing menda, mostly those already captured by the sword’s glow.
Other veterans were compelled to volunteer by the brand of loyalty that only results from being led in battle.
Those who journeyed from the disparate parts of the realm were a more mixed bag.
Some were lured simply by the promise of adventure, others the prospect of partaking in the generous rewards for which the Sea King had become famous.
Hard-faced folk who made a living fighting for pay lined up outside the Warrior’s Hall alongside callow youths desperate for renown.
So many answered the call that Sygna advised there was no prospect of provisioning a large force when it attempted to cross such notoriously barren country.
However, Beyorn soon demonstrated a fierce dedication to ensuring only the most worthy and resolute would earn their place in this new menda.
On the first day of training he issued an empty water skin to each warrior and instructed them to make for a particular beach on the shore some twelve miles distant.
They were to fill the skins with seawater and return before nightfall.
All those who failed to do so were thanked for their service, given a strip of hack-silver, and told to go home.
The next day Beyorn sent the survivors to a separate beach further along the shore.
He repeated the exercise for a full week until the number of volunteers had halved.
After that, their labour became only more arduous.
For days, Beyorn subjected them to a regimen of drill in the mornings and combat in the afternoons.
The recruits fought each other with wooden staves, any failing to display the required mix of skill and aggression facing instant dismissal.
Beyorn’s original intention had been to make them fight with real weapons, but Felnir forbade it.
Even so, the combat was often fierce and injuries common, although none died.
Come the end of the second week, only two thousand remained.
Beyorn marched them into the hill country south of Speldhelven, each warrior carrying a deliberately light burden of food.
All were told they could leave at any time without fear of punishment.
Driven by hunger, many did so, and the force their Turmwald marched back to the Warrior’s Hall numbered a little over twelve hundred souls.
“As best as could be done in the time allowed, my king,” Beyorn said when Felnir came to inspect his new, elite menda.
They stood in ranks in the courtyard of the Warrior’s Hall, straight-backed and unwavering despite recent depredations.
Hunger showed in the leanness of their unwashed features, but Felnir saw resolve in every gaze.
If ever a force could make it across the Swathe, this was it. Yet, he had to be sure.
Stepping onto the platform where the gallows once stood, he paused to cast his eye over their upturned, expectant faces.
“As your king,” he began, “I am bound by my duty to speak only truth to you. So heed my words when I say that the task I will ask of you is beyond most mortals. In truth, it may be beyond us all. Yet, I will not shirk it. Three days from now, this menda marches for the Swathe. We will be well provisioned. We will bear the finest arms the forges of Speldhelven can produce. But make no mistake, our path is long and I know not how many standing here now will see its end. I would not ask this of you if not for dire necessity.” He rested a hand on the Sword of the Altvar, those already captured by its arcane compulsion shifting in eagerness at the prospect of beholding its glow once more.
“Through their divine agency, enshrined in the blessed steel of this blade, have the Altvar warned me of a most vile enemy lurking in the north. An enemy that knows nothing of the Altvar’s lessons, that revels in meaningless slaughter and endless greed.
An enemy that will, in time, visit its vileness upon this realm. This I will not abide.”
He drew the sword, unleashing its glow across their ranks.
The hour was late and it shone bright, illuminating the faces of men and women lost to fascination.
As always, there were exceptions, Audheld for one.
He had been surprised to find her subjecting herself to Beyorn’s tests, but the presence of her young cousin was ample explanation.
Standing at her side, Korstyn beheld the sword’s luminance with wide, unblinking eyes, tears streaming down his cheeks.
Felnir wondered if his mind retained even the smallest vengeful impulse now, or was it filled entire by devotion to the Sea King?
Either way, like all but a handful of his comrades, there was no doubt the lad would tramp the unforgiving wilderness of the Swathe until death took him.
“And so,” Felnir continued, raising the sword higher, “I, Felnir Skyrnrak, King of Vorunvahl, do give my most solemn oath in the light of the Altvar’s blessed blade, that I will bear all hardships, suffer all agonies, and fight all battles until our enemy in the north is utterly vanquished. Will you so swear?”
Their answering cry was jarring in its uniformity and volume. “WE SO SWEAR!” Drawing swords to catch the glow of their king’s gods-blessed blade, their voices boomed out across Speldhelven in a rhythmic chant. “WE SO SWEAR! WE SO SWEAR! WE SO SWEAR!”
When, finally, Felnir quelled their cries by sheathing the sword, the resultant silence was unnervingly sudden.
Before unclasping the sword’s handle, he felt it exude a pulse of satisfaction leavened with a deep, impatient hunger.
A liar king I am, he thought, flexing his fingers to banish the unpleasant tingle he now felt whenever he grasped the weapon.
But some roads must be walked, and if lies see me to Guthnyr’s side, then so be it.
Sygna insisted on accompanying him to the heather-clad hills that formed the borderlands between northern Vorunvahl and the Swathe.
Upon facing the long-delayed moment when he told her she would be remaining behind to govern in his stead, Felnir expected anger.
Yet, though she displayed sorrow aplenty, she didn’t rage or castigate him for his decision.
During the day she was all brisk efficiency when overseeing their extensive train of pack horses and the small herd of cattle that would provide meat on the march.
But, come the evenings, she slipped into mostly silent contemplation.
They encountered only a few settlements during the trek, mean dwellings occupied by hardy folk with weathered features and taciturn manners.
They displayed scant knowledge of the fact that they were now ruled by a king in place of a Gyrwald, but made offers of tribute as if Felnir led a tax-collecting expedition.
He refused them all and ensured Sygna was at his side to say the appropriate words.
Should he fail to return, it was important these people at least remember their queen.
It required a march of fifteen days to reach the edge of the Swathe, during which Felnir gained an appreciation for the discipline of his menda.
In all his years of campaigning, he had never led a sizeable force without losing a few to sickness or desertion on the march.
He could also expect a small number lost to brawls over dice or drink.
Yet, as they crested the final hill to behold the vast, featureless wasteland ahead, Sygna reported that every soul that set out from Speldhelven still stood at his back.
“I truly think they would follow you into the molten flows of the Fire Isles if you wished,” she said, squinting as she surveyed the halted column.
“Perhaps next time,” Felnir said, climbing down from Bolt’s back.
They camped atop the rise to await morning, Sygna and Felnir huddling together at a fire. “Tulvik is trustworthy,” Felnir told her. “And far more capable than I first thought. Heed his counsel well, especially when it comes to governance of the Greencrest.”
“I know,” Sygna sighed. “You told me.”
“Gyrwald Ahlfyrn will bear watching. The folk of the Mahra Isles are notoriously fractious. As surety against rebellion, we’ll need more ships…”
“You told me that too.” Her voice held an edge that let him know the time for advice was over.
He watched her gaze slip to Wohtin. The old man stood nearby directing a wooden device of intricate design at the sky.
Felnir had seen the astrologers of the Saluhtan’s court use similar contrivances in their studies of the stars.
“I won’t object if you decide to leave him behind too,” Sygna said. “Though I’ll have no employment for him, save perhaps sweeping out the stables.”
“I need him to find the three jewels,” Felnir replied, pulling her closer in reassurance. “Worry not, my love. I partake of his counsel only sparingly, and then with the largest dose of salt.”
“Perhaps mighty Velgard once said the same. And we’ve seen the ruins of his kingdom.”
“I have no desire to reach between worlds. My brother is all I want. And when I have him, we shall return to you. I’m minded to make him commander of my fleet.”
“Placing Guthnyr in charge of even one ship seems unwise, but a whole fleet?”
“My dreams show me a change in him. He commands others now and, I suspect, does well at it. But I know it to be a change wrought by suffering, which grieves me. Long did I strive to protect him from the worst of this world, but I failed. Sometimes I worry the brother I find will not be the brother I lost.” He felt Sygna tense in his arms and knew she was keeping back words. “What is it?”
“I…” She paused, drawing in a breath before slowly letting it out. “It’s just that none of us are who we were before all this started. In truth, I miss those days, when it was just us on the Sea Hawk with an endless ocean of possibilities before us.”
“We have a kingdom now, and Ulthnir knows how many years of life ahead of us.”
“But back then we had freedom. Power can be its own kind of cage. And I find the prospect of living many lifetimes arouses more fear than hope.” She turned in his arms, lips poised close to his.
“I don’t want to face all those years alone, Felnir.
So, as queen of this land, I command that you return to me. ”
Felnir kissed her and, feeling her tremble with the onset of tears, held her tight, whispering in her ear, “As my queen commands.”
Come the morn, the menda of King Felnir Skyrnrak began its sojourn across the Swathe.
His queen and her party of guards watched them march away from atop the hill, Felnir unable to restrain himself from continually glancing back at her diminishing silhouette.
The flatness of the ground allowed for an unobstructed view for far longer than he would have preferred.
As he rode at the head of the long column of warriors, pack horses and livestock, he was beset by an increasingly acute desire to abandon this entire enterprise.
He couldn’t shake the feeling that Sygna had more to tell him the night before, restraining herself from pleading with him to stay and rule this kingdom they had won together.
But she hadn’t, for that would have shamed him, left him wallowing in nightly torment as he dreamed of his brother’s fate.
Finally, the hill became too distant to discern among the haze lingering on the horizon and he turned his sight north. From here on, Felnir decided, there can be no more looking back.