Chapter Thirty-Four Felnir
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Felnir
Felnir’s initial glimpse of the first of the three jewels was enough to convince him it had been poorly named.
Of course, he hadn’t known what to expect, for Wohtin’s studies provided no clue to the nature of this important landmark.
Throughout the tedious slog of a week-long march, Felnir had begun to entertain hopes that the jewel might be some form of holdfast. Any shelter would be welcome, even the meanest pile of poorly placed stone.
The unending monotony of this land of fetid bogs and moss-covered rocks had lost all novelty after but one day and he would have greatly welcomed the sight of walls and a roof.
So, when finding himself confronted with a grim granite knoll, he couldn’t help but allow a modicum of disappointment to colour his tone.
“You’re certain this is it?” he asked Wohtin.
“Our course has been as true as I can make it,” he replied.
“Besides, given that there’s nothing else of remotest interest for miles around, what else could it be?
” In contrast to Felnir, the old man appeared enlivened by the sight of the knoll.
It was of impressive dimensions, standing perhaps thirty feet in height and twice as broad.
Watching Wohtin spur his pony on ahead to begin a closer inspection, Felnir assumed the ancient saw the thing as a validation of his theories.
Even though the prospect of ambush upon the Swathe seemed remote in the extreme, Felnir ordered Beyorn to conduct a full reconnaissance of the knoll before allowing the menda to approach.
The Turmwald led the dozen riders that comprised their entire mounted contingent in a swift circle of the rock before reporting it clear of danger.
“Ground’s firmer here than elsewhere, my king,” Beyorn informed him. “At least the cattle can roam and graze for a bit.”
“Make sure they’re kept under close watch,” Felnir told him, glancing back at the shaggy, long-horned beasts at the rear of the column. “If one of those stumbles into a bog, we’re not getting it out again.”
“I’ll see to it, my king.”
Trotting Bolt to the base of the knoll, Felnir found Wohtin engaged in peering at its flanks. He moved with keen animation, eyes scouring the weathered granite. “What are you looking for?” Felnir asked him.
“A sign that there’s something here beyond aged stone.” Wohtin paused, hands exploring an indentation in the rock before he tutted in disappointment and moved on. “It has to be more than just a waypoint.”
Felnir left him to it and spent an hour mapping the edges of the firm ground while Beyorn oversaw the establishment of the camp.
The menda went about the task with ingrained efficiency and none of the grumbling to be expected of tired warriors after a day of hard marching.
However, their fatigue showed in their faces if not their movements.
The Swathe, Felnir was learning, had a way of sapping strength from even the hardiest soul.
It wasn’t so much the variable ground, mossy stone one moment and foot-sucking marsh another, but the persistent sense of traversing a land that even nature appeared to shun.
Besides the flies that swarmed over the deeper bogs, Felnir couldn’t recall catching sight of a single beast since the march began.
The sky was clear of birds and neither snake, vole, nor mouse could be glimpsed among the tufted grass.
In the deserts of the Saluhtan’s domain, he had seen soldiers driven mad by pounding sun and unending sight of the dune sea.
Veterans referred to the victims of this malaise as Sand Happy.
He couldn’t help but ponder how long it would be before his menda coined a term for the Swathe. Bog Happy, perhaps?
Come dusk, he sat down to partake of the regular evening meal of dried beef and whatever pickled foodstuff remained in the pack-horses saddlebags.
Felnir was keen to use up their non-perishable supplies before they began butchering the cattle, as there was still no clear indication how long this journey might last. As had become something of a nightly ritual, Beyorn and Audheld joined Tyrheld and Falk as the king’s eating companions.
Although Audheld had been afforded no official rank in this menda, she had acquired a singular role as leader of those warriors not captured by the sword’s glow.
They numbered about four hundred in all, a mix of veterans of the Sea King’s wars and the more grizzled and hard-faced of the sell-swords who had endured Beyorn’s tests.
They tended to march and camp at a short remove from their comrades, looking to Audheld for guidance rather than their appointed Turmwald.
Knowing well the value of gauging the mood of his entire force, not just the blindly loyal, Felnir had begun inviting their de facto captain to these nightly councils.
She often said little, but even then he usually found it worth listening to.
“This must be the furthest any army has marched into the Swathe,” Beyorn noted with a prideful air. He alone, in this entire company, exhibited no sign of fatigue or disdain for their surroundings.
“There was a story Gyrwald Rygna used to tell,” Audheld said, eyes dull as she chewed her way through a mouthful of beef.
“About a boastful warrior who, hearing her express curiosity as to what lay on the other side of the Swathe, swore to her in the name of the Altvar that he would walk alone to its furthest edge and find out.”
“I’m guessing the silly bastard never came back,” Falk muttered.
“Oh, he came back. Walked into the Gyrwald’s hall one night, ragged and torn from head to foot, skin hanging off his bones and eyes as empty as a dried well.
Didn’t say a word, just took out his knife and cut his own throat from ear to ear.
” She swallowed, washing it down with a gulp of water.
“At least that’s the story the Gyrwald told, and her tales could be fanciful at times. ”
The sound of a raised voice caused them to stir, Felnir looking to the knoll to find a torch waving back and forth.
He couldn’t hear Wohtin’s words but it was clear the old man had made a discovery.
“More scratchings, most like,” Falk said.
His doleful prediction proved correct when they found Wohtin casting the glow of his torch over a series of indentations in the knoll’s west-facing flank.
To Felnir they appeared scarcely indistinguishable from myriad other facets in the stone, but to Wohtin’s hungry eye their meaning was starkly clear.
“Torkyl’s Key,” the old man breathed, splaying his fingers over a cluster of weathered marks. “And here—” he lowered his torch to illuminate a similarly vague carving a little lower down “—the Kearling word for ‘jewel’.”
“So we’re on the right path,” Felnir concluded. “There’s comfort in that…” He trailed off when Wohtin began shoving at the knoll, huffing with the effort as he applied his spindly shoulder to unyielding granite.
“What’s the mad fucker doing?” Falk wondered aloud, squinting in bemusement at Wohtin’s efforts.
“I’ve no notion at all,” Felnir said. He watched Wohtin continue to batter himself against the knoll for a moment longer, then turned away. “He’ll get tired soon enough and I have a yen for my bedroll.”
They started back towards the camp, then came to an abrupt halt at a loud cacophony to their rear.
Looking back, Felnir saw Wohtin standing back from a cascade of crumbling rock.
The portion of stone he had been pushing at cracked then dissolved, the destruction spreading from the base of the knoll to its summit.
When it ended, a long narrow fissure had appeared in the great rock’s side, revealing a hollow space within.
“Martyr’s arses,” Falk breathed. Cautiously, he approached the newly created opening, lowering his torch to the crumbled stone littering the ground. “It’s clay, my lord,” he told Felnir. “Shaped to look like bare rock.”
Felnir looked for Wohtin, finding him collapsed among the clay shards.
Scrambling upright, the old man rushed into the gloomy innards of the knoll, his torch casting a flickering glow over a smooth curving wall.
“Allow me, my king,” Tyrheld said, moving to Felnir’s front when he started forward.
Dagger in one hand, she stepped into the knoll, casting her gaze about in search of threats.
“Empty, except for that,” she said, nodding to a rippling pool in the centre of the chamber.
Following her inside, Felnir crouched at the pool’s edge. He saw no drip from above, meaning this water must result from a spring in the foundations of this rock. Dipping a finger into the pool, he put it to his mouth. “Fresh,” he judged. “And clean.”
“It’ll make a change from rainwater and boiling that muck from the bogs,” Audheld said. Sinking to her knees, she played a hand through the pool before raising it to her face, washing away the grime of the day’s march.
“So, it is something of a jewel after all,” Felnir mused.