Chapter Thirty-Six Guthnyr
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Guthnyr
“Olchar died by his own hand, and his clan is no more.” Velkar sat flanked by two of her wolves as she told the tale.
The rest of her pack were ranging through the Green Run, scouting for enemies.
So far it appeared the Ventra had been alone.
A large number of Morvek from several different clans thronged the woods close by.
Deyna was unable to make a full count but Velkar assured Guthnyr the number was great, though not as large as it might have been.
“Morvek clans fight from time to time, but it is a rare thing,” she went on.
“And even then, we do not fight to extinguish our foes as you do. With the Vulksa it was different. Once Iyaka and I spread the tale of how Olchar had betrayed the Telchak, the elders became angry, an anger that spread throughout the clans. Called to a gathering to account for his deed, Olchar failed to appear, as clear a sign of his guilt as could be. The Vulksa were so steeped in loyalty to the old liar that they refused to give him up, and so there was war between the clans, a war unto death. Your kind of war, and now ours it seems.”
Velkar’s voice held a bitter edge, her gaze dark with ugly remembrance.
“I found Olchar sitting alone in the burned remnants of his village. That great beast he would ride lay dead at his side. ‘Why?’ I asked him. ‘Why did you betray the Telchak?’ And this was his answer: ‘To save us. Not from destruction, but from becoming that which we despise. That was the bargain our forebears struck with the Vortigurn all those years ago. Forsake the promise of the Telchak, keep to the lands he had spared for us, and we shall remain as Morvek. Our blood must never be mixed with theirs. Remember my words, for that is the future you have wrought this day. You think that boy will lead you to victory over the Rulchakin, he will not. You only ensure the Morvek’s end. It may take generations, but it will happen. Our blood, our stories, our language corrupted so that we are little more than a dim reflection of our enemy.’ Then he took up a knife and stuck it in his heart. ”
Silence settled over those gathered at the fire, one mirrored throughout the army encamped among the trees.
Guthnyr had made no effort to conceal Torfyn’s treachery and the news heralded a grim mood.
The Travka’s ingrained detestation of betrayal made them more fractious than ever, stirring a harsh condemnation of the outlaw chieftain’s people.
It might have escalated to violence but for Guthnyr’s intervention, but the resentment continued to simmer.
He told Halvor and the others from the Wehrtrova to stay at his side from here on, hoping the Tielvik’s favour would afford some protection.
It was Sygurn who broke the silence, something he always found hard to tolerate for long. “So, what the feck do we do now?”
“What we came here to do,” Guthnyr told him. “March on the Citadel and free Ruhlin.”
“They know we’re coming,” Deyna pointed out. “Oryn was a mere distraction, sacrificed to ensure Torfyn would keep feeding the Kurgynrahk all our secrets. Rest assured the Vortigurn knows full well where to find us.”
“I would favour our chances in battle with any force he sends against us in this forest,” Guthnyr said, inclining his head at Velkar. “Who could stand against the Morvek in such country?”
“He’s not so foolish as to try to fight us in the Green Run.
And it’s a near certainty Moyirn will have prepared a contingency should the Velkar fail in her mission.
” Deyna lapsed into thought, calculation plain in her narrowed eyes.
“There is but one exit from this forest that brings us close to the Citadel, and it’s an even harder road for an army to march than this one, a narrow track through a fetid swamp. That’s where they’ll be waiting.”
“Then we go around it,” Guthnyr said. “Approach the Citadel from further south.”
“That will add weeks to our march. We haven’t the supplies for that and this forest will not sustain us for so long.”
“Then retreat is our only option,” Sygurn said, scowling at the resultant barrage of disapproving glares. “I don’t relish it either. But nor am I keen to meet my end face down in a fecking swamp.”
“Then run, if that’s your wish,” Aleida told him, casting a baleful glower around the others at this fire. “All of you. If needs be, I’ll go to the Citadel alone. My hands can open any lock.”
“You will not go alone,” Guthnyr assured her before directing a questioning glance at Deyna.
“There may be a way,” she said. “My mother walked the Green Run many times, as you know. Uncle Torfyn, may the Altvar damn him, always said there was no one who knew these paths better than her. If there was anything that needed to be taken in or out of the Citadel, it was entrusted to her. She spoke once of a path unknown to all others, one the Vortigurn’s servants could never find. ”
“You know this path?” Guthnyr asked.
“No.” Deyna gave a thin smile as she looked to the wolves at Velkar’s side. “But I believe we possess the means of finding it.”
Halvor moved with a stealthy foot, but had burdened himself with a sack of loot that gave off a betraying metallic clunk with every step. Guthnyr thought it said much of the young outlaw’s character that his greed had overcome his caution.
“You’d move faster without that,” Guthnyr told him, stepping from behind the broad trunk of an aged yew.
Halvor instantly tensed at his appearance, hand going to his sword hilt, though he wisely chose not to draw the blade.
They were a good hundred yards beyond the picket line and the hour was late.
At night, the Green Run was a place of infinite shadows and perturbing stillness only the foolish or the desperate could hope to navigate.
“I hope you marked the trail,” Guthnyr went on when Halvor continued to crouch in rigid expectation. “I don’t think your cousin was lying when she spoke of folk losing the path and wandering these trees unto death.”
“I know the way,” Halvor said, voice clipped in the manner of one expecting violence. Even so, Guthnyr could tell he was lying.
“Then go,” he said. Letting out a sigh, he perched himself on a bulbous root snaking from the yew’s base. “I’ll not stop you.”
Halvor began to edge around him, the meagre light catching the wary gleam in his eye. When Guthnyr continued to sit in silent regard, the outlaw came to a halt. “I didn’t know,” he said. “My father… I would like it known that I had no knowledge of his treachery.”
“I know. But if you flee now, no one will believe that.”
“I can’t stay.” Halvor hunched lower, his sack clanking as he settled it on his shoulder. “The way they look at me. I read the word ‘traitor’ in every gaze. Among the Travka, it is the worst of insults. I… can’t bear such shame.”
“You’ll bear it whether you leave or stay,” Guthnyr told him.
“Shame is a stain that never truly washes. I should know, I’ve carried mine for years now.
” He lowered his head, borne down by the memory he had never voiced, even though it remained more vivid perhaps than any.
“When I was still a boy, my brother saved me from a gang of other boys who were very keen on kicking my head in.
He was harsh in his treatment of those boys, which led to a duel with one of their kin.
That duel earned my brother the name Skyrnrak, the Redtooth, for he bit out the throat of his opponent.
It was considered a dishonourable act, not least because the man he killed shared blood with the local Veilwald.
And so the Sister Queens ordered my brother exiled.
As far as he knew he had only acted in my defence.
What he never knew, what I never told him, was that I had started the fight that began it all.
“I’d always had a fascination with smiths and smithing, so whenever we journeyed to a distant village on our great-grandfather’s business, I would seek out the local forge while Felnir saw to all the boring adult stuff.
This one day, as I watched a smith forge horseshoes, a group of boys came a-taunting, as is the way with boys when they spy a newcomer.
One was more vocal than the others, the kind who smiles when he insults you, though his eyes are cold.
Back in Skar Magnol, I had beaten boys like that, and no aggrieved relatives complained because who would dare bring a complaint to the Tielwald’s door?
Here, so far from home it was different, but I didn’t know that.
Something about this boy irked me more than usual, his taunts were crueller than most, and his arrogant confidence seemed at odds with his weakling’s body.
Beating him would have been easy, but I felt he deserved a more salient lesson.
So, using a gloved hand, I picked up one of the recently forged horseshoes and tossed it to him.
Catching things is an instinct, you see, and caught it he did.
His screams were very loud and I imagine, if he still lives, folk call him Scorchhand, or Blackfingers these days.
Of course, his friends all came at me. I knocked a couple down but there were too many to fight and soon they were playing kickball with my head.
If Felnir hadn’t turned up, they might well have killed me. ”
Guthnyr fell silent, meeting the faint glitter of Halvor’s eyes.
“I never told him. Not then, not when he returned from exile years later. Shame stilled my tongue, as it stirs your feet now. But I should have told him, for now he is beyond hearing any word I utter, and so the stain of my shame stinks worse than ever. Perhaps some of it will wash when I find my friend in the Citadel. Perhaps it won’t.
I do know, I’ll most likely spend the rest of my days trying to wash it clean. ”
Guthnyr got to his feet, spared Halvor a parting nod, and started back towards camp. He covered a dozen yards when he heard the clank of the outlaw’s loot once again, this time growing louder as he followed.
Come the morning, the army resumed its march under Velkar’s guidance.
Their route took them close to the site of Tirohk’s demise where Guthnyr found Iyaka still sitting beside his body.
She had insisted on staying at his side the day before and Guthnyr left her with the Vehlkasa to mourn in private.
“Do you know why our people leave our dead to rot in the forest?” she asked Guthnyr, not looking up from Tirohk’s face. It was drained of all colour now, a stiffening mask slowly forming the grin unique to the fallen.
“I do not,” Guthnyr replied, sinking to his haunches alongside her.
“The spirit does not quickly leave the vessel that carried it,” she said, laying a hand on Tirohk’s chest. “But seeps away, like water from an old skin. As the body’s decayed flesh enriches the soil, so does the spirit as it joins with all others.
Perhaps Tirohk’s can turn the heart of this forest to the light instead of the shadow. It is a dark place indeed.”
Guthnyr spared a glance for the Ventra’s corpse, wondering if her spirit would balance any light his slain friend might bring to this place. “Tirohk thought so too.” He hesitated, never skilled in knowing what to say at such times. “I… hope you’re right.”
Iyaka sat back, a soft sigh escaping her lips. “And yet, I was wrong about so many things.”
“Except the Telchak. You were right about him.”
“Yes.” She shook her head, a faint rueful smile playing on her lips.
“All those years ago when I set out to find him, I allowed no room in my heart for doubt. My dreams of being the one who would discover the Telchak were so vivid, so bright. Clearly, I had been chosen for this task.” Her smile faded as she lowered her gaze to Tirohk’s corpse.
“He told me I was a fool gulled by my own dreams. He was too proud to beg, of course, and so when I proved deaf to his words, he turned his back and said no more as I began my journey. I was not long walking the lands of the Rulchakin before I discovered just how much of a fool I had been. I allowed myself to be captured and shackled, for my dreams had shown me that captivity would be my route to the Telchak. But they hadn’t warned me of the cruelty I would suffer and how many years of chains and whips I would endure.
My dreams faded, became dim, bitter memories that shamed me for my sheer stupidity.
In time, I lost the desire for life and sought my end by attacking a guard at that farm we raided.
He was big, but clumsy and all too easily killed.
I expected a prolonged death, instead the Aerling saw value in my skills and sold me for the Meidvang.
To the north was I taken, and there, beneath the mountain where Aerling Eldryk trained his fighters did I first see Ruhlin ehs Kestryg change into a creature of unnatural strength and fierceness. ”
Iyaka fell silent, shaking her head. “I refused to believe it. How could it be that, after searching for so long, and suffering so much, I would find the Telchak here, in the form of a youth who looked no different to the Morvek’s most hated enemy?
I took to calling him Telchak as a bitter jest, for he could never be the one I came to find.
Then, when they took us from the mountain and he spoke to me of his scheme for an escape, I began to wonder.
It was only when we succeeded that I knew I was once again a fool, this time for failing to see what should have been so clear.
The Telchak was real. Now, all I needed to do was find a way to deliver him to the Morvek. ”
She turned to face Guthnyr, expression wary but determined. “The ship we found you on, the one Ruhlin intended to take him home. It didn’t burn by mischance. I burned it.”
Guthnyr’s mind flooded with his memory of that night, his first sight of Ruhlin.
He had watched Guthnyr snap that bastard whip-man’s neck with disgust but also understanding.
That first glimpse had been enough to convince Guthnyr that this man was no enemy, that here at last was a chance to break his chains, perhaps even return home.
Then all was smoke, flame, and the raging monster bearing him through the chaos.
Regarding Iyaka’s tensed face, he found he had no anger for her.
It would have been like nurturing a grudge against the wind for turning a sail in an unwanted direction.
Despite all he had suffered, everything that had happened since felt more like a gift than a curse.
“Come,” he said, rising and extending his hand. “We face a long march and battle awaits when it’s done. If we win, you’ll see the Telchak’s face again.”
“I’ll see my friend’s face again,” she corrected, taking his hand and hauling herself upright. “For friends have been the only true reward in this journey.”