Chapter Thirty-Nine Felnir
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Felnir
“Swathe fever, my king,” Audheld said, face grim as she regarded the two bodies entwined upon the ground.
Their names were Neetha and Jorfyn, a brother and sister who had pledged themselves to Felnir in the Lakelands.
None who knew these siblings could recall a single crossed word between them, yet there they lay, still clutching the knives they had driven into the other’s chest.
“Doesn’t look like they fought, my lord,” Falk said, squinting at the bodies. “No scratches and such.”
“Swathe fever,” Audheld repeated, voiced hardened in irritation and, Felnir suspected, a modicum of grief.
These two had been part of her contingent, the first of those immune to the sword’s glow to fall victim to the malaise of this dreadful land.
Since Galvyr’s suicide it had become a horribly regular occurrence.
Not every night, but at least twice a week, they would wake to find one or more of their comrades vanished.
They were invariably discovered close by, always dead by their own hand.
Felnir would have preferred to think it a consequence of despair and hunger, for he had been forced to institute strict rationing several days ago.
But this had become far too routine an occurrence to ascribe to such mundane causes.
“Shitting place won’t be happy until it’s killed us all,” Falk said, casting spit upon the ground which was, at least, more solid now.
The boggy plain hadn’t been endless after all, finally giving way to arid brush and rock.
Despite the change in scenery, it remained a monotonous, featureless tract and the menda’s mood had only worsened.
Bog or no bog, this was still the Swathe.
“Cover them with rocks,” Felnir ordered.
Even though there was plentiful brush for kindling, and the country was dry, he preferred not to expend time in building a pyre.
Every moment spent upon the Swathe is a risk, he had decided weeks ago.
While their number remained strong, the constant loss of lives was deepening the miserable distress of his menda.
He began and ended every day’s march with a display of the sword, the glow serving to dispel their gloom, at least for a time.
It made him feel like a priest from some eastern cult, or a Supplicant of the Covenant faith, enticing worship with ritual rather than instilling loyalty by kingly example.
That night, after they had put several miles between them and the fallen siblings, Felnir ordered the last of the cattle slaughtered.
It was as much an act of mercy as necessity, for the beast had grown thin since leaving the bogland behind.
Its denuded flesh barely sufficed to feed a single company and Felnir knew there was but one option if he was to keep this menda fed.
Determined to avoid any appearance of privilege, he insisted Bolt be first, though couldn’t bring himself to wield the knife.
Turning his back while Falk patted a soothing hand to the sleek horse’s neck, knife poised at the largest vein, Felnir cursed himself for a craven.
Even so, he didn’t turn at the sound of the first panicked whinny and, when Tyrheld ladled out the stew at the campfire that night, he ate a full bowl without demur.
True hunger, he knew well, had scant tolerance for sentiment.
Over the course of the next few days, the pack horses then the mounts of Beyorn’s riders were next for the pot.
Despite the grimness of the task, it actually served to lighten his warriors’ mood for a time in the way only full bellies can.
Throughout the following week they fed on dried meat leavened with the ever-diminishing stocks of hard tack, and there were no more disappearances.
Of course, once the meat began to dwindle, so Swathe fever took hold once more, claiming victims on a near nightly basis.
Felnir found himself perversely grateful for Sygna’s absence, for she would surely have insisted on keeping count of the dead.
Within a few days he had stopped insisting the bodies be given a makeshift grave of loose rock.
A day after that he forbade searches for the morning toll of missing.
As the Sea King’s menda continued its ever more weary trudge across the Swathe, Felnir reflected on the curious maintenance of discipline among his warriors.
Any other army he had marched with would either have dissolved into warring factions or mutinied by now.
But, despite the fever, hunger, and all-pervading knowledge of their own doom, this lot kept marching.
He knew the toll would have been higher without the sword.
His ritualised unveilings of the blade took place several times a day now and never once did it fail to relight the fire of devotion in the gazes of those it had captured.
But even those who marched at Audheld’s back showed scant sign of the desperation or panic he expected.
In their case, he ascribed their continuing loyalty to simple realism: they couldn’t turn back and they couldn’t flee, for there was nowhere to flee to.
On the day he woke to find a full score of warriors missing, he noticed Wohtin stagger to a halt atop a hill up ahead.
Deprived of his pony, the old man now walked at the forefront of the column, his steps becoming ever more faltering by the day.
Still, he voiced no complaint regarding either hunger or frailty.
In fact, he barely voiced anything at all.
Quickening his step to come to Wohtin’s side, Felnir had to fight down a spasm of nausea, now the habitual outcome of even slight exertion.
He didn’t bother asking about the object of the old man’s interest, just followed his gaze to something so out of place in this landscape, he wondered if it might be an illusion.
In the desert, he had beheld oases and expanses of water that shimmered into nothingness upon closer inspection.
Yet the copse of trees sprouting from a low rise a quarter-mile ahead appeared fully substantial, if also impossible.
“The second jewel,” Wohtin croaked, and Felnir saw no reason to argue his judgement.
The menda’s pace increased upon catching sight of the trees, lured on by lush, green leaves.
Then, when they picked out the fruit hanging among the branches, their quickened step became a stumbling run.
“Stop!” Felnir shouted, his voice thinned by hunger, but even the Sea King couldn’t hold them in that moment.
For the first time, he gained a true impression of just how thinned their ranks had become during the march.
As they thronged around the trees, Felnir guessed that he had lost about a third to either the fever or hunger.
If this is another trap, he thought, watching his warriors frantically plucking the fruit, mayhap I’ll soon lose the rest.
He, Wohtin, and most of Audheld’s company, stood and watched while the others gorged themselves.
Felnir expected screams at any moment, accompanied by the sight of men and women collapsing, clutching bellies now filled with poison.
Yet no screams came, just an increasingly excited chorus of sated hunger.
“Sweet and crisp, my king,” Beyorn said, coming to Felnir with a sack filled with apples.
Still, Felnir held off from partaking in the feast until his companions had done so.
Wohtin exhibited a similar level of caution, but eventually took a tentative bite, quickly followed by several more.
Satisfied that this fruit presented no danger, Felnir finally tasted one of the apples himself.
He knew that, after marching on a mostly empty stomach for so long, any fruit would be wondrous, yet felt there to be something unnatural in the blissful explosion of juice and soft flesh filling his mouth.
His body, however, having partaken of decent food for the first time in weeks, allowed for no more suspicions.
Felnir quickly polished off three more apples before some semblance of reason returned.
“It shouldn’t be here,” he said, addressing the comment to Wohtin. “Nothing taller than a dry bush grows for miles around.”
“It shouldn’t,” the old man agreed, munching his third apple. “But there it stands. A jewel indeed.”
“It was placed there for us,” Beyorn said, face lit with now typical ardour. He clutched an apple to his breast, cradled like the most precious offering. “The Altvar knew of our need. Surely this is a journey blessed by the gods.”
They encamped around the trees, eating their way through most of the easily reachable fruit.
In addition to apples, there were oranges, peaches, and sundry other delights.
These were familiar to Felnir thanks to his time in the east, but wonderfully novel to his warriors.
Come nightfall, Wohtin began to plot the course they would follow the next day.
“Karnic’s Spear,” he said, pointing to a line of stars above the western horizon.
“I assumed we’d keep heading north,” Felnir said. “Where my brother awaits.” His dreams of Guthnyr continued to be frustratingly vague, though the general impression that he could be found in northern climes remained.
“The shortest path to a goal does not always follow the arrow’s flight,” Wohtin said. It sounded like a quote from the Altvar Rendi. Despite the restorative glut of fruit, Felnir’s fatigue was such he didn’t trouble his mind trying to recall it in full.
“A trap fashioned from stone,” he said, turning to regard the trees. “Now a lush orchard. Strange jewels your wife’s people crafted for us.”
“If they were intended for us.” Wohtin’s gaze showed more keenness now, Felnir seeing no sign of his recurrent confusion. “But crafted they were. Of that I’m certain.” He turned to Felnir, speaking in cold, unambiguous terms. “We can allow no delay here. Come the dawn, we must move on.”