22. Black Heart

“As we conquer further into Southwestern Tymir, the goblins have begun to call some of us by name. They have given Brolli the title of Black Heart. I wonder if they know how unfair that is. For of all the men in our company, he is the one who seems to care the most. Gone is the man that had defeated his demons. With each slaughter he becomes more the wretch I first met and less the hero he could be.

It is hard to see him suffer, but if we do not conquer this region I will never reach the Hall.”

Brolli remained at the same table in the taproom, no doubt putting too much faith in the ramblings of Isleif. But never enough faith to ask to sit with those three old men.

He leaned back in his seat, three empty mugs and a half-eaten meal ahead of him, pork chewed up and spat back out. Arnor hadn’t offered to clear the table. He knew that Brolli was a man who preferred to have the mess left to mark the passing of time.

Brolli could barely hear himself breathe over the hammering rain.

The air had turned cold and humid. Arnor had put buckets and iron pots on the landing above, so a persistent din sounded down through the floorboards as well: hollowed notes of rain knocking into cups or buckets, or the flat chime of water breaking against a pot of tin or iron. The shutters had been closed, making the air smokier, and all the more stifling even with the chill. Arnor had padded the gaps with any blankets and cloths that he could find, though most of those were now soaked through so water trickled down from window sills and onto the dusty floorboards.

Those three old men spoke their complaints under cover of the weather. They had been joined by other folk too, those hoping to find some warmth or company to shelter through the storm. A dozen men had gathered around the gambling tables. They played at bones while a wizened, black-clad old man kept count, and while Alrik supervised from a tall stool in the corner, one hand ready on a knife.

None had come to collect the man who had fallen from the window, leaving the pallid body to sink further into the mud.

Brolli pushed away his plate, and watched the aged trio mutter to themselves. All they ever did was drink together. He wasn’t sure whether he pitied them or envied them.

“Brolli?”

Brolli barely heard the timid question, but he turned to see Ivar stood ahead of the counter. Half-drowned, his black clothes sagging over his skinny frame, rainwater tricking down from his swollen eye.

“I found it!”

Brolli scowled. “Found what?”

Ivar pointed to a driftwood staff leaning by the hearth, glistening wet. “I found it!”

Brolli’s scowl deepened. “A stick?”

“A staff,” Ivar spoke as quietly as he could while still being heard over the downpour. “The Salt Sage asked me to bring it. Where is he?”

Brolli rose to his feet. “Are you asking me questions now?” He shoved the young man back into the counter. “Your job is to run errands for me, boy. Not for the Sage. So go clean yourself up, and get to work before I make a mess of your other eye.”

Ivar kept his gaze low as he nodded and fled.

Brolli realized he’d forgot to ask how Hjorvarth had taken to the news that Sam was a snake bastard who’d abandoned Isleif at the drop of a hat. But he figured he couldn’t have taken events too badly if Ivar was still up and about. No doubt his foster son was still out sulking by the lake, getting lashed by the wind and the rain.

Better cold than dead.

Hjorvarth would come and beg for Brolli’s forgiveness eventually. There was no other choice. Horvorr’s Guard were a few days away from starting a bloody uprising, and soon enough the only way out of this gods forsaken place region would be to join up with Brolli. Even Gudmund would have to see sense at this rate. There was still that one-armed cunt to contend with but he didn’t have a plan. Grettir was the sort of blind fool who still believed in folk’s goodness, despite a lifetime of examples proving the opposite.

For the first time in his life, everything was going Brolli’s way.

Arnor was watching intently behind the counter, arms crossed above his apron.

Brolli stared at the barkeeper. “Problem, Arnor?”

“No.” Arnor shook his head. “Though I’ll admit I’m a little worried about you.”

“Keep your concerns to yourself.” Brolli glanced back at his table. “Clean that away, and fetch me some more wine.”

Arnor relented with a nod, and made his way to the kitchen.

Brolli now sat where he had before Isleif had convinced him to move. He chose to face the fire, keeping his back to the door, so that he could watch for the old man’s disapproval. Isleif had his eyes closed though, sweating and muttering in his sleep, his wispy hair aglow with firelight, restored to the colour of youth.

Brolli sighed. Then he laughed and sighed again. He thought himself a fool, and longed for the days when he shivered in his own shit. He longed for the days when he had valued his life enough to fight for survival. He’d been beaten and captured, not able to stretch his arms for the bars of his cage. He’d been sold. That was meant to be his final disgrace before a brutal death in the fighting ring but he was still young enough to kill a hundred men. To want to kill more than that.

Brolli had earned his freedom, but felt more trapped by the open world, so went back to what he did best: killing men. He fought long enough to earn more coin than most men in Southwestern Tymir. He had fought until the crowd that loved him grew jealous, until those bastards decided he had risen high enough and now they needed to watch him fall. And then he had started to smoke. He smoked their hate away. He smoked the nightmares away, and had even managed to quiet his anger for a while.

Brolli never wanted to stop fighting, but in the end they wouldn’t let him fight. He had gone too far in a smoke haze and hacked man and monster to pieces, started to chew them both up. So his name faded like a song on the wind, and that might have been fine if he hadn’t gambled all of his money away. Now all he had left was his freedom: freedom to live in Horvorr, in a property that wasn’t even his, smuggling weapons and herbs and doing black deeds just to scrape up a decent living.

But he had finally come to an idea that would bring him back to where he needed to be and now the goblins were coming to pay him back for his sins. If he escaped though, or if he was wrong and simply needed more sleep, then he could make a better life. And if that didn’t work out then he could always try and convince Hjorvarth to fight in the ring. Maybe then Brolli could finally go back to living pure.

They’d sing songs of Brolli and Hjorvarth for all the years to come.

Brolli almost thanked the Salt Sage for ridding him of Sam, but he had no love for the stranger, who had been too happy with the deal. Brolli was certain it had been meant to screw Sam, but he still wasn’t sure if he had been meant to suffer for it too. Yet the man had been here to help Isleif. And Isleif was a man who once had powerful friends. And there were times when Brolli didn’t care at all about his own future. He just wanted to make right the lives of those he liked.

He’d suffered the worst betrayal early on. And he’d delivered vengeance in kind. Everything beyond that had seemed grey and muted.

A life half-lived.

Brolli’s mind lay contested by memory and mythology. He kept thinking of Ouro and how The World Eater had consumed itself with thoughtless greed. And then his thoughts drifted back to a long night in his family’s gardens.

He had run away from his home, hiding in the grasses, his possessions in a sack beside him. The day had been hot and he had been hopeful. But then the rains came and the air grew close and cold. The wind howled and the trees creaked. The young boy’s dreams of escape where replaced by an overwhelming desire to return to safety. To be warm again. To be free from the weather and the unknown dangers of the darkness.

He feared he would be punished, of course. Geirulf had always been as strict as he was cruel. But Gudmund had waited in the stables for his little brother, warm blanket in hand.

Raindrops gave way to a moment of startling silence.

“Brolli!” Alrik warned.

Footfalls thundered across the floorboards.

Brolli managed to turn far enough to see Arnor. The barkeeper held a plate in his hands, standing wide-eyed and open-mouthed.

If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

The view of the world shifted now weight smashed into the back of Brolli’s chair. He had tried to brace himself on the table, which only forced the other end up and into his face. The chair snapped under him and his knees thudded into the floorboards.

“What did you to Sam?” Hjorvarth roared, silencing both taproom and tables.

Brolli knelt before the upturned table, his back wedged in the broken chair. He groaned, bleeding from his nose and lip.

“Hjorvarth!” Alrik drew two long knifes now he emerged from the crowded gamblers. “Brolli hasn’t done anything to Sam. And you’ve no right at all to attack him in his own home. So stand back before this gets out of hand!”

Hjorvarth turned, soaked in rain, heaving breaths, his pale eyes wide and devoid of all reason. “I will kill you.”

“And I you,” Alrik assured, setting his stance and weighing the blades in his hands. “If you make me. This—”

Hjorvarth lurched around, grabbing the table, spinning back and hurling it through the reception. Alrik tried to sidestep, but it smashed into his shoulder, dislocating that and sending him stumbling towards the open door.

Alrik staggered back to the corner as the huge man closed. He lashed out, wrist caught, and got pummeled against the walls.

Wood snapped now a stool broke against Hjorvarth’s back.

Hjorvarth lurched around to strike the wizened old man clean in his cheek. That upset the gamblers, who charged forward, and started an earnest brawl. Hjorvarth shrugged off blows, kicking out knees, putting men down in one or two swings, until the wounded littered the floor, and those standing had backed well clear.

Hjorvarth charged back into the taproom.

Brolli had gotten free of the chair, even had one hand on his hilt, but no time to draw. He dived onto his side as a boot crunched into floorboards.

“I warned you!” Hjorvarth threw the broken chair. “I warned you, Brolli. And you killed him. You murdered him!”

“You need to listen me!” Brolli got to his feet, shaking his head, offering his palms in surrender. “Look what you’ve fucking done! You’ve come in my place, attacked me, attacked my customers. You’ve beat Alrik half to death. You kicked me in the back, came at me like a gods-damned coward. Now I can appreciate,” he continued, speaking with plain venom, “that this all a misunderstanding. But you need to realise that if it goes any further—”

“It has already gone far enough!” Hjorvarth rebuked. “I won’t abide it. Not this! I won’t let this rest. I won’t let you kill him and wash your hands of it.”

“Listen to me!”

“I told you this would happen!” Hjorvarth boomed. “You are a murderer. A law breaker. And by all rights you should be outlawed, and it is only by some grim mockery of Joyto alone that you live under your brother’s shadow. And you are a coward, Brolli. The worst kind of coward. Instead of going after the people who wronged you, you make a hell of the lives of small people. Of people who have done no wrong to you. Or anyone! But I have had enough. And I will have an end to this!”

“You want an end?” Brolli asked. “Well I can give you that, boy!”

Hjorvarth lunged when Brolli reached for his sword, boot crushing hand against hilt. He tackled him into a table, forcing it back in a clatter of chairs. Hjorvarth grunted as he suffered a head to the nose and a punch to the gut, then grabbed Brolli in a bear hug.

“Let me go,” Brolli hissed, “or I will rip out your throat with my teeth.”

Hjorvarth pressed his head against Brolli’s. “And I—” He shoved him back, sweeping out one leg, punching him in the brow. Brolli managed to stop the boot that followed with braced arms, sending him crashing back into dusty floorboards.

The three old men, sitting on one of the few tables still standing, watched in silence.

Hjorvarth stepped forward and placed his heel on his foster father’s chest. “What happened to Sam?”

“He’s dead.” Brolli bared bloody teeth. “He’s on his way to Fenkirk. With no guards and a laden cart. He’s worse than dead.”

“Tell me the truth!” Hjorvarth demanded. “I want the truth and I want it from you!”

Brolli laughed despite the pain. “We’re all dead, Hjorvarth. So what does it really matter?”

“It matters to—”

A wooden crack resounded through the taproom.

Hjorvarth staggered. He swayed drunkenly before tumbling to the floorboards.

Isleif stood over the both of them, wild-eyed and worried. A great gnarled cane held high above his head.

Brolli blinked up at the old man. “Isleif?”

“Are you all right, Brolli?” Isleif asked in a panic. “Who was that man…? I think I might have killed him.”

Brolli laughed a mad laugh. “If you haven’t, then I will.”

Footfalls sounded out on the stairs.

The Salt Sage swept through the open door with Runolf and two of the men that Hjorvarth had beaten and humiliated on the Snake Basin Path.

They were each sodden from the rain but seemed keen eyed to see the huge man brought down. And they had all already drawn their weapons.

Brolli tried not to wince, struggling up from the floor. Battered as he was, he’d struggle to kill even one of the three. “What’s all this about?”

“Witnesses,” the Sage replied. “To Hjorvarth’s drowning. Unfortunate that he chose to swim the Great Lake.”

Brolli’s reservations, barely felt amid the storm of his rage, were burnt away at the sight of all the gamblers. Of Alrik, bloodied and beaten. Of all these eyes watching him. Of all these witnesses to his embarrassment. Beaten and insulted by a man he had raised. By a man he had treated as his own son. “Unfortunate,” he agreed.

Yet two voices, of compassion and cruelty, whispered in his head that all this was best resolved in the darkness of the embankments. Kill the boy or kill them all, Brolli would be leaving as the sun rose with fresh blood trailing behind him.

He would only have to go and see his brother to offer him a final chance.

Arnor’s rounded face was a picture of judgement. “Brolli,” he spoke the name as both a plea and a warning.

The armed men now carried away fallen Hjorvarth. The Salt Sage had left with his staff. So the disparate pair faced each other in silence.

“Bring Alrik to the Ritual House,” Brolli instructed with complete calm. “I’ll take care of all this myself.”

***

No moonlight reflected in the dark water of Horvorr’s Great Lake, only the ruddy glow of a torch that Randall held. Runolf stood at his left, and Brand at his right.

Those three faced Brolli in a half-circle, who looked towards black water while Hjorvarth knelt ahead of his feet. The huge man slumped to one side, and he only stayed upright because Brolli had hold of his long braided hair.

“What are we waiting for?” Runolf asked. “Just push him in.”

“I don’t know your name.” Brolli said, his voice calm as the lake’s water. “But if you speak again, you’ll end this night in a pig’s trough. Do you understand me, friend?” Runolf swallowed and took a small step back. “We’re waiting for two reasons. Firstly, because the Sage asked me to, and he’s done me a deal of favors lately. And, secondly…”

“Secondly?” Randall asked, rubbing at his chubby cheeks.

“Was that you, or a different man? Never mind.” Brolli shook his head. “I’ll give a gold ounce to the man that kills whoever just spoke.”

“Surely, you can’t be—” Randall looked at Brand and Runolf, and they watched him with contemplative eyes. He started running.

Runolf chased him for a dozen seconds, until he kicked Randall in the back of the knee. The fat man buckled and tumbled into the mud.

“Don’t. Please!” Randall rolled over in time to catch a dagger with his wrist.

Runolf kicked him in his belly, blade scraping against bone as he pulled it free, then he stabbed Randall in the throat, ending a scream just after it began. Randall’s arms wavered ahead of him in a desperate defense, and he pleaded in gargling whimpers.

He had died by the fifth cut.

Runolf stabbed him ten more times, wiping the dagger in Randall’s balding hair.

Brand had a tight grip on his own knife when Runolf returned.

Brolli chuckled. “You know who never would have done a thing like that? Hjorvarth.”

He jerked tailed red hair, and Hjorvarth murmured.

“Too good for it.” Brolli looked back across the lake’s black expanse. “Better than you, a lot better than you. Still… he’s too good. Too good for his own good. Why didn’t he ever learn that good men need to do bad things?”

Runolf opened his mouth to speak. Brand looked around at shadowed fishing huts.

“No,” Brolli said. “I don’t want an answer.”

Hjorvarth groaned, and mumbled with a rag in his mouth. He tried to stand, but his wrists were fastened to his ankles.

“Awake are you?” Brolli asked. “Don’t struggle. I’ve had enough of that, more than enough. Now I’m going to take that rag out of your mouth, and I’m going let you have a few words, and then I’m pushing you in the Great Lake.”

Hjorvarth shouted through his rags. His effort stopped when Brolli’s sword touched his throat.

“This is borrowed time, Hjorvarth,” Brolli warned. “Borrowed time. If you want to speak, then you can stay calm. If you want to drown, then keep struggling and I’ll cut your throat in the bargain.”

Hjorvarth’s broad shoulders grew lax.

“Good.” Brolli sighed. “I want you to know that I’m going to look after Isleif. I know that I’ve threatened him before, but it was just a way to leverage you. He’s an old man, and he’s good company. So don’t you worry about your father when you’re drowning. You just make peace with the Eleven Elders.”

Brolli leaned over to pull tug the rags out his mouth.

Hjorvarth sucked in a breath, and gave a sad laugh. “You’ll look after Isleif?”

“I will.” Brolli nodded, squinting up at the lightless sky. “Don’t get me wrong, boy. This is personal. If you’re going to attack a man, the least you can do is announce yourself, and do it out on the street. And after all I’ve done for you. Keeping you and your father under my roof for all those winters. Keeping him safe from the angry brothers and sons of all those men he led to their deaths. And you decide to kick me off my fucking chair with no more courtesy than a drunken brawler?”

Brolli disgustedly shook his head, gripping tighter to his sword. “But… your sins aren’t your father’s, no more than my father’s sins are mine.”

Silence stretched, while the blade slowly teetered towards Hjorvarth’s bonds.

Brolli’s mind was in a murky turmoil, unsure what path to take. He’d killed more men than he could count. He’d never hesitated before. Not even when he killed his own brother. And after what Grim had done, Brolli was sure his heart was broken.

He would never love again.

Yet Sibbe was kind despite his terrible reputation. And the boy… the man… the huge foolish bastard before him was as much Brolli’s son as Isleif’s. More than. Hjorvarth had always been the one good thing he had done. The one thing he didn’t have to regret. The one thing that brought him true, untainted pride.

Until now.

Brolli couldn’t shake the weight of the eyes watching him, of the expectations of strangers or the savage precedent he had set for himself in all the winters of extortion, torture and murder. Yet his own voice whispered a merciful mantra.

Let him go. Let him go. I should just let him go.

Brolli’s ears twitched at soft footfalls now Engli and the Salt Sage approached from the darkness, coming up on the gathered men’s left.

“What’s going on here?” Engli asked, reaching for his dagger.

“Here I thought we might be too late!” the Sage called.

Brolli blinked, and pointed his sword towards the blond man. “Who’s he?”

Runolf’s eyes widened.“That’s Hjorvarth’s, friend!”

He ran at Engli, his bloody hilt still in his hand.

The Sage stepped quickly forward, and swung his weight off of his right foot so that his left shoulder struck Runolf’s chest. Runolf coughed, and spluttered. His dagger fell from his limp grip.

Brand panicked and rushed them with his knife. He slashed at Engli, who stepped back and swept out his foot. Brand tripped and fell to his knees. Engli slammed his heel into Brand’s long nose. It drove him backward, and he slammed into the ground.

“What is this, Sage?” Brolli asked. “What game are you—

Rope snapped now Hjorvarth freed his wrists.

Brolli took a measured step away, his foot slipping on wet mud. His free arm went out for balance while the other became tangled in Hjorvarth’s hair.

The Salt Sage strode forward, offering his gloved hand. Brolli reached out to grab it, but his heel skidded further, sending him falling backwards from the embankments.

Hjorvarth’s hair snapped taut, and the both of them plunged into black water.