24. Invitations

“I have been summoned to King Zalak’s court. The vast cavern, once housing only a small throne for the Stone King, who most often sat in darkness, has been filled with gaudy ornamentation and enormous braziers which burn with unnecessary flames.

The mood of the gathered Chiefs is sullen and suspicious. In the short time I was there, three duels occurred between the greedy and violent leaders of each of the clans.

I thought that Zalak had brought me here to complain of my lack of progress in birthing a new shaman, but instead he gifted me with a pouch of what appears to be bone powder. From what creature, I could not discern. The strange substance vibrates with magical energy, and I have been instructed to make a small pool, intended for a single hatchling, in which Zalak will regurgitate a birthing sack.

Despite my warnings that a pool of such size will not work, Zalak insists that I must faithfully follow these instructions unless I wish to end up locked away in a steel box. This comment I considered most curious. Because beneath his new, much larger throne—roughly hewn from stone—lies an ornate box of metal wrought with dwarven symbols of weaponry and deities. I wonder what resides inside.

Or who.”

Atsurr lay in his stone bed, groggy and aching, too old to make a graceful recovery from something so benign as heat stroke. The woolen blanked prickled his damp skin and cold air permeated his spirit. He was soon to be discarded.

“Pay no mind to our matching ages,” Atsurr thought, “or my loyalty. I, healthy and strong, am too old while my shriveled master holds complete control. Control of what, though? A counsel full of betrayers. How else would Fati and Ekkill survive when seven other members, more cautious sword-trained members, had ended their days as sacks of bloody teeth? No, he has no control, this is the end, and he refuses to see it. He needs to cut out the rot before it festers and afflicts his children. Was losing Thorfinn not lesson enough? For me, for him?”

Silence had held a pronounced sway on the chill night, but it was broken by the distant clacking of a cane.

“And so they come to end me,” Atsurr mused grimly, “though, wait, no… not the rattle of armoured men. Just the clack of that serpentine cane. Perhaps he has finally seen reason. Or perhaps the Son of Geirolf strikes that cane as a tactless joke in his victory. Perhaps he stalks the halls as death itself, and I have slept, shivering, through the slaughter.”

“Are you awake?” came a rasping voice, muffled by a closed stone door. A brick scraped into place, mechanisms clipped and the wall groaned open to reveal the moonlit silhouette of an old man in a gold robe. “Apologies for the late hour.”

“Celebrations.”

“Is that an accusation or an observation?” Jarl Thrand stepped forward, his wrinkles riven by shadows, his sunken eyes glistening in the gloom. “Yes, celebrations. For the proposed match of Luta and Gudmund.”

“The coward has nothing to offer you but a knife in the back.”

Jarl Thrand rasped a quiet laugh. “Is that not utter hypocrisy, Atsurr? How many men—”

“Hundreds.” Atsurr paused for a while. “I am not a better or more noble man. And it is by that admission that I claim to know him. He has set the stage to steal your whole Estate, your legacy. When the marriage is done—”

“Perhaps it never will be.”

Fledgling hope took root in the old sentinel’s heart. “How?”

“A knife in the back,” Thrand rasped. “But not yet, and perhaps not ever. He has agreed to marry Sybille to Thrand the Younger, which leaves open the opportunity of me stealing his lands. As does his marriage to my daughter, for that matter.”

“It would be simpler to kill him now, and claim the lands by right of your stewardship.”

“Simpler for my enemies, yes,” Jarl Thrand agreed. “Simpler for them to wage war while I am distracted on the pretense of liberating a stolen region. What you do not understand, what you have never understood, is that we are not in power. I am not in power. I am surrounded on all sides by enemies. Jarl Harrod the Younger takes loss after loss in the Midderlands. The Low King is soon to rise. Trouble brews even in the Eastland Plains and there are rumors of a foreign peoples landing in the Northlands now as well. I am old… you are old. And when we die, my legacy will be sundered on all sides.”

“Find other allies.”

“Who?” Jarl Thrand scowled. “Dead Adelsteinn? Or some other pretender Jarl soon to bend his knee to the Low Lands monarch? All you see in Gudmund is treachery. Yet I see plainly his strengths. He is a man that can bridge the gap between our passing and my son’s rising. He is well known by the goblins of the Midderlands… perhaps to the point he could even arrange a peace as the old Jarl Harrod once did. He is loathed in both regions of the Southeast, as is his brother, but he is also well known as a talented duelist.” He paused. “My sons are just that. As Jarl Harrod the Younger is still the son of his father. They are not yet their own men. And I fear I, neither of us, will live to see the day when they can stand against the encroaching enemies alone.”

“Gudmund has already been the death of one of your sons.”

“Was he, Atsurr? And where we you when Thorfinn moved to stab Geirmund in the back? Close by, I would think. While Gudmund lay days away in his own holdings.”

“You would blame me for his death?” Atsurr whispered in disbelief.

“I would blame all of you,” answered Thrand at length. “The son of Isleif, you, and Thorfinn himself. Or else I’m left to blame the cobblestones.”

Atsurr sighed. “Blame who you wish, my Jarl. But I am certain that Gudmund means to kill you. So his uses, fine as they may be, will avail you nothing. This is an alliance that will be the death of you.”

“Perhaps it will,” conceded Thrand. “Which is why I would have you find out if he or his followers are up to anything untoward.”

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Atsurr grunted his approval. “I will return to my duties in the morning.”

“You should know that the old guard is dead.”

“Is he?” Atsurr frowned. “The Crooked Teeth?”

“No. The other guard, the one that covers himself, killed him… or so I’m told. Arfast took issue with something Thrand did or said to Sybille and demanded apology. It ended in something of a shouting match between Arfast and Gudmund and the old guard was allowed to leave. Before he did, the other guard took issue with something Arfast said. They traded blows and the guard gave chase. Upon return, he told us that he had pursued into the gardens, and that the old guard had jumped, or fallen, from the cliff’s edge.”

“Was there blood?”

“Yes. Trailed along the garden, and the guard that lives suffered his own wounds.”

“How severe?” Atsurr asked.

“A slash across the gauntlet… apparently caused by a close up struggle grappling swords.”

“We should search the slums for a body.”

Jarl Thrand scoffed. “The order was already given.”

“And?”

“The body was mangled, having struck the cliff side several times. The hair that I could see was white. So either it was a man of his age, in his armour, or else the guard himself.” Jarl Thrand raised his hand to halt a reply. “The Estate is already being searched, as were all those that have left.”

Atsurr disagreeably grunted. “He did not strike me as a man that would die.”

“No?” Jarl Thrand raised his brows. “I expected it well enough. From time rather than the sword. I share your suspicions, but by the same merit I can see no real gain to faking a man’s death. Arfast acted as guardian for Gudmund’s daughter and now she has agreed to be watched by my own guards. If anything, this puts her more at risk.”

“Has the fat guard not been tasked with watching her?”

“No. The fat one has been out of the city since you collapsed. I have had him watched and from what they could gather he is commissioning carts and purchasing goods to be sent to Fenkirk after winter passes.”

“There must be something more.”

“And what if there truly isn’t, Atsurr?” asked Thrand. “What if we are jumping at shadows in our own home while our real enemies work towards our demise? The suspicion becomes tiring. It proves ever useless. I spent hours with Gudmund this evening and he was pleasant and amiable. He said nothing in anger. Nothing suspicious. The only oddity of the evening was the outburst and death of the old guard, and Gudmund handled that in an acceptable manner.”

“And what of the guard that killed Arfast?” pressed Atsurr. “Did he remove his helm when his wounds were treated?”

“He was wounded on the hand. He removed his gauntlet.”

“Why does he cover himself? What man worthy of trust hides his face?”

“An ugly man… or one that is horribly scarred. I spoke to Gudmund of it at the feast and he mentioned a story of an angry man in a forge who took issue with a young boy.”

“And have you had him followed?”

“There was no need,” Jarl Thrand answered with less patience. “The guard is ever in Gudmund’s shadow, as Arfast was to the girl.”

“The girl,” Atsurr muttered. “Does she weep? Did the loss sorrow her?”

“She has cried for the past few hours. Thrand says he did his best to comfort her, and managed to have her sleep.”

“And did Gudmund come to see her?”

“He did.” Jarl Thrand nodded. “And now he has scratches across his cheek to match my own. Thrand said that her anger and attack wounded him. I have spoken briefly to Luta and she agrees that they were both deeply troubled.”

Atsurr grunted once more. “I still do not trust him.”

“I know. And that is why I am tasking you to keep a close watch on them.”

***

Gudmund wandered through the shadowed grounds of Jarl Thrand’s Estate. He had come there to avoid sympathy and scrutiny. He had come there to avoid his betrothed. He had come to walk towards the limits of the prison he had volunteered for.

Gudmund had sight of the marble gates ahead, where guests filed out by the light of torches, their faces searched in case they wore the borrowed visage of a dead old guard.

He turned to a pair of square outbuildings, and seated himself against the wall between them both, beyond the reach of prying eyes. He had only begun to sigh his relief when the measured steps of an armoured guard drew close.

The small guard crossed the corner, pausing, then took a seat against the building opposite. “Hiding, Gudmund?”

“Had to… I’ve heard what you do to members of Horvorr’s Guard.”

“What a mad old man,” the guard replied in a soft-spoken tone.

Gudmund shrugged. “He seemed to think they were going to try and kill him. Something about poison and a second skin. So I let him do as he wished.”

“And where did he get the body from?”

“Stole it from the poor bastard that once owned it?”

The indignant voices of guests being searched filtered through from the distance.

The small guard sighed. “What’re you even doing here, Gudmund?”

“Waiting to be married.”

“Then shouldn’t you be with your darling wife?”

Gudmund smirked. “Jealous, are we?”

“Not at all. I just see the humour in your fear of a young woman.”

“I fear the old ones more.”

“You’re older than I am.”

“My darling wife tells me I’m young and handsome.”

“Definitely a child of Jarl Thrand, then?”

Gudmund chuckled. “She spoke of children.”

“And did that win you over, Gudmund? An offer of a new life and a new wife?”

“It made me feel like a false facing bastard… but, no, I wasn’t won over. She might think that she told it true, but there’s no starting over for me. I’m…”

“Hopeless?”

“I was going to say broken. Does that suit, Anna?”

“Well enough.” Anna shrugged under her armour. “Have you heard from Engli?”

“Word passed by Ralf,” Gudmund said. “He has some fears of the Crooked Teeth. Seems to think that they’re going to try and abduct me.” He sniffed. “So I’ll be sure to take care when Jarl Thrand gives me leave for a city stroll.”

“No need,” a cold voice assured. “We’ll come to you.” Gudmund and Anna turned to see a black-haired man standing, smiling, beside them. “Danger lies in the other direction, friends. Alas, it’s too late.”

Gudmund glimpsed shadowed figures before a sack robbed him of sight.

Anna started to shout, her voice muffled, protest ended with a thud.

A club struck Gudmund’s skull. He regained his senses in time to lose them.