41. Defiant

“A message was brought by a smaller goblin sent by King Zalak. The messenger explained that Zalak had prevailed against the uprising, and that the collapsed tunnels once separating our domain from his have nearly been excavated.

Zalak has demanded that Chief Tuku hand over Magar, which the huge goblin seemed almost agreeable to. Until he has asked, as well, that I be handed over.

Tuku has refused and challenged Zalak to a duel instead.

Though Tuku is the larger goblin by far, and not unfamiliar with violence, I find myself suffering despair. It is as if I have come to realize that I am a cursed creature. And that whatever fleeting moments of joy I might experience are only there to better sharpen the contrast between that shortlived happiness and my own eternal misery.

Magar does not seem worried.

Tuku appears almost eager to fight.

While I sit and fret and lament, as I feel any hope I once had trickling through my withered fingers like grains of ash.

By all rights, Chief Tuku should win and bring an end to the pretender monarch. There is a part of me that almost wants to seer again on that meager chance that my visions have returned to me. But even if they have, I won’t be able to change things.

Magar said that time has a shape to which it always tries to return. But that an unseen force called Chaos—not in the abstract sense—seeks to undo the natural order of events. Which means that there is room to circumvent fate and change certain outcomes.

But I do not believe this. If time has a shape, then it is a shape in which I suffer. Countless others with me. None more so than the mute lifeless goblin who was once The Small King.”

Jarl Gudmund, son of Geirulf, brother of Brolli the Black, father of three fallen sons and a loving daughter, had become a man whose world resided within the rugged confines of a narrow cave. Two rotting crates flanked a worn chair that stood wrapped with fraying ropes. A pair of brass lanterns, metal beading with condensation, lent light to damp stone, glistening ice, and the hazy air of a frigid night.

Gudmund could feel nothing but worry and heat. Sweat trickled down his skin, leaving fur linings with a frozen wetness that struggled to permeate into the inferno of his hairy chest. “Not long now,” he barely heard his own words, and his ears rang over any reply. He was waiting, had been waiting, for what felt like far too long.

A pair of young men from the Black Hands waited in the distance, where mellow light gave way to chill darkness. He glanced at the small guard standing behind him, her words reserved by choice, her beautiful face hidden behind a dented helmet.

Gudmund thought to ask about the damage, opened his mouth, was unsure if words came out. He struggled not to vomit. Somewhere in the city, his daughter was at risk. Somewhere in the city, the Crooked Teeth had either made good on their bargain, were bringing Jarl Thrand, or they had committed betrayal.

Gudmund’s wait served as torture.

He stood with warring thoughts and troubled sickness as he and all his friends were put at risk. He would claim a long sought vengeance here today, or else his daughter would be sentenced to death, at best, or a long life as a glorified prisoner.

Wheels ground in the distance amid the faintly stirring wind, whispers that spoke to sadness. Quieted words were shared and the two men of the Black Hand stepped away from the cavern, into the darkness. Jarl Gudmund drew his sword as his guard did. He waited, holding his breath, until the black-clad pair returned. He forgot to breathe altogether when he recognized the fanciful robe of the man they carried between them.

A sack covered the prisoner’s head, showing only the wrinkles of an old man’s neck.

Gudmund stood in silence while the youthful pair forced the prisoner into the chair. He paid little mind as they bound him, not noticing their intended inefficacy.

The Black Hands stood waiting for orders. The blond man reluctant to meet eyes. His black-haired companion stepped forward, reaching for the muddied sack. “Shall I?”

Jarl Gudmund took a slow breath. He nodded his head and the man lifted the sack.

“You.” Jarl Thrand’s withered visage twisted into disgusted smirk. He laughed, unperturbed by bruises that mottled his cheeks, a split lip, by dried blood caked into wispy hair. “I must apologize to Atsurr when I see him next.”

Gudmund matched the smile and more. He grinned, growing ever more relaxed now relief flooded through his weary frame, serving as a balm for both body and mind. “I doubt they’ll let you share words in the Lady’s Shadow.”

Jarl Thrand’s smile slipped. His fine black clothes had been torn, scuffed, and covered in mud.

“No words?” Gudmund asked.

“I suppose I should ask why.”

“Why?”

Jarl Thrand’s sunken eyes narrowed. “Please don’t tell me it’s a simply matter of why not?” he complained. “That would be droll.”

Jarl Gudmund wished he could see his own face, so as to see the pure vehemence of hate so plainly written. “Seventeen winters ago, you conspired with the Low King to rob me of my lands. You helped to bring about the death of my first wife and my first child. You conspired with goblins to do the same again. You wanted to steal my sons from me and use them as bits to bargain with,” he growled. “You wanted to force my noble daughter into a marriage with a worm of a man.”

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Gudmund sneered. “You ruined my brother’s reputation until he had no choice but to live up to it. You have murdered, wrongfully, countless men, women, and children. Your city is corrupt. You are corrupt. You are beyond redemption. You are, above any other man, fit for the darkness of the Lady’s Shadow. You were born weak, so you pursued cruelty. You murdered the woman my son loved. You murdered their baby,” he snarled. “All because you are a deviant. And the woman learned you slept with boys.”

“A long list.” Jarl Thrand’s bruised cheeks now burned red. He deeply sighed. “I almost wish you were a simple opportunist. Have you said all you mean to say?”

Gudmund barked laughter. He readied his brother’s sword. “Have you?”

Jarl Thrand smirked. “Words are wasted on you, Gudmund. You are a barbarian whose only investment is towards mutual ruin. My being here is proof of that. You being here is proof of that, standing in the company of thieves, thugs, and murderers.” He shook his head. “I once dismembered a man who believed of a communal honour between the dregs of society. Do you believe in that, Gudmund? Do you believe that a man, a man that does not follow the code of law, can ever find himself a code of personal honour?”

Gudmund frowned in disbelief. He glanced at the wary faces of two young men, then the helmeted visage behind him. “Is this really how you want to spend your last seconds in the waking life, Thrand? Don’t you want to plead for your son? For your daughter?”

“Oh, Gudmund.” Jarl Thrand smirked, his eyes sparkling with delight. He made a lazy sweep with his hand. “I will remember this precious moment for the rest of my life.”

All at once, the pair from the Black Hands surged forward, four armed figures in leather crested into the cavern, and a single set of metal footfalls began.

Gudmund leapt into a thrust that broke through the guard and punctured the throat of the blond man. He wrenched the blade free, forcing it into a horizontal swing that hewed through the shoulder of the attacker on the right, getting lodged amid ribs.

The blond man collapsed, choking on blood, while his dark partner wailed.

The armoured footfalls stopped, too soon to be in aid of Gudmund. Remembering the damaged helmet, he tried to twist, sword leading, but a leg tied up his own and a gauntlet clamped down on his unarmored shoulder.

Gudmund drove his head back into a helmet, but the guard did not relent.

He tried once more, and his mind shifted into a dazed realization that he was splitting his own flesh and breaking his own skull.

The four members of the Crooked Teeth drew close.

Jarl Thrand had drawn the serpentine head of his black walking stick.

A blade flashed.

Cold pain tore a line through Gudmund’s stomach.

He suffered a sickening sensation of misplaced weight. Innards bulged from his belly. Blood and bile struck the cavern floor like tear drops.

Gudmund realised he was crying.

He clamped a hand to his own throat. Fingers met flesh in time with a blade. Metal sliced through raw nerves and small bones.

Blood curtained his neck and crotch. Agony had become him.

Gudmund was nothing more than the desperate will of a dead man. He drove his head back once more. Metal seemed to yield now agony punched into his skull. The iron grip relaxed. He made a blind struggle to break free of whatever held him.

He knew then, for a moment, that he had succeeded. He could see men coming, ugly men, ugly women. Dirty faces. They were here to help him or kill him.

It didn’t matter anymore.

Jarl Thrand’s withered face was a confused snarl now he punched a blade through Gudmund’s chest.

Sybille’s father lurched towards the old man. He forced him back into the chair.

The mismatched Jarls toppled.

Wood struck stone, causing pain beyond understanding.

Gudmund felt the coiled flesh of wet snakes, the bony body of the man beneath him.

A withered hand punched a dagger into his eye. Gudmund saw half of a face that he recognized and hated. He grabbed a blade and hand that seemed to come from nowhere. He turned it, tried to turn it, struggled to turn it, towards the terrified visage beneath him. He remembered being stronger than this, needed to be stronger than this.

A cat was on his back. Shouting loudly. Clawing into his flesh.

“But my cat is dead,” Gudmund thought. The dagger punched into Thrand’s shoulder. “Hah!”

“Kill him!” a hooded man commanded. “By the gods, cut off his limbs!”

Jarl Gudmund collapsed onto Jarl Thrand.

Sybille’s father had worn red and now he was red. Bone glistened amid ruined flesh.

“Get him off,” Jarl Thrand hissed. “Get him off of me!”

The four folk of the Crooked Teeth sheathed their bloodied weapons and lifted the ravaged corpse off of the wounded old man. The ragged line of a dragged dagger shone through soaked black fabric like a crimson smile.

“How did this happen?” the hooded man demanded. “Lift him to his feet! Bring him to the cart!” The two men and two women in leather nodded their accord. They hesitated when Jarl Thrand swore them death.“Ignore his laments.”

When the other four departed, the hooded man stood witness to the fallen.

The guard, helmet bent in on itself, slept flat on his back at the cavern’s end. Two dead men in black sagged onto a crate each, aimless gazes shining with lantern light.

Jarl Gudmund lay on his side in a dark pool. Entrails snaked out from his belly and towards the broken chair. All the rest of his flesh had been slashed, stabbed, and hacked with swords and daggers. He looked like the work of a fledgling butcher, yet his proud face seemed almost the same, still resolutely smiling despite a smearing of his own blood, despite the loss of an eye. Frozen, as if he would be satisfied for all time.

The hooded man stepped forward, bending down, to turn the corpse’s lips into sadness.

“What are you doing?” the armoured man asked in a daze. “You shouldn’t play with the dead.”

“No?” The hooded man spared a glance. “If I were you, friend, I would abandon this city. Jarl Thrand is badly wounded and you are the one to blame. When he recovers, if he does, you will be the one that suffers.”

“I followed orders,” he muttered in reply. “I would have gladly ran him through.”

“Orders?” The hooded man straightened. “If you’re a fan of those then would you help me lift this corpse? I’ve been instructed to take it beyond Timilir’s walls and offer it up as bait for trolls.”

“No.” The guard lifted off Anna’s broken helm, tossing it onto the ground. “That’s Lady’s work. If you had any sense at all, you’d burn the corpse and say you did the foul deed. Better to lie than send a man to the Lady’s Shadow.”

“This man is due his destination, either way. Not even flames will burn away his sins.”

The guard staggered past without speaking, his eyes narrowed in judgement.

The hooded man sighed, and linked hands with the corpse.

He dragged the weight, watching the smear of red stretch and grow but never reach him. He wondered, for the first time in a long time, whether he had simply gone too far.