54. A Last Meal

“When The Small King and I finally arrived at the mountains where the dwarves made their homes with humans, I was surprised when they opened the gates.

Even more unexpected, they invited us in for yet another meal.

The mood was tense, and though the dwarves made best effort to seem amicable and chat boisterously among themselves, it was clear that they were not at ease.

Headsman Grunel was still in charge among his people, though his dark beard had grown grey, and his eyes were wary and tired. ‘You want revenge?’ he ventured, sitting opposite the pair of us while all along the long stone table, the other dwarves craned their heads to listen. ‘I would not blame you, if I did. But I betrayed you, so I should pay the price. Let the rest of them keep their lives.’

‘I want revenge,’ Agrak quietly echoed.

Despite being surrounded and outnumbered, I had all faith that The Small King could slaughter everyone in the dining hall, and in the city, if he so chose.

‘On everyone, and on everything,’ he added, more loudly. ‘I had planned to dismember you and place the rotting pieces of your corpse in boxes. Fitting, I thought.’

Headsman Grunel swallowed, and gravely nodded. He raised a warning hand to forestall his kin who riled at the words. ‘If that is your wish, then I only ask again—’

He flinched when The Small King leapt forth, onto the table, but then Agrak leapt over the dwarves head and then ambled towards the great doors from which we had entered.

‘Thank you for the meal,’ Agrak called in departure. ‘Do no harm to my shaman, or I will come back here, and will kill you. All of you. And when you cross paths with goblins again, then I expect you to show them more kindness. As I have to you on this night.’

Headsman Grunel watched with fear and disbelief, and kept staring at the open doors long after The Small King had departed.

Still hungry, when the dwarf did turn to face me, I asked, ‘Is this meal poisoned?’

Headsman Grunel slowly shook his head.

‘Good.’

Then I sat and I ate. Roasted root vegetables and sumptuous meats. And I drank the fermented drinks that the dwarves provided. Eventually, the other dwarves warmed to me and asked me questions of my life and of my people. I was provided with a room, and I departed the next morning, with Headsman Grunel waiting to see me off with a pack of food, and a chest full of jewelry, weapons, and gifts.

‘Will you be back?’ he carefully asked.

‘No.’

‘Will he be back…?’

‘No. I have never known him to lie. If you abide his requests, then all will be fine.’

‘Hm.’ Headsman Grunel frowned, arms crossed over his broad chest. ‘I am… sorry, for the treachery. I thought… well, it does not matter. We were the monsters in the end.’

‘Sorry is a human word,’ I said. ‘Be careful with them,’ I suggested. ‘It is a fickle race that learns so many different ways and phrases to ask for forgiveness.’”

Hjorvarth sat watching a humid night pass him by, listening idly to mirth and quiet conversations. He pretended to listen, nodded or frowned, murmured in reply.

He had been seated beside Luta, at the head of a long worn table that appeared abandoned with only six gathered around it. Four were uproariously drunk, laughing louder with each sip or gulp that passed their lips.

Hjorvarth had been surprised to see Fati outdrink Ekkill but the fat man had collapsed on the table all the same. The lean man had stopped drinking while Engli and Sybille carried on. They had been in poor spirits in the first, brought down by the words they had shared before arriving and by the people they dined with.

Though Engli seemed to suffer the company of anyone with equal cheer. He had won promises of friendship from Fati and Ekkill both.

Sybille had barely spoken to Luta. Luta had barely spoken to anyone; she sat and ate and sighed and smiled and laughed, but Hjorvarth saw his own unease within her. He thought it odd that the two folk who had the most in common, Sybille and Luta, were those most set against one another.

“You spend a lot of your time staring at nothing,” Luta mentioned. “You look upon the end of the table as if there is anything there but empty chairs.” She sighed, gripping his wrist. “Why?”

“Because staring at any one person would make them uncomfortable.”

“Stare at me as you please,” Luta suggested.

“That would lead you towards a false intent.”

“Or perhaps I would simply stare back at you and revel in the oddity?”

Hjorvarth spared her a glance. He found her beauty beset him with unease. “I am not a clever man. I cannot focus on any more than one thing at one time. Even that I often struggle with.”

Luta smiled. “Then you, as an idiot, have achieved a great deal.”

“I would disagree on both counts.”

“Then you would only prove the truth.”

Hjorvarth nodded in consideration, and returned to silence. He looked at her not long after. “I have not offered my sympathies for your loss.”

Luta’s eyes narrowed. “You can answer murder with condolence or vengeance. You have no need to do both. Were you not sympathetic to the loss, I doubt you would have murdered the Low King within his own encampment.”

Hjorvarth noticed that the others were staring. Engli and Sybille in particular seemed concerned, while Fati was smiling as if in respect. “I made no claim towards that act.”

“No… you didn’t.” Luta pushed up from her chair. “I am now going to go sleep in a stranger’s room, and perhaps dream a dream where my family are not dead.” She looked to Sybille. “Have you any advice?”

Sybille held her gaze despite being drunk. “I would advise you not to seek out such delusions. Happiness is like the warmth of a fire. By the flames, you are happy and contented. In a blizzard… well… you’ll feel colder.”

“People sleep, Luta.” Hjorvarth looked up at the young woman. “It is not a thing that can be prepared for or avoided. Each night I wake screaming. Each night I die. Each night I witness death. I am scared when I wake, terrified, but when I stare off at chairs I do not reconcile the worth of my dreams but the realities of my own waking life. There is no sense at all in hoping for what is not, and what will not, ever be.”

Luta’s smile was almost annoyed. “Perhaps you should spend the night in my room and offer further wisdom?”

Hjorvarth shook his head. “I must spend this night outside.”

“Why?” Fati asked, his tone careful.

“My reasons are my own. I would not burden you all with them.”

“Very well,” Luta said, looking to Engli and Sybille. “You two are welcome to stay here. As is your guard, wherever he is.” She squinted to the end of the dining hall where firelight gave way to darkness. “Good night.”

“I will leave as well,” Hjorvarth decided, rising. “I do not wish to be followed.”

He ignored their drunken murmurings and strode over to the shadows, turning into a well-furnished living area and then into the modest reception hall that he had so often looked upon from outside.

Arfast was standing in the darkness. “Are you sure you don’t want to be followed?”

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“I am.” Hjorvarth nodded. “Pass my apologies onto Engli and Sybille should I die tonight.”

“I will. Though it seems to me you’d be better off in the bed of that young girl.”

“Doubtless,” Hjorvarth replied.

The door groaned open to a gloom made grey by thick fog.

“Good luck.”

Hjorvarth nodded his thanks, shivered with the chill, and stepped forward. He walked until he was certain he was being stalked, and then paused amid a secluded square where a broken well had crumpled in on itself. Squeaking bats and skittering rats made for questionable company, while rotting food and dried refuse scented the air.

“Ah, there you are. I almost missed you.”

Hjorvarth squinted through the mist. “That was a clever play on words.”

“What do you mean?”

“Mist. Missed.”

“Missed…? Missed?”

“It is of little consequence,” Hjorvarth dismissed.

“Is it? Or is that what you want me to think? Will I live my entire life in regret knowing that I didn’t know what it was you were talking about when you said—” Smiler paused. “Oh, I understand now. Mist. Hah. Unintended.”

“You have been following me.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“So that I can kill you.”

“Why?”

Smiler made a thoughtful murmur. “Why?” he ponderously echoed.

Hjorvarth could still not see the man, and the voice seemed to shift in origin. “Why?”

“Because,” Smiler snarled, tone venomous, “you stole my honour from me!”

“By attacking you at the warehouse? You captured me, I had every—”

“No!” Smiler rebuked. “I was tasked to kill the Low King. It was my purpose! My redemption! And you stole it from me! I would have had my honour back but you took that from me, and now I’m going to take it from you.”

“By murdering yet another innocent?”

“Innocent?” Smiler asked, his voice sounding at a distance. “Innocent?” he echoed, closer to hand. “Innocent?”

Hjorvarth tensed as a sharpened point pressed up against his inner thigh. “Innocent.”

“You are a thief,” Smiler hissed from behind him.

Hjorvarth knew he now had no way to survive or escape. This man was quick, too quick, and even if he could lurch around and grab him his thigh would be opened wide and the loss of blood catastrophic. To end Smiler before his strength fled would prove difficult. “All that you have lost, your honour, if you ever had it, was wrought by your own hands. Either you know that, in truth, or you do not. In which case you are beyond madness and I am already dead. But honour will not rot from my corpse, and it will not rise up from the flames. The man you are angry with is, by my estimation, you. The man who stole your honour can be found only in reflection.”

“That is not true,” Smiler whispered. “Not true at all.”

“Then let the blood spill and wash yourself in honour, friend,” Hjorvarth implored. “If you truly think that is the word’s meaning.”

“That is what it means to everyone,” Smiler snapped. “Or list me a man of honour who has not bathed himself in blood, whether mans, goblins, kobolds or any other monsters?”

Hjorvarth’s faith in his own people was assailed by a question that he had initially considered trivial to answer. “Gnupa Dyri, the first Godi of Muradoon. He killed no men or monsters in his entire life.”

“Gnupa Dyri, the oldest man in recorded history?” he asked with laughter. “I am not sure what is sadder, friend. That you think me a monster or that you don’t realize that it is simply the way, our way, all the ways,” he viciously added. “As it ever has been, as it ever will be, as it is now in this missed mist. The Low King’s death brought you honour and respect and that is a fact.”

“He deserved to die,” Hjorvarth replied. “In the moment when I killed him, he deserved his death. I did not steal honour from you, Smiler, because his death would have been seen as a tragic act of cowardice had you killed him. You would have simply been more hated, more reviled. Perhaps you are right. Perhaps honour is a thing for fools. In which case you should stop chasing it and make your own word, a word that you deem right, and live your own life.”

“I deserve to die,” Smiler said as matter of fact. “Is that not why you tried to kill me?”

“And I would again,” Hjorvarth answered. “And folk would herald murder as heroism. Yet I would rather see you find redemption. Some sort of atonement. I would rather have you live a life where you deliver aid instead of death.”

“You are right,” Smiler spoke with amazement. “The honour is not in your death, it is in mine.” He withdrew the blade. Hjorvarth turned to see him kneeling and offering the weapon. “Here, quickly. Stab me in the head.”

Hjorvarth shook his head. “That is no longer my way.”

“But you were right,” Smiler enthused. “I have killed hundreds. Butchered them. Cut out their teeth. I killed that woman—”

“Your crimes are your own.” Hjorvarth upturned his palms. “You are a young man. I can tell that by your voice and bearing. You can save a life for every one you have taken,” he suggested. “It will not wash away the blood on your hands, but at least those hands will be put to good work.” He shrugged. “I would think that a better end than you dying at my hands with not a single person spared to speak out in your defense when you face Broknar’s judgement.”

“Good work,” Smiler echoed, eyes widening. “I can feel it. You’ve squeezed the honour back into my heart.” He rose in a staggering fashion. “Good work. Murder heralded as heroism.” He nodded. “I must find those who are worse than me and then cut out their teeth. It was all so simple, so simple. I’ve been killing the wrong people.”

“That is not what I meant at all.”

“Of course not!” Smiler declared. “But you and I we speak in riddles, don’t we, friend? Yes, yes.” He ran forward into the misted streets. A figure leapt out in ambush. Smiler side-stepped and metal struck bone with a crack. “You’ll die for that, you sneaky fool. Oh, Alrik of the Black Hands! You’re not as bad as me. Never mind!”

Hjorvarth rushed forward as Smiler disappeared into the mist and darkness. “Alrik?”

“Shit,” Alrik’s words were muffled. “He broke my damn nose.”

“Thank Joyto for that, then.” Hjorvarth stopped above him, and offered his hand. “I did hope that you would leave the stone city after I delayed your death.”

Alrik clasped his wrist, and struggled to his feet. “I’m clearly not very bright.”

“He had no trouble spotting you, either way.”

“I meant—”

“I know what you meant.”

Alrik offered a pained chuckle. “So why didn’t you kill him? You really think he’s going to change?”

“I very much doubt it,” Hjorvarth replied. “And as to why I didn’t kill him… I don’t think that opportunity was ever truly open to me. I had misjudged his abilities by confusing my sightings of you as sightings of him.” He shrugged. “In any case, if you’re done playing as a criminal, do you have any interest in joining a brotherhood?”

Alrik covered his bleeding nose with a rag. “Can’t say I’m much good at fighting in the day.”

“With respect, you don’t seem much better by night.”

***

Spirit Seeker Oddkell swept ashes into the darkness of a mountainous valley. The cave kept to the memory of heat but a cold wind was sweeping in and would soon erase the past. He found that he mourned these losses, and by that feeling thought this a very odd occurrence. He did not care for the living or for the dead, or at least he had not for a long while. He decided it was by happenstance of him meeting Gudmund as a child, when Oddkell himself was still young and impressionable and still had hope to spare for others.

“Brother Oddkell.”

The Spirit Seeker recognized that grating voice and wondered, for a moment, if he wasn’t being visited once more by the dead. He then remembered what had happened to the youngest Spirit Seeker in known history. He had been sent to spend his best years in the wintry lands of Southwestern Tymir. “Brother Lovrin.”

“I thought you were above disposing of the dead.”

“I prefer to be certain when dealing with draugrs.” Oddkell shrugged. “You may have known this pair.”

“Unlikely.”

“Gudmund and Anna were their names.”

Spirit Seeker Lovrin paused for a long while. “Oh. I am both glad to know and sorrowed to hear that.”

“It would seem that nearly all of your charges have died these seasons past.”

Lovrin’s sigh was unusually honest. “I was assured I had done good work.”

“The First Godi will not be happy until the world is ash. He confuses management for encouragement. He—”

“Do not finish that thought, Oddkell,” Lovrin warned. “I am no longer your charge and I am no longer sworn to your service.”

Oddkell’s nod was slight. “If you did not know that I was here burning Horvorrians, why have you come?”

“I have travelled from Horvorr, through frozen passes, to bring troubling news.”

Spirit Seeker Oddkell turned to the purple-robed figure. “Trouble me, then.”

“Thousands of spirits have breached the Lake, while others have taken refuge in what was once Gudmund’s Hall. Horvorr is no longer livable. I made wardings at each gate, which may well hold, but only because the spirits have no interest in breaching them. But the act itself, the defiance, the staking of claims, is—”

“A symbol of war,” Oddkell finished. “Between the Spirit Talker and Muradoon.”

“I do not share your notions of distinction in that regard.”

Oddkell shrugged. “Then you should stayed in Horvorr.”

“Had I done so they never would have reinstated you.”

Oddkell struggled to stifle rising hope. “I am a Spirit Seeker once more? In earnest?”

“It would seem that we both are,” was the thoughtful answer. “Though one thing has changed…. you are now my charge.”

“You have explicit permission to kill me?” Oddkell took silence as affirmation. “That suits me better than you know, Spirit Seeker. Do not hesitate to use that privilege should the time come. I am not nearly who I once was.”

“So the council warned me,” Lovrin replied. “Yet I have faith that you, and I, are not yet done.”