59. Ripples

“After the funeral, Gudmund invited Brolli and I into his hall. I don’t know who raised the idea, but we spent the night senselessly drunk on stolen fishing boats. I remember little more than laughing on the embankments and, after we had accidentally sunk one craft and procured two more, vomiting into the lake and watching the ripples.

I could almost see hands reaching up to grab me.

Brolli seemed so happy that night, until the two brothers started to spit and curse at one another. Grettir then separated the two boats with an oar.

Brolli and I floated for a good while in bitter silence before we hit the embankments.

I wondered what the pair of them had argued so violently over. But then, after we had left our boat in the darkness, Brolli asked me if I ever wondered whether it was my bastard that had killed Gudmund’s wife. The short walk home felt terribly long.”

Braguk Moonbear stood amid a mountainous rise not many miles from Timilir. He had his huge cloak pulled tight about him in defense of thick falling snow and great gusts of wind that served more for force than noise, though they did echo back off of grey and distant mountains like the enormous flutter of ancient wings.

He had a crate of iron by his bony foot, where a young man resided, shivering and hungry, one arm withered and the other severed by a sword and sealed with fire.

Braguk feared the weather would delay the rider. He was wroth with the thought, and wanted to crush the iron cage. Jarl Thrand owed him this much, after all Braguk had done, gathering an army, bending those three foolish triplets to his will and bringing together all the other disgraced Great Chiefs of Gahr’rul’s once mighty clan.

Braguk Moonbear would have to do it again, whether he borrowed goblins from the Midderlands or bred his own. He would find Izzig the Worm and force the wretched shaman into rearing a less cowardly army.

He wondered if Lazarus had already done the same, whether there was a cavern full of monstrous goblins all waiting to be hatched and led.

“Yes,” came a piping shout through the snow. “I’ve taken it as my own!”

Braguk gripped his staff, shifting his weight and squinting through the snow.

The small goblin waved a clawed hand and the wind died. “I’m here!”

“Lazarus?” Braguk grumbled, then realised the goblin was too small, smooth-skinned and round-eyed. “Who are you?”

“To you?” The goblin bared twin fangs. “I am a myth. To others… a god.”

Braguk Moonbear noticed another goblin, nearly as tall as the shaman was, but wrought from muscle in an almost manling way.

He gripped a huge runic axe in both great hands, but let the weapon rest in the snow when he came to stand beside his smaller kin. “I am Orog the Mountain,” he announced in a voice like thunder. “You are in audience with the Small King. Kneel!”

Braguk managed a wry laugh. “I am in no mood for jokes. Wherever you came from… however you came to be here, you should leave or make me an offer. Because big as you are, Mountain, I am bigger. And I have killed bigger. And I will crush you with my staff.”

“If it comes to fighting,” the Small King piped, “I’ll stand for myself. As to why I am here, I’ve come for the man hidden under your cloak, and I’ve come as well to settle a blood debt to the goblin responsible for the deaths of Gahr’rul and Mubrogg the Spirit Weaver, who were both adamant in their devotion and faith to me… which I found confusing and surprising, given that I never actually spoke with them—nonetheless, I find I’m getting out and about again and I’d like to at least—” He waved a clawed hand about as if searching for a word. “I want to do… something.”

Braguk Moonbear felt sick with the possible danger he now faced. He tried to turn, but found himself still staring down into the round eyes of the small goblin.

“I should probably say,” the Small King mentioned, “that the rider arrived. I cut him to pieces and put him in a box, which I will send to Jarl Thrand’s estate soon enough. Hopefully that will make it clear, at least for now, that he has no business in this land, or in any land, when it comes to making deals with goblins.”

Braguk Moonbear collapsed to his knees, almost crushing the iron cage. “I swear loyalty to you, Small King!”

“My name is Agrak,” he replied. “And I don’t want the loyalty of whatever you are. Table begging scum that would sell its species to mankind for its own sake, for no sake at all. You disgust me, shaman. Your associations and your leanings disgust me. You have dishonored our people and you have dishonored yourself.”

Braguk Moonbear had never felt so alone and powerless.

He could see no aid, no escape, only endless tundra becoming darker and darker with the setting sun. “I have power,” he insisted. “I can aid you. If you mean to conquer this land then there is no one better to help. I will repent! I had no choice but to deal with the manlings! You were gone. They were all gone! We were left to our own, please… King Agrak. I ask only for a chance at redemption.”

Agrak stared up without inclination. “Give me the cage, shaman.”

Braguk managed to nudge the iron cage out from his cloak and onto the snow. The wretched one-armed man squinted behind the bars.

“Agnar, is it?” Agrak asked. “We’ve quite similar names.” He laughed a piping laugh. “You’re with me for a while now. And when I cut you loose. I want you to be sure to tell your new master that I’m a goblin who pays his debts.”

The Small King grinned up at Braguk Moonbear. “As to you, shaman. Gahr’rul already gave you a chance at redemption when you tried and failed to murder him. But this is about more than petty revenge, you huge and foolish thing. It is a principle. I will never tolerate those who make dealings with mankind. Or those who betray their masters,” he pointedly added. “So, in memory of Mubrogg the Spirit Weaver, I challenge you.”

Braguk Moonbear wanted so badly to snatch out. He grinned when his bony arms finally obeyed. He shoved the wretched goblin into his mouth, chewing down, laughing, hurting his teeth on a thing as hard as stone. Pain burned in great lines under his nose.

Blood flooded onto his tongue. Braguk tried to scream, but choked instead.

He clawed into his own face to try to stop the suffering.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Agrak tore his way out through a large green eye, wreathed in black gore now he leapt onto untouched snow.

Braguk Moonbear remained on his green knees. Grimy teeth still bared in a snarl while blood pooled onto his patchwork cloak. He stared off at nothing as his prodigious frame sagged, toppled, then thudded into snow and stone.

Orog grunted his distaste. “Did you have to kill him like that?”

“Shouldn’t you be happy that I killed him at all?” Agrak shrugged his bony shoulders. “I couldn’t think of an easier method. In any case… we should bring our Three Paw back to the caves.”

Orog straightened, searching the darkening mountains. “Who?”

Agrak waved towards the ragged man that cowered in the iron cage. “This is the son of the Young Wolf. He has three limbs—”

“I understand now,” Orog assured in his deep voice. “I still question your choice to save a man when you just spoke of never dealing with mankind. Is Three Paw not a man, or at the very least, was he not?”

“I was being dramatic,” Agrak dismissed. “Our old friend won’t shy away from dealing with goblins.”

Orog lifted both man and cage. “He is the Old Enemy.”

“He is.” Agrak nodded, green face growing solemn. “He proved that when he stole from me. And now I mean to make him, along with the wider world, regret the act,” he coldly assured. “But Chance is more than adversary enough for us without being indebted to an entity as elusive and as powerful as Muradoon.”

“If he is so elusive and powerful, why would he care for a broken man?”

“As I understand it, those are the only kind he cares for.”

***

Ke’ra Ke had shed his mantle, jewelry and weaponry to accompany the brown-robed man he knew as El’ma Re. So the yeti wore only his natural fur, which covered all his great frame, save for scars, the padded flesh of his palms, and a ring of flesh around his wild, blue eyes.

The yeti towered at twice the robed man’s height. They both stood within the mouth of a glacial cavern, beneath icicles that lanced down and glistened with the remnants of distant light. They gazed past the twin plateaus of the North Pass, at the huge bonfires that raged outside the log walls of Horvorr.

“I begin to doubt your character, El’ma Re,” Ke’ra Ke mentioned in the slow spoken tone of his language.

“Why is that?” the Sage asked, not looking up at the huge yeti.

“I gave you opportunity to honour yourself. Instead you bowed to cowardice. Gave the abomination what it wanted.”

“It was he that bowed,” the Salt Sage reminded. “Is there no honour in mercy?”

Ke’ra Ke growled in irritation. “Is the mountain of flesh not dead? What end has your mercy… beyond allowing your enemy to be slain less honourably by another?”

“I was actually hoping Dalpho would win.”

“Speak in my tongue,” Ke’ra Ke warned, stretching his clawed hands. “I do not understand.”

“I expected the mountain of flesh to claim victory. He was fated to die. By his foe or by the band of men.”

“Men,” Ke’ra Ke spat. “I thought you sought to guard them? And yet they burn tribes and tribes of their fallen.”

“I made best effort.” The Salt Sage sighed into a cold and lonely night. “It is not about one tribe, or a dozen, but about all of them. Foes of all kinds gather and ancients are awakening. I was almost captured… delayed. I will not let it happen again.”

“Debt settled.” Ke’ra Ke straightened, and turned towards the cave. “Snow preserve you, El’ma Re.”

“No.” The Salt Sage’s denial hung in the air.

“No?” asked the yeti, fur bristling on his muscled frame. “No to your no.”

“No,” the Sage added a warning edge.

Ke’ra Ke rounded on him, snarling fangs an inch from his nose, breathing mist into his face. “Debt settled.”

“No.” The Salt Sage shook his brown-hooded head. “Turn your back on me and I will turn my back on you. A debt is owed. A debt will be settled. Soon. Not now.”

“A debt eternal is what you think is owed.” Ke’ra Ke steeled his sapphire gaze. “A debt paid is what it is.”

“Are your people of so trivial mention? Are your people so insignificant? Without me there is no you. Your ancestors respected that. Honoured the debt.”

“You seek to wisdom me?” Ke’ra Ke growled, stalking back under trembling icicles.

“Why accompany me if the debt is settled?” the Sage asked. “What great deed did you do for me that I could not have done for myself? Stand atop a mountain and roar?”

“You belittle us?” Ke’ra Ke ran at him, swiped for his face, stopped when he held ground. “You are a provoker, and a trickster!”

“Yes,” the Sage agreed. “I am also El’ma Re.”

“My people will not live in eternal servitude.”

“Servitude?” The Salt Sage smiled. “Twenty years have passed since I asked last.”

“Ask last, then.” The yeti glared down at the brown-robed man. “What does it take to settle this debt?”

“One more favour.”

Ke’ra Ke leaned close to him. “Only one?”

“Two.”

“And on to a hundred?” Ke’ra Ke growled laughter, and stalked away. “I’ll give one.”

“One, then.”

Ke’ra Ke turned back. “Speak it”

“Take me to Jorund’s Hill.”

“Risk war with the Small King?” Ke’ra Ke shook his head. “To even consider would require full gathering. Years in deliberation.”

“Gather the tribes. Deliberate.”

Ke’ra Ke scowled down at him. “It is simpler to walk.”

“I’ll travel to Jorund’s Hill on my own.” The Salt Sage nodded. “There’s a candle I need to snuff out. I would still like you to ask support for a raid of my choosing.”

“Where will you choose?”

“The Steam Caverns.”

Ke’ra Ke’s feral stare spoke to disappointment. “That is a thing I will never ask.”

“You will ask it.” Icicles began to shake, tinkling in harmony. “You will settle the debt. Or suffer war with me.”

“Your pride weighs more than a hundred tribes?” the yeti demanded.

“A hundred?” the Salt Sage asked. “I would kill every thing living, that has ever lived, or will ever live. I would lay waste to existence itself if needed.”

“Why don’t you?” Ke’ra Ke asked with impatience. “Is it as the mystics say… that you are weak? A bright burning fire burnt low. Would you truly be able to stop us? All of us?” he pressed. “Before we tied you up and buried you in the snow? How long would it take before a Jorund found you?”

The Salt Sage laughed, and wistfully sighed. “I only ask that you ask, Ke’ra Ke.”

“You speak of ancestors,” Ke’ra Ke whispered. “You speak of history shared. Yet not once do you recognise what we have done for you. You cast us aside in favour of men, and expect us to be ready and waiting for your word. I will ask. I will ask last. Yet I would warn you not to press us when you are met with emphatic refusal. Or we might have to settle the ancient riddle of who is worse. The Old Enemy or The Small King.”

The Salt Sage chuckled. “If you want the answer to that you need only ask.”

Ke’ra Ke grunted at words he did not understand. He glanced suspiciously back at El’ma Re, then began his return journey.

The Salt Sage pulled back his hood, and ripped away the rags. He stared down at the flames raging around Horvorr, his golden hair and charming face barely etched by firelight. Then he gazed up at the stars as if in affinity with their cold remoteness. “Are you watching me, Watcher?” he asked, but I could not answer. “Or am I truly alone?”