1.
Crows
Crows. So many crows.
The sky rodents were not uncommon in the coastal city of Nyrback. In fact, they were commonly found. Usually, they lived amongst the already dead, those buried long before Harald had been alive to know them. They patrolled the many burial grounds surrounding the city’s high, stone walls like angelic guardians, dark eyes watching for any who might disrupt their peace. Harald himself had often seen them perched atop the old stone graves at their ancestral burial ground, and atop its neighbouring buildings. They dealt no harm to the living, Harald had thought; they were not those sorts of birds, no matter what people tried to say.
Now, however, they seemed less guardians, and more like death’s bringers themselves, hanging impatiently in the sky like wraiths, their matted wings spread, drifting in circular motions around the makeshift camp at the foot of the city.
Harald watched as one swooped low enough that it almost clipped a few of the fluttering tops of the many linen tents, passing within a hand’s width of them before ascending with similar speed to join the rest in their overhead crown. The things were hunting for the souls of the living, Harald thought. His heart sped with an odd rhythm at the sight, and he clutched harder to his horse’s leather reins.
None descended upon the camp completely; they too only got close enough to feel the eerie blackness, to hear the spine-scratching screeches of its patients bawling in agony before escaping back to the safety of the skies. If even the gods’ own emblems would not go near the place, Harald thought, then surely it would do no good for his party to pass through themselves. There must be something there worth avoiding. Such thinking is what had their party stumped atop a nearby hill. They had come to a complete stop, despite being so close to home that he could see its wall, and the towering Keep beyond.
“What now, Grimvald?” Harald asked, turning to his father’s advisor. The old man seemed to have aged more than their year in exile, his grey hair wispier than it should be after fifty-five summers. The wise glint in his eyes had diminished to a lingering flicker. Harald had only begun to realise what a nuisance he had been to the old man in the latter weeks of their journeying, and had tried to change his attitude since.
Grimvald waited a moment before responding, vision focused on the camp below. “Just look at it,” the old man said, ignoring Harald’s question.
Harald followed his line of sight down the hill. From their vantage point, he could not help but admire the sheer scale of it all; the camp spanned almost from edge to edge of the city’s front, a combination of many types and colours of tents and tarps, cramped so close together that they seemed a single, square-patched blanket of mismatched pieces sewn with rope and cable.
With its overhead coverage, it was not easy to catch sight of what occurred within the camp. But for the odd few that passed from one tent to the next, scurrying like ants in their brown cloaks, and the constant screaming that had long since begun to blend in with the steady wind, the place might have seemed entirely deserted.
No banners flew above the camp, either – no indication of its occupiers – but they all knew well who the makeshift city belonged to, whose people were suffering so terribly just a few hundred paces away. They had been there to see the beginning of it all.
“Come on,” Grimvald continued, “it is about time we got you home, my lord.” The old man looked past him toward Sammi and the others, who shivered atop their shared horses. “And you all, too. We have been away too long. Far too long…”
Harald hated the idea of passing through the camp, passing those whom they had abandoned for their own safety, passing those who had been lost so that others could survive. He had not been brought up a fighter, but now he wished he had; even just to shrink the overwhelming guilt that sat upon his shoulders. Just the thought of their sorrowful faces as they mourned or ached with terrible pains. He had no right to return home so safely, protected by his father’s man. No right except that he was lordborn – a child of royalty.
Begrudgingly, he patted at his steed’s neck, and the thing started forward. The others joined him, and their hooded party of five, Harald’s only friends through exile, moved onward at a staggered pace, their horses equally battered as they were by the recent upturn in distance travelled per day. Harald listened as their hooves clopped against the gravelled dirt. When this switched to the sounds of hard, icy cobbles, he knew that it would not be much longer before they came upon the city walls.
Harald had spent much of the last year thinking of home, of what awaited him; it seemed a little surreal that he was finally here. There was much he missed, the warmth of the great hall’s fires, the food, and the visually pleasing chambermaids whom he had often been caught ogling. There was also much he did not wish to go back to; his father, his brothers, and the daunting expectations that came with being the third son of the King of the Eastern Islands. All of that had disappeared, though, when they were ambushed. When all hell had broken loose, and his party had been separated from Halfden Urdinsan’s convoy, his dreams of home seemed pointless, survival the only thought on his mind.
“It is terrible,” Sammi Sigeric said as they passed the ruins of what looked to have been a huge ritual pyre. It was Ljossfolk custom to burn those who died in battle. There was a special place with the ancestors for them, a place unachievable for those who died without that honour. That honour would be lost – or so Ljossfolk children were taught – if such a ritual did not occur. This charred square of blackened ash, forty by forty steps, still simmered, its ash flickering orange against the mostly white landscape as if it were a plague that, while no one was looking, might soon expand and claim more than this small patch.
Sammi, a year Harald’s junior, combed a hand through his greasy, reddish hair, revealing small, specked freckles that had been hidden beneath. His blue eyes twinkled with a slight wetness. “Who would do such a thing?” He asked. “Who have we angered? We have been stuck through winter, for the gods’ sake, who could we have offended?” For a second it seemed as though the boy’s emotions might overflow, but he kept himself composed, wiping whatever lingered in his eyes away before allowing his hair to drop once more. Harald was sure they must have lost many of the friends they had made amongst Halfden’s troop. It seemed almost impossible that they would not have.
“Bandits,” Harald eventually replied, feigning confidence. It was the only option. Who else could it be but desperate bandits who were already beyond hunger? No one else had been roaming the frozen Eastern Islands of Ljossgard, none but Halfden’s military convoy.
“Not bandits,” Grimvald corrected him, “no bandits could have done this.” He gestured as they passed one of the medical tents. Through its flapping doorway, which blew with the wind, Harald caught glimpses of crimson bandages and dying men. “This was organised,” the old man continued, “organised beyond anything that simple bandits could achieve. And then there is the arrow.”
Overhead, a crow squawked, and the doorway flapped shut, men’s screams still creeping through where gaps remained beneath the linen.
Harald was brought back to memories of the arrow they had found when passing through the ambush site, headed northward from where they had escaped. Grimvald had struggled terribly to pull the thing from its burrowed spot in a tree, forced to place his feet flat against the trunk as he yanked, before tumbling into a heap when it had finally come loose. Grimvald had stood and wiped himself clean before showing them his trophy. They had not believed the arrow’s craftsmanship. The bolt was of unknown make, its wooden stem carved with delicate markings and symbols he did not recognise, and its arrowhead was twisted perfectly into a sharp point at its front. At its rear, feathers had been carefully dyed to form alternating black and white stripes. What a waste, Harald had thought at the time, to spend so long making such a thing, only to send it flying toward your enemies. Now, he considered, that may well have been the beauty of it all, the purpose of the craft.
Grimvald tapped his bed covering, checking that the thing was still rolled neatly into it. He had said he would be showing it to Harald’s father. It was evidence of some theory he had formed, most likely. Grimvald always had been a thinker; more so than he was a fighter, anyway – not that he did not have his fair share of legends.
Caught in thought, Harald had to quickly bring his steed to a stop as uncaring porters crossed haphazardly across the road, weaving hurriedly between his group as if there was no other way to cross. The closer to the camp’s centre they got – as it neared the city walls – the more hectic everything became, and they had to hop from their horses, leading them by their reins, so as not to risk injuring any more.
It was no longer just those in cloaks that he had seen from the hill, either. Here, soldiers mixed with healers mixed with beggar children and other rough sorts in a cauldron of chaos. The scene was reminiscent of Nyrback’s city square, where the temple met the market in a mishmash of stalls and preachers and ringing bells, only now there was no organisation to it. It seemed that no one person worked in unison with the rest. Where a healer might be treating a blood-spilling leg wound on one side, a group of soldiers were lighting themselves a fire or drinking brown mead on the other. There were also those who took advantage of the mess, scrounging for scraps of food or tearing armour from dead men, likely intending to sell them back to the very same lords they stole them from for a hefty profit. Nothing was being done to stop it.
“What is all this?” Harald asked. “Who is in charge?”
Grimvald only shook his head.
There was no way Harald’s father would allow his people to suffer at the hands of such carelessness. He would have sent someone to organise everything, someone skilled, if not himself. If he had not, then something was wrong, very wrong.
On either side, the road opened up. Row upon row upon row of tarp-like coverings, connected with tightly wound rope, stretched outward from the cobbles on either side in almost straight lines, so that Harald could see where they ended an eternity away. Within them, lines of make-do cots were mostly occupied by shivering men without blankets or bedding. “These cannot all have been in use,” Harald said, pointing a trembling hand toward some of the many empty beds scattered between the rest.
Sammi half nodded, half shook his head. “It cannot be, my lord. They must have prepared too many!”
None seemed confident in that suggestion. If that had been the case, then why were the empty beds so battered, as if they had been in use?
“Just how many have died?” Harald asked wearily, a ball forming in his throat. Though these people were Yurl Halfden Urdinsan’s men, they were by association Harald’s own. A blow like this would do no good for whatever it was his father had planned, either, whatever had them riding as winter still lingered closely.
Old man Grimvald’s face soured. “I do not know, my lord,” he scratched nervously at his shoulder, “but we all saw what remained of the battle. The…” He trailed off at the thought of it.
Harald had to hold down the morning’s food as he remembered the blood-stained hill, its red crimson leaking downward in curving streams, following the natural indent of the land, splitting and re-joining around rocks and branches and dead bodies. Both the ambush site and the camp, with their strange arrangements of red stains and death, seemed like offerings to some blood-obsessed god. Perhaps, then, the number of casualties was fewer than it should have been. Perhaps they got off lightly.
The smell of rot and smoke followed them as they arrived at the city’s gates, clinging onto their clothes and riding the wind behind them. A light splattering of rain had started, though it was not yet bad enough to necessitate pulling up their hoods. It was, if anything, refreshing as they emerged from the muck of the encampment.
The gate stood on the opposite side of a huge moat that followed the wall closely, stretching eventually to the sea on either side – the city was built on a northern peninsula of the Eastern Islands. On both sides of the moat, rocky walls dropped harshly with jagged edges, protruding sharply in odd spots until they met with the crashing water below. Where the two met, white froth emerged and bubbled as if boiling. If one was to fall, Harald thought as the drawbridge creaked beneath the weight of its crossers, they would be dead upon impact, or dead soon after. He could not remember if anyone ever had fallen down – it had not happened recently, at least – but he had no wish to be the next.
A line of guards stood firm beneath the gate’s arch, shield in one hand, sword or axe or spear in the other. Above them, the tips of the portcullis emerged from within the wall, its iron ribs bottomed by sharply spiked ends. The guards were checking all who passed; Harald had heard them say something about not letting injured soldiers in, perhaps for worry of passing on bad ills.
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As Harald approached, two guardsman stepped before him, and he was forced to come to a stop.
“State your business!” One called. “We are to limit who may enter the city. King’s orders! Those without an important reason are to be turned away!”
Harald almost chuckled at the order. Of course he had not been recognised by his father’s city guard. Why should he be? He was only the third son, and one who had been gone for so long at that! All things considered, he had come to expect such treatment; it had been no different even when he had been living here. Let alone in the city, even within the Keep itself he was no different than a lowly scullion, forced into daily tasks while his elder brothers worked alongside their father on important matters, meeting important people, making important decisions. If he was not recognised by his own family, it was no wonder that he was not recognised by those he had never met at the city gates.
“I am Harald Thurden,” Harald proclaimed. It was the first time he had used his full name since leaving Nyrback. Even Grimvald didn’t use it, instead calling him ‘boy’ or, when it suited him, ‘my lord’. “I have returned home after a brutal year’s exile. The King will be expecting me.” That last bit he added in the hopes of passing through easily. His father was not expecting him; he just happened to have been in Urdinsfjurd when Halfden Urdinsan had received his father’s call to arms.
The guardsmen stood in silence for a moment before breaking out into laughter. “Harald Thurden?” One choked. “If you’re Harald Thurden, then I am Urdin the Lightbringer, discoverer of new lands!” Both chuckled as if he had made the greatest jest to ever jest. “And we have been told of no one that the King is expecting!”
“The third son of our lord travels alongside Sir Leinhardt Grimvald, anyway,” the other added, bringing his snickering to a close, “everyone knows that.” This guardsman, a lad perhaps two years his senior – nineteen summers or so – held his spear loosely, more as a stick to lean on than anything else, while his purple tunic, in Harald’s household colour, was tattered and dirty. The lad looked past Harald’s horse, and said: “I see no Sir Grimvald amongst your party.”
What?
Harald span around. The lad was right. He counted three others behind him: Sammi and Toka huddled together beside one horse, Marlin – Grimvald’s squire – towing another. No sign of the old man. Harald placed his head in his palm, feeling now that his hair was equally greasy as Sammi’s. “Where is he?” He asked Marlin.
The old man’s squire said nothing, only moving his horse to the side and pointing. About fifty steps back, a heavy cart’s wheel had come loose, and its contents had spilt awkwardly across the left hand side of the drawbridge, blocking much of the foot-traffic. Amongst those scurrying about to help clear the mess, Harald could make out the burly silhouette of his protector. Harald sighed. It wasn’t unlike the old man to wander afar in his desire to aid.
Eventually, as Grimvald shared the weight of a large wooden barrel, hoisting it to one side, he caught Harald’s eyes. Harald could see the vulgar word that left the man’s mouth as he realised his young lord was in trouble. With surprising haste, he hurried over, heavy steps seeming almost as though they might split and splinter the aged planks beneath them.
“What is the hold up, my lord?” Grimvald asked, stepping past Marlin.
Harald saw as the guards’ faces shattered and became suddenly serious. Where had been jokey smirks, straight, quivering lines remained.
“We are not allowed past, apparently.”
“Huh? Why not?” Grimvald stepped past Harald. The old man was broad enough that he blocked Harald’s view of the two guardsmen when he stood in front of him. “Why not?” He repeated.
Though Harald could not see them now, he imagined that the two shivered in their boots, and not because of the cold.
“Its just—”
“Just?”
“Well. We were told only to allow those with important reasons to pass.” Harald recognised the voice of the nineteen summers boy, though he sounded younger now. “We just thought that—”
“You just thought that your young lord was not important enough to let through?” Grimvald was angry now. Harald almost thought he could see steam rising from the man’s red ears. “We have only been away for a year, and yet you do not recognise us? But it seems that you recognise me. So that would mean that you do not recognise the son of your liege-lord, third in line to the throne! Or perhaps you do recognise him, but would still choose to refuse him?”
Harald could hear the two shuffling in the snow and see that other guardsmen – those dealing with different issues – distanced themselves. Grimvald continued. “Am I to take this as treason?”
“No!” One burst out; his voice was almost whimpering. “No, sir,” he quickly corrected himself.
“Then we shall pass.” Grimvald shoved both to either side. He turned to Harald and the others, smiling and waving them forward. A stark juxtaposition, Harald thought.
The guardsmen made no attempt to stop them as Harald followed the old man, the reliable old man. Instead, they bowed apologetically, lowering their heads so that Harald could only see their tops.
“And one more thing!” Grimvald shouted back at them after they had made it thirty paces. Not just the two, but all the guardsmen shuddered. “You would do good to remember your lords’ faces from now on. We would not want any more mistakes like this, would we?”
The last thing Harald saw before hopping back atop his horse was the line of guardsmen, shields in one hand, weapons in the other, nodding frantically. He imagined that, once the crazed old man was gone, they would all sigh a great relief, taking a moment before getting back to work.
Unsurprisingly, the city itself was no less chaotic than its outside. They were preparing for war, after all – or at least that was as much as Yurl Urdinsan and Grimvald had allowed him to know. They had been awfully secretive about the whole thing, alerting only those who needed to know, and keeping most in the dark. Halfden had used the excuse of a feast at Nyrback to convince his three hundred men to join him in the week-long slog northward. There was to be a feast, but that was not all that they were here for, not in the least. Halfden had not even told his daughter, Yiri, of his intentions – Harald had made an effort to tease her for what she did not know.
Shit!
Harald cursed himself for only now thinking of the girl, of her flowing gold hair that matched the decorative jewels on her red dress, of the way she made it her life goal to make his worse. He cursed himself for not worrying for her, for not worrying how she fared after the ambush. For all he knew, she could well be dead, and here he was, caring for nothing but himself getting home safely. Harald turned to Grimvald, half in a panic, as they passed a crowded butcher, where a line of men cutting up all manner of meats – by order of the King, most likely. “Gods, Grimvald,” Harald said, his voice frantic, “what of Halfden? What of his daughter and his wife? Gods, gods, gods: how is it that I did not think to check on them sooner?”
Grimvald brought his horse around two women so that he rode beside Harald, patting him on the shoulder. “Do not worry, lord,” he said, “you have had many things to be thinking about as we have ridden. No one would blame you for focusing on returning safely. It is most of what I have thought about, too.” He rubbed at his rough, grey beard. He suddenly seemed once again the wise advisor that Harald had known him for in his youth. “I asked about the Yurl first thing when we entered the camp. He and his family went on to the Keep. They greeted your lord father upon their arrival. We should find ourselves bumping into them soon enough, so I would not worry.”
Phew, Harald thought, wiping away a drop of sweat that had begun to caress his forehead. That much, at least—
“And I am sure that the young miss Yiri is okay, too,” Grimvald interrupted his thought. The man gave a knowing look – like the head of his father’s House Guard might, seeing that Harald was on his way to cause more mischief.
Harald blushed; he was sure that he blushed. His cheeks must be a rosy pink, though he hoped that the caked dirt would hide it well enough. He wished that he could pull his hands up to cover his face or pull over his hood, but that all seemed too obvious, too confirming. How had the old man known it was Yiri for whom he worried?
Grimvald only smirked as they made their way through the city. The main road passed directly through it all, continuing through the gate, passing the lively market square, the pillared temple, and arriving finally at the base of the rock formation which held up the Keep. The city was cramped, buildings constructed so close together that, even where they did not touch – which they usually did – no adult man could pass between them. Many of Harald’s friends in his youth, when he had managed to escape from the Keep into the city below, had worked in such spaces, cleaning.
They passed many blacksmiths on their journey through. Each had its fire blazing with molten orange, each lively with the sounds of heavy hammering and clattering. Bakeries and other food vendors had their shops closed, but the smell of fresh bread and other cooked goods still crept out through attenuated gaps and crevices and out of shuttered windows. Soldiers patrolled each road, bringing with them what Harald could only guess were auditors, with their long, black, dress-like cloaks and gold-rimmed monocles, who took time to inspect each shop they passed. Though his father and Yurl Urdinsan aimed to keep their plans secret, it seemed that the city was in full swing, preparing for war. Anyone who could not see that was nothing but an idiot.
Eventually, after what seemed an hour of walking slowly through the city, bobbing and weaving between busy figures, they came upon the base of the plateau which held the Keep. At its bottom, once they had passed over the stone=arched bridge, and through another gate, its thick wooden doors pushed open, they emerged upon the soggy, soft dirt of the barracks. Long, stone-built buildings with triangular, sloped rooves surrounded a large, open courtyard, where the sight and sounds of troops training – squad leaders’ voices booming, and their men screaming back – echoed against the cliff-like wall at one side. Even with the freezing weather, many trained shirtless, and hot steam simmered off their broad bodies, rising and dissipating into nothingness not far above them.
As Harald and his party passed, the trainees offered them first a weary glance before noticing old man Grimvald. Then, they nodded respectfully and went about their training.
Harald looked up, eyes following the path dug into the rocky sides of the plateau as it wrapped itself around the back and remerged amongst the grassy edges at its highest reaches. From here, very little could be seen beyond that highest point; nothing more than the orange-roofed towers nearest to the drop, their silver tops glimmering as the clouds above shimmered with faraway lightning.
They reached the base of the cliff, where rows of horses grazed balls of hay in the Keep’s stables. Sammi, face limiting little of his delight, left the group there, headed for the stablemaster’s house, his house. Harald wished him farewell; he would surely see the boy soon anyway. Then he and the others, Toka – an innocent-faced boy who worked within the Keep, Marlin, and Grimvald, began their climb up the thousand steps of Nyrback.
Halfway up, they took a break in a cavern-like opening so that Grimvald could catch his breath. Harald was equally happy to stop, and found himself a spot to sit atop a slight ridge a little further in where the rain could not reach. Though he had made this trip many times when he had lived here, almost daily, it seemed that a year of rationing food and surviving blizzarding cold had taken its toll, and he was no longer as nimble or athletic as he had once been.
“Not much farther,” Harald joked, his breath wheezy. “It is a good thing we didn’t bring the horses.”
“Isn’t it just,” Grimvald said, taking a sip from his waterskin. “I cannot say I have missed this.” His foot was planted firmly on solid ground as he dangled his head over the edge. Harald could not bring himself to the edge; he had enjoyed climbing towers and trees in his youth, but this much was too much, even for him.
“There must be another way up,” Harald wondered out loud, “one that they have never told us about.” He scratched at his dome. “How else do those ancient temple ministers make their way up to the Keep?”
“Very slowly.”
Harald snickered at Grimvald’s words – it was unlikely that they had actually been intended as a joke. “I think its magic!”
“Magic?”
“Yes. Magic.” Harald would see how far he could take it. “I think that the high ministers use their power, the gods’ power, to fly up when no one is looking.” He was smiling now. “They only pretend that they have walked such a distance so that they are treated with food and wine and other such things. It is the great lie of our time!”
Grimvald turned to him, face full of half anger. “Do not insult the temple, lord. Gods know we have needed their help this past year, and They have got us through it. It is why you and I are here right now, is it not?”
Harald pondered. “We are because of you, are we not? It was you who kept me alive.”
“I would not claim the gods’ benevolence as my own, my lord.”
And that was the end of it. They spent a quiet moment in silence, recovering, before Harald stood up, patting down his rear. “We should probably get going. Wouldn’t want to leave my father waiting.”
Grimvald smiled gently.
The stairway was tunnel-like, stone on left, top and bottom, but left completely open to their right. From there, the city below could be seen in all its glory. The city’s wall was a giant curve, stretching from sea to sea. Its high buildings and bell towers reached up from the otherwise low rising rooftops, desperate to reach heights like Harald found himself now. From here, he could also see just how much the city had expanded in its history. The old wall seemed barely far enough out to hold even ten households, while the change to tiled roofing became obvious beyond it.
It was only now that Harald realised he had not appreciated his hometown enough. He had been all too eager to leave when his father had ordered it.
Eventually, as the carved pathway reared behind the plateau, the murky bluish green sea was all that could be seen. On this side, the outer circumference of the stairway, unwalled, fell what seemed a thousand feet onto craggy, teeth-like rocks that protruded from the thrashing sea beneath, desperately awaiting their next victim. It was twice the drop that had faced them at its front. Harald did not look down for long before retreating to the walled side.
Eventually, after another hundred steps, they emerged through a small gap, coming upon the flat top of the plateau. The ground was equally snow-covered at this height, potentially more so, but few steps had disgraced its pureness.
Before them stood another wall, though this one was minute in size compared to the rest. If any army had made it this far already, the city was already lost. Beyond it, a giant loomed. Not a living, breathing giant, but a building so tall, so wide, that it spanned from one edge of the plateau to the other, leaving no space uncovered. Its base was the largest, and it got thinner as it neared the top, sloped roofs decorated with dragons and other creatures at their top points, heavy log beams standing firm along its sides. The thing was like four longhouses stacked carefully atop the next. Draped from its shelf-like windowsills, purple banners with gold emblems hung, soaked to a darker shade.
Home. Harald’s heart skipped a beat, then another. He became all of a sudden so nervous that his legs trembled, and his next few steps toward the gate were wobbly.
Grimvald went ahead, knocking against the rough, solid wood that had stood for a hundred years. A small shutter opened up at about head height, two eyes peering out. After a moment looking the old man up and down, it slammed shut.
As Grimvald turned to Harald with his hands rising – a look of confusion – the great doors creaked open. The three of them passed through into a small courtyard at the base of the Keep’s steps. A tall, slim man stood at their top, his hair a darkish brown and a leather-bound book in one hand. He wore a long dress-like cloak, similar to that of the arbitrators, only it was decorated more extravagantly with patterns of silver and jewels at its cuffs.
Grimvald smiled. “Son!” He called, arms up in the air. “How I have missed you!”
The man made his way down the uneven steps. “As have I, father.”
Harald was as happy for the old man as he could be. None had come to wait for him, to welcome him home.