The Storyteller and Other Tales Read online

  “A fair fight?” Yarthos sneered. “With a shard of the cold hells for your blade, as you’ve had such care to boast? I should have left you to rot and sought out one of the others, someone who hasn’t turned coward and bootlicking cur of the Gods.”

  Moth shrugged, as if she acknowledged the slur to be reasonable. “A fair fight,” she repeated. “No wizardry, Heuslar. Steel and blood and human bone. Someone will lend me a sword. And maybe the judgement will be just and we will both die.” A glance over her shoulder. “And should that chance, the cub will make certain we both stay dead, this time. He knows what Lakkariss is for.”

  “Don’t be a fool, Moth,” the giant in the doorway said, a voice soft and deep as shadows in night.

  “Blind! Your brother plotted your murder in the end. You owed Hravnmod nothing. I was trying to save you, to save us and our cause.”

  “Hravnmod might have saved me.” She shrugged, letting that pass. “So, you have a sword. Let someone lend me one and we’ll take this down to the shore. The tide’s out; we can cross to one of the isles at the harbourmouth. No need to wait for daylight.”

  “Enough of this nonsense.” The queen jerked to her feet and closed her hand over the wizard’s on the royal sword. “Give me that, Yarthos. If this is your idea of an evening’s entertainment, I can’t say I think much of it.”

  “Ragn! It’s not a game!” Ulfleif tried to tug her own blade free, with some vague idea of getting between her sister and the wizard, but as always, cursed Kepra seized on her. Yarthos flung Ragnvor stumbling aside, overturning her chair. Ulfleif yelled as the sword finally answered. She swung, unbalanced, at where the wizard had been, but Yarthos was gone. He cleared the fire in a single leap from the dais. Moth let him pass and only turned to watch.

  “I won’t fight you,” Yarthos snarled over his shoulder. “I remember what’s due honour and kinship, Ulfhild, even if you choose not to.”

  The storyteller’s man took one step inside the doorway, the doorwarden’s two-handed axe in his grip. His eyes reflected green, like an animal’s. He grinned, showing his teeth. Fangs.

  “She’s offering you more than you deserve,” he said. “I’d rather you just died here.”

  The wizard threw back his head and called fire like a cataract down from the rafters, singing the names of runes. Ulfleif recognized only a few. Someone screamed. Moth quietly drew runes in the ashes on the hearthstones with her forefinger. The fire died and the demon was still there, shaking ashes from his hair, unharmed. Ragnvor whimpered, a sound muffled by her fist, and Ulfleif’s hand found her sister’s shoulder. Ragnvor scrambled up and Ulfleif drew her back against the wall, pressed close against her side.

  “He kissed me, this afternoon,” Ragnvor said. “He asked me if I’d ... Ulf, he’s one of the seven devils ...”

  Ulfleif squeezed her sister’s hand.

  Yarthos’ — Ogada’s body had gone insubstantial as a reflection in water, and within him a column of black smoke roiled and twisted, streaked with livid flame. Claws of smoke struck at the demon and Mikki ducked aside. The doorpost behind him shattered. His axe swept through the devil and trailed smoke at the end of the swing, but Ogada only laughed. Then he was a man again, cut but shallowly, the queen’s sword leaping to bite. The axe was faster than the eye and metal shrieked on metal. Ogada danced back, man and fire-edged shadow in one, and men and women scrambled from the benches, pushing their way to the far ends of the hall. None tried to draw a weapon to defend the place, but in the rush old Rolf stumbled on his bad leg and fell. He pulled himself up, cursing, clutching one of the posts of the centre aisle, and it was ill chance the devil found him in the path of his retreat. He swept the old man aside with his left hand, flung him over the fire to land unmoving on the edge of the dais. The wooden pillar was scored half through as if by claws of fire. Red embers smouldered and blossomed into flame.

  “Get out!” the hallmaster roared, and contradicted himself. “To the queen!”

  Few, even of those who could, did flee out the door. Most could not come to it without crossing where the demon and the devil fought. Some of the hearthswords edged warily around the fire, only to find the storyteller there, between them and the queen. With slow deliberation, watching Ogada and Mikki, Moth unwrapped the bundled cloth from a black scabbard. Frost raised fern-leaves on it. Ferns melted under her hand.

  “Out,” she said and the warriors scattered. Ulfleif edged forward a little, putting Ragnvor behind her, for what good that would do. Ragnvor stared like a snake-charmed bird and made no move to snatch Kepra from her, which Ulfleif more than half expected, her sister being the true warrior, already the veteran of two battles against summer raiders.

  “Did you —” Ulfleif’s voice croaked and squeaked when she tried to call to the storyteller — “Did you still want to borrow another sword?”

  Moth looked over her shoulder. “No,” she said flatly, as the demon and Ogada crashed together. “He’s made his choice.”

  Ogada held the demon pinned to the floor, the queen’s sword through an arm. The devil touched his bleeding side, drew a rune against Mikki’s chest. With an animal snarl the demon hurled him off and lurched up.

  Moth flung the scabbard aside and went straight through the fire. She came out between them, a thing of smoke and ice and churning shadows, with a heart of sullen flame. Mikki stumbled down to one knee behind her, leaning on the haft of the axe. A powerful rune, it had been. With his own blood he smeared it away.

  “Traitor,” Ogada said. “What was your price?” He edged towards the door again. Moth moved with him. The blade was obsidian, as her tale had described. Firelight burned in it; ice edged it.

  “Not a question of price,” she said, “but of what, in the end, I find worth fighting for. And that is not you or myself or a war the Gods have already won.”

  Ogada could have fled out the door then, but he charged Moth. The air about him burned. Despite all they had seen, a few of the onlookers shouted encouragement as the devils traded blows, two skilled swordthanes sporting. There was no sporting in their faces, though. They clashed together and stayed. For a moment Ulfleif could see them, two human bodies locked close, eye to eye, sword to sword, two streaks of light pale and cold as the aurora, tendrils of lightning pulling them into one, and then the queen’s blade shattered, splinters flying like spears. The black blade struck and Ogada screamed. Ragnvor cowered, covering her ears, screaming herself, and she was far from the only one in the hall to do so.

  The obsidian sword drank the light that was the devil Ogada. Light writhed and tore and rushed to the blade as water plunges underground in the sinkhole of a limestone brook, lost to the trackless depths, and the man Heuslar still screamed as if his heart were being ripped apart. Maybe it was. The blade was not a blade, but a vast space, a crack into nightmare, unending fangs of black ice, mountain, crevasse, ice that was stone, under a low pewter sky and a copper sun, cold and sullen. It swallowed Ogada and reached for Moth, who held Heuslar close as an embrace, the sword between them.

  Ulfleif tried to move but could not break free of Ragnvor, whose fingers clawed into her wrist. It was the demon who flung himself up and jerked the storyteller away, wrapped his arms tight around her. Heuslar’s body fell and the demon, warily, freed one hand to wrench Lakkariss out, never letting go of Moth.

  Frost crawled over the blade when Mikki dropped it on the floor.

  The burning pillar fell and the beam it supported hung suspended. The whole roof groaned.

  “Yorthas!” Ragnvor wailed.

  “Get out! Everyone get out!” the hallmaster called, and, “Seize the strangers!” Which was rather less good sense.

  Ragnvor still wailed. Ulfleif slapped her. The glazed, staring look left her sister’s eye; she made a fist, as though they were back to being squabbling children.

  “You’re queen — it’s for
you to command here, not him.”

  Ragnvor stared, gulped, and nodded, calling to the hallmaster. “Leave them! Just get everyone out!”

  There came a sound like a falling tree, a long, drawn-out cracking and a rush of air. Ragnvor pulled Ulfleif back against the wall as the beam and part of the roof plunged into the hearth. Smoke billowed around them.

  “Come on. Out.” Hand in hand, blinded, choking, Ulfleif and Ragnvor picked a way through jagged abrupt timbers, crawling, clambering. Most of the shouting seemed to come from outside now, but there were still voices within, lost in darkness or trapped at the far end where the roof held. Fire rose up, walling those off. Some of the hearthswords called for the queen.

  “I’m here, I’m here!” Ragnvor let go Ulfleif’s hand as her warriors surrounded them. “People are trapped in the east end. Cut a way in from outside.”

  Ulfleif dropped back as they made it to the porch. She turned aside to the dark shape that was the demon, kneeling again, still wrapped around Moth. Mikki spoke, a low, angry-sounding murmur in a language that was almost, but not quite, familiar — ancient poetry given flesh and blood — and Moth once or twice protested. Telling her off, Ulfleif figured, and was suddenly so furious she didn’t think before hitting the man on the shoulder with her fist. A bloody arm seized her. Devil and demon surged to their feet. Mikki dropped Ulfleif the next instant.

  “Put the fire out!” she yelled at them both. “People are trapped!”

  The storyteller stared at her, utter incomprehension; Ulfleif thought that in those eyes she could see all the way down the road that Lakkariss had opened. Vartu was going to devour her soul like the stories said; they would all die in that endless ice.

  “Moth,” Mikki said gently. “Fire?”

  Moth looked around, said, inanely, “Oh,” and swept a hand. No runes, no wizard’s work. The flame of hearth, roof, pillars, all rushed into the devil’s hand and was gone.

  It was very dark.

  Wood creaked. From the far end of the hall, axes thudded. Someone shouted in triumph.

  Ulfleif felt Moth, a movement of cloth and coldness, brush past. Saw an edge of light like moon on snow as she picked up Lakkariss. Moth and the sword disappeared, but Ulfleif heard her, felt her return, weaving and ducking through the fallen timbers. Retrieving the scabbard, she guessed.

  “The ridgepole’s coming down,” Moth said, and gave Ulfleif a shove towards the porch, much as Ragnvor might have done.

  The whole roof of the hall did come down, and Moth and Mikki were gone when Ulfleif next looked for them. By the light of braziers and torches, the servants and hearthswords still searched the ruins. Old Rolf was dead, and there were at least four others crushed by falling timbers. Half a dozen injured were carried away to the queen’s bower, but they laid the dead out on the clean grass, Heuslar who had for half a year been the queen’s friend and counsellor Yorthas well apart. People avoided even walking near his corpse, though Ulfleif supposed the devil Ogada was well and truly dead at last. Or — merely bound again in the cold hells? That, she was not going to ask.

  Ulfleif ignored Ragnvor’s raised voice demanding to know where she went. She took the path that followed the creek below the foot of the Mertynsbeorg, heading east and inland.

  She caught up with grey light promising dawn. Moth waited, standing like a soldier on guard, Lakkariss slung at her shoulder. No sign of Mikki.

  “And what does the Queen’s Sword want?” the storyteller asked wearily, as Ulfleif panted up.

  “Are you just going to leave?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about the hall?”

  “Build a new one.”

  “People died.”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought —” Ulfleif began, and stopped. “You should stay.”

  “Ulvsness already has a Queen’s Sword,” Moth observed. “And Vartu Kingsbane is not a Sword any queen is likely to want at her back.”

  “I never wanted to be a swordthane either,” Ulfleif confessed. “I was ... I was hoping I could learn some new stories. I mean, you were born in the drowned isles. You grew up there. You’re the one who found Ulvsness! You saw the battle at Vetrgrondal, where the three kings fought!”

  “A war my oathbreaking began.”

  “Oh. Yes. But — I want to know how this tale ends.”

  “I already know.” Moth shifted the sword at her shoulder.

  Ulfleif persisted. “And you left out — there was no true bargain, was there? What did the Old Great Gods do, to make you carry that sword?”

  Moth studied Ulfleif, who knew she ought to be afraid, but could not seem to manage it.

  “I ... can’t say.” Moth looked off, up the mountain, where the pre-dawn grey was spreading. “I’ll tell you something I should not, young Ulf, and you can decide if you’ll trust a devil’s truth. The Old Great Gods are cruel. Not cruel to human-folk, whom they would lock safe from all harm and change in a treasury of souls, if they could. But for the spirits of the earth — the gods of the high places and the goddesses of the waters and the demons of the wild — the Great Gods have no regard, because they have no claim on such souls of the earth and thus count their existence worth nothing at all.”

  No regard for the souls of the earth ... Ulfleif looked where Moth was looking, up the mountainside. “Mikki? A hostage? Does he know?”

  “I hope not. Go away, young Ulf.”

  “I’m going to.” There. She had said it, for her own ears to hear.

  Moth was not listening. She looked up the mountain again, and there was the demon, just coming down around the birches, Ulfleif’s lyre tucked under an arm.

  “Hey, young skald!” he called cheerfully. “I went up to offer our apologies to Mertyn, since Moth won’t go anywhere near him, and he said you’d be wanting this. Moth — catch!”

  Ulfleif yelped as her precious lyre sailed at them. Moth caught it one-handed; Mikki hauled his ash- and blood-stained tunic off. Mother-naked beneath. Ulfleif dared one admiring look as light ran over the man, before the bear dropped on all fours, shaking his coat into order like a waking dog. He caught the tunic up in his teeth and lumbered on down, limping on a foreleg already healing, demon-swift.

  Moth handed the lyre to Ulfleif and tucked the tunic through her belt. “More patching,” she muttered, with all a princess’s disdain for such matters. But Mikki rested his nose on the storyteller’s shoulder a moment and Moth leaned back against him, such an ease and certainty in his being there that Ulfleif envied them both, an envy that was almost pain.

  “Are you any good?” Moth asked, with a nod at the lyre.

  Ulfleif raised her chin. “Yes.” Mertyn said so, and the gods of the earth did not lie. “I’d — I would be a skald if I could. Egill Loremaster of the Geirlingas offered to teach me, if I weren’t — I’ve already learnt the old lays and sagas, all the ones I can.”

  Moth looked at her with the devil’s eyes. Looked right through her, into her soul and out the other side. Ulfleif shivered. Vartu was a thing greater and wilder and more fierce than Mertyn, not of the earth at all. No, Ulfleif was not exactly afraid, only — standing on the edge of something.

  “You — take an aunt’s advice, young Ulfleif, wolf’s heir. Don’t burn your heart out doing what you’re told is your duty. Don’t leave yourself hollow. There are more than enough who can and will wield swords for their queen. Too few to make new songs and carry the old lays into tomorrow.”

  Mertyn had once said something similar and Ulfleif had protested to the god that she had no choice. She had never considered what no choice meant. Would she go on saying ‘no choice’ till there truly was none? Whatever Ulfhild had chosen to do in the past, the Great Gods trapped the storyteller now, because she had found something she would not betray. Nothing bound Ulfleif but tradition, and the past stood
before her, telling her where that had gone wrong.

  Don’t leave yourself hollow.

  Ulfleif took the sword from her belt. For a moment she held them both, Kepra and the lyre.

  “Take it,” she said. Her voice shook. She swallowed and tried again. “Ulfhild, take Kepra. It’s yours, isn’t it?”

  Moth blinked, her grey eyes Ulfleif’s own once more, sea-grey of the blood of Hravnmod. “It should stay with the Kings’ Swords.”

  “But you’ll need a sword,” Ulfleif said. “Something other than — than that one.” She nodded at Lakkariss. “It’s going to be a long road, isn’t it?”

  Five devils still sleeping. Or not.

  Moth said nothing, but she held out both hands and Ulfleif laid Kepra sheathed across them, like a queen gifting her hearthsword. Moth drew it, whispering, from the fleece-lined scabbard. Dawn gilded it.

  If Ulfleif did not ask now ... “What does the blade say? The runes I was taught are different from those.”

  “Keeper. The Wolf made me for Ravensfell.” Moth turned the blade. “Strength. Courage. Wisdom. Demon-forged in the drowned isles.”

  “And the hilt?”

  Moth ran her thumb over the garnets set in the gold, the hair-thin lines of the runes on the cross-guard. “A prophecy. We never knew what it foretold. The Wolf-smith was a seer and dreamed riddles. It reads, Until the last road and the last dawn.”

  Ulfleif shivered. Someone walking over one’s grave, as the old proverb had it, though how that worked if you had fled the grave, Ulfleif could not guess.

  “To the end of the world?” she asked.

  Moth shrugged, gave that fleeting wry smile. “Probably a charm against rust.”

  “But it must —” Ulfleif checked her protest when Mikki chortled.

  Moth grinned outright, sheathing Kepra. “It’s come home. Now you go home, Ulfleif. Tell your queen to find a Sword with a heart for it, and get yourself to the hall of the Geirlingas and Egill Loremaster.”