Sjá! Þar sé ek faðir minn Lo! There do I see my father
Sjá! Þar sé ek móðir mína Lo! There do I see my mother
Sjá! Þar sé ek bræður mína ok systur Lo! There do I see my brothers and my sisters
Sjá! Þar sé ek ætt mín, Lo! There do I see the line of my people
Teigjandi aftur til upphafs Stretching back to the beginning
Þeir kalla til mín They do call to me
Þeir bjóða mér að taka mitt sæti með þeim They bid me take my place among them
Í Valhöll In the land of Valhalla
þar sem hinir dauðu mega lifa ævinlega Where the dead may live forever
Ok vér syrgjum eigi fráfallið And we mourn not the passing
Heldur lofuðum dýrðlega dauðann But praise the glorious death
Viking prayer, 9th century
Guide des Personnages Principales et Pronunciation
Name (pronunciation): Species (Race; Town/Country) class. PC (Player character)/NPC (non-player character).
*********************************************************************************************************
Kevan (KEV-an; 'Kev'): Human (Flan/Oeridian; Nyrondi) fighter. PC. A soldier and guard turned independent contractor.
Marus (MAR-us; 'Mar'): Human (Flan/Oeridian; Nyrondi) fighter. PC. A soldier, guard, and old friend of Kev.
Dayan (DIE-on): Human (Oeridian/Baklunish; Bissel) fighter. Western mercenary, NPC. Figured he was a meatshield, so… 'Dyin'. Anyway. Another interesting fact about him: Neutral Evil. An unexpected and interesting alignment rolling trend developed with the NPCs. Life is weird, yeah?
Patrick (PAT-rick; like the sponge; 'Pat'): Human (Flan/Oeridian; Furyondy) fighter, spec with the short bow. Original group archer. NPC. Neutral Evil…
Askyrja ('As-KEYR-ya'; 'Aska'): Human (Suel) ranger/archer. PC. A wicked shot and kind of our heroine as I write this thing up. The story has to have some kind of narrative perspective; I picked the pretty ranger/archer. Sue me.
Gisele (GIS-ele; 'Gis'): Human (Rhennee; Keoland) magic-user. PC. Meant to be kind of a snooty type; ended up a bit more earthy. People change.
Joachim Godesmannus (Go-des-MAN-nus; 'Godes'): Human (Oeridian; Wild Coast) PC magic-user. For some reason, dude picked a German name, so there's some free culture for you.
Brother Hoster (HOS-ter): Human (Oeridian; Verbobonc) cleric with the Church of Askaroneous. PC. Good Wisdom… everything else a bit tanked. Rolling support platform. Ah well.
Euphemius: Halfling (Hairfoot; Wild Coast) thief. NPC. Got the name off a random generator. Neutral evil… okay.
Dolops (DOL-ops): Dwarf (Hill; Highfolk) assassin. NPC. Alignment: guess! Go on! Got his name on the same generator, actually.
Disclaimer
I do not own the rights to any depicted material originating with TSR, the Wizards of the Coast, or whoever owns all of that now, nor that of any other writer, producer or creator. All depictions of everything herein including but not limited to characters, materials, locations and products constitute Fair Use for the purposes of critique, research and teaching regarding older versions of the AD&D 1e product. My remuneration from this is nil and will remain so; I receive no monetary compensation of any kind from this activity. Any resemblance of any person or character, alive, dead, conceived or presently unknown, to any other character depicted herein is purely coincidental.
Thanks for reading. Comments welcome.
Raid! On The Temple of Elemental Evil
Act 1
Chapter 1 – The Cold Heart
Common Year (CY) 579, Month of Planting Day 11 (Moonday)
Evening
'So, girl: there it is. That's our offer. What do you say?' said the man with the long moustaches.
Askyrja Karasdottyr looked from face to face – some staring at her eagerly, some with curiosity, some with concern – and some with leering interest.
She crossed her arms and took a long breath, thinking as she gazed down at the table.
***
CY 579, Planting 11, Moonday
Late Afternoon
The road was rutted and cut with puddles, the dirt track made into a thick, viscous mud after the hard rains. Above and before her, a mid-morning sun glowed weakly through the clouds, just above the hills. It was unexpectedly cold for Planting, as the locals called it – which sounded silly to her even if it was more or less descriptive – and had been for nearly a week since she'd left Verbobonc City, Starday before last – again as the locals called it. Her people had their own words for time and season.
She'd been walking the Southway from Verbobonc down through Etterboek to Cienega Valley for four days now and the weather had been deteriorating the entire time, with mixed rain and occasional torrential downpours off and on – mostly off – melting the last of the frost lurking round the bottoms of ditches and in the furrows of the fields by the road. Dark clouds were descending once again to smother the Etter Hills just to the east and she watched their high, faraway caps trailing pale mist as the rumbling skies spat and threatened worse.
Askyrja shook the wet from her beeswax-impregnated cloak and hunched down as the rain pattered on her. Despite it and the wide-brimmed hat jammed down over her hood her thick golden locks – tinged with her mother's red – were already sodden and dripping down her shoulders and the back of her jerkin. She'd only narrowly avoided being soaked to the skin the night prior when it had poured for hours and she'd had to take shelter under the spreading boughs of a pine tree. Her boots and the edges of her cloak were stained red with road-clay, her shirt was cloying and her shoulders ached from the weight of her pack. Her bright green eyes scanned the disquiet skies again for signs they might open and douse her. For now they were still, but the electric feeling across her shoulders made her sure a real tempest was approaching; a proper storm and deluge. She must hurry.
For the hundredth time she adjusted her swordbelt with her long-bladed weapon strapped high on her athletic hips over deerskin breeches, then the straps of her big backpack, the clasp-pin of her cloak, pouches, the leather cord for the small wooden shield hanging on her pack, bowcase, quivers, dagger, axe, Thorshamer amulet round her neck – so many fastenings, ties and leashes around her shoulders, waist and hips, even slung between her round breasts so that she felt like a dog leashed by ten masters, each line developing its own little sore from the wet. She jogged them around into more comfortable fits over her leather cuirass and greaves – her body half snared by her own possessions – then checked her bowcase to make sure the precious elm-wood stave and her spare bowstrings therein were still dry and safe in their pocket just under the cap. The wet could ruin a string; she knew that much at least and protected them assiduously.
She sighed and hefted her pack again to adjust it, already a little lighter with the food eaten and gone. She was not weak – she was a girl of the North, strong of body, fleet of foot and quick of hand! – but it had been a long road. She longed for a warm fire and a day of rest. Walking was long and dull and she wished again she'd had enough money to buy a horse back in Verbobonc – or that the stupid, narrow-minded caravan people hadn't dismissed her request to join them so instantly and willfully.
It was true that she'd never worked as a caravan guard before – obviously – but how hard could it be? You stayed alert and watched the woods and if something attacked then you shot it, again and again, until it stopped. She'd told them as much and was amazed at how poorly they'd taken it, as if they'd never considered such a thing! Instead, they'd just made vapid comments about not taking on some unknown girl and not being responsible for her – as if she'd asked them to be! – and then getting away from them before they beat her arse, a punishment she'd not had since she was a girl, so she'd simply left on the spot, burning with outrage.
For two days she'd followed the caravan, fading back by day, keeping closer by dusk and keeping her campfires small and well-hidden; for who could truly say what sort of things might be prowling the feet of the Kron Hills out west, or the dark woods of the Etters, or even silently cruising the glimmering waters of Nigb's Run at her back? She'd slept lightly and with her hand on the hilt of her naked sword.
Finally, the excruciatingly slow pace of the convoy had taxed her patience beyond her tolerances and on the second day she'd simply approached the parked carts from behind as they made camp and walked on by, lifting two fingers in insult at the guards – a Verboboncian gesture she'd learned – and laughed as she easily outpaced them when they gave chase, much faster in her leather jerkin than they in their mail. Now, she headed south on her own though she considered running back to the caravan if she did meet anything she couldn't handle; a bruised bottom did beat a bloody death.
She supposed her being out by herself was a little outlandish, no matter how quiet the Viscounty seemed or how woods-wise she felt she was – but she had her reasons. Maybe she could elude detection in the South; maybe not forever, but long enough to give her time to plan her next move. Hopefully the rumours she'd heard about the trouble in the Southlands would turn out to be true and, if they were, there might be work for someone who could do as she. She felt her money-purse again and prayed to her stern gods that it was so. A skein of geese winged westward, fleeing the growing storm.
She'd seen many farms south of Cienega Valley and all seemed well-managed and prosperous. New calves pranced in the meadows, following their dams or standing at the suck, and there was the sharp earthy reek of fertilizing slurry. It was so strange to see thawed dirt so soon in the year – another difference to home – and cows so fat and sleek with bright tones of black and white sharply stark against the greying light, instead of being all shaggy fur and ropy muscle. Farmland filled the spaces she covered ground southward until the entire countryside became a patchwork quilt of different earthen shades with old plow-lines inching their way over the landscape, lined off with greenways or simple fences.
For all the dire warnings she'd heard, the Viscounty did seem quiet enough. She'd seen few people on the road: a goatherd with twoscore goats, a tinker who had plied her relentlessly with all manner of trinkets until she'd left him behind, pilgrims headed north to Furyondy, and another smaller merchant convoy – with no guards and no interest in having any – near Etterboek, returning from Ostverk, far to the south. All had expressed some surprise at a lone armed girl just walking south, but none had stopped her or molested her in any way. The people of this Viscounty were not necessarily hostile or dangerous – as she'd always been told foreigners were – but they could be pushy or ignorant, as all could. Some of the guards had called out lewd suggestions or whistled as she'd walked away which she'd ignored, as she ignored the drunken carpet-seller who'd laid his hand on her knee back in Verbobonc, or the pinchy cobbler, or even the serving girl who she suspected of spitting in her ale when she thought one of her regulars was paying Askyrja too much attention. The last had annoyed her most; in her country conflicts were solved more directly instead of playing foolish games for strumpets. Yet, there was law in this land which meant you could not take personal revenge for such slights, and also that a foreign vagabond was not casually mishandled by passersby. To Verboncians it seemed her business and her person were largely her own, and not just in the city.
Nonetheless, her keen eyes constantly searched the road, the woods, the sky, alert and watchful. She scented the breeze, listened to the constant sussurus of the spitting rain, walked backwards for several paces to scan everything in sight every hundred steps or so, for some rules did not change in any land.
The quality of the road deteriorated very markedly south of Cienega Valley and Askyrja suspected it was because the Viscount of Verbobonc valued Cienegan wine more than anything found in the faraway fiefs of the Southlands. She'd stopped and got a room there but hadn't bothered to sample any of their vintages; she'd hit the straw mattress by dark and was gone by daybreak, just like she'd done in Etterboek to the north, feeling that either town was still too close to Verbobonc City for safety's sake. She glanced behind her again, relieved to see that the road was still empty for of all the things she feared, the greatest was to befound.
On the third day she'd spent the night camping under Emridy's Mount, as the tinker had called it, a great hill peak to the northeast. On the fourth day she was wending her way around muddy patches, puddles and wagonwheel tracks filled with water, as Emridy's Mount receded into the mists behind her long behind her and the road descended. It became distinctly wilder the further south she went: open meadow, wide ditches and clear-cut plots dotted with stumps gave way to thicker woodlots and rolling ground. Stretches of cleared fields scattered with grazing sheep or kine and bucolic little farms vanished, replaced by dreary shrubs and dark forest. Farms and cottages slowly gave way to bramble hedges surrounding scattered copses of beech, elm and yew, then mixed trees and shrubs. She passed a last homely little abandoned house with an low, crumbled barn and a tilted fence made of sticks, and then the signs of habitation were done, leaving only dark, eerie woods looming up either side. She did not fear such, but she did watch the long tree-shadows more carefully and loosened her sword in its scabbard.
Cold rain scattered over her on a sudden chill gust; the winter was not quite done and by the smell in the air snow even threatened, late in the season though it was. She was tempted for a few moments to turn back and ask to warm in the fire of a farmer's manor, but despite the events of the past few months it was not the way of her people to ask for help from others and especially not foreigners. Instead she drew her cloak close and hurried on.
The road was still descending as she came down from the higher road and the air became a little thicker and more humid. She was used to thinner, colder air and she felt that living in Verbobonc was a little like breathing a soup rich with the smells of primrose and cow parsley. She marvelled at the greenery and those smells, the pleasant homes even as the rain skipped and flickered over the fields and over her. She watched some farmers ushering their cattle into an outlying shed, drawing curious gazes in return. They seemed more suspicious than they ought, somehow: nervous or fearful, clutching their tools like a warrior might a weapon. Perhaps the rumours were true after all.
Askyrja glanced westward; the sun was glimmering through the shield of the clouds as it set behind the Krons. That was a Gnomish land, she'd been told; she'd seen Gnomes back in Verbobonc, but in truth still knew little of them. There was no sign of them but she kept a suspicious eye westward anyway as if a herd of lusty Gnomes might descend and drag her off screaming into the hills. One never knew, with non-humans. Or humans, for that matter.
Her people, the Schnai – the Snow Barbarians of the far North – were certainly a suspicious sort themselves, being warlike, violent and tumultuous. Perhaps it was in their blood, or perhaps their environment made them so: dragons in the mountains, goblins and Orcs in the hills, upstart Fruztii Frost Barbarians to the west, treacherous and evil Cruzkii to the east, and the long, bitter winters. Those winters made their own lands unfruitful, so her people would push boats into the water by spring and return after the fall raids when the monsters of the deeps slept, their ships laden with silver, grain, and sometimes slaves.
It was that home and people – her father, essentially – that she was running from. And now, she was here, far from home and still running. Perhaps she would stop here, or maybe she would flee all the way to the Bakluni deserts and never look back. Who could say?
Askyrja gave an unconscious little tremble, and not from the cold.
***
A mere month before, she'd escaped Knudje, capitol of the frozen realm of Rhizia, under the very nose of her father and his guards, with only a stolen horse, the clothes on her back, and one other, very special, very particular item stolen from the hoard of the great Jarl Orvung. It had been a cleverly thought-out plan, for the comings and goings of one of her station – a thrall, like her mother – were not watched. How could a mere thrall be a threat? But in the end, they had been wrong.
For eighteen long years she had lived in the Great Hall of the great Jarl Orvung Bearslayer of Rhizia, High King of the Schnai, known to the rest of Oerth as the Snow Barbarians. Orvung, a veritable troll of a man nearly eight feet in height, thick-limbed and built like a giant, had been the Jarl of his people for decades. He was surely nearer eighty than forty but completely unslowed and as full of ferocity and anger as ever. His warrior's prowess was unparalleled. Singlehanded, he had slain orcs, giants – even dragons! Nothing seemed capable of killing him. His every movement inspired terror and respect in his folk to whom he was lord, master, judge, gift-giver – and tyrant.
His Great Hall was built equally mighty, with high towers, sprawling feasting galleries, a massive Gate reinforced with bronze and steel, and a long courtyard of columns where Orvung would greet guests – cunningly exposed to the wind so as to chill their bones before diplomacy even began – with a trickling fountain of ice water that never completely froze, just like the heart of a Rhizian. The Great Hall was a true symbol for a Jarl of the Suel peoples.
Askyrja had been born and raised in the Great Hall as a thrall of Orvung – maid, charwoman, cleaner, server, fetcher of water, but not daughter: never that.
For Askyrja – whose name meant "She of the ash tree, descended of man" in the Suel language – was the illegitimate daughter and thrall of no less than the great and terrible Jarl Orvung himself.
This was in truth not so strange, for all told old Orvung had scores of bastards in the Great Hall and elsewhere, sired on various freewomen, servants and even nobles, though he did not pursue married women; a political taboo of his. His sons – legitimate and otherwise – were warriors by and large but most of his daughters were thralls and none of any of the mothers were wives; Orvung had had three of those already and would not take another. It was not for nothing he was sometimes called the Beast of Knudje – though never to his face, or aloud.
But unlike nearly all the others, Askyrja's mother was not of the Snow Barbarians. Instead, her dam was the beautiful Frost barbarian Kara, daughter herself to a Fruztii chieftain, taken in a raid by Orvung himself and made thrall personally to him. Orvung had begotten Askyrja on Kara not long thereafter and Askyrja was made a thrall by birth – since her bloodline could not be publically and officially acknowleged, making her a half-breed thrall in the land of the cold and xenophobic Schnai.
Not that her heritage was a secret: all knew Askyrja's sire, and later also of her sister and brother, but Kara and her offspring were effectively foreigners in the Great Hall. Consequently they were often excluded and tormented by the other thralls in the Great Hall who shot misgiving glances at Kara's flame-red hair and Askyrja's golden-copper locks, and their eyes of bright sapphire.
Kara, headstrong and wilful, had long resented this mistreatment and one day resolved to do something about it. When Askyrja had turned fourteen, Kara had dressed her in a pretty white dress, braided her long golden hair and taken her to see her father.
Askyrja's heart had thumped like a drum as Kara had, uninvited, defiantly towed her frightened daughter into the throne room to stand before old Orvung himself sitting atop his throne like a great grizzled old bear, arms muscled as thick as her waist, legs like tree trunks and fists like boulders, pale scars standing out on his usually thunderous face. His guards – big men themselves in bearskin capes and mail, carrying gleaming double-sided axes – had not even bothered to stop the pair: for how could a mere woman and a little girl be a threat to the great Orvung Eldgrimsen? Shaking with fear, Askyrja had bitten down on her terror, bravely lifting her chin and looking her father in the eyes while Orvung sat waiting, big head resting on the knuckles of one huge fist, his hard eyes studying the girl as Kara begged his forgiveness and stammered an explanation, pushing Askyrja forward in rough presentation.
'So! You are one of my get, are you?' Orvung rumbled, though truthfully he too knew her full well and remembered fondly the getting of her on her lovely, exotic mother. Neither had he ever truly abandoned Kara as a bedmate; Askyrja had a full-brother Krol who worked and lived in the stables, and a sister Ingrid who worked in the kitchens. 'And?' he boomed. 'Why do you bring me this child? Why should I care? I have dozens such.' He waved one hand carelessly and his guards began to close on them, intending to remove the pair.
Askyrja saw them closing in and something in her had suddenly leapt to the fore. She swallowed nervously and stepped forward, shoulders back and head held high. 'I… am called Askyrja, mighty jarl, Askyrja Karasdottyr and … I – I am your d-daughter, also,' she said, cursing herself for stumbling over her words already as his glower fell on her with a force that was almost physical. 'A-and – and I – I am your blood, your d-daughter,' she stammered, repeating herself. Her tongue seemed to have swollen in her mouth as she stumbled over her words. 'A-and your heir,' she suddenly added, trailing off into silence, for such a word had occurred to her in describing the relationship that ought to exist between father and daughter.
She heard Kara let out a shocked gasp behind her, and glanced back to see her mother shaking, her face gone pale. Askyrja felt a sheen of nervous sweat break out on her back. There had been something audacious in her pronouncement, though she had not quite understood it.
Orvung's eyes had widened and his face flushed red at her pronouncement, and then he exploded in a great booming laugh that made Askyrja jump. 'Ha! My heir, are you?' he roared, eyes flashing with a rare, almost malicious delight. He leaned down, thick muscles straining his breeches and tunic, a great grin fixed on her, blue eyes burning with amusement. The guards halted, looking at each other and waiting.
'I – I have never known another man,' her mother offered weakly, though she held his gaze for only a moment before looking down. 'She – she is yours, great Jarl, as are all three of my children; I swear it before the gods. B-but she certainly claims no right of – '
'But she has claimed it,' Orvung interrupted. He looked down on his daughter. 'I like your spirit, girl, though I don't think for a moment that you're the author of your words.' Those intense eyes flashed to Kara again, who dared not raise her head. 'So!' he said instead. 'What is you want of me, girl?'
Kara opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out, every idea in her head smothered with fear. Askyrja too was trembling, but her father's easy scorn and dismissive grin lit a sudden, reckless fire in her soul. Outrage exploded in her heart, making her bold and unexpectedly fierce. 'I… I am your true blood, and this – is my birthright. I – I wish to be recognized as your daughter,' she said, and curtseyed low, ignoring Kara's squeak of terror. 'At court,' Askyrja explained as she rose, as if that clarification were necessary, trying to keep her knees from shaking. 'This is my humble wish – oh mighty jarl,' she quickly added.
Orvung's eyebrows raised in surprise at the girl's incredible daring. She felt her hands start to shake and she clasped them together tightly to stop them.
The jarl's face turned wry and he leaned on one elbow, gazing down at her in what seemed almost like amusement. ''Recognized?' the Old Bear grunted. 'You think I do not know who you are, have not known all your short little life? But you wish to be named to me?' Orvung gave a single, amused snort like a bull. 'Never have I heard such impudence. Girl, I have a dozen bastard sons who carry swords for me in war! But you ask to be called heir? Why? Have you been to war for me?'
Her heart sank and she found herself looking at the floor like her mother – but in dejection, not fear.
Orvung settled back in his great stone chair carved with the marks of the bear and inset with copper and gems from the mountains. 'The offspring I even think about acknowledging – ' this directed over her head at her mother ' – are those that carry spears for me and for Rhizia. We have many enemies. Those that would serve me I would reward,' he said almost indulgently, looking down at the girl. 'So what can you offer me, girl? What can you give?'
Askyrja stood stunned, not having expected the question. What would she give? What could she give? She was a thrall, nothing more. She owned nothing, not even the clothes on her back. She hesitated, trying to think of what she would want in such a place.
And then in a flash of insight she had it. Ignoring Kara's strangled admonitions, she lifted her head and walked slowly forward until she was only a pace from her father's knee. 'I would give you that which you do not have, oh mighty Jarl,' she proclaimed. 'That which all your other offspring, however powerful they be, cannot.'
Orvung's eyebrows lifted in surprise, then settled into his suspicious scowl. 'Do you say so? And what is it that you, a girl barely off her mother's knee, could possibly give me that all my mighty sons, proven in war, are unable to?'
Boldly, Askyrja stepped even closer and laid her hand gently upon her father's knee. 'Love,' she said simply and boldly, her eyes glimmering like a window into her heart, throbbing in her chest. 'A daughter's love for her father. I have need of a father, a true father to teach and guide me. You have need of a true daughter who shall honour you always, loving you with all her heart, standing by you, in darkness and light; a soul joined to yours by the bonds of family and blood. Can any of your sword-sons give you that?'
To her amazement, Orvung's eyes started with surprise; a thrill of elation ran through her. Quickly she pressed on: 'Or instead, do they live in competition with each other, eternally at war for your favour, knives forever hidden behind their backs, Great Jarl? I am but a girl and have not been in the Hall as long as some, so perhaps I do not know… but I think that is their way,' she said softly, looking him in the eye.
'And I think, in truth, Great Jarl,' she went on, astonishing herself with her bravery, 'you fear their scheming as much as they fear your displeasure. I would never scheme against you,' she said, eyes shining, tawny braid waving as she solemnly shook her head. 'I only wish to have a father as others have – even as thralls have – to be loved and cherished. It is the only thing I wish – and it is the only thing you have not, mighty Jarl. I would be forever a stalwart ally, to conspire against you never. I would love you too much to turn my face from you.' Then she lifted her hand from his knee and stepped back, hands folded before her, eyes proud. 'This I offer you,' she said, and she curtsyed low, then stood straight and proud.
Old Orvung stared at the girl before him with an astonished frown. For a moment – just a moment – there was a little softness in his eye, and his cheek twitched.
But the moment passed, and he composed himself again into his sour, distrusting glare. 'Huh,' he grunted, turning his head for a moment. 'A good speech, girl; and at least it is your own invention this time. If you are too bold, you have at least learned useful words. But love and honour keep not thrones.'
He leaned forward again. 'You say you wish a father's lessons? Very well. All life is a game,' he instructed. 'You say you would be an ally to me, and that is not nothing, and you may even be in earnest: but hearts turn on the spinning wheel and who knows what might unfold one day? In a year, you might be my bitterest foe, plotting against me, a wolf I should have let in the door myself. And while you scorn your sword-brothers, they raise weapons against our foes. Can you do the same, to defend your land and your Jarl?' He shook his head. 'You cannot protect the Ice Throne against its many enemies: the Fruztii, the Cruzkii, the Orcs of the mountains. You impress me with your boldness… but it is backed by audacity, not strength. The answer, girl, is no,' he said in his deep rumble.
Askyrja's heart sank into her feet and she blinked hard to keep the tears from her eyes, swallowing heavily.
Orvung looked upon her mother. 'Take her to the chamberlain and have her set to new tasks in the Hall; perhaps a change of labours will quell her unruly mind.' Then he gazed down on his daughter again, the young girl alone before the Old Bear. 'I forgive you this temerity of yours – and your mother's – once.' He held up a thick finger. 'I like not the scheming of women, and neither do I forget it. As for you,' he said to Kara, 'I shall see you again, woman, and soon; it has been some time since you warmed my bed, and I have not forgotten you either.'
He waved a big hand in dismissal. 'Go,' he said simply. Then he sat back in his chair, lost in dark thought, so massive that Askyrja could have sworn that the stone itself creaked under him. His stern-faced warriors closed about the women, and marched them out into the hall.
Once the big doors were closed Kara grabbed Askyrja's hand and towed her furiously all the way to their quarters, not saying a word. The moment she'd shut the door in the spartan room they shared with her siblings she spun the girl around and gave her a stinging slap that rocked her back against their simple wooden table. 'Fool! Idiot child!' she cried. 'Do you know what you could have done? Do you know nothing of the man?'
Askyrja, reeling, put a hand to her cheek. Her mother had beaten her before for failures and offenses, but never had she never reacted with such outright fury. 'But – you said – he is my – '
'Your Jarl!' her mother cut her off with a snarl and she shook her small fist at Askyrja. 'That is all, now! That was risky and foolish! Orvung has killed others for less impudence, much less! Fool girl to take such a chance with our lives! Do you not understand your own station?'
'But – I am his daughter,' Askyrja began to protest, bitter stinging tears filling her eyes. 'You said so! All know it! Surely he would not harm his own – '
'A daughter is nothing!' Kara hissed furiously, eyes burning with anger. 'Women are mere by-blows of the lusts of men! And clearly you know him not! I have seen him kill sons of his for disobedience, even for contradicting him, right in front of the whole court! He could have slain us both! You are a thrall and only that, as I am, and always will be,' she said with palpable bitterness.
'But – but why did you present me to him, then?' Askyrja shouted back, distraught, the tears now flowing freely down her cheeks. 'Why? Was I thrust before the nose of the jarl only to provoke him? What purpose was I to serve for you then, if not to proclaim who I was? Why bring me there – except for me to finally have a father?' she wept, struggling to suppress the lump in her throat. She would not break in front of her mother; she would not, not for this betrayal.
'Only so that he knew of you, and your sister and brother – nothing more! It – ' Kara ran her fingers through her red hair as as she stormed back and forth in the little apartment muttering in her own dialect of the Cold Tongue, which Askyrja could also speak ' – it was just a ploy to remind him that you exist, that his beautiful daughter exists, perhaps to have an understanding for better quarters or gentler treatment, not for you to proclaim yourself the princess of Rhizia!' she snarled, wild and disordered in her fury. She looked on her daughter, feeling at that moment less a beautiful, willful thrall to a jarl and more a tired woman with a willful daughter of her own; still beautiful, but beaten down by chance and time.
Askyrja's words had not been mere invention. She had always harboured fantasies of being acknowleged by her father, taken under his wing and loved as a daughter should be. She had tried. But she had spoken her best before the man, and it had not mattered. She felt as though her heart was shattered. 'But – but he is Jarl, and he is my father, and – and you said that – '
'I know what I said, girl!' Kara sighed heavily, passing a hand before her eyes. 'But it matters nothing.'
Askyrja's lip started to tremble and she cursed herself for this display of weakness. 'But why should my own real father harm me? For words? For questions? For begging? How could any man be so callous?' She had seen the daughters of other men and they were treated with honour and kindness. But she could not be? Never? It was not fair! It was not! She smacked a little fist on her thigh in frustration. And Askyrja finally broke into miserable, empty sobbing, shuddering wretchedly in her beautiful white dress.
Kara came to Askyrja, who shrank away fearing another slap, but her mother only took her by the shoulders, looking her in the eyes. 'He is. He would. Orvung… is not a forgiving master – he would – I was a fool to ever even think of this. You chanced the bear today and it did not claw you; do not risk it a second time. Do you understand? Never cross him, nor so much as speak another word to him unless he speak first to you. He is your Jarl only, and nothing else. Do you understand? Promise me, daughter. Swear it!' she demanded, giving her daughter a quick, firm shake.
'I – I will promise it, mother, if that is what you wish,' Askyrja said resentfully, rubbing her cheek, wanting only to fling herself into her bed and cry herself to sleep.
Kara nodded fervently. 'It is. It is more than your life is worth to anger him. I know this.'
'Then I so swear,' Askyrja told her as she wiped away tears; but she did not keep that word, in the end.
Her thralldom entered a new phase: she had never been exactly idle in the Great Hall with all the chores that were demanded but now Orvung's chamberlain set her to her tasks with a will. Before she had swept and dusted and mopped floors; now she did that, and milked cows, and helped in the kitchens and waited on members of the court, including her father at dinner, and the gods knew how many of her half-brothers. But though she'd brought him food and drink and cleared away the remnants of his feasts for years – sometimes sifting quickly through the remains to wolf down anything untouched, for thralls were not well fed and she was often hungry – she never said a word to Orvung, nor so much as looked him in the eye.
Instead, she watched for years as great men and warriors paraded in and out of the Hall: big men with mighty swords and axes and spears – respected, wealthy, powerful. She disdained their undisguised admiration of her bright eyes, full lips and lithe robustness – a beauty made even somewhat exotic by her mother's outlander blood – but she was thrilled by the promise of their lives: they went where they would, did as they chose! Each night she'd imagined the adventures they might have in that wide world and her brain swam through the possibilities and thrilling pitches of her imagination; fighting enemy tribes, slaying monsters, taking great treasures, famed among her people. To a thrall, the lowest of Rhizian society, those men represented everything she didn't have: choice, opportunity, independence – freedom. The word haunted her, as much as her father's indifference toward her haunted her, and her resentment grew, then transformed to disdain, and then to hatred. Nor could she have the lives of these men, save as a bedwarmer. She was a thrall, and they freemen; no leap of hers could cross that chasm, and she resented them for that, too.
Then one evening while serving at one of her father's raucous feasts – evading the subtle pinches and wandering hands – she'd bumped into a scruffy, rangy man in old frayed clothes, who looked shabby and travelworn. She'd never seen him before, so that she'd half wondered if he was perhaps lost and had wandered into the hall by accident. He'd been quick to correct her – over the raucous laughter of those around him – that he was Bjorn, Orvung's chief huntsman and ranger, often called Bjorn the Hunter. She had heard of him; a wanderer in the wilds, a reportedly gifted slayer of monsters and foul creatures and a devil with the sword. It was also said that he had never received so much as a scratch in all his years though he eschewed armour of any kind, even a leather jerkin. Grudgingly credulous of his reputation, she'd brought him ale and food and he'd found himself amused rather than irritated by the beautiful yet unexpectedly sour girl.
Quickly he discerned her interest in the freedom and excitement of a life outside the Hall, and specifically that of a warrior. And so, he told her stories of the chases he'd been on, or arranged for her father – easily guessing her parentage, though he did not say as much – and the battles he'd fought against the Frost and Ice Barbarians, goblins, trolls, wild beasts from the mountains, even giants! His tales of daring and valour intrigued and mystified her, keeping her enthralled for hours even after the feast had ended and all had left. She served him and him alone all that evening and did not sleep all that night, imagination gripping her mind like a vise until the sun broke over the horizon.
After that, Askyrja met with him often, slipping quietly away from her duties during the day or sneaking out in the long nights to hear his tales and talk. She found she could talk to him; he did not dismiss her, did not brush off her questions as the curiousity of a foolish little girl. He treated her with kindness, almost as an equal despite his status, the first man she'd ever met that did so.
For Bjorn's part, he could hardly help but be impressed at the girl. No female he'd ever met had been so truly interested – or so insistent – about his doings; the others only wanted a bawdy story or two, a few coins for a tipping in the stables, or else to get deeper into his wallet. Only Askyrja had ever shown any interest in what he did, and it was in that first meeting that he decided that her interest perhaps meant something a little more. Bjorn had never had children and to his surprise he realized that the role of mentor was a title he liked as much as she seemed to like learning about his calling. And anyway, why should this beautiful, vibrant girl be doomed to a life of menial scullery until she was snatched up and made humble wife by some petty warrior? Should she not have her own chance to try her hand at Fate?
Oaths of obedience and protection were exchanged, and her training began. Bjorn would be her teacher, and train her in the ways of the wilds.
Quickly he found that she was strong, quick and persistent. Long hours of hard work in the Hall – and her father's blood – had left her with an incredible stamina. She never seemed to tire as he took her on long walks, then hikes in the woods around Knudje. There was not a moment that he looked back except to find her hot on his heels, fleet of foot and determinedly trying to run him into the ground.
Once satisfied with her strength and endurance, he taught her the seasons and harvests of wild plants, of animals and their signs, and the manner of living in the bitter Northlands. She grew wise in the ways of medicine with herbs and stitches and poultices, for there were no priests with their divine magics in the wild, so that a man – or a woman – must know nature's ways to preserve health and life. The ways of the wilds were good to know for in Rhizia there was much that was dangerous and, as old Orvung had said long ago and often did still, the Schnai had many enemies.
For her part Askyrja was utterly enthralled by her training. Learning from Bjorn was so different to thralldom in Orvung's hall – hard work that was not drudgery, and the freedom of the wild spaces. She enjoyed being in the woods below the open sky and the miracle of every living thing in its place, all under the tutelage of this skilled woodsman, renowned warrior and keen-eyed hunter. Each hour was a lesson, each stolen moment a breath of freedom from her drab charwoman's life. She was not much missed in the Hall; her mother had risen in the hierarchy and was now a mistress of thralls, grudgingly shifting Askyrja's duties to dinners and the kitchens, leaving the girl time for other things while Bjorn lightened her load even further with subtle bribes to the right people, at the right time. An unexpected swelling of pride burned in his heart: Bjorn the Hunter, who had never had a daughter, had discovered instead a gifted student on whom he could instill his knowledge and fierce passions for the world.
Next, Bjorn taught his gifted protégé the rudiments of traditional Suel arms – the sword, knife, spear and bow. Askyrja had never so much as picked up a weapon before, but proved to be an enthusiastic student with each of the weapons. Like Bjorn – and perhaps to impress him – she chose the hand-and-a-half sword sometimes called a bastard blade, since it was somewhere between the length of the standard arming longsword and the true two-handed sword, which was too heavy for her to use. When Bjorn was done she could spar with the bastard sword and dance with the knife – but the longbow was the ultimate expression of her true, savage genius, and she practiced until her fingers bled. Her arms were steady and her eyes keen as a hawk's. She could take a bird on the wing or a stag in the heart from a hundred paces – and she enjoyed especially the trick of shooting an apple from the hand. Bjorn reveled in her skill and her fervour for this, her taste of the free life. His heart swelled with pride for his imposter daughter.
But… as time went on, it became increasingly obvious to both of them that she was indeed no daughter of his, and that under his tutelage she had blossomed into fullest, radiant womanhood. She was a young, striking, full-blooded doe beautiful as the dawn and he an older man, ruggedly handsome and experienced in their world. Such things could not be ignored forever, not by the stoutest hearts and by and by she learned still other lessons of him, and they of each other, sharing another kind of passion long into the night until the sun would rise to find them lying entwined before his longhouse's fire, their skin still sheened with sweat. By day, she served, scoured and cleaned in the Hall while he managed hounds, hunts and falcons. By night they shared their love of freedom, and the freedom of their love, their passions known only to each other.
She made prayers to Wee Jas, goddess of death and attraction – for the Suel had no real goddess of love. When she was uncertain of the help of that goddess, she even tried another, different goddess that the priests of the new religion spoke of called Freyja. She prayed that he would buy her from her father and marry her, though she doubted Orvung would ever willingly part with her and yet was equally sure he cared nothing for her.
And then, because the only permanency of life was change, change came unasked, and Askyrja found herself both right and wrong.
In the Great Hall, few marked the doings of thralls, who went about their chores unnoticed, leaving no impression in the mind. Indeed, the powerful sometimes would even speak unguardedly around them, as if they were not human at all. Askyrja often served her blood father and his advisors and as she did she did sometimes hear him speak openly to his warlords and advisors of secret things, her presence unmarked and ignored.
And one day she had learned something most interesting.
As all knew, the Frost Barbarians were not the only barbarian nation of the North. To the east of Rhizia was the land of the Cruskii, or Ice Barbarians. The Cruskii were more tribal than the Schnai, diggers of copper and cheap gems, netters of cod and trappers of pelts – not that the Schnai were really much different. Orvung paid them little mind, since the writ of their Jarl, Latham Bearheer – 'Lord Fastaal of all the Suelii' – extended no further than a bowshot from his own walls.
To the west were Askyrja's mother's people, the Frost Barbarians, or Fruztii. They were few compared to the Schnai, and their various defeats had made them vassals to Jarl Orvung although in truth they did little in service of that vassalage. Under their jarl, Harald they were more organized than the Cruskii, which made them more of a threat in the mind of Orvung. Also, Orvung was avaricious for the paltry streams of gold they panned in the deep valleys of the Griff Mountains so that as even as the Fruztii plotted to free themselves of Orvung, Orvung plotted to have the whole of their land and those few shining ingots.
What Askyrja had overheard – from no less than Orvung himself, speaking with his ministers and warlords – was an intrigue of his that concerned the Fruztii.
Orvung had learned that the Fruztii had made a pact with the Archbarony of Ratik, another land of the North, but located to the southwest across Grendep Bay. Once Ratik had been little more than a vast lumber colony of the Great Kingdom of the Aerdy, but the general in charge of that far-flung territory had been elevated to the nobility after years of successful governing and the breaking of a Fruztii raiding fleet – presumably his noble blood had always been there, waiting for just such a proofing. Eventually cut off from the Aerdy by the collapse of the Bone March between them to goblins, Ratik had been ruled as a hereditary fief ever since, and their present ruler was the Lord Baron Lexnol of Ratik.
All men hated the humanoid occupiers of the Bone March and so finally a combined army of Fruztii berserkers, Dwarven and Gnomish footmen and Ratik legionaires had come south and shattered horde upon horde of Orcs, goblins and giants, retaking old, broken cites and great tracts of land. None of that could possibly be objectionable to anyone… but their correspondence suggested that they planned to carry on their conquests – right into the Principality of Bellmore, and the Highlands around Stringen, both of which were provinces of the Aerdy, with whom they had long been at peace. The Fruztii would help with this, and thereby earn half the booty, and the assistance of Ratik.
The invasion had never come to pass, but Orvung's spies had put him in possession of the actual letter of agreement between them marked with the personal seals of Jarl Harald and Lord Baron Lexnol. If the Aerdy were to ever get word of this planned betrayal, they would be enraged beyond belief. There would be war against the Frutzii and Ratik both. And so Orvung planned to blackmail both Harald and Lexnol, and thereby help himself to their treasuries and those bars of shining gold.
Askyrja had no wish for harm to be done on her mother's poor people, but had no idea what to do. She had told Bjorn and he had been very, very interested in the letter. He had immediately left, saying he needed to consult with someone. She had not heard from him again until days later, when Bjorn reappeared and introduced her to Felix, Orvung's chief mage, and together they opened up to her about their plot and the faction to which they belonged.
Orvung was, Bjorn and Felix explained, a ruthless, harsh and tyrannical jarl – a little unnecessarily, for Askyrja had known all this full well. But more importantly, there were better men in Rhizia who might be jarl, they said; kinder, less greedy, fairer to kin and neighbour. For long years both Bjorn and Felix had secretly supported one of these rivals: another of the blood of Orvung, to whom they would not give name. But they felt that stealing the letter, Bjorn told her, would damage Orvung's power and standing, perhaps pushing some of his inner circle of supporters into the camp of this secret claimant for the throne. This, Bjorn told her, could help end the reign of Jarl Orvung, the Terrible Old Bear.
Felix guessed that the letter was stored in Orvung's secret vault, where he kept all his most precious things and where it was guarded and warded magically against theft; but Felix had been the one to creat those magical wards and therefore knew how to avoid them. He would remove them, but the last of all he could not dispel and required her specifically, for only one of Orvung's nearest blood – say, his offspring – could pass that final protection. The cunning old Bear had naturally intended that anything stored in that vault could only be used by him or one of his blood, whom were somewhat less likely to betray him since his fall might mean their own as well.
They had urged her to help, but Askyrja had been hesitant: what if she were caught? What if she escaped with the letter, and it was discovered on her person? What if she were merely suspected, for having been seen in the area of the vault with no reason for being there? She trembled with the thought: Jarl Orvung was not known for his mercy in dealing with betrayers.
And then one day she had learned something else, straight from the Old Bear himself, that had persuaded her.
One momentous day in the deep winter, she had been ordered to her father's prescence. Such a thing had never happened before and she had accompanied the brusque warriors sent to collect her with trepidation and fear. Had he heard of the plot? Was she dead already?
Jarl Orvung's men dragged her before him and she stood waiting, looking at the floor as a thrall ought. Her mind frantically spun excuses and lies she could use to avoid culpability. Where were Bjorn, and Felix? Did her father have them, too?
'So, girl,' her father had growled, the first words he'd spoken directly to her in years, ever since she'd been presented to him by her mother a girl, and then rejected. It had been four long years, but he never seemed to change with time: he was always the same great, grizzled troll of a man, massive of limb and deep of brow.
She glanced nervously up at him on his great stone seat, then lowered her gaze again. His eyes were cold as mountain ice; even the carven bears on the chair behind seemed to glower. She trembled a little as she awaited his pronouncement. Was he going to have her punished? Executed? Did he know? What was happening? Why had she been brought before him?
'Can you read?' the Old Bear suddenly brusquely asked.
Read? She blinked; that had not been a demand, nor an interrogation, but a question. 'Yes, Great Jarl,' she answered nervously. There had been a man in the Great Hall, a man that seemed half a Southerner, and he had indeed taught her and several other of Orvung's bastard daughters to read and write in the Cold Tongue, in Common – a Southern language – and a couple other tongues. She'd no idea why they'd only taught his female children to do so, but men – especially those as powerful as her father – did not give women reasons.
'Are you good at it? Do you have skill?' he demanded, leaning closer.
She frowned, thinking. Her teacher had certainly liked her work, although she half suspected he liked her looks more than her writings. Still, she felt she had been a bright pupil and she seemed to be better at it than her sisters. 'I – believe so, Great Jarl,' she said carefully. 'I was better at it than most of my – my sisters,' she concluded lamely, for so they had been, 'so that I think I do it well.' Again, why did Orvung want only his female bastards taught to read and write? There was an aim there but she could not see it.
Her people valued boldness, not trepidation, yet Orvung had been unexpectedly pleased. 'Good,' he rumbled approvingly, nodding and despite her carefully acquired caution she'd looked up to see him, incredibly, smiling at her. She stared disbelieving as he went on. 'Another would have claimed great skill to impress me, but you give me your real impressions and your reasonings. That is what I need; honesty and thoroughness, not braggart mewlings.'
She frowned, not understanding at all now, and not casting her eyes down again. Orvung grunted, as if her look had been a question. 'You, girl, are to be sold.'
The announcement, delivered so casually and directly, struck her like a thunderbolt. She stood stock-still, utterly stunned, mouth dropping open. Sold? Sold why? To whom?
'You will be sold to the Lord Thorgil in the city of Glot, in the Jarldom of the Ice Barbarians,' Orvung said, as if reading her mind. 'There are those that say he is a leading voice and strong right arm in the court of Jarl Latham. Still others that say he is led around by his belt – ' a Rhizian idiom ' – and that he is a… collector of beautiful women. You will go there and lead and organize his household. You have been sufficiently trained by your mother? You can manage such a thing?'
She nodded slowly; she could run a household, she had been trained to do such since she was a girl – but his words registered with her only distantly, surprise and terror was tingling on her skin. She had heard of Glot, of course, the capital of the lands of the Ice Barbarians; it was said that as cold as the lands of her people were, those of the Ice Barbarians were far colder. Their entire Jarldom lay on the near coast of the Glass Sea, so named for the shimmering ice that covered it more than half the year. Her own father had sold her as a slave to some foreign lordling at the very ends of the earth? She looked up at him again, dunned with shock. How could he do this?! Why was he discarding her?
'Good,' Orvung said again. 'You will do these things – and other tasks. You will be a perfect matron and hostess, as Thorgil requires; you will use your… feminine wiles… to guide and gull him.' Then he leaned forward, his voice a low growl. 'And you will watch, learn, and see – everything you can. You will learn about his dealings with other lords of his court, with the Jarl and other lords there. You will write down their words and plans and send it by dispatches… to me.'
If her astonishment had reared up like a mountain at the first news, this was its shimmering peak. She would be a spy? 'I have had you watched, and like your answer to me now, you are said to be clever and quick-thinking. That is also what I need – a mind that can figure out what is worth reporting and what is not, that sifts through observations for that which is important.' He grinned. It was not a pleasant sight; a vicious, feral smile, more fang than tooth.
'But – G-Great Jarl,' Askyrja protested, though she trembled to disagree, 'How am I to get these dispatches to you? I – I will be isolated in a foreign land, without rights to send messages to anyone.' Her deference warred with outrage: how dare he do this? Her own father!
'They said you were a thinker, that you ask questions: that you challenge.' Orvung seemed strangely pleased though everything she knew of the man told her that she played a dangerous game with such daring inquisitiveness. 'Good. That is what I need. This is a job for a smart girl.' His eyes never left hers and she felt a strange momentary thrill that he had thusly praised her. 'There is a man there; a trader. A week after you arrive, maybe two, he will contact you. He will carry your messages.'
And there it was, without a doubt. She was being dismissed; far from ever rising into her father's graces, she was being sent away from her very people. Her father, her own blood – was selling her off as a whore for a degenerate Ice Barbarian lord to be a spy in a household of foreigners at the frozen rim of the world. The shock of the notion roiled through her, replaced by a steady and growing rage. Her father had never been kind to her, but she had never resented him so much as now. A spike of disgust and betrayal shot through her mind and she bit down to keep her rising tide of anger under control. She was a mere tool for him and nothing more: and she never, ever would be.
'This is a great honour, girl,' her father growled, as if he could look into her mind and read her smoldering outrage. 'Few among my get have the beauty or the brains to be selected for such a task – but you are chief among them. You asked long ago to be what I needed. This is now what I need.' He leaned forward in his chair almost menacingly, awaiting her response.
'I – I serve the Jarl,' she said dutifully at last, bowing her head, even as wrath burned in her mind. Something of that anger seeped through and she finally asked: 'And… how long am I to remain in… in this lord's hall, Lord Jarl?'
He searched her eyes as if trying to read her mind. 'Until you are sent for again,' he said after a moment. She could feel him thinking whatever it might have been he did not say. 'You have your task. A ship will arrive in a few weeks to take you to Glot. Continue in your tasks and say nothing of this to anyone.' He leaned back in his chair. 'Use your wits. You had best not be caught for – mark me, girl – they are not kind there. If you are found out they will throw you out onto the ice to slowly freeze to death.' His face was stony, pitiless.
They are not kind here either, she thought bitterly, but nodded. 'I – understand, Lord Jarl.'
'Good. You may go.'
And that was all. She was being dismissed from her place and her people with four simple, empty words. Silently she rose and bowed before her sire, backed away the customary nine steps, then turned to go.
'Girl,' Orvung added. Instantly she froze, looking back at him with wide, hopeful eyes. Would he relent? Would he not send her away?
'Do not fail me,' he growled, his familiar scowl back in place.
Never had Askyrja loved her father, but now her hatred and resentment soared on vengeful dragon's wings. Immediately she had hurried to Bjorn and told him of her father's plans. Revenge fueling them, they resolved to immediately put the plan in motion. They would strike back, harming Orvung the only way they could. After that, he would spirit her away into the wilds of Rhizia, never to be found – for Bjorn was chief among Orvung's huntsmen, fleet of foot and wise of the wilds. First, they would steal the letter – and they they would simply disappear, never to be found again.
On a moonless night Askyrja had slipped out of her quarters and headed for the royal wing. Felix's spells had let her slip invisibly through the guards, pass the magical wards to take the letter from Orvung's vault, and escape!
… almost, but not quite, cleanly.
For Orvung, never completely trusting even those of his own blood, had had still other magical protections in place that even Felix had not known of, and Askyrja had been detected. Magical alarms had sounded all over the Hall, magical mouths screaming 'Thief! Thief Thief!' She'd never had the chance to get the letter to Felix or Bjorn; she'd barely been able to escape the Great Hall using Bjorn's secret ways and passages. Once out, she'd grabbed some weather clothes, stolen a cloak and horse from a nearby stable and fled Knudje westward along the road towards Soull as fast as the mare could go. There was no time for anything else, no chance even to find Bjorn. Her father had sortied his own men and soon after that had followed the terrible chase all the way to the port of Granrud, her father's wrathful men-at-arms never more than a few hours behind at any time.
CY 579, Month of Readying 23 (Sunday)
She'd arrived in Granrun a wretched shell, hollow-eyed, shaking and exhausted. Leaving the horse in the woods, she'd snuck into the town under cover of a rare spring thunderstorm and headed for the docks only to find to her horror that her father's grim-faced men already guarded every one of the jetties. Whoever was leading the hunt was obviously very thorough.
Panicked, she'd tried to creep past and smuggle herself on a boat, but was seen in one of the random flashes of lighting and immediately recognized. She'd fled back into the town as the hue and cry were sounded. Lights came on as her father's men blew horns, rousing the entire population. There had followed then a desperate game of hide-and-seek through the streets and alleys, her father's hunters getting closer and closer all the while, their shouts clearer and sharper in her ears.
She'd finally been spotted again trying to sneak across an avenue. A dozen fingers had been pointed at her and men cried for her to halt. Instead, she ran madly, hopping fences and darting through yards as men swarmed through the adjacent streets. Dogs barked, people shouted and as the various posses closed on her, she found herself fleeing towards the feet of one of the few stone structures of Granrud: the great Temple of Lendor, the Suel god of time.
The Temple was a great stone structure with a true miracle of construction in its spire: a mighty brass clock of metal and springs and balances build and installed by an engineer of the Great Kingdom that Orvung had brought in. It was chiming out the midnight hour as she was finally cornered, at the doors of the Temple itself, in the heart of a thundering rain.
She'd tried to run on past and seek out the darker alleys behind, but another search party with torches and spears had appeared to block her, the men closing in until she was surrounded on all sides, her back to the temple doors. She'd had her knife but they came on with great swords and gleaming axes, grimaces dark in their dripping beards. She'd recognized some of them from the Great Hall, from among those very heroes and adventurers she'd admired: Gnorri Bearcloak with his great axe, Ivar Longspear, Storri Greatshield, and Fjalar the Dreadhand, all of them looking directly. At. Her.
Now, indeed as she had wished, she was known to them, too.
They were nearly a score in number. She could not break out, could not run around them and she knew, if she'd ever been unsure, that they would kill her. There would be no trial, no words, no mercy; they would return to Knudje with her body bound to a horse – or maybe just her head in a sack.
Then she saw him.
Bjorn Ivarsen – Bjorn the Hunter, to some – emerged from the dark, wrapped in the grey cloak that she had sewn up herself, carrying his blue-tinged sword Hjartaleiter, the 'Heartseeker'. Her chilled heart sank into her stomach as he stepped to the front of the pack and stood silently before her.
Askyrja stared into his eyes in a horrified, pleading look but he set his jaw grimly and she reeled with horror. Then, his eyes fixed her once more as he came up the steps with the others towards her. The hunters closed in, death approaching on heavy-booted feet.
She hung her head. So. This was what it was, and this was where he had been, all along, instead of planning to save her. She looked up again, vision blurring with tears, feeling only emptiness. Orvung had raged and Bjorn had, maybe unimplicated as yet, obeyed the call of his jarl, whom he had once plotted to betray. He had led the chase himself; perhaps, in pity or remorse, he had slowed or delayed them? Perhaps. She hoped it was so. But in the end, he had chosen his jarl – her father – over her.
Askyrja's heart shattered and she started to weep as she stared into his eyes. She half-considered drawing her dagger, falling at his feet and drawing it across her own throat.
Something inside her, again unexpected, suddenly burned forth. She shook her tears away with a snarl and stood forth proudly, a tower of unbridled rage and betrayal that no one could mistake; not him, and not the men behind him.
Then she spun and ran to the heavy sablewood doors, shoving hard. Miraculously unbarred, they swung ponderously inward and, squeezing through the slowly widening gap, she fled into the temple with her father's men charging up the steps behind her.
She sprinted through the apse and through the transept towards the only exit she could see: stairs leading up into the steeple. Her pursuers were close behind; one snatched at her cloak but missed and fell, men tumbled over him and each other, but the others surged after her.
She dashed into the stair tower, turned and flung herself against the heavy door there with all her strength, but a stout arm jammed through before she could close it and a heavy shoulder battered it back inward.
Snatching out her knife, she slashed wildly at the arm, drawing blood. There was a howl of pain and it disappeared; she heaved the door shut and threw – thank Freyr! – the bolt that happened to be there. Then she turned and frantically scrambled up the stairs as the hammering on the door started, powerful shoulders slamming into it.
There was no light except the few flashes of lightning from the rare spring storm that rocked the town or the moonlight cast by the glowing clouds and so she quickly felt her way upwards, hoping against all hope, up and up until her questing fingers found only the cold stone of an adjoining wall. The stairs had ended, and she was trapped!
Below, there was a sickly crack as the bolt split free of the door and men poured into the stairwell. A flame flickered: they had lit torches, and they were coming up.
She watched the lights coming closer, shaking with fear now. They would not kill her here, not in a temple. Would they? No, they would drag her into the square, force her to her knees and take her head, or maybe bring her back alive for her father to deal with; and she could scarcely imagine what he might do to her. Burn her alive, perhaps, or drown her? Pull her apart with horses? Or perhaps his men would leash her here and each take their turn before cutting her throat. She put a hand out to steady herself – and felt a cool circle of metal. She turned to look as the torchlight from below rose just enough for her to see.
It was a door. A little round door, tar-sealed with a solid metal rung in it for pulling.
Gasping, she dug in her feet and hauled at it with both hands.
It was stuck fast.
The door was old, the wood warped and bent, the tar aged and hard and half-melted to the stone lintel, as good as part of the wall itself. Her stomach crashed into her feet and lay there, shivering.
Their voices were louder now, closer, light bouncing and flickering off the walls, closer, closer –
Panting, she yanked again and again at the iron ring. Then she sprang to the wood, clawing at it desperately, pulse roaring in her ears.
'She's there!' a great voice bellowed below, ringing off the walls: it was Gnorri Bearcloak, one of her father's best warriors, a huge savage man. 'We have her now!'
She grabbed the handle again, planting both feet on the wall on either side of the trap door and heaving with all of her might. One of her wet boots skidded so that she almost fell, half-hanging from the door rung. Cursing, she scrambled back into position, jamming one foot into the corner between wall and floor and sprawling the other against the door's stone lintel. Wrapped her fingers tight around the door's ring, she leaned away hard, putting every ounce of her back, arms, thighs and legs into it, screaming to the new god Thor for strength. Below, bootheels slammed down onto the stone as she stormed up, the flames of their torchlights coming closer.
Everything seemed to slow; the iron grinding in the bracket, the trample of booted feet, the flickering torchlight, the echoing shouts, water dripping from her hair.
The door held… shuddered… then the hardened tar made a high-pitched squeal like an enormous cork being sawn from a bottle, and then it popped open, flinging her to the stone floor as gouts of wind and rain flew in through the opening. She lay stunned for a second groaning, then looked up.
Gnorri Bearcloak stood right above her with his battle axe in both hands. 'Traitorous witch!' he roared, swinging down in a straight overhand chop meant to separate her head from her body.
Askyrja rolled aside with a shriek, and Gnorri – veteran of a score of shieldwalls, liegeman to Orvung, slayer of the jarl giant Hƍfuđeatr – missed. His axe rang off the stone with a shriek of sparks. Gnorri snatched at her and crashed, cursing, into the door-frame as she sprang through the doorway.
She was on the roof of the temple, for that was where the door led. It must have been used to build and perform repairs here; she could not say for certain. The wind hurled sheets of freezing rain over her and the skies crackled with lightning. A bolt shot down from the unquiet skies to strike a tall, pointed building on the far side of town, the flash and sparks lighting up every inch of the roof in its flash, half-blinding her.
The roof itself consisted of only a narrow walkway with no railing, not even a little stone lip, running between the two cone-topped stairwell towers. Mounted in the centre of this little promenade was the square construct containing the miraculous clock called the Hands of Lendor – a clever twist of phrase, but of no importance right now. It was an enormous thing, a wonder not thought possible in a remote city like Granrud, but the old bishop of Lendor bought it special twenty years before, mostly with great sacks of treasure taken from decades of raids on the Great Kingdom. It had taken an Aerdy engineer five years to complete and the machinery inside was so cunningly designed that it kept perfect time year-round in all weathers, gears scything together so perfectly that they never fell out of time, locked with ice or jammed by heat. Its hands were of pure polished brass and its face, taller than a full-grown man, was of ivory and oiled sablewood.
But that was all – the walkway, the stair-turrets bracing it, the clock on its great square tower – and nothing else. Below the walkway was a fall of fifty or sixty feet down onto unyielding cobbles, unless she cared to try to leap twenty feet back to the rest of the church's roof, forty feet below her, from a nearly standing start on wet stone.
There was nowhere to go. Behind her grim men clambered out the little round door and edged onto the walkway.
She made quickly but carefully towards the far door into the opposite stairs, slipping a little on the slick shale sheeting. Her every nerve juddered with raw, electric fear. The other door was probably stuck too but perhaps if she shouldered it hard enough –
Then it wrenched open before her horrified gaze to reveal Bjorn climbing out the far door, Hjartaleiter gleaming with wet, blue flames wandering up and down the dark blade. Her heart sank as she searched his eyes for mercy but found only the same cold, grim resolve.
Askyrja's heart pounded like a drum. There was nowhere to go. There was nowhere to go! She was going to die. She backed away until she was exactly halfway between the two deaths and her rear bumped up against the Hands of Lendor itself, the great brass blades turning their endless circuits in its open face.
Sudden desperation seizing her, she scrambled atop the nearly sidelong minute-hand and then up the hour-hand onto the angled roof of the clock tower itself as mechanical clacks of protest sounded inside. Her heels scrabbled on the tiles to stop her sliding back onto the narrow platform – or right off it into the black gulf beneath, though she could not imagine which would really be worse. She searched frantically for some way – any way – down without smashing to the ground but she was a treed cat and her terror was rising to a shrieking pitch. Tingles of electricity ran up and down her arms; she was a thing made of fear now. Static seemed to fill the air. Should she throw herself down to the ground below? Would that be easier?
'Got you this time, you slippery little bitch!' Gnorri snorted. 'Spears!' he roared over the wind. 'Bring her down!'
'No!' Bjorn said with a firm chop of his hand, shaking his head. They all stopped in place, looking at him. Asykyrja watched him, everything frozen in that moment; the turn of his head, his set jaw, the rain dripping from his beard. 'I'll do it,' he said quietly, and despair overwhelmed her. He went to the clock, grabbed the clock's minute-hand as she had done and hauled himself up with one hand, his sword in the other.
'No!' she wailed miserably, scrambling further up the shallow spire, trying not to slip, trying to meet his eyes, to reach his heart. 'Bjorn! Please! Do not do this!' she cried as the tears started again but he did not stop and she knew he was her death. Terror burned through her like an electric current, her panic climbing into the sky and the hairs of her arms rising as she knew at last that this was the end; nowhere to hide, nowhere to go, and no room left. Her tears ran down her cheeks to mix with the rain as Bjorn rose up over the edge of the great clock's body, his dark grey eyes fixed on her. 'Don't struggle, girl,' he told her in his low, gravelly voice. 'I'll – make this quick.'
But she could scarcely hear him. To her horror, she realized the electricity she'd been sensing all around was no mere sensation; every hair on her arm was starting to stand up and her thick hair to rise, the charge making her eyes ache and her muscles quiver. A painful, shivering thrill was crawling over her like electric ants, and to her absolute amazement little blue-white rivulets of electricity were dancing over her arms, her legs, and the clock's roof as a low-throated hum filled the air. She gave a stifled shriek as little arcs of electricity literally coursed and leaped between her between her fingers.
And then she did slip.
She shrieked with horror, sliding down towards him, her doom rising above his head. Askyrja's scream was lost in the electric hum that rose to a shriek as white light burst around her and a great flash like lighting shot through her, exploding –