The Book of the Sword (Darkest Age) (8 page)

‘Can you walk?’ Cathbar asked her again. His voice was level, but there was an edge to it that Elspeth had not heard before.

An angry mutter came to her from the approaching men. She heard the word
galdra-kona
, witch, spoken in voices of anger and fear. And then Olafr’s voice, shrill with fury.

‘She broke the ice and pushed him in!’

‘We’ll see if she can drown, then,’ cried another man.

‘If not, she’ll surely burn.’

Cathbar’s voice in her ear was urgent now. ‘Try to stand, Elspeth!’

But she could not stand. She could not even feel her legs. She lay helpless, the shivering starting to seize her as the men drew nearer.

Erlingr was a tall, proud fellow, near as white as his men. He scowled on me at first, saying he needed no help from the Iron people, as they call men of my race, who work with ore plundered from rocks.

But the Fay who visited me had told me true, Erlingr admitted: the chained god Loki had begun to free himself, and the land was burning and full of fear. If I could use my skill to forge new chains, he said at last, a means might be found to bind Loki again. But he would not hear of the sword, nor look at it.

The floor of the great cavern sloped downwards, and they had placed Cluaran at the lowest point, so though he was standing, his watchers looked down on him from all sides. In the many times he had been in this hall, he had never seen it so crowded: a mass of faces, pale as parchment in the dim light; most looking at him with cold hostility, though here and there a younger face that he did not recognise held simple
curiosity. The light filtering through the ice wall above him bathed them in a greenish glow that made their skin and hair look translucent.
They’ve all come to see this
, he thought,
even the ones who weren’t involved. So Erlingr has spoken to them – but what has he said? Nothing helpful, to judge by those looks.
Behind him, Ari stood impassively, more like a prison guard than an escort. It seemed there would be no help here after all. Cluaran sighed, and shifted his feet on the slippery stone.

‘I’ve told you already, I would not have come without need,’ he said again.

‘And what need could be great enough to draw
you
here again?’ The speaker was the oldest man there, his face so deeply lined that his cold grey eyes seemed to peer out at the world from crevices. He sat in a great carved seat in the centre of the hall, and held the yew-wood staff that by tradition was given to none but the leader of the Ice people – and Cluaran well knew the power of tradition in this place. He bowed low to the old man before replying.

‘One that should concern even you, Erlingr. The dragon,
Kvöl-dreki
, is flying. It has made at least two attacks on the southern lands, and now it has carried off two children, bringing them to these mountains.’

An excited buzz rose from the listeners, and several of them rose from their ice-carved benches. Erlingr quelled them with a raised hand.

‘The blue dragon has been seen by our watchers,’ he
confirmed, ignoring the gasps from one or two of his people. ‘It has flown twice over our lands, but has made no attack. Dragons have long memories, and it will remember the defeat our people inflicted on it when it last flew in war. Why should this concern us?’

‘Because the two who have been kidnapped were to be taken to
Eigg Loki
, to the Chained One,’ said Cluaran. The assembled Ice people fell silent. ‘They are both important to him in their different ways,’ he went on. ‘The boy is a king’s son, and his kidnap could draw an army to this land before spring comes. He is also Ripente, and I need not tell you, Erlingr, what uses the Chained One can find for their kind. But it is the girl who will be the most dangerous in his hands. She bears the crystal sword.’

There was sudden uproar. All around Cluaran, pale figures started up with exclamations of amazement, anger or disbelief. Erlingr, shouting and banging his staff, could barely quiet them. Cluaran stepped forward with both hands raised, and gradually the outcry faded to a suppressed muttering.

‘I said they
were
to be taken there,’ he told them. ‘Watchers from among your own people saw them escape the dragon. Ari, here, can confirm that.’ Ari, behind him, made a sound of assent as Cluaran continued. ‘They are alive, wandering somewhere on the ice plain – but they are being hunted as we speak. That is why I have come here: to find them and help them, before they are captured. This girl has the means to destroy our common enemy once and for
all. But the sword is also the only thing that could break his chains. If he can capture her and bind her, he will escape.’

The crowd were silent now. Cluaran raised his head, appealing to them with all the skill he could muster. ‘Remember that it was your people as much as mine who bound him before – and if he is freed, he will want his revenge.’ He sent his voice ringing through the cavern. ‘Will you help me?’

Now the faces turned to Erlingr. There was a low muttering:
Do we help him? Do we believe him?

‘Ari,’ the old man commanded. ‘Come forward.’ The green-eyed man cast an unreadable glance at Cluaran as he moved to stand beside him.

‘You have seen these children,’ Erlingr said. ‘Is it true? Does this … human girl bear the crystal sword?’

There was a long pause. ‘I have not seen it,’ Ari said at last. ‘But I believe that she does. A bright light was seen in the girl’s hand as the dragon carried her. Even to have escaped him, to have survived for this long, they must have some help, some weapon of a more than common nature. And Cluaran has seen –’

‘I did not ask what
he
says he has seen,’ the old man broke in. ‘Nor what you believe.’ Erlingr rose to his feet, a full head taller than Cluaran, and turned to address his people. ‘Is it likely, do you think, that the sword would give itself to a child … to one of the short-lived ones, in a country so far from its forging? And what could such a one do with it? Are we to believe that a human girl could kill the Chained One – or that
she could release him? No. I would rather ask –’ he brought the staff down with a crack on the ice – ‘why, now the dragon is flying again, we see
this man’s
return to the land he has wronged?’

The old man threw Cluaran a look of undisguised contempt. ‘Tell us no more stories, man without a people; soft-talker; betrayer! Have you come here to kill more of our kind?’

Cluaran had been ready for this. He kept the anger out of his voice as he answered: ‘I killed none of yours, Erlingr. You know well who it was who murdered your men. But for their sacrifice, no one here would be alive today.’

Erlingr’s face twisted. ‘Their sacrifice, yes – and ours; and mine! A whole line was wiped out by your fine words!’

‘It was
Loki
who killed your son and grandsons!’ Cluaran snapped at him. ‘And he would have destroyed much more –’

‘
We do not speak that name here!
’ the old man thundered. He strode across the floor to Cluaran and glared down at him, the staff raised as if about to strike him. Abruptly he seemed to recollect himself and lowered the staff.

‘Ingvald and my grandsons died in battle, that is true,’ he said quietly, but with undiminished bitterness. ‘While
you
came back without hurt. And there was one more, one last remnant of my line, taken from me by you – by your companion and his …
workmanship
.’ He spat out the last word as if it scalded him.

‘Your granddaughter was
not
of your line!’ Cluaran could
not hide his anger now. ‘She was not even of the true race, you said. You had no value for her! You called her earth-born …’ He stopped, not trusting himself to say more, but still holding Erlingr’s eyes. He felt a dismal kind of triumph when the old man looked down first.

‘I did blame Ingvald when he adopted the child,’ Erlingr muttered. ‘But after his death, she was the last thing remaining to me.’ He met Cluaran’s gaze again, and the minstrel was startled to see a glitter like tears in the old man’s eyes. ‘You should not have taken her.’

‘I did not,’ Cluaran said very quietly. ‘It was her choice, and not my will.’ He could see in those glittering eyes that Erlingr would never believe him. Behind the old man the Ice people were straining to hear what was being said, but Cluaran knew there would be no reaching them now. All that he could do was leave quickly – if he was allowed.

He realised that someone else was speaking, and for a moment was shocked to hear a voice other than Erlingr’s and his own. It was Ari, his voice slow and rough as if he were dragging it over stones. ‘It was her choice. And some of us honour and love her for it still. For her sake, Erlingr, I will go with Cluaran, if you allow it.’

Erlingr looked down at the two of them in lowering silence. Then abruptly, he turned his back on them and stumped back to his seat, to face his pale followers. He raised his staff in a signal that brought them all to their feet, watching him in silence.

‘The man may go!’ he proclaimed, his voice filling the hall. ‘For the sake of the friendship that was once between us, I will not be the one to kill him. But for the sake of his past betrayal, he goes unhelped and unprovided. Let him leave now, and do not speak to him.’

The old man turned one last time to Cluaran. ‘Go,’ he said heavily. ‘No one will hinder you. Go to
Eigg Loki
, and die there – alone, unless this fool truly means to follow you. But I will not send one more man to die with you.’

He sank into his chair, lowering his head and closing his eyes. His people remained standing, though when Cluaran swept his gaze over the massed rows, none would look at him. He turned from them and walked away, his footsteps echoing loudly in the silence. After a moment he heard Ari follow. All the way down the tunnel that led to the outside air, the silence pursued them, and the weight of five hundred eyes at their backs.

The black-haired girl, Ioneth, brought us food. She told us she was not of Erlingr’s people: her own race, the people of rock and ice, had been destroyed twelve years before, when Loki first sent out his fires. All were burned … all but Ioneth. Erlingr’s son Ingvald found the child wandering among the ashes, and took her in as his own.

Later, Ioneth took me out to the snow fields and showed me mountains on the horizon, white-peaked, but streaked with black.

– There is
Eigg Loki
, she said, where the demon is chained, though perhaps not for long. And then she whispered, so low that I wondered if I had heard her right:

– I can help you kill him.

‘Please try to walk, Elspeth!’

Edmund and Cathbar between them had hauled Elspeth upright, but her knees kept buckling under her, and she looked at Edmund without recognition.
If only we’d got here
sooner!
he thought desperately. The sound that the ice made as it cracked kept ringing in his mind. He had plunged head and arms into the water, trying to catch Elspeth as she slid out of sight, but it was not until Cathbar arrived that they had been able to reach her.

Had they been too late after all? Elspeth had not spoken since they had pulled her from the water; her eyes seeming to focus only on her right hand, where a pale glow was all that remained of the sword. Her lips were bluish and she shivered uncontrollably, despite the blankets they had draped around her.

The fishermen were close enough now for Edmund to distinguish individual voices. He did not understand the words, but he could hear the threat in their tone – and see it in their drawn knives as they trudged nearer along the shoreline, not running but keeping close together, as if stalking a dangerous animal. Their leader, a stocky man with a red beard and blackened teeth, yelled something at them, his voice harsh with rage.

‘They don’t even know us! Why are they doing this?’ Edmund muttered to Cathbar. But he knew the answer even before the captain’s eyes flicked towards Elspeth’s hand. They had both seen the struggle on the ice after Elspeth cried out, and seen the flash of the sword as they started towards her.

They had left the ice and were back on the trodden snow that covered firm ground. Fritha, a few feet ahead of them, was leading them back along the lake’s edge towards their
campsite. Then something whirred past Edmund’s head and he heard Fritha cry out in fear. The men were throwing stones at them. Desperation sharpened his voice as he turned back to Elspeth. ‘You must walk! They want to take the sword from you!’

Her eyes widened in alarm, and he saw the life come back to her face. Beside him, Cathbar grunted in relief as Elspeth, grimacing, put one foot down, then the other.

Fritha called out again to Cathbar, glancing over her shoulder at the approaching men. The tall girl’s face was white and set, but her voice was steady. Cathbar replied with a nod, and turned to Edmund.

‘She says to follow where she goes!’

Fritha broke into a run. The nearest pursuers were only yards from Edmund and Cathbar now, and the two of them broke into a shuffling trot after her, lifting Elspeth off her feet once again as they tried to keep up. But the tall girl did not lead them back to their fire. Instead, she turned back on to the ice, walking straight out towards the centre of the lake.

‘Not that way!’ Edmund shouted in horror. ‘What if the ice cracks again?’

‘That’s what they’ll be thinking, too,’ Cathbar told him, jerking his head at the pursuing men, who had slowed their chase and were shouting and pointing.

Fritha was testing each step, heading further and further away from the shore, towards the shadowy mass of the mountain. In a few moments Cathbar, Edmund and Elspeth had
reached the spot at which she had ventured on to the ice. Without hesitation, Cathbar headed after her, dragging the other two with him.

‘It’s safer than meeting
them
,’ the captain said shortly, darting a glance over his shoulder. ‘They’re calling us thieves – and they want to drown Elspeth for a witch.’

A howl rose from the fishermen as they saw what their quarry was doing. Fritha moved steadily forward without turning her head, sliding one foot at a time through the light covering of snow and leaving two dark trails behind her. The other three followed in her tracks, clutching each other for balance as their feet slid on the smooth surface. Edmund tried not to hear the shouts and jeers of the men behind them, or to think about the ice cracking beneath his feet. He kept his eyes on Fritha’s back and fixed all his attention on staying upright, keeping hold of Elspeth and moving ahead, step by slippery step.