CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

LYKOS

Lykos leaned back in his chair and drank deeply from his cup, spilling mead into his beard. He belched and looked around.

He was sitting in a stone-built hall with Vin Thalun all about him eating and drinking, rolling dice on throw-boards, fighting, without using anything sharp, of course, except perhaps their teeth.

To one side of him lay a pile of silver and gold, cups and plates, torcs and brooches, necklaces, fine-made swords and scabbards—a mountain of plunder taken from the dead and pillaged from this ancient, long-empty fortress. His men looked to him with respect, called him gift-giver and gold-friend. In short he was lord of all he saw, had strong men about him. Had achieved his dreams.

Then why am I so bored?

He puffed his cheeks out and belched again.

The gates to his hall opened and an eagle-guard entered, looked about, then wound his way through the revelry to stand at Lykos’ feet.

“What?” Lykos asked.

“King Nathair and the Lord Calidus wish to see you, my lord,” the warrior said. He was a young man, dressed in gleaming mail shirt and a polished cuirass of black leather.

Lykos sighed.

“Now, I suppose,” he said as he rose from his chair, taking it slowly, but swaying nevertheless.

“Aye, my lord. They asked you to hurry.”

“Why? More prisoners to execute? Surely that can wait until the morning.”

“No, my lord. There is a patrol returning. They have been seen crossing the plain.”

“Ah, better,” Lykos grunted, grabbing his sword-belt from where it was hanging over the back of his chair and slinging it over his shoulder. He marched quickly through the hall after the eagle-guardsman and out into the night, with ten of his sworn men following him. Drassil was theirs, but it never hurt to be too careful, and Lykos had heard strange tales of men found dead, or going missing.

That won’t be me.

So, the day’s patrol is returning. Some good news, then.

It was unusual for a patrol to return at night; all were ordered to be back within the walls of Drassil by sunset. But when the patrol sent out that day had not returned at all, they had been assumed dead.

Sixty of my men. Lykos had been angry, for this was not the first time he had lost men on these patrols. He marched on; the eagle-guard ahead of him was setting quite a pace. He was happy to match it, pleased that there was something to do.

Who would have thought that I would be here, in fabled Drassil, having won a great victory, on the brink of achieving my wildest dreams, and yet I am bored. He looked about, up at the stone towers and twisting branches of the great tree and pulled a sour face.

I hate this place. I am a seafarer, a man of salt and sail, I should not be confined here in this…walled prison!

They turned a corner and entered the wide street that led to the gates. As Lykos entered the courtyard he was assaulted by the stench.

Draig dung and rotting flesh. Torches flickered from iron sconces set high in the courtyard walls, turning the rows of severed heads adorning the spikes into grisly creatures with maniacal grins. On the battlement he saw Calidus and Nathair standing together, looking out over the plain.

“Glad you could join us,” Calidus muttered in the firelight as Lykos joined them.

Calidus had ordered the building of fire-pits around the walls of Drassil, a few hundred paces out from the wall. A ring of them, so that it appeared that Drassil was guarded by a circle of fire. The intention was to put a stop to night-time raids that had been occurring randomly: Jehar warriors sneaking close to the walls, scaling a wall with a grapple-hook and then running amok amongst the wall guards, cutting down as many as they could before word spread or they came face to face with a few Kadoshim. So far the fire-pits seemed to have worked, and by the flickering light Lykos instantly saw a huddle of men moving across the plain, flames glinting on mail. He saw a lot of shields, marking the eagle-guard.

And not so many Vin Thalun.

“They do not look so many as when they went out,” Lykos observed.

“Thank you for pointing out the obvious,” Calidus snapped.

He doesn’t seem so happy here, either. Certainly not as happy as he should be, considering he’s close to conquering the world.

The men on the plain drew near to the gates. Calidus shouted for the gates to be opened, then he turned and swept down the stairs, his cloak a trailing shadow behind him.

Lykos shared a look with Nathair.

“Some people are never happy,” he said to the King of Tenebral, offering him a wry smile when Nathair only gave him a stony stare in response.

No one has a sense of humour in this forest.

When Lykos reached the courtyard, the gates were already closing. He saw a few of his men, collapsed on the flagstones, exhausted, leaning against one another. Calidus was talking to a captain of the eagle-guard.

“Ambushed,” the young warrior was saying. “There were giants, axe-throwers, some others.” He looked exhausted. “We only escaped because of the shield wall.”

“And left my Vin Thalun behind,” Lykos said, not able to help himself. Nathair gave him a foul look.

“We tried, my lord,” the eagle-guard said. “Tried to pull them into our square, but the enemy were upon us so quickly, there was no time. Many of my eagle-guard fell, too.”

As if that’s a compensation.

“So you saw no sign of Gundul or Lothar’s scouts?” Calidus asked.

“None, my lord, but we left markers. The next patrol will be able to move deeper—”

“Not my men,” Lykos growled and walked away before Calidus had a chance to respond. He strode to his handful of warriors, just six Vin Thalun left from the sixty who had marched through the gates that morning.

I have lost almost as many men on patrol as I did during the battle for this stinking dung-hole.

“Well?” he said wearily.

“I saw the Old Wolf,” one of the Vin Thalun said, looking up at him.

“What?”

“The Old Wolf, he was out there, with his knives, covered in blood. It was like being in the arena against him.” The Vin Thalun shivered.

The words sent a jolt of fear through Lykos.

“You are mistaken,” he said. “If it was the Old Wolf, you would not be here.”

“Four of us attacked him,” the warrior said. “He cut them down as if they were nothing. I only escaped by holding him off a while, then the giants started fighting and he was distracted…”

Lykos grabbed the young warrior by his leather vest and jerked him up onto his feet. “Don’t lie to me; tell me true. If I find out you’re lying…”

“It was him, I swear on all I hold dear,” the warrior assured him. “I saw him fight on Panos, put coin on him, and in Jerolin. It was him.”

“I saw him, too,” one of the others said. “I wasn’t so close, but I saw him. It was the Old Wolf.”

Lykos turned away, his mind reeling.

He was at the tower of Brikan, on the edge of Forn, and escaped from there. So it is possible that Maquin is out there. And if he is out there, then maybe so is Fidele…

And now he no longer felt bored. He felt scared, and excited.

Alive.

Lykos frowned at the screams. He was back in the great courtyard, listening to a man as he was slowly impaled upon a spear.

Movement drew his eye and he saw Nathair striding from the courtyard, a few of his eagle-guard about him.

Doesn’t have the stomach for this kind of thing. Some men are just not equipped to rule. I wonder what Calidus promised him to convince him to stay.

Calidus was still there, though, standing by the stable-blocks, staring at the remaining prisoners as they were led from the courtyard, still over two hundred of them left.

Lykos saw Cywen amidst all of the prisoners, dark-haired, face pinched and eyes grey with the horror of it all.

It can’t be a pleasant way to start your day, watching a comrade skewered, and listening to them beg and wail and plead. Not a lot of dignity in that death.

Cywen walked past Lykos, her head bowed, and then Calidus was stepping out towards her, grabbing the scruff of her shirt and dragging her across the courtyard. Lykos hurried after them, intrigued by this display of emotion.

A chance at some entertainment, at least.

He caught up with them in the shadows of a stable door.

“Where is your brother?” Calidus was hissing in Cywen’s face, bending her backwards with his grip on the back of her neck.

“Where is he? Why does he not come for you? For them?” He waved a hand in the general direction of the screams. “He is supposed to be the Bright Star! Saviour of the world, defender of the innocent!” He was spluttering now, voice rising.

Cywen just stared at him with hate-filled eyes.

Calidus seemed to run out of energy and released Cywen with a disdainful flick of his wrist, sending her stumbling. She righted herself and began to walk after the other prisoners. After a couple of steps she stopped.

“You should be glad Corban has waited so long,” she said. “It means you’ve had a few extra days of life.”

“Huh, please,” snorted Calidus.

“Be sure of this: when he does come, it is you he will seek out. You slew our mam. He won’t forget that.”

“I am counting on it,” Calidus said. He reached inside his cloak and pulled something out, an old flower, purple and prickly.

A thistle?

Calidus twirled it slowly between finger and thumb, something of his old mocking smile returning.

Cywen looked at the flower, confused and frowning, then her expression changed. To fury. She launched herself at Calidus, but he lashed out with a hand, connected with her cheek, sending her to the floor. As she tried to scramble to her feet Calidus nodded at a Kadoshim in the shadows, who sprang agilely forwards and dragged Cywen from the courtyard. She was spitting and snarling like an alley-cat as she disappeared around a corner.

Lykos walked out of the sunshine into the cool of Drassil’s great hall.

The steps were wide, arched in a gentle half-circle around the hall, so big they were more like tiered seats that led down to the sunken floor of the chamber. Above him was a curving stone wall, with staircases spiralling upwards around it to disappear into cunningly fashioned towers. The floor of the chamber was sunken into the earth, wide and flat, periodically dotted with fire-pits.

At the chamber’s centre was the trunk of the great tree, mottled and dark, wider than Jerolin’s feast-hall. Huge knots studded the trunk, bark peeling, trails of leaking sap dried hard. Here and there were black holes, indentations bored into the tree by bird or creature, squirrel or owl. Even as Lykos looked, he saw a brightly coloured chaffinch swoop down from the chamber and alight on a hole’s rim, pause for a moment, its beak full with straw and moss, and then hop into the darkness.

At the trunk’s base, growing out of it, or so it seemed, was a carven chair, filled with the skeleton of a giant, held there still by the spear that had struck the death blow.

Skald, the giant High King. Skewered like a slaughtered pig. How the mighty can fall.

Either side of the chair, skeleton and the spear, two new objects had been placed. On one side the starstone axe was now hanging from a hook that had been hammered into the trunk, a heavy chain wrapped around it. And on the other side was the cauldron, huge and black, taller and broader than a giant, squatting like some great bloated toad.

Before the gathered Treasures there was a table, long and wide. A meeting table, and standing leaning against it was Calidus.

Lykos walked down the stairs and across the flagstoned floor.

Calidus ignored him and Lykos poured himself a drink from a jug on the table, dark red wine. He took a sip, slurping loudly and then smacking his lips. Calidus looked at him as if he were an annoying insect.

Which I probably am to him, with his great plans.

Lykos took another drink, smacked his lips louder.

Calidus tutted. “You should stop doing that,” he said. “It may get you killed one day.”

“Stop what? Drinking wine. That’s a little harsh, I have few pleasures in life and—”

“Not drinking wine.” Calidus looked at him; the intensity of his attention made Lykos uncomfortable. His face was scarred from the burning Veradis and Alcyon had treated him to, half his face blackened and melted like wax, his silver hair reduced mostly to stubble now. He was no longer handsome, as he once had been.

“I speak of your tendency towards deliberate provocation and goading,” Calidus continued. “It is a bad habit of yours.”

Lykos raised an eyebrow at that, then shrugged.

He’s probably right.

“I’ll drink quieter,” he said with a smile, then drained his cup. “What are you looking at?”

“Skald, the starstone spear, the axe and cauldron, the great tree. So much history, and yet this same war is being fought.”

“Aye. A little closer to being over now, though, eh?”

Calidus ground his teeth. “Closer, but still so much to do.”

“That’s not what I wanted to hear,” Lykos said sullenly. “I don’t like this place. My men don’t like this place. They are dying, whether out on your patrols, or gutting each other over a game of throw-board.”

Without Lykos really seeing Calidus move, the Kadoshim was nose to nose with him, a hand about Lykos’ throat, and Lykos was stumbling back into the table.

“You think I care what you want to hear?” Calidus hissed. “What you or your men like?” The grip around Lykos’ throat tightened. “I don’t want to be here, either, amongst you vermin, consumed by your petty desires. Better for me if you and all your kind were slaughtered and hanging on hooks, ready for the feast.”

He needs me. He will not kill me.

With an act of will Lykos stayed motionless, forced himself not to struggle or retaliate.

Then Calidus was no longer there, the vice-like grip on his throat gone. Lykos slumped forwards, coughing.

“I did not mean to offend you,” Lykos wheezed when he had enough breath in his body.

“I overreacted,” Calidus said, not looking at him, but gazing back at the skeleton of Skald and the Treasures again.

The closest I’ll get to an apology.

Calidus looked up at the sound of footsteps; Lykos followed his gaze. Nathair was walking through the open doorway and down the steps towards them, his usual honour guard behind him, Legion at his side. Somehow the Kadoshim always looked bigger than the others—something about the way he walked, a barely contained power exuding from him.

Perhaps because there are so many Kadoshim spirits crammed inside the one body.

The cloud of ever-present flies buzzed around the creature.

“Good, we can begin, then,” Calidus said, waving for Lykos to sit, as if the violence he had threatened a few moments ago had not happened.

Lykos did sit, pouring himself another cup of wine and leaning back in his chair, resting one boot upon the wooden table.

So, let’s see what revelations and delights this meeting will bring us. And you, Calidus, I will add your name to those I am looking forward to killing.