Balur stood upon the walls of Drassil and stared out over the great forest, a green-leafed ocean undulating into the distance. All looked well, the touch of the sinking sun bathing all Balur could see in a crimson glow. High above, birdsong drifted down from the branches of the great tree, a cool breeze tugging at Balur’s braided hair and moustache. On the ground below, the giants of Drassil were going about their business, the gates open and full with Balur’s kin returning, some from the harvest, some from the hunt. Laughter echoed from stone walls.
And yet something is wrong.
A shadow rested over Balur’s soul.
A danger, to Skald and Nemain, my king and queen. To all of us.
He wished it were a foe he could see. That he could take his fists to. Someone he could pummel, break their bones, crush their skull in his giant hands…
There was a crack, and he looked down to see a chunk of battlement crumble as his fists clenched into it, deep grooves gouged by his fingers, his knuckles white. With an act of will, he loosened his grip upon the wall.
But it is a foe I cannot see. I only feel it, a creeping malice that sets my skin to crawling.
Footsteps behind Balur, the scrape of leather on stone, and he turned. Halvor, counselor to King Skald, stood there, grim-faced and silent. Balur returned the dark look, feeling the storm-clouds deep within him bunching into his brows. He was not best known for his kind nature: Balur was grim-hearted and cold-faced. Few thought of themselves as his friends, though all knew that Balur would give his life for his people. And greater even than his loyalty to his people, there were two that Balur loved, fiercely. One of them was his king and friend, Skald.
“The king has been asking for you,” Halvor said, a reproach in his voice and eyes.
He should not need to ask for you, your place is at his side, Halvor’s eyes said.
And he is right. I am the King’s Champion, protector of his name. And he is dear to me, loved more than a brother. Yet I am still here.
The silence stretched between them, and then Halvor was turning and striding away. Balur followed, and the two giants descended from Drassil’s walls into a great courtyard thronging with activity. All parted for Halvor and Balur as they made their way through the wide streets, and soon they stood before Drassil’s keep, its great doors thrown wide. Inside, a wide semi-circle of tiered steps led down into the cavernous hall. At its center stood the trunk of the great tree, wider than any tower, its bark knotted and gnarled. Countless ravens sat half-shadowed upon those knots and boles, a hunched and black-cloaked audience to two figures seated below them upon chairs carved out of the trunk’s heart-wood.
Skald, head bowed and face in shadow, fair hair falling about his shoulders; Nemain, his queen, beautiful and dark as a starlit night. Skald’s kin stood in a half-circle about him, two of his three brothers, Eld and Akil, and his one sister, Polta, each with their own entourage. Between Balur and them all stood a huge cauldron, wide and squat, big enough for Balur to climb into and be swallowed up, and as he looked at it, Balur felt that shadow upon his soul deepen and shift. He shivered, a ripple through his leather jerkin and bearskin cloak, as if a cloud had passed across the sun.
The Starstone Cauldron.
Ever since two of the king’s brothers, Dagda and Eld, had returned from the north with the remnants of the Starstone, a pitted rock that had plunged flaming from the sky for all of the world to see, the shadow had grown within Balur. Even when the cauldron had been forged from that rock, words of power spoken over it, even when Balur had seen it heal wounds and restore health before his very eyes, something deep within him had still regarded the cauldron suspiciously.
Balur walked around the cauldron, passing through the loose circle of Skald’s kin and their retinues as they all parted for him, the King’s Champion. He stopped before King Skald. Upon the arm of his throne sat a great hawk, Rava, Skald’s favorite hunting bird. Its long talons scraped grooves in the wood, a leather thong binding one leg to the chair. The hawk’s head cocked to one side as it scrutinized Balur.
King Skald was still looking down, regarding something that lay across his lap. A spear, oaken-shafted, its blade broad, leaf-shaped, tapering to a sharp point. But it looked like no spear that Balur had ever seen before, the iron a dull black, no metallic gleam or glint. Instead it seemed to suck the light into it, the blade wreathed in a shadowy nimbus-haze.
Skald looked up and saw Balur looming over him. Balur controlled the urge to take a step back. There was a bright, feverish intensity in Skald’s gaze, and his skin appeared pale and bathed in a sheen of sweat.
“Are you well, my king?” Balur rumbled, never one for holding his thoughts in.
“Well?” Skald frowned, looking at Balur as if he were mad. “I have never felt better. And look.”
A smile ghosted the king’s lips as he lifted the spear, though to Balur’s eye the smile seemed a shallow thing, a mask over something deeper. Hanging upon a chain about Skald’s neck was a black stone the size of an egg. As Balur looked it seemed to pulse, like a heartbeat.
“A gift,” Skald said. “My brother Dagda has brought me a gift.”
“It is a fine spear,” Balur said.
“No ordinary spear,” a voice said, as a figure stepped out of the shadows that pooled about the base of the tree. Dagda, the last of Skald’s brothers, dark-haired and sharp-featured. He was the youngest, the most accomplished on the weapons field after Balur.
And of all Skald’s kin he is the one I like the least.
All Skald’s kin are here, then. A rare occasion of late.
Other giants were with Dagda, men and women close in his counsel. “Its blade is forged from the Starstone. Unbreakable, there is nothing it cannot pierce,” said Dagda.
“The wild boar of Forn Forest will tremble at the sight of it, as our king hunts them,” Balur said.
“It is crafted for more than skewering boar,” Dagda replied. “These are dark days. I am hearing rumor of voices, plotting against my brother.” His eyes flickered across his kin.
“What voices?” Balur growled.
“Aye, what voices?” said Polta, the king’s sister, glaring at Dagda. Her fierce love for Skald was no secret to all who dwelt in Drassil.
Dagda returned her gaze, then looked to his brothers, Eld and Akil, the hint of a smile twisting his lips. He stepped farther into the light, a shadow rearing above his shoulder taking form. A double-bladed axe of black metal, the two blades curved like wings.
Balur was no stranger to sharp-edged iron; the giants used many a tool fashioned for a myriad of tasks. Hunting, wood-cutting, tending the land, butchering.
But that is no wood-cutter’s axe upon Dagda’s back, no tool fashioned for the chopping of timber or hunting.
“That is no hunting axe,” Eld said, frowning. He was the second oldest, a slow and cautious man.
“Is it not?” Dagda said, a smirk at the edges of his lips. “Perhaps it depends upon what you are hunting.”
“I’ve never seen an axe like that before,” Polta said.
“Times are changing, and tools change with them,” Dagda said with a shrug.
“They must be dark times for a tool such as that,” Akil commented, a frown creasing his jutting brows. Fiery and competitive, Akil looked like he would like the axe for himself.
“You speak true, brother,” Dagda said. “Though you, more than others, should know how dark these days are becoming.”
“What does that mean?” Akil growled. “Speak plainly, if you have the courage to do more than slither around your accusations.”
“Oh, I have the coura—”
“Enough!” snapped Skald, looking up at them as if he were only just seeing them. “I did not summon you all here so that I could listen to you bicker.”
Dagda and Akil traded dark looks but held their tongues, the followers of both brothers muttering.
“Why have you summoned all of your kin?” Nemain asked. She rested one hand lightly upon Skald’s forearm.
Skald fell silent, eyes fixing upon Nemain’s pale fingers. Tearing his gaze away, he looked for a moment at each of his brothers and sister, finally coming back to rest upon Nemain.
“I had this fashioned for you,” Skald said quietly to Nemain, fingers brushing the black stone hanging around his neck. For a moment it sounded as if he had forgotten that anyone else was there, other than him and his wife.
“My thanks,” Nemain said, though Balur did not think she sounded thankful.
“I have heard the voices, too,” Skald continued, as if Nemain had not spoken. His hand closed into a fist about the black stone at his neck, and Balur wondered if they were the same voices that Dagda had heard, or something else entirely.
“I have been betrayed,” Skald said, staring into Nemain’s eyes. He drew in a deep breath, as if to say something more, but then clamped his lips shut. A muscle in his cheek twitched. Finally, he looked away from her, his gaze sweeping all before him.
“Who?” Voices rang out, shouts echoing, promises of fealty and revenge. Balur felt a knot form in his belly, the hot, familiar glow of his anger, edged with unease.
Whoever has betrayed you, my king, I will see their blood run red.
“Who dares betray you, brother?” Dagda snarled, stepping closer, one hand reaching back to the axe across his back.
Too close.
Balur eyed Dagda suspiciously, taking a step between Dagda and Skald. A spark of anger flared bright in his belly, and his fists clenched at his sides.
Skald closed his eyes a long moment and sucked in a deep breath, his shoulders slumping. Balur glared at the king’s brothers and sisters, as if his anger alone would winnow out the betrayer. Then Skald’s eyes snapped open and he straightened.
“You,” he said, staring at Nemain.
A sharp, indrawn breath as all gaped at the queen. Her head twitched, a lock of hair falling across her alabaster face; a stunned silence filled the hall. For a moment Balur could only hear the pounding of his own blood inside his skull as he looked between Skald and Nemain.
Torches crackled into life about them as daylight failed, sending shadows dancing wildly.
“Do you deny it?” Skald whispered. “You who bound yourself to me, swore your oaths?”
“I…” Nemain said. A tremor shivered across her face, cracks appearing in her proud façade.
“You have been seen,” Skald said.
“Who accuses me?” Nemain answered, a measure of her composure returning, though Balur could see it was brittle.
“I do,” Halvor spoke out, his deep voice ringing through the chamber. “I saw you, with my own eyes.”
“Who is he?” Skald said.
“Should you not be asking all-seeing Halvor?” Nemain said haughtily.
“I could not see your lover clearly,” Halvor said calmly. “He was masked in shadow. But you were clear to me, and what you were doing, beyond all doubt.”
Nemain opened her mouth, a cutting retort forming on her lips.
Skald held up a hand.
“Do not,” the king snarled. Beads of sweat trailed tracks through grime on his pale cheeks. There was a tremor in his voice when he spoke again. “You will only shame yourself more. I know what you have done.” He paused, a grimace twisting his lips. “I know your secret.” He looked down at her belly, wrapped in wool and fur.
“What?” she said.
“You are with child,” Skald said. His knuckles whitened around the spear-shaft. Nemain returned his gaze, her face unreadable.
No, a voice yelled inside Balur’s head, feeling like the ground beneath his feet was shifting.
“And I suppose Halvor knows this, too,” Nemain said dismissively.
“No, not Halvor,” Skald said as he stroked at the stone around his neck. “A voice. It… speaks to me,” he whispered. Then, louder, “It does not matter how I know. All that matters is that it’s the truth. Do you deny it?”
Nemain stared silently at him for long moments. Eventually she looked away and Skald jerked to his feet, one hand grabbing Nemain by her cloak and tunic, dragging her from her seat. Skald’s hawk flapped its wings and shrieked.
“Another man’s seed grows in your belly,” Skald hissed, shaking Nemain. She batted at him, to no avail, a hand grabbing the stone about his neck. That seemed to fuel Skald’s rage and he shook Nemain more violently. “Who is he?” he yelled, spittle spraying Nemain’s face. She said nothing, only tried to escape from the king’s grip. With a snarl he hurled her to the ground. The necklace tore free, links of the chain scattering on the flagstoned floor.
Nemain looked up at Skald, tears steaking her face, the black stone clutched tightly in her fist. She looked fragile, broken, and yet there was still some strength in her, for she met Skald’s eyes one more time.
“You have betrayed your husband, betrayed your king,” Skald said, his voice abruptly cold. “All of you,” Skald’s voice rang loud, “hear my judgement upon this traitor, this oath-breaker and adulterer. Balur,” he said.
Almost involuntarily, Balur took a step forward.
“Aye, my king.”
“Kill her. Here, at my feet, put your hands around her throat and squeeze the life from her body.”
Gasps and shouts rippled the room: shouts of protestation, others yelling their support of the king’s judgement. Nemain stared at Skald, open-mouthed.
“What has happened to you?” she whispered.
“Balur,” Skald snarled, and Balur found himself striding forward, standing over Nemain, looking down at her.
“It is the Starstone,” Nemain said, ignoring Balur, eyes fixed on Skald. “It has changed you.”
“You have betrayed me,” Skald said. “Did the Starstone make you do that, too?” Skald’s veins stood rigid in his neck and arms, the spear in his grip shaking.
“Perhaps,” Nemain whispered, more to herself than to Skald.
“Balur,” Skald growled, “obey me. Your king commands you.”
Yet Balur still hesitated.
The death sentence had never been carried out, though it was there. A deterrent, Skald had said. Exile, a flogging, a beating, imprisonment for a period, all those punishments had been meted out by Balur. But the sentence of death. Never. Death was for beasts, for food. He stared down at Nemain, who regarded him with her dark eyes.
“Do it,” Skald yelled.
Balur’s big hands reached down, settling about Nemain’s throat. Her skin was pale, so very pale, and Balur could feel the artery in her neck pulsing with her heartbeat. She did nothing to stop him, though, just looked up at him, tears welling in her eyes. Their gazes locked for a timeless moment and Balur grimaced, feeling like a fist was clenching about his heart, squeezing and twisting it.
One of Balur’s hands moved, rising, callused fingers gently cupping Nemain’s face, wiping away a tear as it rolled down her cheek. Then he was gripping Nemain’s shoulders and lifting her to her feet.
“Stay behind me,” Balur said as he stepped between Nemain and Skald. Because the other that he loved, more than life itself, was Nemain, and it was his child that grew in her belly, though he had not known it, until now.
Skald stared at Balur, his gaze flickering to Nemain, then back to Balur. A silence fell in the great hall, as realization dawned in Skald’s eyes.
“It is you,” Skald whispered, betrayal’s pain sweeping his face like ragged clouds across the moon. “You, my champion, my friend. You are my betrayer.”
Balur had no words; it took all of his courage to hold Skald’s gaze. In the end he just nodded.
“I am to blame,” Nemain said, stepping from behind Balur.
Skald stared at her, face twisting and twitching, covered in a feverish sheen of sweat. He lunged with his spear, the blade aimed straight at Nemain’s heart.
Balur moved without thinking, hands reaching out, grabbing the spear shaft, stopping the blade a hand-span from Nemain’s chest. A moment’s silence as Skald stared, the spear-tip quivering, then the room exploded into chaos.
Dagda yelled, other voices shouted, feet scraped on stone. All around, Balur heard the sound of blows and yells. Then Skald was wrenching at the spear. Balur held on, pulled stumbling forward. He found his balance and heaved on the spear-shaft, ripping it from Skald’s grip.
The king stumbled back a handful of paces, falling upon his throne. Polta appeared, taking her brother’s arm as Balur had seen her do so many times during their childhood, helping him rise.
“TRAITOR!” a voice bellowed, and Balur saw Dagda rushing toward Skald and Polta, his black axe in his hands now, gripped two-handed as Dagda swung it above his head. With a crunch, it chopped into Polta, between neck and shoulder, carving bloody ruin through flesh and bone. As Dagda wrenched the axe free in a spray of blood, Polta’s lifeless body collapsed at Skald’s feet. Shouts and screams beat at Balur from every side. Polta’s retinue rushed forward, Dagda’s followers surging to meet them. Balur saw the dull gleam of iron, spears, axes and knives in fists, the crunch of combat.
Skald stared at his dead sister, prone at his feet, blood pooling.
“She attacked you,” Dagda yelled, even as he raised his axe again.
Balur hefted the spear in his hands. After a lifetime of hunting boar and more fearsome beasts, he instinctively found the balance point, his arm drawing back, whipping forward. The spear leaped from his fist, flying straight at Dagda’s back.
And then Skald was there, leaping at Dagda. He ducked under the axe swing to grab Dagda about the throat, squeezing.
Balur’s spear-throw struck Skald in the chest, hurling him from his feet, through the air to slam into the trunk of the great tree. The spear pierced deep into the ancient wood, pinning Skald, suspended, above his throne. His feet drummed against the bark, blood welling from his mouth, then with a sigh his head lolled and he slumped upon the spear-shaft. Blood ran in dark rivulets.
“NO!” Balur bellowed, his world stopping for a timeless moment. Nemain grabbed his arm, nails digging deep. Balur pulled free of her grip and ran to Skald. Dagda stood before the king, staring up at Skald with a smile upon his face. Rava the hawk was flapping his wings, shrieking. His head and beak snapped at Balur, clacking on thin air a hand-span from Balur’s face. The hawk screeched its frustration, tugging and pecking at the leather thong that bound him to the throne’s arm.
Balur knew at a glance that Skald was dead. He sank to his knees, tears blurring his vision.
What have I done?
“My thanks, Balur. You have done my work for me,” Dagda said above and behind him. Distantly, Balur heard a woman scream.
Nemain?
Something made him turn his head — a movement in the air, a muted growl — and he saw Dagda swinging the black axe toward his neck. He threw himself forward, crunching into the throne as the twin axe-blades sliced through the air. A line of white-hot pain lanced across one shoulder. Then Balur was back on his feet, leaping at Dagda, giants fighting all about them, Dagda’s retinue cutting down the supporters of Polta, Akil and Eld.
This is no spontaneous fight; they are too prepared, with weapons and bad intentions.
Dagda punched the weighted end of his axe at Balur’s face, but Balur shifted, took the blow on his injured shoulder, grunted with the pain but still managed to slam his forehead into the bridge of Dagda’s nose. Blood exploded, Dagda stumbling away, Balur following. He knew that to give Dagda room was to allow him to swing that axe again.
Balur swung punches, a flurry of short hooks, cracking ribs. Dagda staggered and fell against him, grabbing him by the shoulder, fingers gouging into the axe-wound. Balur grunted, snarled, slammed a knee into Dagda’s groin. The giant collapsed, gasping and writhing on the ground. Balur kicked the black axe away and stood over his foe with his fists bunched.
A figure emerged from the melee about him, one of Dagda’s retinue. It was Drel, Balur’s kinsman, Balur’s friend who had shared many a tale and cup of mead around the campfire after a hunt. Now, he came snarling and stabbing with his long knife.
Balur sidestepped, slapped the knife blade away with the palm of his hand, struck out with his fist. Drel fell to one knee, waving his knife wildly, opening a red line across Balur’s thigh. With a growl Balur leaped upon him, wrapping an arm around Drel’s neck, then giving a savage heave and twist. There was a loud crack and Drel slumped, lifeless, to the ground.
Balur stood over him, nostrils flaring, some distant part of him horrified that he’d just taken the life of one of his kin, another part of him exultant, trembling with rage.
“Balur,” a voice called, dulled and muted by the red fog in his mind, “this way.”
It was Nemain, standing a score of paces away, a handful of her retainers protectively about her. Something pulsed in her fist, a black shadow beating like a heartbeat.
The Starstone from her necklace.
“NOW!” Nemain yelled.
Balur looked down at Dagda, who was still writhing on the ground, trying to climb to one knee.
Skald is dead because of you. I have slain Drel because of you. The urge to smash Dagda to bloody ruin coursed through him. He kicked Dagda in his broken ribs, heard the giant scream, kicked him again, and again, reached down to haul Dagda to his feet so he could smash him back to the ground again.
Balur felt a shifting in the air. There was a sound of wings beating and a piercing shriek, then something slammed into his head, sharp talons raking his face. Balur tasted blood as Rava fastened upon his face. Pain exploded in his eye, and his brain was lanced with fire. He grabbed at the hawk as it stabbed his face again. Unable to find a grip, Balur staggered and stumbled, tripped over a body, fell to his knees.
Nemain’s voice was in his ear, louder. He looked up through the mist of blood obscuring his vision. She stood beside him, arms lifted high, the Starstone pulsing in her fist like a black heart. Tendrils of shadow leaked from her fingers.
“Cliatháin dubh, cabhrú liom anois, a mharú mo namhaid, an seabhac,” she chanted, her voice changing, becoming cold, commanding. And then Balur’s world turned to darkness, a raging storm beating about him, a tempest of black wings as the ravens that nested in the great tree launched into the air, squawking and swirling around him, beaks and talons rending and tearing at the hawk. Rava screeched in fury, struck at them, but there were so many, too many, blotting out the world. Within heartbeats, the hawk’s shrieked fury turned to pain, then fear, then silence. It fell to the stone floor with a thud and did not move again.
“Show me,” Nemain said, pulling Balur’s blood-slick hands away from his face. The ravens continued to swirl protectively about them, wider now, encompassing a half-dozen of her retinue, as if Nemain and Balur stood in the eye of a hurricane. She ripped a strip of fabric from her dress and tied it about his head, covering his left eye.
“This way, now,” Nemain ordered, gripping his hand and pulling him on. Balur nodded and grunted, fighting the white-hot agony that lanced into his brain. They moved through the hall, the melee still raging, a path parting before the whirlwind of ravens that moved protectively with them, until Balur, Nemain and the few with them were standing in the entrance to a corridor. Pain throbbed in his head, a hammer blow with every beat of his heart. He put a hand to his face and the bandage about his eye, and his fingertips came away slick with blood. A word from Nemain and the ravens scattered, some flapping down the corridor, their wingbeats echoing eerily.
Balur looked back into the great hall. All was chaos, still. He saw Dagda on his feet now, his axe back in his fists, a dozen of his people about him. Eld he could not see.
Ever cautious, he has most likely fled.
But Akil was there, a spear in his fists, skewering one of Dagda’s followers. Everywhere Balur looked his kin were fighting, more pouring through the chamber’s great doors to join the melee.
“What have we done?” Balur whispered.
“There is more to this,” Nemain said. “A greater power at work. Our people are sundered.”
“What do we do?”
“For now, survive.” She looked up and gently stroked Balur’s scarred, bloody face. “And raise our child.”
Our child.
Balur felt something shift in his belly at that.
That is something to live for. To fight for. Not here, though. That is impossible, now. Dagda has plotted for the throne, that is clear. He will not rest while Nemain breathes, nor her unborn child. We must leave the walls of Drassil far behind us.
“Come,” Balur growled through his pain. “We have a long, hard journey ahead of us.” He strode into the shadows of the corridor, Nemain and her retinue following close behind him.
John Gwynne Biography
John was born in Singapore, and now resides with his wife and children in East Sussex. His Banished Lands series began with Malice in 2012, where he won the David Gemmel Morningstar Award for Best Debut Fantasy of 2012. His newest book, Wrath, was just voted the ~1 Fantasy book of 2016 by Fantasy Faction.