King of Thorns (The Broken Empire 2)

We heard the hissing before we’d gone ten yards, a thousand snakes hissing in the darkness…or perhaps just steam escaping the trees as their sap started to boil. A laugh bubbled from me in the same way, escaping my heat. The anger I brought with me ignited, becoming too large for my body, detaching from the men who hurt Sim and becoming an end in and of itself, all-consuming, a glorious laughing ecstasy of rage.

A skin of flame lifted from Gog, washing over me in a warm wave. Back in the forest the first of the trees exploded, its fragments bursting into incandescent flame as they found air. Fire lifted around the intact trunks, rising through the spring foliage, making each leaf a momentary shadow. More trees exploded, then more, until the blasts became a continuous rumble of brilliant detonation. The cattle-shed ignited though it stood twenty yards back from the closest flame, one side of it just snapping into liquid orange fire. I saw a lone archer running from the edge of the forest, clothes alight. Farther back human torches staggered and fell.

That power, Brothers, is a drug. A fiercer joy than poppy-spice, and more sure to hollow you out. If Gorgoth hadn’t knocked me aside and snatched up Gog we neither of us would have stopped until no tree remained, no board or beam of Endless. Maybe not even then.

Dawn found us still in the wet grass behind that barn, a smoking hole in the forest before us, acres wide. Gog went hunting amid the embers and returned with a twitching tangle, Sim’s harp strings fused together and twisted by the heat. He took them with a curious smile, lopsided from his beating. “My thanks, Gog.” He held them up and shook them so they rattled one against the next. “A simpler song, but still sweet.”

And that was Endless.

We saw the smoke days from our goal, still skirting the borders of the Teuton kingdoms. A grey column reached miles into the sky, mountain high and higher still, as if Satan were trying to smoke the angels out of heaven.

The sight prompted Red Kent to curiosity. “What is a volcano, Jorg?”

“Where the earth bleeds,” I told him. Sim and Grumlow rode in closer to hear. “Where its blood bubbles up. Molten rock, like lead melted for the siege, poured red and runny from the depths.”

“It was a serious question.” Kent turned his horse away, looking offended.

Days later we could smell the sulphur in the air. In places a fine black dust lay on the new leaves even as they unfurled, and stands of trees stood dead, acre after acre bare and brown, waiting for a summer fire.

You know you’re entering the Dane-lore by the troll-stones. You start to see them at crossroads, then by streams, then in circles atop hills. Great blocks of stone set with the old runes, the Norse runes that remember dead gods, the thunder hammer and old one-eye who saw all and told little. They say the Danes choose one rock above another for troll-stones because they see the lines of a troll in some but not the next. All I can say is that trolls must look remarkably like chunks of rock in that case.

We hadn’t seen so many troll-stones before a rider joined us on the road. He came from the south, setting a fast pace and slowing as he caught our band.

“Well met,” he called, standing in his stirrups. A local man, hair braided in two plaits, each ending in a bronze cap worked with serpents, a round iron helm tight on his head and a fine moustache flowing into a short beard.

“Well met,” I said as he drew level at the head of our column. He had a shortbow on his back, a single-bladed axe strapped to his saddlebags, a knife at his hip with a polished bone handle. He gave Gorgoth a wide berth. “You should follow me,” he said.

“Why?”

“My lord of Maladon wishes to see you,” he said. “And it would be easier this way, no?” He grinned. “I’m Sindri, by the way.”

“Lead on,” I said. A band of warriors probably watched us from the woods, and if not, Sindri deserved to be rewarded for his balls.

We followed him a couple of miles along a trail increasingly crowded with traffic, wheeled and on foot or hoof. Occasionally we heard a distant rumble, not unlike a giant version of the lion Taproot had caged, and the ground would tremble.

Sindri led us past two grey villages and brought us along the side of a narrow lake. When the mountains grumbled, the water rippled from shore to shore. The stronghold at the far end looked to be made of timber and turf with only the occasional block of stone showing above the foundations.

“The great hall of the Duke of Dane,” Sindri said. “Alaric Maladon, twenty-seventh of his line.”

Rike snorted behind me. I didn’t bother to silence him. A voice was speaking at the back of my mind, just beyond hearing, a low moan or a howl…a stone face swam across my vision, a gargoyle face.

Men were gathered before the hall, some at work, others preparing for a patrol, each armed with axe and spear, carrying a large round shield of painted wood and hide. Stable hands came to take our horses. As usual Gorgoth drew the stares. When we passed I heard men mutter, “Grendel-kin.”

Sindri ushered us up the steps to the great hall’s entrance. The whole place had a sorry look to it. The black dust coated everything with a fine film. It tickled the throat like a feather. The patrol horses looked thin and unkempt.

“The Duke wants to see us still wearing the road?” I asked, hoping for some hot water and a chair after so many miles in the saddle. A little time to prepare would be good too. I wanted to remember where I knew the name from.

Sindri grinned. Despite the beard, he hadn’t too many years on me. “The Duke isn’t one for niceties. We’re not fussy in the northern courts. The summer is too short.”

I shrugged and followed up the stairs. Two large warriors flanked the doorway, hands on the hafts of double-headed axes, their iron blades resting on the floor between their feet.

“Two of your party should be enough,” Sindri said.

It never hurts to trust someone, especially when you’ve absolutely no other option. “Makin,” I said.

Makin and I followed Sindri into the gloom and smoke of the great hall. The place seemed empty at first, long trestle tables of dark and polished wood, bare save for an abandoned flagon and a hambone. Wood-smoke and ale tempered the stink of dogs and sweat.

At the far end of the hall on a fur-strewn dais in a high oak chair a figure waited. Sindri led the way. I trailed my fingers along the table as we walked, feeling the slickness of the wood.

“Jorg and Makin,” said Sindri to his lord. “Found heading north on your highway, Duke Alaric.”

“Welcome to the Danelands,” the Duke said.

I just watched him. A big man, white-blond hair and a beard down his chest.

The silence stretched.

“They have a monster with them,” Sindri added, embarrassed. “A troll or Grendel-kin, big enough to strangle a horse.”

In my mind a gargoyle howled. “You brought a snow-globe,” I said.

The Duke frowned. “Do I know you, boy?”

“You brought a snow-globe, a toy of the ancients. And I broke it.” It had been a rare gift, he would remember the globe, and perhaps the avarice with which a little boy had stared at it.

“Ancrath?” The Duke’s frown deepened. “Jorg Ancrath?”

“The same.” I made a bow.

“It’s been a long time, young Jorg.” Alaric stamped his foot and several of his warriors entered the hall from a room at the end. “I’ve heard stories about you. My thanks for not killing my idiot son.” He nodded toward Sindri.