Prince of Fools (The Red Queen's War 1)

In the distance the sky held an ominous yellow cast. “Some city?” I asked. Crath City stained the skies with the smoke of ten thousand chimneys, and that had been in summer, just cook-fires and industry. I hadn’t thought the North held such cities, though.

“The Heimrift.”

“Oh.”

“You don’t know what that is, do you?”

“I’ll have you know I was educated by the finest scholars, including Harram Lodt, the famed geographer who made the world map that hangs in the pope’s own library.”

“Do you?”

“No.”

“It’s a set of volcanoes.”

“Fire mountains.” I was pretty certain that’s what a volcano was.

“Yes.”

“Finest scholars. Very clever men.”

• • •

A mile or two along the track we passed a hammer-stone, a crude representation of Thor’s hammer hacked from a piece of rock about five foot high and set by the road. Snorri seemed more interested in the pebbles lying around it. He bent to investigate, and I had to rein Sleipnir in or leave him crouched by the verge. Pride kept me there, waiting in the middle of the track rather than go back to see what the hauldr had found.

“Interesting rocks?” I asked when he finally deigned to join me.

“Rune stones. Wise men and völvas leave them. It’s a kind of message system.”

“And you can read it?”

“No.” Snorri admitted it with a grin. “But these ones were pretty clear.”

“And?”

“And our friendly dream-witch seems to have been right. The stones say Skilfar is at her Maladon seat. It’s been many years since that one came south.”

“If she’s the Silent Sister’s twin, we should stay well away. She’s nobody we should have dealings with.”

“Even if her blood could break this curse?” He reached up for me with his palm open and I shrank back.

“You don’t believe that?” I said. Sageous had no reason to tell the truth, and some men’s tongues are burned by truths in any case. They tend to leave mine a little sore, I’ve found.

“Believe she’s the twin . . . and her blood might help us. Believe she’s not the twin and your reasons for fearing her go away. Both ways mean we should see her. Even if every word Sageous spoke was false, Skilfar is a völva of vast renown. I know of none more famed. If she can’t break this curse, then no one can. And even if she can’t break the spell, she will know about the necromancers and their doings at the Bitter Ice.” Snorri ran a finger along the blade of his axe. “Charging in didn’t serve me so well last time. Knowledge is power, they say, and I may need a better edge than this.”

I spat into the road. “Damn your barbarian logic.” It was all the counterargument I could muster.

“So it’s settled, then. We’ll go.” Snorri smiled and walked on up the track.

I nudged Sleipnir after him. “Surely if she’s so all-powerful she won’t just see the likes of anyone.”

“We’re not just anyone, Jal,” Snorri called over his shoulder. “I’m a hauldr of the Uuliskind. You and I bear unusual magics, and Sleipnir is possibly the descendant of a horse of legend.” Ten more paces and then, “And you’re a prince of somewhere.”

Damned if I ever wanted to see another witch long as I lived—I hadn’t even wanted to see the first one—but options were running short if I didn’t want to find myself on a boat sailing heathen seas in search of an unborn captain of the Dead King’s army.

I drew level with the Norseman. “So how do we find her?”

“That’s the easy part,” Snorri said. “We catch a train.”

• • •

What a train might be I had no idea, but I wasn’t going to let the Viking taunt me with my ignorance again, so I followed without complaint.

We passed a few farmsteads, locals carting the harvest to be sold and stored against the winter. All of them remarked us, Snorri in particular, and whilst it still irked that a commoner, and Norseman at that, upstaged a full-blooded prince of Red March, it was pleasing to see he was as much a rarity in his stature in the North as in the South. Part of me had secretly worried that all men might be built along Snorri’s lines up amongst the fjords and I might find myself a dwarf amidst giants.

Some amongst the fit-firar tried to speak to Snorri in the old tongue of the North, but he answered them in the Empire Tongue with good humour, thanking them for their courtesy. Each person we encountered told the same story about Skilfar. The völva had arrived without warning a month earlier, and none had seen her save those foolhardy enough to seek her out. Snorri asked for the nearest station, and armed with directions we abandoned the road north and headed out across open country.