‘Vestrnes,’ Gangrel repeated. ‘So Wirral is named in the Old Tongue.’
‘Wirral?’ Eric asked, frowning.
Gangrel nodded. ‘“Should the swart-elf prince wed a woman of Vestrnes, he will ride at the head of the Hosts of Muspell and storm the Walls of Asgard,”’ he quoted. ‘Could it be that Prince Helgrim thinks…? Is that why he took Gwen prisoner?’
‘He was getting a bit fresh with her the first time we met,’ Eric muttered.
Hal looked horrified. ‘“Wed”?’ he said. ‘Do you mean...?’
‘He may intend to marry her,’ Gangrel replied with a sombre nod.
Eric laughed. ‘I’d like to see him try!’ he said. ‘Have you ever tried to make Gwen do something she doesn’t want to do?’
Gangrel looked down at him. ‘The swart-elves have ways of persuading the unwilling,’ he said darkly.
Eric shook his head. ‘So will she be in the dungeons, then?’ he asked. ‘If Prince Helgrim wants to marry her?’
Gangrel was about to reply when Hal rose. ‘He may already have done it!’ he said. ‘We’ve got to get up there! Come on!’
He led the way, blind with anger.
* * * * *
‘And what brings my little ebony blossom to my domain,’ the cook asked. ‘My, hasn’t she grown! A social visit, is it?’
They were sitting at a table to one side of the bustling kitchen, sipping glasses of cooking sherry. Since the cook seemed trustworthy, Gwen and Ilmadis had removed their helmets. The dwarf woman betrayed a little surprise at the faces revealed, but nothing stopped the constant torrent of words.
She offered round a tray of freshly baked sweetbreads. ‘Please, let me indulge you!’ she said, popping one between her fat lips. ‘But my dear poppet, it’s so naughty of you not to visit me for weeks! What has been the matter?’
To Gwen’s horror, she heard Mordis telling the cook the entire story.
‘Prince Helgrim has jilted me,’ she said with a pout. ‘All for this otherworlder here. But she doesn’t want to marry him, so she’s on the run.’
Gwen darted a shocked glance at the cook, but the dwarf woman seemed unperturbed. She stroked her beard. ‘Naughty little Princess,’ she said indulgently. ‘But naughty Prince Helgrim, to jilt you like that! And all for a white-faced otherworlder - begging your pardon, ma’am. But your kind look like somewhat that’s crept out from under a stone, for all the time you spend in the sunlight!’
Gwen pretended she hadn’t heard.
‘Cook!’ Mordis said reprovingly. She turned to Gwen, smiling most charmingly for once. ‘Never mind Cook,’ she told her. ‘She’s a dwarf, and dwarves always speak their mind. But she is a dear. She’s always been good to me, ever since I was little.’
Gwen contemplated the notion of Mordis as a toddler, and wished she hadn’t. The kind of little girl who spent too much time in her room, pulling the wings off flies.
‘So what’s it like, growing up as a swart-elf Princess?’ she asked, for the sake of conversation. ‘It sounds a ball, if you like that kind of thing.’ She looked at the tray of sweetbreads queasily.
‘Oh, it’s awful,’ Mordis said. ‘I never get my own way. I never have, since I was small. And it’s so dull here. No one to talk to, just slaves who are dull, and mighty warriors, who are duller than dull. There are so many things a Princess does, and so many things she doesn’t. Now my cousin has jilted me, I have nothing to look forward to but a life as a despised spinster. I shall probably become a witch.’
‘I’m sure you’ll meet someone,’ Gwen said encouragingly. ‘Some nice boy you can twist round your little finger.’
‘You don’t understand, do you?’ Mordis snapped. ‘If I don’t marry Prince Helgrim, I’ll never be allowed to marry anyone! It would be against custom.’
‘Can’t you just break the custom?’ Gwen asked.
Mordis scowled prettily. ‘No one breaks customs in Svartaborg,’ she told her. ‘That is why I was so angry with you. I had never killed anyone before except slaves, but I was so vexed I could have cut your throat.’
‘Really,’ Gwen said, rubbing it unconsciously.
‘Yet now I can see it will be more amusing to help you escape,’ Mordis added.
‘Pardon me, my little poppet,’ said Cook. ‘But I have so much to do. If I’m not on hand to keep order, the scullions will get up to all manner of mischief.’
‘You may go,’ Mordis said graciously. She turned back to Gwen. ‘We’ll wait in here until the guards have stopped searching the place - Cook says they’ve already been here - and then we can find someway of getting you out.’
‘How do you know they won’t search here again?’ Ilmadis asked bravely.
Mordis curled her lip. ‘They wouldn’t do that,’ she said. ‘They’re all too stupid.’
Gwen could see that now the heat was off - metaphorically, at least - Mordis was relaxing enough to be her normal vile self. A swart-elf upbringing was not one that brought out the nobler qualities. She gazed round the room, and sipped her sherry.
In one corner, four or five kitchen boys were passing a bottle back and forth, and singing drunkenly. Odd. Gwen wouldn’t have thought the cook would allow that kind of behaviour. She looked around the room. Where was she? The cook seemed to have vanished.
‘Where did she go?’ she asked.
‘Whom?’ Mordis inquired.
‘The cook,’ Gwen said. ‘She was here a minute ago.’
‘She went to keep an eye on the kitchen,’ Ilmadis offered.
‘Well, she’s not doing a very good job of it,’ Gwen replied, indicating the drunken kitchen boys. ‘And I can’t see her anywhere.’
Mordis’ eyes narrowed. ‘Not Cook. Anyone else I would suspect. But Cook!’
‘What do you mean?’ Gwen said sharply.
The kitchen doors burst open. Heads turned, as swart-elf warriors flooded into the room. Gwen turned to run, and saw more entering through the door to the spiral staircase.
She drew her sword and faced the swart-elf captain as he swaggered up towards them. In the background, she saw Cook standing among the guards and waging her finger at Mordis.
The captain looked at Gwen’s sword. She looked down at it herself, wondering quite what she intended to do. Ilmadis seemed paralysed with fear. Gwen sighed, and dropped the sword.
5 SIGN OF THE BLEEDING GOD
The swart-elf guards hustled Gwen, Ilmadis, and Mordis up endless flights of worn stone steps. They refused to answer any questions, but marched their captives along dark passages and up winding stairs. Two swart-elves attended to Mordis’ wolves.
Finally, they entered a large, cold hall that lay open to the winds on one side. The roof was high and curved, and hanging from it were the scaly figures of what Gwen thought at first were giant bats, but she quickly realised were dragons.
Another dragon crouched upon the floor directly ahead, and a number of figures surrounded the creature, inspecting the armour, harness, and saddle that it wore. Gwen recognised one as Prince Helgrim, another as his old father King Hrafnsvart. Towering above them was the silent form of Eld, son of Muspell.
Prince Helgrim looked up at their approach, and a smile deformed his sinister features. ‘The straying lamb returns to the fold,’ he gloated. ‘I wondered whither you were, my dear… and you have met my cousin! Princess Mordis, what are you doing with my bride?’
‘You’re not married yet, cousin,’ Mordis replied fiercely.
Prince Helgrim took two steps closer, then slapped Mordis across the face with his gauntlets. ‘Never will I marry you,’ he hissed. ‘You, who plot against me! Oh yes, Cook told me all. She always favoured me, cousin.’ He turned to Eld. ‘What shall we do, Son of Muspell,’ he called, ‘what shall we do with a traitor, who attempts to frustrate our schemes?’
‘Slay her,’ rumbled Eld.
Prince Helgrim drew his sword. His father raised his head, and blinked mildly at the scene.
‘No!’ Gwen said. ‘It?
??s not her fault! I… I forced her!’
King Hrafnsvart looked vaguely at her. ‘I wonder how you could bring such force to bear to make my niece do anything,’ he said reedily. ‘Her nurse would have benefited from that knowledge, too. Such a headstrong child, weren’t you, Princess Mordis? Do not kill her, my son.’
Prince Helgrim sheathed his sword. ‘You are right, father,’ he said. ‘I should not slay her.’ He turned to Eld. ‘She is of the Blood, son of Muspell! Have her imprisoned in her own rooms for the nonce, under house arrest,’ he told the captain of the guard. ‘But treat her as befits a Princess of Svartaborg.’
Despite her kicking and spitting, the guards dragged Mordis away, her face weeping blood, leaving Gwen and Ilmadis to face the swart-elves.
‘So, my bride flees me again!’ Prince Helgrim said. ‘Pre-marital jitters, I’ll warrant. Alas, that I should needs tame you ere our marriage eve. Take her to the lowest dungeons!’ he commanded. ‘For now, let her think on her folly.’
‘What of the slave-girl who aided her?’ a guard asked.
‘Oh, as for her,’ Prince Helgrim said, ‘have her publicly executed. Now take them away!’
Guards dragged Gwen and Ilmadis out of the windswept chamber.
‘My lady!’ Ilmadis said. ‘What will happen?’
‘I don’t know,’ Gwen confessed, confused, fearful. ‘I don’t know!’
‘You will be confined to a cell,’ said a chieftain, ‘while the slave will be taken to a place of public execution and slain. Do not anger Prince Helgrim further, or such might be your fate also.’
Gwen looked at Ilmadis. The elf girl’s eyes were brimming with tears.
She didn’t feel too joyous herself.
* * * * *
‘Put me down! Put me down!’
Mordis struggled in her captors’ arms as they dragged her down the passage. She saw the two guards leading her leashed wolves.
‘Varg! Ylg!’ she snapped. ‘Kill!’
The wolves growled and snapped; their guards struggled to keep them under control. The guard captain loomed over Mordis.
‘My lady,’ he said. ‘Be reasonable. None wishes to see a beloved Princess of the Blood imprisoned. But your cousin commands it. He is the chief power in these dark days, now that the king grows weak.’
Mordis tossed her head. ‘Would that he was not.’
The captain leant closer. ‘Many of us think as you do,’ he whispered. ‘Many of us think that your cousin is a madman, endangering our nation, conniving with fire giants and plotting a war against the gods that we could never win. Many wish to see him thrown down, and his place taken by another of the Blood whom we could trust.’ He looked about him. ‘But it is unhealthy to discuss such matters here. Come quietly, and we will speak of this later.’
* * * * *
‘Finally!’
Panting, Hal threw himself down in the lea of the wall. Behind them, the secret stair wound down the cliff, zigzagging away towards the darkness of the plains below. It had been a long, arduous ascent, and the rockslide had put hours on their journey. But now they were almost there!
Looming directly above them were the towers and battlements of the swart-elf castle. Their lower portions were illuminated by the flickering orange light of torches; beyond that the bastions vanished into darkness, towering so high into the gloom that it was impossible to see where they ended. For all Hal knew, they might never end.
‘Not far from here, round the next bend,’ Althiof said, ‘there’s a patch of open ground between the crags and the gate. It could be patrolled. I heard movement from up ahead. I’ll go and scout.’ He disappeared from sight round the corner.
Eric sighed with relief. ‘I thought the journey would never end.’
Gangrel looked down at them. ‘It is only beginning,’ he said quietly.
‘We still have a long way to Sindri’s Hall,’ Tanngrisnir said, leaning on Helbrand and mopping his brow.
‘But we’re not far off from rescuing Gwen,’ Hal said with a grin. ‘Did you say she’d be in the dungeons, then?’
Gangrel shook his head. ‘If she is to be married to Prince Helgrim,’ he replied, ‘it is more likely that she will be in the residential area, about a third of the way up the Tower. We will have to go by dark and secret ways. And if Althiof is right that the area is being patrolled, we may have to wait longer… Well?’
Althiof had crept back round the corner. He raised a finger to his lips, and scuttled up. ‘I heard you up by the Tower!’ he remonstrated. ‘There’s no hope. Patrols are everywhere. They’ve been stirred up. The rumour is, they’ve got dragons now. They may be getting ready for a raid on Aurvangar!’
‘They do have dragons,’ Hal said importantly. ‘But we’ve defeated them before!’
‘That had much to do with luck,’ Tanngrisnir told him. ‘What now?’ he asked Althiof. ‘We must get in the castle - to rescue Gwen, and to find out what’s going on. How do we get in?’
‘As matters stand, we don’t,’ Althiof said. ‘We’ll have to wait. Come with me to the city.’
Althiof led them down another little-used path that led off to the left from the secret stair. Hal could see he knew the area like the back of his dwarfish little hand. They moved away from the castle that loomed above the crags like a jutting finger pointing accusingly at blank black skies. Then they made their way through gulches and defiles and passed through a narrow tunnel before coming out in a built-up area of stone houses, not unlike Myrkheim.
The city stretched into the distance on both sides of the street, its darkness illuminated by bonfires that blazed on each corner, but the castle was the most notable landmark. As they followed Althiof down the winding streets, their erstwhile destination receded further into the distance.
They came out near the wharves, where the spreading waters of the upper pool led towards the Giallarfoss. Althiof took them to a waterfront tavern named The Sign of the Bleeding God, and they entered the dark, smoky barroom with trepidation.
Finding a free booth in the crowd of swart-elves and dwarves, they piled in and drew the curtains.
Althiof looked them each in the eye. ‘We’ve been delayed,’ he told them. ‘There’s no chance of getting in under these circumstances. You must stay here. I have people to see.’ He clambered down from the bench and disappeared under the curtain.
‘Wait!’ Hal cried. ‘Wait!’ He turned to the others. ‘I like that!’ he said, not liking it one bit. ‘Drags us into this seedy dive, then walks off and leaves us. What do we do now?’
‘We wait,’ Gangrel said grimly.
Hal sat back against the old oak panelling of the booth (where did the oak come from? he had seen no forests), stretching and yawning. ‘Well,’ he said slowly. ‘Seeing as we’re here now, who wants a pint?’
Eric shrugged. ‘No money,’ he replied. ‘Nothing that they’re likely to accept here, anyway.’
Tanngrisnir shook his head. ‘I will buy.’ He produced a jingling pouch and vanishing behind the curtain.
As Hal and his companions waited, they heard a commotion from the main barroom. Eric tugged open the curtain, to reveal the bar a scene of uproar. A swart-elf had climbed on top of the bar, and was shouting and shaking his fist.
Hal caught the words ‘Princess of the Blood…’ and ‘house arrest…’ and ‘time for the people to rise …’ before the main doors burst open. A group of swart-elf watchmen burst in, seized the shouting swart-elf, and dragged him away. The mood of the crowd was ugly, and the guards had to lash out with their swords before they could leave.
‘All is not well in the swart-elf kingdom,’ Gangrel murmured.
‘Who’s Hrafnsvart?’ Hal asked.
‘Hrafnsvart the Black is the swart-elf king,’ Gangrel said quietly. ‘Unpopular with his subjects at the moment …’
‘Why did Althiof bring us here?’ Hal complained. ‘This dive is dangerous. Alright, we’d be as happy as any of them to see this Hrafnsvart overthrown, if they’ve
got Gwen…’
Tanngrisnir returned from the bar with two foaming tankards of ale, a horn of mead for himself, and a goblet of mulled wine for Gangrel. As he placed the tray on the table, Hal pointed behind him.
‘Who are your friends?’ he asked. A slim, dark-faced figure was peering into their cubicle. It was a swart-elf, clad in rich garments. A dozen others were at his elbow; nobles, by their rich garb. Tanngrisnir turned to look at them in surprise.
‘You are Althiof’s friends?’ a soft voice asked.
‘I think we have much to discuss,’ another swart-elf said.
* * * * *
Mordis lounged in a chair, glaring at the fire. She had thrashed her slave the moment she had been flung in here, but it had not improved her temper. House arrest! All because she had tried to get rid of that snooty bitch, Gwen! It was about time Prince Helgrim realised he was following nothing more than a superstitious dream. Even his own men did not believe in the Foretelling!
Now, why couldn’t he be sensible, and forget about Gwen? Then she could marry him just as it had been planned in the old days, and then she would make sure Prince Helgrim never did anything so foolish again. He was all bluster when his henchmen were about, but she knew what he was like behind closed doors; putty in her hands. If only he would marry her, she would soon be running the kingdom, and she would ensure it was run properly. None of these delusions of grandeur; none of this superstitious belief in crazy old foretellings, either.
She heard a noise from the door. It was opening. She sprang up, expecting Prince Helgrim, preparing to put her case. Her heart sank with disappointment when a guard entered.
Closing the door behind him quietly, he said in a whisper; ‘My lady!’
She looked haughtily at him. ‘What way is that to speak to a Princess of the Blood?’ she demanded. ‘Do you come hither to ravish me? Ylg! Varg!’
The wolves looked up from the bone they were worrying, and growled at the guard.
‘My lady!’ he said. ‘I apologise! I know this is no way to address you, but this is no time for ceremony. Do you not remember me?’
Mordis frowned, and then recognised him as the guard captain. ‘You spoke to me,’ she replied. ‘You’re against the war, aren’t you?’
The captain bent his knee before her, and kissed her hand. She snatched it away in revulsion. He looked up. ‘I only wish to see you succeed to the throne, rather than your cousin,’ he said. ‘When King Hrafnsvart dies, we hope it will be you who succeeds. The people do not want the warmonger Prince Helgrim to be king.’