The Dragon Hammer (Wulf's Saga Book 1) (29 page)

Chapter Thirty-Six:
The Duel

“Anya is not imagining things,” Saeunn said.

“But the child’s had a terrible shock,” Grer Smead replied. He worked the bellows and fired his forge as he spoke. “How can you be sure?”

“I know her. This is real. Tell him, Ulla.”

“Saeunn is very good at figuring out lies, dear,” Ulla said to Grer. “I never could get away with telling her one.”

“But if Lady Anya believes what she’s saying, it isn’t a lie to her.”

“Not this,” Saeunn said. “I know when Anya is telling a story. This isn’t made up.”

Grer nodded gravely. He took an iron stirring from a swage block and spread the coals in the forge furnace. “We must go and get it.”

“How?” Ulla said. “The gate is guarded day and night.”

“Rainer is out there,” Saeunn said. “We could signal him.”

“What is he going to do, m’lady?” Grer asked. “That’s the sort of thing that’s going to take special tools to remove it.”

“
You
could do it,” Ulla said. “But
don’t
.” She stepped up next to Grer and held on to his arm as if he might be yanked away from her at any moment.

“Aye, I could,” he said. He sighed. “And you know I have to.”

Ulla shook her head in frustration, but didn’t contradict him.

“We’ll have to get you out,” said Saeunn.

“I suppose you have a plan, Lady Saeunn?”

Ulla squeezed Grer’s arm. “Saeunn always has a plan. She’s very devious. And her plans usually work.”

Ulla and Saeunn had been allowed the freedom of the bailey. The castle was filled with Sandhaveners, and there was no way past the gate. And unlike the poor men-at-arms, who were chained below in the castle dungeon, Grer was permitted to work and move freely in the keep.

Saeunn was beginning to understand Prince Trigvi. He believed in justice and law. But the just thing turned out to be whatever Trigvi wanted. Grer’s minor freedom was an example. It was supposed to be a balanced punishment. Grer would be forced to work like a dog. Every limping step Grer took would be a reminder that Gunnar had crippled the smith for life. Saeunn had seen Trigvi smiling serenely while he ordered Grer to fetch water and haul wood for him.

Saeunn thought Trigvi looked ridiculous.

The prince had completely misunderstood Grer. The smith only cared if somebody thought he was slacking at his job. Nobody, even Trigvi, could accuse Grer of that. He worked like a madman keeping the castle fires supplied with wood and water in the central basins. He also handled endless requests for horseshoeing and armor repairs from the Sandhaveners.

Trigvi looked on Ulla with a mix of revulsion and lust. He had announced that he would marry her in time. But first she must learn her place as his queen. He’d made her a housemaid. Her job was to draw water from the castle basins and sweep the halls after his men.

What alarmed Saeunn was that he was also paying attention to Anya. Trigvi had said to Ulla that he might take her sister as a second wife as soon as Anya was of age in the old tradition. That was three years away.

Ulla and Saeunn had been prepared with an excuse if they were stopped when coming to the smithy. None of the guards seemed to care. As long as the girls did not make for the gate, they were ignored.

Saeunn was not bothered by the way she had been treated. The lewd comments she’d received from the Nesties were laughable. She knew they were too disciplined to go against orders and try to take her against her will. She feared for the women of the township, though. The Sandhaven common soldiers she’d seen at the castle were much less disciplined.

Mainly she tried to avoid getting anywhere near the draugar. She could feel the pull of his empty soul. Being near him was like standing in a high place and thinking about jumping. Daylight and clouds never harmed her connection to her star, but being near the draugar made her feel weak, sick and out of touch. She also had the sneaking suspicion that the draugar had some special plan for her. She dreaded finding out what that might be.

He was many thousands of years old. The elder elves hadn’t even been shaped like people at first. They had been forces of nature. The four draug were powers of the north, south, east, and west of the world. They had been sent from the never and forever to soothe the dragons’ dreams. They’d done their duty for eons. Then Ubel, the void that existed in the tiny spaces between the dragons, had talked the elder elves into giving up their stars and following him.

He had promised them freedom, then made them slaves.

Wuten was trying to find the Dragon Hammer. He was questioning everyone in the castle, one by one, but men first. It would be only a matter of time until he got to her—and to Anya. They had to do something before that time came.

This was the reason for the meeting in Grer’s shop.

“I do have a plan,” said Saeunn. “I went to visit my horse friend Slep in the stables to see how she was doing. Not well. The place is packed with Sandhavener horses. The stable boys are mucking out the manure constantly. So far they’ve been piling it in a wagon outside the stalls. They’ve been terrified to take it down to the river and dump it.”

“Aye, they should be. If you get on the wrong side of those Nesties, they’ll throw you in the dungeon with the castle men-at-arms. It happened to my apprentice, Luki.”

“A strong man could pull that manure wagon,” Saeunn said. “He could tell the gate guards he was going to dump it. It’s a job that
has
to get done.”

Grer was silent for a moment. Then he let out a quiet, “Aye.”

“But why wouldn’t one of the Nesties do it?” Ulla put in.

“They don’t know where to take it. Those Nesties are hard, but they’re by-the-rules sort of men. They wouldn’t like the idea of dumping it outside the gate. They’ll want it properly taken care of.”

“You are willing to gamble my fiancé’s life on them having proper manners?” Ulla replied.

“They’ll turn him back if they don’t want him to do it.”

“Or throw him in the dungeon if they’re in a bad mood,” Ulla said. “I’m not sure if I like this idea, Saeunn.”

“He has to try,” Saeunn said. “The evil thing is on the trail. If he gets it…I think this land will die.”

Grer nodded. “She’s right, Ulla. That thing…what do you call it?”

“A draugar. I do not like to say his name. We elves are ashamed of the draug. They are our own kind gone bad.”

“It’s evil, that’s plain enough,” Grer continued. “It’s been going into the dungeons, you know, asking its questions. You can hear the men scream. Grown men and soldiers.”

“It senses that the hammer is close.”

Grer sighed. “I must do what I can,” Grer said. “I’ll need tools.”

“You can hide them in the manure.”

Grer nodded. “Right then. When should I do it?”

“At imbiss bell the stable hands change shifts. That would be the time.”

Ulla breathed in quickly. “So soon?”

“The sooner the better,” Grer said. “I want to get this over with before I realize I’m staking my life on what a talking owl said to an eight-year-old girl.”

Captain Rask strode determinedly past the picket and headed for the cane patch in the bend of the river. This was where his brother had told him the fight was going to take place.

No. Not a true fight. A duel. Blood and bones!

Of all things, his kid brother had gotten himself into a stupid duel.

What was his fool of a brother thinking? Alvis had been acting strangely for the past year. He’d wanted to talk to Alvis about it, but suddenly he was deployed to Raukenrose with Prince Gunnar. He’d stayed hidden for months in the university library’s catacombs, a weapon to be used at the perfect moment.

All the boring time there he had worried about Alvis.

Harrald, Rask’s birth name, and Alvis Torsson were soldiers, and good ones. They were professionals in a land of amateurs. They were part of the elite Sandhaven palace guard, the Nesties. When he and his brother had become Twenty commanders, they’d taken on new names, warrior names. Nesties had done this since the distant past.

Alvis called himself Steel. Harrald had chosen Rask, the Sandhaven word for swiftness.

Now Lance Captain Steel had sent Captain Rask a message asking him to be his second.

In a cursed duel.

Alvis—Steel—was going to fight over something that could have been handled a dozen better ways, all without risking his life.

The story Steel had peddled was that Steel and his lance commander had argued about the division of loot during the sack of the town. Steel wanted more than the traditional third for his men. The lance commander refused and called him a son of a slut for asking.

That was when Steel had challenged the man to a duel. For insulting their mother. It was as if they were city boys again fighting in back alleys.

Steel
knew
that Rask absolutely hated duels. Even though dueling between Sandhavener officers went on in the shadows, even among the Nesties, Rask believed duels were a waste of time. Rask knew because he’d been in two duels. In one, he was a principal. In the other, he was a second. Both times he had killed a man he would rather not have killed. He hated spilling the blood of his brothers in arms, and hated more the idiotic feuds that flamed up to cause it.

How could Steel let himself get sucked in over such a petty matter?

Division of loot? A trivial insult?

It was like fighting over the biggest piece of goose at Yuletide. On the Chesapeake, there were thousands of geese to go around at Yule. Millions of them returned every year to the bay. Every man could have a whole goose. Why argue over who got the biggest leg?

There were plenty of riches in Raukenrose.

Why fight over some meaningless percentage when you could loot the entire town?

Rask reached the edge of the river cane. There was supposed to be a trail here that led to a secluded clearing by the water. This had become the place for duels. Rask had heard about it even where he served in the castle. He was the commander of the garrison, the leader of the mysterious all-black being’s personal Hundred.

Rask’s Hundred was the elite of the elite. That was why it had been his Hundred that had been smuggled into the township months before the invasion. They had erupted and taken the town militia from behind, like a dagger stabbed into the back of an enemy.

The river clearing was used mainly because it was easy to chuck the body of the loser in and let it float away. Practical. But he was going to see if he could stop this duel before it got started. Rask had gotten more prestige than he’d ever imagined possible. His Hundred had killed Lord Otto von Dunstig. And his Hundred had taken and held Raukenrose castle.

He was sure he could browbeat Steel’s commander into backing down. If he could do that, then he knew he would be able to talk some sense into his brother. Rask rehearsed in his mind what he would say to them both.

But when he broke into the clearing, Captain Steel was nowhere in sight. Instead, there were twelve gigantic men with the heads of buffalo staring down at him—and Rask was a very tall man. Twelve buffalo men and one regular human. The man seemed very young. But he looked as stoic and determined as the buffalo men.

“Cold hell,” Rask said, reaching for his sword.

He never got a chance to use it.

“All right, pull,” said the young man.

It was then that the net sprang under his feet. It wrapped him in rope netting and catapulted Rask up into a nearby willow tree. His hands were pinned tight and his sword remained in its scabbard.

Rask began to scream for help, even though he knew he was too far away from the pickets to be heard.

“Dunk him,” said the young man.

One of the buffalo men walked over and swung him and the net away from the tree trunk. Another unhitched the rope and let Rask drop into the water.

They kept him down a long time. When they brought him up, he was too busy coughing out water to make a sound or call for help again. He was still coughing when they took him out of the net, laid him on the ground, and bound his wrists so tightly he couldn’t feel them. They mercifully waited until he’d got his breath back before stuffing a cloth into his mouth so deeply that there was no way he could spit it out.

“Time to go,” the young man said. He kicked Rask in the stomach. Rask doubled over. A buffalo men picked Rask up and slung him over his shoulder. The buffalo man’s hairy head smelled like the creature had washed it in rancid milk.

Rask concentrated and forced himself not to gag. If he did, he might very well suffocate in his own vomit.

A few paces down the river was a beached canoe. The buffalo man dumped Rask into it. Then he and another took seats in the aft, with the young man in the fore. They pushed off and paddled upriver.

Rask had no idea why he was still alive. He also did not know that his brother had tricked him into this, which he had. He would never have suspected that Captain Steel, Alvis Torsson, had deserted and been picked up by the cursed talking animals of this cursed valley.

“Be still,” the young man said to him. “We’re doing you a good turn, even though you probably will never know it.”