Iron Axe (16 page)

Danr touched the pouch at his throat. No lies ever again, not even small social fibs. He swallowed hard.

“The elves won't like what you're doing,” Aisa said, still whispering. “They won't like it at all.”

“It always comes down to war, dear,” Bund said. “Just as it did a thousand years ago. The Tree tips.”

“With humans caught in the middle,” Danr spat.

“What do you care of humans?” Vesha said. “Have they treated you well? Did they give you a home?”

“As much as the trolls have,” Danr shot back truthfully.

“Yes.” Bund heaved herself off the bench and continued down the street toward Kech's house. “The half human is at home in all worlds and in none. The truth is always difficult.”

Vesha followed with a sigh. “I get very tired of hearing about your truths, sister.”

They reached Kech's door, and the carving of the tree and its tangled roots seemed to stare at Danr. Something occurred to him that made his breath catch.

“If you two are sisters,” he said, “and Kech—my father—is Grandmother Bund's son, that would make me . . .”

“A prince,” Bund agreed, and moved to push the door open. “For all the good it will do you.”

“Wait.” Danr put up an arm to stop her, though it was like trying to push aside a giant oak root. “Let me?”

Bund gave him a look but obligingly backed up a step. Danr knocked sharply. A moment later, Kech himself opened the door. Danr closed his right eye. It made Kech look different, just like all the other trolls. He was losing weight, and a strange fear hung about his features. Kech's face and eyes also looked more familiar—Danr saw similar features every time he looked into reflecting water. How could he have missed them before?

“What do you want?” Kech growled.

“I want to talk to you. Father.”

Kech's face went pale. “I am not your father.”

Danr's first instinct was to shrink away from Kech's tone. Why did Danr want to talk to Kech anyway? Kech hadn't been a real father, and Danr didn't want him to become one. But then Danr paused. Why should Kech get away with this particular lie when they both knew the truth?

The truth gives me power over him,
Danr realized.
He's terrified I'll tell his wife. Or the community. Imagine—he loved a human monster.

Armed with the truth, Danr said, “Do you want me to request entrance as a guest, or demand it as a son?”

Kech drew himself up in outrage for one moment more, and Danr lost his nerve. He opened his mouth to say he didn't mean it, that it didn't matter. But that was a lie, and it caught in his throat. In the tiny silence that followed, Kech deflated like a leaky bladder. He looked much smaller, there in his own doorway, no obstacle at all.

“Don't tell her,” he whispered. “Please.”

“She already knows, son,” Bund said. “Any wife worth her salt does.”

“It's not the same as saying it aloud,” Kech said sadly.

“What's my brother's name?” Danr asked.

At this, Kech looked surprised. “Torth.”

“Is he going to war?” Danr asked. “Are you?”

“We're both moving down to the camp tomorrow,” Kech said. “We'll command troops.”

“Will I?” Danr asked.

Kech had no answer. Wordlessly, Danr pushed past him and stepped through the door.

To Danr's left eye, the inside of Kech's house had also become worse. Smoke hovered so thick it made Danr cough. The mushrooms and meat hanging from the ceiling were going rancid, and they dripped gooey ichor. Danr remembered that he had eaten from those foodstuffs, and his stomach oozed.

On the tables lay pieces of armor, dented and blemished with rust. A heavy mace, old and dusty, leaned against one wall.

“So it's you.” Pyk sniffed. She was banking the fire for the night. Day. “What do you want?”

“I just wanted to see how things had changed here,” Danr was forced to reply.

Torth, who was laying out enormous, moth-eaten blankets on the table benches for bedtime, glanced up. Danr saw the resemblance between his own face and his half brother's. Aisa, Bund, and Vesha came in behind him. At the sight of Vesha, both Pyk and Torth straightened, then bowed.

“It's all right,” Vesha said. “This isn't a formal visit.”

Pyk licked her lips. Danr closed his right eye and understood how trapped she was. She knew the truth about Danr's origins, and she knew how everyone around her would react if they knew—officially—that her husband, prince or not, had lain with a human monster. She might be able to exit the marriage with her head held high, but she would still have to exit the marriage. What would the repercussions be? As an outsider, Danr didn't know, but he could see Pyk didn't think they'd be a night of games.

“Will . . . will you be staying the day?” Pyk asked.

Danr looked around the dank, smelly house, at his father, who stood to one side trying not to wring his hands, and at his grandmother. She gave him a grim smile.

“No,” he said finally, and Kech gave a small sigh. “We were just seeing Grandmother Bund home after paying our respects to the Three.”

“Such a nice boy,” Bund murmured.

Danr looked at her a little more closely. There were heavy lines on her face and he could see an overwhelming tiredness dragging at her, as if the earth itself were pulling on her body. Bund noticed his gaze.

“What is it?” she asked sharply. “What do you see?”

Danr hesitated. The awful truth pricked his eyes. He didn't want to say it. He bit his lip until the blood ran, but he felt his jaw move on its own. Aisa put a hand on his arm.

“Go on,” Bund said. “I want to know.”

“You're dying,” Danr answered softly. “I can see it. You won't last longer than the new moon.”

“Ridiculous,” Kech snapped. “You're not going to die, Mother. He doesn't know what he's talking about.”

The old trollwife looked at Kech with fond sadness in her eyes. “Yes, he does. I've known myself for a long time. My
draugr
will haunt these walls until the coming war ends and Death is set free. My penance, I suppose.”

Kech swallowed once, then abruptly whirled on Danr. With a start, Danr recognized the look on his face as one people often gave his mother after she read a fortune.

“Why did you have to come back here?” Kech shouted. “Leave us alone! Get out of my house!”

Without a word, Danr grabbed Aisa's hand and fled.

D
anr and Aisa sat in the mouth of the tunnel that led back to the surface. The soft mushroom glow crawled over the walls and stones. A pair of bats circled him for a moment, then fled squeaking into the dark. The drums faded in the distance, a faint memory. Aisa hugged her knees to her chest, understanding that this wasn't a time for words. The entire world pressed down above him like a giant's hand.

His hand stole up to the pouch and its newly expanded collection of splinters. His mother could see the truth. That was what had allowed her to read fortunes—and why people had disliked her so much. No one liked the truth. Now he had become like her. A cold feeling crept through his bowels. Was he doomed to the same sort of life, with people fearing and fleeing him? Then he suppressed a snort. Honestly it wouldn't be much of a change.

And he had spoken to Death herself. Vik, what in nine types of hell was that? She had all but commanded him to find the Iron Axe and cut the chain that bound her, which felt foolish on the face of it—what sane person would hare off to find a destroyed weapon in order to free Death, and in just twenty-seven days? Just the memory turned his hands
cold. He glanced sideways at Aisa. At least he didn't have to do it on his own.

“What are you thinking about?” Aisa said at last.

“Right now?” Danr shifted on the cave floor. “Right now I'm thinking how glad I am not to be alone. It's too much.”

She nodded. “I am glad I can be here. I am glad you saved my life so you can continue to be in mine.”

He looked at her half-hidden face in the mushroom glow, and a wave of affection made his throat thick as winter syrup. Danr couldn't imagine life without her, and when had he ever told her that? “Aisa, I—”

“I wish you hadn't run.” Vesha strode out of the darkness toward them. Startled, both Danr and Aisa bolted to their feet, the moment gone. “I have more to say to you.”

Danr thought about the dark power she drew like ink from a well. It made worms crawl over his skin. But she was a queen, one who towered over him, and he bowed low to her.

“Highness,” he said. “If I may ask, I thought a queen traveled with attendants. I haven't seen you with any.”

She looked down at him without answering. Danr closed his right eye and saw the empty space around her, a space he now knew was usually filled with other trolls. Other trollwives. Powerful trollwives. A faint tremor shivered the cave floor under his bare feet.

“Oh, damn,” he said.

“What?” Aisa asked. “What do you see?”

“Her attendants are other trollwives. They aren't with her because they're all busy. They're opening the doors.”

“We need all the doors, including the larger ones for the giants,” Vesha said. “The single door we managed to pry open is too small by itself to release an entire army, and you saw how difficult it is to use. That is thanks to Fae magic. But in a few weeks, we Stane will be free of our prison. The doors will open easily for everyone, and our people will
stream down the mountains.” She paused. “It is more than food, you know. I have lived all my life under these mountains. Never once have I set foot above. I want to do that. I want to have the choice to walk among the trees above all night, if I choose. So should my people. We are held prisoners down here, and this is wrong. I—we—must walk free above. I dream of it for my people and myself.”

“And once the doors are open and you can walk around, you can let Death go,” Danr breathed. “All this will end.”

Vesha shook her head. “The moment the Fae learn of this, they'll declare war on us. In our state of weakness, they'll crush us. We'll need power from the
draugr
to fight back.”

“Then what do you want me for?” Danr demanded.

“The Fae may have locked up the Stane,” Vesha said, “but they prey upon the Kin. They take humans as slaves. They war with the orcs. They exact tribute from the merfolk. All so that the Kin remain soft and weak.”

“If this is how trolls use flattery,” Aisa said, “our people are less alike than we knew.”

“You can help end it faster,” Vesha continued as if she hadn't spoken. “Be the emissary between our peoples. Build an alliance between Stane and Kin, help us release the harsh grip of the Fae on both our people, and Death's release will come even faster.”

“It will at that,” Danr said sadly.

“The Tree tips,” Vesha said. “The question is whether you let it smash you down, or make it lift you up.”

“Why me?” Danr said. “I'm nobody. The humans don't even like me. Neither do the Stane.”

“The Three like you,” Vesha countered. “Only they can make a truth-teller, and if they do it more than once in a generation, I have yet to hear of it.”

“Why didn't they do it for me?” Aisa asked. “I stole their eye in the first place.”

Vesha grinned, and her lower fangs gleamed. “Would you want them to make you a truth-teller?”

Aisa remained silent.

Something occurred to Danr. “How did my mother become a truth-teller?”

Here Vesha looked uncomfortable. “Kech took her to see the Three, obviously. They couldn't Twist, so they must have gone the long way.”

“Why would he do that?”

“You'll have to ask your father,” Vesha said.

He smells familiar.
Danr remembered how the Three had laughed at his questions, and now he understood why. His parents had stood before them just as he had. Something else came to him then. Whenever he had asked who his father was, Mother always said, “He was a troll who betrayed me.” Those words, the only ones he'd known, were branded on his brain. The one time he had pushed for more, she had slapped him and run away with her hands over her mouth. He knew it now—she had fled before her truth-teller's compulsion had forced the words out of her. She hadn't wanted him to know his father was Kech or that she had loved him. Why? And what had she meant when she had said Kech had betrayed her? The questions swirled around his head like a flock of bats, making him dizzy and uncertain. He wanted to run back to the house, ask Kech, demand more answers, but his father's angry face loomed in his memory. The thought of facing that made Danr cringe, and he set the idea aside. For now.

“You still haven't explained why you want my friend to be your emissary,” Aisa said, “and not your nephew Kech, who seems to enjoy visiting the upper world.”

“Your ‘friend' is still a prince,” Vesha said. “And he doesn't have the Stane's . . . problem.”

“Sunlight,” Danr breathed. “It causes you even more pain than it does me.”

“Indeed.” Vesha sat on a boulder with surprising grace for a woman of her great height and bulk. “The Stane can't go about in the day. At one time the trollwives could cast spells that blunted the sun's power, but those are beyond us now. We need someone who can move freely in both daylight and darkness. Someone of royal blood. Someone trustworthy, who won't lie to us or for us. You.”

Danr thought a long moment. He knew Vesha was telling the truth, and again he saw the heavy load she carried. She knew that Death wouldn't look too kindly on the queen if—when—the chain was broken, and she was willing to accept the dreadful consequences if it meant freeing her people. To her, this appalling choice gave her people their only chance to survive. The question was whether or not Danr wanted to be a part of it.

I am a part of it,
he thought.
Whether I want to be or not. The Tree tips.

“I'll do it,” he said aloud.

“Hmm,” Aisa said behind her scarf.

Vesha let out a long, heavy sigh on her boulder. “You have no idea how much that relieves me, truth-teller. Take these.” From her upper arm, she took a heavy band of woven gold. The metal was so pure and soft the band didn't need a clasp, but was instead bent open and shut. The intricate weave looped hypnotically around itself in a fascinating, unending pattern. “This armband will prove you are my nephew and that you speak for the Stane. Does Skyford still exist?”

“It does,” Danr said slowly.

“You'll have to talk to the earl there, then,” Vesha said. “Many of our doors open near Skyford, and we'll need his goodwill to use it as a staging area to launch an attack at Alfhame.”

“Uh . . . I'm not on the best of terms with Earl Hunin,” Danr told her. “He's the one who exiled me.”

Vesha brushed this aside with a wave of her huge hand. “You still
know
him. No one down here does. Besides, you are no longer an exile with no people. You're a prince of the Stane, and you speak with my authority. Act like it, and people will treat you accordingly. Take this.”

From her pocket, she took a small stone chest inlaid with more eye-twisting designs of purest gold. It didn't even cover the palm of her hand, though it took Danr two hands to hold it. He was expecting a weight, but it rested lightly in his hands. “It contains gifts of friendship for the earl or anyone else who wants to ally with us. You may decide how to distribute them, as befits a prince who speaks for the queen.”

“It doesn't seem much,” Aisa said.

“It will suffice,” Vesha replied tightly. “I know it won't be easy, but you will have to convince him that you have the authority and that allying with us is in his best interest. If the humans don't become allies, we'll be forced to treat them as enemies, and thousands and thousands of them will die before we attack Alfhame.”

“Why would he care if other Kin live or die?” Aisa asked sharply. “They have been nothing but cruel to him. To us.”

Vesha nodded. “An excellent question. Do you care, truth-
teller?”

Danr thought, and only for a split second. He remembered how cruel Alfgeir and his family had been, how they had caused his mother's death and virtually enslaved him. He remembered the terrible things Farek and White Halli had done to Aisa. But he also remembered the little boy dragged away by the slavers and the grief of White Halli's son, Rudin, and the kindness of Orvandel and the friendship of Talfi. The actions of one person, or even a group of people, did not mean everyone deserved punishment. He thought of White Halli's eyes, the eyes that Danr himself had drained of thought,
and a lump of guilt rose in his throat. Maybe he could do something to balance that now.

“I do care,” he said. “I'll do my best to represent the Stane, Lady Aunt.”

“And what is your name?” Vesha asked. “Bund never said.”

Danr could feel Aisa's eyes on him in the near darkness. Vesha's direct question brought the prick of words back, but this time it felt different. It took him a moment to understand that there was more than one answer, and this time he could chose between them. “It seems that down here I'm known as truth-teller, so it'll have to do.”

She gave him a look. “Very well, Truth-Teller. Go now, and serve us all.”

*   *   *

“Is it Kael?”

“No.”

“Is it Luewe?”

“Sorry.”

“Is it Barhof von Schickelmeister?”

“Oh, I hope not.”

It was late afternoon, and they were just now emerging, grubby and hungry, from the woods at the edge of Alfgeir's farm. Danr had discovered the Great Door opened easily from the inside. He had let it boom shut behind Aisa, and the two of them had slept most of the day away, Aisa curled up in a patch of warm sunlight, Danr in dappled shade with his hat over his face. Now smoke drifted from the thatching of Alfgeir's house in the distance, and a herd of Alfgeir's cows bumbled slowly down to the bottom of the pasture, ready to be brought in for the night. The cows' familiar lowing and the smell of manure on the cooling spring air pulled Danr forward, and for a confused moment, he was ready to bring the herd in.

“That's not your duty,” said Aisa, reading his expression. “You're an emissary, not a cowherd.”

Danr shifted his bag and touched the heavy twist of gold at his throat. What had been an armband for Vesha was a neck torc for Danr. “It feels like I've been gone for both a day and a decade.”

They trotted down the hill, past the lowing cows, and into the farmyard proper. Because of the two weeks they had lost to Death and the Three, it was now close to summer, and the air had become warm. Puffs of cloud obscured the late sun and blunted its golden blade, though Danr clapped his hat firmly on his head anyway. It felt strange to feel soft breezes move against his face after being in the still underground for so long. Danr closed his right eye and saw Alfgeir's farm was different. Danr shouldn't have been surprised, but he was. The fences weren't as heavy and well built as he remembered, the cows not as sleek and plump. Some of the latter had been carefully daubed with red dye. Danr chewed the inside of his cheek. People had been buying sacrificial cattle for the Nine from Alfgeir for years just because of their reddish color. Why hadn't they noticed the fakery? Why hadn't he?

“I have a question for the truth-teller,” Aisa said as they reached the bottom of the hill. “Why were you able to avoid answering what your name is just now?”

Danr blinked. “I . . . don't know. I didn't have to tell Aunt Vesha, either. Maybe it's the way you gave the question. You asked if my name was Luewe, and I said it wasn't. That's the truth.”

“So I could simply ask you directly what your true name is, couldn't I?”

The thought horrified him. She—or anyone else—could drag his true name, the one thing that belonged to him and only to him, out into the open and expose it for anyone to see.
Only his mother knew that name, and it was his greatest treasure. Sharing it was more frightening than stripping naked in the village square. “Don't!” he begged. “You can't!”

Aisa read his distress. “It bothers you that much, does it?”