Iron Axe (23 page)

“Who is the council, sir?” Danr asked.

“Each nest chooses one man and one woman to sit on the Council of Wyrms. In the days before the Sundering, we orcs fought one another all the time over grazing lands and herds and eggs. After the Sundering, we created the council.”

“What happens now?”

“We still fight over grazing lands and herds and eggs, but now the losers can complain to the council.”

“Ah.” The Sundering. The Axe. He kept getting distracted. The haft or the power was supposed to be in Xaron, while the elves kept the head in Palana, the capital city of Alfhame. “Sir, have you heard of the Iron Axe?”

Hess raised his eyebrows. “Of course! It was lost during the Sundering. What a weapon that would be!”

“I want to find it,” Danr said, and explained, though since Hess hadn't actually asked about it, he was able to leave out the parts about Death and the Three. Instead he let Hess think Danr was only looking for it to ensure that the Kin could win the war against the Fae.

“Well!” Hess looked Danr up and down. Mostly up. “There's more and more and more to you, Prince Hamzu from under the mountain. This is a quest worthy of Fell himself, and your songs will speed across the grasslands long after you're gone.”

“I don't want songs,” Danr said. “Just the Axe. Do you know where the haft or the power might be?”

“Hmm. In the songs, this is the verse when the wise old man tells the young warrior where to find the weapon he seeks.” Hess drummed his fingers on his thigh. “I must not be old or wise enough, because I have no idea.”

Danr sighed. Of course not. When had anything been that simple?

“But perhaps someone at the council will know,” Hess continued. “Many orcs there are much, much older than I.” And before Danr could say more, Hess strode away.

Exhausted now, Danr turned his back on Aisa and the orcs and crawled into his tent, barely noticing that Talfi was already asleep
inside.

I
t took a solid fortnight of riding to reach the Council of Wyrms meeting place. Danr had thought he was strong, but those two weeks nearly destroyed him. It wasn't the riding. It was Aisa.

Wyrm riding itself was a unique experience, both challenging and exhilarating. Danr had never been on the back of so much as a plow-horse, and he found the saddle, with its scent of leather and the strange smell of wyrm, intimidating. One orc held the wyrm's bridle for him while Hess himself showed Danr how to swing himself up into the seat. The saddle creaked, and Danr abruptly found himself high as a tree. The wyrm, which was easily long enough for three riders, dipped slightly under his weight, and Danr, feeling off balance, clutched at the saddle with both hands.

“Nix will not run off with you,” Hess said. “He will follow wherever the nest goes. Hold yourself in place with knees and thighs. Here are the reins. It is much like a horse—pull gently in the direction you wish to go, and pull back to slow or stop.”

And with those minimal instructions, they were off. Wyrms slithered ahead with both a forward and a side-to-side rocking
motion that made Danr a little dizzy until he adapted to it. Then it became a little more fun. Once the nest got going and Danr felt more sure of himself, he urged Nix to go faster, then faster still, and the speed took his breath away. Wind rushed past his ears, and the grass turned into a blur beneath his feet. Faster and faster he flew across the green plain with the azure sky above, and for a moment, the wind blew away Aisa and the Iron Axe and Talfi's resurrection. He even managed to half stand in the saddle, feeling tall and strong and fast with the wyrm beneath him, flying breathlessly across the prairie. He could run, slide, fly forever, never stop, leave all his troubles behind him. He was light and air and glory all at once.

But then he felt Nix's movements change. The wyrm was laboring, and his mouth was open, half panting. Guiltily Danr reined him in. They had outpaced the nest, and he slowed Nix to a bare crawl until first the scouts, and then the main group caught up with them. The enormous herds of sheep brought up the rear. The Eighth Nest consisted of about three hundred orcs of all ages, and they flattened the green prairie grass in a mile-wide swath wherever they went. Hess gave him a silent nod of understanding and rode past. Danr flushed a little and settled into a regular ride that lasted days and days.

He learned a great deal during those days. Riding the great wyrms wasn't a matter of simply clutching a saddle. It involved balance and thigh muscles and shoulders. Unlike the orcs, Danr was forced to use reins, which added even more difficulty. The orcs gave him only cursory guidance—they simply expected he could keep up. Danr had seen how they treated people who couldn't keep up, so he did his best to move ahead, even in the mornings, when his muscles screamed and his bones begged him not to get into the saddle. After the first agonizing hour, however, his stiff body warmed up and he was able to enjoy the ride again.

Talfi, another honored guest, had a wyrm as well. Most days, he and Danr rode side by side as the nest slithered forward, with scouts in the lead and the enormous herds of sheep bringing up the rear. Now that Danr had a chance to watch it at length, he found the prairie quite beautiful. A rumpled plain spread in all directions, covered with both emerald grass and carpets of sweet-smelling flowers—yellow roses and purple violets and sunny daisies and scarlet hyacinth and a rainbow of others Danr couldn't name. Few trees broke the landscape, but rich flocks of birds—geese and ducks and swans and pheasants and quail—rushed overhead, and the orcs brought them down with arrows and slings, letting them hang from saddles as they rode for later roasting. A relentless sun burned in the clear sky and threatened to crush Danr's head and eyes until one of the orcs, noticing his discomfort, gave him a wide hat of heavy felt. It was the thickest, finest hat Danr had ever owned, and it blocked the sun so well he barely noticed it was light out. He hadn't noticed how much sunlight headaches had been a part of his life until they stopped, and the difference lent a little exhilaration to balance out the body aches.

Anyway, it wasn't the aches that threatened to break him. Aisa avoided Danr with great proficiency. Wherever Danr was, Aisa simply was not. He suspected she had learned that skill as a slave. On the rare incidences he caught sight of her, she was with Kalessa. She rode daily beside Kalessa, also on a borrowed wyrm, and the two of them often ran ahead of the nest. Jealousy flared whenever he saw them together. He knew it was irrational, but he couldn't help it. And when he wasn't jealous, a strange mix of guilt and anger over his argument with Aisa's rejection pulled him down. She was angry at him for using his true eye on her, but he hadn't done it out of malice or cruelty. All right, he had been thoughtless, that much was true, but he would never hurt Aisa on
purpose. And she had said bad things about his mother, the only person who had ever loved him, then forced—
forced
—him to speak when he had begged her to let him stay silent. How was that different from what he had done to her? She was being cruel and unfair in her own way, and the injustice of it simmered a slow anger in him.

At the same time, he felt the loss next to him where she usually walked, and he missed her voice and her sharp, sarcastic tongue with a pain that hurt more than sunlight. He lost weight, and it was difficult to crawl out of his tent every morning.

Talfi, on the other hand, thrived with a cheer that Danr half envied, half admired. He made several friends among the orcs, who still treated him with a certain amount of awe, and didn't seem overly bothered by his own death. Of course, he didn't remember it.

The orcs remained surprisingly busy while they rode, no matter how fast the wyrms went. They hunted birds and small animals, scouted for water and campsites, checked the herds, supervised children, and even performed small tasks such as darning clothes or repairing armor while in the saddle. In the evenings, they set up quick camps and went to bed. Hess said they were moving fast and spending more time traveling every day than normal. As a result of the long days, Danr didn't have much time to meet his orc hosts, and during the night, the two stars drifted closer and closer, eating away his time.

He did talk to Talfi while they rode. Talfi was hungry to know who he had been, and he pumped Danr for information. Danr told him everything he remembered about their friendship, how they had met at Orvandel's house, killed a wyrm on the road back to Alfgeir's farm, faced down a mob, and encountered the first
draugr
together. It all seemed so long ago, as if it had happened to different people.

For completeness' sake, he also told Talfi what had happened to him and Aisa under the mountain, how they had met the Three, and how Danr was trying to make alliances while finding the Iron Axe. But he avoided saying anything about Talfi being
regi.
Talfi didn't ask, and Danr couldn't bring himself to say the words. It was the strangest thing, knowing something about Talfi that Talfi himself didn't know, especially something as . . . as . . . well, Danr didn't know how to describe it. When Talfi had lost his leg, Danr suddenly found he didn't give a dead cat's whisker whether Talfi was
regi
or not—he only wanted his friend to live. And when Hess had killed Talfi, Danr's monstrous half had ripped free with an unexpected and terrifying power. Now, against all laws of nature, he had his friend back. Compared to that, a thing like who Talfi might love seemed as inconsequential as a mosquito to a warhorse. And yet . . .

A small bit of understanding crept over him. He was having trouble with this because this was outside the normal rules.

He snorted to himself. After a lifetime of living on a farm, he had killed a wyrm, visited mystic giants, become an emissary to trolls, argued with an earl, and Twisted halfway across the continent, but
this
was outside the normal rules?

Well, yes. It was. All the other things he had heard about in tales and stories. They were distant things that had come suddenly close, but at least he had known what they were. But
regi
men were only mentioned occasionally, and then with scorn and derision, as if they were monsters worse than the greatest wyrms. In the back of his mind, Danr had always known that trolls and giants and other such things existed, but it had never occurred to him that he might become friends with someone who was
regi
,
let alone one who didn't actually know it yet. The stories gave you rules about
trolls and giants and even humans. But there were no rules for
regi
,
except that you were supposed to hate them, and no matter how shocked he might be, Danr couldn't hate Talfi. Not ever.

He found himself studying Talfi, trying to see if there were any signs of it now that Talfi had no memory of himself. But what signs was he looking for? Feminine behavior? A way of speaking? An unexplained desire to sew? Danr had no idea. Maybe, now that Talfi had died and come back to life, his desire for men had disappeared. Or maybe, now that Talfi wasn't around human men anymore, he wouldn't notice he was
regi.
That brought another thought: did Talfi find orcish men desirable? The thought sent a shudder over him. On the other hand, Danr thought Kalessa was attractive. If Danr thought orcs were good-looking, why shouldn't Talfi think the same thing about humans? He sighed. It was all very confusing. Much easier just to keep his mouth shut and hope Talfi didn't ask.

Talfi also often touched Danr's pouch at his throat, and Danr felt strange every time he did so. The pouch was the only remnant Danr had of his mother, and seeing Talfi wear it was like walking around naked while Talfi wore two cloaks. Trouble was, he didn't know how—or if—he should ask for it back. The pouch had been a grave gift, and no one ever took a grave gift back.

He sighed again. Life back in Alfgeir's stable had been dull and dirty, but at least it had been empty of stupid moral problems.

“What was it like?” Danr asked one day as the nest rushed across the prairie. The orcs spread out on their wyrms in a great tapestry sliding across the grass ahead and behind them. As he always did, Danr scanned for Aisa from underneath his heavy felt hat, but he didn't see her, and the lack made his chest tight.

“What was what like?” Talfi rode his wyrm with an easy skill, as if he were only remembering something he had learned long ago. Maybe he was.

“You know. To die and come back.”

Talfi touched Danr's pouch—Danr twinged—and thought a moment. Then he shook his head. “I still don't remember. My first memory is of opening my eyes and seeing red cloth.”

“That pouch,” Danr said, trying to be delicate for once, “is special to you.”

“Yeah.” He lifted it to his nose and inhaled. “It's strange. When I touch it or smell it, I get . . . little images. Tiny memories that try to form, but don't quite. It's the same when I touch this.” From under his shirt, he fished out the copper chain and the silver amulet with Ashkame on one side and the double-bladed axe on the other and ran his thumb around the perimeter. “Sometimes, when I feel its edges, I get . . . shadows. A battle. Metal clashing. Screams. Blood. A lot of blood. And water. Like I'm swimming or drowning or both. And sometimes I see a man with red hair and green eyes. He talks to me, but I can't hear what he's saying.”

With a chill, Danr remembered their conversation on the road from Skyford, when Talfi had repeated those exact words.

“But when I touch this pouch, or smell it”—Talfi did both, and Danr wanted to snatch it from him—“it brings back other shadows. Big hands. A man with white hair. Feathers and arrows. And a stable with a tiny fire and smoked salmon. It's so close. Last night, I dreamed about them. I swear, I'm on the edge of remembering everything with this, somehow. But I'm not quite there.”

Danr, who himself had been on the edge of asking for the pouch back, stopped his words. Maybe Talfi could get his memory back if he held on to the pouch. Maybe it smelled like Danr or maybe the pouch had hidden truth in it, or
maybe it was something else. Danr guided his wyrm around a hillock, though the creature didn't really need guiding. “I see,” he said instead.

“I'm kind of scared,” Talfi confessed. “I don't know anything about myself except what you've told me, and you only knew me a few days. I don't know who my parents are or where I was born or how I got to . . . where was it? Skyford? Let alone how I came back to life.”

Talfi's own wyrm ran its tongue out. Talfi asked abruptly, “Do you know where I came from?”

Danr shook his head. “I wish I did, Talfi. Now that Aisa's . . . well, you're the only friend I've got.”

“Have I changed since I came back?”

“Except for the missing memories, you're exactly the same Talfi I knew,” Danr said.

“Huh.” He touched the pouch with his free hand. “Do you know where I got—”

“Talfi,” Danr interrupted quickly, before he could finish a question Danr didn't want to answer, “how old are you?”

He shrugged. “It's kind of silly to ask. I don't—”

“Yeah, yeah. Dead, back to life.” Danr shifted in the saddle and nodded to a pair of younger orcs who slithered past on wyrms of their own. “So, do you think this has happened more than once? When we first met, you told me your first memory was walking into Skyford. What if you died and returned back then, and—”

“And that's why I lost my memory,” Talfi breathed. “Wow. Do you think something killed me on the way to Skyford?”

“I don't know what to think. But when you came back this time, your leg and your head had regrown.” He thought a moment longer, letting the ideas move together like continents colliding. “What if . . . ,” he said slowly, “. . . what if
that healing helps with aging? What if you don't just heal missing heads—”