The Axe and the Throne (6 page)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leona plucked a leaf from the mint plant on the windowsill, popped it in her mouth, and sprinted to the bedroom. Standing at her clothes chest, she began to brush her hair, her face feeling flushed as memories surfaced of the countless times she'd similarly prepared to meet with Tallos as a young girl.

Her life with her parents had consisted each day of toiling to eek out a meager existence and battling the never-relenting foes of thirst, hunger, and the cold—a thing made evermore difficult by her father's love of mead. Leona had resigned herself, as per her mother's instruction, to be content with what little they had, to take refuge in the fact that Northmen had not yet come to kill them, and to find a husband, preferably an old and established dog breeder or distiller who would better support her. Then Tallos had come, upending all her mother's best-laid plans.

Tallos, it seemed, knew no fear. He traveled to areas that no other men dared and more often than not came back with skins, meat, and stories of vistas of great beauty. What other boys bragged of planning, Tallos was busy doing, and doing far from poorly. The cozy home in which she and Tallos now lived was built by his hands and hers. He had shown her they could accomplish through will, trial, and his endless pool of resourcefulness, whatever it was they sought.

Leona looked at her reflection in the palm-sized square of silvered glass, the only such piece they owned, and traced the lines on her face with a finger.
Damn you for making me smile so deeply
, she cursed her husband, sending an unpleasant twinge up her back at the thought that the gods may have heard her and mistaken her intent.

She had taken his gods, the Mighty Three. Tallos did not know his father, but he knew the man did not follow the Faith, the predominant religion of the Fourpaw villagers. Tallos's mother had told him of his father's gods: the River, the Mountain, and the Dawnstar. Knowing little more than their names, Tallos worshipped them in his own way. Leona believed that his worship was not out of true belief but rather in reverence to his father, who was—by his mother's account, at least—a good man, and Leona was happy to worship them in kind.

Prosperous though they were in their own way, Leona's thoughts slipped to years past, during an unrelenting string of harsh winters. Many villagers had succumbed to starvation or cold. Tallos had been faced with the burden of not only supporting their own family of three bodies and eight legs but that of helping his friend Erik and his wife and new son. All of them grew gaunt, but none so much as Tallos. She'd begged him to save more for himself, but he insisted that she and Lia remain as well fed as he could manage. Erik, Megan, and their child were taken in by Megan's parents in a neighboring village, dog breeders with plenty of wealth and provisions saved for such times. Leona did not know whether Tallos would have survived otherwise. Toward the end, he and Lia grew scarily thin, and with Tallos fearing for Lia's safety he had begun to make her, with great difficulty, remain home when he went to hunt. During one such outing, Lia escaped while Leona had fought gusts of wind at the door. She cried as she confessed to Tallos upon his return how her stupidity had cost Lia her life. “Lia is wild in her heart, and with so little to eat she was like to leave at some point,” Tallos had said. “Though it is cold, she may be better off on her own. Do not fear for her. She will find food and shelter,” he promised.

Two days later Lia returned to them, skinny as ever, with a well and dead fox in her mouth. She dropped the fox on the floor, wagged her tail and licked at their faces. It was the only time Leona had seen Tallos cry. He wept quietly and embraced his companion. They made a stew of the fox, bones and all, of which Lia received the wolf's share. Tallos never again went hunting without Lia and often gave her the freedom to roam distant and catch extra game on his longer trips.

Leona abandoned her brush and silvered glass, less interested now with the state of her appearance and more anxious about the state of her husband. She ran out her bedroom and through the front door. Beaming with energy, she scanned the faces of the men who'd just crested the nearest hill, eager to find her husband's.

Numbness consumed her arms and legs. Her vision blurred and doubled as she lost the ability to focus. Sound was replaced with a gentle ringing, which bled into a blanket of silence. The fact that the faces of the tall men approaching were those of strangers was less concerning to her than the reality that Tallos was not among them. A faraway voice from another time spoke to her, reminding her of what she knew to do in such an instance. They had planned for it together when building their home, she and Tallos. “If a raiding party should crest the ridge, or even a group of men you simply do not recognize, regardless of their dress, weaponry, or potential intentions, regardless of whether I am among them, you are to run. Run into the house as if to hide, then straight out of the rear door which we have built for this purpose and bar it from the outside. Do not hesitate, do not think, just run. Run south beyond the point at which we met Lia. Run and do not stop until you can no longer lift a foot. Follow the river as far as you can travel. I will find you.”

She tried to twirl the ring on her finger, but the motion was impossible without the feeling in her limbs. She was paralyzed, unable to move except at perhaps an implausibly slow rate of speed as if in a nightmare.
He is dead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was not the first time Tallos had seen his friend gravely wounded. Erik had no knack for climbing, but with Tallos as his only friend, he had no options but to follow or be left behind. When they were young, Erik had fallen when a loose root chosen as a handhold gave way. Sliced to ribbons, blood streaming down his face, and with a broken leg, Erik would have died where he lay had Tallos not dragged him miles back to their village. But the thick blood now spurting from the hole in Erik's neck upended Tallos's usual composure.

Still carrying the remains of his eldest son, Erik had been unable to avoid the attack that came. Greyson had approached the encumbered giant, looking hateful as he always did, and with unforeseen rage, he plunged a knife to the hilt into Erik's neck.

As Erik collapsed to the ground, Tallos's own body felt weightless. The tall pines around him began to spin, surrounding him in an ever-shrinking prison. His disembodied feeling of drifting, as if to sleep, was blanketed by a grim reality: Erik's wound was fatal.

The barking of dogs and shouting of men came from all directions. Greyson was the only one who seemed to be screaming anything of any sense, though the most Tallos could make out was “You fools!” and “Hope they kill every one of you!”

Tallos dropped the body of Erik's other boy and ran to help. Lia remained close to her master's side, her tail stiff, anxiously awaiting instruction on how to help.

“Put it down,” Tallos shouted at Greyson, much in the way he would to Lia when she grabbed something she should not. Greyson did not seem to hear his words, continuing to charge toward the next closest man in a clear effort to end their lives. There was no demented mirth in his actions; Greyson slashed at each target with every ounce of his desperate spite.

Tallos glanced at Erik. Lying on his back, blood pulsing between his fingers at his neck, Erik gasped for air like a dying fish. His eyes were wide with panic when they found Tallos's and pleaded for help, but there was nothing Tallos could do to comfort his friend until Greyson was no longer a threat.

A handful of the young men in their company had begun to circle Greyson, but most had scattered to a safer distance. Some had bows in hand, but none had weapons at the ready.
Had this been a coordinated attack by Northmen, we would all be dead.

“Put down the—”

Tallos's second request was cut short as an object flew end over end out of the nearby trees, lodging itself in the back of Greyson's skull. The impact pushed his frail frame forward, where he toppled headfirst onto the stony ground and lay motionless.

Knowing they should have been able to subdue the old man without the need for more bloodshed, Tallos breathed deeply to shout at whichever fool had thrown the object, Jegson he guessed. But before he could, a guttural war cry filled the air—a deep, fearsome noise. None of the men in his party could have made such a sound.
Northmen.

Tallos had never considered himself a coward. In fact, he had resolved to never again take the path of caution over that of action after what it had so recently cost him, but with Erik moments from death, his other men so sprawled and ineffectual, and faced with the prospect of his own mortality, Tallos's instincts screamed for him to run. Later he could dwell on whether running was indeed a path of action, and later he could hash out the hypocrisy of wishing for a valiant fight with Northmen only to flee when they appeared, but he had no time for rationalizations. He would run, hopefully faster than all the fools who had followed him and Erik to what would be an early death.

He glanced once more at Erik, if only to nod him a farewell. His foolhardy friend had brought himself to a knee and was motioning with his free hand for Tallos to leave.

“Lia, with me.” Tallos turned away just as a dozen or more men with long, shaggy manes charged out from behind the brush. Carrying only his bow, arrows, and a knife, he ran. He weaved purposefully through the trees as he went, hoping any axes or arrows sent his way would hit a trunk behind him instead of lodging itself in his head or back. Although he could feel phantom projectiles splitting his skin and cracking his bone, as far as he could tell he was yet uninjured. He did not dare look back, but the thought of those wide-eyed men giving chase drove him on at a speed that was itself dangerous on such craggy terrain.

Lia kept up with him. He could hear her heavy footfalls and panting beside him. For her this was not a difficult speed, but it was equally dangerous due to the jagged rocks.
Be careful, girl
, he pleaded in thought.

His progress came to a sudden stop when he found himself staring up from the bottom of a cliff not unlike the one that Erik's boys had clung to. Climbing it was not an option. Tallos figured he'd been running for a few minutes, enough to gain some distance from where the fight had begun. He had no way of telling if he'd been followed. His racing heart bade him keep running, to trace south without stopping, but given the narrowness of the canyon he would no doubt be heard when the fighting ceased. Against his instincts, he decided to sit with his back to the cliff and wait.

With an arrow nocked and ready, he strained to listen for any who had pursued him, finding it exceedingly difficult. In addition to Lia's panting and the sound of his own labored breathing, Tallos felt as if his skull had been stuffed full with cotton, and his heartbeat was unending thunder in his ears.

“Shhh, quiet, girl,” he said in a hushed voice to have some of the distraction diminished, and Lia began to pant a bit more softly.

The lichen at his back was moist and began to soak through his shirt as he pressed his body hard against the rocks of the cliff, as if doing so might put greater distance between him and the unseen threat. It only served to give him a chill.

A distant rustle of leaves caught his attention, but the sound stopped as soon as it had come. Tallos adjusted his position to face the exact direction of the noise and waited. “Good girl,” he mouthed as Lia mimicked her master with silence.

Near as frightening as a Northman having followed him would be one of the men from his own party crashing through the bushes, breathless, making enough noise to attract all the North. He wondered if he would be forced to silence such a man with an arrow—a thing he never would have considered if not for the frantic nature of his overwrought mind.
If it is Jegson, I will shoot.

Through the thick fog of fear clouding his thinking, he envisioned Leona. His reminiscence of her was immediately corrupted, recalling how shameful their last exchange had been. Tallos's resolve hardened to that of steel, and he gnashed his teeth.
I will not die before seeing Leona and making right the way in which I left her. I will shoot any man who approaches, even Erik come back to life.

Before Tallos could pass final judgment on his most recent thoughts, a figure charged from the woods where he faced. The man was tall and heavy, running at full speed with tangled hair bouncing behind him. Neither the thick furs that clad him nor the weapons dangling from his waist seemed to abate his reckless dash.

Tallos drew and loosed an arrow—an easy shot at that distance under normal circumstances, but shooting a man intent on splitting his head was not something he had experience with. In his rush to fire he pulled the shot right. He watched in horror as the arrow sailed off, missing its mark by over half a foot. Now close enough to be clearly seen as a Northman, the runner showed no intention of slowing, and his axe was poised as if to throw once in range.

Tallos readied himself to jump left or right the moment the axe was thrown, hoping the man would not wait until it was too close to dodge. But it was Lia who acted first, snarling and bolting toward the attacker. The relief of realizing he had help turned to dread as the Northman threw his axe instead at Lia. She made no effort to avoid the tumbling weapon, which sliced her along the back, not affecting the speed of her assault. Tallos sprinted behind her with his knife in hand.

Lia reached the Northman first and dug her teeth into his arm, shaking her head violently. Tallos was not far behind, expecting at any moment for his vision to go red like when finishing a deer. He saw with crystal clarity, however, the edge of his knife bite first into the hand and then into the neck of the flailing man. The Northman continued to fight with surprising strength as the blood gushed out of him, and Tallos stabbed him repeatedly in the chest and stomach. Finally, the man curled up, only trying to shield himself, then ceased to move altogether.

Lia seemed to know instinctively that the man was dead but remained close to the kill. “Over here, Lia,” called Tallos, fearing the man's corpse may come alive and hurt her. His heart pounded, and he could see now his hands were shaking and felt oddly cold. There was no time for worry, however; he could check for wounds later. He was more concerned about the potential for other Northmen to follow, and he led Lia back to their original place of ambush to wait.

Minutes of silence passed followed by distant yelling as one Northman continued to call the name of another without answer.

In time, the yelling stopped and Tallos heard nothing more, but he watched in the same direction without making any movement of his own. Blood rushed back into his fingers bringing with it the relief of knowing their cold had not been from an injury, but he still feared death as much as ever. Tallos focused on the spot from which the man had come with unwavering intensity.
This time I must not miss.

They waited for the better half of an hour but did not hear any more signs of life. Tallos looked again at the Northman's corpse.
Leknar
, he thought, recalling the name that had been yelled.
Could that be the name of this man I have killed?
He tried to imagine such a man having a family of his own, a wife awaiting a return that would never come, but he felt only hatred. This man did not belong here, and his fate was deserved.

From the corner of his eye Tallos noticed Lia move. She remained beside him, but apparently too tired to squat at the ready, she had laid down on her side with a whine.

“Quiet, Lia,” he said with anger and frustration in his voice. She could easily have drawn more attackers with her noise. He spared a glance in her direction and was sickened to see her covered in blood. It did not appear to be the darkened caking blood of a wound sealed or from the Northman. The blood was thin and bright red.

“Stay, girl. You're all right,” he said, more to convince himself than her, as he went to examine her for wounds, encumbered with worry. The gash across her back from the thrown axe was dark and scabbed and did not look life threatening. “You're all right,” he repeated as he moved her around gently to try to find where the fresh blood was coming from.

He saw what appeared to be a deep wound in her side that continued to bleed. The Northman must have had a knife and managed to stab her during the confusion of battle. Tallos knew immediately it was serious. It had to be sealed or she would bleed to death, and to do so he must get her home where he could find hot coals in the fire. Not thinking quite clearly, he ripped a piece of his shirtsleeve off and tried to push it against the wound. He ripped off a larger piece and tied it around her to keep it pressed firmly and slow the bleeding. His makeshift bandage was already soaked red when he stood up and tried to gain his bearings.

“Come on, girl,” he said. He would have preferred to wait longer, but Lia needed help as soon as possible. She looked up at him with mournful eyes but did not move. “Come on. Let's go home,” Tallos pleaded. She stood and tried to move but fell down again with a yelp.
Gods of the River, the Mountain, and the Dawnstar, you took my friend and his sons, but you will not take her.

Tallos threw all his gear on the ground that he did not need—everything except the knife at his belt. “I am going to pick you up,” he said to her and bent down to do so. He managed to lift her, intending to put her across his shoulders, but as she whined in protest he realized it would be too painful for her due to her injuries. He would have to carry her in his arms which would be far more difficult.

Tallos did his best to cradle her in front of him. She whimpered at first, but he could see she understood he was only trying to help, just as she did when he'd need to pull a thorn from her paw. He imagined the pain of a thorn must pale in comparison to her current suffering, however.