Land of the Gods (Isolde Saga Book 4) Read online

  "It is, my Lord," Skaldi said.

  "Then I cannot help you," Hēr said. "The draugrs have sworn oaths to defend their king for eternity. They no longer live, but they have not passed into my realm either. I have no power to give you permission to govern them. Who have they sworn too?"

  "The draugrs are ancient, Lord," Skaldi said. "They swore themselves to Halladarth, but that king has long gone to dust."

  "Then ask Halladarth," Hēr said.

  The god looked at Skaldi for a long time, before turning to look at the others, each in turn. His eyes locked onto Harald's for a moment that seemed to stretch and then, he turned back to the wall from which he had come. He took a step toward it, and the shadows began to shift toward some epicentre in which he was heading. Soon the heavy darkness began to build once more, the torches flickered, and Harald could feel the energy from his body being pulled toward it. Hēr stepped into the black hole and as he slipped away, the shadows flooded back to normal and the room was empty once more.

  "What in Throndir's name was that?" Snorri boomed out from the back of the cavern.

  Skaldi lifted himself up slowly and brushed the dust and dirt from his knees.

  "Be silent, fool," he cursed the dwarf.

  "What do we do?" Harald asked.

  Skaldi let out a sigh, "we ask Halladarth for permission to use his guard."

  Harald furrowed his brow in confusion.

  "How?" he asked.

  "We can summon him," Skaldi said, "but it will be neither safe nor easy, and as the Lord Hēr has warned, it is against the natural order. And if he comes to us, we must wonder why he would surrender his guard to our use anyway."

  "Come on," Thodin said, "let's do it, lads. Where are we heading, Skald?"

  The old man heaved out a sigh and Harald watched his shoulders slump as though they held the weight of the world.

  "Back to the temple," Skaldi said.

  ***

  Isolde's heart was pounding, her head was light, and it felt as though everything was moving in slow motion. She had taken off into one of the side alleys as quickly as she could with the demonic death squad right behind her. She could hear them screaming, the vroom of the hunting horn, the clash of their devilish hooves on the cobbled stone and hard mud. She didn't dare look back, she had to focus on escaping. Here in the twisting alleys of the slums, every step seemed setup to make her fall. The road itself was uneven, with deep ruts and slick mud, trash and debris had been scattered with little regard so that the pathways were littered with rotting wooden barrels and boxes, bones and pools of human waste.

  Left and right, right and then left, Isolde sprinted down the maze of alleys. Curious eyes looked down at her from shuttered windows and open holes in the walls of squalid dwellings. Yet there wasn't a soul on the street, it was as if they had all scattered in fear and she thought that this truly was a hellish place to end up after life.

  She twisted around another corner and ducked into the crevice of a doorway. With long slow breaths, she managed to calm the burning in her chest and she strained to listen for the sounds of the hunters, but the pounding of her heart was overbearing. She was sure she had lost them. She pushed back against the door she was hiding in and the old hinges creaked as it gave way. Isolde slipped inside the hovel to the scene of true poverty. A mother stood guarding her two children in the corner of the rotten home. Her face was deep with age and worry, and her dark eyes held a glare at Isolde.

  "Out," she hissed under her breath. "Get out!"

  Isolde raised her hand to her lips to silence the mother and quietly closed the door.

  "Help," Isolde mouthed silently.

  She could see the two young children peering from behind their mother’s legs and the mother pointed up toward some stairs along the far wall. It was all Isolde needed and she silently slunk around the family and took the creaky wooden steps. The stairs opened up to a second level and she saw a man leaning against the wall, smoking a thin clay pipe, and watching from the window. He turned to Isolde with a dispassionate look and nodded her over to him.

  "Look," he whispered, gesturing out the window.

  She crept over and glanced out, being careful not to get to close. The demons that had been chasing her were walking the street below. She could see them better from here. They were more animalistic than she had first thought, their black leathery wings folded back onto iron armoured bodies, but dark brown fur still managed to poke out through the chinks and she could see their muscular legs were bent like that of cloven goats. There were six of them, their wicked heads jutting this way and that as they snorted down the air trying to catch her scent. Cruel horns twisted from their scalps and wicked blades of perverted iron hung low in their hands.

  "They are looking for you?" the man asked slowly without taking his eyes away from the window.

  Isolde nodded and the man took a pull from his pipe.

  "Why?” he asked.

  But he spoke too loudly and Isolde watched as one of the beasts twisted his foul head toward the window. Its flat nose snorted the air and it let out a fierce bellow. The man turned to her with wide eyes.

  "Come," he cried and the pipe went shattering against the ground.

  With a last glance back, she saw the beasts crashing into the doorway below and then the man took her arm and jolted her through a passageway.

  "Run," he cried, "run, run!"

  CHAPTER VI

  "Come on!" he cried.

  The stranger was ushering her on down the hallway. Isolde shuddered at the screams of the children below and the hoofed feet clacking on wooden floorboards.

  "This way," he cried as he grabbed Isolde's hand and yanked her through a false door in the wall.

  He slammed shut the entrance and Isolde found herself scrambling down a twisted wooden staircase, down and down until the man thrust himself in front of her as they reached the floor. He led her through a crack in the wall and out into the street.

  She looked back as they fled from the house and he ran her across the streets into another hovel. This one was empty but the man didn't slow down, he kept peering over his shoulder, but he wasn't looking at Isolde, no, he was checking for the demons on their tail.

  He guided her through countless houses, past children with hollow eyes, and men full of fear who would nod to the stranger as he passed. It was a maze of rotten wood, shoddy iron, and hopeless souls. The stranger passed them all with speed and silence and Isolde followed his every step.

  They wraithed their way down a hallway and without warning, the man spun around and pulled Isolde through a door and into a little room.

  "Why are they following you?" he demanded.

  His eyes were intense, like a hawk zoning in on its prey, and for the first time, Isolde really got to take him in. He was older, with grey flecks through his dark brown hair. It was messy with soft curls and his thick eyebrows were crossed as he studied her.

  "Tell me, girl, before I throw you onto the street."

  He had the same accent as Marco, though his tone was short and harsh.

  "I have something they want," she managed to say.

  "What do you have?" he asked with a raised brow.

  Isolde sighed, this was going to be difficult to explain, but she figured this man hated these beasts as much as her, maybe she could trust him.

  "It is a long story," she said, "but I have the soul of the Black Witch trapped in a ruby."

  The man frowned heavily at the news, but slowly he nodded his head and put a thick hand on Isolde's shoulder.

  "If what you say is true," he said, "then you hold a very powerful thing in your pocket."

  Isolde took a step back, there was something the man wasn't telling her.

  "Who are you?" she asked.

  "I am Nicolo Benedetto, and an enemy of my enemy is a friend to me."

  He put his hand out and she looked at it a moment before shaking it.

  "I think you and I, we have a common cause. But I cannot work it out,
how a beautiful young lady has come across such a fearsome artefact."

  "The ruby? I had a friend cut it out my chest," Isolde said matter-of-factly.

  Nicolo took a step back, a look of shock and awe painted across his face.

  "My name is Isolde," she continued, "and I am linked to that foul hag. I came here to save my mother, and if I can, to end Orlog's life.”

  Nicolo shook his head.

  "You have big plans," he said, "but without friends, you will not get far in this place."

  "I have friends," she lied, thinking about the way Marco had abandoned her at the first sight of the demons.

  Nicolo laughed, "well, then, you will need friends who are strong, yes? And I know how I can help you."

  "How?" Isolde blurted out.

  "We have been fighting the devils for a long time now, Miss Isolde. We keep to the shadows, we stay underground, but we do not kneel to the lord Bezhaal any longer."

  "Can you get me to the castle?" she asked.

  "I can... but one favour is worth another, yes?"

  Isolde knew that this was coming, she could just sense it on the man, he wasn't going to give her anything unless he benefited somehow.

  "What do you need?" she asked.

  "I need you to destroy that thing... that ruby soul. You have to promise me that you will throw it into the abyss."

  "If I make that promise, then what power do I have to bargain with Bezhaal?"

  "You will have none!" Nicolo snapped. "But you do not understand, you are too young, you have not seen this world for what it is. If you destroy the Black Witch then you will give our cause a chance to win. It would be a crushing blow against Bezhaal and the devils."

  "And if I destroy the soul, I will be stuck here with you forever, right? How would I ever return home?"

  "It is a small price to pay, Isolde. One life suffers so others may be at ease."

  Isolde shook her head.

  "Maybe," she said. "Maybe I can do both, but I need you to get me to the castle first."

  "Swear it," Nicolo said, his intense eyes boring into Isolde.

  "I can't," she replied and let her eyes flicker to the floor.

  "Then promise me you will not give the beast the soul ruby, at the least you can do that."

  Isolde looked back at him.

  "I promise I will do all I can to destroy her, believe me, I want nothing more than to see that wretched fiend destroyed."

  Nicolo nodded slowly.

  "Good," he said, "that will do. I can get you close to the castle, Isolde. I have friends nearby, and we have tunnels that go far beneath the city, but we cannot go anywhere while the beasts are looking for us."

  "Didn't we lose them?" she asked.

  "Yes," he said, "but they won't be lost for long and we do not have the luxury of taking chances. If one of them got back with news on our whereabouts, then everything we have fought for would be for nothing. We cannot let them know we exist. We have to take out the death squad."

  Isolde swallowed hard.

  "How?" she asked.

  Nicolo smiled at her, "come, I have friends for you to meet."

  ***

  The old priest hissed and chattered his teeth.

  "So," Vis said slowly. "You managed to speak with the Lord Hēr."

  The man's eyeless face went still and Harald watched his nostrils flare as though he were sniffing out some truth from the air.

  "Tell me," the priest asked. "Did you get what you sought?"

  Skaldi stayed silent for a moment before opening his mouth.

  "Yes and no."

  "Ha!" the priest croaked, "it is always the way with gods, is it not?"

  "The Lord Hēr suggests that I might speak with the late King Hallodarth."

  "Hmmm..." the priest nodded.

  "I was hoping that you might help?" Skaldi asked.

  "What is your obsession with the dead, Skaldi? Why are you here? I can smell change in the air... it is like a snake shedding its skin... it is the death before rebirth. What are you plotting?"

  "Plotting?" Skaldi sounded taken aback. "I am trying to put things in the world back to their rightful place. You of all people should appreciate that kind of work."

  The priest nodded slowly and then shook his head.

  "You speak such words of wisdom, Skaldi, but it is a thin veil. You wish to summon Hallodarth from his long rest and yet you know that necromancy is far from the course of the right path."

  Skaldi murmured and sighed.

  "Can evil actions be forgiven in the course for good?" he asked.

  The priest frowned and shook his head.

  "Evil begets evil. If your purpose was pure, you would not seek the darkness in aid of your own betterment."

  Harald watched Skaldi's lip twitch and his eye flicker.

  "It is not for my betterment," Skaldi said. "I get nothing from all of this and you know that."

  "Have you gone too far?" the priest asked back, "have you dived too deep into this affair, Skaldi? You know where necromancy leads, and you know what is divinely ordered. I will not sanction, nor will I guide you in raising Hallodarth."

  Harald watched Skaldi’s head drop, but then a thought formed in his mind.

  "I will do it," he said suddenly.

  The words seemed to have slipped from his mouth before he even realised what he was saying. The two old men were looking down at him, Harald lost his breath with their wide-eyed expressions. What had he done?

  "He will do it," the priest said softly.

  "No," Skaldi said, "I will not allow it."

  "You will not be there," the priest shot back.

  His eyeless face looked down on Harald and a thin smile broke across his face.

  "Are you sure, Harald Grimeye? Will you be the one to perform the ritual, to raise Hallodarth, and parlay with the dead?"

  Harald's eyes flickered back to Skaldi, the old man had buried his face in his hands and the sight made Harald feel weak. But he couldn't be weak, not now.

  "Is there no other way?" Skaldi pleaded.

  The priest shook his head.

  "I will do it," Harald said again. The words more to himself then to the others.

  CHAPTER VII

  Harald followed the old priest down the winding stone stairs and wondered how the blind man could take the short steps with such ease. In one hand, Harald held a black chicken in a wicker cage that squawked with every step, the bird thrashed about and Harald fumbled with it as he stepped down into the low room where Isolde had taken her bath. Harald could see her lifeless body floating in the icy water, the flickering torchlight casting shadows across her face so that it looked as though she were still alive.

  Vis murmured something as they passed her and led Harald through a stone doorway into the utter darkness of the next room. The chicken went mad in the dark, and Harald could feel from the air that they had entered a greater hall. It felt open, and as Vis lit up a torch in the room, Harald gasped in horror. They were standing on the edge of a great drop, a huge hollow that a pathway gently ringed around slowly, but how deep it was, Harald could not say, for the light did not penetrate the darkness very far.

  His eyes followed the path that gently lowered its way down the hollow. Doorways had been cut into the wall every twenty feet or so, with bone-lined shelves filling the spaces between them, so that any place in which the eye found itself was a resting place for the dead. It was a mortuary, a great necropolis that burrowed its way deep into the heart of Heroth Nuir. Harald felt his heart falter and the feeling of death swept over him.

  "Do not fear," Vis said, as though he could read Harald's mind. "This is the resting place of the dead. The only one who can harm you here is yourself, Harald Grimeye."

  Harald felt himself swallow, but it was hard and got caught in his dry throat.

  "Do you remember what to do?" Vis asked.

  Harald nodded, but now that he was here he wasn't sure if it could be done. He wasn't sure if he were up for the task. A dry
wind blew up in a gust from deep within the hollows of the earth and the torch fluttered as Vis handed it over to Harald.

  "Any of the sepulchres will do," he said. "But try not to go too deep."

  With that, the blind priest turned his back and left Harald alone in this place of the dead. The torchlight sputtered and the chicken let out one last low caw before ruffling its feathers and going silent. Harald took a deep breath and began his lonely walk, his footsteps echoed off the stone path and disappeared into the darkness and slowly he passed the first tomb.

  It was not so much that this place exuded the feeling of danger, no, it was something else. Harald could feel it, it horrified him to his core and as he walked on he realised it was the depth of the necropolis itself. The impenetrable darkness, the utter silence. It was the nothing that frightened him, the infinite nothing that seemed to press in on him from every direction.

  As he came to the second tomb, the will to go on flooded away and so he decided this was as good a place as any. Harald held the torch light up and read the words engraved on the stone above the arched doorway.

  ALTUM PAX QUIETAM TERRA VOBIS

  The writing meant nothing to him, but he did not like not knowing. Was it a warning? A curse? He had to shake these thoughts from his mind and he reminded himself that Vis had told him that no danger was here, the dead were all at rest. Still… Harald thought… if the dead knew my intentions, if they could guess what I was going to do, maybe they would try and defend themselves...

  He shook himself free of the thought and entered the crypt. The room was cold and the shadows from his torch ran from him and danced into the corners. Small shelves had been cut into the stone of the walls, each laden with a small pile of bones on which an ancient skull sat perched, there were six on each side, each with the lifeless hollows of the sockets watching his every move. He looked from left to right and thought that they seemed to be judging him. Did they know?

  Do not fear... he reminded himself, and without waiting, he put the chicken cage down on the ground and planted the torch in an iron holder by the doorway. A low stone sarcophagus lay at the far wall, it was the body he was looking for. Vis had said that each of the tombs had a patron spirit, the one who was entombed there with full honours. Most were great leaders of bygone eras or heroes whose names had been lost with the passing of time.