The Hunter Victorious Page 18

  “Quiet,” Barat Krol commanded. “Shut your mouth and open your ears. Listen!”

  Septua did as he was told. As soon as he placed his ear against the stone, he heard it: a deep, rumbling, throaty growl, as though there were something alive inside the earth. It was an ominous sound that could mean nothing but trouble—bad, bad trouble.

  Then, even as he listened, the growling sound stopped. It was as though the earth, the world, was holding its breath. And then there was a sharp, brittle snap, as though he had broken a dry branch over his knee. Yet this was no branch, but something critical inside the earth. Immediately following the sound, the floor shifted once again, throwing them hard against the far wall. This time, as the walls and ceiling began to crumble, raining down upon them, even the red lights were extinguished.

  18

  The vendors had barely had time to down their first cup of bland, unsatisfying herb tea and initiate conversations with tentative buyers when the earth began to move. Those who were standing felt it in the soles of their feet: an urgent, tingling vibration followed by the stiff jolt that threw them to the ground, as well as the carts and wagons and even the more sturdily built stalls.

  Merchandise rained down upon vendors and customers alike as they scrambled awkwardly, trying to regain their footing. The inner cone reverberated with a cacophony of screams and shouts and the unmistakable sound of hysteria.

  The ground ceased to move and slowly people began to crawl to their feet. Still, there were cries and crying, and over near the far wall a cart had caught fire and was burning briskly, adding to the confusion.

  Voices were raised in an angry babble as people sought to find someone or something to blame for the catastrophe. Then, even as anger overcame fear, the ground moved again. This time it was more severe and, as they lay in a tangled jumble of arms and legs and irreplaceable merchandise, the rocks began to rain down on them from above.

  Not even royalty can escape such cataclysmic events. Earthquakes, floods, fire, pestilence, all are democratic in nature and favor no one class. All men, rich or poor, peasants or kings, are afforded the same opportunity to die. And so it was in this instance.

  At the time that the earth moved, Otir Vaeng, under Skirnir’s insistence, had just convened the Council of Thanes for the first time in weeks. The Thanes had been grumbling among themselves, for under the terms of the law, the council was to meet on a regular basis. The Scandi nation was a monarchy, but the Thanes were historically given a large degree of input. Although it was seldom that they were so bold as to oppose the wishes of their king, in turn, it was a wise king who saw to it that he was not in opposition to his Thanes, for they were the strength behind the throne.

  When the quake struck, the council had just been called to order. Everyone, from Otir Vaeng down to the lowliest page, was in attendance, for even a fool would have realized that something of importance was about to be announced. Nature, however, has no respect for the words of man and they were drowned out by the earth’s voice, loud and anguished. Torn from the rocky bowels, a scream of elemental agony burst forth, a twisted, tormented wailing screech of rock grating against rock that was far more frightening than the jolt that followed.

  It was the second shock that caused the most damage and the most deaths. The council chambers was one of the few places in Aasgard that reflected the Scandis’ former splendor. It was a large, circular chamber with a high, vaulted ceiling. Stone panels of finely detailed bas-relief circled the room at the point where ceiling met wall. Enormous marble statues marked the positions of various families and it was the location of these statues in proximity to the throne that ordained one’s standing in court.

  The room itself was egg-shaped, for the floor fell in tiers from the highest (and thus the lowliest position, in their convoluted method of thinking), to the lowest level, where the innermost ring of Thanes sat clustered around the throne. The statues were not neatly placed all in rows but ranged up and down the tiers.

  There was but one entrance in and out of the chamber, for the Thanes had clung to the pomp and ceremony that was all that remained of their previous glory. Flutes and tambors accompanied their entrance as the pages cried their names aloud. Sigmunds, Raggnarrsons, Andersons, Ericksons, Johansons and Rasmussens, they were all there when the ground shifted and their world changed forever.

  A few of the wiser, less pompous heads among them had cautioned against the style of architecture, warned that the porous rock was not stable enough to warrant hollowing out such a great expanse without the means to support it. They had been ignored.

  Those same voices had cautioned against the installation of the bas-reliefs, which told the story of the gods choosing the Scandis above all others and leading them out of the darkness that was earth and entrusting them to Valhalla—a pretty tale that grew more and more bitter and ironic to those few who still cared to lift their eyes to view it. But these voices of caution had been ignored as well. Oh, the others went so far as to add a few extra bolts to appease their fellow Thanes, but behind their backs the cautious ones were scorned and regarded as cowards.

  There had been no voices raised in opposition to the statues. Perhaps the prudent Thanes had grown tired of being laughed at, or perhaps even they could see no harm in erecting the enormous vanity pieces.

  It is doubtful that it would have mattered even if they had prevailed in only one issue or the other, for all three architectural elements were responsible for the horror that followed.

  Even before the ground had finished its terrible dance, the ceiling had begun to fall, huge chunks breaking off and falling upon the helpless throng below. Relatively porous and lightweight, the rock was still heavy enough to cause death and maiming when it landed on soft and vulnerable flesh.

  The carved panels shook loose of their bolts in the blink of an eye and were hurled into the room by the heaving rock with much the same momentum as a stone skipping across water. Heads were lopped from shoulders, limbs sliced from bodies, and bodies themselves neatly portioned. The panels were slippery with blood, their figures coated in crimson robes when finally they came to rest.

  The statues were probably responsible for causing the most deaths, for when they toppled, they crushed everything that came between them and the lowest point in the room. When the first tremor came, the statues began to rock on their pedestals. A few fell, but it was the second tremor that set them all in motion. Down they came, rolling and tumbling, falling and crushing those unfortunate enough to be in their path. Had there been many survivors, some few might have gained an ironic bit of humor out of the fact that their families were able to strike out, figuratively speaking, at those who had stood between them and the throne.

  But when the earth ceased its dance of death, there were too few left alive to appreciate such irony. Those few who had lived were more concerned with escaping the chamber that was now little more than an enormous burial chamber. Here and there were moans and cries issuing from the tumbled rock, and an occasional arm or finger probed the darkness signaling for help. A few bloodied and battered survivors stumbled over the debris, ignoring or incapable of hearing the cries for help as they made their way toward the exit.

  Oddly enough, as these things go, Skirnir and Otir Vaeng had both been spared, had come through the devastation with barely a scratch between them. Who was to say why such a thing had happened. Was sparing their lives a gift from the gods… or, as some later suggested, a punishment?

  Many good men perished in that brief twitch of the earth’s flank, but also many who had schemed and abetted the most evil of plans.

  Skirnir had stood riveted beside the throne when the earth gave its first tentative shake. He alone seemed to comprehend instantly what was happening. A second before the ceiling began to collapse, he seized the king’s arm and began to pull at his listless body, trying to get him up out of the throne and out of the chamber. But it was too late.

  Perhaps realizing that he would never succeed in moving the man t
o whom his life was linked, he heaved Otir Vaeng out of the throne without explanation, ignoring the pain he had caused to the swollen arm and the curses that followed. With a superhuman burst of strength, he overturned the throne, which was carved out of the granite that composed so much of the planet, and shoved Otir Vaeng beneath it just as the first rocks began to fall. He himself received a painful blow on the ankle as he tucked himself into the tiny bit of remaining space, but it did not matter compared to the death and destruction that was taking place all around them.

  They remained huddled in their tiny shelter, their oasis of safety, long after the final rock had fallen—Skirnir from fear, Otir Vaeng from shock and despair. He had been warned and he had ignored the warnings. He alone was responsible for the deaths that had occurred. His pain-filled mind took the next step as he realized that surely the damage and losses had not been restricted to this one chamber alone.

  Closing his mind to the agony of his own body as well as the screams that surrounded him, he forced the terrified Skirnir out from under the safety of the throne. It was difficult, for the throne was surrounded and nearly mounded over by the remains of the statues which had come to rest against the throne like so many dead bodies.

  Finding their way out of the dimly lit chamber was a horror in itself, for the way was clogged with fallen rock, broken statues, and,.worse… broken bodies. Each face, bearing the wounds and terrible expressions of death come too soon, were silent accusations, blows that struck Otir Vaeng’s heart and left indelible wounds. The open, lifeless, staring eyes seemed to ask him why their loyalty had brought them death. Their mouths, framing gaping, silent screams, seemed to cry out the anguish of their betrayal. Each body, each terrible recognition, was a loss that hammered at Otir Vaeng, driving nails of pain into his heart.

  The dead were the faithful, the loyal cadre of men who had entrusted their lives and the lives of their families to him on the dying earth. They had cast their fate with his and had the courage to take to the stars. The way had not been smooth; it had been hard and filled with trouble and danger. There had been dissension and anger, but in the end they had always trusted in him and followed where he had led.

  And this was where he had led them in the end, into death. Had the carnage been incurred in honest, open battle or even defying the odds of space, he could have borne it. But this was senseless, inexcusable death brought on by nothing so much as his own vanity.

  The wise old lions such as Saxo and Brandtson had argued against the construction of the room, but he had ignored their advice and ridiculed them for their efforts. If the truth were known, Otir Vaeng enjoyed the struggles of the Thanes as they attempted to maneuver themselves closer to the throne. He enjoyed watching the changes in the statuary; he thought of it as little more than a giant game of chess. But the worst of it were the remaining reliefs, which stared down upon him, mocking him. If the gods had indeed brought them to Valhalla, it must have been Loki, for only that god of mischief would play such a trick upon them. But even though they displeased him, he had not ordered their removal, for to do so would be an admission that he had been wrong, and that was unthinkable.

  Tears were streaming down his face by the time he and Skirnir reached the doorway. It too was blocked by debris. A few survivors had reached it before them and were doing their best to clear it. Blood was streaming from their wounds, and one of the men, Reynold Anderson, was working with but one good hand, his other arm hanging uselessly at his side. He had always been one of Otir Vaeng’s staunchest allies and could be counted on to support his every move. But now Anderson would not even meet Otir Vaeng’s eyes, did not appear to hear his voice when he was spoken to, and worked without ceasing like an automaton even though he must have been in extreme pain.

  Otir Vaeng did not persist in his attempts. It was clear, even to him, where the blame lay, and no amount of self-delusion would change the facts.

  The door was uncovered after a time and Otir Vaeng joined in the efforts to remove the injured. He did not leave until the last of them had been carried to the hospital, which by this time was overflowing with casualties from other areas. Only after the last of the Thanes had been gently laid on makeshift pallets did Otir Vaeng allow Skirnir to lead him away to his own quarters.

  He would not permit his personal physicians to touch him, brushing them and their cries of concern off like annoying insects. In a tone of voice that was softer and less officious than any they had ever heard him use, he urged them to take themselves to the hospital and make themselves useful.

  He seemed strangely removed from the circumstances, almost as though he were thinking of something else. He did not even seem aware of his own wounded arm, which had saturated the few bandages that he could bear with a stinking excrescence of pus and blood. The dark red streaks now extended the length of his arm and spidered up over his shoulder. The pain had to be excruciating, but Otir Vaeng gave no sign.

  Skirnir was beside himself. Otir Vaeng paid no more attention to him than a dog pays a flea. He was a minor annoyance and no more. The shape-changers, those strange men whose violence always lay just beneath the surface ready to erupt, seemed to blame him in some way for what had happened. They paced the king’s chambers, which strangely enough had suffered no damage, and cast evil glances his way. Skirnir felt that if he did not remove himself, and quickly, they would kill him, or worse, and there would be no one to stop them. They were strange, terrifying men with odd powers that not even Skirnir could understand, and he was afraid of them.

  Mumbling a few words to the king, who dismissed him with a twitch of his fingers, Skirnir hurried to his own chambers, pausing nervously, casting an uneasy eye in all directions as he unlocked the multiple safety devices that he used to protect himself from his fellow man.

  Despite his position, Skirnir possessed only the smallest of rooms, for he had no wife or family. The room, small and dark as it was, contained only a single narrow bed, a sturdy table, and a lamp. That was all, except for the treasure which he had so carefully amassed.

  He sat on the bed amid the rumpled, unwashed bedclothes and without really seeing them ran his fingers through piles of coins and unset gemstones which he had carefully pried from their settings, all looted from the burial urns and skimmed from the treasury.

  There were many such mounds in the room, each wrapped tightly in waterproof laminates and then bound with cloth into brick-sized bundles. They were amazingly heavy for their size. This was Skirnir’s treasure, his booty, his safeguard against disaster, the nameless dread fear that haunted him whether waking or sleeping. Only the heavy, solid feel of gold was able to assuage that fear.

  Skirnir sat in the darkness, fondling his gold and thinking about what had happened. Even though he had not ventured into the heart of the cone, he knew from the number of casualties and from the fragments of stories he had heard that the damage and death had been widespread. It was a situation that had to be handled carefully and quickly before it escalated in the wrong direction. A wise man could turn such a disaster to his benefit, and Skirnir definitely thought of himself as such a man.

  Someone or something had to be blamed for the catastrophe; it could not be allowed to pass as a meaningless occurrence. The people needed someone to blame, to fix their anger and their grief upon. Someone expendable, someone whose death would benefit Skirnir. And Skirnir knew just the man for the job.

  19

  Braldt was sitting in a corner of his cell when the quake struck, his back against the wall. Mirna had been standing beside the narrow door talking to Gunnar Bakkstrom, doing her best to charm him into adding something extra to their meager rations.

  It was a game that Bakkstrom seemed to enjoy, a game with the added twist of bending to his will the proud woman who had once been his mistress, something he had never been able to accomplish when Mirna was free. Then, all too often, it had been he who had begged for her favors… and been refused.

  Yes, Gunnar Bakkstrom was enjoying this turn of events,
but still, even though she was a captive and facing certain death, the cursed woman still retained that stiff-necked, arrogant tilt to her head, a way of speaking to him with a curl to her lips and a glint in her green eyes that did not exhibit the fear and respect that he would have— The floor suddenly twisted beneath his feet.

  Bakkstrom slammed against the door frame hard—hard enough to numb his arm from the shoulder all the way down to his fingertips. He stared at Mirna in amazement. How had she caused such a thing to happen? He struggled to gain his balance, to force his arm to answer his commands, but nothing happened. He was reaching for his knife when the door was thrust open, striking him a painful blow on his wrist. He staggered back under the momentum of the body that hurtled through the open door. He caught a glimpse of hate-filled eyes, lips drawn tight across teeth bared in a snarl, and then he was thrown to the floor with a strength equal to that of his own.

  Gunnar Bakkstrom fought from a sense of duty, allegiance to king and throne, and also because he was a man who enjoyed inflicting pain upon others. But Braldt fought not only for his survival, which certainly hung in the balance, but also out of hatred and frustration. Gunnar Bakkstrom served quite nicely as the focus for the accumulation of anger and rage that had built within him. The Scandis had destroyed his life and his world. Even if he was able to do no more, he would have his revenge upon at least one of them.

  Mirna was not a squeamish woman. She had seen more than her share of bloodshed and mayhem in her life, had indeed been the cause of much of it, but never had she seen a fight such as the one which took place before her now as Braldt and Bakkstrom fought for supremacy on the still trembling ground.