A Dark Sacrifice Read online

  Yet somehow his greatest fear was of the citadel itself. The Old Fortress at Tirfang, it had a bad name: witches built it, raised it by magic, infecting even the ordinary materials in which they worked—stone, timber, and slate—with their dark sorceries. It was not a place of safety, not of long-term safety anyway; Kivik was well aware of that. It had not proved so for the ancient witch-lords, or for anyone since. No one in a thousand years had successfully defended it. The seven great encircling walls, the seven mighty iron gates, they still stood, but the flesh-and-blood defenders had always died.

  “We can’t really know what happened here five hundred or a thousand years ago,” offered Skerry, as if reading his thoughts. An ice-edged wind swirling through the courtyard shook the flimsy silk walls of the pavilion, blew a wintry gust in through the open doorflap, and then moved on. “It would be a great pity, would it not, if we defeated ourselves with our own superstitious fears, all for the sake of some old tales which might not even be true.”

  Yet when it comes to these old tales, how do you tell the true from the false? Kivik wondered, rubbing at a cheek grown bristly with red-brown stubble. As recently as two years ago, he might have dismissed frost giants and Varjolükka as purely imaginary, but now he knew better.

  The long hours of the day dragged on, bright, chilling, implacable. The constant glare of sun and ice made Kivik’s eyes burn; the cold ate at his bones, making old wounds and battle scars ache. Like a greybeard, he thought with a wry grimace. Not a man of barely twenty-four years and half a hundred battles. Yet to feel the sharp edge of cold was good; already, some of those who let themselves grow numb and drowsy had died.

  By the next morning, when the Prince and Skerry set out to take a tour of inspection around one of the inner wards, the sky was mostly overcast and spitting snow.

  Just like the other six courtyards, this one had become a squalid clutter of patched tents, ramshackle little sheds, shacks, byres, chicken coops, huts, hovels, and shelters more primitive still: hastily erected out of scavenged wood and fragments of stone; backed up against the bailey walls wherever possible; gathered together elsewhere in tipsy congregations that seemed to stand merely because every single one was relying for support on the others around it. A dark smoke, from hundreds of tiny cookfires, hovered over everything. Someone had dug a trench down the middle of the yard, and it was already half full of filthy ice and raw sewage. Piglets squealed, goats bleated, hens cackled; the cacophony was almost as bad as the stench, which was considerable. It was worse than the squalor of the most despicable slum; it was the way, maybe, that thousands of people displaced from their homes were forced to live now, throughout Skyrra.

  It was war—just one more toll of the war, to be paid in the coin of human misery, Kivik reflected angrily, and it made no sense, not any of it, because the war itself made no sense. They had been attacked, savagely, mindlessly, relentlessly, and they did not know why.

  To make matters worse, for all the hardships the refugees were prepared to endure, they had fled their homes pitifully ill-equipped to deal with this murderous cold—which no one could have expected in what ought to have been the middle of summer.

  Yet from the first they might have found snugger quarters. Much of the fortress appeared inhabitable—the tall houses in the outer wards, the massive central keep, the lower floors of the soaring white towers—but no one had summoned the courage to venture inside. In truth, it took all the courage that most of them could muster just to pass through the gatehouses from one yard to the next, convinced as they were that the witch-lords, though dead, still lingered on as a malignant presence.

  In one of the hovels, an old woman began to cough, a deep, racking, bone-shaking cough that went on and on and on—reminding Kivik that spectral sorcerers quite aside, these deplorable living conditions were, of all dangers, the most immediate. Already the smoke and damp were rattling in too many chests; more deaths would come of that if this freakish weather did not break.

  A small figure made its way toward him across the crowded yard, bobbed an awkward curtsy, and shyly pressed something into his hand.

  Gazing down at the child, Kivik experienced a pang of deep distress. A little maid of ten or eleven, she was dirty and emaciated, with fair hair ragged and snarled. He opened his fingers to see what she had given him.

  It was exactly what he expected it to be, a wooden charm, crudely carved and brightly colored, strung on a leather cord. He owned dozens, probably hundreds, of these primitive talismans, presented to him by his father’s subjects. Yet he thanked her gravely, as was his custom, and slipped the braided cord over his head, so that the charm hung at chest level over his mail shirt. The little girl rewarded him with a tremulous smile, took two steps backward, then whirled and ran off.

  In my charge, all of these people. A fierce protective instinct flared up inside him as he watched her go. Under my protection.

  He slid a sideways glance in his cousin’s direction, and Skerry’s words of the day before echoed in his mind: “It would be a great pity, would it not, if we defeated ourselves with our own superstitious fears…” Then he thought of those ugly black storm clouds the giants were accumulating higher up the mountain.

  He came to a sudden decision. “Summon all my captains together,” he told Skerry. “I’ve a plan to discuss with them.”

  I wish I’d held my wretched tongue, if anything I said gave you this mad idea!” Skerry protested a short while later.

  They were seated inside the tattered silk pavilion along with a handful of Kivik’s surviving officers, gathered around a meager fire of sticks and straw. Though the other men muttered and shook their heads, they seemed content to let the Prince’s young kinsman voice their concerns.

  “Granted that the danger may be—probably is purely imaginary. But what if it isn’t?” said Skerry. “You are far too important to us, and we dare not risk losing you when one of us could just as easily go in your place. I’m quite willing. I should be the one to go, since it was I who gave you the idea, at least indirectly.”

  “I would never,” answered Kivik, flushing to the eyebrows, “order anyone to do anything I feared to do myself. No”—he threw up a hand, demanding silence, when Skerry looked like he might argue further—“my mind is made up, and I certainly don’t require anyone’s permission. Nor have I asked you all here to debate the matter; I simply wish to inform you of my decision. I am determined to spend the night alone inside the central pile of the fortress, and if—when I emerge in the morning alive and unscathed, it’s more than likely the people will take heart, follow my example, and move indoors out of the weather.”

  The men were silent, no doubt considering the consequences should he not emerge unscathed, if some ancient evil still dwelling within those walls were to deal him a swift and appalling death.

  And for all that he strove to put on a brave face before the others, Kivik could not quite shake off his own dread. As a lad, he had listened far too closely to far too many ghost stories told by his nursemaids and the servants at the Heldenhof. He could remember most of those tales, in every ghastly detail, far too well.

  Yet whatever might happen, it had to be better than slowly freezing to death out in the courtyards, knowing that shelter behind stout stone walls was available all along, that only his own cowardice left him wretched and shivering in the cold outside.

  “At least let me go with you,” said Skerry. “To share the adventure—if there is an adventure.”

  “No. I suppose there must be other perils in old ruined buildings, besides supernatural ones. You are my second-in-command and will have to take charge if anything happens to me.” Nor was Kivik prepared to place his closest friend in unnecessary danger so soon after the last time.

  Skerry made a wide gesture, indicating the other officers gathered in the tent, seasoned warriors all: men with grey in their hair and beards, yes, grim and battle scarred, but still hardy, still battle ready. “Any one of these men could lead in my place: Reg
in, Deor, Haestan, Roric. Any one of them more experienced, more worthy than I.”

  “More experienced than either of us,” sighed Kivik. “But the people might lose heart without a prince of our house to rally them—and they’ve suffered so much already.”

  Unfortunately, that was not the end of the argument. Deor, Haestan, and some of the others were moved to state their opinions, and because he was accustomed to listening (if not to yielding), Kivik let them say whatever they would. Finally, he agreed to allow two guards from among the ordinary fighting men—volunteers, he insisted—to spend the night inside the building with him.

  “Though whether I take two men or two hundred,” he grumbled, fingering the wooden charm, “I don’t see what difference it could possibly make if the spirits of any dead witch-lords turn up to challenge me.”

  2

  The doors of the central keep stood open at the top of a flight of dank stone steps, inviting the Prince and his two young guards, Berin and Nali, to step inside. Kivik paused on the last stair, trying to remember if these massive doors, riddled with wormholes and scarred by wind and rain, had been open or closed the first time he saw them—trying, with no more success, to convince himself that it did not mean anything either way.

  He turned back to take a final look at the world outside. Above the eastern walls, a waxing moon sailed high in a sky of clear, cloudless blue, but the westering sun, turned dim and milky behind a sheer veil of falling snow, made it appear there were two moons in the heavens tonight: one silvery white, one palest gold.

  Ought I, he wondered, take this for an omen? Little serpents of fear ran down his spine. In all the old tales that ever he heard, the moon was far from friendly to men, being envious, changeable, and above all mischievous—then what could a double moon mean but a doubly unlucky influence?

  A damp wind circling the courtyard caused the guards’ torches to flare and throw off sparks. Nali cleared his throat; Berin made a nervous gesture, rattling his sword inside its sheath. Realizing that his own hesitation was making them anxious, Kivik advanced on the doors.

  He felt a momentary disorientation crossing the threshold, a head-spinning impression of sound and color, a blaze of light and heat, but it all passed so quickly into shadows and silence he thought he had imagined it. Then he was in a dim, confined space, breathing dust and darkness, until his men came in with their lights, the shadows fled, and a chamber he had believed no larger than a cupboard changed into a guardroom of more than ordinary size. Ancient weapons clad in rags of cobweb hung in ordered ranks along one wall. Across the room, a barred metal gate like an iron jaw had rusted in place halfway between floor and ceiling.

  Motioning the two boys to follow after him, he headed toward the gate, his progress across the room stirring up wraiths of dust that lingered on the air a moment or two longer than seemed quite natural. Something crunched underfoot; when he looked down to see what it was, his stomach twisted into a hard knot. One boot rested on a disarticulated hand still clutching a weapon gone green with corrosion. When he lifted his foot, the tiny finger bones crumbled away to a fine, ashy powder.

  He gritted his teeth and continued on. A few more determined strides took him under the gate and into a hall so vast its farther limits disappeared into darkness. By torchlight, it was just possible to make out the nearer walls to right and left, where soaring arches led on to other spaces—large or small he could not tell, though his mind conjured up further immensities.

  After a brief hesitation, he chose an opening at random and led the way across the hall, through the arch, and into a chamber less lofty and imposing but still of considerable size. Three long tables spanned the length of the room, covered in a filmy lacework of cobwebs. A dull glint of tarnished metal under the spiders’ weavings, a reflection off a clouded gemstone, these bore witness the tables had been richly laid with silver chargers and jeweled cups, but either the guests had never arrived or had fled the revels early: at the head of each table sat a mummified figure in filthy, decaying silks; the other chairs and benches were empty.

  A flicker of movement drew Kivik’s attention up to the ceiling, where a swarm of busy spiders translucent as glass went scurrying away from the light as fast as their brittle-looking legs could carry them. They had spread their woven nets from beam to beam, and hundreds of tiny lizards, no bigger than his smallest finger, were trapped in the meshes.

  He realized that his palms were sweating, despite the dry chill. “This room is by far too large and drafty. Let us look for more intimate quarters.”

  From the banquet hall, they passed into a maze of corridors and interconnected chambers. In one, vines and thorny roses had crept in through a window, filling up most of the space, creating an impenetrable barrier. In another, a white fox started up from a bed of rotting tapestries, where it had been napping nose to tail. Those who had lived in these rooms obviously had a taste for the grotesque: statues half man and half beast stared out at them from deep niches, watching their progress from chamber to chamber; door handles mimicked the heads of imps, apes, gargoyles, and hobgoblins.

  Other rooms dazzled the eye with treasure, spilling out of open coffers, scattered across the floors, heaped up in glittering piles: a fortune in gemstones and fine enamels; watery pearls the size of hen’s eggs; jars and phials and pitchers of marvelous design spilling a dust of jewels and precious metals—all of them tumbled together, broken, or otherwise spoiled. Gold, silver, and platinum had been mingled and fused with baser materials. Chalices, brooches, diadems, shields of beaten metal were pitted, stained, and corroded, eaten away by rust and verdigris, discolored by salts. Banners and hangings of unparalled richness had grown shabby and faded with age.

  Yet along with the treasure there was a charnel house of bones. A skull on a bedpost glared at them with eyeholes sealed by cobwebs; mice squeaked from a nest inside a hollow rib cage. A skeleton like old ivory sprawled on the floor, one arm reaching for a diamond necklace; another, suspended by the neck from a silver chain, swung back and forth in a faint draft.

  But these were not—they could not be—the bones of the witch-lords, who had lived and died here a thousand years ago. There were abundant stories of ill-fated attempts to take and hold the fortress in practically every century since the witches met their mysterious end. Kivik’s own uncles-and-cousins-many-times-removed had not been immune to the lure of riches here, and they had—in their greed, or their desire for adventure—led many a simpler man to his death in the process.

  In whose dust are we leaving our footprints? he wondered. And he felt a little prickle of guilt for choosing such young boys to accompany him when older, more seasoned men had offered to come instead. In his stubborn refusal to bring any man who might speak his own mind—who might ask inconvenient questions and undermine his resolve—had he not, perhaps, done these boys an injustice?

  Nali could not be much more than sixteen; redheaded Berin looked even younger. Farmers’ or tradesmen’s sons he reckoned them, not bred up as he had been for battle and the slaughter of men. In less perilous times no one would have expected them to take up arms. As it was, they had already seen and done things no sixteen-year-old boy should ever have to face. He had been thoughtless to include them in the exploration of what was little better than a tomb.

  “Do not touch anything,” he said out loud. “Take nothing away with you. The treasure here is cursed.” The boys nodded wordlessly.

  A barrel-vaulted passage like a long gullet brought them abruptly into an enormous kitchen. After so much ruined grandeur elsewhere, the homely squalor of the place came as a shock. Marble had given way to damp stone flags. An unwholesome moisture dripped from walls of unfinished stone. Fireplaces capable of consuming whole trees were black with soot, and spits the size of wagon axles red with rust. The room looked as though it had been subjected to a whirlwind: shards of broken crockery lay on the floor, mixed in with the bones of men and animals.

  “It’s the ogre’s kitchen—the old hag’s
larder,” Berin said in a hoarse whisper. Nali’s face had turned a sickly white, as though all the blood had drained away.

  Kivik wanted to say something reassuring, but the words stuck in his throat. His eyes moved uneasily from a rack of monstrous forks, ladles, and choppers to the immense iron ovens, gaping open like hungry mouths, then on to a stew pot large enough to cook an entire ox, hooves, horns, and all. And he had to admit to himself, if not to the boys, that it was precisely the setting for the more gruesome sort of nursery tale: the place where evil crones cooked up ghastly messes and four-and-twenty children were baked in a pie.

  “The cooks here must have been drunkards or slatterns,” he said sternly. It was a feeble effort, but the best that he could do.

  Next to the kitchen they discovered a small, windowless room behind an iron grating, which might have been used only for storage but looked suspiciously like a cage. After that, a little more exploration of pantries and sculleries was more than sufficient. They were not sorry to leave those regions behind.

  Ascending and descending what seemed like a hundred winding white staircases, Kivik had the occasional giddy sensation of time running backward or standing still. Once, he glimpsed the owl-eyed moon through a high, round window; only minutes later he entered a room where rows of long casements flooded every corner with brilliant sunlight. Corridors branched, ran together, or turned back on themselves, spiralling inward; sometimes they ended at blank stone walls. By now he was most thoroughly lost, could not possibly have retraced his steps back to the courtyard if he tried.

  All along, he had been expecting a close, musty atmosphere, but if anything the air smelled fresher the farther they ventured into the building. No, not precisely fresh, but a light, pleasing fragrance floated on the air, not flowery but sweet. It was most like an herb-infused honey wine that Sigvith, his stepmother, and his little half sisters brewed in their stillroom, he decided, and yet not exactly the same. It reassured him with its homeliness, but there was something about it that disturbed him, too. Sometimes he thought he heard a faint, sweet music, troubling to the ear, though he could never tell from which direction it came or identify the instruments.