A Day of Fallen Night (The Roots of Chaos)

Eydag had been awake for hours. Glazed hazel eyes stared into a place that only she could see. Her sleeves were rolled to the elbow, showing her broad hands – once white with pink knuckles, now red all the way through. Her breath crackled. Wulf watched from his corner, waiting for the change.

Every day, someone opened the door to throw in waterskins and clapbread. Never at the same time. Never predictable.

They kept to their own areas, drawing unseen lines. There was no way to refresh the air, but they could at least try not to breathe on each other.

Eydag had eaten less and less as the days passed, like the two others the Issýn had touched before Wulf slew her. For a time, they had been well, even as the red stole past their knuckles.

Wulf swallowed, a heavy thickness in his craw. He looked down at the backs of his own hands, ribbed with scars from sparring. No red. Not since he had scrubbed off the blood.

There is no curse on that forest, Mara had told him. Or on you. And yet he had killed, and he was untouched, while Eydag – good, tender Eydag – wasted away before his eyes. He had not often been to sanctuary, but he knew the words of the Knight of Justice.

Evil doth know itself.

‘Wulf,’ Eydag said, ‘it’s coming.’ Her chest heaved. ‘I need you to kill me. Please.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Please.’

Whenever he missed Inys, Eydag was the one who gathered him into a bone-cracking embrace. It was her laugh that kept them all in good spirits on the hardest, coldest days. Beside her, the two men groaned. Vell shook his head wildly and pounded the door.

‘It’s happening,’ he shouted. ‘Sire!’

‘Vell,’ Eydag cried. ‘Wulf.’ The plea was in every crease of her face. ‘Please. I don’t want to hurt anyone.’

Jaw clenched to stop it trembling, Wulf took her by the hand – skin to skin – and squeezed her fingers tight. ‘The oath we made. Remember?’ he said hoarsely. ‘None go to death alone.’

Her hot fingers wrapped around his. ‘Do you remember the first time we sailed?’ she croaked. ‘I showed you how to use a sunstone.’ She reached under her collar and held it out to him, the clear stone on a cord. ‘Keep it. Use it, Wulf. You’ll find the truth in the end.’

Wulf took the stone and passed the cord over his head. ‘Eydag.’ He had no words to express what her kindness had meant to him. ‘The Saint will welcome you with open arms.’

‘Thank you.’ Her lips were cracked. ‘Wulf, remember. You are loved.’

So are you, he wanted to say, but his throat locked.

Vell was watching them, his expression tortured. He had always been closest to Eydag. Now he was powerless to comfort her.

Across the cabin, the two men bellowed, one after the other. Eyes rolling, foaming at the mouth, they began to pound and claw at the floor, just as the Issýn had. One tore at his shirt. As she stared at them in terror, Eydag seized up. Wulf held her hand tighter.

His patron was the Knight of Generosity. On his twelfth birthday, he had sworn to honour his virtue above all others, to repay the generosity his father had shown by taking him in. Letting a friend die in agony would not be doing that.

‘Eydag.’ Vell had tears in his eyes. ‘Fuck this—’ He threw his shoulder against the door. ‘Damn you, soulless cowards! Let her see the light. Give her air, a fucking physician!’

She was beyond physicians. Her body writhed, red spume bubbling on her lips. When she let out a ghastly scream, Vell broke. He drew his sax and drove it straight into her heart.

‘I’m sorry,’ he sobbed. ‘Eydag, I’m sorry.’

She tried to speak. Her fingers twitched, and then she slipped away without a sound. Wulf stared at her body, tears on his cheeks, before he unsheathed his own blade and threw it to the burning men.

Not long after, the cabin fell silent.

****

When sunlight blazed in, Wulf hardly noticed. He had been gazing dully at the bloodstain for so long, he had almost succeeded in forgetting Eydag lay beside him. Her hand was rigid around his, the fire in her skin quenched.

‘Wulf.’

Slowly, he looked up, numb to the wind that rushed inside. Skethra. He breathed it in. The scent that washes the air clean.

Regny stepped into the cabin, one hand on her axe. She took in the bodies, the blood, with the same cool expression she always showed the world. When she saw her oldest friend, it faltered.

‘Eydag,’ she said, almost too softly to hear. Collecting herself, she drew the sign of the sword. ‘Hear, O Saint, the knock upon your door, for a guest has come to the Great Table.’

In Inysh, the prayer was a plea. In Hróthi, it had the ring of a command.

‘You’re alive,’ Regny observed.

‘Of course he’s alive,’ Karlsten said, disgusted. ‘Did you need more proof that he’s unnatural?’

‘Be quiet, Karl.’

Karlsten glared at Wulf with loathing, then knelt and wrapped an arm around Vell, who was splashed with his own vomit. Regny came to Wulf, swung off her cloak, and draped him in it.

‘Come,’ she said. ‘The king is waiting.’ She saw then that he was still clutching Eydag. ‘Wulf, she’s gone. Let go.’

‘You shouldn’t touch me.’

‘Don’t be a fool. You’re not afflicted.’ She looked him in the eyes. ‘Stand.’

Some fundamental part of him still knew to obey her. He pried off the cold fingers – the hand of an ice spirit – and tried not to see that waxen face, the eyes he had brushed shut. He forced himself up on stiff legs. Regny guided him from the bloody room.

They emerged into crisp air, fog in their breath. The hark-hark of gulls made Wulf recoil against his will. He blinked hard against the whiteness of the sun, the mist that spread its light, to see an inlet cradled by low and weathered cliffs. Vessels from many shores crossed its waters, from magnificent Hróthi longships and galleys to tiny fishing boats – even an ornate Ersyri cutter, with elegant yellow sails and a curved prow.

As if in a dream, he turned his head. Sprawling beneath the milky sky were tens of thousands of wooden dwellings, a drunken horde jostling towards a hillfort. The Iron Mountains towered behind it, and atop stood Bithandun, the Silver Hall, seat of the House of Hraustr.

All that time – days, weeks – they had been anchored just off Eldyng.

The daylight burned like grit on his eyes. He followed Regny into a rowboat. Vell huddled inside, wrapped in a blanket, drinking from a wineskin.

Regny and Karlsten sculled them all to shore, where traders and seafarers milled, unaware of the threat that lurked in their harbour. As the rowboat shunted him closer to the city, Wulf caught strains of Yscali, Mentish and Inysh among the dialects of Hróthi. A woman was fishing in the shallows, trousers rolled up to the knee.

Karlsten stopped rowing and climbed out with Regny. Once the boat was shored, they led Wulf and Vell to a horse-drawn cart. Vell kept a tight hold on the wineskin. ‘Get in,’ Regny ordered them, taking the reins from the ostler. ‘You’re both too weak for the climb.’

Wulf knew it was because they looked and smelled appalling. They could hardly ride up to the fortress in this state.

In silence, he sat beside Vell. As the cart lumbered through Eldyng, he watched its people go about their lives: carpenters, whalers, blacksmiths, shipwrights, leatherworkers, Hüran merchants selling pelts and horses. For the first time, he noticed how closely all these people lived and worked together.

A bairn plunged muddy hands into a washtub. A strong-armed man dashed the sweat from his brow, drew a shirt from the same water, and spread it on a rack to dry. The water trickled on to the ground. A hound lapped at it, then padded across the street, to the flesh stall, and licked a slab of mutton. The butcher chased it off, and the hound loped away.

Someone would buy that meat before the day was out.

‘I won’t ask if you’re all right,’ Vell said.

He drank again from the wineskin and offered it. Wulf shook his head. ‘What you did was noble,’ he said hoarsely. ‘You honoured the Knight of Courage.’

‘I didn’t only do it for Eydag.’ Vell stared towards the sea. ‘If your place in Halgalant was forfeit, you needed somebody to join you in the fire.’

Usually, Wulf would have smiled. Instead, he watched the innocent people of the city, and his insides swashed. None of these people knew his sins.

For murder, the price was death.

‘Vell, only I saw you kill Eydag. Let me take the blame,’ Wulf muttered. ‘I’ve already killed the Issýn.’

‘I’m not letting you do that.’ Vell looked at him, eyes puffy. ‘Why did your hands not stain?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You must be Saint-touched.’

At this, Wulf managed a bleak chuckle. Karlsten threw him a suspicious glance from his saddle.

The cart rolled past the enormous wicker sculptures of the Holy Retinue, which each held a bowl of whale oil, on fire. After the Knight of Courage, they were on the path that led up the hill. Sauma and Thrit waited for them outside the feasting hall.

‘Eydag?’ Thrit murmured.

Regny shook her head. She escorted Wulf and Vell through the doors.

Bithandun was the grandest stronghold in Hróth. King Bardholt had wanted it to stand here, facing the sea that led to Inys. His former enemies had built and adorned it – part of the heavy toll they paid for not choosing his side. Some said not a tree remained where Verthing Bloodblade had once lived; they had all been felled to build Bardholt his city.

Inside, the hall was darkly golden, the floor strewn with fresh rushes. Inysh applewood flamed in a cavernous hearth, releasing fragrant smoke, and Yscali tapestries hung on the walls.

The King of Hróth sat at its north end. His throne was a dread presence, made from the polished skull of a trolval – rarest and greatest of toothed whales, the swallower of ships.

‘Wulfert, Vell,’ he said. ‘Eydag is dead?’

‘Aye,’ Wulf rasped. ‘So are the others.’

‘She was a fine warrior. Among the best in my household,’ King Bardholt said, rubbing his brow. ‘And I can’t bury her.’ He grasped one arm of his throne. ‘At midnight, the ship burns.’

‘Sire,’ Vell said weakly, ‘please. How will she reach the Great Table?’

‘I am a king of Virtudom, and a bonesmith. I will entreat the Saint to let her in.’ King Bardholt looked to Regny. ‘See to it.’ She exited with Karlsten and Sauma. ‘Vell, since you seem unafflicted, see a healer. Thrit, stay with him. None of you are to speak of what you saw.’

The rest of the lith withdrew from the hall, leaving Wulf before the throne. He kept his head down.

It would be easy to hate this man for what he had done. His liege had locked him in the dark to watch his friend die, sent no healers, and put Vell at risk – yet Wulf could not blame him for it. Bardholt Hraustr always made the necessary choices, no matter how brutal.

‘Vell,’ the king finally said, ‘I can understand. He touched Eydag with gloves. Putting him in the cabin was a precaution. But you, Wulf – I cannot imagine how you are still alive.’

‘I wish I knew, sire.’

The rustlings of the fire were all that cracked the silence.

‘I knew the rumours when I took you into my household,’ King Bardholt said. ‘Lord Edrick told me, fearing I might hear them from a crueller tongue. I never believed. Heathen folly has no place in Virtudom. Still, another king might want you gone.’

Wulf closed his eyes.

‘But I am not another king. I am a warrior for the Saint. Whatever this sickness may be, he held out his shield to spare you,’ King Bardholt concluded. ‘I will not spit at him.’ A long pause. ‘Don’t think I’ve forgotten that when the Issýn touched you, it was because you placed yourself in front of me. I might have joined Eydag if not for your courage.’

‘I swore an oath.’

‘You did. And you kept it.’ Bardholt ground his jaw, an old habit. ‘Someone tried to kill my daughter. Tomorrow, we sail for Inys, where we will remain until the royal wedding.’

‘Is Her Highness well?’

‘Of course. Glorian knows no fear.’

That might have been true once. After all, nothing had ever broken into her safe court, until now.

‘You see why I had to keep you on the ship. I would not carry this Saint-forsaken plague to Inys,’ King Bardholt said, resting his chin on his knuckles. ‘Get some rest, Wulf. We leave at dawn.’

Wulf rose stiffly and bowed. He felt like an old man, weighted by loss.

Out he stepped, into the cold world. A world without Eydag to soften its edges. Grief milked the strength from his bones. He needed to walk to the sanctuary, to pray for mercy from the Knight of Justice. He needed to sleep. Simple needs. Yet his feet were riveted.

He gazed at the rooftops of Eldyng, the dark ship in the harbour, and heard the deathwatch beetles.

Tick-tick. Tick-tick.

‘Wulf.’

A gentle voice pulled him back to himself. Heavy-eyed, he looked at Thrit, who grasped his shoulder. Without a hesitation, he wrapped a strong arm around Wulf and said, ‘It’s all right.’

His warmth released something in Wulf. He gave a great shudder before he held Thrit back and wept.