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Apologies - this is not an additional chapter,
but was the only way I could get the site to make the text readable!
It contains exactly the same text as Chapter 1.
Waking the Kings
Jantallian
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'O do not speak to them lest they rise up
one cold night under the moon to fight for us.'
Troll Kings, Sidney Keyes
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The water went on – and on – and on. In every direction. As far as the eye could see.
Stumbling out of the forest, his tired pony at his heels, the boy had never seen such an expanse in all his life. He halted, stunned and dazzled by the sudden blaze flashing from it. The sun was low behind him but still above the tops of the trees. Its falling light gave an amber glow to the stony shore and touched the edges of the waves with gold. He could hear the water speaking with a voice of its own, yet kin to the surrounding forest as the same wind brushed and stirred them both. He was weary, cold, starving and lost, but the beauty stayed him in his tracks and pierced his spirit.
For long minutes he stood motionless, entranced. Then his pony nudged him with an impatient nose and uttered a snort which distinctly admonished the tardiness of his owner in finding a campsite for the night.
"Ok, Spirit, we ain't goin' much further."
He looked up and down the shore in both directions, for once uncertain in this unfamiliar territory. Stones did not make a good bed for either of them, but the need for shelter was much the same wherever you were. He lifted his head, testing the direction of the wind on his cheek. At the same time he was smelling the unfamiliar damp in the air, something keen and clean, yet underneath just the faintest hint of corruption and decay. The weather at least looked set fair for the night, so finding a convenient tree with enough of a clearing to camp underneath and some grazing for his faithful mount was his immediate objective. At least he would not have to go far for water!
Turning south would be the logical choice, both in terms of warmth and mileage, but he did not. He would have to travel south sooner or later, but from that direction, below the language breathed by the woods, the crisp rustle amongst the leaves, the sharp scratch of a squirrel's claw, the ear of his spirit caught far off the inexorable murmur of war. He was not afraid, even though his travelling had taught him how little safety there was anywhere. He was not indifferent to its causes. He was just torn between his innate sense of justice and the call of his birthplace. He did not want to decide. Not yet.
He turned north. For a little while longer, there would be rest and peace and stillness and silence. All the things he had come to value as part of his solitary life. No-one to make demands on him or order him what to do. No ties binding him to a place or people. No solace for his needs save what he could provide for himself.
The stony shore with its slippery, water-worn stones made the going difficult. Yet it had a beauty all of its own in the subtle gradation of the surfaces, veined with slashes of white and gold and red and slate blue. Sometimes there was a carpet of turf fringing the trees on which he was able to make more progress. Sometimes the stones had been worn away to multi-coloured gritty sand, which seemed to sigh beneath boot and hoof. It made a counterpoint to the continual whisper of the waves on the shore and the faint susurration of the trees. He was not sure where he was heading, but something drew him on.
Presently he came to a point where the relatively flat shoreline changed. There was literally a point pushing out into the water, its rocky cliffs low, yet nonetheless resisting the erosion of the waves. A faint track, probably made by deer or some other forest creature, led up from the shore and over the shoulder of the bluff. The top was not very high – little more than a rounded hillock compared with some of the mountains he had seen. He was soon forging down the other side into the sheltered curve of a little bay. It looked a good place to camp.
The track wound this way and that, curling round twisted trees clinging to the rocks. They were withered by the wind and stretched spikey fingers towards the sunset, a few leaves rattling against their bare bark. The sound, combined with the continual mutter of wave and wind, nearly obscured the metallic 'clink' as his boot struck something hard.
Jess immediately halted. He stood still for a few seconds, allowing his ears to tell him where the metal thing had landed when he kicked it. He would otherwise not have found it in the dusk under the trees. Now he stretched out his hand confidently and took up the smooth oval shape. He could not see what it was, but it was about the size of his palm and quite heavy. He tucked it into the pocket of his shirt over his heart. He could look at it later by the light of his fire.
Firelight!
Below him in the little inlet there was a fire on the beach. He could just make out the shadow of a figure seated beside it. Now he had to make a decision. Did he go down and hope for a welcome and companionship for the night? Or did he retreat and find his own place of rest? Much experience had taught him caution where strangers were concerned. But he had several times been saved from the bite of hunger and cold by the generosity of those he had encountered.
He went on down into the bay.
His boots and the pony's hooves made no sound in the sudden soft sand. The wind had dropped and the waves no longer lapped noisily against the shore. The water was still as a mirror of burnished bronze. Though the inlet was small, it seemed a very long way to the fire in the middle of it. As he approached, the figure beside it did not move.
Jess halted cautiously a few feet away. He surveyed the fire and the stranger. All he could see was the figure sitting cross-legged and utterly still. If this was a camp, the man had no horse, no gear. He wore no hat, no jacket. His arms were bare and covered in the swirling lines of dark tattoos. Gold glinted at his throat and his wrists.
Time passed. Jess felt no urgency, no need to plunge into greeting and eating. Instead he stood quietly, waiting. His patient Spirit drooped his head and rested one hind leg, waiting too. The sun sank slowly behind the forest. The stars came out and shone in the tranquil water.
"Sit."
The voice was calm, yet hollow, resonant, as though the wind were blowing through it.
"I'll see t' my horse first."
There was no response.
Jess unsaddled Spirit and laid out his gear and his bedroll beside the fire. Then he watered the pony in the lake and let him loose on the soft grass which edged the bay. He had no fear of losing his faithful companion – they had been together too long.
"Sit."
This time he did so.
"Dark comes. Nightshadows deepen. Here is bright flame and warm mead."
The man stretched out his arm through the flame of the fire. In his hand was a horn beaker. Jess reached out to take it. His fingers touched the fingers clasping the vessel. Just for a moment he felt the very bones.
Then he was lifting the beaker to his lips. Warm. Dark. Slightly bitter. With the faintest under-taste of heather and honey. As he drank, a flicker of heat ran through his body, a sharp tingle of power.
"Tonight the stars float on Glaedmere, on the bright sea, on the living water."
It was true. It did not seem to require any response. Jess just took another sip from the horn beaker and stretched out contentedly on his bedroll. He should have been cold, huddled in his coat and blankets against the cruel chill of the northern night, but he was not. He turned his gaze away from the water and looked at his companion.
The man was young. Much older than Jess, but still very youthful in the scale of the world. His face in profile was rough-hewn, the jaw strong, the nose crooked from an ill-healed break. In the starlight, his eyes gleamed ice-blue. Like many travellers, his hair had grown long and was caught back in a shining clasp. He had a well-trimmed moustache, but no beard. His expression was remote, almost serene, as if he had no concerns beyond the starlight on the water.
"Why are you here?"
The words were out of Jess's mouth before he could stop them. He inwardly rebuked himself. It was bad manners and sometimes dangerous to press strangers for such details.
The man turned a little towards him, his eyes luminous in the gathering dusk. "The woods were rich with blossoms, the dwellings of men grew beautiful, the meadows were bright, the world was springing to life. All these things urged on the eagerness of spirit, the love of travelling, in one who longed to journey far on the paths of the sea."
"The sea?" Jess was entirely puzzled. He'd heard of the sea, of course, over which his kind had come, heard tales of the vast ocean separating the new lands opened up by pioneers from the ancient places of the world. But he was only just beginning to imagine what it was like, now, when he was faced with the largest body of water he had ever seen. The sea was still as far from all that he knew as the moon which would rise above the land where he was rooted.
The man stretched out his hand again. It seemed his fingers would pluck stars from the shimmering water. "Indeed. All the time, the longing of my heart urges my spirit to go forth, on the high streams, the tossing of salt waves, so that I, far from harbour and known coasts, have searched for a home in a land which does not know me."
"Y' came here from the sea? But it's so far away." Jess didn't know a lot of formal geography, but he had an innate sense of the vastness of the wilderness in all its variety: it was his whole world.
"There!" The man pointed out across the water, his finger sharp as a knife against the sky. "There is Glaedmere the Bright, curving like a horseshoe south into the Dragon's Tail. Beyond, Horsemane and Smoothwater. Then the long river, blood-line to the sea." He was paused for several heartbeats. "Where there is water, the dragon-prow will forge, the sailcloth will swell, the sharp oars will sweep. Where water ends, men haul the sea-stead until waves beckon and the keel-knife once more cuts the foaming crest."
"Sounds like a challenge," Jess ventured. The concepts of sea-travel were a mystery to him, but he understood the lure of the unknown, the urge to explore, the lengths to which men and women would go and the things they would endure to reach what they sought.
The man nodded. "For a seafarer there is no pleasure in the sound of the harp nor the softness of woman nor any worldly glory. Not in anything at all unless it is the tossing of waves. And my spirit twists out of my breast, it flies out over the whale's path, it soars through all the corners of the world. It comes back to me full of fierce longing, unsatisfied, like the lone-flier which cries, urging my heart irresistibly along the whale-road, over the ocean waves."
To one steeped in the strength and warmth of the earth and knowledgeable of what it could provide, this vision of the sea seemed more like a nightmare. Yet its freedom called to Jess, even if it was not the freedom he would choose.
"So you came over the sea – up the river – across land and lakes – to this place?"
"More times than one." The man's voice was strong, resolute, unwearied.
"Why are you here?" The same question as before because it did not seem natural for someone who was obviously a wanderer, a seafarer, to be so far inland.
The man rose abruptly to his feet.
Standing, he towered over Jess. He was wearing sleeveless leather tunic and some kind of trousers which were bound below the knee with crossed cords. Fur-lined boots on his feet. Gold rings on his fingers and heavy gold bands like shackles enclosing both wrists. Round his neck a woven-gold snake whose armoured head lay in the hollow of his throat. His forked beard was plaited like the long braid of hair down his back. Standing, his body was honed and hardened with years of mighty labour, his muscles those of a man in his prime, his shoulders broad and braced, accustomed to the burdens of leadership.
"Come!"
He moved silently to the edge of the ring of firelight.
"Come!"
The moon rose above the horizon of the inland sea, flooding the land with cold light, clear as a crystal.
Jess rose quickly to his feet. He followed.
They went back up the winding path under the shadow of the twisted trees. At the top, the man turned towards the water, striding out to the edge of the bluff. As his feet touched the cropped turf, the earth swelled into a low mound, a perfect circle, on the edge of nothing. Jess followed.
The man stopped. The icy light of the full moon glittered in his eyes and on his gold adornments and on his mailed shirt. It picked out the patterns on his skin, making their intricate knotted lines writhe as if they were alive. It gilded the edge of the axe in his hand. Jess halted beside him. In the cold air a single wisp of exhaled breath drifted like mist. It was Jess's.
"A home in a land which does not know me!" the warrior declared, with a sweeping gesture of his axe encompassing the mound on which they stood. It took all Jess's self-control not to flinch as the bright blade hissed through the air. "Here stands the great hall, towering high and horn-gabled, its walls wonderfully wound round with serpents. A master mead-house, the mightiest the sons of earth have seen. A palace for golden gifts and words of power. Glorious and gilded, fit for the warriors' wine-pledge, the proud band's revels."
"But there's nothing here," Jess whispered. Then, greatly daring, he asked, "What happened?"
"Here in this middle-earth, this land of strangers, the walls stand, blown by the wind, covered with frost. The storm-lash sweeps the structure, ice-grain pelts the timbers. The hall decays. Lords lie sightless, joy grows cold and dim. The whole troop has fallen, the proud ones against the wall. For some, war honour brings a floating pyre, flames searing the waters and smoke raising their spirits to the everlasting warriors' hall. Others are carried by scavenging birds across the deep sea or the grey wolf shares their rites of death. A work of giants stands empty."
Silence settled upon them. As if turned to carved stone, Jess did not move. His breath drifted like silver smoke into the still air. Beyond human hearing, the triumphs and agonies of the far-off war made a sullen music, drawing down a perilous darkness shot with flashes of courage and compassion.
It was a long while before his companion stirred.
"There is none now living to whom I dare clearly speak of my innermost thoughts. I ponder deeply on this dark life, seeking wisdom of spirit. I remember often many conflicts now far off." The warrior moved suddenly, swiftly, to the very edge of the mound. There he halted, his head flung back, and his voice rang out like the tolling of a great bell. "Where is the horse now? Where is the rider? Where is the open-handed lord? Where is the feasting hall? O, the shining cup! O, the mail-clad warrior! O the glory of the chieftains! How their time is vanished, smothered under the cloak of night as if they never were."
He lifted the axe over his head and struck a great blow into the slope of the mound below him. A hollow boom rang out, reverberating against the forest. Instead of fading away, it seemed to grow, shaking the very ground until it trembled under their boots. On the side of the mound below them, the turf began to split. Torrents of earth cascaded down the cliff and into the water below. A grating groan filled the air, swelling to such a pitch that Jess clapped his hands over his ears.
Slowly, so slowly, the smooth wall of the mound parted, gaping like a monstrous pair of lips set awry in the grassy face. Two huge doors were separating, spreading like the wings of a vast, earth-bound butterfly. They rose wider and higher until they toppled open, striking the ground with a thunderclap.
"Come!"
The man strode down the almost vertical wall of the mound as if it were a gentle incline. His long white hair and beard flowed free, glittering in the moonlight. The circlet of gold on his brow shimmered as if lit from within. His cloak billowed out, lifted by the speed of his descent.
"Come!"
The old king stood before the great open doors, leaning a little on the spear he held. He waited as if the passage of centuries was no more than a minute, yet his imperious command seized the boy, compelling him like an inexorable withered hand. Jess slithered and scrambled down the bank until he landed in a shaky heap at the bottom.
"Enter!"
Between the mighty doors was an archway of darkness. The king walked slowly into it. Jess followed, a respectful few paces behind. As he crossed the threshold he felt a huge draught of displaced air as the doors fell closed behind them. The blackness was complete.
Jess felt as if he had gone blind. For several minutes he had no idea where he was – what he was standing on – what surrounded him. Then it seemed his sight began to return. A light no stronger than a glow-worm flickered into life in front of him. It was the old man's crown.
The light grew, glinting first off the long white hair, the pale cold eyes, the ivory skin. Gradually it illuminated the rich colour of the cloak and the intricate embroidery of the long over-garment beneath. It surrounded with an eldritch glow the upraised spear and the hand which held it.
"Kneel!"
The word echoed off unseen walls.
Jess drew a deep breath and shook his head. He was not sure if the old man could see him because the darkness was so thick everywhere except around the gleaming figure. But his kinfolk had not travelled and struggled and fought and suffered and built anew in this great land for him to bow to any earthly power.
A sigh. Icy as death and without breath.
"So it is come to this! Those days are gone. Gone - all the glory of the kingdoms of the earth. There are not now kings nor chieftains nor givers of gold living in glory and renown, as once there were. All this company of noble warriors is gone and the revels are over. The weak remain and fill the world with toil and trouble. The glory is brought low, the nobility of the world grows old and withers to nothing!"
A sigh.
And another.
And another.
A multitude of sighs, whispering through the hollow space as the unearthly light buried beneath the earth waxed ever stronger. All around the edge of the circular chamber, battered beneath black rocks unknown to mole or miner, sat the kings. Lonely inhuman kings sitting with drawn-up knees, waiting with twisted eyes the time of terror.
"Wake us ... Wake us ... Wake us" The whispers grew stronger and stronger in harmony with the light now radiating from the one who had led or lured Jess into this place. One who now stood shrouded in the eerie glory of a fallen and forgotten power. The Troll-King who spoke to warn and challenge and command.
"Always and inevitably, the sword's hatred will tear out the life from those doomed to die. So it is in war. And so it is for each man. Wake us, the war-friends. Warriors skilled in battle. The fighting thanes ready to arms. Your need is great. Oppression and terror ride with your enemies. The folk have aroused between them a feud and enmity, a slaughter-rush of men. Therefore there must be many spears, morning-cold, grasped in palms, raised in hands. The sound of harp does not wake the warrior. It is the call of the black raven, eager over the doomed, speaking many things, telling the eagle how he succeeded in eating when he with the wolf despoiled the slain. We are the warriors, bold helm-bearers, who wade through the smoke of slaughter rejoicing in battle. I will bring you a thousand thanes, heroes as help, a forest of spears born by the battle-daring. We await the fire of exhumation. Wake us now!"
o * o * o * o * o
The cool gleam of dawn-light touched the water first. There was no colour. Only a sheen like liquid metal on the restless sea. It touched the frost-rimmed bark of the trees and their bare branches clothed in ice. All was pale, as if a mourning chalk had whitened every vestige of life and growth. It glinted on the grains of mica in the sand, so many false jewels scattered by a careless hand.
The light touched the sleeping boy without warmth. He was curled on his side like an unborn child beside the grey ashes of a dead fire. His outstretched hand clasped tightly round the object which almost filled it. He did not move.
Presently the pony, who had been asleep under the trees, woke up with a snort and ambled over to the fire and its sleeping master. With a soft nose, it nudged his face and breathed a warm, earthy breath over him. It was some minutes before these ministrations provoked a response.
"Spirit!"
Jess rolled over and reached out a hand. He caressed the pony's ears gently, then slung his arms round the sturdy neck in a grateful hug. Spirit snorted and flung up his head, pulling Jess half-upright.
"Easy there! We ain't goin' anywhere yet."
As he got properly to his feet, he became aware that the fingers of his left hand were numb and cold, clutching something hard and equally icy.
"What the hell's this?" With some difficulty he loosened his grip sufficiently to examine the thing he held.
It was an oval of metal, glittering in the early light. The edges were smooth and on the underside there were two metal loops, which suggested it had once had a long pin run through them. The top surface was highly polished and covered with intricate spirals and curling lines. At first he did not spot the eye, but as soon as he saw it the whole became clear. It was the image of a snake or dragon, its body twisted in sinuous curves as if it was a living maze, and from its jaws came tongues of flame.
The metal was gold.
It was probably worth more than he would ever possess in his life. It lay gleaming in the boy's hand while he gazed, enthralled by its strange beauty.
A lucky find? Or an imperious summons? A golden gift from the giver of gold? Or a timely warning? An invitation to embrace the darkness of time? Or an appeal to hold fiercely to the light?
The wind sighed across the water and drew a mournful sibilance from the trees. The language of the woods and the wild things echoed faintly in his ears.
"O do not speak to them. They wait a backward day. How should they know such folly as we suffer? Let them sleep, the poor things, in the cold and endless night."
The boy breathed on the bright metal and gave it a polish with the cuff of his jacket. Then he walked down to the water's edge. He took one last look. He hurled the golden brooch far out into the deep water.
By the cold fire, the pony waited patiently. The boy packed his gear with the efficiency of long practice. He vaulted on to his mount and turned once more towards the bluff which lay between him and the south.
"Time t' go, Spirit. Time t' go home."
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Acknowledgements:
The inspiration for this story came from Troll Kings by Sidney Keyes and the words describing the buried kings are taken directly from it. Unfortunately the text is not available to read on-line, but if you send a PM I am happy to email a copy to you.
The Troll King's speeches are extensively drawn from the Old English poems, The Wanderer, The Seafarer, and Beowulf, which have many links with Norse writings. Modern renderings of these are generally quite similar, but most of the translations are my own.
The great creative writing of the 'Laramie' series is respectfully acknowledged. My stories are purely for pleasure and are inspired by the talents of the original authors, producers and actors.
Apologies that this one has not been expertly beta-ed by Westfalen.
Notes:
The idea of a sleeping army waiting to be roused for some final battle is, of course, common in many myths and folk tales.
The geography of this story, though loosely based on the Great Lakes, is not specific to any part of them. Could a young boy travel this far? And did the Vikings reach and colonise America? Well, it's a fantasy, not a documentary!