Runemarks (21 page)

5

Meanwhile, less than a mile away, Maddy was closing steadily on the eagle and the hawk. She’d kept high above the other two, well out of their line of vision, and she was almost sure she hadn’t been seen. Now she veered a little to the right, still keeping very high, and surveyed the village with her falcon’s gaze.

She could see the roundhouse, a squat little building not far from the church. A guard stood outside it; another seemed to be looking inside.
Only two of them. Good,
she thought.

Elsewhere it seemed fairly quiet. There was no sign of a posse or any other unusual activity. The Seven Sleepers Inn had closed for the night, and only one light shone from inside, where no doubt Mrs. Scattergood had found some other poor soul to do her clearing up.

In the street behind the Seven Sleepers a couple of late revelers were walking home, their gait uncertain and their voices raised. Maddy recognized one of them straightaway—it was Audun Briggs, a roofer from Malbry—but it took her a few moments more to recognize the second.

The second was her father, the smith.

That was a shock—but Maddy flew on. She couldn’t afford to be delayed. She only hoped that if there was trouble, then Jed would have the sense to keep well clear. He was her father, after all, and she would prefer him—indeed, she would prefer
all
the villagers—to be well out of the way when the sparks began to fly.

She was reaching the outskirts of Malbry now. In front of her, less than a hundred yards ahead, the hawk and the eagle were beginning their descent.

Maddy stooped, falling steeply from her superior height. She made for the church tower, dropping down behind its stubby spike, and fluttered to a landing, gracelessly, in the deserted churchyard.

The feather cloak proved simple to release. A shrug, a cantrip, and it fell to the ground, leaving Maddy to bundle it up as best she could and thrust it into her belt. Unlike the others in their Aspects, she had retained her clothes underneath the falcon cloak. That gave her a little more time.

She looked around. There was no one about. The church was dark, and so was the parsonage. Only one light shone from under the eaves.
Good,
thought Maddy again. She found the path—mourning the loss of her bird’s night vision—and began to run quietly down it toward the village square, now deserted as the church clock struck half past the hour.

It was time.

In the sky above Malbry, Loki’s time was running out. He had been thinking furiously throughout his flight, but as yet no solution to his particular problem had presented itself.

If he tried to get away, the eagle would catch him, ripping him apart with her talons.

If he stayed, he faced one (or both) of two enemies, neither of whom had any reason to love him. His hold on Skadi, he knew, would last just long enough for her to realize that he’d lied to her once more. As for the General—what mercy could he expect from him?

Even if he managed to get away—during the scrap, perhaps, or in the confusion—how long would he last? If Odin escaped, he’d soon come after him. And if he didn’t, the Vanir would.

It didn’t look good, he thought as he began his descent. His only hope was that the girl Maddy would take his side. That didn’t seem likely. Then again, she could have killed him twice. She had chosen not to. What that meant he couldn’t say, but perhaps—

Behind him the eagle gave a harsh cry of warning—
Hurry up, you
—and Loki obediently entered his dive.

6

The night was aflame with secret stars. So the Examiner told himself as he stepped out into the cold air and, in the magic circle of his finger and thumb, saw the light-trails of a thousand comings and goings spring into life around him.

So this is what the Nameless sees,
he thought, looking up into the illuminated sky.
I wonder—however does It stay sane?

He staggered a little beneath his new awareness. Then he saw something that made him draw a sharp breath. Two light-trails, one violet, one icy blue, streaking like comets toward Malbry.
More demons,
he thought, and drew the Good Book even tighter to his thin chest.
More demons. Better hurry.

He reached the roundhouse minutes later. He was pleased to see that the guards were still alert, though one of them gave him an anxious look, as if expecting censure.

“Anything?” he said in a sharp voice.

Both guards shook their heads.

“Then you are dismissed,” said the Examiner, reaching for the key. “I won’t be needing you again tonight.”

The anxious guard now looked relieved and, with the sketchiest of salutes, went on his way. The second—Scattergood, if the Examiner recalled the name—seemed inclined to loiter. His colors too seemed somehow wrong, as if he were nervous or had something on his mind.

“It’s a little late,” he said, politely enough but with a question in his voice.

“So?” said the Examiner, who was not used to having his decisions questioned.

“Well,” said Dorian, “I thought—”

“I can do my own thinking, I’ll thank you, fellow,” said the Examiner, making the sign with his finger and thumb.

Now Dorian’s colors deepened abruptly, and the Examiner realized that the man was not nervous, as he had first assumed, but actually
angry.
This did not trouble him, however. He had dealt with a good many rustics in his time, and he was aware that such folk often resented the work of the Order.

“Fellow?”
said Dorian. “Who d’you think you’re calling
fellow
?”

The Examiner took a step toward him. “Out of my way—
fellow,
” he hissed, holding Dorian’s gaze, and smiled as the guard’s colors flickered from angry red to uncertain orange, then finally to muddy brown. His eyes dropped, he muttered some commonplace, and then he was gone with a single backward glance of resentment, furtive, into the night.

The Examiner shrugged.
Rustics,
he thought.

Little did he know that Elias Rede—otherwise known as Examiner Number 4421974—had used that word just once too often.

Odin looked up as the door opened. He was far from close to breaking free, but by working and needling at the straps that bound his right hand he had managed to slip three fingers loose. It was not enough, but it was a start, and thanks to Dorian Scattergood it was to take the Examiner completely by surprise.

He’d entered the roundhouse boldly, the Good Book tucked comfortably beneath his arm. He had already quite forgotten the misery of Communion, that feeling of worthlessness and the knowledge that the most trivial and intimate part of his secret self had been peeled open for the casual scrutiny of something immeasurably more powerful…

Now he felt
good.
Strong. Masterful.

Armed with his new awareness, he saw that what he had taken for the compassion in his soul was in fact a deep, unworthy squeamishness. He had been arrogant enough to believe that he knew the will of the Nameless.

Now he knew better. Now he saw that he had spent the past thirty years as a rat catcher who thinks he is a warrior.

Today,
he thought,
my war begins. No more rats for me.

Still trembling with the exaltation of his noble task, he turned to his prisoner. The man’s face was in shadow, but the Examiner saw at once that his gag had been removed.

That stupid guard!
He felt a surge of annoyance but no more; the prisoner’s hands were still behind his back, and his colors reflected his exhaustion. Across the ruin of his left eye,
Raedo
shone weirdly, a butterfly blue against his weathered skin.

“I know you,” said the Examiner softly, opening the Book. “And now I know your true name.”

Odin did not move. Every muscle protested, but he remained quite still. He knew he would have one chance, and one chance only. Surprise was on his side, but confronted with the power of the Word, he had few illusions as to his success. Still, he thought, if he could only get the timing right…

Hands still behind his back, he worked at the runes, aware that his glam was almost out, that if he missed, there could be no second try, but that sometimes a flung stone can be just enough to turn aside a hammer blow.

Beneath his fingers, with aching slowness, the rune
T
ý
r
had begun to take shape.
T
ý
r,
the Warrior, which had once adorned a mindsword of such power that it made him well-nigh invincible in battle—now reduced to a sliver of runelight no bigger than his fingernail.

But it was sharp. Beneath its small curved blade a fourth finger worked free of its bindings, then a thumb. Odin flexed his right hand, rubbing his palm softly with his middle finger like a spinner rolling a thread.

The movement was too small for the Examiner to see. But he saw its reflection in One-Eye’s colors, a darkening of purpose that made him narrow his eyes. Was the fellow planning something?

“I see you’d like to kill me,” he said, watching the blue of the prisoner’s glam take on the glossy purple of a swollen thundercloud.

Odin said nothing, but behind his back his fingers worked.

“So you won’t talk?” said the Examiner, smiling. “I assure you, you will.” In his hands the Book of Words lay open at chapter one: “Invocations.”

In other words,
Names.

7

It takes a superior kind of courage to torture a man, reflected the Examiner. Not everybody has it, nor are many called to the task. Even he, in spite of his brave talk, had never been required to deal with anything much higher up the scale of being than a ruinmarked nag or a warren of rabblesome goblins.

And now he must cast the Word on a man.

The thought made him feel slightly sick—but not with horror, he realized. With excitement.

Of course, he already knew its effects. He’d first seen them in action thirty years ago, when he was just a scrub. It had sickened him then: the creature’s hate, its curses, and at the end, when the final invocations had all been made, the near-human bewilderment in its pain-filled eyes.

Now he felt a surge of righteous joy. This was to be his moment of glory. For this task he had been granted a power that Magisters waited years in vain to receive, and he would prove himself worthy—aye, if he had to wade through rivers of unnatural blood.

Around him the Word began to take shape as, in a steady voice, he began to read aloud.

I name you Odin, son of Bór.

I name you Grim and Gan-glari,

Herian, Hialmberi,

Thekk, and Third, and Thunn, and Unn.

I name you Bolverk,

I name you Grimnir,

I name you Blindi—

At this point Odin could leave it no longer. With a sharp movement he brought his hand from behind his back and flung
T
ý
r
with all his strength at the Examiner. At the same time, he tore his left hand free of its bindings and cast
Naudr,
reversed, to release the chains that held him.

The weapon was small, but its aim was true. It snickered through the air, bit deeply into the Examiner’s thumb, and sliced across the pages of the Good Book before punching into the Examiner’s side.

It lodged there, sadly not deep enough to kill the man, but able to tap his blood in such abundance that for a moment Odin had the upper hand. He leaped at the Examiner, not with glamours now but with his own strength, knocking the Book out of his hands and driving the man against the wall of the roundhouse.

The Examiner, no fighter, gave a cry of alarm. Odin closed in. And he might even have managed to take the man if at that very moment the roundhouse door had not been flung open, and three men appeared in the doorway.

One was Audun Briggs. The second was Jed Smith. And the third was Nat Parson, his face flushed with unholy fire.

8

Meanwhile, above the roundhouse, Loki had spotted the Examiner’s trail. He’d seen it before; it was a strange greenish color, bright but somehow
sickly,
glowing like St. Sepulchre’s fire.

He saw the parson too, with his couple of henchmen, though both of them were far too preoccupied with what was happening in the roundhouse to pay any heed to the small brown bird that landed on the hedge, not far from them. Quickly Loki shrugged off his bird Aspect. A glance over his shoulder told him that Skadi had come to rest not far away, also clad only in her skin, but with her runewhip already in hand.

Here goes,
he thought.
Death or glory.
Of the two, he wasn’t sure which he feared most.

Odin saw the three men enter. Instinctively he turned to fight—and straightaway caught Jed Smith’s crossbow bolt straight through the shoulder. It pinned him to the wall, and for a few seconds he was caught there, one hand pressed against the missile’s shaft, trying vainly to wrench it out.

“Examiner!”
Nat ran toward the fallen man. The Examiner was pale but still conscious, his reddened hands clasped over his belly. At his feet the Good Book lay open, sliced almost in two by the mindbolt that had struck him.

Impatiently he waved the parson away. “The prisoner!” he gasped.

Nat felt a twinge of resentment. “He’s safe, Examiner,” he assured his guest.

“Secure him!” gasped the Examiner again, groping for his Book. “Secure him—gag him—while I invoke the Word!”

Nat Parson gave him a sideways glance. Oho, so the Examiner was asking for his help now, was he?
Polite as ever, eh, Mister Abstinence? But not so cool with that hole in your gut!

Nevertheless, he raced to obey the order, joining Audun Briggs in half dragging Odin to the far side of the roundhouse while Jed Smith kept the prisoner covered, a second crossbow bolt ready.

He had no need of it, however. There was no fight left in the Outlander. Once more bound and gagged, he could do nothing but watch as the Examiner, lurching to his feet (with the parson’s help), prepared to complete the canticle.

I name you Thror, Atrid, Oski, Verat
ý
r…

And now Odin could feel the Word closing on him…

Thund, Vidur, Fiolsvinn, Ygg…

His curse was stifled by the gag; his entire will now struggled against that of the Word. But his will was failing; his blood soaked into the hardpack floor. He remembered the Examiner saying to him,
Your time is done,
and was suddenly conscious—amid his rage and sorrow—of a feeling of deep and undeniable relief.