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“What. The. Fuck.”
“Mr. Horn, they will not attack you unless I command them—” Xenophon steps back from me, fingering something concealed in a sleeve. My reaction is all instinct. I snap the gun up and shoot the closest stubby one in the face, then shoot at the largest of the three at the window. I miss as they vault to the ceiling like gymnasts. I point the gun at Xenophon. I can’t win this fight. No matter how much I want to shoot Xenophon in the head. The long play is the only way.
Xenophon pulls a controller from his sleeve and twists a dial.
That must be for the heartspike. I play along, spasming and falling to my knees as if suffering a heart attack. Xenophon spins the dial more, likely to render me unconscious. I play dead. But, shittily, one of the Ascomanni decides to kick me in the head for his dead friend and everything goes dim.
* * *
—
I wake on stone amidst a distant roar of voices. A newly carved stone griffin glares down at me from the ceiling hundreds of meters overhead. I am in the private chamber off Sefi’s newly appointed throne room, my hands bound behind my back by magnetic cuffs. Still in my scarabSkin, though stripped of all my gear. Ozgard blinks beside me.
Sefi stands above me. “Xenophon—” is all I manage, still woozy from the blow to the head.
“Why?” she asks, her face cold to me. “I welcomed you when the world wanted you dead. I gave you aeta. Why try to install Valdir in a coup?”
“I—didn’t.” Speaking is like trying to form castles out of dry sand. I want to tell her I respect her. That I came back to help. That I may not be aeta, but I believe in her. In what she stands for. But all that trickles out is: “Volsung Fá…the Fear Knight…”
Come on brain, work!
“His master,” Xenophon says from her side, concealed hands twisting the dial on my heartspike. I try to fake a spasm, but I feel like I’m going to puke from the concussion anyway. “After delivering the children to the Fear Knight, his orders were to create chaos. I warned you about him.”
“Yes. You did, Xenophon. You did.” She looks on me in sorrow and then spits in my face. “We are not monsters, Mr. Horn. But our mercy is not infinite. Skin him and the fraud and hang them from the tower.”
“Ascomanni…” I grunt.
“If I may suggest he witness your speech, so as he hangs, he can know the unity of Obsidians in the face of his schemes?”
“Very well,” she says and walks off.
* * *
—
I am dragged by my hair with a bloody Ozgard into Griffinhold.
Morning sunlight filters through high windows. Nearly six hundred warjarls, all the chieftains of the tribes Sefi united into one, cluster before the giant Ice Throne. I’ve never seen them fully assembled, and until now did not realize how even Valdir showed signs of the encroachment of modernity. More than half of the leaders are stark savages. They wear bones in their hair and hilarious ostentatious signs of wealth pillaged from planets—gold chains, ruby-hilted axes, breastplates studded with diamonds. They have tattooed faces, fur cloaks, trophies of war brought out from the pristine confines of their bounty chests to flash their tail feathers to the other warjarls. Most are women, though a minority of taller men knot together. Alone, the six hundred fill barely a fraction of the cavernous chamber.
Two thick columns of Obsidian honor guard, mostly high-ranking men from the tribes, stretch all the way to the Bellona Doors. There must be thousands. Silence falls on the jarls as Sefi stalks up to her throne where two dozen of Sefi’s Valkyrie women form wings to either side. I’m tossed with Ozgard on the floor at the far wing of the dais.
“Ozgard…” I mutter, managing to crawl to my knees. He’s flat on the floor, his broken hands bound behind him. His lone eye blinks at me. “Oldboy, the skuggi…”
“Dead…most. They were waiting for us as we left. Valdir broke through…”
“Escaped?”
“I know not…” His mouth twists in despair. “I know nothing.” His eye turns to Sefi, who stands before her throne. I reach for my right heel with my hand and find the sealant there intact. I still have my last play.
“They’re here,” I murmur. “The Ascomanni.”
A Valkyrie hits my ear to silence me.
“Your hearts beat for war,” Sefi bellows to her chieftains in Nagal. The acoustics of the room work in her favor. The jarls pound their axe hafts on the ground. “War is what you desire. But against who? The Republic? The Golds? This Volsung Fá? Ourselves?
“Are we savages who bay for war like dogs?” She glares at them. “Ragnar did not die for war. He died for the future of the Volk! Many of you cannot see past your axes. War is our blood, yes. But no people can war against all. You know of the treason that bathed these halls last night in blood. My own mate, whose name is forgotten to us, thought I was too weak to face our enemies. Behold his conspirators…” At her order, the Valkyrie drag the skinned bodies of the skuggi and throw them down the stairs of the dais to splay like grisly, giant fetuses. I choke down vomit. I can’t even recognize any of them. First Freihild, now everyone else. Here I am again. The teacher of corpses. I never should have left you, Volga. I never should have left.
“Am I weak?” Sefi whispers. I see the hatred in her eyes for herself, for caving in the end to the cruel ways of her people. So much for progress. So much for the future. The jarls eat up the violence. They slam their axes and laugh. I work my hand on the heel, trying to break the sealant.
