The Lost Runes Saga [Epic Fantasy]

NINETEEN

Such a fool he'd been. The dragon had come from somewhere, carrying a human on its back. To not even consider how there might be more of them. Of course, there were more of them! Vidar's sense of helplessness grew with each step down the narrow stairs. Throwing himself over the debris in the workshop, he cursed at his inability to put the, in hindsight, obvious clues together to create even the haziest of ideas of what might be coming. He should've known better. He really should've.

Alvarn looked up from where he was talking to a male customer only a little older than themselves, with a massive bald spot on top of his head showing a sowilo rune. Alvarn's raised eyebrow showed how he'd picked up on something being wrong. Vidar stood in the door opening, shifting his weight back and forth, fingers twitching.

"What of the expected longevity?" the customer asked. "Are you sure you can't come to me for rejuvenation?"

"Depending on the warmth requirements of your home, the longevity will differ, but I can assure you it is of the highest quality. Look at the line work here."

"I see," the customer said. "And the house call?"

"Unfortunately, our policy is clear on that point," Alvarn began, his eyes shifting from the customer to Vidar, then back and down at the rune in his hand. "We do not make house calls."

"Peculiar," the man said, wetting his lips. He stood there for a moment, thinking.

"That's it!" Vidar shouted, striding forward to snatch the rune from Alvarn's hand. He pressed it to the customer, then turned him around and pushed him out the door. "On the house! Tell everyone you know how great our runes are!"

"B-but the triggering!" the customer yelled through the already closed door.

Vidar ignored him, turning to Alvarn. "Dragons!"

"What?" Alvarn asked, annoyed at the interruption and the lack of a sale. Then the word hit home, and his eyes widened in horror. "No!"

"Yes!"

Alvarn looked up at the ceiling like he could see through the dark planks. "Rend?"

"Yes! Dragons!"

"How many?"

Vidar raised his hands in exasperation. "I don't know! Rend doesn't know! This is bad. So bad."

"Bad," Alvarn agreed. He put his hand under his chin and looked away, as if deep in thought. "Do we know when?"

"We don't know a damn thing! Except how the dragons want to kill shadows!"

Alvarn blinked. "What?"

"Demons, sorry. They want to kill demons."

"What are demons? You mean like in fairy tales?"

"I don't know what I mean," Vidar said, waving his hands in the air. "All I know is dragons are coming, and they somehow know Vatrfjall is dead, and they're not happy about it!"

"What's that?"

"Vatrfjall? Rend's dragon."

"Oh. It just seems so surreal that the one who rode atop the dragon scourge of Halmstadt is right here under our roof."

"Surreal or not, Halmstadt will burn. What we've seen so far is nothing compared to what'll happen next!"

"We need to tell someone," Alvarn said, holding on to his calm.

"In that, we are in agreement," Vidar said. "Can you go talk to the guild?" He looked around at the house. "Maybe first add some more algiz runes to the shop."

Alvarn gave him a look.

"Fine, fine," Vidar relented. "Talk with the guild first, then make sure our shop can withstand any attacks from above."

"What do we want the guild to do?" Alvarn asked.

"Help, of course," Vidar said, throwing open the door outside. Cold air rushed in. "We're going to need algiz runes covering the entire city!"

"And what are you going to do?" Alvarn shouted after him.

Vidar looked through the window, shouting. "I'm going to talk to that bastard Jarl again!"

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He didn't make it more than a few steps before he heard banging on glass. Vidar stopped and looked up to see Rend struggling to get the window on the second floor open. Once he managed it, he leaned out far enough that Vidar thought he might fall to the ground.

"Leave Surtandr!"

"What?" Vidar asked.

"Dead dragon. No touch!"

"We're going to need bone to make arrows! A lot of arrows!"

Rend's eyes widened, then narrowed, and his next words came out strained, as if struggling to speak them through while remaining calm. "No hurt dragons! Friends!"

"They might be your friends," Vidar shouted back in a hiss, trying to keep the people on the street from hearing. "But they aren't mine!"

"Take from Vatrfjall! No touch Surtandr!" Rend shouted at the top of his lungs.

Vidar raised his hands in a silencing gesture. "Keep it down, will you? Do you want the entire town to hear?"

"No touch Surtandr. I die!"

Vidar searched the Rend's face and found conviction behind the threat. The boy was serious.

"Fine!" Vidar shouted back up. "Just be quiet and go back inside. If you run or get yourself killed, I'm going to use every inch of bone on that skeleton!"

Rend shut the window without another word. Vidar considered the matter closed and set off running again. The sun warmed enough now that he didn't even need the sowilo runes to keep him warm while he made his way toward Nordstan. Before going to the upper city to find Jarl, however, he needed to make another stop. Fjodor's contingent of thieves wanted to learn, and Vidar had now found a way to keep them motivated. Learn to craft algiz runes to protect yourselves, or face utter destruction.

The leader of that part of the thieves' guild wasn't the one standing behind the bar. Vidar left a note, urging the man to gather everyone who wanted to learn as soon as that very same night. After a moment of hesitation, he added a note on the dangers of rune craft. That danger might not mean much in the face of a dragon threat, but the thieves should know what they were getting themselves into.

Writing in short bursts came to him without the risk of letters rebelling against his wishes. Once written, the words took on a life of their own, but by then it no longer mattered. He penned another note. This one, he handed over to Ida's people. Some of them loitered near the second location, even if Ida herself had already moved to yet another safe house. The girl thieves eyed him with wariness but didn't bolt as he approached, and they promised to get the note to Ida. The tall one who worked close to her knew how to read and write, they told him. In his haste, he hadn't even considered Ida couldn't read the note.

That done, it was time to break into Nordstan. His first idea saw him hide in the crowd going in through a gate. Unfortunately, the soldiers on guard saw through his disguise, a hat he'd bought, and pulled down far and hunched shoulders. A firm hand in the middle of his chest and a stern look were all Vidar needed to give up on this approach. The soldier didn't utter a single word, but another step would see him in a jail cell, and he didn't like his chances of running past the guard and disappearing into the upper city. Not after last time.

Retreating, Vidar descended below ground. The collapsed entrance where the dragon succumbed was a mess. Going past it in search of another way up yielded disappointing results. Water and offal flowed from west and north to east and south, but no matter how much he searched, he found no other entrance other than the other collapsed one by the plaza. Repairing hatches was not a priority to the steward. That was much apparent.

Defeated, Vidar returned above ground. Sneaking in by going over the wall during the day was out of the question, but waiting for night made little sense either. At that point, there would be no getting into the keep. Finding Jarl proved a greater challenge than he'd hoped, and time was slipping between his fingers and dragons might show up at any moment.

Cursing his poor luck with the soldiers at the gate after yet another failed attempt at a different entrance, Vidar pulled out a few coins and paid for a messenger service. At the sight of silver, the runner wearing an official-looking uniform in white and blue promised they'd see the slip of paper in Jarl's hand before night fell.

With pockets feeling far too light, he returned to the workshop. It was closed. Alvarn must still be at the rune scribes' guild, trying to convince them of the approaching threat, and Erik still hadn't returned. Peering up at the roof, Vidar decided that, yes, he could make the climb up there. Some few algiz runes on the walls and doors meant little against attacks coming from above, after all.

Digging the ladder out of the snow took a little while, but he managed it. The ladder didn't quite reach the lip of the roof, but it was a near enough thing that Vidar could scramble up, he decided. A warmth rune with a small measure of dragon's essence made quick work of the snow that'd settled on top of the roof, and then he set to climbing.

Vidar paused at the sound of a metallic clank coming from below. Looking down, he saw a thin dagger without a hilt. Unsure what to think, he missed a second attack. Another dagger fell to the ground. This time, however, he peered over his shoulder and caught the blue shimmer coming from an algiz rune on his upper back.

Hurrying down from the ladder, Vidar rushed out to the street in front of Runes Aplenty, just fast enough to see a man being pummeled by three younger men. A flash of steel caught the light from the sun before disappearing into the first man, Vidar's attacker.

One of the three caught sight of Vidar, reached up and bobbed his cap in greeting, then again focused on their victim. In less than a few seconds, they dragged the now-dead assailant into an alley, disappearing from view. Wanting answers, Vidar followed. All he found were a few blotches of blood in the snow. The thieves, because that had to be what they were, were gone.

"Someone just tried to kill me," he muttered as he returned to the ladder.

The three had to be the guards Fjodor mentioned. Focusing on his breathing to calm himself, Vidar plucked the two knives from the ground and examined them. Sharpened metal with a bit of leather wrapped around the base. Nothing fancy, but enough to kill. And kill him they would've, if not for his recent trip to the dennermen. Vidar pocketed the weapons and rejuvenated the algiz rune that absorbed the attack.

His hands shook when Vidar grabbed the rungs of the ladder and his legs felt like they'd lose their strength any second, but the more he climbed, the more his steadfastness returned. The tattoos worked. He'd known they would, but now it was fact and not just a feeling in his gut. Still, the attack failed. All was well. Now, all he needed to focus on was the algiz runes on the slanted roof of his new workshop. The dragons would not take his new home away from him. Vidar refused to give it up. Refused to leave.

With ever more steady, broad movements of his shoulder, Vidar painted runic symbols all over the rooftop. This was the first step to securing Halmstadt against the coming threat. The most important step. After this, he needed to figure out how to protect everyone else. And maybe, just maybe, he could find a solution that'd leave him with a few coins in his pocket as well.