The Lost Runes Saga [Epic Fantasy]

TWENTY-FOUR

Pain bloomed through his skull, knees, and chest. Worst of all was his shoulder that'd taken the brunt of the force behind the stakra rune's triggering. Vidar struggled to hands and knees. "Ow."

The first attempt to stand failed. Instead, a sitting position would have to do. Focus through the pain. Find the heartwell. Vidar took in a long breath through his nose, shutting Alvarn and everything else in the room out, finding an inner stillness to control the dragon's essence, to touch it. A flood of dragon's essence flowed from the heartwell. It invaded the heart at its center and used that gateway to continue out into his physical body. With no rune to direct it, Vidar found the essence concentrating in the injured areas. From its effects on his palm and Rend's leg, he didn't doubt the healing properties of channeling essence, but even he was surprised at the speed of recovery.

Standing, he shook his head, finding it pain-free.

"Are you injured?" Alvarn asked.

"Not anymore."

"What do you mean?"

Vidar tapped his chest with a finger. "This dragon's essence is the stuff of miracles, Alvarn. You can use it to mend your injuries!"

"How?" Alvarn asked, opening his notebook again, pen poised to write. "Tell me."

"Well, you sort of focus a whole lot, then you grab the strands in your heartwell and shove dragon's essence into them, and push that into your heart. Well, the heart inside the heartwell that then moves that to your physical heart."

Alvarn blinked and lowered his pen, looking up over the edge of the book. He squeezed his eyes shut, drew in a long breath. "Again, please. A little slower and with more detail."

Vidar shared his findings as best he could, but cut the explanation short when he heard a new sound. Walking up to the window overlooking the heating chamber, he saw water flowing through the filtration holes and into the chamber, rising to the ceiling as steam.

"I did it!"

Alvarn grabbed his hand and squeezed. "Looks like you did, indeed. Well done!" He leaned out the other window. "I wonder what blocked it."

"Doesn't matter," Vidar said.

"I suppose it doesn't," Alvarn began, sounding a little disappointed. "Hold on a moment, there's something there, by the surface."

"Oh?" Vidar asked, too worn out to even feign interest. He glanced up at Alvarn, who'd jerked his head back and was looking a little pale. "What?"

"Nothing," Alvarn said.

This, Vidar had to see. Peering down through the window, he saw it. An arm. It bobbed on the water above the holes in the wall. He saw no other parts, just the arm. "It was a body."

"Yup."

Vidar turned to his friend, who now sat on the floor letting out small burps. His face was even paler.

"It's just an arm, Alvarn."

"An arm," Alvarn agreed, his gaze fixed on the wall.

Vidar couldn't help but let a small grin slip through as he got down to sit on his heels in front of Alvarn. "It was a whole body, don't you think?"

"Yup."

"My stakra thrust must've taken it apart. I wonder if the arm is all that remains of it."

Alvarn's face took on a green tint, and he swallowed hard, not answering.

"Do you think the small bits got sucked through the holes?"

Alvarn's eyes widened and he let out a small whimper before getting to his feet and stumbling off to a corner to empty his stomach.

"That'll do it," Vidar said. "Ready to go?"

"You're a bastard," Alvarn panted, once he got his stomach under control.

"That I am, that I am," Vidar agreed, chuckling. "By the way, how will people even know the water is working again from this entrance?"

Opening his notebook with trembling fingers, Alvarn scribbled some final message before packing everything up, including the rope. "I'm in contact with a group who oversees the complaints sent in when the water doesn't work, or if a particular part of the system is blocked. With this repaired, I'll notify them, and they can get the information out through the proper channels."

"Sure, I met those once," Vidar said. "About that. There's something I've been thinking about. The stakra and styrka runes are down here, and those people know about this place. How is it they don't know about the runes?"

"It isn't just that they don't know about the runes," Alvarn explained. "They know there must be some sort of facility to treat the water down here, but they don't know what it looks like, how many there really are, or why they break down."

"And they haven't been down here to check?" Vidar asked.

"Did you get a good look at them?" Alvarn asked.

"Sure," Vidar said. "I was in their building. They even showed me the pile of complaints."

"Did any of them strike you as the adventurous type?"

"Not really," Vidar said.

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"Not really," Alvarn agreed. "From what I could gather, they have considered going down here themselves. But they are too comfortable in their office. And too afraid."

"Afraid?"

"The small entrances make it difficult to send grown men down. They have requested funds to hire more children and even asked the steward to find small soldiers to send down. Those requests have gone unanswered."

"But you're here."

"These entrances are not on the maps. I've deduced their location on my own."

"So they just do nothing?" Vidar asked.

"They gather complaints and send the odd note to the orphans for hire groups you were part of. Finding the right person for the job is challenging. Some believe there are monsters down here."

"That's stupid," Vidar muttered.

"It is the way of things. I'll send a note to them about having repaired this station, what it looks like, and how it works."

"Fine. The runes are no secret anymore. So, can we leave now?"

"Let us," Alvarn replied.

Once they got past the noisiest parts and could hear each other speak again, Vidar felt he needed to pose the problem he'd been mulling around in his head. "Dragons are coming."

"Yes?" Alvarn said, triggering the sowilo runes in and around his coat one by one as they made their way up the street. Color was returning to his face.

Vidar looked up at him for a while as they walked, trying to gauge his face, his expression. "You don't believe Rend?"

Alvarn glanced down at Vidar before looking ahead again, speaking with a voice full of exhaustion. "I don't know what to believe, Vidar."

"We can't afford to just wait and see," Vidar said.

"On that we agree," Alvarn said. "The guild should have talked to the steward now. They'll be formulating a plan of defense."

Vidar scoffed. "Like they did with the first dragon? They don't even know how we defeated it."

For a little while, Alvarn didn't reply.

Vidar narrowed his eyes. "They don't know how we did it, do they?"

"They know," Alvarn said after another long pause.

"Damn it," Vidar said. "You told them."

"I sent word to the guildmistress. As you may remember, she already has the styrka rune. All I did was tell her how to use it. Also, I made sure the guild's person of contact with the steward received the information. They have the ability to craft the ballista arrows."

"You had no right to do that!"

"That knowledge does not belong to you alone, Vidar," Alvarn said, his voice deepening. "You want Halmstad to be protected, and yet you withhold critical information, it makes no sense. For what? Gold? Like a dragon's hoard?"

"I don't know," Vidar said. "Leverage. I was going to give it to them, but they should give something in return."

"What?" Alvarn asked.

"Yes, I wanted gold. Can you blame me? We're out of coin!"

"Meanwhile, every citizen of Halmstad remains unprotected. It's a foul way to go about life, Vidar, and you need to do better."

They walked in silence for a while longer, snow crunching underfoot, before Vidar relented. "Fine."

"What?" Alvarn asked.

"Fine, I'll do better."

Alvarn nodded in satisfaction and gave a warm smile. "That's good, Vidar."

"I still don't think it's enough."

"That's why you're training thieves in rune craft?" The tone of Alvarn's voice spoke volumes of what he thought of that little venture.

"That's part of it, yes. Also, it will keep us safe from the other thieves."

"If you say so."

"I do say so," Vidar said. "We need algiz runes to hold the city together."

"The guild has the algiz rune," Alvarn said.

"Do you think the rune scribes' guild will protect all of Halmstad? They will protect themselves, and maybe their keep. If you're lucky, they'll extend themselves to protect the upper city. They won't do anything for these people," Vidar said, gesturing to the men, women, and children out on the street.

It was quite busy out despite the hour, and light runes shone from people's lanterns, making shadows dance on the walls of buildings. All those lanterns were a sure sign they weren't close to Andersburg. No one in Rat Town walked around with kenaz runes.

"So they'll protect themselves," Alvarn said. "You mean like what we are doing with the workshop?"

"That's not the same and you know it. We're just two people, and one building. Still, what about everyone else?"

Alvarn stepped aside for a cart drawn by two men, their backs heaving, their breath coming out in puffs of vapor in the cold air. "Fine," he muttered. "What did you have in mind?"

"That's just it. I don't know. I need your help. There's no way we'll be able to add and rejuvenate algiz runes to every single house and street in Halmstad. That would take years, and I'm not even sure we have weeks."

They turned onto a smaller side street that would take them most of the way back to the workshop. "Look, I was thinking maybe a huge circle, right? Around the city. And then we take an algiz rune in the middle of it and rejuvenate the hell out of that."

Alvarn blinked and scratched at his cheek. "That won't work."

"It works! I tested it myself. A large circle around a small rune affects the entire area. If you don't paint the circle at all, you can even expand the rune's area of effect by adding more essence to it, and I have a lot of essence," Vidar said, slapping himself over his heart.

"On a small scale, maybe it would work. Maybe. But a small symbol makes the rune inefficient. You could use every speck of the dragon's essence in your heartwell without getting close to filling such an enormous algiz rune. It wouldn't work."

"So what do we do?" Vidar asked. "We can't make a huge symbol either."

"No," Alvarn said, a thoughtful expression on his face.

"Will you help me figure it out?"

"It's an interesting conundrum."

"What does that mean?"

Alvarn reached over and squeezed Vidar's shoulder. "I'll help you think on it. This is good, Vidar. It's what I talked about. You wanting to help others."

"I still think the crown should pay us for it," Vidar grumbled.

"Hey!"

Vidar stopped, turned, and saw three men approaching from behind. The leftmost one had an unkempt, red beard reaching down to his belly. He held a dagger out in front of him, and from the look on his face and swagger in his step, he'd been the one to talk.

"What?" Vidar asked, not keeping the annoyance from his voice. "What do you want?"

The middle one, a thin, younger man with enormous ears, red from being exposed to the cold, carried a crossbow. He leveled it at Vidar as they approached. "Stop right there!"

Alvarn held out a hand to Vidar's chest, and when he spoke, it was with firmness in his voice. "Vidar. We should go. Don't hurt them."

"Hurt us?" the third man asked, laughing so hard his fat belly jumped up and down. This one carried a wicked-looking spiked mace. Being attacked with that thing would not be pleasant.

They were within a few steps of Vidar when they stopped.

"Our boss man wants to see you real bad," the dagger-wielding thief said.

Vidar glanced around up and down the street and toward the many alleys. Most of them were dead ends, he knew, but Fjodor's men should be coming to his aid. Unless. "You're with Fjodor?"

That set all three of them to laughing. It was the dagger-wielding thief who collected himself to speak first. "Tyv."

Vidar glanced at Alvarn and then back to the thieves, replying in as calm a manner as he could muster. "I have no business with him. Tell your boss to eat dirt." He then leaned over to Alvarn and spoke in a much lower voice. "Let's go."

"I'm afraid we'll have to insist. Tyv never said we needed to bring you in unharmed."

Other than the three thieves, the side street was empty. The few other regular citizens who'd been coming up or down the street had disappeared. Good for them.

"You should go," Vidar told Alvarn. "No need for you to get mixed up in this."

"I'm not leaving you alone with these thugs," Alvarn said, his gaze not wavering from the thieves.

"You sure? This might turn out worse than an arm floating on the water."

Alvarn paled a little again, but the determination did not leave his eyes. "I'm sure."