David Farland - Chaosbound

Owen’s wife Greta stood motionless, her face drained of blood. She gaped at Borenson as if she’d just wakened from one nightmare to a greater nightmare, and then in a small voice said, “Grab your things, children. We have to leave. We have to leave now !”

She was shaking, terrified. She dared not turn her back on the giant, for fear of an attack. So she glared at him as the children gathered around.

Borenson did not move to stop her.

Weeping and fearful glances came from the children. Bane’s wife berated him, commanding him to “Do something!” while another young woman muttered insults under her breath, calling the giant an “ugly arr,” and an “elephant’s ass.”

Rain stood for a moment, looking between her family and Draken, unsure which way to choose.

“Stay if you want,” Myrrima pleaded with Rain softly. Rain hesitated, turned to look at Myrrima with tears streaming down her cheeks. The horror of what had happened was too great for her to overcome. She turned and began to follow her clan.

Draken called, “Rain!”

Myrrima told him, “And you can go if you want.”

Draken stood, in the throes of a decision. He knew that he couldn’t follow. Rain and her family, they’d never accept him now. Besides, he wasn’t sure about them anymore. The baron had been willing to kill them all.

The entire Walkin clan scuttled away, grabbing their few bags of goods, fading off into the shadows thrown by the rocks.

Borenson grumbled, “There will be other women, son. Few are the men who fall in love only once in their lives.”

“She’s special,” Draken said.

Borenson shook his head, gave the boy a suffering look, and said, “Not that special.”

Draken whirled and growled at his father, “And you have the nerve to lecture me about discipline!” Draken stood, trembling, struggling to find the words that would unleash all of his anger, all of his frustration.

Borenson turned away, unable to face him.

Borenson said, “I am a berserker, bred for two hundred generations to fight the wyrmlings. They come at us with axes and harvester spikes stuck into their necks. I meet them with my rage.

“Even among those bred to be berserkers, only one in ten can do it— set aside all the pain of battle, all of the fear and hesitation, and go into that dark place where no soul ever returns unscathed. . . .”

Borenson watched the Walkins, shook his head, and said under his breath. “They’ll be back. We should leave here—soon.”

“They won’t be back,” Myrrima said. “They’re more afraid of you than you are of them.”

“Fear only makes a coward more dangerous,” Borenson intoned.

Borenson stood, trembling at the release from his rage. His whole body seemed poised for battle, every muscle rigid. Draken had seen well-bred hunting dogs act that way.

“I had no choice but to kill,” Borenson told Myrrima. “The man put you in danger.”

Myrrima shouted, “You roared at children! No one does that. I not only don’t know who you are anymore, I don’t know what you are.” She hesitated. “Aaath Ulber, that’s what they called you on that other world?”

“It means Berserker Prime, or Greatest of the Berserkers,” Borenson said.

“ Aaath Ulber then,” Myrrima said in disgust. “I shall call you Aaath Ulber from now on.”

Draken could see in the giant’s expression that he knew what Myrrima was doing. By calling him a different name, she was distancing herself from him.

For a moment, all fell silent. Draken fixed the new name in his mind.

Pure grief washed across Aaath Ulber’s face, but he took Myrrima’s rebuke. “Right then, Aaath Ulber it is.”

Draken stood between the two, bewildered. Draken was afraid of Aaath Ulber, terrified by what he’d done. The violence had been so fast, so explosive.

“Walkin deserved his punishment,” Aaath Ulber said evenly. “If that man was still alive, I’d kill him again. He planned to kill me, and then he would have done you.”

“How can you be so sure?” Myrrima demanded.

“I saw it in his eyes,” Aaath Ulber said.

“So, you can read minds on your other world?” Myrrima asked.

“Only shallow ones.” Aaath Ulber smiled a feral smile. He tried to turn away Myrrima’s wrath with a joke. “Look at the good side of all of this,” he said. “We won’t be squabbling with the in-laws over who gets to eat the goose’s liver at every Hostenfest feast.”

There was work to be done before the Borensons broke camp. There were empty casks that needed to be filled with water. The family would need to take a trip to Fossil to fetch supplies.

And there was a child to be buried.

Myrrima had been waiting for Aaath Ulber to return so that the whole family could join in the solemn occasion. She’d wanted to have time to mourn as a family. She had never lost a child before. She’d always thought herself lucky. Now she felt as if even her chance to properly mourn was being stripped from her.

Fallion bound the worlds, Myrrima thought, and now my family is being ripped apart.

She told Aaath Ulber how Erin’s spirit had visited near dawn, and told him of the shade’s warning that they must go to the Earth King’s tree.

Aaath Ulber grew solemn, reflective. He wished that he had been here to see it, but the chance had been lost and there was no bringing her back.

“She spoke to you?” he asked in wonder.

“Yes,” Myrrima said. “Her voice was distant, like a faraway song, but I could hear her.”

“A strange portent,” Aaath Ulber said. “It makes me wonder. I am two men in one body. Is Erin now two spirits bound together? Is that how she found this new power?”

Myrrima shook her head, for it was something she had no way of knowing.

“And if spirits also bind,” Aaath Ulber said, “does that mean that within my body, the spirits of two men are also bound?”

Somehow, this idea disturbed him deeply. But there was no knowing the truth of it now. It was a mystery that no one could answer, so he asked, “Shall we bury Erin in water, or in the ground?”

Myrrima considered. She was a servant of Water, and always imagined that she would want to be buried in water herself. And on Sir Borenson’s home island, it had been the custom to send the dead floating out to sea.

But the water in the old river channel was filthy, and Myrrima didn’t want her daughter floating in that. Besides, if Myrrima ever returned to Landesfallen, she would want to know where her daughter’s body might be found.

Myrrima said, “Let’s plant her here, on dry ground, where she can be near the farm.”

Aaath Ulber did not begrudge the task of digging a grave, even though he had no tools. The giant went to a place where the ground looked soft, then began to dig, using a large rock to gouge dirt from the earth.

Myrrima and Draken rolled the empty barrels out of the ship’s hold; she opened each one and smelled inside. Most of them had held wine or ale, so these were the ones that she moved to the spot where the small stream seeped down the cliff. She began to fill each barrel with water for their journey, and as she did, she fretted, making long lists of things she hoped to buy in the small village of Fossil: rope, lamps, wicks, flint, tinder, clothes, needles and thread, fish hooks, boots, twine, rain gear, medicines—the list was endless, but the money was not.

So she wrestled the empty barrels to a rock where the clean water cascaded down the cliff and began to let them fill. It was a slow process, letting the water trickle into the barrels. As she did, she found that her hands were shaking.