Falcon Warrior (The Swordswoman Book 3) Read online

  'I'm coming in!'

  Melcorka stepped cautiously in, Defender held before her.

  The outer courtyard was empty. Tall walls of ice stretched around her, pierced by round-headed windows. Four towers funnelled toward the sky, silver-white thrusting to bright blue. Two nailed down the front corners of the castle, two secured the rear.

  'Hello!' Melcorka called once more. 'Is there anybody here?'

  Balancing Defender on her right shoulder she stepped on, through an arched doorway that led to the inner courtyard. Her footsteps echoed from the ice, her voice pealed around her.

  'Hello!'

  The inner courtyard was as empty as the outer had been. Square and smooth, it was surrounded by walls of ice, pierced with windows that glared blankly at Melcorka as if at a mortal enemy.

  'Is anybody here?' Melcorka heard her words echo and re-echo around the confined space until they died to a whisper. 'Well this is strange,' she said. 'I have an entire castle and nobody to share it with.'

  Four doors opened from this courtyard; one into each of the rearmost towers, one back to the outer courtyard and one into a large building that sat between the two towers. That doorway was more ornate, arched like the others but decorated with carved polar bears and walruses. It was open, revealing a tantalising glimpse of stairs that led upward. Above the door was the same coat-of-arms that had been above the main gate. A bird in flight, wings extended, talons ready to pounce and beak thrusting forward.

  'Hello! I am Melcorka of Alba!'

  Her voice echoed again.

  'You are not very welcoming to a guest!'

  Her words bounced around, distorted by their surroundings.

  'I am coming in!'

  She stepped through the doorway. To her right was an empty chamber; to her left, its twin. In front, a flight of steps swept upward. Grasping Defender firmly, Melcorka moved on one step at a time.

  'Bjorn! Thorfinn! Are you up there?'

  She heard the sound first, a soft, regular thumping that she could not place. She waited, Defender ready.

  The thing rolled down the stairs, one step at a time and nudged her left foot. She glanced down and met Bjorn's eyes. They were wide open, light blue and terrified. The young man had died in fear.

  'Hello again Bjorn,' she said softly. 'You will be in Valhalla now, welcomed into the hall of heroes.'

  'Who's up there?' Melcorka called. 'Is Thorfinn still alive?'

  She heard a whispering, like the wings of a flock of geese, and then nothing. The renewed silence was intense.

  'Thorfinn?'

  The sound was like nothing she had heard before; a gurgling snarling that raised the hairs on the back of her neck. The scream came a second later, long and shocking: the cry of a man in mortal fear.

  'Enough of this,' Rather than wait to see what would come down the stairs, Melcorka ran upwards, two steps at a time, with the point of Defender thrust out in front of her like a lance.

  The scream ended abruptly. The snarl altered to a bubbling laugh that seemed to come from the depths of hell, and then Thorfinn appeared. He slithered down the stairs on top of a wash of his own blood, except his body had been torn open and his insides were missing. Melcorka leaped over him as Thorfinn rolled past her and downwards; she slipped on his blood and continued upward.

  'I am Melcorka of Alba!'

  The doorway was arched, with that same flying-bird symbol above it. Melcorka pushed through and saw the creatures.

  There were four of them, creatures larger than any wolf she had ever seen, with long snouts and mouths armed with a double row of inward-curving teeth. Their claws left ragged indentations on the ice and their tails ended in balls of spikes.

  'Now what the devil are you?' Melcorka asked and answered her own question. 'Of course; you are the amoraks that Almick told us of. I thought you were a myth and yet here you are.'

  The amoraks waited for her in a semi-circle, each one with a leather collar around its neck, ringed with spikes of ice. Blood tinged spittle drooled from their mouths and when their tongues extended, they were serrated and long.

  'Come on if you dare.' Melcorka stood in a half crouch, holding Defender before her. Only then did she see the cords that held the amoraks secure. Each cord was of strands of silk, twisted into a finger-wide leash that extended from the back of the brute's collar to an ice post that stood at the far end of the room. The blood that pooled on the floor showed how Bjorn and Thorfinn had died. There was no sign of Bjorn's body.

  'So who put you here?' Melcorka asked. 'And why?' She raised her voice. 'I'm coming through,' she shouted. 'Your amoraks are in my way. If they attack me I will kill them!'

  As soon as the words were said, the ice post melted as if it had never existed and all four amoraks leaped at her, mouths widely extended.

  Thrusting Defender into the chest of the first, Melcorka was surprised at the sheer weight of the creature. She tried to withdraw the blade, gasped as she realised it was stuck in the amorak's rib cage, slid it sideways and yelled as a second amorak fastened its teeth onto her left thigh. Despite the enhanced strength and skill that flowed through her from Defender, the pain was sickening. The third amorak came from the right with its mouth fully extended and its teeth still bloody from Bjorn or Thorfinn. Melcorka could not see the fourth.

  Despite all Melcorka's efforts, Defender was still sticking in the first amorak's rib cage. Rather than try to slide the blade again, Melcorka pushed harder, until the point protruded out the amorak's back. As the creature squealed in agony, Melcorka ignored the pain of her thigh, lifted the amorak clean in the air, swung it around her head and crashed it on top of the creature that was gnawing at her leg.

  The sudden impact dislodged the chewing beast, which turned to bite at this unexpected attack. Putting her foot on the now dead first amorak, Melcorka finally yanked Defender free, ducked low and sliced the blade sideways. She had learned that the creatures were too well muscled and boned for even Defender to penetrate with ease, so aimed for the legs of the third amorak. She felt the shock of contact and the creature howled. With three of its legs immediately amputated it fell gushing out scarlet blood. Melcorka left it there, killed the second with a simple thrust to the back of its neck, stepped back and searched for the fourth. The whole affair had taken less than a minute.

  The ice chamber was empty save for the two dead amoraks and the one that was quickly bleeding to death.

  'Who are you?'

  The voice came from nowhere, echoing around the ice, low, booming and with an accent that Melcorka had never heard before.

  'I am Melcorka of the Cenel Bearnas in Alba!' She gave her name and clan proudly. 'Some call me the Swordswoman!'

  She waited for a reply. There was none.

  'Show yourself, Ice king; if that is who you are!'

  Pushing the dead amoraks aside, Melcorka saw a small door on the opposite wall, where the pillar of ice had been. Again thrusting Defender forward like a spear, she pushed into the doorway. There were more ice steps, slippery as wet glass, coiling around a central pillar and heading upward as far as she could see.

  'I must be in one of the towers,' Melcorka told herself and climbed on. 'Are you there, Ice king? I am coming for you.'

  The laughter surrounded her, echoing from the ice, battering at her ears, nearly deafening her with the sheer volume of sound.

  'You are my enemy!' Melcorka shouted. 'You attacked the Skraelings; you killed Thorfinn and Bjorn. I will kill you!'

  The laughter increased, peal after peal of it, so loud it was painful as it entered Melcorka's head, making it hard to concentrate or even think. She climbed on, step by step, each one taking her higher toward … she did not know what they took her toward. She only knew she had to climb, to fight this mysterious king with his command over wild beasts and a voice like the peal of thunder.

  Thunder? That was Thor's province. Was she going to have to fight Thor and his mighty hammer? She smiled; why not? She had already defeated Bel,
the sun-god of the Celts. Why not Thor? Let him come! Limping, aware she was losing blood from the wound in her left thigh, Melcorka pushed on, gasping with effort and pain but unrelenting.

  'I'm coming, Ice king! Wait for me! I am going to kill you!'

  The laughter ended abruptly. The silence was so acute it hurt. The steps continued. Melcorka hurried, climbing, counting each step, wondering if she would reach the moon or heaven first. She shouted for the Ice king to show himself.

  'Ice king! Face me! I am Melcorka of Alba!'

  And then she was running through a small door and onto the battlements of the corner tower with all Greenland stretched before her.

  'Where are you?'

  The floor was of ice, the battlements of ice. The view was immense, the white ice-cap that covered most of this huge land, with the serrated mountain peaks to north and west while away, far away in the south the tiny patch of green and brown that marked the cultivated settlement of Frakkoksfjord.

  There was a group of specks down there, so small that Melcorka could barely make them out. They were moving, some this way, some that, and she knew that she was looking down on the allied Skraeling-Norse army that had come to battle the Ice king. But of the king, there was no sign.

  'Now what?' Melcorka asked. 'Fight me, Ice king!'

  The laughter surrounded her. Emanating from nowhere, it once again disturbed her ability to think and seared agonisingly into her brain so she clenched her eyes, dropped Defender and covered her ears with her hands. The sound battered at her, sending her to her knees amidst the chill water and ice.

  Melcorka swore; there was no water here a moment before. Forcing open her eyes she saw she was in a puddle of water, a puddle that was rapidly expanding and deepening as the ice melted.

  'Oh, dear God!' Melcorka looked around her. The nearest battlements were nearly gone as they rapidly wasted away, and the steps she had come up were no longer clear- cut and pristine; their edges were blurred and soft. They were melting; the whole castle was returning to water under her feet. If she remained here, she would have nothing underneath her except liquid and a very long fall to ground level; she had to get back down.

  Climbing up ice stairs with an injured leg had been bad enough. Trying to hurry down when the stairs were inches deep in water and liable to disappear beneath her feet was ten times worse. With each second, the castle became more precarious, the steps more slippery and the walls thinner as they quickly dissolved.

  Ice became sludge and Melcorka felt herself falling through bitter cold water, turning around, trying vainly to slow her passage. She saw the missing amorak beside her, its paws and tail flailing frantically and then she was in the midst of a river of rushing cold water, surging onward. Melcorka lifted her head and saw the crevasse ahead, with its terrifying drop to nowhere. The melting castle was propelling her toward her death with shocking speed.

  The amorak was beside her, trying to bite her with its huge jaws. She kicked out; felt the shock of contact, saw the white teeth flashing and then it was gone, falling into the crevasse with its tail lashing around, knocking chunks of ice from the smooth sides. And then Melcorka was at the edge and falling into the unimaginable depths. Its harsh barking howl continued for minutes until it faded away.

  'No!' Melcorka shouted. 'I'm not going down there.'

  Unsheathing Defender, she thrust sideways so the blade rammed into the ice side of the crevasse. It held firm; she felt the sword quiver as hundreds of tons of water crashed on top of them, nearly forcing her to release her grip on the hilt. The flow of ice-bitter water continued for what seemed like hours as the remains of the castle plummeted on top of her and down, down to the depths below.

  The water slowed and then stopped. Melcorka shook a million droplets from her head and body and looked around. She was about three hundred feet below the lip of the crevasse, with Defender her only support and the chasm clutching at her with its invitation to fall down and down forever. Melcorka hung for a moment, holding onto the hilt of Defender as she assessed her situation.

  She looked down, seeing the light fading as the crevasse plummeted to the unknown. There was no escape that way. She looked up, seeing the sheer ice walls ascending toward the surface. She had to climb up there or she would die. There was no choice; she was so far down that nobody could see her, and even if they did, they could not rescue her. She had to rely on herself and nobody else.

  It was fortunate that she had grown up on a small Scottish island where clambering down steep cliffs to rob bird's nests for eggs had been a regular chore. It had been a case of climbing or starving; Melcorka was no novice at rock climbing. However, these walls were of glass-smooth ice and offered no grip. She reached up with her left hand and found only smoothness.

  'I will have to make my own hand-holds,' Melcorka told herself.

  Pulling herself bodily upward, she leaned her upper body across Defender, hoping that she had thrust it far enough into the ice to hold her weight. Sliding her hand inside her cloak, she pulled out the dirk she kept under her armpit, reached up as far as she could and began to hack at the ice. She needed a hand- hold deep enough to support her while she leaned down for Defender. Anything less and she would be falling downward into the abyss.

  With the work hard in such a cramped position, perspiration soon beaded on her face and trickled uncomfortably down her back. Gasping, she hacked at the ice, wondering how many centuries it had been there and ignoring the chips and chunks that cascaded past her and down into the terrible depths.

  'That will do,' she told herself. 'I've made it deep enough and angled it inward so I have some sort of grip.'

  She glanced down into nothingness and contemplated letting go and falling forever and ever toward the black.

  'No! That way of thinking brought only madness. Upward and onward!

  Sliding her hand into the first hole, Melcorka tested it, found it held her weight and began a second. It was harder as her muscles tired, but each hand-hold brought her a little closer to the top. Taking a deep breath, she stepped clear of Defender into the new holes, reached down and released the sword, to jam it into the ice a few feet above her head.

  'That's one small step,' she told herself. 'Only a couple of hundred more and I will be on the surface.

  'You will die down there!' The voice boomed and echoed around the chasm, thundering in Melcorka's head so she winced.

  'Is that you, Ice king?' Melcorka called. 'Your melting castle failed to kill me, and I chopped your amoraks to pieces. What will you try next?'

  'This!' The voice sounded again, louder and ended in that now familiar laugh.

  'What?' Melcorka asked.

  She did not have to wait long. The crevasse wall opposite her shifted, easing an inch closer to her. She looked up, seeing the rectangle of sky far above shrink slightly.

  'I will close the walls slowly, Melcorka of Alba, so you are crushed to death a fraction at a time. You will die in exquisite agony, over hours.'

  'I'm not dead yet!' Melcorka said, hacking another hand-hold in the ice and lifting herself another two feet higher.

  'Soon,' that voice told her, and the crevasse walls creaked closer.

  'Coward!' Melcorka shouted. 'You are afraid to face me in battle. You kill from a distance: you are a coward!'

  The wall closed another finger's width. Melcorka knew that her insults would not work. The Ice king would not be taunted into facing her.

  Melcorka stabbed her dirk into the ice, knowing that she could not carve out handholds fast enough to reach the top before the walls closed in. She had to try something else. Holding the dirk in her left hand, she grabbed Defender by the hilt and thrust it, right-handed, into the ice wall. With one blade in each hand and her feet scrabbling desperately to find miniscule indentations in the ice, she moved up hand over hand, inch by painful, muscle-tearing inch. This way was much riskier; if she slipped … she dare not think of that drop beneath her.

  The rectangle of sky was closing above her.
The wall opposite was only a few feet away. Melcorka knew she would not manage to reach the top before she was crushed. 'I'm not going to die under the ice in Greenland,' she said. 'I refuse to die like this.'

  The ice wall opposite shifted another inch closer.

  'No, Ice king; you won't defeat me. I can turn your attack against you.' Reaching across, Melcorka wedged herself between the two walls and pushed upward. She swore as her feet slipped and for a moment she was held in place only by pressure and a sliver of Defender's blade. Gritting her teeth, she pressed harder and slid another few inches, and then another.

  The gap at the top was closer, but the crevasse was pressing shut. Melcorka felt the sides squeezing her. She looked up, stretched and swore.

  'Mel!'

  The voice penetrated the Ice king's noise within her head.

  'Mel!'

  Only one man ever called her that.

  'Bradan!' She shouted the name. 'Bradan! Down here!'

  The staff was in front of her, a life- line to the top. Melcorka grabbed hold of it with her left hand, gave a final push with her feet and felt herself lifted upward. She reached the surface of the ice exactly as the crevasse closed with a hard slam. Lying face down, Melcorka gasped for breath as her muscles screamed in pain.

  'I thought you were dead,' Bradan said.

  'Not yet,' Melcorka gasped. 'If you had not been there, I would have been.'

  'You're hurt.' His hands were on the wound in her thigh.

  'It'll heal,' Melcorka said. The pain she had forgotten returned now, throbbing with each beat of her heart.

  'Oh dear God; what's that?' Bradan asked.

  Melcorka struggled to her feet, gasped at the pain and straightened up. Erik was watching her, smiling as always, with Almick at his side and the combined Norse- Skraeling force scattered around them. At Bradan's words, every man looked upward and most backed away, swearing. Only Erik and two other Norsemen drew their swords and stepped forward.