(THOB) Chapter 124: Urden - Interlude (Patreon)

“The nerve of you, Priest!” Iyvena snarled. “You will have us break an oath given by ancestors who walked Vayla as early as time began. This is madness, even for you. And thinking we will help you simply for who you are is greater proof that you don’t know what you are asking. If you think it’s so important, then why don’t you reveal it yourself, hm?”

Urden was losing a hold on his patience as she spoke. Women her age were never intended to talk so much. He’d always thought age came with wisdom, and a certain amount of sluggish weakness. He’d seen it a lot of times and had even had the displeasure of experiencing it once or twice.

Iyvena was well over her sixtieth winter, and while she stood hunched with age, her face was level with his. He had come with a similar proposition he had gone to the Sarks and a few others with, and they had understood. He had expected this branch of what was left of the descendants of the ancient Urn tribe, over every other branch, to understand the importance of what was required.

Beyond the wooden house everything was drowned in snow, and while he waited here listening to this thin chattering stick of a woman, Dinma was somewhere in some other house most likely shivering from the cold. Her people were designed to withstand the wrath of the sun, and not the tempered rage of the white tears of the ice peaks. Snow did not do her any good. He’d noticed it as they ascended and he noticed it when he’d left her to the warm flames of Arfina’s fireplace.

He watched Iyvena, unflinching. The blue-eyed Urn—for this tribe was the closest to their ancestors as any of the branches would ever get—watched him with suspicion, her small beady eyes unmoving in their sockets even as she spoke.

Tired of her ranting, he ignored her completely. She was but an aged advisor and the final decision laid in the hands the village eldest. “What will it be, Unhilda?”

The village eldest sat upon her sit. It was a simple mound of what Urden did not know, wrapped in fur and arranged to fit her. It was nothing unique. If anything, it was more mediocre than most chairs he had seen. But to the people of the tribe it was as much a throne as anything Criver could dare to sit upon.

“Iyvena does have a point,” the tribe’s head rasped, her throaty voice unpleasant. “This is an oath that spans too many generations. Its secrets far too important.”

Urden nodded. “And now it has to be told.”

Unhilda tapped a bony finger to withering lips. “And you will have me grant him entrance into the room?”

Urden almost laughed. Here was an old woman spewing tripe. Both of them knew she did not have such authority. She could no sooner grant herself entrance than she could fly, and that too, she knew. So he told her. “You don’t have that power, Unhilda. Not even Griddif had that power.”

The woman’s ears perked up at her ancestor’s name. “You dare address the ancestor with disrespect?!”

Iyvena had already moved, her body still potent with Vayla’s blessing despite her age. Had it been someone else, her blade would have cleaved hand from body. But he wasn’t someone else. He saw her coming, knowing well enough she would overstep her bounds. His Sunder came free with so much speed and power that when it struck her face to The Planken floor beneath them, the sound encompassed the room. The floor almost didn’t hold the impact, cracking under her face, but that was all.

There was a moment of shocked silence as the sound rend the room. Even at her age Iyvena was no easy foe. In her prime she had been known to have brought a tribe to its knees single handed. She was powerful.

But he had conquered greater foes.

He waited for Unhilda, and though it took a moment, she gathered her composure, discarding her surprise and fear, and looked at him.

She of all people should’ve known Iyvena couldn’t face him.

Her sister had.

“I possess more respect for Griddif than you,” he told her without spite.

Perhaps remembering she was a tribe head, Unhilda sat back, her authority returning. Urden never left his place on the floor, his knee trapped Iyvena’s blade where it stayed, still in her grip, and the flat of his Sunder still weighed on her face, securing it against cracked wood. She made no attempt to move and Urden didn’t care for the reason.

Unhilda’s face softened. “If this is so important, why don’t you tell the man yourself?”

“Because knowledge earned is taken more seriously than knowledge simply received. And myths are a hard thing to believe.”

Unhilda wrapped her fur coat tighter around her as she considered his offer. “I still see no reason to honor your request, Priest.”

Urden rose, ignoring Iyvena. It had been years since he last came to the tribe. Then, Medrith had still sat on the throne. It was the former village head he had hoped to speak with when he came, she was smarter, and more reasonable than her sister. But she had died over two winters ago and her sister had taken the throne.

“You have neither the right nor the capacity to make such a request,” Unhilda continued, but he was done trying to reason with her. She’d always been stubborn, even when her sister ruled she’d known nothing.

“Capacity?” he asked rhetorically as he approached her, releasing Iyvena from her prison of his hold. “If you will not listen, Unhilda, then I will find another way.” He could feel his anger flaring with his frustration. Here was a village ruler, given the title for her place as the oldest in the tribe, and she was acting like no more than a child. He was done with reason. “But not after I have shown you capacity. I will raze your tribe to the ground until there is nothing left of them. And after that, I will come back and snap your wrinkled neck. All you have to do is sit there and wait for me.”

“You cannot do that!”

She had imbued her words with so much authority, and yet, all of it couldn’t hide her fear. Medrith had known what he was capable of, Unhilda did not. But there was no doubt she had heard the stories.

He pushed the immortal’s will from his body. It was weak, no longer as potent as it had once been. This was not the effect of time or use; this was something else. The gift was not his own, and it told him the owner had woken to it somewhere else on Vayla, but it was enough.

It left him and the effect was immediate.

Unhilda’s eyes grew wide with terror and Iyvena almost convulsed in fear where she was. He’d intended for them to have a simple taste of it, but the woman on the floor already seemed terrified enough before it. Still, she would survive.

“Arfina will not survive,” Unhilda stammered, but he knew she was grasping at straws. “These are still Medrith’s people.”

“Medrith will either forgive me, or she will not,” he told her casually. “As for Arfina. She will not forgive me. But she will survive. I will make sure of it. I will not take you from your people. No. I will take them from you, for if I leave them, and you taint the next leaders, when war comes, they will prove of no use. And that is something Vayla cannot have. Therefore, Medrith’s people will suffer the consequences of our actions.” Then he sheathed his Sunder, turning to the exit. “You can keep your secrets. I will find another to tell them.”

In truth, he was deadliest without a weapon. He didn’t need them for what he was to do.

Cyrinth had made certain of that.

He’d barely taken two steps when The Planken door burst open. With blonde hair held down the middle and trailing down her back in a single braid, Arfina regarded him with a mix of anger and displeasure. Her blue eyes watched him, inquisitive, and he couldn’t bring himself to take a third.

She was beautiful even at her age. But her beauty had been more striking when he’d taken her from the realm all those years ago. Now, her eyes wrinkled at the corners and he knew it was not from years of happiness. Beyond her, the village went about their activities, unaware of what was about to happen. Unaware that it was to be their last.

Arfina’s eyes widened in withheld fear and her hands trembled against The Planken doors. “Val,” she said, her soft voice designed for singing, trembling, “you’re scaring me.”

Urden pressed his lips in a thin line. Only she could define the effects of the immortal’s will to him in such words. He felt her fear and pulled back the will. In recent years it was proving harder to control. He could release it but not truly control it as he once had. The lack of control troubled him, like losing the ability to control his own arm, but he never gave it much attention. He held his breath, pulling it into him, breathing would only slow down the process, only weaken his hold. His left hand squeezed into a fist, any tighter and his nails would draw blood. But he felt it wan and he pulled hard on it.

He heard Unhilda’s audible gasp as he pulled it back into him, its effects stoppered by nothing but his own will. He did not need it to execute the tribe. They didn’t deserve it, but if all those left of the Urn were not willing to stand together when the time comes, even those that would seek to claim neutrality would prove to be nothing but deadweight in the battle, and he could not have that. Vayla would not survive such mistakes.

So it had to be done.

“Val.”

Arfina’s voice drew him from his thought and he found he had still not moved from where he stood.

“What do you plan on doing?”

How much had she heard? He wondered. How much did she know? And if she stood in his way, would he be able to strike her down if it came to it? The answer was plain as the snow covering the ground beyond the house. He could not. So he would have to ensure she could not stand in his way.

He moved forward, covering over ten paces in one step. Everything swirled around him as he cut through the distance. But rather than find himself beyond the door, he stopped in front of her. She read him, as she always had, and had moved to intercept his exit before he’d even moved. And now, she stared at him, unHallowed and unafraid. She stood only as tall as his nose so she tilted her head to look at him.

“Don’t do it.” Once, there would have been a command in her voice, but now she was pleading. She was afraid but she stood before him, believing she was the only one with a chance of stopping him from doing what he wanted to.

She heard it all, he decided. She wishes to spare her people death. But when he looked into her eyes he knew he was wrong. Her pale blue eyes looked back, teary. Those weren’t the eyes of a woman standing between a wrath and her people, they were those of a woman standing between a man and himself. Twenty years and she still thought she was trying to save him from himself. Twenty years and he still loved her too much to step around her and ensure the bloodshed he was intent on.

His white-grey hair pulled back so it stayed from altering his view, he looked down at her. “It has to be done.”

She matched his gaze. “Why?”

“Because worse things than this will happen if it is not.”

“We can change,” she insisted. She knew as much as anyone of what would come to happen one day and what was required to deter it. In his love for her he had told her and she had believed him. “We can follow,” she continued. “We can help.”

“Yes.” His voice was steel, for it had to be if he were to continue forward on this day. “But your eldest has made her position on this clear. There will be no help from this lineage of Urn.”

Arfina looked around him to Unhilda in shocked. “Medrith swore it!”

Iyvena was getting up and Unhilda was still seated on her throne. Everything considered, they were still in one piece.

“And my sister is dead,” Unhilda replied. “Vayla rest her soul. But my sister’s oath is not mine.”

Arfina frowned. “When she gave it, she was not your sister. She was the tribe’s eldest. A mantle you now carry. The unfulfilled oath of a predecessor is carried by all successors.”

This was going nowhere. Unhilda had no intentions of honoring her predecessor’s promise, and Arfina was still too young to do anything about it.

“I’ll return at nightfall for an answer,” Urden said. He had addressed the eldest, but his eyes never left Arfina. “Until then, I will be in Arfina’s home… as a guest.”

Arfina opened the door quietly and he followed her inside. The walk back was quiet, and slightly tense. She said nothing and he respected the silence that settled between them, knowing he was part to blame for it… maybe he was even totally to blame for it.

Dinma sat before the flame, exactly where he had left her a few hours ago. Thankfully, her shivering had stopped, and she no longer wrapped herself so tightly with her fur coat.

She read from one of her parchments, using the flame as a source of light. Urden wasn’t sure if it was one of his or one of hers. If it were one of his then it was baffling as to why she would be reading something she must have read as many times as there were people in the tribe. And if it were one of hers, then why read something she already knew.

She turned her head as they walked in, her brown eyes settling on him. “How did it go, father?”