Free The Book of the Sword (Darkest Age) by A. J. Lake Page A

the ice plain – but they are being hunted as we speak. That is why I have come here: to find them and help them, before they are captured. This girl has the means to destroy our common enemy once and forall. But the sword is also the only thing that could break his chains. If he can capture her and bind her, he will escape.’
    The crowd were silent now. Cluaran raised his head, appealing to them with all the skill he could muster. ‘Remember that it was your people as much as mine who bound him before – and if he is freed, he will want his revenge.’ He sent his voice ringing through the cavern. ‘Will you help me?’
    Now the faces turned to Erlingr. There was a low muttering:
Do we help him? Do we believe him?
    ‘Ari,’ the old man commanded. ‘Come forward.’ The green-eyed man cast an unreadable glance at Cluaran as he moved to stand beside him.
    ‘You have seen these children,’ Erlingr said. ‘Is it true? Does this … human girl bear the crystal sword?’
    There was a long pause. ‘I have not seen it,’ Ari said at last. ‘But I believe that she does. A bright light was seen in the girl’s hand as the dragon carried her. Even to have escaped him, to have survived for this long, they must have some help, some weapon of a more than common nature. And Cluaran has seen –’
    ‘I did not ask what
he
says he has seen,’ the old man broke in. ‘Nor what you believe.’ Erlingr rose to his feet, a full head taller than Cluaran, and turned to address his people. ‘Is it likely, do you think, that the sword would give itself to a child … to one of the short-lived ones, in a country so far from its forging? And what could such a one do with it? Are we to believe that a human girl could kill the Chained One – or thatshe could release him? No. I would rather ask –’ he brought the staff down with a crack on the ice – ‘why, now the dragon is flying again, we see
this man’s
return to the land he has wronged?’
    The old man threw Cluaran a look of undisguised contempt. ‘Tell us no more stories, man without a people; soft-talker; betrayer! Have you come here to kill more of our kind?’
    Cluaran had been ready for this. He kept the anger out of his voice as he answered: ‘I killed none of yours, Erlingr. You know well who it was who murdered your men. But for their sacrifice, no one here would be alive today.’
    Erlingr’s face twisted. ‘Their sacrifice, yes – and ours; and mine! A whole line was wiped out by your fine words!’
    ‘It was
Loki
who killed your son and grandsons!’ Cluaran snapped at him. ‘And he would have destroyed much more –’
    ‘
We do not speak that name here!
’ the old man thundered. He strode across the floor to Cluaran and glared down at him, the staff raised as if about to strike him. Abruptly he seemed to recollect himself and lowered the staff.
    ‘Ingvald and my grandsons died in battle, that is true,’ he said quietly, but with undiminished bitterness. ‘While
you
came back without hurt. And there was one more, one last remnant of my line, taken from me by you – by your companion and his …
workmanship
.’ He spat out the last word as if it scalded him.
    ‘Your granddaughter was
not
of your line!’ Cluaran couldnot hide his anger now. ‘She was not even of the true race, you said. You had no value for her! You called her earth-born …’ He stopped, not trusting himself to say more, but still holding Erlingr’s eyes. He felt a dismal kind of triumph when the old man looked down first.
    ‘I did blame Ingvald when he adopted the child,’ Erlingr muttered. ‘But after his death, she was the last thing remaining to me.’ He met Cluaran’s gaze again, and the minstrel was startled to see a glitter like tears in the old man’s eyes. ‘You should not have taken her.’
    ‘I did not,’ Cluaran said very quietly. ‘It was her choice, and not my will.’ He could see in those glittering eyes that Erlingr would never believe him. Behind the