Read Online A Hero's Throne (An Ancient Earth) by Ross Lawhead - Free Book Online
Authors: Ross Lawhead
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standing stones and toward the trees, their backs almost edging up along the black metal rail fence that surrounded the Rollright Stones. Getting backed into a corner was not ideal in most circumstances, but in this instance it was preferable to being surrounded.
Alex’s arms ached; swinging that sword through fur, muscle, and bone was hard work. He was buzzing from adrenaline, panting, his arms and shoulders on fire; it was a good feeling.
Ecgbryt cleaned his blade and was sliding it back into the holster he wore on his back, underneath his coat.
“Shall we try to hide them?” Alex asked. “Half a dozen fivehundred-pound bears are quite the handful.”
Ecgbryt considered and then shook his head. “Leave them here. We should be away.”
“The RSPCA will be hot, no doubt. Do you think they’ll turn human again when daylight hits?”
“We’re not going to be around to see it if they do. Come. The survival of young Daniel and Freya depends on our swift movements hereafter. I do not wish to storm the city, only to be greeted by their lifeless corpses hanging off the main gates.”
CHAPTER THREE
Assassin
_____________________ I _____________________
“The boy is very impatient,” Frithfroth said.
“You’re not wrong there,” Vivienne assented.
“His blood runs hot—too hot. It boils and rises to his eyes in a mist. When it leaves, it leaves him empty, so empty. I have seen men chase after such heat. I hope it will not be his ruin.”
“Tell us what happened, Frithfroth. How Niðergeard fell, if they could not take the Langtorr.”
As an answer, Frithfroth crossed over to one of the tapestries hanging at an angle. He pushed up a corner to show a dark archway. He slipped through it and the tapestry fell back to its skewed position. Freya and Vivienne traded apprehensive looks, and then Vivienne crossed over and pulled back the thick woven cloth.
Swallowing hard, Freya ducked under the faded cloth, which smelled of rot and mold. Descending a curved stairway, the two women gradually lowered themselves into the thick, sharp smellof death that seemed to rise up in a cloud around them. They blocked their noses, but it crept into every breath they were forced to take. It stung their eyes and made their skin crawl. It was like a slap in the face.
“This was our last defense,” Frithfroth said, apparently oblivious or immune to the stench. “After finding Ealdstan departed, Godmund grew desperate. He spouted betrayal, deceit, perversion.” The staircase wound down and then opened into a wide, semi-spherical room. It was aglow with hundreds of silver lamps arranged along walls and pillars. The light that shone from them fell upon four concentric circles, each with a low stone slab cut to contain a man, but rising only a couple inches in height off the ground.
There were one hundred and five sleeping spaces arranged in four concentric circles—seven in the inner ring, twice that in the next, and doubling again and again in the next two rings. A circular dais was raised in the centre, and on it, a stone throne.
“This is the Slæpereshus —the Chamber of the Sleepers,” Frithfroth said. “These are the elite of all of the sleepers in this isle. Their deeds are celebrated in myth and legend. Over fifty from the fields of Agincourt. Nearly thirty from the first crusade. One dozen and two from Horsa’s men, and seven knights of the table. All of them surrounding the hero who wore a dragon’s helm. Sleeping all not just for the nation’s greatest need, but for Niðergeard’s.”
However glorious it sounded and once may have looked, it was a slaughterhouse now. The biers were covered with the mangled remnants of the bodies they once held in state. The skin and flesh were beyond decay—black and leathery in some instances, or already decomposed. Bones could be seen, but not the clean, white bones in movies and on TV—these bones were brown and corrupted, with leathery flesh still hanging on to them.
Alex’s arms ached; swinging that sword through fur, muscle, and bone was hard work. He was buzzing from adrenaline, panting, his arms and shoulders on fire; it was a good feeling.
Ecgbryt cleaned his blade and was sliding it back into the holster he wore on his back, underneath his coat.
“Shall we try to hide them?” Alex asked. “Half a dozen fivehundred-pound bears are quite the handful.”
Ecgbryt considered and then shook his head. “Leave them here. We should be away.”
“The RSPCA will be hot, no doubt. Do you think they’ll turn human again when daylight hits?”
“We’re not going to be around to see it if they do. Come. The survival of young Daniel and Freya depends on our swift movements hereafter. I do not wish to storm the city, only to be greeted by their lifeless corpses hanging off the main gates.”
CHAPTER THREE
Assassin
_____________________ I _____________________
“The boy is very impatient,” Frithfroth said.
“You’re not wrong there,” Vivienne assented.
“His blood runs hot—too hot. It boils and rises to his eyes in a mist. When it leaves, it leaves him empty, so empty. I have seen men chase after such heat. I hope it will not be his ruin.”
“Tell us what happened, Frithfroth. How Niðergeard fell, if they could not take the Langtorr.”
As an answer, Frithfroth crossed over to one of the tapestries hanging at an angle. He pushed up a corner to show a dark archway. He slipped through it and the tapestry fell back to its skewed position. Freya and Vivienne traded apprehensive looks, and then Vivienne crossed over and pulled back the thick woven cloth.
Swallowing hard, Freya ducked under the faded cloth, which smelled of rot and mold. Descending a curved stairway, the two women gradually lowered themselves into the thick, sharp smellof death that seemed to rise up in a cloud around them. They blocked their noses, but it crept into every breath they were forced to take. It stung their eyes and made their skin crawl. It was like a slap in the face.
“This was our last defense,” Frithfroth said, apparently oblivious or immune to the stench. “After finding Ealdstan departed, Godmund grew desperate. He spouted betrayal, deceit, perversion.” The staircase wound down and then opened into a wide, semi-spherical room. It was aglow with hundreds of silver lamps arranged along walls and pillars. The light that shone from them fell upon four concentric circles, each with a low stone slab cut to contain a man, but rising only a couple inches in height off the ground.
There were one hundred and five sleeping spaces arranged in four concentric circles—seven in the inner ring, twice that in the next, and doubling again and again in the next two rings. A circular dais was raised in the centre, and on it, a stone throne.
“This is the Slæpereshus —the Chamber of the Sleepers,” Frithfroth said. “These are the elite of all of the sleepers in this isle. Their deeds are celebrated in myth and legend. Over fifty from the fields of Agincourt. Nearly thirty from the first crusade. One dozen and two from Horsa’s men, and seven knights of the table. All of them surrounding the hero who wore a dragon’s helm. Sleeping all not just for the nation’s greatest need, but for Niðergeard’s.”
However glorious it sounded and once may have looked, it was a slaughterhouse now. The biers were covered with the mangled remnants of the bodies they once held in state. The skin and flesh were beyond decay—black and leathery in some instances, or already decomposed. Bones could be seen, but not the clean, white bones in movies and on TV—these bones were brown and corrupted, with leathery flesh still hanging on to them.
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