Read Online Talus and the Frozen King by Graham Edwards - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Graham Edwards
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against fear and stepped inside the cairn.
Here the sound was a hundred times worse. The curved walls scooped up the drone of the wind, amplified and twisted it, gave it words where before it had none. Made it a dire song. The roar of the gale was an ocean through which swam the voices of the dead.
Bran shuddered. He shook snow from his bearskin and peered into the gloom. The light was terrible. The bright moon had guided him this far; now he was practically blind.
Slowly, shapes materialised: the regular uprights of the stone stalls; the mounds of desiccated bones; the slumped mountain that was the dead king's slowly thawing body. The tiny door Talus had sent him here to open looked very far away.
Thunder boomed outside. The cairn swallowed the sound whole, compressed it, smashed it against the sides of Bran's head. He dropped to his knees, pressed his hands to his ears. The thunder became the war-cry of an army of wrathful ghosts.
'No!' Bran shouted into the darkness.
The cairn ripped his one word into a thousand pieces. He was drowning in echoes.
No no no!
The sound intensified. Thunder crashed again and again. The storm had eaten him. Bran pinched his eyes shut and tried to wish the noise away.
'Please stop!' he shouted.
Stop stop stop!
The floor shifted beneath him, trying to tip him over. The air grew thick, wrapped itself around him like a tongue and squeezed. The ceiling descended. He couldn't breathe. He could barely think.
'I can't do it!'
Do it do it do it!
Then Keyli said, 'You can.'
The instant he heard her voice, the cairn relaxed around him. He floated in space, in the sound. The sound gathered him up, carried him high into the storm. The wind turned him over and over, spinning him until he was dizzy and sweeping him off to another time, another place, another storm ...
Bran stands on weed-slick boulders as waves hurl themselves high over his head. The furious ocean stretches before him, alive in the tempest. At his back, behind the marram dunes, squat the low huts of Arvon, his home. The huts are filled with slumbering people. The sleepers are oblivious to the drama playing out on the rocky shore and so, as far as Bran is concerned, they might as well be dead.
Behind the Arvon huts rise the white-capped grey mountains known as the Nioghe. The mountains crowd the coast as if eager to drown themselves. Like the people of Arvon, they're as still as the dead.
The sky, however, is alive. More: it's filled with fire. The stars have left their places and are shooting across the heavens. They leave thin white scratches in the night, as if big cats are trying to claw their way through from the other side of the black. It's quite a sight to behold. But Bran has no time for the sky. There's a boat on the raging water. Keyli is in the boat. Her mouth is agape, but Bran can't hear what she's screaming. He has no idea why she's out there. All he knows is that earlier that evening they fell asleep in each other's arms as they always did, and that he awoke in the middle of the night to find her gone. He rose, panic in his breast, and followed her tracks to the shore.
He has no doubt that it was great Mir, guardian of the ocean, who roused him from his sleep, Mir who called him across the dunes to this place, to witness his beloved wife dying in front of him, Mir, who's watched over Bran his whole life, bringing him and his wriggling catches home safe through even the worst winter storms.
Mir, who now thinks it sport to stamp out Keyli's life right in front Bran's unbelieving eyes, with no more regard than a cruel child stamping his heel on an ant.
A fresh trail of light streaks across the night sky, wider than the rest. It's not thin and white but yellow and jagged. The flying fire is getting closer.
As the yellow light fades, Bran finds he's no longer alone on the shore. A man is standing with him: a tall stranger dressed in motley robes. His head is bald. The stranger shouts and points.
'What?!' Bran
Here the sound was a hundred times worse. The curved walls scooped up the drone of the wind, amplified and twisted it, gave it words where before it had none. Made it a dire song. The roar of the gale was an ocean through which swam the voices of the dead.
Bran shuddered. He shook snow from his bearskin and peered into the gloom. The light was terrible. The bright moon had guided him this far; now he was practically blind.
Slowly, shapes materialised: the regular uprights of the stone stalls; the mounds of desiccated bones; the slumped mountain that was the dead king's slowly thawing body. The tiny door Talus had sent him here to open looked very far away.
Thunder boomed outside. The cairn swallowed the sound whole, compressed it, smashed it against the sides of Bran's head. He dropped to his knees, pressed his hands to his ears. The thunder became the war-cry of an army of wrathful ghosts.
'No!' Bran shouted into the darkness.
The cairn ripped his one word into a thousand pieces. He was drowning in echoes.
No no no!
The sound intensified. Thunder crashed again and again. The storm had eaten him. Bran pinched his eyes shut and tried to wish the noise away.
'Please stop!' he shouted.
Stop stop stop!
The floor shifted beneath him, trying to tip him over. The air grew thick, wrapped itself around him like a tongue and squeezed. The ceiling descended. He couldn't breathe. He could barely think.
'I can't do it!'
Do it do it do it!
Then Keyli said, 'You can.'
The instant he heard her voice, the cairn relaxed around him. He floated in space, in the sound. The sound gathered him up, carried him high into the storm. The wind turned him over and over, spinning him until he was dizzy and sweeping him off to another time, another place, another storm ...
Bran stands on weed-slick boulders as waves hurl themselves high over his head. The furious ocean stretches before him, alive in the tempest. At his back, behind the marram dunes, squat the low huts of Arvon, his home. The huts are filled with slumbering people. The sleepers are oblivious to the drama playing out on the rocky shore and so, as far as Bran is concerned, they might as well be dead.
Behind the Arvon huts rise the white-capped grey mountains known as the Nioghe. The mountains crowd the coast as if eager to drown themselves. Like the people of Arvon, they're as still as the dead.
The sky, however, is alive. More: it's filled with fire. The stars have left their places and are shooting across the heavens. They leave thin white scratches in the night, as if big cats are trying to claw their way through from the other side of the black. It's quite a sight to behold. But Bran has no time for the sky. There's a boat on the raging water. Keyli is in the boat. Her mouth is agape, but Bran can't hear what she's screaming. He has no idea why she's out there. All he knows is that earlier that evening they fell asleep in each other's arms as they always did, and that he awoke in the middle of the night to find her gone. He rose, panic in his breast, and followed her tracks to the shore.
He has no doubt that it was great Mir, guardian of the ocean, who roused him from his sleep, Mir who called him across the dunes to this place, to witness his beloved wife dying in front of him, Mir, who's watched over Bran his whole life, bringing him and his wriggling catches home safe through even the worst winter storms.
Mir, who now thinks it sport to stamp out Keyli's life right in front Bran's unbelieving eyes, with no more regard than a cruel child stamping his heel on an ant.
A fresh trail of light streaks across the night sky, wider than the rest. It's not thin and white but yellow and jagged. The flying fire is getting closer.
As the yellow light fades, Bran finds he's no longer alone on the shore. A man is standing with him: a tall stranger dressed in motley robes. His head is bald. The stranger shouts and points.
'What?!' Bran
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