Heroes are strong. He forced his hand to grip the door’s latch.
Heroes fight against all odds. He sheathed his sword and drew the stone knife that Ealdstan had given him.
Heroes destroy anything that is evil. Without thinking about it any longer, he flipped open the door, spotted the fluttering heart thing, and plunged the knife into it.
5
Freya looked across at the door. “Do you mean it? This leads out of the caves?”
“Absolutely.”
“What if we kill you?”
“Then you can still leave, obviously.”
Freya turned and looked at Swi?gar, lying motionless just outside the door they came in by. “And what about Swi?gar?”
“It’s too late for him,” Gad said. “He’s dead. I’m sorry. You may have thought of him as a friend, but in time you will come to realise that he was your jailer. You will have to leave him here.”
“You said you’d help him!”
“I was not fast enough, I’m sorry. We talked too long. It was self-defense, if it helps to look at it like that.”
Freya choked back tears. She could cry for him later. She thought about what Gad had said about sunlight and fresh air. She went to the door and tried the handle. It moved easily in her hand. “But what about the people in Ni?ergeard?” she asked, turning.
“Do you really care about them? Freya, you are free. Do you understand? This is what you wanted for this. Daniel gets to be a hero, and you get to go home. You both win. You both get what you-”
Gad jerked in his chair. His body tensed, rigid, his muscles fighting against each other, as if having a seizure, his head banging from side to side. It took Freya a moment to realise what was happening, and then it struck her-Daniel must have done it.
She stood, unsure what to do. Wringing her hands, she looked towards the large door that Gad had told her was the exit. Did she dare?
Gad made heaving, vomiting motions but expelled nothing. He looked in unimaginable agony. For long moments he rolled and writhed on the floor, and then finally became still, curled up in a ball, panting.
Exhausted, Gad pushed himself up and stood, swaying, just in front of Freya. His eyes were half-closed, and he seemed not able to see her. He turned and walked to a small table set next to the wall, which had a pitcher on it. He poured clear liquid from that into a small tumbler and took a drink-a few sips at first, and then the whole glass. He clutched at his throat as if it hurt him and then started to laugh.
“I forgot how painful living could be.”
“What just happened?” Freya asked.
Gad turned to her with a smile and sweat on his brow. “Daniel has succeeded-he has destroyed the vessel that housed my immortality-and it has returned to me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I am mortal now-I’m back in the game. A long time ago I placed my mortality into the body of an undying beast, so that as long as it lived, I would continue to. In this way, I became much like your friends the knights, walking this world, yet always removed from it. Now, with the sands of my existence once again flowing, I can do anything.”
Freya stood, blinking at him. “So . . . we lost?”
Gad shrugged. “Maybe from your point of view, but that’s a rather simplistic view to take. This is just the movement from one state into another. It is neither better nor worse-just different.”
Freya stood, confused. “So, what happens now?”
“That is for you to decide. You may attempt to complete the mission that Ealdstan charged you with-to kill me and then return home-or you may simply return home now.”
“I-I don’t know what to do,” Freya said, and her eyes went to the body of Swi?gar, still lying dead.
“Do you want to kill me?” Gad asked her.
“No!” she cried, her eyes filling with tears at once. “I don’t want anyone to die. I just want to go home! Wh-at-what am I going to tell the others?”
“I can help you with that. Follow me.”
6
Freya walked as fast as she dared down the almost pitch-black corridor. The lamp from Ni?ergeard that she still carried with her seemed to be glowing dimmer now, and she couldn’t always make out the ground in front of her.
She thought that she saw two spots of light ahead of her, like two dim stars. She dipped her lamp to see better and watched as the bobbing lights came nearer. She started to see outlines forming in the gloom, like the silvery outlines of a ghost.
“Freya?” she heard Daniel call.
“Ecgbryt, Daniel-” She hurried towards them.
“Are you okay?” Daniel asked after Freya released him from a hug. “I found Gad’s soul and killed it! It’s done, we can go back to Ealdstan and he’ll let us go!”
“We don’t need to do that. I think there’s an exit nearby.”
“Really? How can you tell?” Daniel asked.
“I passed it on the way to find you here.”
“Where’s Swi?gar?”
Ecgbryt was already standing over her and peering into the darkness behind her.
“He’s . . . back there. Come on, I’ll show you.”
Freya led them both back the way she had come, to an intersection of pipes and ducts. And there, in the centre of the crossroads, lay Swi?gar’s body, his broken spearshaft beside him, the spear’s head still buried in his chest.
“Is he not sleeping?” Ecgbryt asked to himself. “Can he not be woken yet?”
He stepped forward and bent over the body and touched the cold face, then turned to Freya with an expression that nearly shattered her. She was already crying and through her misty eyes she saw a look on Ecgbryt’s face like a wounded dog that had been kicked in the belly and it didn’t know why.
“How did this happen?” he asked. “This should not have been possible.”
Freya wanted to break down and tell him everything. She took a deep breath and felt her stomach tighten till it was as hard as steel. She heard the words come out.
“We ran into Gad, and they fought. Swi?gar-he fought long and hard; I thought they would go on forever. Then Gad grabbed the spear and shoved it into his chest. And-it was over. I was terrified. Gad came up to me-I wanted to run, but I couldn’t.
And he stood over me, and then-then he grabbed at his chest and keeled over. He started spitting up blood and then-I think he was dead. That must have been when you-did whatever you did, Daniel.”
Daniel and Ecgbryt just looked at her with impassive faces.
For a while she couldn’t tell if they were buying it or not. She held her breath and prayed for one of them to say something, anything.
“Where is Gad now?” Ecgbryt asked, looking around.
“He’s back there,” Freya said, indicating one of the paths.
She continued hurriedly, “Swi?gar wasn’t quite dead yet and he walked this way with me, but then he stopped and died.”
“Did-did he say anything at the end?” Ecgbryt asked.
“Anything about me?”
Freya felt a sweat immediately break out. This wasn’t in the script. “I don’t-no, he didn’t. He was really weak, and we were hurrying to get to you. I’m sorry, Ecgbryt, I’m so sorry.”
Ecgbryt turned back to Swi?gar’s body.
“Wela, bro?or, wela. An bealocwealm ?u habbe. Caru ond anlipnes is min.” He sighed. “Did I fail you when you needed me most? My hand too slow to rise with yours? Did you want for me in your last moment? Did your heart cry my name, or was thought of me absent? I am sorry that I gave so much cause for you to speak against me in all the years we walked side by side.”
Ecgbryt pulled the body of Swi?gar by its arms out of the rank and reeking sewer water and onto a dry stretch of paving and set about arranging the dead knight’s clothing and armour.