Kjell's Arc

Chapter 9 of 27

The inner door held them in the yard. Merlyn's hand still shook from touching the rune. Kjell knew the cost of the last fight in his own arms. His men were spent. Thorgar leaned on one axe, chest heaving. Gunnar's censer had burned down to gray ash. They carried no fresh bone, no waiting fire. If whatever sat behind that door came out now, they would die in the open. "How long to break it?" Kjell asked. Merlyn ran his fingers over the cold cut of the rune. "Too long. It's a trap-lock. Force it and it burns the whole yard." He turned his blindfolded face toward Kjell. "We need to see inside first. What waits." A cry cut the air above them. Kjell looked up. An eagle dropped through the smoke, brown and gold, wings wide, and struck the yard stones with its talons. It carried something in its beak. A strip of bone, old and yellow, marked with a single burned rune. Thorin caught it as the bird released it. He turned the bone in his hand and passed it to Merlyn. "The hold sent it," he said. "Their bird. Someone up there still fights." Merlyn's fingers moved across the rune. His branded forearms lit with a faint glow. "A gift," he said. "Old bone from their own dead. And this mark tells me the shape of the lock. They know their enemy." He opened the stone-bound tome across his knees, its cracked gray covers heavy with carved pillars. He set the bone beside a page and read with his hands. "You can carve the counter-seal," Kjell said. "On this bone." "On this bone," Merlyn agreed. "But I need fire to seat it." Gunnar knelt at the ash of his censer. He struck flint hard, again, again. A spark caught the last dry threads. He fed it splinters from the door frame until a small flame climbed. "There's your fire," he said. "Small. It'll hold long enough." Merlyn worked fast. His iron tool bit the bone. Chips fell. Kjell stood guard at his shoulder, throwing knife in hand, watching the sealed door for any crack. The eagle circled once and settled on the wall, still as a carved thing, waiting. "Done," Merlyn said. He passed the bone to Kjell. "Into the flame. Hold it till the mark goes black." Kjell knelt and pushed the carved bone into Gunnar's small fire. Heat bit his knuckles. He held it. The rune darkened, then flared white. A sound came from the door, a deep crack, like ice splitting on a lake. The iron-banded oak swung inward on its own. Cold air poured out of the master's hall. The lock was broken. The way north stood open at last. Beyond the door, in the dark, something moved.