Chapter Twenty-Four: Draurig and Graendal

“Dancing children by the river,

Pale skinned with eyes that quiver,

Dancing on the bones of men

Who never will be seen again.”

—Jakob and Wilem Grim, Tales of Faengard

Evaine was falling, twisting and turning in the air, tumbling like a ragdoll at the mercy of the winds. She was aware of the horses and their frenzied whinnying, the bucking and groaning of the wagons, the cries of the troupe as they screamed for help, their faces mirroring her own. She was aware of the relicts behind her, eyes burning with hatred, mouths opened in voiceless snarls. She was aware of the sky, black and angry up above, the rain pelting down hard.

She fell for a long time. One by one, her surroundings disappeared. The first to vanish were the rock face and the cliff top. Next were the horses and the wagons. Then the people were gone and finally the relicts too, and she was alone with the spinning sky.

Am I dead yet? she thought.

If she was, death was a very boring place. Where were the golden halls of Vallaheim and Cenedria’s White Women? Where was the burning brimstone of Hellheim? The Damned who walked with their heads on backwards, suffering for eternity? She saw only the sky in all directions, stretching on with no horizon in sight. Above and below were the same. The storm-clouds parted and gave way to a velvet curtain of stars. The stars parted and gave way to the void, a realm where no light, sound or sensation existed. It was like being a baby in a womb again.

Finally, her feet touched down and she could see again. The horizon split her world in half. Above her was the sky, an azure expanse without a single cloud in sight. Below her was water, calm and clear. She was standing on water.

“Flow freely, blood of the earth.”

Someone was singing. It was a haunting song, grating on her eardrums like the crooning of a river hag as it beckoned its prey to a watery grave. It was a familiar song like the comforting sloshing of water being drawn from a well. It was a beautiful song like the flutter of a swan as it came to roost upon the surface of a lake.

Evaine looked down, staring at the emptiness beneath her feet. A reflection stared back, but it wasn’t hers. It was of a complete stranger, a man she’d never seen before in her life, with sharp, angular features and flowing hair the colour of seaweed. His eyes were deep, blue and unblinking, his skin a deep brown, tanned by the sun. Coarse bristles crept down his jaw and to his chin.

“Wash away our sins.”

Evaine gasped and stepped backwards, sending a wave rippling across the water. The reflection disappeared and then the entire world rippled as well, and she was opening her eyes to thick darkness and a dank stench.

She waited for a while, listening to the hammering of her heart in her chest. She was alive. She had fallen off a cliff and survived. She would have laughed if her body didn’t feel so utterly wrecked.

“She lives! Look, she lives!”

A piece of the darkness broke away, scampering towards her. Cold, clammy hands latched onto her wrist and squeezed tight. A foul stench assailed her, the smell of vomit and defecation and dead animals rotting in stagnant water. Evaine retched.

“Get away from me,” she cried, pulling against the darkness. The hand gripped her tighter, sending pangs of pain through her forearm.

“No! You must stay with us! We are so lonely…” The voice was ragged and high pitched, raucous against her ears. Another hand touched her cheek, creeping down her face like a bundle of wriggling worms. Sour breath tickled her neck as her eyes began to adjust to the darkness. She saw a bloodshot eye quivering against pale skin, a mouthful of yellow teeth stretched into a smile…

Evaine screamed. Her voice ripped through her surroundings with the ferocity of a tidal wave, bouncing off the walls and sweeping away everything in its path. An icy sensation washed through her. Something snatched the creature away and slammed it onto the ground.

She climbed to her feet, panting. Water soaked through her shoes. She was in a cavern of some sort—a half-submerged grotto lit by thin slivers of light that hung down from the ceiling in silvery drapes. The creature climbed to its feet, coughing and spluttering.

“Why?” it rasped. “We just wanted someone to talk to…”

Now that her eyes had fully adjusted, she saw the creature for what it truly was. It was the size of a child, small and shrivelled, with pasty white skin stretched thin over blue veins and flesh. Wide, bloodshot eyes darted frantically left and right above a mouthful of rotting teeth. It might have had hair once, but it had long since fallen out, and all that remained were a few sorry strands hanging loosely by its ears.

The creature no longer looked so threatening now that she could see it. In fact, she was sure she could crush it with her bare hands if it came at her. It was a sad, pitiful thing.

“Where am I?” she demanded, taking a step forward. She stumbled over something and righted herself. A head rolled over in the water, revealing a face.

It was Aren.

Evaine screamed and fell backwards, cold water soaking through her behind. Aren’s head bobbed up and down, the ragged threads of his neck bleeding into the current. There were more things floating by her ankles in the darkness, more body parts. Dismembered heads and limbs, scraps of bloodied clothing, half of a horse. A wooden wheel here, a broken crate there. She was looking at the remains of the Children of the Wind.

There were bones beneath the surface as well, so many bones of humans, animals, everything that had been unfortunate enough to find its way into the grotto. Evaine covered her mouth, forcing the bile down her throat. She felt detached from the sight before her, as if she were looking through a glass pane rather than with her own two eyes. She expected terror, fear, disgust, anything, but all she felt was a deep, numbing sense of despair. They were gone. The Children of the Wind were all gone, and she would never hear their voices or their songs and stories again.

As she tried to stand up again, still dazed from the sight, the creature pounced.

“Ours!” it hissed. “You are ours! You will not leave!”

Evaine shrieked again, panic rising to her throat. The familiar sensation of coldness swept through her body. The water rose up around her like a defensive wall and pummelled into the creature, pinning it down.

Evaine blinked. Had she caused that?

“Answer me,” she demanded, climbing to her feet. “Where am I?” The water eased and bubbles burst towards the surface. The creature sat up, coughing.

“Our home,” it spluttered. “The river. We are sorry… please don’t hurt us again…”

Evaine looked around. “The Brackenburg?”

At the mention of the name, the creature hissed and slapped at the water. “No! Don’t say it! Don’t say his name!”

“Whose name? Brackenburg?”

It clamped its hands over its ears and screamed. “No more! He will come, he will come and punish us again!”

Evaine didn’t mention the fact that the twins Fel and Brackenburg were long dead. “Who are you? Who is ‘us?’ What are you?”

The creature lifted its head from the water, apparently having calmed down. “We are Draurig and Graendal,” it said, pointing to itself, and then to the water around it. “We belong to the river. Stay with us, land-walker. We are so lonely.”

“You didn’t answer my question.” Evaine took a threatening step forward. “What are you?”

Draurig raised its hands. “No! Don’t hurt us! Don’t call the Punisher! This is all we know, we swear!” It backpedalled in the water until it touched the cavern wall. “Draurig is Draurig, Graendal is Graendal!”

“What about the caravan?” She gestured to the remains of the Children of the Wind around her. “Is there anyone else alive? Any relicts?”

Draurig shook his head vigorously. “No, none alive. All dead. Graendal ate them all, all but you. Graendal tried to eat you but you were different.” The creature bobbed his head up and down, eyes dilating. “Yes. You can sing. You can sing like the Punisher. Stay with us, land-walker. Protect us from the Punisher!”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” Evaine said. “There’s a place I need to be.” Wyd almighty, I hope Ein and Merrill are okay.

She focused on her voice again and sought the cold sensation that washed through her every time she commanded the water. The sound that emerged from her lips this time was a strangled choke, not the wild song that had forced the creature back.

A chill ran up her spine. The water hadn’t obeyed her.

“Take me outside to the surface,” she continued, clearing her throat in an attempt to cover up her failure. “Or I’ll punish you just like Brackenburg did.”

Draurig flinched. “But we are so lonely—”

“Draurig, I won’t ask you again.”

The creature rose its frail arms over its head. “Okay! We will take you to the Light! Just don’t hurt us again!”

It let out a whimper and scampered across the grotto on all fours, throwing a fearful glance over its shoulder every few steps while Evaine waded after it. As the stench grew stronger, she became thankful for the darkness. It was oppressing, but she’d rather that than seeing what the bits and pieces floating about her feet actually were. Aren’s severed head surfaced in her mind and she forced down the bile from her throat.

They moved deeper into the grotto, splashing and wading through the waters. At times they were knee-deep, soaking the fabric of her clothing all the way up to her thighs. At times they were only ankle-high, and at times there was no water at all—but the ground was always rough and uneven, slick with slime, and sloping downwards. Whatever direction they faced, the water was always behind them, nudging them forward. Water only flowed downstream, so they had to be descending.

A seed of worry took root in Evaine’s chest. She had nothing except Draurig’s word to say they were heading in the right direction. What if it was leading her into a trap? She took a deep breath through her lips and hardened her resolve. She could have been safe and sound at home, tending to the farm, helping rebuild the village, but instead she was here.

No, she thought. I knew full well what I was getting myself into.

But had she really? Could she really have known she’d be chased by relicts and captured by this strange creature upon leaving the valley? It was too late now. She had left, and there was no going back.

“Flow freely, blood of the earth.

Wash away our sins.”

Draurig was singing. Its voice was warbled and barely resembled a melody, but she had heard those words before, sang in that same manner, albeit by a different voice. The voice in her dream had been smoother and far more elegant. If that voice had been a clear mountain stream, Draurig’s voice was a stagnant trough at the bottom of a swamp.

“Where did you learn that song?” she asked, interrupting him. Draurig looked up in surprise, still splashing his way across the cavern.

“You were singing it, land-walker,” it said. “It is your song, is it not?”

Evaine frowned and said nothing, and they continued to walk. Draurig cycled through a multitude of songs, some of them sad laments, others happy jigs that wouldn’t be out of place in a tavern or an inn. She recognized a few, though they differed from the versions she knew. There were tales of the dragons and the eotun, nursery rhymes about twinkling stars and even Old Man Glock. The cavern echoed Draurig’s voice, turning it back upon itself over and over until the darkness was alive with song, like a Friday night at the Sleeping Twinn.

“Dagus Adem was the greatest of men,

An explorer with no sense of fear.

Touring Faengard as a wandering bard,

He saw all things strange and queer.

When Dagus Adem had seen all things then

He heard in his mind a call,

A summons from the land of the dead and the Damned

For the greatest adventure of—”

“How long have you been living here for?”

Draurig blinked, bringing its song to a premature halt. It scratched at the hairs on its scalp and then tilted its head. “Draurig does not know,” it rasped. “Draurig is as old as Graendal. But Draurig does remember days when it danced in the Light with many other Draurigs. The land-walkers always came to us back then, thinking we were fellow land-walkers in strife. Graendal was happy, and when Graendal was happy, so were we.” Its tone lightened and Evaine almost saw the happy smile on its face.

Then it was gone, replaced by a dark shadow. “It didn’t last. The Punisher came and unleashed his wrath upon us. He drove us from our home, flushing us away with the river. He punished Graendal, and Graendal punished us. He ate all the Draurigs until there was only one Draurig left.”

Evaine could imagine Draurig humming to himself among the lonely walls, singing of better times. For a moment, she felt sorry for the creature.

“Draurig is so lonely,” it said. “It has been a long time since Draurig has spoken to another.”

“Why didn’t Graendal eat you?”

Draurig stopped moving and swivelled around to face her, smiling toothily. “Oh, Graendal tried, believe me he did. But Draurig is clever, land-walker. Draurig bargained for its life. Now he serves Graendal. We are one… and now you will become one with us too.”

Evaine was suddenly aware of how warm and dark it had become. She was sweating. The water lapping at her feet was hot and prickly, rubbing at her legs like molten sandpaper. The air still stank, but it was a different stench this time—a more gaseous smell that wafted around her, slowly invading her lungs. The cavern expanded and contracted with a sluggish rhythm, almost as if it were breathing.

She spun around, splashing the liquid around her feet, but all she saw were Draurig’s rotting teeth as they disappeared into the darkness, singing.

“Meat,” it sang. “Meat, fresh off the bone! Brackenburg cannot save you now, songstress!”

“Draurig!” Evaine screamed. “Come back here!”

There was only a distant cackle, and then she was alone. The grotto rose and fell beneath her feet. The water she was standing in—she knew it wasn’t water, for her feet beneath her ankles were beginning to burn, but she didn’t know what else to call it—frothed and boiled.

She finally realized what Graendal was. It was the cavern itself.

“Draurig!” she cried again. The walls threw her voice back. It rang in her ears like the call of a mockingbird.

The hem of her robe sizzled away. The ground shook and she stumbled, almost falling over. Her skin grew raw and red, chafing against the water, the uneven ground digging into her exposed feet.

And then, in the distance, she heard Garax.

“Evaine!” he called. “Evaine, move towards my voice!”

She was crying now, partly from the smell, partly from despair. She sloshed through the water towards him, feeling her clothes melting away, then her skin. Was this what had happened to the travelling troupe? Dashed against the rocks and then swept into this grotto to be dissolved and digested by the earth itself? She tripped over a jagged piece of rock and sunk beneath the water. She thrashed and broke her way back above the surface, spitting out the foul liquid, shaking it from her hair and eyes…

And then Garax had her by the hand and hauled her onto a patch of dry land.

“Move,” he urged. “Come on!”

She had her eyes clamped shut against the world. Her shoes had worn away and she was barefoot, feeling every part of the uneven surface beneath her. It was wet and slippery, and it was only Garax’s strong arm holding her up that kept her from sliding back into the breathing cesspool.

The walls rumbled and shook, trying to draw them back in, but she was running now and the air was brightening. She opened her eyes at last and saw a stream of silver light in the distance, around the corner of a curving tunnel. Garax gave her a firm push from behind, urging her to run, to follow the path and not turn back. She scrabbled against the sides of the tunnel, feeling the slime-coated walls give way to wet stone, feeling the cold wind bite into her raw skin.

Behind her, she heard Garax roar. Then, there was a low whoosh as if something had sucked all the air out of the tunnel, and suddenly the hall was bright red and searing hot. Garax came charging from behind her, grabbing her hard by the wrist and almost pulling her arm off. He was shouting something, but she couldn’t hear what. All she could see was a torrent of fire behind her, wild and angry, sweeping down the tunnel faster than her eyes could follow. The flames met the grey light in front of her and they plunged out into the winter air, out of the side of a rock face and onto the snow. A wave of heat rushed over their heads as they lay prone on the ground. It swept past the trees and rocks, turning snow into mist, charring the rocks. Something screeched from inside the cave. It could have been Draurig, but there was no way of telling.

And then it was over. Garax wrapped her up tightly in his cloak, sheltering her from the wind as she sobbed.