02 - Wulfrik Read online

  The greyback’s ape-like face pulled back in a fierce grin. There was enough resemblance to something human about the yhetee’s face that Wulfrik could tell it was gloating over its victory.

  Fires of rage burned away the ice in his veins. Roaring, Wulfrik twisted his body, ignoring the sharp pain as his own armour tore his flesh. Sword gripped in both hands, the champion turned himself enough to bring the blade chopping down into the greyback’s wrist.

  Wulfrik crashed into the snow as the yhetee dropped him. This time his impact was only enough to sink him to his waist. Quickly the champion rose, ready to fend off the monster’s next attack. His sword licked out as the greyback’s claw slashed at his head. Sparks danced from his sword as ice and steel scraped against each other. Wulfrik could feel the shock of the impact rumble through the bones of his arms but he managed to retain hold of his weapon.

  The greyback staggered away, snarling threats at the man who had crippled it. Wulfrik could see now that the cut across its belly was not deep, though the wound continued to bleed. The real injury the monster had suffered was where he had hacked into its wrist. The greyback’s claw dangled from only a few tendons, looking as though it must fall off each time the monster moved.

  Wulfrik waved his sword at the monster, daring it to attack. The mocking challenge did not need to be shrieked in the howling speech of the yhetee. Slapping its chest with its good claw, the goaded greyback rushed the Norscan.

  Again, the beast proved itself more than a simple animal. Only a few feet from Wulfrik, it paused in its charge to dig its foot into the snow. This time when the monster kicked out at the man, a white sheet of snow flew into his face, blinding him!

  The instincts of a hundred battles made Wulfrik dive away rather than try to wipe the ice from his eyes as another man might. The marauder hurled himself from the path of the onrushing greyback, throwing himself into the snow. Even so, the yhetee’s claw slashed near enough to him to catch the heavy cape he wore. The icy claws of the greyback cut through the giant-scalp as though it were cheesecloth, the tangled tatters dangling from its talons like a knight’s pennant.

  Wulfrik rose to meet the yhetee’s next charge. Shielding his eyes from another shower of snow, he was able to dodge the claw as it came whistling at his head. Rolling low, he brought his blade raking across the greyback’s ankle, cleaving its foot from its leg.

  Shrieking, the greyback crashed into the snow. Wulfrik did not give it a chance to rise. Screaming a war cry only a little less savage than the howls of the yhetee, he leapt upon the struggling beast. Steel crunched through bone, stabbing through the yhetee’s horned skull to impale the primitive brain within. The greyback made one furious effort to fling the champion off its back. Then it uttered a mewing whimper and its body collapsed back into the snow.

  Wulfrik wrenched his sword free from the greyback’s head. One foot planted upon the gory mess, he raised his bloodied weapon high and shouted into the night.

  “Skulls for the Skull Throne!”

  The death of their leader put the remaining yhetee into a full rout. The beasts fled back into the high peaks, their wailing cries piteous and mournful as they withdrew into their icy refuges.

  For the men who stood victorious, it was enough that the monsters were gone. In the aftermath of battle, they gathered about their master and watched him perform a sombre ritual.

  The head of the greyback was cut from its body and cleaned of flesh. Once prepared, Wulfrik took possession of it. The champion was silent as death as he carried the trophy towards a raging fire Sigvatr had coaxed into life with whale oil and cloth stripped from the dead. Bowing to each of the eight points of the flame, Wulfrik held the inhuman skull above the fire.

  “Glory and horror to the Blood God, whose Rage shall devour the world! An offering to honour my debt!”

  Wulfrik dropped the skull into the fire. Instead of smouldering like a normal bone, the skull cracked and crumbled, disintegrating into a fine red mist. The stench of boiling blood rose from the crimson smoke. Wulfrik turned away from the flames, wiping his hand in the snow.

  “It is done?” Sigvatr asked the champion when he returned from making his offering.

  “It is done,” Wulfrik told the grizzled warrior. “The hunger of the Blood God is appeased. At least for a time.”

  “The gods have mighty hungers,” Sigvatr said.

  “They are gluttons,” Wulfrik corrected him, casting a spiteful look at the flames. “Will they ever have enough?”

  Sigvatr shook his head in sympathy. It was an old sorrow Wulfrik expressed, a sorrow that had been with him ever since that terrible night after the Battle of a Thousand Skulls. “Many men would envy the favour the gods have shown you,” he said. Wulfrik followed the old man’s gaze to where his warriors were encamped.

  “Most men are fools,” Wulfrik snarled, storming away from his friend. The thought that any man would look at what the gods had done to him as some kind of blessing was one that made his blood boil. He knew it was what made men so eager to join his crew. He couldn’t understand how anyone could be so blind.

  Jokull came running from the camp, a great mass of fur held in his arms. The hunter bowed as he approached Wulfrik. Smiling, he held out the heavy mass of fur to the champion. “I saw the beast ruin your cape, war-chief,” Jokull said. “I thought it only fitting that it should provide you with another.”

  Wulfrik took the heavy fur from the hunter. It must have taken some nerve for the man to steal back to the battlefield and skin the greyback. The champion could admire that kind of valour, but he felt only contempt for anyone who thought he could bribe his favour with presents. Wulfrik’s boot kicked into Jokull’s knee, spilling the hunter into the snow.

  “When I desire new raiment, I’ll ask for it,” the champion growled. He didn’t look down as he marched past the fallen hunter. The man would either learn his place or he would over-reach himself. Wulfrik hoped it wouldn’t come to that. He could tell just from the feel of it that the cloak Jokull had made was a good one.

  Conversation faded as Wulfrik stalked back into camp. The champion let his steely gaze sweep across the gathered marauders. They had spent a day resting and recovering from the battle. They should be grateful for their captain’s indulgence.

  “Kill the wounded, gather the names of the dead,” Wulfrik told his crew. “We march to the Seafang. It is time we put these mountains behind us.”

  The champion turned away, marching back down the mountain, following the path they had climbed when they had made their ascent. The meaning was not lost upon the Norscans. Without Wulfrik, none of them would ever leave these mountains, and Wulfrik would brook neither argument nor delay.

  The screams of the Norscan wounded did not linger long.

  Chapter Two

  The survivors of Wulfrik’s crew stood in silence upon the icy deck of the Seafang. Men of Norsca were not like the weak southlings. They did not cower in fear at the thought of magic or scream in terror when a sorcerer cast a spell. To them, such things were as natural as the turning of the seasons and the passing of the moons. Magic was but another creation of the gods.

  Even these hardened men of the northlands felt a chill slither down their spines as they considered the magic they would soon behold. Many of them had experienced it several times, but never did they lose their awe of it.

  Great, snow-capped peaks rose all around the longship, vanishing into the cloud-swept sky. The lake upon which the Seafang rested was more a thing of ice than water. No river or stream fed into the lake, no passage by which mortal hands could have rowed the vessel to its mooring. She might have been plucked from the sea by the hand of a capricious god and set down again in the glacial lake.

  To the men who stood in silence upon the Seafang, that was precisely what had happened. Only the power of the gods could have brought the ship into the mountains. Only the power of the gods could bring her back again.

  Wulfrik stood at the prow of the ship, his powerful a
rms folded across his chest, the grey fur of the yhetee cloak snapping about his shoulders as the wind rolled across the ship. Sternly, the champion watched as Sigvatr ushered the men of the crew forwards. With undisguised malice, Wulfrik studied each man as he brought the sharp edge of his knife slashing across their palm.

  Each man pressed his bleeding hand against the carved dragon head rising from the prow. Under Wulfrik’s wary gaze, each man waited, watching as the wood absorbed his blood. Then the warrior would step back, allowing another to take his place and repeat the ceremony.

  After all his crew had pressed their bleeding hands to the figurehead, Wulfrik’s expression softened, a triumphant gleam in his eye. He unfolded his arms and stared at the ranks of his gathered warriors.

  “Your blood is weak,” Wulfrik told his men, his voice booming like thunder across the Seafang’s deck. “The gods have no taste for it.” The champion smiled, displaying his fangs. It was as well for the warriors that none of them was favoured by the gods. If one of them ever showed he was able to evoke the ship’s magic, the next instant would find Wulfrik’s sword buried in the man’s belly.

  “The wolf lets the dogs hunt with him,” Wulfrik laughed. “But only until they think they too are wolves.”

  The champion brought his knife raking across the palm of his hand. He clenched his fist, letting blood trickle from his cut hand. “This is the blood the gods have chosen,” he told his warriors. “This is the strength they honour!”

  Wulfrik spun around, slapping his hand upon the horned forehead of the dragon. Immediately a tremor ran through the ship. Shields rattled against the hull, masts creaked overhead, links of armour jangled upon the hauberks of the crew. A smell like bubbling pitch swept across the deck, bringing tears to the eyes of every man. Slowly at first, then more rapidly, thick grey mist began to stream from the mouth of the wooden dragon. Smoke or fog, the grey mist spread swiftly across the lake. In a matter of minutes, a wall of smoke engulfed the Seafang, cutting her off entirely from all sight of the lake and the mountains beyond.

  “To oars!” Sigvatr roared at the awestruck Norscans. The warriors scrambled onto the benches that lined the deck. Quickly they gripped the thick oaken oars and set the blades slashing into the icy water of the mountain lake.

  Sigvatr glanced back to the prow of the ship. Wulfrik still stood beside the figurehead, but now he held a sword in each hand. Fiercely, the champion watched the billowing wall of smoke. Sigvatr shuddered to think what might be staring back at the hero.

  “Row, dogs!” Sigvatr snarled at the crew. “Row or rot in the belly of the gods!” He raised a heavy iron rattle, shaking it viciously, hoping the sound would ward away the evil spirits he knew were closing in upon the ship.

  Gradually the Seafang began to move as the efforts of the crew tore her free from the ice that had closed about her. The grinding shriek of cracking ice drowned out the grunts of the straining Norscans. The ship began to move forwards, piercing the smoke that surrounded her.

  New sounds replaced the crack of ice and the howl of mountain winds. A dull rasp, like the sizzle of a new-forged sword, rumbled through the fog, crashing about the hull of the Seafang like an avalanche of sound. Dark shapes flittered through the smoke, hazy apparitions that pawed at the fog like moths beating against a lantern. Screams and wails could be heard rising from the smoke, growling cries that each man knew he heard not with his ears but with his soul. Bestial and malignant, the Norscans knew that it was death to answer those cries, yet a perverse temptation clawed at each warrior’s heart, urging him to self-destruction.

  “Father!” one burly Norscan shouted, throwing down his oar. Before Sigvatr could stop him, the warrior rose up onto his bench and threw himself over the side of the ship. In an instant, he was lost to the fog. A piteous scream exploded from the fog, and in its echoes was heard the giggle of hungry things.

  “Keep those scum at the oars!” Wulfrik growled. The champion stabbed one of his blades into a black shape that pressed in upon the ship, nearly piercing the veil of smoke which surrounded her. The apparition was splattered by the piercing steel, flying apart in little blobs of darkness that quickly merged into a new shadow before sinking back into the fog.

  The death of the lost warrior brought more and more of the shadows converging upon the ship. Soon the grey smoke was turned black by their pressing shapes. As the veil grew thinner, burning eyes began to gleam from the darkness, staring hungrily at the Seafang’s crew.

  “Row!” Sigvatr shrieked, banging his sword against the ship’s mast, waving the iron rattle over his head as though it were the standard of a king. “Row until your hearts shrivel and your bellies burst! Row! Row! Row!”

  The crew strained to keep time to the frantic banging of Sigvatr’s sword. They fought to keep their eyes focussed upon the deck, upon the back of the man before them or upon their own feet. Anything to keep from gazing at the veil beyond the ship. It was more than eyes that could be seen there now. Things were taking form as they started to penetrate the fog, things with wings and claws and dripping fangs. Eagerly the slavering daemons fought their way towards the ship.

  No longer did Wulfrik stand at the prow of the ship. The champion raced across the deck of the Seafang, slashing his swords at the furies hungry for the souls of his crew. Wherever his blades lashed out the daemons relented, slinking back beyond the veil. But as soon as he turned to fend back another clutch of inhuman spirits, the furies would return, gnawing at the fog.

  Suddenly, the darkness was gone, banished by a cold, wintry light. The sharp smell of brine replaced the mephitic stink of daemon ichor. A stiff sea breeze wafted across the deck, invigorating the gasping men who crouched over the oars.

  Wulfrik laughed and sheathed his swords. Boldly, the champion rushed back to the prow of his ship and set his boot upon the dragon’s wooden neck. He pointed his bleeding hand at the rolling waves which now embraced the Seafang. As the wisps of fog parted, there could be seen an expanse of dark water, wind-whipped waves splashing against the longship as the sea rebelled against the Seafang’s sudden intrusion into her domain. A distant shore with towering peaks loomed in the distance, rising from the clammy ocean and splitting the stormy sky with snow-swept summits.

  “Today we cheat the daemons of their supper!” Wulfrik roared in triumph. His keen eyes detected the sharp cliffs of Norsca’s jagged shore. To the rest of his crew, their homeland was nothing but a purple smudge on the horizon.

  “Do you know where we are?” Njarvord asked his captain between gasps for breath.

  Wulfrik closed his eyes, threw back his head and sniffed the air. For the champion, the smell was as familiar to him as the back of his own hand. A jubilant expression filled his face. “No more than a day’s sailing from Ormskaro,” he told the hairy Baersonling. He glared sternly across the deck at his warriors.

  “But you’ll make it there in half that time.”

  Ormskaro was nestled within one of the fjords cut into the coast of Norsca. Like some beached leviathan, the town sprawled upon the shore, stretching up into the cliffs and the flatlands beyond. The deep waters of the fjord made Ormskaro a perfect harbour for the fleet of sleek dragonships anchored off her beach. A flotilla of fishing scows timidly picked their way between the warships, bound for the open sea.

  The town itself was a confusion of earthen longhouses and timber mead halls. The wattle huts of thralls squatted beside the stone keeps of jarls without pattern or reason. Animal pens spilled out into the muddy streets, their denizens roaming at will through the settlement, their owners trusting to the brands burned into their hides to secure their property. The tents of traders and craftsmen were nestled in little clumps wherever space permitted, gaudy banners proclaiming the nature of their wares and services. Close to the shore, upon a great timber platform, whalers busied themselves sectioning meat from an immense black whale while others drained oil from the carcass.

  High upon the slopes that overlooked the fjord, a palisade of e
normous logs formed a wall, sectioning off the entire summit of the hill. Behind the palisade, a second wall rose, this of cut stone, all but obscuring the great tower of granite it surrounded.

  Wulfrik smiled as he saw the wall and the tower. The tower was ancient beyond the memory of men. Some whispered that it had been built by that race of giants who ruled Norsca before the birth of the gods. Others said it had been raised by the gods themselves to mark the land. The oldest skalds claimed it was not a tower at all but rather the backbone of the father of all dragons, cut down by the Blood God’s own axe.

  Whatever its beginnings, the tower had become the seat of Ormnir, the great king of the Sarls. He had made it his fortress and founded the town of Ormskaro to provide a home for his warriors. From Ormskaro, the Sarls became a mighty people, among the strongest of the northmen. When the great army of Asavar Kul marched against the weak kingdoms of the southlings, it was Ormnir’s grandson Ulgra Troll-eater who led the Sarls into battle. From the burning husk of Erengrad his warriors brought back enough stone to raise the wall around the tower—an enduring testament to their victory over the Kislevites.

  The smile turned to a sneer as Wulfrik thought of the current master of the tower of Ormfell. King Viglundr was a pathetic shadow of his illustrious predecessors. Generations of kings like Viglundr had squandered the might of the Sarls, allowing other Norscan tribes to grow strong. The soft kings of Ormskaro had grown content with their riches and thought no more of conquest and the joy of battle. They used their wealth to bribe their enemies where once they would have used their swords to bring them low.

  Viglundr was such a king, a schemer and plotter with no taste for war. Well did Wulfrik know the Sarl king’s mind. Had he not fought a war while Viglundr sat safe behind his walls?

  “Is that a king’s throat you crush?” Sigvatr asked Wulfrik in a low voice.