02 - Wulfrik Read online

  Wulfrik, however, knew there was one thing more he had to do. Standing over Stossel, the hero brought his brawny hands slapping down upon the wizard’s exposed lungs. While the tortured body beneath him thrashed wildly as it at last suffocated, the northman lifted his head, staring past the ceiling, staring at the invisible thrones of his gods.

  “To Tzeentch, Lord of Fate, Changer of the Ways, I give the last breath of this offering.”

  As Wulfrik spoke, the death rattle sounded from Stossel’s throat. The wizard’s last exhalation became a shimmering streak of light as it left his body, rising in pulsating strands of luminescence from the mutilated corpse. The northman could see tiny figures moving within the lights, a thousand scenes playing out within the wizard’s breath. Flashes of another life, Stossel’s life, captured within the traitor’s final breath.

  Wulfrik looked away from the dizzying spectacle of events, feeling his brain ache from the bombardment of stimulation. Grylikh, however, was not so timid, its multi-faceted eye riveted upon the strands of light. Cawing happily, the raven flew down amid the lights, snapping them from the air as though they were locusts, crushing each in its beak before eagerly devouring them.

  The hero left the daemon to gorge itself upon Stossel’s soul. Sombrely, he made his way through the wreckage of the laboratory. There was much he still had to do. Zarnath had been at the top of his list of traitors he would see dead, but he was not the only one. With the shaman and Broendulf gone, it would be Sveinbjorn’s turn next.

  The Aesling prince would wait until they were back in Norscan waters before trying to destroy Wulfrik.

  Wulfrik would not be so patient.

  Epilogue

  Silver, slaves and gold. Wulfrik cast his gaze across the shore as the Norscans loaded the wealth of Wisborg into the holds of their longships. There were many sour looks directed at the Seafang by the marauders. The riches they had plundered from the town were respectable, but a far cry from the dazzling fortune they had been led to expect after Wulfrik’s display with the elven jewels back in Ormskaro.

  Jarl Tostig and Than Canute, two of the most powerful chieftains who had set out upon the voyage, were especially bitter in their scrutiny of Wulfrik and his ship. Theirs had been the loudest voices urging a return to Norsca to divide such loot as they had taken in Wisborg. It would not be much, parted among so many, but it would at least pay for the warriors they had lost taking the town.

  Wulfrik had proposed a different strategy. He would lead the fleet further down the Reik, to still greater and more wealthy cities, ripe for the plunderer’s sword. The hero’s offer had been met with enthusiasm by most of the marauders, if not their chieftains. In order to appease their own men, Tostig and Canute and the other leaders agreed to follow Wulfrik to another town and see if its coffers were more rewarding than those of Wisborg.

  It was Jarl Tostig, full of venomous suspicion, who demanded that Wulfrik allow one of the other chiefs aboard the Seafang to ensure the veracity of the hero’s promise. Not willing to put his own neck at risk, Tostig suggested the one man among all the leaders who could be counted upon to be no friend of the Wanderer’s. Surprisingly, Sveinbjorn had made only a feeble effort to back out of the hole Tostig had put him in.

  There was only one reason Sveinbjorn would be willing to sail on Wulfrik’s ship. Tostig was right to worry about treachery, but he should have spared some of his suspicions for Sveinbjorn while he was trying to guard against trickery.

  The hero grinned at the level of callous ambition and greed the Aesling prince possessed. He knew Sveinbjorn had bribed men from his crew to sneak treasure from the other longships into the Seafang’s hold. He knew the prince had conspired to smuggle extra passengers aboard, hidden among the southling captives. Two dozen of Sveinbjorn’s most loyal hersirs could cause a great deal of trouble, given the chance.

  As the last longship was loaded and the fleet took sail, Wulfrik was not surprised when he saw Skafhogg and Helreginn leading Sveinbjorn across the deck. There was a look of smug triumph on the prince’s face as he approached, the expression of the cat who has gobbled up the songbird.

  “You have a fine ship,” Sveinbjorn said, running an appreciative hand along the Seafang’s rail. “I have never seen a vessel with such a splendid shape, such rugged beauty.”

  “I have already noted your eye for beauty,” Wulfrik growled. “A foolish man might say we share the same tastes. I’d have to nail his tongue to the mast.”

  Sveinbjorn chuckled at the thinly veiled threat. The way he moved his hand along the rail took on a languid, suggestive flair, as though tracing its way up a supple leg of ivory skin to squeeze the smooth thigh above. Sveinbjorn laughed again when he saw by the smouldering anger in Wulfrik’s eyes that the hero appreciated the gesture.

  “I would like to have a ship such as this,” Sveinbjorn said. Other men from the Seafang’s crew now began to rise from their benches to approach the prow and their captain. Wulfrik could see the five hersirs Sveinbjorn had openly brought aboard with him as a bodyguard among the men closing upon him.

  Wulfrik curled his lip and sneered at the Aesling prince. “You wouldn’t know how to handle a ship like this. I am told you don’t perform well with things of quality, be they ships or women.”

  Outrage flared across Sveinbjorn’s face as the barb struck his ears. His hand fell to the hilt of his sword and started to draw it from his belt. Then the oily smile was back on his face. “I know you don’t like to share,” Sveinbjorn told him. “So I’m not going to ask you to. Hjordis is mine, and so is this ship.”

  “You can’t command her magic,” Wulfrik said, his tone as friendly as an open grave.

  “But you can!” Sveinbjorn snarled, pointing his fist at the hero. He glanced aside, nodding his head, motioning for the crew to tighten the circle around their captain. “You can, and you will! By Shornaal’s teat, you’ll guide this ship where I tell you or I’ll geld you and stake your manhood on a briar thorn. A small briar thorn.”

  Wulfrik eyed the warriors surrounding him, making no move towards his weapons. “You’ve planned this quite well,” he said. “But in a rather predictable fashion. Tell me, how much of my treasure did you promise my crew if they betrayed me?”

  Skafhogg pulled an ugly, crook-bladed knife from his boot, letting sunlight dance across its menacing edge. “A quarter of the plunder is ours when we deliver this ship to Prince Sveinbjorn.”

  Sveinbjorn giggled vindictively as he listened to the Seafang’s helmsman pronounce Wulfrik’s defeat. The hero was nothing without his ship. He would be lost to the terrible doom the gods had set upon him. His only hope now was to grovel before his enemy and beg Sveinbjorn for mercy.

  Wulfrik’s next words caused the Aesling to almost choke upon his laughter.

  “Tell the prince what I promised you when we return to Norsca,” the chieftain said.

  “You offered us everything in the hold,” Skafhogg declared. “Every coin, every keg, every thrall. All of it when we deliver Sveinbjorn to you.”

  Before the prince could react, Skafhogg’s knife was pressed against his throat. Helreginn drove his spiked mace full into the skull of the closest hersir. Other crewmen swiftly dragged down the remaining Aeslings on deck.

  Wulfrik smiled coldly at the shocked Sveinbjorn. “You’re a poor haggler,” he said, baring his fangs. He noticed the colour drain from the prince’s face as the crew began throwing the bodies of his guards into the river. “Don’t fret after your men in the hold. They’ve already been dealt with.”

  Sweat streamed down Sveinbjorn’s face, his lips turning almost colourless. “You don’t dare kill me!” he yelled. “It will mean war! Ormskaro will burn!”

  The hero rounded on Sveinbjorn, smashing his fist into the nose he had broken in Hjordis’ bedchamber. Except for Skafhogg’s support, the prince would have collapsed from the vicious strike.

  “It’ll be war,” Wulfrik agreed. He turned his eyes from Sveinbjorn and snapped commands t
o his crew. “Remove this pig’s armour and helm! Lopt! You look slippery enough to pass for this scum at a distance! Put his armour on and strut about the decks like you own this ship! Olav! Remove my standard from the stern and put up Sveinbjorn’s banner!”

  Wulfrik turned his eyes back on the bewildered Sveinbjorn. “The Seafang’s hold is filled to bursting, and with more treasure than either you or I could have acquired fairly. I’m guessing a fair amount of that plunder belongs to Tostig and Canute and the others. What was your plan, Sveinbjorn? Have me send the Seafang into the mists and cut the chains? We safely sail back to Norsca while everyone else gets eaten by the daemons? Or maybe the ships loyal to you and Viglundr make it back too?”

  The shocked expression on Sveinbjorn’s face told Wulfrik his guess had hit very near the mark. “A good plan,” the hero grunted. “But I’ve made a few changes to it.” He looked away again to bark further orders to his crew. “Bring my priest and the prince’s prize horse up from the hold!”

  “I’ll call the fog and enter the border-realm,” Wulfrik told Sveinbjorn. “But I have an errand to deal with first.”

  The bound Sigmarite priest was hauled onto deck, battered by his ordeal but with his spirit unbroken. He glared at his captors and when his eyes fell upon Wulfrik, there was a gleam of raw hate in them. The chieftain was pleased to see his prisoner so defiant and filled with rage. He intended to use those qualities.

  Wulfrik stalked across the deck until he stood before the warrior priest. He met the southling’s hate with an arrogant sneer. “I have decided to let you live, false-father,” he told the Sigmarite.

  “Then you are stupid as well as obscene,” the priest snarled back, making a powerful effort to raise his bound arms.

  Wulfrik laughed at the priest’s malignance. He reached up and took the bridle of the sleek riding horse his crew had brought up from the hold. “I do not fear your Sigmar and I do not fear your Emperor. I am sending you to tell him to bring all his armies here and face me, if the dog has the stomach for battle. If he doesn’t, tell him I will take ten thousand pounds of silver as payment not to put his villages to the sword. Next time I will ask for more. Do you think you can remember all that?”

  The warrior priest was smiling now. “I will happily take your message to Altdorf, barbarian. You will wait here for the Emperor’s answer?”

  “We will be near, upriver or down,” Wulfrik answered. “If your Emperor looks, he will find us.”

  “Yes, he will,” the priest promised as a pair of marauders lifted him onto the back of Sveinbjorn’s horse and tied him to the saddle.

  The hero smiled at the southling’s remark. “Row to the other bank!” he told his crew. “We have a messenger to set ashore.”

  Wulfrik marched back across the deck to the bow of the ship where Skafhogg continued to hold Sveinbjorn prisoner. He passed Lopt, the pretend-prince cutting a prideful figure as he swaggered about the ship. There was small chance anyone watching from the other longships would think they were watching anyone but the Aesling prince.

  There was confusion on the real Sveinbjorn’s face when Wulfrik returned to the Seafang’s bow.

  “I told you I made some changes to your plan,” Wulfrik explained. “I won’t abandon good fighting men to daemons. The chains will be cut, but they will be cut before we enter the fog. The fleet will be stranded here, in the land of the southlings. My messenger will see that the wrath of the Empire is focussed here. He will send his ships and his armies looking for me. The men I leave behind will have to fight if they will ever see Norsca again. But the gods favour the strong. Some of them may make it back. But they won’t do it soon.”

  Sveinbjorn gasped as he understood the horrible consequences of what Wulfrik had done. If any of those men returned to Norsca, they would say that it was Sveinbjorn, not Wulfrik, who had abandoned them. Even worse, they would think he had betrayed them to the southlings! The sagas would brand him the blackest traitor since Dletch Ogrefeeder!

  “No! Wulfrik!” Sveinbjorn pleaded. “Kill me! Torture me! But leave me my name! I can give you gold!”

  “I want no gold,” Wulfrik said. “I meant what I said when I told my crew everything in the hold was theirs.” The hero waved his hand, motioning for a few of his crew to come near. Each of the three men carried an object in his hands. One held a metal pipe, a second bore a torch. The third carried a small wooden box. “Not everything,” Wulfrik corrected himself. “I saved a little something for you.”

  Sveinbjorn thrashed about in Skafhogg’s grip, trying to break free. The snaggletoothed warrior kept him pinned against the deck, helping the crew hold him down as Wulfrik took hold of the box. He opened the lid and quickly jabbed his armoured hand inside. When his hand emerged from the box, a slender, sinuous shape dangled from it, whipping coils about his wrist.

  The prince looked with renewed terror at the metal pipe and burning torch. He knew what was coming. The most insulting death a Norscan could offer an enemy, a shameful death that even the Crow God would shun.

  “You can have Hjordis!” Sveinbjorn cried.

  Wulfrik took the pipe from one of the warriors with his free hand. He cast a cold gaze upon the pleading Aesling. “She’s not yours to give!” he hissed. Skafhogg shifted his hold, forcing Sveinbjorn’s jaw open so that Wulfrik could insert the end of the pipe in the prince’s mouth. When the pipe was in place, Wulfrik sent the snake he held in his other hand slithering down the open end. To encourage its progress, the torch was used to heat the metal and drive the viper down Sveinbjorn’s throat.

  “So passes the next king of Ormskaro,” Wulfrik said. “We will take his body back to the halls of his fathers and let them know of the passing of Sveinbjorn Snakebelly.

  “And then there will be war.”

  Silence reigned in the darkened halls of Ormfell. Whispers of war were on the wind, rumours of rebellion among the jarls and thanes. No more did the walls of the tower echo with the laughter of midnight feasts, the song of harper and skald. A pall had descended upon Ormskaro, the darkest it had known since the death of King Torgald.

  Viglundr sat alone in his empty council chamber, sullenly drinking a goblet of Bretonnian wine. With his most trusted jarls breaking faith with him, forming alliances among themselves to crown a new king, Viglundr was suspicious of his own huscarls. He would not end his days because of a twilight visitation and a cup of molten lead poured down his ear. If the Sarls wanted a new king, then they would fight the old one to do it.

  Viglundr sloshed the wine around in his cup, staring sourly at the rich red liquid. Jackals! Vultures! The upstart chieftains thought Ormskaro was weak, thought this was their chance to slake their own ambitions. They knew many of Viglundr’s warriors had sailed away with Sveinbjorn and Wulfrik.

  They would learn! When the fleet returned, its holds stuffed with treasure, Viglundr would be the wealthiest king in Norsca. He would hire armies to put down the rebellious chiefs, he would have sorcerers wither their lands and trolls devour their herds! Their children would be cast in chains and sold to the Kurgans! He would make of them an example that would horrify…

  A shadow fell upon Viglundr’s throne, stirring the king from his thoughts. He looked up in fright, his hand reaching for the sword at his side. All thought of fight vanished when he saw something fall to the floor at his feet. Viglundr gazed in open-mouthed horror at the decapitated head of Sveinbjorn, the features battered and swollen by poison.

  “I brought your son-in-law back to you,” Wulfrik told the king as he stepped out from the shadows. “Somebody put a snake in his belly.”

  Viglundr continued to stare into Sveinbjorn’s cold features. “What have you done?” the king gasped.

  Wulfrik took another step towards the throne, an icy smile on his scarred face. “He had some idea of stealing my ship as well as my woman. I had some ideas of my own about that. I left the rest of the ships in the Empire to fare as they will. If the gods are kind, a few of them might make it back to Ormska
ro in a year.”

  The king reeled at Wulfrik’s words, staggering back, collapsing against the foot of his throne, his sword clattering to the floor. Sveinbjorn dead meant war with the Aeslings, and just when his own chieftains were giving him trouble. Loss of the fleet would bring those tribes that had sent ships on the voyage seeking wergild for them, at a time when Viglundr would need every ounce of silver to hire mercenaries.

  “They’re saying Sveinbjorn took control of the Seafang and it was he who cut the chains and abandoned the fleet. They say he even betrayed them to the southlings,” Wulfrik said. “Of course, they say that only after my crew had told them that was what happened. The Aeslings will, of course, insist the treachery was your idea.”

  Viglundr raised a trembling hand to his forehead. “You have brought ruin to Ormskaro,” he croaked. “The tribes will descend upon my city like vengeful wolves.”

  “It will be amusing to see who comes for your blood first,” agreed Wulfrik.

  Viglundr lifted himself to his feet, supporting his shivering body by leaning against the side of his throne. “You have made your point,” he told the hero. “Everything I hold I owe to your sword. You defeated King Torgald. You made everything possible. I accept that. I was wrong to try to cheat you.”

  “I fought one war for you,” Wulfrik said, turning to walk away. “That was when I didn’t know better.”

  “Wait!” pleaded the king. “You can’t forget Hjordis! If my city suffers, then she will suffer! Help me, and she is yours!”

  Wulfrik’s eyes were empty, like those of a dead thing, when he turned and stared back at Viglundr. “Pray to the gods, king,” the hero said. “You have nothing left to offer me.”

  The marauder didn’t tarry to listen to Viglundr’s increasingly desperate cries. The king was already a dead man, but before he went slinking into the halls of his ancestors, he would see everything he had built, that his fathers had built, come crashing down. Ormskaro would burn. It would make such a bonfire as to blind the gods themselves.