Wolf Blade: A Sword and Sorcery Fantasy Harem

by Marco Frazetta

  More Orcs came to me. My flesh burned as a blade cut into my shoulder. My fangs and claws sank into its wielder. I reared up, the smell of blood and carnage overwhelming me. My jaws snapped on limbs, my claws dug into eyes and tendons, armor and flesh. I bared my teeth at armed men with blue shields as they surrounded me. I felt my slick tongue panting. The fighting had seemed to ease. The instinct to kill was still ringing in me. A growl began building in me, and I was ready to kill anything, human, Orc—it didn’t matter.

  “Stop!” my father said and stepped between me and the men, who I now saw were Wolf Rein men, all armed with swords, axes, shields. “Do you not recognize him? It is Rothan! He bears the gift of Fenris. He has turned the tide of battle.”

  The men murmured.

  “It’s true!” Yorbrand said as he came running from the castle gates. “He protected many townsfolk as he slew Orc after Orc. He saw many to safety in the castle!” A few shouts of agreement came from the townsfolk.

  “Is it really him?” a burly soldier with a mace asked.

  “It is,” One Eye said as he came forward on horseback. “I can attest to it.”

  “Enough!” my father said, “you forget your places, as do any that question my word. I am Hammer of Wolf Rein, and I say, this is my son. Rothan, show them.”

  I looked from my father to the men who had just fought and bled, to the corpses strewn about, the wounded that were being carried off, and breathed. My human mind began returning to me, like lake water settling after a rain. Breathing in, it was as if my breath withdrew my fur, then my fangs, then the power that had swollen my limbs. I was human again, and though covered in the blood and gore of the enemy, it was me, the son of the hammer that most present had witnessed grow up since he was a child.

  There were still dozens of people huddled by the gate, shivering with fright.

  “The one who had the gate closed. On innocents.” I looked to my father. “We should have their head.”

  “I’m afraid,” my father said, “that order might have come from one with the authority to do so.” He gazed past the gate, above the thick stone walls, to the tallest tower of Stone Mantle. There, firelight flickered through its windows and even from this distance I could see a pair of deranged eyes staring down at us.

  10

  The table was covered with food and tankards of ale. The odor of roasted pheasant, custard pie, brown pale ale were heavy upon my nose. We were in the Jarl’s great hall. Row upon row of long tables were crowded with revelers feasting in the torchlight. A day had passed since the Orc raid. We had mourned for our fallen, and in bittersweet gratitude were grateful that they had been so few. It had been a great victory considering what could have happened had we not acted quickly as we did. All around me, men congratulated me.

  “The Jarl crushes his people under his gate, you and your father risk your lives for us. We do not forget,” one of the men, balding and bulbous nosed, whispered to me. Women who walked by flashed smiles filled with everything from innocent gratitude to lusty invitation. These last women whispered things far different than what the grateful man had. It would have been a grand time, in past days. Clothes would have flown off and legs would have spread open like wild flowers in a feverish spring. But those times were gone now. Though we managed to fight off the small Orc raid here, things were growing worse in the rest of Skald. A raven had arrived just earlier that day telling that Ironrise had fallen to the Orc horde. An entire Jarldom fallen. The horde’s leader, some Orc warlord going by the name of Thousand Fangs, had laid siege to the Iron Keep. Jarl Gmarr the Anvil had barely managed to escape with this court. The Orc warlord was pursuing the retreating Skaldean forces to the border with Wolf Rein. These things weighed on me as I sat there among the revelry. In the back of my mind I knew what I must do, and this unsettled me, kept me from joining in the revelry like the rest.

  I stole glances now and then, across the room, to where Kyra and her father sat. Even they had attended, her father most likely for the ale, Kyra likely to try the meat and swap hunting stories with townsfolk. But she seemed more dour than I would have thought, on the brink of despair even, and she would not meet my gaze.

  I stood from my seat and made my way along the feasting crowd.

  “Rothan! The Fenrir! Hail to you Rothan!” I heard different voices call out from the crowd as I passed them. The town had quickly gone from fearing me, to seeing me as some kind of divine warrior among them, for once they realized that I was not some monster but a Fenrir as legends held the first Skaldeans had been, they embraced me as a god-touched among them. “Our future Hammer! You’ll deliver us from our enemies! Fenris is with us!” My furred cloak tossed about me as I nodded to townsfolk who shouted for me, and hurried along, drawing as little attention to myself as possible.

  Finally, I arrived at Kyra’s table. Her father Dagg was half-conscious, smelling more of ale than a barrel full of the drink. “Kyra,” I said, “what’s the matter, the meat that bad?” She only shook her head and I sensed that something was truly troubling her. “It was just a jape. Was only trying to make you smile. Look Kyra, I did not tell you about… what I am, because it was not something I told openly to anyone but my father. There were too many risks and—”

  “Rothan, you really think I suffer over you not telling me you’re a Fenrir? I guessed it without you even telling me. You think catching arrows and tossing elk around like rabbits is proper hiding? The whole town could worship you, but I would still see you’re just another lug with a head the size of a dragon’s.”

  I stumbled for words. “Then why do you look so troubled? There’s meat, mead, victory, laughter…”

  “It’s my brothers,” she said resentfully. “A raven just came. My brothers are listed under the fallen in the battles against the Orcs of Ironrise.”

  “Kyra, war is… chaos. You might never find out how they died.”

  “But how can they be so certain that they died at all? Tovir and Anvir are cunning. ‘One’s a fox, the other a blood hound,’ we say about them. Because they can get through anything. They must live. I know they do. I feel the gods tell me so.”

  “Perhaps they do, but you must trust the gods to return them if that is so.” I was unsure what else to say.

  She looked at me for a long moment, then turned away, her blonde locks spilling over her muscled shoulders. “If only I were a man and could…do something. Do something to find them.”

  “All hail Bardawulf Jarl of Wolf Rein!” a voice boomed out. It was a guard who wore the ram-horned helm of the Jarl’s personal guard. The crowd’s raucous squawking turned to hushed whispers of respect as the Jarl was brought in.

  He was even more frail than I remembered him. A bent man, with a great wolf pelt over his shoulders that looked like it was crushing him under its weight. He shuffled across the long dais to his Jarl’s seat at the head of the grand hall. His hair was long, thin white curls that looked like the smoke of a dying campfire. This smoke hair cascaded down his face, which was sullen, clean shaven. Age had turned his lips and all the skin around them to overripe peach flesh. His hands seemed too large for his shriveled arms, the bony elbows of which poked out through the wool of his tunic.

  The Jarl’s chief guard, Aesor Twin Blades, who never revealed his face, walked with stoic patience at his Jarl’s side. He was covered in white plate armor from head to foot, with a wolf pelt clasped on one shoulder and a blue cloak on another. His helm was in the form of a wolf, and the twin swords he was known by were at his hips, one on each side. Aesor was silent as a statue, as he had been for years.

  “All hail Siv, fair daughter of the Jarl!” The ram-horned Jarl guard called out.

  Two more guards walked with utter courtesy as they escorted Bardawulf’s daughter to the seat next to him, where her mother had once sat. She walked with utter grace, in a long blue velvet dress that showed her slender shoulders. Her long neck was adorned with sparkling jewels that hung down to her demure cleavage—her long fingers were a
dorned with still more. She was long of limb, willowy, standing taller than many men in the hall. Her sharp cheekbones, straight prominent nose and large blue eyes made her face striking, as did her chestnut locks that glistened in the room’s light. They fell straight down until they cascaded onto her shoulders, so that it seemed she wore a parted veil of rich brown hair. My heart filled with trickling desire, perhaps because I knew she was to be my wife… if the Jarl and she accepted. Where Kyra’s beauty was powerful and wild, Bellabel’s luscious and exotic, Siv’s was regal and majestic.

  My father entered and sat next to the Jarl, though he was not introduced by the guards, which seemed strange as I recalled he had been in days past.

  “All hail Dorgramu the Binding Hand! Court wizard of Wolf Rein!”

  I recognized the court wizard. He seemed to have hardly aged a day in the past five years. He was lean, his beard a carefully trimmed slate of mouse fur. He wore a long gray robe with a red mantle over it, various rings on his fingers and a staff that bore a chained hand rising out from its head. With him was another figure, not quite old enough to be a guard, though he seemed to be a man grown. I felt I had seen him before, but he was dressed in strange clothes, not from Wolf Rein at all. He was raven haired, with large hazel eyes, an upturned nose and a bright face. He seemed all too familiar, but the gold tunic, violet enameled chainmail and violet cloak was too foreign for it to be a boy from Wolf Rein I had known. These were the colors of the Thrawn Priesthood. They rarely, if ever, sent their members to Wolf Rein, as Thrawn was little worshiped among us, much less to be among the Jarl’s court.

  Dorgramu and this young man stood behind the Jarl as he spoke in his quavering voice. “My people…” the Jarl wheezed out, his brow furrowing, “Fenris is with us.”

  “Fenris!” the shout came from the crowd, mingling with shouts of “Hail Jarl Bardawulf!” and “To Rothan, hero of the castle gates!” A few near me muttered with disdain as they recalled the Jarl’s order to close the castle gate.

  The Jarl raised a hand as if exasperated by too much noise. “We have suffered much,” he said, his voice tremulous, broken often by phlegmy coughs. “We are tested much by the gods... This is the way of life in Wolf Rein... But we are also a people of custom... Tradition holds that should any accomplish a great feat on the night of the Moot, they shall be treated as the winner. And there is one among us, who not only won the Moot contests, but proved himself a hero in a much greater way. I speak of course, of Gustaff’s son, Rothan.”

  The crowd cheered and once again the Jarl raised an exasperated hand.

  “We have witnessed something,” the Jarl went on, his hand trembling with the exertion of merely speaking, “we have witnessed something that tells us that the blood of Fenris still runs among our people. And just as in the days of old, and as the custom of moots for untold generations, the Jarl will now hear the oath of the hero of the Moot... and what boon he would receive if he succeeds.”

  The crowd murmured excitedly as I stepped forward before the dais. I looked to my father, seated there at the Jarl’s right hand, and he nodded in encouragement.

  “Jarl Bardawulf,” I said, bowing my head in respect, “I am honored to stand before you, as I am honored to stand before my people.” I gazed all around at a hundred faces. They were much fewer than at a fight in the coliseum, but the crowd seemed a thousand times greater, for I knew almost all the faces, whether by name or simply by sight. “People of Wolf Rein, I did not choose this gift, Fenris chose it for me.” The crowd murmured their approval. “I will use it to defend Wolf Rein, as you defend it, Jarl Bardawulf, and as my father does. My oath is that I will slay the Orc warlord, the leader of this Orc invasion of Skald! I will travel east, to the heart of the fighting in Ironrise and I will lead men into battle… and l will turn back the green tide!”

  The crowd roared their approval.

  “And as custom, that I might thirst to fulfill my oath,” I went on, “I ask for my boon, that should I emerge victorious, Jarl Bardawulf, I ask that you grant me… your daughter Siv’s hand in marriage.”

  A ripple of shock and excitement ran through the people. I could see Siv’s breath quicken, yet her eyes did not leave me as they seemed unmoving, her face a sunstone charged with unwavering determination and poise.

  “And so I also ask this boon,” I went on, “of you, Siv.” Her face tensed, and gave only the slightest nod, full of resignation. “I will prove my worth in battle and in service. Grant me this, Jarl Bardawulf, that I will be stirred to greater feats on the battlefield.”

  Dozens of people hollered their approval—whistling, cheering, toasting mixed all together.

  The Jarl raised a hand for silence.

  “Rothan, son of Gustaff... your oath is honorable, as is your request,” the Jarl coughed out. “But you must remember, you are no ordinary man swearing to do ordinary feats.” He glanced at Dorgramu the courtly wizard. “You are of the blood of Fenris, you say, a blood that traces all the way back to Maghadrad, the first king of Skald. But before he was Maghadrad, he was Maghan. And do you know, what he did to earn the hand of Brindhill, his future queen?” The crowd went silent with anticipation. “He said he would slay the divine captor of his sister, and he swore he would do it without any help, from the warriors of Wolf Rein. And now, to fulfill your oath, you must be as he was. For generations we have fallen from the standards of the old heroes, but you bring us back to them, back to our true ways. And so, you must fulfill your oath without the help of any men from Wolf Rein,” he coughed, “not a one may accompany you.”

  The crowd murmured in confusion, in outrage.

  “I do not understand, Jarl Bardawulf. Maghadrad, Brindhill, the slaying of the sky god, are those not legends?”

  The Jarl coughed. “You are living proof that the legends are true, that our first kings were of the blood of Fenris indeed. Yes, they are true, or are you wiser than Dorgramu?”

  The court wizard bowed his head and spoke. “The Jarl’s reasoning is sound. Oaths have been sworn and carried out here in Wolf Rein since time immemorial.” His voice was high, his words long. “Yet it has been over two hundred years since it was recorded that a true Fenrir swore a moot oath. I have checked the records myself, and a Fenrir has never sworn an oath of something he did not fulfill by his own strength and courage. In truth, there have only ever been a handful of oaths by even ordinary men that were not carried out alone.”

  “But ordinary men take oaths of such things as hunting a vicious boar!” my father protested. “They take oaths of growing a harvest twice the size as the year before—they don’t swear to slay a horde’s warlord!”

  “It is only fair that Rothan not be held to ordinary men’s standards, but to higher ones, to the ones of Fenrirs, and the ones all men swearing oaths should have been held to.” He adjusted his robe’s large sleeve, and the grip on his staff which was as tall as he was. “In the end it is the jarl’s divine duty to create the conditions for the moot’s oath and for the boon. For otherwise men could swear what little they chose and claimed as much as they desired—thus bringing shame to our sacred custom.”

  “But... how am I to face an entire Orc horde and slay its warlord... all alone?”

  “Maghan was a Fenrir, and so he was capable of things that no ordinary man could aspire to. If he could slay a god, surely you can slay an Orc rabble rouser?” The wizard’s jape seemed very calculated but lacking malice, the way a teacher might chide a student. A few laughs broke out in the hall. “Such is the gift, and burden, of being of the blood of Fenris.That is part of being a hero of old, as you are now.”

  The Jarl coughed. He glanced at my father then to me, and I sensed a hatred creeping into his voice. “For you to ask for my daughter’s hand, to join my blood to yours—are my seat and my daughter not worth such a feat for one who wishes to usurp me, for one who wishes to take my title and my very blood, who prays to the gods for my quick fading into oblivion?”

  The crowd went into an uproar, a
mix of outrage, confusion, astonishment.

  “Jarl Bardawulf, I wish no such thing!”

  “These are the conditions of the oath,” the Jarl said in his phlegmy voice. “However, I am not without patience—though the whispers in the cursed mirrors say otherwise! Rothan, you can go back on your words if you wish.”

  “The Jarl speaks true, Rothan.” The court wizard’s voice was calm, reasonable. “There is no law that compels you to accept your oaths once the Jarl has placed all its conditions. It is not forbidden. There are many examples in history of those who took back their words.”

  “And they are known forever as cowards,” I said. The crowd shouted its agreement and frustration at the turn of events.

  “True, there is honor at stake,” the wizard said, “but the people of Wolf Rein have seen your valor. Many of them owe you their lives. They will know you as nothing but a hero forever more. You are more valuable to your people fighting as a soldier, for Wolf Rein, for King Albrecht. In truth you lose no honor. These traditions are complicated affairs, and you did not know the extent of them, nor could you be expected to. You are a warrior, not a scholar. I know glory is of great value to warriors, but sometimes keeping one’s head is more valuable still. Orcs are not the most honorable of enemies, and should you fall to them in your vain attempt to fulfill your oath, they will not suddenly become chivalrous. Withdraw it, and we can all forget it and carry on.”

  “He’s right, Rothan.” My father looked at me now, with heavy eyes. “No harm is done. Come, withdraw your oath. There is still much food and drink left for the night.”

  I stared in silence, not knowing what to do.

  “What do you say to this—” the Jarl wretched, a guard having to hold him upright so he wouldn’t fall over in his fit of coughing, “Rothan son of Gustaff, what do you say to this?”