by C. L. Werner
‘Zarnath, you Kurgan cur!’ Wulfrik howled. ‘Break the spell on my men! Break it or I’ll strew your guts from here to Araby!’
He could see the shaman further down the road, standing just beyond the first rank of stone sentinels. There was, about the way the Kurgan’s head whipped from side to side, the air of a cornered animal to Zarnath. Wulfrik could see the indecision on the man’s face as he wrestled with the urge to flee. The Norscan cursed once more the cowardice of all sorcerers. He reached down, ripping the blunderbuss from the dead fingers of the dwarf at his feet. Angrily, he threw the empty weapon at Stefnir, nearly striking the Aesling in the head. The close call was enough to snap him from his attack against one of the statues.
‘Get the shaman!’ Wulfrik ordered when Stefnir turned his way. The champion had no time to see if Stefnir would be able to carry out his command. Another pair of dwarfs were rushing at him from the darkness, gleaming axes in their hands and revenge in their eyes. Wulfrik snarled at them and braced himself to meet their attack.
Across the road, a large group of dwarfs were systematically cutting down the bewitched Norscans, laughing wickedly as their axes dismembered the defenceless men.
The slaughter ended in a burst of crackling energy, a sphere of white-hot light that engulfed the murder squad. The harsh voices of the dwarfs rose in screams of agony as the ball of lightning sizzled through their bodies. Sparks exploded from the dwarfs’ armour; cinders fell from their burning beards. Flesh melted into the hafts of axes and eyes boiled in their skulls. Those few dwarfs outside the discharge of the spell fled back into the safety of the alleyways, wailing in horror.
Wulfrik kicked the severed head of his last foe, sending it rolling after the retreating dwarfs. ‘Don’t forget your friend!’ he mocked the routed guards. He watched the dwarfs to ensure himself their fright was genuine and not some further deceit. Satisfied, he marched down the middle of the road. The surviving Norscans had abandoned their mad attack on the statues, instead leaning against their bases, breathing heavily as they tried to recover from their frenzied exertions. Wulfrik kicked and scolded the warriors he passed, demanding they get back on their feet. However far the dwarfs ran, he knew they would not go far. Besides, there were the dwarfs who had marched into the pit to consider. If those soldiers returned from the causeway there was little chance of fighting their way through them.
Wulfrik’s hand tightened about his sword as he approached Zarnath. The shaman was trembling, blood dripping from ears and nose. The glow in his eyes was only a dim flicker. The hero didn’t think it was possible, but Zarnath looked even more exhausted than the men he had passed on the road.
‘The shaman let loose seven kinds of hell on them,’ Stefnir boasted. The blackened bruise on the Kurgan’s cheek showed the method he had used to convince Zarnath to fight.
Wulfrik glowered at Stefnir and sneered at the panting Zarnath. ‘It would have been helpful if he’d helped sooner. Many dead men wouldn’t be if he’d done his job.’
Zarnath was too tired to fit any emotion into his voice. ‘I have told you. I must conserve my powers. No man may wield the winds of magic with impunity. Each spell takes a toll upon the body. I must have time to replenish my strength, to compose my mind.’
The shaman’s plea made no impact upon Wulfrik. ‘You can rest after the torc is in my hands,’ he told Zarnath. The champion’s face was twisted with contempt. ‘It was you who led me here,’ he reminded him. ‘Without the torc, all this has been for nothing.’
Zarnath shook his head vigorously. ‘I can’t!’ he pleaded. ‘I must have time to rest and recover my powers!’
Wulfrik’s hand clamped tight upon the Kurgan’s shoulder. ‘You are worthless to me without the torc,’ he growled. ‘But perhaps the torc can help me without you. What one sorcerer knows, another sorcerer can learn.’ He turned and snarled at Stefnir. ‘Bring the shaman. If he blinks wrong, tickle his spleen with your axe.’
The northmen hurried down the road, warily watching the path for any more traps. The stone sentinels they passed stared at them in silence, their magic now only an uneasy whisper in the back of their minds. The dwarf soldiers, if they had lingered, kept out of sight, making no effort to stop the men. The warehouses and workshops of the outpost dwindled as the ground around the road narrowed. On one side the black wall of the stronghold pressed close against the road. At the other, the ground vanished entirely, leaving that side of the path open to the mine below: a sheer drop of half a mile into the darkness of the pit.
Ahead, Wulfrik could see the ziggurat. The base of the tower was immense, large enough to accommodate all of Ormskaro and its harbour. From the heights overlooking Dronangkul, he had failed to appreciate just how large the structure was. The walls of black basalt looked thick enough to withstand the rage of a shaggoth, the engraved bronze doors which fronted the ziggurat big enough that the Seafang might have easily sailed between them at full sail with her mast raised.
Strangely, the turrets set upon each tier of the ziggurat were empty. Wulfrik had ordered his men to form a shield wall as they advanced, expecting that the dwarfs would have gunners or bowmen stationed above the gates. That they did not set the champion’s mind whirring. Had they really sent so many of their troops into the mines to quell the riot, or was this merely evidence that they had some new devilry planned?
Wulfrik studied the bronze gates, feeling his skin crawl as he stared at the grisly depictions of captives being fed into the fiery mouth of a gigantic bull. Stefnir said the dawi zharr worshipped their god by pushing sacrifices into bronze ovens cast in the shape of bulls. To find the motif repeated on the doors of their temple was a symbolism even Wulfrik did not fail to recognise.
The champion turned away from the doors and stared at Zarnath. The shaman’s eyes went wide with horror and he shook his head in protest.
‘I still don’t have a battering ram,’ Wulfrik told the shaman. He nodded to Stefnir and the Aesling pushed Zarnath forwards. ‘I’ll have these gates down,’ he promised the shaman.
Before he could threaten the Kurgan further, Wulfrik’s words were drowned out by the thunderous blast of horns. The entire road shook as a deep rumble shivered through it. The men could almost feel giant gears turning beneath their feet. Wulfrik spun about, watching in amazement as the great doors slowly opened.
From beyond the doors marched a column of grim figures. From head to foot they were encased in heavy armour of blackened steel, their horned helms cast in the image of fanged bulls. Plates of black marble veined with gold reinforced the armour on their arms and legs. Over their beards, sheaths of bronze gleamed in the starlight. The long axes they carried were curled like crescents with a long spike set at the tip of the axe-head and a barbed hook protruding from the back of the weapon.
The dwarfs did not hesitate when they saw the men standing before their gates, but continued to advance in a silent, forbidding column. At their flanks, small knots of lightly armoured dwarfs followed the heavy infantry, fingering a vicious assortment of whips and mancatchers. Their intentions were clear to every man who saw them.
Wulfrik was about to order his warriors to fall back, then engage the dwarfs in the comparative security of the settlement where the narrow alleyways would force the heavy infantry to break formation and engage the northmen as individual fighters rather than as a unit. Even as the command was on his lips, Wulfrik saw that the way back had been closed to them. The rumbling the men had felt in the ground had been caused by machinery buried under the road. Under the power of these hidden mechanisms, the road behind them had been raised, swinging upwards like a Bretonnian drawbridge, forming a sheer wall behind them and cutting off any chance of escape.
The grim dwarf warriors halted just a few feet from the northmen, standing at attention with such solidity that they might have been carved from the same stone as the sentinels. Their eyes glared at the men from behind the masks of their helms, but not a sound rose from any of the arm
oured dwarfs. In stark contrast, the small groups of slavers began hooting and jeering at the northmen, promising all sorts of grisly tortures once ‘the immortals’ pounded them into submission.
Even the slavers fell silent, however, as a rider emerged from the depths of the ziggurat. He was an especially loathsome example of dwarf, his black beard dyed with streaks of crimson, his hands encased in a dazzling array of rings. His squat body was swathed in purple robes upon which flickering flames had been woven. The dwarf’s eyes were hidden behind a veil of silver thread which depended from the brim of a tall helm of gold adorned with bloodstones. The face beneath the veil was burned, grey scar-tissue covering most of the bulbous nose and making one cheek resemble lumpy porridge.
More imposing than the hideous dwarf was the beast he rode out from the gates. It was a creature the likes of which Wulfrik had never seen in all his travels. In shape it was not unlike some great black bull, but from its back immense leathery wings were spread, fanned out like the pinions of a dragon. The tail was long and thick, more like that of some giant reptile than a beast of the field, and at its tip was a mallet-like knob of bone. The monster’s hind legs ended in steel-shod hooves, but its forelegs were tipped by hand-like paws, each finger ending in a long claw sheathed in steel. The head of the beast was an even more ghastly mixture of dwarf and bovine than the centaur Wulfrik had killed, immense horns curling away from a black, leathery face with a curly red beard. With every breath, the creature exhaled a cloud of greasy smoke that sparkled weirdly as it swirled about the beast and its rider.
The dwarf brought his strange beast to rest and stared at the tiny band of northmen. A kick to the lammasu’s side and the dragon-like wings retracted, folding upon themselves and curling against the monster’s ribs. ‘You powerful for have survive overlong,’ the dwarf called out. He used a strange patois of goblin languages. Wulfrik felt his blood boil when he realised it was the same tongue the dwarfs used when they deigned to address their many slaves. ‘Lay down weapon and live.’
‘You are Khorakk?’ Wulfrik demanded, spitting the words in the speech of the dawi zharr. He felt Zarnath’s terrified fingers clutching his arm.
‘Do not make light of this dwarf,’ the shaman said. ‘He is a sorcerer.’
Wulfrik frowned as he heard Zarnath’s words. ‘I’ve been told you are not Khorakk,’ he growled.
‘Thegn Khorakk is lord of Dronangkul,’ the sorcerer sneered. ‘He does not waste his time with slaves.’ The dwarf raised a heavy hammer and pointed it at the northmen. ‘Do you surrender?’
Wulfrik glared back at the sorcerer. ‘Do you always ride out on your mother’s back to greet visitors?’
The sorcerer’s face turned crimson. For a moment, he was physically stunned by the temerity of Wulfrik’s insult. In that moment, the immortals were likewise caught unawares. The champion pounced upon the dwarf warriors, stabbing the tip of his sword through the mask of the first immortal he reached. The dwarf crumpled in a screaming heap, blood spraying from his ruptured eye.
The other northmen threw themselves at the dwarfs with a viciousness that would have impressed the orcs down in the slave pit. Few things were more guaranteed to steel the soul of a Norscan than the threat of being another man’s thrall. It was a fate only lesser breeds of men would resign themselves to, men who cared nothing for the judgement of gods or ancestors. Death upon the axes of the immortals was at least an end that might make their ancestors proud.
Three immortals crowded Wulfrik, fending off the champion’s attacks with their heavy axes. Disciplined warriors, the dwarfs worked in unison to overwhelm the champion, two of the immortals using their axes to block Wulfrik’s blows while the third moved in for the kill. The tactic might have worked had their sorcerer been less enraged.
The ground at Wulfrik’s feet began to glow with a crimson light. It was the only warning the northman had, but it was enough. Flinging himself at the immortals with a reckless disregard, Wulfrik escaped his peril an instant before the ground exploded in a gout of steaming magma. The unexpectedness of his leap caught the dwarfs unprepared, the fiery explosion shaking them from their feet.
Wulfrik landed atop the armoured dwarfs, snarling like an animal as he hacked at their prone bodies with his swords. The heavy armour resisted his blades but at the same time hindered the dwarfs as they tried to defend themselves and regain their feet. At last the champion gave up trying to cut his way through their armour. Reversing his hold on his swords, he brought the spiked pommels smashing down into the masks of their helms. Ruthlessly, Wulfrik smashed the steel masks, pounding them out of all semblance of shape. Blood erupted from the grilled vents in the mouths of the masks. The dwarfs thrashed in agony, trying to knock the Norscan off them.
A sheet of black fire licked across the northman and his foes. Safe within their heavy armour, the black fire worked no harm upon the immortals. Wulfrik, however, was flung back by the blast, his skin steaming, his hair falling in singed clumps from his scalp. One of the protective talismans the champion wore about his neck fell to the ground in a molten lump, its magic consumed as it absorbed the force of the malignant spell.
Upon his lammasu, the dwarf sorcerer chuckled. His hand burned like an ember as he pointed his crooked finger in Wulfrik’s direction. The three immortals painfully regained their feet and groped about for their axes. ‘Leave enough of him to feed the belly of Hashut,’ the sorcerer commanded.
If the sorcerer said anything else, the words were drowned out by the tremendous wind that suddenly shrieked down across the road. Even upon the Sea of Claws, Wulfrik had never felt such a furious wind. The tempest tore at him with malevolent determination, as though a thing of emotion as well as force. He could hear men and dwarfs crying out in fear as the gale smashed into them.
The fury of the wind only grew more terrible. Wulfrik felt himself being ripped from the earth by invisible talons. Shrieks tore at the air as struggling bodies were pushed inexorably to the lip of the pit. A dwarf slaver tore at the road, scrabbling desperately for a handhold to arrest his motion. His efforts were futile. Screaming, the bearded slaver was the first to pitch over the side and hurtle into the blackness of the mine.
He wasn’t alone for long. Other slavers and their human foes were blown over the edge. The immortals, weighed down by their heavy armour, made an effort to hold their ground, but they too were unable to resist the power of the tempest. Their steel-shod boots scraping deep scratches into the stone, the immortals slowly slid towards the pit.
Wulfrik concentrated his strength into a single effort. Tossing aside one of his swords, he gripped the other in both hands. Lifting it high, he stabbed the blade deep into the road. He wrapped his arms around the embedded sword, bracing his feet against the burning edge of the magma pool conjured by the dwarf sorcerer. Groaning with effort, Wulfrik struggled to resist the tempest’s pull.
Through the gale stalked the dwarf sorcerer. The villain seemed impervious to the tempest, the winds rolling harmlessly about the flanks of his monstrous steed. The lammasu growled, a roar that sounded uncomfortably like the speech of the dwarfs themselves. Grinning, the sorcerer kicked the beast’s sides. In response, the lammasu’s great wings snapped open. Like some giant vulture taking wing, the lammasu rose into the air.
The sorcerer didn’t seem aware of Wulfrik now. Both the dwarf and his steed were focussed upon something pressed against the pivoting wall opposite the ziggurat’s gates. Wulfrik could see Zarnath standing beside the wall, wind whipping about him, his eyes blazing with power. The jewel at the head of his staff was burning with such intensity that sparks flew from it. He could see streams of blood rolling down the shaman’s cheeks like crimson tears. It didn’t take a seer to know that Zarnath had conjured the windstorm, or to appreciate the toll such mighty magic was taking on him.
That his tempest had struck friend as well as foe was something that, perhaps, the Kurgan had not intended. Accident or intention, Zarnath’s magic had b
etrayed him. The windstorm was having no effect upon the dwarf sorcerer and his steed. At the same time, the spell had sent most of those who might have defended the shaman plummeting to their destruction in the pit.
Laughing spitefully, the dwarf sorcerer raised his hand, curling his fingers into a strange pattern. ‘I bring you death, human dog!’ the sorcerer cackled. From his hand, a flare of black flame shot down at Zarnath.
The windstorm died as the flames wrapped around the shaman’s body. For an instant, the Kurgan was lost to sight. In the next moment, a stream of lightning shot out from the midst of the flame, narrowly missing the hovering lammasu. Zarnath strode through the fire, his clothes dropping from him in burning tatters. He glared up at the dwarf. In one hand, Zarnath held a glass vial. Wulfrik could smell the tang of star-stone as the Kurgan crushed the vial in his hand. There was a cruel smile on the shaman’s face as he licked the oily green liquid from his palm. The fires in his eyes, having faded to a flicker, now exploded with blinding violence.
Wulfrik knew what Zarnath had done. He had seen such a thing before, deep within the swamps of Tilea when the gods had sent him to kill a chief of the ratkin. There had been a horned ratman who had chewed upon a piece of star-stone. Immediately he had been consumed with sorcerous power, unleashing such devastating spells as to bring the entire cavern crashing down upon them all.
From the shaman’s splayed fingers, a shower of fiery stones shot towards the sorcerer. Zarnath’s magic seemed to curl around the weird exhalations of the lammasu, but several stones sped past the edges of the shimmering cloud. The burning stones punched through the membranes of the beast’s leathery wings. Roaring, the lammasu dropped from the sky, crashing heavily against the road. Wulfrik could tell from its howls that it was in pain, but far from dead. The quaking of the ground and the violent appearance of another geyser of magma made it clear the sorcerer had survived as well.
