by C. L. Werner
Khorakk’s hideous face grinned as he saw the dwarf harridans take down one of the humans, bringing him low with a bone-crushing blow to his leg. The thegn wasn’t overly concerned that two of the acolytes had died on the northman’s blade to get that close to him. To his thinking, the barren viragos were almost as worthless as a hobgoblin in the grand scheme of things.
The dwarf’s momentary distraction as he watched Stefnir fall before the acolytes gave Wulfrik the opportunity he had been watching for. Clenching his fangs, Wulfrik suddenly sprang at the gloating thegn. His blade scraped across the steel gorget the dwarf wore, failing to find the weak join between neck and breastplate. As his sword turned, Wulfrik twisted his hand, slamming the crosspiece into Khorakk’s face. The dwarf howled in pain as his ugly visage was smashed into bruised wreckage.
‘Swine! Dog!’ the thegn swore, raising a hand to shield his face while swiping blindly at Wulfrik with his blade. Khorakk cursed again as the hero ducked beneath his sweeping steel to slash at the cables and pistons fitted to his legs. Screaming steam exploded from ruptured lines, venting across the floor in a boiling cloud. Wulfrik retreated from the steam, his flesh scalded by the burning vapour.
Khorakk stumbled back, the injured leg of his armour sluggish and jerky in its movements. As the cloud of steam jetting from the pipes dwindled, the dwarf’s leg lost all of its remaining flexibility, at last becoming completely immobile.
‘You’ll suffer for that!’ the thegn promised. He pressed his hand against a stud affixed to his breastplate. Puffs of smoke vented from the armour around his neck as two steel hinges sprang into motion, raising a horned helm from where it had rested against the dwarf’s back and lowering it over his head. Khorakk’s hate-ridden eyes glared from behind the grilled visor set into the helm’s golden mask.
Wulfrik ran his hand across his bleeding scalp, flicking scarlet beads onto the dwarf’s mask. ‘Too late to spare your looks,’ the northman said. ‘They looked like troll vomit before I touched them!’
The dwarf thegn rushed at Wulfrik, chopping at the champion with his curved blade. The crippled leg of Khorakk’s armour made the attack clumsy, almost unbalancing him as he struck. The northman rolled with the blow, letting the edge of the blade pass inches from his heart. As he rolled, he turned, driving his sword full-force against Khorakk’s helm. The sturdy helm resisted the blow, but the gilded mask, its strength compromised by extravagance and hubris, crumpled. Khorakk cried out in shock as the dented slats of his visor were thrust inwards, almost crushing his eye.
Half-blinded, Khorakk slapped at a second stud fitted to his breastplate. From his right forearm, a steel plug suddenly popped free from the end of a pipe. Wulfrik had assumed the pipe was another piston designed to give the dwarf extra strength in his arm. Now he learned its real purpose. The dwarf clenched his fist. In response, a jet of fire exploded from the mouth of the pipe, billowing out at his foe in a sheet of flame.
Wulfrik leapt from the path of the fire, sliding across the floor. His momentum carried him to the very brink of one of the canals, the miasma of the bubbling magma singeing his beard. The hero didn’t have time to consider how close he had come to destruction. As he arrested his slide, he threw himself to one side. Fire from Khorakk’s armour blasted the floor where he had lain, the stones glowing red with heat as the flame played across them.
Awkwardly, Khorakk turned, trying to catch the agile barbarian in his sights. Unable to see through the left side of his helm and unable to bend his right leg, the hunt became an exercise in frustration for the thegn. A stream of curses echoed from his helm as he alternately cut at Wulfrik with his blade and shot at him with his fire-thrower. The curses faded into a gloating chuckle when the slow chase caused Khorakk to turn towards the ziggurat’s main hall.
‘You are doomed, barbarian!’ the thegn laughed. ‘My immortals are coming back, and against them you have no hope!’
Wulfrik did not need Khorakk’s words to tell him more dwarfs were coming. He could smell the immortals as they rushed down the hall, feel their rage in their scent. Not many of them had survived Zarnath’s spell and the attentions of Tjorvi and the others afterwards, but enough of them had endured to overwhelm the remaining Norscans.
Wulfrik ducked beneath another blind sweep of Khorakk’s blade. Before the dwarf could turn his fire-thrower in his direction, the northman brought his sword sweeping down in a double-handed stroke that had all of his strength behind it. The blackened sword did not strike at Khorakk’s blade, but at the metal housing behind it. The housing crumpled beneath the impact, springs snapping as the metal around them was crushed. Khorakk’s blade wobbled against his arm, loosened from its fittings. When the dwarf struck back at the hero, Wulfrik’s sword crashed against it, knocking it free and sending it bouncing into one of the molten canals.
‘You’re right, dwarf,’ Wulfrik snarled at Khorakk. ‘I don’t have time to play with you any more!’ Howling like an animal, the champion lunged at Khorakk’s legs. His sword crashed against the pistons set into the thegn’s still-functioning leg. The blade failed to work the same kind of havoc it had before, only a small spray of steam rewarding his effort.
The real impact of his attack was upon the dwarf inside the armour. Half-blind, his blade gone and with one leg already crippled, Khorakk appreciated how vulnerable he would be if he lost full control of the other. Fear gripped the overlord’s dark heart. He turned away from Wulfrik, stiffly dragging his injured leg after him. As he retreated, he cried out to the dwarf acolytes for aid. Wulfrik was forced to ignore his quarry as a pair of hammer-wielding viragos rushed him. A low sweep of his sword slashed across the knees of one of the acolytes, spilling her to the ground in a bleeding heap. The second nearly caught him with an overhanded strike of her hammer, but when the blow failed to connect, the wizened old virago found herself staring at her own body as her head rolled across the temple.
‘Stop the thegn!’ Wulfrik roared at his surviving men. The marauders were scattered across the temple, defending themselves as best they could against the remaining viragos. Even so, they answered their captain’s call, extricating themselves from their enemies to charge the retreating Khorakk.
Wulfrik could see Khorakk’s goal. The thegn was making for the platform. Once there, he would be able to raise it to the roof of the ziggurat and escape. Even if he was able to fight his way clear of the immortals, Wulfrik knew his chances of catching the fleeing thegn would be poor. Those chances became worse when a stream of black fire erupted across the temple, narrowly missing Wulfrik’s head.
The immortals were not the only ones who had survived the battle with Zarnath. Stalking down the hall was the dwarf sorcerer and his lammasu. The sorcerer and his beast looked the worse for their experience, the lammasu’s wings tattered, one of its hind legs painfully curled against its side. But without a warlock of his own to fight them, Wulfrik knew even a weakened sorcerer was enough to finish his warband.
The only hope lay in using Khorakk’s own escape route. Wulfrik wasn’t going to die when he was so close to victory.
‘Make for the platform!’ he howled to his warriors. Wulfrik matched deeds to words, rushing towards the heart of the temple. He could see Khorakk limping onwards. The thegn stopped a dozen yards from the platform, his armour groaning and creaking as the pistons in its legs shuddered into action. Like some steel locust, Khorakk sprang from the floor of the temple, flinging himself up onto the dais. The dwarf landed badly, his damaged leg buckling under him and throwing him onto his side.
Wulfrik could see Khorakk was still moving, however, lifting himself with his arms. There would be only a matter of moments before the thegn reached the mechanism which controlled the platform. The northman’s heart was hammering against his chest, his breath burning in his lungs by the time he reached the platform. Already in motion, he flung himself at the rising dais, his hands catching the edge. Below him, Wulfrik could feel the blistering heat of the molten pool. Had his
hands missed the platform, the pool of fire would have been his tomb.
As the dais continued to rise, Wulfrik lifted himself onto the platform. He could see Njarvord and Haukr running towards him to help him up. Angrily he waved them away, pointing a fist at Khorakk. ‘Just make sure he doesn’t get away,’ he told them. He retrieved his sword from its sheath, glaring murder at the thegn.
Khorakk glanced up at the roof of the ziggurat, then glared at the approaching northman. ‘Hashut damn your bones, barbarian!’ the dwarf growled. His armoured hand tore one of the crystal eyes from the side of the platform. There was a ghastly shriek, something like purple smoke flashing from the ruptured mechanism. Khorakk ignored the freed daemon. Lifting the heavy mass of bronze and crystal over his head, the dwarf hurled it at Wulfrik.
Wulfrik threw himself forwards as the cumbersome missile crashed against the platform, causing the entire dais to sway. His leap carried him just beyond the crystal eye as it rolled past him and over the edge of the platform. He could hear the sizzle as it splashed into the magma below.
More curses streamed from Khorakk’s mouth. The dwarf took a lumbering step towards his foe, raising the arm equipped with the fire-spitter. Suddenly the thegn took a cautious step back.
‘Watch out for the beast!’
The alarm came from Tjorvi, who like Wulfrik had only just managed to catch the edge of the dais as it rose above the temple. Slower to climb onto the platform, the Graeling had seen the frustrated immortals shaking their fists at them from the floor below. He had also watched a monstrous shape lift into the air in pursuit of the retreating dais.
Wulfrik dropped to the floor of the platform as he heard the warning. Claws swept through the empty air above him, the stench of brimstone and sulphur filling his nose, shimmering smoke clouding his eyes. Instinctively, Wulfrik rolled onto his back, slashing with his sword at the lammasu looming over him.
The monster reeled back, roaring in pain, one of its paws savaged by the champion’s keen blade. The beast snarled down at him. Over its shoulder, Wulfrik could see the sorcerer’s bloodthirsty grin.
Before either monster or sorcerer could strike, each found himself engaged from a different quarter. The pair had fixated too fully upon slaughtering Wulfrik, forgetting for the moment their other foes. They soon had cause to remember Njarvord and Haukr as the two warriors drove their axes into the lammasu’s black hide. Haukr’s blade cleaved deeply into the monster’s leathery wing, smashing through the finger-like bones and ripping the membrane. Njarvord’s hacked through the monster’s flank, biting deep into its side. The beast reared back, forcing the sorcerer to forget about casting hexes as he struggled to stay mounted. The massive, club-like tail whipped around, smashing into Njarvord, flinging him like a ragdoll across the platform to crash into the side of the idol. The hollow statue rang like a bell from the impact of the marauder’s body.
Haukr backed away from the raging lammasu, using the weird machines mounted beside the idol to duck behind as the beast swept its claws at him. Tjorvi jabbed at the monster with his own axe, trying to keep it distracted and divide its efforts between the two men.
Wulfrik left his warriors to keep the lammasu occupied. He had not forgotten Khorakk and knew that the thegn still posed a formidable threat in his own right. Backed into a corner, the dwarf might not care overmuch if he caught his own minions in a blast from his fire-thrower.
The thought gave Wulfrik another idea. There was a cruel smile on his face as he scrambled away from the lammasu and hurled himself towards Khorakk. The thegn was waiting for him, clenching his fist and sending a sheet of flame shooting from his armour at the charging hero. Khorakk imagined Wulfrik had made the last mistake he would ever make. The dwarf’s fire would either immolate him or force him off the side of the platform. Either way the barbarian would burn.
The fire did drive Wulfrik off the side of the platform, but that was as the champion had planned. The northman sheathed his sword and lunged forwards, hurtling out over the side of the dais. As he leapt, his arms reached out, catching the chain fastened to the corner of the platform. Wulfrik felt his entire body shudder, felt the hot steel of the chain bite into his palms, but his grip held. The moving chain lifted him up and above the dais. Using the momentum of his leap, Wulfrik spun his body around and launched himself at Khorakk.
Like a bolt cast from a ballista, Wulfrik smashed down into Khorakk’s chest. Striking from the dwarf’s blind side, he caught the thegn completely by surprise. Believing Wulfrik had fallen down into the temple, a vindictive chuckle had been bubbling behind the dwarf’s golden mask. Now the chuckle collapsed into a grunt of pain as Khorakk’s heavy armour crashed onto his back.
Sprawled across Khorakk’s chest, Wulfrik drove a dagger into the join between the armoured shoulder and his left arm. The Norscan sawed the edge across the tangle of pipes and cables until something broke and a jet of steam spurted out into the gloom. He wasn’t sure if he’d cut the dwarf inside the armour. At the moment, he didn’t care.
Wulfrik set his legs against the dwarf’s left arm, hoping he’d damaged it enough that he would be able to pin it in place. Viciously, he seized Khorakk’s right arm with both hands, straining to raise it. He could feel the dwarf struggling to pull free, pistons throbbing as they drove the armour’s mechanisms.
It took every ounce of his strength to hold the arm.
And aim it in the direction he wanted.
The lammasu had ripped apart one of the machines flanking the idol. Oily chemicals spilled from the ruptured machine, spilling across the beast. Wulfrik could see the dwarf sorcerer crawling through the mess. Thrown at last from the raging monster’s back, the sorcerer was frantically trying to get to safety, dragging his legs behind him as though they were lumps of granite. Wulfrik grinned to see the dwarf’s panic.
Snarling, Wulfrik seized Khorakk’s hand and forced the gauntlet to close into a fist. He could feel the thegn’s fingers break as one by one he made them close. When the hand tightened into a fist, a stream of fire would shoot from the pipe fitted to the dwarf’s forearm.
‘Get clear of the idol!’ Wulfrik shouted to his men. Haukr and Tjorvi saw the reason for their captain’s warning. Hastily they pulled the stunned Njarvord back with them. On the ground, the sorcerer uttered a desperate wail of fright, pawing at the platform in a frantic effort to clear the pool of chemicals.
At his shout, the lammasu swung around towards him. Its face was similar enough to that of a dwarf for Wulfrik to enjoy the expression of horror it wore. The dragon-like wings snapped open, but Haukr’s axe had ended any hope the lammasu had of flying away.
‘Burn!’ Wulfrik growled as he made Khorakk’s broken hand tighten into a fist.
The flame shot across the platform, washing over the lammasu and igniting the pool of chemicals it was standing in. The monster shrieked, the entire dais shaking as its huge body writhed in agony. Its legs were columns of fire, patches of its black hide burning like hot coals where the chemicals had splashed across it. The beast’s sorcerous breath did nothing to quench the fires consuming it. Screaming in pain, the lammasu bolted across the platform, making one last pathetic effort to take wing as it hurtled over the side.
The lammasu’s screams were soon echoed by its master. The dwarf sorcerer had crawled through the chemicals, and as he retreated he’d left a trail behind him like some giant slug. The same fire that consumed the monster raced along the trail of chemicals to find the crawling sorcerer. He flailed like a living torch as the flames licked at his robes and scorched his flesh. He was still screaming when Njarvord walked over to him and crushed the dwarf’s throat with his boot.
Dawn was glowing in the east, illuminating the desolation around Dronangkul. From the roof of the ziggurat, Wulfrik could see across the desert for hundreds of leagues. He fancied he could even see the black ribbon of the River Ruin somewhere to the south, though it was impossible to see the Seafang from such a distance.
&n
bsp; The champion fingered the ruby torc he had ripped from Khorakk’s neck. It felt like no other treasure he had even stolen. Was that because he sensed its power, or was it because he knew what it could do?
Zarnath was dead, the dwarf sorcerer and his beast would have seen to that. But there had to be others who knew what the shaman had known! Among all the witches and sorcerers of the north, there had to be one who could unlock the power within the Smile of Sardiss.
Wulfrik would find the warlock who knew that secret. Then he would be free to wed Hjordis and become king of all the Sarls. His sons would be greater still, lords of all Norsca! So mighty even the gods would tremble at their deeds!
A black splotch upon the grey strip that marked the road to Dronangkul snapped Wulfrik from his dreams of the future. Somehow the plight of the dwarf outpost had become known. At such a distance, the splotch looked like so many swarming ants, but the northman knew it for what it was: an army. Even if they could keep the dwarfs trapped down below the causeway and track down those still lurking inside the ziggurat, they could never hold against such a force.
Nor did Wulfrik have any desire to. His men might have liked time to plunder the outpost, but he had what he’d come for. All that was left was to climb down and collect Sigvatr and his men from the lower gate.
That, and one other thing.
Wulfrik turned back to the platform. Khorakk’s armour lay strewn across the roof of the ziggurat. It had taken some effort to pry the ugly dwarf from his shell. His curses had been such that Wulfrik had finally gagged the venomous overlord. Now he dangled from the shackles fitted into the belly of the idol.
