by C. L. Werner
Wulfrik released the hunter. ‘How many? How are they armed?’
‘Thirty or forty,’ the hunter answered after a moment of consideration. ‘I saw no armour and no weapons. They seemed to me to be women, she-elves.’
A greedy laugh rumbled up from Haukr’s tattooed face and he clapped his hands together. ‘Elf wenches! Those should be worth twice their weight in silver if we get them back to Ormskaro alive!’
‘They’d swallow their own tongues before sailing with you, Haukr,’ said Arngeirr.
Haukr scowled at the one-legged reaver’s advice. ‘Some sort of bit would be in order then,’ he said, rubbing his chin as he considered the idea.
Zarnath saw the way Haukr’s avaricious proposal was taking hold of the northmen. They sailed with Wulfrik to share in his glory, but none of them was an altruist. A bit of plunder, even living plunder, was a welcome bonus.
The shaman’s eyes narrowed with contempt. He turned to Wulfrik, but when he spoke his voice was loud enough for all the marauders to hear. ‘You must take no chances with these elves! They are witches, harnessing their magic through the menhir! Allow them a moment’s breath and they will cast a spell on you!’
Wulfrik rounded on his men, glaring at them like a rabid troll. ‘You heard the sorcerer!’ he snapped. ‘No prisoners. No mercy. We fall upon the elf-folk and kill them all. If any man allows one to escape, he pays for his mistake with his heart.’ The hero motioned with his sword, gesturing at his warriors. ‘Spread through the trees, Jokull will show you where. Every man chooses his own prey. When I begin the attack, find your elf and kill her.’
The northmen scattered along the path, forming a perimeter around the clearing. Fists tightened about axes and swords as each warrior took his place. They positioned themselves in the narrow gaps between the trees, their eyes fixing upon the kneeling elves they saw gathered around the menhir.
Wulfrik took his place at the forefront of the ambush, pressing close against the trunk of a towering oak growing near the spot where the spiral path opened into the clearing. The melodious sound of the elven voices filled his ears, tugging at his heart. There was sorrow and anguish in that song, a desperate pleading in the cadence of the strange lyrics. He thought there was hope there too, a hope nourished long after it should have been allowed to die, a pathetic entreaty to uncaring gods for succour and solace. The Norscan gazed into the clearing, observing the elf women as they knelt before the ancient menhir. They were thin, delicate creatures, as fine and fragile as the porcelain dolls crafted by the southlings. Their lean bodies were wrapped in shifts of silver thread, the flowing locks of their golden hair bound in caskets of diamond wire. Sandals of ivory and ruby clung to their tiny feet and rings of sapphire and jade shone upon their fingers. Somehow, the northman did not find the display of jewels and wealth ostentatious or gaudy, every diamond and every ruby combined to complement the intrinsic grace of the she-elves. Wulfrik felt his determination waver as he contemplated the beauty of these creatures. Panic seized him as he remembered Zarnath’s warning about witchcraft and magic.
Roaring, Wulfrik exploded into the clearing, leaping over an earthen mound to pounce upon the elf he had marked as the first to feel his sword. Strangely, the elves did not react to his savage charge or his fierce war cry. Only when his raised sword came slashing down, cleaving through the dainty neck of a kneeling elf, did the elves awaken to their danger. As the blood of Wulfrik’s first victim sprayed across the menhir, the others leapt to their feet, screaming in shock and horror as the other marauders came rushing at them from the trees. The warriors surged over the low earthen mounds surrounding the clearing, leaping over them as easily as their captain had. Naked steel gleamed in the sun as the northmen fell upon the elves.
The massacre was as swift as it was brutal. None of the she-elves escaped the clearing, but died in their dozens around the menhir. The last to fall did not even try to flee, but bowed their heads and waited for the axes of the northmen with what dignity they could still command.
Wulfrik gazed across the slaughter, wiping elven blood from his blades. His men prowled among the bodies, killing the wounded, ripping jewels from the bodies of the dead. The echoes of the elf song continued to sound in Wulfrik’s mind, a mournful dirge that whispered to him of dreams denied and dead. The hero shook his head, trying to drive the sounds away. The elf-folk were a fading people, doomed to oblivion. Men would not share their fate. He would not share their fate.
The champion pulled the Smile of Sardiss from his belt, watching it gleam in the glow of the menhir. Soon he would be free. Then he would return to this ghostly land and give the elf-folk reason to cry in the twilight of their kingdom.
Harsh laughter boomed like thunder through the clearing. The northmen turned to find Zarnath glaring at them, his eyes burning like pits of azure flame. ‘Blood-crazed barbarians!’ the shaman howled. ‘You have sown the seeds of your own destruction!’ He gestured with a claw-like hand at the butchered she-elves. ‘These were no witches, but elf-wives come to pray to their gods for fertility! Such wrath as the warriors of Ulthuan will visit upon you for this outrage will make the very heavens cringe in horror!’
Zarnath’s words faded into another peal of caustic laughter. The marauders stared fearfully at him, wondering if the magic of this place had overwhelmed his mind and driven him mad. Sane or otherwise, Wulfrik would not be mocked by the shaman, not after all that had been promised to him.
‘You share our doom then, sorcerer,’ Wulfrik snarled, stalking towards Zarnath. In one hand he still held the torc, in the other he gripped his sword. ‘Without me you will never master the Seafang and without the ship you will never leave Alfheim!’
He raised his fist, shaking the torc at the shaman.
‘Keep your promise, Kurgan! Free me of my curse!’
Zarnath’s face twisted into a sneer of loathing and contempt. ‘Be damned to your Dark Gods and their thousand hells!’ he spat. ‘It is you who are trapped here, doomed and damned by your own deeds! Rot, barbarian! Fester in the soil of Ulthuan until your bones are dust and your name forgotten!’
Fury seized the hero. Like a panther, he sprang at the mocking shaman. His sword slashed at Zarnath’s head, the heavy blade cleaving through the Kurgan’s face. Wulfrik stumbled and crashed to the ground as his body lost balance. Instead of striking flesh and bone, his sword encountered only empty air.
‘Keep your devil-ship, barbarian,’ Zarnath hissed. ‘I do not need it to leave this place, because I was never here!’
Wulfrik lifted his face from the dust, his eyes glaring murder at the Kurgan. Angrily he shook the Smile of Sardiss at Zarnath. ‘All a lie!’ the hero raged. ‘From the first!’
Zarnath lifted his hand, pointing at the sky overhead. A flare of light exploded from his fingers, rocketing through the air. High above the trees, the light blew apart in a great starburst, burning like a second sun over the copse. ‘Every elf in Cothique will see that,’ the shaman laughed. ‘You will not escape the armies of Ulthuan as you did those of the fire dwarfs!’
From the ground, Wulfrik leapt at the mocking sorcerer, lunging at him like an enraged tiger. Zarnath’s body seemed to fold around the hero’s outstretched arms, collapsing as Wulfrik’s drive bowled him to the ground. But when the Norscan stared at the mass beneath him, he found he had caught nothing more than the shaman’s seal-fur cloak. Of the man who had worn it, there wasn’t any trace.
‘A wraith,’ gasped Haukr, eyes bulging with fright. ‘All this time, he was nothing but a ghost!’
‘He was real enough before,’ Njarvord growled. ‘Real enough to turn tail and run when that dwarf sorcerer was after him.’
‘It was a sending,’ Broendulf told them. ‘Zarnath kept his body back in Norsca and only sent his spirit along with us, wrapped in that magic cloak. That was why he insisted no one touch him. There wasn’t anything there to touch.’ The huscarl stared intently at his captain, watching as Wulfrik slowly ro
se to his feet. The hero made no move to address his crew, simply glaring down at the empty cloak on the ground.
Carefully, Broendulf approached Wulfrik. The huscarl knew he could easily strike down his chief while his mind was lost to the immensity of the betrayal that had robbed him of his dreams. Broendulf, however, wasn’t willing to forsake his own life to eliminate that of his captain. Zarnath might not need the Seafang to escape from Alfheim, but the rest of them did.
‘Wulfrik,’ Broendulf carefully addressed his captain. ‘That cur told the truth about one thing. The elf-folk will be coming here and they will avenge what we’ve done this day. We have to get back to the Seafang.’
The hero turned his head, staring into Broendulf’s face. The fair-faced Sarl had never seen a more piteous look of despair than that which clouded the eyes of Wulfrik at that moment. It was like looking into the eyes of something already dead.
‘All a lie!’ the champion moaned.
The northman’s cry seemed to ripple across the clearing, echoing strangely from the trees and the glowing menhir. Broendulf turned away from his dazed chieftain to find the source of the weird echoes. His blood turned to ice as he saw strange misty shapes rising from the earthen mounds. His horror was echoed in the frightened howls of the other warriors. As a man, they backed away from the weird mist, their skin prickling from a spectral chill.
From each of the mounds, a column of mist slowly drifted towards the Norscans. There was something hideously suggestive about the shapeless masses, something elusive yet familiar. Each of the six foot pillars of grey fog lingered above the pools of blood splashed throughout the clearing. As each patch of mist hovered over the blood, it became less translucent, more a thing of substance than shadow. Form began to replace shapelessness, cloudy wisps of fog becoming lean arms and thin faces. Before the stunned eyes of the northmen, the mists became phantom figures, deathly elves draped in shrouds, ancient armour clinging to their emaciated bodies.
The face of each ghost was a mask of silent, inhuman rage, its dead eyes burning with the fury of the grave. The earthen mounds surrounding the clearing were barrows, the tombs of fallen elves. When the northmen had spilled blood so near the menhir, they had drawn the spirits of the elves from their biers. Now they closed upon the murderers to wreak vengeance for their slaughtered descendants. Zarnath’s projection had fled back to Norsca too quickly to appreciate the immediacy of the trap he had set for Wulfrik and his crew.
One of the new crewmen, a brawny whaler from Ormskaro, mustered his courage, determined to prove his valour to his comrades and his gods. Raising his axe on high, bellowing like a rampaging ogre, the marauder charged the ghost nearest to him. In the blink of an eye, a phantom sword appeared in the apparition’s bony claw. The marauder’s axe passed harmlessly through the ghost, but when the spirit stabbed its blade into his breast, the northman screamed in agony. His flesh blackened where the sword struck him, rotting from his bones even as he tried to back away. He was dead before he could raise his axe for a second blow.
‘Kharnath’s blood!’ Haukr swore, retreating from the advancing ghosts. ‘How can we fight what we can’t even touch!’
‘Like the drowned legions of Mermedus,’ Tjorvi shuddered. The slippery Graeling had his back to the menhir, his eyes darting about, looking for any gap between the ghosts he could exploit to reach the shelter of the trees.
Another of the new recruits from Ormskaro shrieked as a ghost cut him down. The man’s destruction seemed to energise the other ghosts. Like an onrushing tide, they swept towards the men, their swords stabbing through bodies, leaving withered husks lying on the ground.
‘Hopeless or no, they don’t take me without a fight!’ Njarvord cursed. The hairy Baersonling gnashed his teeth, glaring at the nearest of the phantoms. Before he could rush into the midst of the ghosts, he felt Jokull’s hand on his shoulder, pulling him back. The hunter gestured towards Arngeirr. Like the rest of them, the one-legged reaver was beset by the apparitions. However, his kraken-tooth sword was proving more effective than steel. When he struck the ghosts, their misty bodies flew apart, drifting away across the clearing. The hope that he was doing the ghosts any lasting damage was quickly banished. The scattered mists soon reformed into spectral elves. Arngeirr could fend off the ghosts, but he couldn’t destroy them.
Relentlessly, the ghosts pushed the northmen back. Broendulf grabbed Wulfrik’s arm, intending to pull him from the path of the advancing spirits. The hero angrily wrested free from his grip. For an instant, the huscarl thought Wulfrik was going to split his skull with his sword.
‘All a lie!’ the champion growled at Broendulf.
‘Are you going to die here then, and let the dog get away with cheating you?’ Broendulf growled back.
Wulfrik’s face became livid, the rage boiling within his eyes burning away the despair that had filled them. ‘All a lie!’ the hero roared, hurling the Smile of Sardiss at the glowing menhir. The torc struck the standing stone, shattering into a hundred pieces, the shards scattering across the clearing.
A stagnant, mephitic stench rose from the shards of the shattered torc. The power contained within Khorakk’s talisman was freed by its impact against the enchanted menhir. Like crimson smoke, it slithered across the clearing, lingering over the bodies of the slain as the elven spectres had done. The ghosts withdrew from the red smoke much as the northmen had recoiled from the approach of the phantoms. Their retreat, however, was not quick enough.
From the midst of the smoke a great hairy arm struck out, the black talons on its hand lancing through one of the ghosts. The spectre uttered an anguished wail as the claw shredded its essence, scattering its ghostly form. A barking, snorting sound rumbled from the cloud, the hungry grumble of something bestial and monstrous.
The ghosts forgot about the northmen, converging upon the red smoke and the thing lurking within it. Their phantom swords lashed out, cleaving through the smoke, evoking pained howls from the lurker. The smoke rippled away from the spectres, smashing into one of the men from Ormskaro. The Sarl shrieked as three hairy arms, lanky and segmented like the limbs of a spider, shot out of the smoke and tore his body into bloody sections. Ugly, slobbering sounds came from the midst of the smoke as the thing inside greedily devoured the man it had slaughtered. The cloud of smoke swelled, growing larger as the beast gorged itself. The ghosts pursuing it hesitated, something like fright passing across their dead faces.
Masters of a sinister magic, there was no saying what sort of daemon the dwarfs of Zharr Naggrund had bound into the Smile of Sardiss, but it was such a thing as to make even a phantom know fear.
Wulfrik did not care what the thing hiding in the red smoke was. It was enough that it would keep the ghosts busy while his men escaped. Roused from his despair by Broendulf’s words, a new purpose filled the hero’s heart in place of the hope that had so cruelly been crushed. Revenge. He would find Zarnath and he would make of the treacherous shaman an end that would make even the gods tremble.
‘Away, you dogs!’ Wulfrik called to his crew. ‘Stop gawking and take to your heels! The daemon will kill you just as quick as the ghosts!’ As if to prove the hero’s words, the red smoke slammed into another of the Sarls clustered about the menhir, tearing him apart in the same grisly fashion as his comrade.
‘Away!’ Wulfrik barked again. He grinned fiercely as his warriors rushed past him, racing into the forest. The hero lingered a moment, soaking in the spectacle of the butchered elf-wives and his slaughtered men, of the wailing ghosts and the raging daemon. Of the crimson shards of the torc strewn about the clearing.
‘We’ve a ship to sail,’ Wulfrik growled through clenched fangs, ‘and a Kurgan to kill.’
The marauders raced through the forest, eager to put as much distance between themselves and the haunted clearing as possible. More than before, the trees seemed to regard them with some awful awareness of their own, hostile and malignant. Unconsciously, the northmen kept to the path
winding through the grove, unwilling to chance pushing their way through the trees. At every turn, they expected to see the ghosts barring their way or encounter the crimson daemon still eager to glut its hunger.
When trouble came, it came from neither phantom nor fiend.
A Sarl suddenly cried out, toppling to the ground, an arrow through his neck. From the shadows, more arrows came whistling down, lodging into the bodies of men with chilling accuracy. Warriors crumpled to the ground before they could even draw their axes, their bodies looking like pin-cushions as arrow after arrow stabbed into their flesh.
Had their attackers been less wrathful, they could have slaughtered Wulfrik’s entire warband. Instead, the ambushers vented their fury, loosing arrows into the same target over and over.
‘In the trees!’ Jokull shouted. The hunter loosed one of his own arrows into the darkness overhead. A thin wail greeted his shot, and a lean body hurtled down from the branches to slam into the ground. It was the body of an elf, that of a warrior wearing breastplate and helm over his green tunic and robes. A yew bow fell from the elf’s dead fingers.
Zarnath’s flare had alerted the elves in the tower. With incredible speed they had dispatched scouts to investigate and defend the elf-wives praying in the grove. Hearing the sounds of men running through the woods, the elves had hidden themselves in the trees. It was easy enough for them to guess they were too late to save their wives: every one of Wulfrik’s warriors was carrying loot ripped from the dead she-elves. Now they would wreak a terrible revenge upon the barbarian invaders.
Jokull had only a second to revel in the accuracy of his archery. A dozen arrows thumped into his body, striking him with such speed that they might have been loosed from a single bow. The hunter’s bloody body slumped against the trunk of a tree, his tentacle writhing against his chest as life drained out of him.
Wulfrik snarled in impotent wrath. The elves were picking his men off one by one and there was nothing the northmen could do to fight back. The trees offered some cover, his marauders forgetting their repugnance in their eagerness to avoid the arrows of their foes. But there was no real shelter to be had in the wood. He could hear the branches overhead creaking as the elves nimbly sprang from one perch to another, circling around the warriors to strike them from behind.
