by C. L. Werner
‘Maybe the chief has some ideas,’ Broendulf countered. Like Haukr, he had small appetite for an arrow in his back.
The surviving marauders scrambled to the side of their fallen chief. Wulfrik bared his fangs at them, swinging his bloody sword as they approached. ‘Back, jackals!’ the hero snarled, his eyes passing over each of them, lingering upon Broendulf. The huscarl felt a sense of guilt rush through him. Had Wulfrik seen him hesitate against Tjorvi?
‘We’ve sailed with you longer than that cur!’ Arngeirr snapped, spitting on Tjorvi’s body. ‘Do we look eager to pick your bones?’
Wulfrik glowered at his men. Again, Broendulf had the feeling the hero’s eyes lingered on him longer than the others. ‘No man knows another. Not that well.’ He laid his sword across his lap. Turning to his injured arm, he seized the arrow lodged in his flesh, breaking the shaft with one twist of his hand.
‘Even if we did,’ Haukr groaned, ‘we’d never be able to sail the Seafang without you.’
Broendulf grinned despite himself. Haukr was making the same mistake he had, fixating upon the ship’s magic and forgetting that it was still a ship. He shook his head in disgust at himself. What did it matter if they could sail the ship? They would never make it back to the Seafang. Not with the elves waiting to stick them full of arrows!
Gingerly, Wulfrik felt the wreckage of the ear Tjorvi had tried to saw away. He lowered his hand, sniffing the blood coating his fingers. ‘Arngeirr,’ he said, ‘give me that southling flask you carry.’ Puzzled, but obedient, the reaver pulled the dented tin bottle from his belt and offered it to the chieftain. Wulfrik held it beside his head, shifting his arm when he remembered one of his ears was gone. He shook the flask, listening as its contents sloshed against the sides. ‘Mead?’ the hero asked.
‘Kvas,’ Arngeirr answered.
Wulfrik grinned and turned his attention to Haukr and Broendulf. ‘Rummage among our dead,’ he told them. ‘Get anything that looks like it will burn good.’ He cast a wary glance at the tall grass around them. ‘Don’t touch any of the elf-folk,’ he advised. While the warriors hurried to follow the hero’s orders, Wulfrik drew two jagged pieces of flint from a bag tied to his boot. He set them on the ground, waiting for his men to bring him the strange plunder he had requested.
As he tried to remove Njarvord’s bloodied shirt, Haukr passed near one of the dead knights. His eyes settled upon the rings decorating the elf’s lean fingers. He cast a glance back at Wulfrik. Seeing his chieftain was occupied with the litter Arngeirr and Broendulf had already brought him, a sly smile crept onto his face.
Like a striking weasel, Haukr reached for the dead elf’s hands. Before he could touch the cold, dead flesh, pain flared through his chest. He stared in confusion at the arrow piercing his breast, skewering his lung like a salmon upon a fisherman’s spear. Groaning, he slumped to his knees, then crashed headfirst across the feet of the dead knight.
‘I said don’t touch the elf-folk,’ Wulfrik muttered, glancing up from his labour. The unseen bowmen were content to leave the Norscans alone while they crept closer, but they would not suffer their dead to be defiled. In their position, any Norscan worthy of the name would do the same.
Wulfrik grinned admiringly at his handiwork. Arrayed about him were ten little bundles, each a knot of cloth bound around a few arrows. The arrows would give the bundles weight and rigidity, allowing them to be thrown farther. As for the cloth, the hero upended Arngeirr’s flask over the bundles, dousing them in the pungent kvas, trying to ration it between them. In the end, the small flask had only enough alcohol in it to treat six of the improvised missiles.
Wulfrik scowled and ran his hand through the grass around him. Ideally, it should be much drier. He could only hope it would burn the way he needed it to. Otherwise his plan would never work.
Behind the cover of the dead horses, Wulfrik set to work with his flints, sending sparks flying from the jagged stones as he slid them against each other. Soon, a knot of kvas-soaked rag tied round a single arrow caught fire. Wulfrik held the tiny torch in his hand and gestured with it at the tall grass around them.
‘Now we give the elf-folk something to think about,’ Wulfrik told his men. Touching the torch to one of the bundles, Wulfrik rose to his feet and hurled the fiery missile far out into the grass. Immediately, arrows came shooting towards the northmen in response, but the warriors were already back against the side of the slaughtered horse.
‘The Hung kill mammoths this way,’ Wulfrik said. ‘I’m not sure it will work so well upon elf-folk, but I only need to keep them busy while we get back to the Seafang.’ The hero lit another bundle and threw it out into the grass opposite where he had thrown the other one. A few arrows shot at him in response, once again slamming into the carcass of the warhorse.
The three men watched with satisfaction as smoke began to fill the air. The fire wasn’t spreading very quickly through the grass; it wasn’t dry like that upon the steppes where the Hung hunted mammoths. There was little chance of surrounding the elves in a ring of fire and burning them to death, in any event. Wulfrik had hoped only to drive the elves back with his fires. However, the strange grass of Ulthuan had a quality about it that served his purposes almost as well. Slow to take fire, the grass gave off an inordinate amount of smoke. Perhaps elves could see through smoke, but Wulfrik doubted it.
Wulfrik started to light a third bundle when Arngeirr reached to take the torch from him. ‘Leave it to me,’ the reaver said. ‘I’ll keep them busy while you get back to the ship.’ He tapped his bone leg. ‘I wouldn’t make it in any event. Even with an arrow in yours, I’d slow you down.’
Wulfrik nodded slowly and released the torch to Arngeirr. ‘Hold them back as long as you can,’ he told the warrior. He glanced at Broendulf. ‘Are you staying with him, or me?’
Broendulf smiled sadly at the one-legged whaler. ‘I want to see Norsca again,’ he apologised.
Arngeirr simply shrugged, accepting the lonely doom he had chosen. ‘Just find that crook-tongued Kurgan rat,’ he said. ‘That way I can hold my head proudly in Valhal.’
‘Aye,’ Wulfrik promised. ‘That is one oath even the gods won’t stop me from keeping.’ His eyes narrowed as he regarded Broendulf. ‘Keep before me, Sarl,’ he warned. ‘I saw you when Tjorvi was trying to cut my throat. It seems to me you were thinking about helping him. Why didn’t you?’
Broendulf glared back at the chieftain, all of the jealousy in his heart rising to fill his eyes with the coldest hate. ‘I want to get back to Norsca,’ he said.
Wulfrik snorted his contempt for the huscarl’s words. ‘Then you are a coward and a traitor,’ he spat.
‘When we get back to Ormskaro, I will show you who is a coward,’ Broendulf growled.
The hero laughed at Broendulf’s words. ‘If the daemons of the border-realm are hungry, you will never see Ormskaro.’ Wulfrik waved his hand, impatiently motioning for the huscarl to precede him across the plains. He half-expected the Sarl’s body to sprout a dozen arrows as he loped through the grass, his body bent in a half-crouch. When nothing happened, Wulfrik hurried after Broendulf.
For some time, the two warriors had the benefit of the smoke to hide them from the elves. Eventually, however, Arngeirr could set no new fires. The elves were a sharp-witted people. They would figure out what was happening. When they did, they would be on Wulfrik’s trail again.
He only hoped to be close enough to the sea by that time to have a real chance of escape. Broendulf wanted to see Ormskaro again. Wulfrik’s hopes were even more modest. He only wanted to see the Seafang one last time.
‘What do we do now!’ Broendulf raged, smashing his fist against his side in impotent fury. Another arrow clattered off the stones near his feet.
Wulfrik smiled coldly at the blond Sarl. ‘The dragon or the elves,’ he told Broendulf. ‘The gods leave us small choice, but at least the serpent won’t make a game of killing us.’
Wulfrik did
not wait to see what effect, if any, his logic had upon the other Norscan. Clenching the blade of his sword between his fangs, the warrior flung himself over the side of the cliff.
The waters of the Great Western Ocean closed about Wulfrik like a grave shroud. He felt his body plunge deep into the briny depths, the weight of his armour dragging him down. The chill of the sea numbed his flesh, seeping into his bones, enticing him to abandon himself to the oblivion of the lightless deep. He could hear the pressure around him pounding against his skull, becoming more intense with each passing instant.
No! He would not die this way! If he was fated to die, he would perish in battle, not smothered like some sickly infant by the sea. Clenching his fangs, exerting his prodigious strength, Wulfrik clawed his way upwards, fighting the drag of his own body as he strived to escape the embrace of the deep.
Gasping, the northman’s head broke the waves. His flailing arms caught hold of a shattered length of beam bobbing upon the surface. Wulfrik clutched it to him, clinging to it like a babe to its mother’s teat.
All around Wulfrik, the shattered wreckage of the Seafang floated, pounding against the cliffs of Cothique with each surge of the tide. A few ragged bodies, all that remained of the crew he had left behind, sagged across the splintered husk of his ship, their blood clouding the water around them. As he watched, one of the bodies was dragged under by some scavenger of the sea, vanishing into the black depths that had so nearly claimed him.
A seething hiss, like the steaming breath of a volcano, shuddered through the air. Wulfrik lifted his eyes, watching as the source of the sound reared up from the sea. A tremendous scaly neck split the waves, rising like some mighty pillar from the deep. More massive than even the giant trees of the elf-folk’s sacred grove, the huge neck was coated in an armour of blue scales as big and thick as shields, the pale throat covered in a leathery skin crusted with barnacles and parasitic fish. Atop the monstrous neck was a gigantic wedge-shaped head with tremendous jaws filled with sword-like fangs. Spray jetted from the nostrils above the jaws, reeking of the brine and the bottom. Huge eyes, big as cartwheels and lustrous as amber stared from the scaly face, pupils narrowed to angry slits in the uncomfortable light of the surface world. A reptilian stink rose from the immense beast, filling Wulfrik’s nose with a draconic reek.
Many were the sailors’ stories of sea serpents and their predations. They were the terrors of the sea, monsters to evoke horror in even the most hardened corsair and most jaded pirate. As Wulfrik gazed up at the merwyrm, however, only one emotion burned in his heart. This mindless reptile had destroyed the greatest ship in the world. His ship. For that, the beast would pay.
‘Down here, you eel-rutting crab-stain!’ Wulfrik roared at the serpent. He grinned fiercely as the merwyrm’s eyes focussed on him. Another steaming hiss rippled from the monster’s jaws. It swung its head aside as something crashed into the water beside it. Wulfrik cursed the dumb beast. He didn’t care if Broendulf survived his jump or drowned; all that bothered him was the distraction the huscarl had caused. Wulfrik tore one of the trophies hanging from his chest off its chain. Fingers curled in the sockets of the skull, he hurled the macabre missile at the merwyrm.
The sea serpent snapped around, one eye dripping tears from where the skull had struck it. The merwyrm’s hiss had a definitive note of anger to it now. Wulfrik glared back at the monster.
‘Go ahead, fish-faced dung-sucker,’ he snarled at it as the merwyrm clashed its jaws together. ‘From inside or out, I’m going to cut that ship-cracking gizzard!’
Like a thunderbolt hurled by an angry god, the merwyrm struck at Wulfrik. Its vision impaired by the tears clouding its bruised eye, the serpent’s jaws plunged into the water beside the Norscan. The impact of the huge monster’s body slamming into the sea hurled Wulfrik and his refuge high into the air, borne upon a violent wave. As the beam swung away from the merwyrm, Wulfrik threw himself from his refuge, diving for the gigantic neck only a few feet from him.
The chieftain’s sword bit deep into the scaly flesh, treacle-like blood spurting from the wound. Wulfrik wrapped his injured arm about the hilt of his blade, using it to anchor him to the serpent’s side. With his good hand, he drew a saw-toothed dagger and plunged it into the merwyrm’s neck, slashing through the leathery skin to gouge the flesh within.
The merwyrm’s body undulated through the waves, continuing the downward plunge initiated by its foiled strike. Again, Wulfrik felt the cold waters of the sea close above his head. Panic thundered through his mind, but the hero refused to release his hold on the serpent. The water became black with blood as the northman’s dagger sank repeatedly into its body.
The reptile’s body suddenly shuddered, its lethargic nervous system at last registering the wounds Wulfrik was inflicting upon it. The serpent thrashed about, lashing its body like a great whip. The man clinging to its scaly hide tightened his grip, holding fast as the beast’s wild undulations threatened to rip him loose. Crazed with pain now, the merwyrm sought to sink back into the black depths. Wulfrik’s lungs burned for want of air, his head pounding with the mounting pressure as the merwyrm bore him with it into the deep.
Resolutely, with the vicious fatalism of his race, Wulfrik continued to stab his knife into the merwyrm’s flesh. Death could crush him in its bony fist and choke the last breath from his body, but he would leave his mark upon the monster that destroyed his ship.
Bubbles exploded from the merwyrm’s mouth as a pained roar rumbled from its throat. Maddened by the violence of Wulfrik’s attack, the confused serpent rolled its body through the water, churning through the sea like a mammoth corkscrew. Disorientated, even its instincts overcome with anguish, the merwyrm swam for the surface again, unable to understand it had changed direction.
As the merwyrm’s head broke the surface, Wulfrik expelled the foul air from his lungs and drew a fresh breath into his body. His head was spinning from the wild movement of the serpent, the world rotating crazily before his dazed eyes. Even the most potent beer brewed by the dwarfs of Kraka Drak had never stricken his senses so brutally. Yet it took no great skill to strike a scaly neck the size of a longship. The hero continued to hack away at the reptile, determined to avenge the Seafang.
The merwyrm’s agonised howl dislodged stones from the cliff above. The reptile lashed out at the falling rocks, its dull intelligence connecting the motion with the pain it suffered. The wedge-like head struck, smashing its snout against the unyielding face of the cliff, its scales scraping against the jagged stone.
This time even Wulfrik’s strength could not maintain his grip. The pained thrashings of the merwyrm as it whipped its body across the waves dislodged both marauder and sword from its neck, flinging them across the waves like a stone skipping across the surface of a pond. Bleeding from the dozens of cuts the hero had inflicted, fangs cracked by its crazed assault on the cliff, its side gouged by the jagged rocks, the merwyrm hissed its fury to the hated sun. It dived back beneath the waves, its serpentine coils plunging after it, retreating back into the darkness of the bottom to lick its wounds.
Bruised and battered by his battle, half-dead from the pressure and cold of the ocean deeps, Wulfrik flailed through the churning water. Desperately, he wrapped his arms around a chunk of floating debris, struggling to keep himself afloat. The hero coughed, vomiting the mouthfuls of water he had inhaled. In his travels, he had come close to death many times, but rarely closer than in his efforts to kill a merwyrm single-handed.
Wulfrik, face dark with reptilian blood, looked towards the spot where the merwyrm had disappeared beneath the waves.
‘Coward!’ Wulfrik spat between coughs. ‘Come back and fight like a snake!’
Chapter Fifteen
Wulfrik clung to the floating spar, his eyes still glaring at the spot where the merwyrm had submerged. The hero knew it was madness, but he wished the monster would return to finish their battle. Better death in the belly of a serpent than by drowning.
The spirits of drowned men never entered the halls of their ancestors but were instead cast into chains by Mermedus, the grisly Lord of the Deeps. Wulfrik smiled grimly to himself. He wondered if Mermedus would contest ownership of Wulfrik’s spirit with the Dark Gods who had cast their curse upon him, or would the bottom-feeder quietly withdraw his claim?
The hero cast his gaze upwards, scowling at the cliff looming overhead. He could see armoured heads peering over the side, staring at him with vengeful eyes. That was another option, of course. He could climb back up to the cliff and face the elves. The prospect of battle and sending a last few enemies into the afterworld appealed to Wulfrik, but the possibility of falling into the hands of the elf-folk alive didn’t. A prisoner could count upon no mercy from the elves, not after what Wulfrik’s marauders had done. Even a hero might turn coward under the torturer’s knife. Wulfrik would not shame his ancestors by spending his last hours screaming and begging for death.
A splash to the chieftain’s left brought his attention away from the elves. He almost expected to see the merwyrm’s scaly head rising from the sea. Wulfrik was disappointed to find that the source of the sound was nothing more than a man.
‘Tzeentch watches over traitors,’ Wulfrik growled as Broendulf came swimming towards him. Lacking the hero’s prodigious strength, the huscarl had divested himself of his armour, letting it sink into the depths while he remained afloat. Even so, Broendulf hadn’t fought a merwyrm only minutes before. He was in a more fit condition than the battered, weary Wulfrik. That would count for more in a fight than the armour bound about the hero’s body.
Broendulf’s eyes studied Wulfrik, seeming to reach the same conclusion about the hero’s condition. A thin smile worked onto the Sarl’s face. ‘Where’s the serpent?’ he asked.
