by C. L. Werner
Wulfrik coughed as he tried to laugh. ‘I let it go,’ he said. ‘Too big to take back as a trophy anyway.’ The hero’s eyes hardened as the huscarl swam over to the floating spar, his hand tightening about the hilt of his sword.
Broendulf did not try to hide the hate in his own eyes. With everything brought to ruin by the destruction of the Seafang, there was no sense in trying to deceive Wulfrik that he was anything but the hero’s enemy. ‘What do we do now?’ He glanced away from Wulfrik, back up the cliff at the elf warriors. ‘We might climb back up and give an accounting of ourselves before the end.’
‘Those of us with swords might,’ Wulfrik said.
Broendulf grimaced at the chieftain’s words. Along with his armour, he had lost his blade. A Norscan feared one kind of death, a death that took him without steel in his hand. ‘There must be another way,’ the Sarl said, his words sounding empty even to himself.
‘We could swim around here until the elf-folk get tired of waiting and decide to sink us with arrows,’ Wulfrik growled. ‘Or else maybe they’ll send for one of their sorcerers and have him call back the merwyrm.’ The hero chuckled grimly at his own morbid jest. Then his eyes grew hard again. ‘Why?’ he demanded, his voice low and full of menace.
‘Why what?’ Broendulf asked, returning Wulfrik’s tone in kind.
‘It wasn’t fear that made you turn on me,’ Wulfrik said. ‘I can see that in your eyes just as cleanly as I can see your hate. What made you turn on me?’
Broendulf shook his head, scowling at the hero. ‘What does it matter now? You have a sword. Cut me down and let the gods judge my reasons.’
‘Were you in league with the Kurgan?’ Wulfrik growled. Broendulf could see the champion’s knuckles turning white as they closed still tighter about the grip of his sword.
‘Crow God rot your nethers!’ Broendulf snapped. The huscarl half-lifted himself from the water as he lunged for the champion. Wulfrik lifted his arm, smashing the flat of his blade across the Sarl’s face. Before Broendulf could recover from the stunning blow, Wulfrik’s other arm was wrapped around his throat, holding him fast against the hero’s chest. Savagely, Wulfrik held the huscarl’s head under water, allowing him to rise only when he was on the very brink of drowning.
Sputtering, gasping for breath, the huscarl flailed about in Wulfrik’s mighty grip. The champion snarled into Broendulf’s ear. ‘Where’s Zarnath? Where’s that bastard gone?’
Broendulf shook his head, trying to cough an answer. Wulfrik didn’t wait that long, dunking his head back under the waves. This time, the huscarl was certain the hero intended to drown him. Spots swirled through his vision, his lungs turned to fire, and still Wulfrik held him under.
‘Tell me where the Kurgan has gone or by all your back-stabbing ancestors you’ll wear the chains of Mermedus!’
Wulfrik started to dunk Broendulf down. The huscarl slapped desperately at the champion, gasping out hurried words. ‘Hjordis! Hjordis!’ he cried.
Wulfrik pulled his captive up by his hair, spinning him around and glowering into Broendulf’s bleeding face. ‘What do you mean?’ he demanded.
‘It was for Hjordis,’ Broendulf sputtered, feeling more weak and ashamed with every word. ‘I wanted to kill you for Hjordis. I had no part in Zarnath’s trickery.’
The champion grinned at the pathetic confession. He raised his sword, pressing the point against Broendulf’s throat, bringing a bead of blood from the Sarl’s pale flesh. ‘She would have nothing to do with a half-man like you,’ Wulfrik scoffed. ‘You die not only as a traitor, but an idiot as well!’
Broendulf glared defiantly at Wulfrik. ‘She would have been mine,’ he hissed. ‘King Viglundr promised her to me.’
Mention of the king’s name made Wulfrik hesitate. His eyes narrowed with renewed suspicion. ‘Viglundr?’
‘Yes, Viglundr,’ Broendulf snarled. ‘He promised Hjordis would be mine if I killed you.’
Wulfrik laughed at the firmness with which Broendulf spoke. ‘You are twice an idiot then. Viglundr wants Hjordis for Sveinbjorn, not some wastrel huscarl.’
‘Sveinbjorn would marry her,’ Broendulf said, ‘but it would be marriage in name only. In everything else, I would be husband to Hjordis.’ The Sarl bristled at the mocking disbelief he saw on Wulfrik’s face. ‘Sveinbjorn needed a man for his wife because he cannot sire heirs for himself.’
Harsh laughter rolled from Wulfrik’s fanged mouth, startling even the glowering elves on the cliff above. ‘Three times an idiot!’ he barked. ‘No heirs? Sveinbjorn of the Aeslings? That cur has so many bastards and half-kin to his credit half of his tribe can call him uncle and the other half knows him as father!’
If Wulfrik had smashed the flat of his sword across the huscarl’s face again, Broendulf could have been no more stunned than he was by what he heard. He felt as though the bottom had dropped out from his stomach and a hand of ice closed across his chest. Viglundr had tricked him! He’d exploited Broendulf’s love for his own underhanded purposes. No doubt Sveinbjorn had killers ready and waiting for him when he returned to Ormskaro to ‘reward’ him for the service he had done the Aesling prince.
‘I’ll see them both dead!’ Broendulf growled through clenched teeth.
‘That seems unlikely,’ Wulfrik said. He released Broendulf from his grasp, pushing him away.
Broendulf glared at the fanged champion. ‘And how likely is it you’ll get revenge on Zarnath? We’ve both been deceived and there’s nothing we can do about it.’ The huscarl shook his fist at the elf warriors watching them from the cliff. ‘Finish it, you spineless she-whelps!’
‘They still have a mind to take us alive,’ Wulfrik told Broendulf. The hero nodded his head towards the north. Faintly, a long, sleek ship with a swan-like prow was gliding across the sea, sailing in their direction. An elf warship, and neither man needed to be told what foes she sailed against.
Hopeless, yet Wulfrik’s face bore a fierce smile as he turned his head from the approaching warship. Savagely, he raked his palm across the bare edge of his sword. ‘Stay and amuse the elf-folk,’ the hero growled at Broendulf, ‘but I mean to cheat them if I can.’
Broendulf watched in confusion as Wulfrik pushed off from the spar, swimming with broad strokes towards a bit of the Seafang’s wreckage. Understanding dawned on him when he noticed the dragon face carved upon the floating debris: the longship’s broken prow, and upon it the enchanted figurehead which was the focus of the Seafang’s magic! Cold horror surged through the huscarl’s body. Frantic, he threw himself into the waves, desperately trying to catch up to Wulfrik before it was too late.
Ahead of the two men, the elf warship drew steadily closer, armoured warriors standing upon the decks, silver nets at the ready, pikes and bludgeons close at hand. Broendulf could almost smell the hate rolling off the elves, a fury colder and more intense than anything merely human. The elf-folk would indulge that hate for a very long time if they took any captives. In the matter of vengeance, they were not so far removed from their corsair kin. Khaine was yet among the gods of Ulthuan.
Wulfrik barked in triumph as he gained the broken figurehead. Victoriously he raised his hand over his head, clenching his fist so that blood bubbled between his fingers. Defiantly he glared at the bewildered elves upon the decks of the warship. Some of them, perhaps sensing the mighty magic Wulfrik would soon evoke, began to nock arrows to their bows. But it was too late to stop what the hero had begun.
The Norscan’s bloody hand smacked against the forehead of the wooden dragon. Greedily the carved reptile drank the hero’s offering. Wulfrik threw back his head and laughed as mist began to swirl about him, blotting out the cliffs of Cothique and the elven warship. The half-world of the border-realm stretched out its phantom fingers, drawing Wulfrik and the broken figurehead beyond the world of mortals.
Broendulf screamed in terror, throwing his failing strength in one last tremendous effort. The huscarl’s body surged through t
he waves, lunging into the mist and the fading Wulfrik.
Darkness engulfed the wooden dragon, a grey shadow that seemed to devour the entire world with jaws of mist and fangs of nightmare. Gibbering things shrieked and howled, clawing at the boundary between flesh and nothingness – the tatters of Old Night coalescing into daemon spirits, struggling to emerge from their realm of oblivion. The chill of the void and timeless evil seeped through the veil, slithering across mortal flesh like the coils of a deathly serpent. A stench, cloying, redolent with sin and slaughter, saturated the air, drowning the senses at every breath.
Broendulf found each hideous sensation more comforting than the last. It meant he had won his desperate race. He had reached the figurehead before Wulfrik’s blood could send it back into the border-realm. He had escaped the fury of the elf-folk and left the horrors of Alfheim behind. They were going home now, back to Ormskaro.
Back to Hjordis.
‘The gods decided to spare you,’ Wulfrik said, watching Broendulf from where he clutched the broken figurehead. ‘I wonder if the daemons of the void will be so timid.’
Broendulf glared back at the menacing chieftain. ‘The daemons are drawn to violence,’ he told Wulfrik. ‘Attack and they will destroy us both. Then how will you stop Sveinbjorn?’
‘I will kill the Aesling,’ Wulfrik said. ‘But Hjordis will be mine, not yours.’
‘She will be Sveinbjorn’s if we die here,’ Broendulf warned. ‘And Viglundr will be rewarded for all of his treachery.’
Wulfrik gnashed his fangs together, his eyes blazing with such fury that some of the daemons pawing at the fog drew back in fear. ‘There is another traitor who will pay!’ he growled. ‘And not even the wergild of the gods will keep my hand from his throat!’
Broendulf nodded in grim agreement. Zarnath had lured all of them to Alfheim to die. The huscarl was not about to forgive the shaman such trickery. Perhaps his reasons were not as great as the betrayal Wulfrik felt, but he would see the Kurgan dead for his murderous deceit.
‘A truce then?’ Wulfrik suggested. ‘Until Zarnath and the other enemies we share are dead?’
Broendulf scowled. ‘This thing between us can only end in blood,’ he said.
‘Who says different? When the Kurgan is dead, we will meet in the Wolf Forest.’ Wulfrik spat into his hand, pressing it over his heart. ‘May I forsake the love of my woman if I break this oath,’ he told Broendulf.
The huscarl repeated Wulfrik’s solemn gesture. ‘I make the same vow, before the eyes of the gods. When we return to Ormskaro, I will help you seek the shaman and protect Hjordis from her father’s deceptions.’
‘Zarnath first,’ Wulfrik growled. ‘I’ll have no peace until he has paid for toying with me. Whichever nameless hell he has hidden himself in, I will find him! Not all the daemons of the pit will keep me from vengeance!’
The arrogant oath caused a chorus of angry shrieks and yowls to emanate from the darkness beyond the mist. The two warriors watched in alarm as a tide of clawing, snarling blackness tore at the thin barrier separating them from the nothingness between worlds. In shreds and tatters, the mist began to break apart. Immense, long-fingered hands thrust themselves through the veil, stretching towards the mortal flickers who dared to mock the hunger of daemons.
Wulfrik slashed his sword across the knuckle of one hairy hand, boiling ichor spilling from the wound. The daemon yelped in pain, its arm shooting back into the blackness of the void. Other hands quickly took its place, pawing and scratching at the men, slowly ripping the rents in the veil wider.
Before the daemons could fully penetrate the barrier, a great thunder boomed through the blackness, a sound like the raucous screech of a vulture or the cry of a monstrous hawk. The frenzied daemons froze at the tumult of that shivering cry, their claws only inches from the ashen faces of the northmen.
The shriek echoed across the void once more. This time sparks of light blazed through the darkness, brilliant swirls of fire that scintillated like gemstones of every colour and hue. Like angry stars, the lights swarmed about the shattered veil, driving off the hungry daemons, sending them skulking back into the shadows of the void. A third time the deafening screech roared through the border-realm. In response, the chromatic spheres of light began to lose their lustre, fading until they merged with the darkness.
‘The feathers of the Raven God,’ Broendulf gasped in awe as he watched the last of the lights burn away. ‘The gods themselves guard our way back to Ormskaro.’
‘If the Raven God wants to help, let him guide me to Zarnath,’ Wulfrik snarled, unmoved by the miracle he had witnessed. ‘Otherwise let him stay out of my way!’
From the darkness, it seemed the raucous shriek sounded one last time, faint and distant.
Broendulf could not shake the impression there was now a note of mocking amusement in the screeching cry.
The mists parted, the darkness faded, replaced by a dim star-swept sky. It was not the sky Broendulf had expected to see, the stars positioned at angles never seen from the streets of Ormskaro and the fjords of Norsca. The constellations rose in places which could be seen only from seas far to the south and lands far from Norsca’s icy shores.
Panic seized the huscarl and his hand fell to his belt, reaching for the sword he had let sink into the cold waters of Alfheim. He calmed slightly when he became aware that his surroundings were no longer those of Ulthuan’s haunted seas. The water flowing about him lacked the briny tang of the ocean, and the breeze sighing through the air did not smell of the sea. Wherever the Seafang’s broken figurehead had brought them, it was far inland. Gazing about him, Broendulf could make out the lights of a settlement burning above the black bulk of the shore. He could see the tops of towers and temples outlined against the sky.
‘Where are we?’ the fair-faced Sarl growled at Wulfrik. ‘This isn’t Ormskaro!’
The hero was silent for a moment, just as confused as his companion. When he had placed his bleeding hand upon the figurehead, the fjord of Ormskaro was the only destination in his mind. By all rights, it should be the jagged peaks of Norsca’s mountains and the bonfires of Sarl fishermen greeting them. Instead, his keen eyes saw the stone walls of a strange city rising from the shore, his nose filled with the reek of cabbage and manure which he always associated with the communities of the southlings. They weren’t in Norsca. The power of the Seafang had brought them to the Empire instead!
Wulfrik thought about that for a time, wondering why the magic had only brought them halfway home. Then a boisterous peal of laughter rumbled from his throat as he realised the answer. Broendulf stared at his captain, wondering if the cursed hero’s mind had finally snapped.
‘Who goes there?’ a hard voice called from the darkness, the words spoken in the guttural Reikspiel of the Empire. The two northmen could hear a small boat sliding through the water near them.
Broendulf’s eyes could not pierce the night so well that the boat and its occupants were anything more than a dark shape looming over the water. With their wolf-keen sharpness, Wulfrik could see the boat quite well. It was too big for a fisherman’s keel, too wide for a ship’s longboat and too small for a trading vessel. The smell of steel and oil which rose from the occupants told him they were well equipped for such a small boat, and equipped for trouble bigger than a struggling marlin. He could hear the rattle of mail armour as the boat rowed towards them.
‘Play dead, or you will be,’ Wulfrik whispered to Broendulf. He matched deeds to words, resting his head across his arm and letting his body sag in the water. Broendulf followed his example.
‘Over here!’ one of the men in the boat shouted. His vision wasn’t quite as sharp as that of Wulfrik but years of prowling the rivers of the Empire by night had made them more sensitive than those of common men. He saw the floating hulk of the figurehead and the two bodies draped across it.
The other men in the boat weren’t so blessed with night vision as their comrade, however. A
lantern soon blazed into life, casting its light over the river, surrounding the little boat in a halo of illumination. The riverwardens preferred to hunt their prey – smugglers and pirates – in the dark, using their ears to detect their quarry. Only when certain of a catch did they light their lamps.
‘Manann’s beard!’ one of the riverwardens exclaimed when he saw the two bodies. Almost unconsciously he pulled the lantern back, recoiling from the grisly sight. His sergeant, a man hardened by both more years and experience, took hold of the arm gripping the lantern and pulled it straight once more.
‘Hrmph,’ the sergeant grunted. ‘Looks like these ones had a falling out with their mates. No honour among thieves, even when they sail the Reik.’ He nodded as he considered the two bodies. ‘Fish them in, Hans,’ he told one of the riverwardens. ‘Even dead, someone might recognise them and give us an idea who their mates were.’
The boat pulled alongside the carved dragon and the two bodies draped over it. The riverwardens muttered among themselves when they saw the strange carving, but a few sharp words from their sergeant had them moving. The river pirates had many strange rituals peculiar to themselves. Tossing a few unwanted comrades into the Reik tied to a wooden dragon was a new one to him, but not one that he found terribly surprising.
‘Look at him!’ exclaimed one of the riverwardens as his boathook gripped Broendulf’s shirt and he started to raise the Sarl from the water. ‘He’s big as an ogre! Someone help me get him into the boat!’
‘Not seen his like before,’ one of the men helping pull Broendulf into the boat said. ‘Think he’s a Middenlander?’
‘Kislevite, more like,’ spat a third riverwarden, straining to lift the huscarl’s leg into the boat. ‘Even in Middenheim they don’t wear rags like this. Smells like they didn’t even finish scraping the meat off the hide when they made this fellow’s trousers!’
While most of the boat’s crew helped lift Broendulf from the water, a lone riverwarden investigated the second body clinging to the figurehead. His eyes widened in surprise when he saw that the other man wore armour, an unusual affectation for a river pirate. He wondered if perhaps the man had been a marine hired to protect some merchantman who had ended up on the wrong side of a pirate sword. The riverwarden reached down to raise the body’s head from the water, curious to see if the face belonged to anyone he might recognise.
