A Fire in the North

by David Bilsborough

  ‘Yes,’ Cuthwulf agreed. ‘I seem to remember something about performing a sacrifice.’

  The window was truly riveting, though. There was no resisting it. One could not be in that room more than a minute without gazing at it transfixed. A hot blood-red, the deepest shade of green and the dark blue of the clearest evening sky spangled with the glittering silver of starlight, it glowed with a light that came from within, and none could guess what lay on its other side. Even from several yards away it was clear it was not fashioned from ordinary glass – if glass it was at all. Those who studied it up close saw that there was not the slightest reflection of light from their lanterns upon its surface. If anything, it appeared to absorb the light, as it did with their steaming breath and even, to a certain extent, the sound of their voices.

  But it was the images upon this window that drew their eyes compulsively. Had these images not been so ugly, they might have instantly glamered the thieves. As it was, all in that room found themselves drawn to it and repulsed at the same time. Even Finwald, the only one among them who had been expecting something like this, was not fully prepared for the effect of these depictions. For he had seen them before, only minutes ago. These were the fiends from his recent swoon, those which had stepped from the mirrors to stalk about in his head.

  Some appeared as beast and man melding into one, the most brutish features of both coming to the fore. Others more resembled the Dead, or the reanimated, with the body parts of insects or of the vilest creatures that lurked in the deepest lightless trenches of the ocean.

  ‘Not very realistic, are they?’ Cerddu-Sungnir commented, but the disdain in his voice was so clearly an affectation.

  Of all of them, only Eorcenwold appeared unmoved. He was a practical, earthy and above all unimaginative man. He could not be frightened by anything that was not ‘real’. Alone, he walked up to the window, to what was probably the most horrendous fiend in the entire imagery, and just stared at it. Finwald held his breath, expecting something to happen.

  But it did not. No hand reached out of the glass to clutch the thief’s throat; no tentacles pulled him in. The fiend did not even turn to stare back at this impudent rogue. Eorcenwold was so sure of himself that, even if it had done so, he probably would have out-stared it anyway.

  Paulus was then shoved to the fore. The thieves did not have a clue how the sacrifice would unfold but they were almost giddy with anticipation. They backed up against the doorway while Finwald was goaded forward with Cuthwulf’s voulge almost piercing the back of his neck. The two of them stood there facing Paulus, the sound of missile weapons being extracted or loaded causing a strange rippling behind them.

  Finwald took a long look at Paulus. The man from the forests of Vregh-Nahov, the greatest warrior of their company, formerly so tall and menacing, so steeped in death, now knelt before him, disarmed, wrist-bound and half-dazed from the beating he had received. It seemed now to Finwald that the stained-glass window glowed more strongly, but far from bathing the room in its colours, it actually drained what light was in there. Dimmer and dimmer became the room until all Finwald could see was the crouched silhouette of his former ally against the bilious hues of the demon glass.

  The air throbbed with a power that reminded Finwald of that heavy breathing they had heard in the Moghol, that subsonic growl of something very big that had shivered their bones to the marrow. The stone of the chamber pulsed as if it was alive, and the entire keep purred with expectation. All the priest could do was stare at Paulus’s one eye. It was the only point of light in his crumpled shadow, possibly the only indication of the dark hatred yet louring within.

  ‘Well?’ came a voice from the black shape of the prisoner.

  Finwald was shaking now, shaking from a sorrow far deeper than he would have ever guessed possible.

  ‘If you could just get me my sword back,’ Paulus suggested calmly, ‘we could both get back to join the others.’

  The grief inside Finwald froze and, as Paulus began rising to his feet, an anger flared in him. Did this idiot seriously believe that the thieves would simply stand by and allow Finwald to walk out of the room, retrieve the mercenary’s sword, come back in and hand it to Paulus; then the two of them would fight their way out, return to the Peladane, and everything would be just as it was before? It was clearly time to put him in the picture.

  ‘I can get you out of this without any fighting,’ whispered the priest. Then he charged at the mercenary with every ounce of the madness that had taken hold of his brain. Full into Paulus he drove himself, and hurled the startled man back. There was a sudden radiance of colour, a kind of sucking sound, and Paulus fell into the window behind him. It did not shatter, it did not crack, but with an air of horrible glee it snatched at the falling man and absorbed him.

  Eorcenwold and his followers gasped, and their weapons turned to point at the window itself. Finwald broke out into a sweat like a basted goose on a spit and took a couple of faltering steps back towards them. The burning, laughing colours of the stained glass reached out and sparkled as reflections in the tears in his eyes: the green of sickness, the red of foully diseased blood and the icy blue of pitiless cruelty. Horror there was also in those saucer-shaped eyes, horror not just at what had occurred but at the atrocity he had committed, for he had known what would happen all along.

  And then, as they all watched spellbound, a new shade joined the three existing colours in the glass.

  Black.

  Paulus, or rather a stylized depiction of him, now appeared along with the other figures in the stained-glass window. Frozen upon his knees among the fiends, with one arm held up in defence, he became part of the greater picture.

  As the onlookers stared, they could just about hear his voice, high-pitched and screaming, a thin wail as if carried upon the wind from far, far away.

  Unknown words lashed out at Finwald from Eorcenwold’s mouth. The mage-priest did not recognize them but understood their meaning well enough. He turned to the company before him and, not caring whether they understood or not, announced, ‘You wanted your sacrifice. Well, I hope you’re satisfied. He’s in their world now.’

  TWELVE

  Tomes of Power

  ‘MIND YOUR HEAD, KUTHY,’ Elfswith cried above the howl of air in their ears. ‘We’re going underground!’

  Elfswith stood up on the Wyvern’s neck and leant forward into the wind with a look of insane glee across his face. Kuthy clung on for all he was worth, his cap appendages wrapping themselves tightly around his neck. Then Ceawlin tucked her wings right into her sides, levelled her body right out from beak to stinger, and like some shimmering black arrow streaked on over the ice.

  Through tightly slitted eyes, streaming with tears from the cold, Kuthy could just make out the black chasm that rent the ice field before them. He could scarcely breathe, and his body felt as if it was being stabbed all over with icicles, but he had never felt so exhilarated and alive in all his life.

  Then, with a scream of mad excitement from Elfswith, they plunged almost vertically into the freezing fog of the fjord. They had entered at the head of the ravine, and now descended past the balustrades, corbels and gonfalons of Vaagenfjord Maw towards the dock below.

  ‘Watch out for those bloody kids!’ Kuthy roared above the tempest that threatened to tear him from the back of the Wyvern.

  The ground suddenly zoomed into view and, sure enough, directly below them could be seen the Children of the Keep. Some were scattered at various points among the wharves, outhouses and pathways, but most were gathered around the main gate. In the second or two given to Kuthy to observe them they appeared as no more than a bunch of mischievous brats playing hide-and-seek but with their attention focused upon the entrance. Evidently they were not expecting arrivals from outside, and certainly not from above.

  Squeals of alarm swiftly transformed into bellows of demonic fury followed the Wyvern riders as they swooped through the gateway, spinning a number of the little fiends around l
ike tops, then carried on into the darkness ahead.

  ‘Keep going!’ Kuthy howled as his cap gave the angry Children the finger. He did not dare look behind him at the dwindling rectangle of daylight that framed the irate rawgrs (now leaping up and down and shaking their fists at the impertinent marauders who had barged through them). Had he done so, he would have noticed that they were not giving chase. Their orders had been to guard the gate against escapees, and for such as them orders were as unbreach-able as a pentacle of warding or a physical barrier.

  ‘Right, good idea, Kuthy,’ Elfswith called back sarcastically as they sped on into the blackness of the hall.

  Though unable to see in the dark, both Elfswith and Ceawlin seemed to possess an almost bat-like ability to find their way in places where others would be completely disorientated. This talent was a strange amalgam of all five of their senses and allowed them to fly unerringly, though at a greatly reduced speed. Now, gliding through the great underground vaults of the Maw, instead of resembling a speeding black arrow they more resembled the giant invisible flyers of Fron-Wudu, those ghostly sylvan manta rays that winged their silent way through the darkest reaches of the forest.

  Keenest among their senses now was smell. The scent of human was unmistakable.

  ‘Seems like our old friends were here a while ago,’ Elfswith reported. ‘If Ceawlin’s right, they’re about twelve hours – or maybe a whole day – ahead of us.’

  ‘Shouldn’t take too long to catch up with them then,’ Kuthy replied.

  They followed the scent to a place where the passages became too constricted to continue travelling by wing. Ceawlin set her passengers down, and the three of them began exploring on foot the narrow place where Yen, the female survivor from the previous band of adventurers, had been discovered. The stench had drawn Ceawlin straight here almost as soon as the Wyvern had flown into the hall, and from here it was not difficult to follow their predecessors’ spoor.

  Thus they made swift progress and, in a fraction of the time it had taken the humans, Kuthy, Elfswith and Ceawlin reached the Moghol.

  As they stood on the lip of the pit and stared down into the murk below, Kuthy wrinkled his nose in disgust. ‘What is it about these places that people find so intriguing?’ he demanded, ‘Just what is the attraction?’

  ‘We have to head down there,’ Elfswith said. ‘This is where the others came – though how we’re supposed to keep track of a scent in that morass . . .’

  ‘Excrement! I hate tomb raiding!’

  They remounted the Wyvern and gripped hard onto her flanks and their own stomachs as she dropped straight down into the Trough, like a stone thrown into a well. As they plunged it quickly became apparent that this abode of the Dead was anything but dead. Their ears were greeted by the commotion of what sounded like an entire army wading through the watery filth at the bottom. Levelling out sharply, Ceawlin glided well above these ghostly marchers.

  ‘The Dead-that-walk,’ Elfswith announced. ‘Judging by the smell, I think we’ve finally discovered Yggr’s precious cargo.’

  ‘Smell’ was an understatement; it smelt as if the whole undercroft of Melhus was crawling with the Dead.

  ‘They can’t be here,’ he said of the Peladane and his men. ‘Not still alive, anyway.’

  ‘Well, I’m certainly not going to search for them down among that lot.’ Elfswith shuddered. ‘Come on, let’s see where this place leads to; there’s always the chance old Fatty and his crew passed through before this lot arrived.’

  So, continuing the only way they could, the three soon beheld that grail-like beacon of orange light gleaming ahead, just as Nibulus’s company had done earlier. They wasted no time soaring up towards it.

  It was there that they once again came upon wire-faces.

  By this time the flight of Scathur’s henchmen from the Fyr-Draikke had slowed somewhat from a mad sprint of panic to exhausted but steady progress. Though their blind terror had faded, their faces were still drawn as one by one they doggedly swung themselves over the edge of the pit and began the long climb down into the Trough.

  Only to see another dragon materialize from the darkness ahead of them.

  ‘What in the name of Blessed Elspeth is going on here?’ Elfswith chittered, severely puzzled, and swung Ceawlin sharply up into the hall of Smaulka-Degernerth. As she went she swung her talons in an arc and smote the two leading Ogha, who had stood gaping at her with death in their wire-bitten faces, hurling them back over the dyke into the river of fire. They hit the lava at the same moment, and a steaming gout of evaporating grease billowed up for just a second at the spot where they had disappeared.

  As the Wyvern soared above them, a fresh chorus of apocalyptic wailing rose from the fleeing wire-faces.

  ‘God, it’s hot in here!’ Kuthy exclaimed, throwing up an arm to cover his eyes.

  ‘It is a bit,’ agreed Elfswith, and took out a pair of dark-tinted spectacles from his breast pocket.

  ‘Any idea what’s happening, Elfswith?’ Kuthy called out as the wire-faces flattened themselves upon the road below or milled around like ants.

  ‘It looks to me,’ Elfswith shouted back, ‘as if your Peladane friends are rather scarier than we thought. I’m dying to get to the bottom of this.’

  They continued through the Hall of Fire, all the while passing above wire-faces hastening the other way, and before long the last stragglers were behind them. The way ahead was now clear but, far from continuing as fast as they could in order to leave this awful place behind, Elfswith reined Ceawlin to a halt and bade her land upon the burning road.

  ‘What’re you doing?’ Kuthy exclaimed between choking gasps, ‘Carry on! It can’t be far till the end now.’

  ‘Exactly,’ replied the little man, somewhat more calmly, as he slid off Ceawlin’s back and walked over to the edge of the dyke. ‘And what then, more fire? I don’t think so. I can’t imagine the inner reaches of Drauglir’s realm are going to be lit like this all the way just for our convenience. Sooner or later you’ll need something to see with.’

  He extracted a strange little cylinder from one pocket. It appeared to be made of a glass-like substance, but something told Kuthy it was more than that. Elfswith lowered it on its chain into the lava dyke and swung it around a little, looking for all the world like a ragamuffin fishing for tadpoles in the local pond. Presently, he hauled it back up and thrust it into Kuthy’s grasp.

  Kuthy exclaimed, immediately recoiling and letting it drop upon the ground. But the thing was not hot. Despite being immersed in, and filled with, glowing white-hot magma, it was merely warm to the touch.

  Elfswith grinned. He picked the cylinder up and placed it inside a leather sleeve, hooding its brilliant light.

  ‘Lava lamp,’ he explained.

  It was just as he was preparing to remount Ceawlin that they saw, striding towards them with his ermine robe streaming out and the fires of hell’s ditch crackling behind him, the Majestic Head.

  After the defeat of Gruddna the Fyr-Draikke and the flight of his cowardly wire-faces, Scathur was not feeling his usual self. It has to be said that his usual self was not particularly agreeable at the best of times, but now the tombstone coldness of the chieftain of Wrythe had finally been burnt through by the magma of ire that churned within, and swirls of black hatred drifted from earhole and nostril. He still had not caught up with his fleeing army, but even when he had rounded up those pathetic worms again, he would not be nearly done. For things had got severely out of hand, and Scathur knew he would have need of every soldier he could muster. He would not march on his foe again until the Dead had been ‘defrosted’.

  In addition, he ruminated as he pounded on, he would have to send back a message to summon the Children also.

  The very last thing he expected to see now was the Wyvern team.

  ‘You!’ he cried in astonishment, and smoke steamed from every vent in his body.

  ‘Us,’ Elfswith confirmed and turned to Kuthy. ‘D’you th
ink he’s pleased to see us?’

  Kuthy remained seated on the Wyvern, who was now backing away, stinger held high and poison dribbling.

  ‘You disgusting little IMP!’ Scathur railed at Elfswith as he came on.

  ‘I wouldn’t bet on it,’ Kuthy replied to his friend’s question.

  ‘You son of a Succubus!’ Scathur roared, getting nearer.

  Elfswith, for once, was momentarily taken aback. ‘You knew my mother?’

  Even the rawgr captain hesitated a little at this.

  Elfswith recovered. ‘Uh, Maj, I don’t suppose you’ve found those foreigners you were asking us about, have you?’

  Scathur glowered and set about closing what little remained of the gap between them. He paced forward, and as he did so his left hand went up behind his back, took hold of the bardische suspended there and, in one smooth movement, swung it around before him in a two-handed grip. The twin axe blades, honed to a sharpness that nothing could withstand, curved wickedly like the horns of some great prehistoric herd-beast. As the rawgr approached, so the mirror-perfection of those blades transformed to a glistening blood-red, glowing with heat. Droplets of dark brown formed on their surfaces and trickled down, a kind of ‘pre-hack’ lubricant that, even at this distance, caused the Dead to stir and the wire-faces to pause in their flight.

  The bardische of Scathur, after centuries in retirement, was about to go back to work.

  ‘Oh, I’ve got one just like that,’ Elfswith chirped. ‘Here, I’ll show you . . .’

  He rummaged through one of his inside pockets, but Kuthy suddenly grabbed him by the coat, yanked him up onto the Wyvern and slapped Ceawlin’s flank, all in one smooth movement. With a flurry of wings, she lifted vertically off the road just a moment before Scathur reached them. As he swung his poleaxe uselessly up towards them, the three objects of his wrath soared away along the Hall of Fire.

  ‘Where in Pel’s name have those two got to?’ Nibulus growled, barely able to contain his frustration. ‘They should’ve been back ages ago!’