Ivy-choked trees still towered everywhere. Their upper branches twined together and blocked the dying sunlight.
The thickets shook again. Like an Arkite bear, Hul emerged and then Mari. Her beautiful face was green-streaked and her long, blonde hair was wildly disheveled.
She was beautiful, a Morning Star. Lod never tired looking at her.
Warriors crashed in the undergrowth after them.
“Keep going,” Lod wheezed. “Get to the boat. Ready it for launch.”
Hul’s brows knotted and Mari shook her head.
With a rasp of steel, Lod drew his short sword. He also drew its companion, an eleven-inch knife, the Assur throat-slitter.
“Go,” panted Lod. “I’ll be along shortly.”
“Without us you’ll get lost in these woods,” said Hul. “I’m still lost.”
“You smell the river?” asked Lod.
Hul seemed uneasy, finally nodding.
“Go!” said Lod, “I’ll find my way.”
Mari stepped near, touching his arm. “…Is that a warrior’s oath?” she whispered.
Lod swallowed hard. “Yes, an oath.”
“The sun will soon set,” she said. “We must—”
“Go,” wheezed Lod.
Hul staggered for the hidden Hiddekel River, if indeed it was nearby. After a moment’s hesitation, Mari followed him.
Lod faced the thicket. The Zimrian trackers bayed bloodcurdling cries. Lod shook his sweaty head. He rolled his shoulders, loosening his muscles.
The Dire Wolf clansmen crashed through the thickets. They tore their way toward him, snapped branches and ripped out leaves. Lod twisted his neck and heard bones creak. The approaching killers—Lod’s eyes shined strangely. He was sick of running.
Feet thudded and leaves sprayed outward. The first Zimrian stumbled from the thicket. The warrior wore furs like a beast. He clutched a spear and wore an iron pectoral on his chest. It was Goar, Amalaric’s boon companion.
Lod stamped his right foot and launched his attack. Goar bellowed, and he tried to bring the spear into play. Lod smashed the spear with his short sword. The blade bit into seasoned ash. Lod kept shoving down as he stepped in close. He smelled the rancid pig’s grease the Zimrians loved to smear on their precious hair. From down low he thrust the throat-slitter up into the belly. The iron pectoral didn’t protect that. The knife punched through fur, skin and grated on bone. Goar coughed explosively, his breath worse than a dog’s. With a wrench of his wrist, Lod freed his short sword from the spear. He stepped back as he swung viciously fast, slashed the neck and leapt farther away as blood jetted. A second warrior burst out of the brambles. He stumbled, unsteady for a few critical moments. Lod glided to the attack, thrust, sliced and then parried powerful blows. The Dire Wolf clansman was strong, but he was stronger.
When Lod’s throat-slitter lodged in the bone of the second warrior, the knife was ripped out of his hand. A Zimrian dagger sparked across his mesh-mail. The blade snapped—the Zimrian iron of inferior quality. For Lod it all happened in a flurry of dodge, thrust, parry and duck. Then it was over. The two warriors lay on the loam in grotesque postures.
Lod sucked air. Sweat drenched him, as did blood, most of it theirs. Killing was murderously hard work. He wiped the throat-slitter on the greasy furs and inspected the blade. It had an ugly notch. He could file it out later, but it might well stick in bone again like a saw. He drew a deep breath and told himself to hurry. He had to get out of this forest before night gripped it.
First, he looked around, gathered his bearings. A mottled snake watched him from a moss-heavy branch. The big snake had twined around the branch as its forked tongue flickered. The snake began to slither away, hissing, its red tongue flickering, almost as if it mocked him.
Lod looked around. It would be dark soon. They had to reach the river before that. He studied the trail Hul had taken, could tell by torn leaves and broken bushes. It was the same direction as the smell of water, the same way Hul’s footprints pointed. It would be folly to get lost now, this near the Hiddekel. Besides, he’d sworn an oath. Mari had been wise making him swear.
With a lurch, Lod broke into a stumbling trot.
-8-
Amalaric stood numbly before the mighty Esus Tree. His lips were bruised and swollen. With his tongue, he kept touching the bloody spot in his mouth where two teeth had been knocked out. His right eye had closed shut, and the blood caked over his sliced cheek opened whenever he moved his mouth too much.
His body ached from the beating. He wore nothing but a loincloth and the stout ropes binding his arms. He might have felt the chill air, but his frozen heart, his despair, made the cold a small thing.
It was night, and the shaman shuffled before the terrible Esus Tree. The wise women rattled rat-bones. Torches crackled in the fists of Jarn’s staunchest companions. Only the bravest warriors would stay this grim night with the workers of spirit-magic. The warriors surrounded Jarn’s bier. The sheathed sword of Esus now lay on the corpse.
The shaman’s shuffle turned into a wilder dance and his chants became more frenzied. The old women now rattled their bones with ferocity. Then they too began to dance. It was a slow shuffle at first. They chanted a dirge for Jarn Shield-Breaker. They chanted about his courage and his marvelous strength in life. The chant increased in speed and volume until the wise women shrieked like night-birds, and their shuffle became wilder and their withered limbs began to flail as if they possessed the stamina of maidens.
Amalaric might have glanced back at Jarn’s old companions. He would have seen their unease, their stir and their narrowed glances of astonishment at the old women. But Amalaric was too horrified to look back. This was the night of the Blood Moon. And it was far enough into the night that surely the moon had begun its journey toward the stars. By the flickering blaze of the torches, Amalaric now spied a sight to freeze his blood.
A long and sinuous shadow, a dense blot of nightmare, seemed to detach itself from the forest. It slunk like some immense jungle beast for the Esus Tree. Amalaric squeezed his eyes shut at the unreality of the thing. Was he going mad? He stared again, and horror shook the anchors of this sanity. He imagined that the darkness had clotted into a fiend erupted from the Land of the Dead. Did the gates of Hell swing open on this dread night? Such things would slink around the Esus Tree, devouring any foolish enough to be here on this dark eve.
“Esus!” screamed the shaman, who seemed oblivious to the shadowy monster hidden behind the massive tree.
Amalaric moaned in dread. His swollen lips, missing teeth and bruises, they were forgotten in his terror. Two red eyes like hot coals appeared in the shadowy blot. They swirled with ancient evil, with a hellish hunger for souls.
“Esus!” the shaman shrieked. And now the antlered man began to chant in a strange tongue that seemed like a blasphemous mixture of human speech and animal growls.
To Amalaric’s horror, the giant, shadowy blot pressed against the tree’s trunk like some vast beast rubbing its back.
The branches of the Esus Tree creaked as if in pain. The thousands of leaves rustled and the skeletons and dangling dog carcasses jangled obscenely. Inexplicably, the cackling torches brightened. The flames elongated as if fueled with pig fat. The warriors holding the torches shouted in fear. Two threw down their burning wicks, and the flames crackled against the grass, creating belches of smoke. Just as suddenly, the torches lost their brightness. They dimmed, as if the night pressed heavily against their flames, smothering the light.
“Esus hears,” the shaman crooned.
“He hears!” shrieked the dancing wise women. The oldest tore the front of her dress. With a ripping sound, she exposed her flat and withered breasts, long run dry of the ability to arouse a man. Other old crones began to tear their dresses. Soon, the ancient wise women danced naked before the Esus Tree. It seemed as if the rustling leaves gave them renewed strength, or something did. With creaking bones and popping joints, the crones leaped and whirled
with abandon, with greater speed and strength than any of them had known for many long years.
The shaman with his antler crown gave an inhuman laugh as he turned to watch them dance. “They are Esus’s now,” he declared. “They are filled with his power, and they shall dance until they die.”
The old women of Bones appeared not to hear his pronouncement of doom. Instead, they cavorted like springing deer, shaking their rattles, crying in joy as tears streamed down their wrinkled faces. As they danced, a cold mist oozed from the ground. It blanketed the damp earth and added to the unreality of this strange and vile night.
“Warriors!” shouted the shaman. “Bring the sacrifice to me.”
The oldest and closest of Jarn Shield-Breaker’s companions approached Amalaric. He heard their heavy breathing amid the torches’ hisses. Prickles of sweat dotted many of their meaty faces. Their features were a play of disgust, loathing and increasing fear.
“…The fog,” whispered one.
“Shhh,” whispered another.
“He’s mad,” muttered a third. “Let’s slay the shaman and flee this place.”
Amalaric’s numbed lips moved. He so wanted to tell them about the shadowed thing behind the Esus Tree. His mind seemed too empty to form words, however.
Their strong hands gripped him. They grunted, lifted and carried him to the shaman.
The skeletal shaman no longer danced, although his sides heaved from his long exertion and his skin was slick and gave off a powerful reek. His cloth mask continuously fluttered outward as he spoke between gasps.
“Tonight, we appease Esus,” the shaman said. “Put the noose around Amalaric’s throat. Make it tight. We shall hoist him high into the tree. There, he shall dangle for Esus. He shall pave the way for Jarn’s spirit.”
“Jarn was of the blood,” said a bear-sized warrior, a gray-bearded man with a huge gut.
“Jarn is dead,” the shaman said. “Tonight, you must obey my words.”
A few of the warriors cast the shaman dark looks.
“Examine the wise women,” the shaman mocked. “See how they dance?”
Even Amalaric managed to glance at them. The old women seemed haggard, if one went by their expressions. But they also seemed possessed of an inner hysteria and continued to leap and twirl like young maidens.
“They dance their lives to Esus,” the shaman whispered. “They dance to pave the way for Jarn’s spirit into the Hall of the Dead.”
“All of them?” asked the bear-like warrior.
The shaman glanced at them sharply. His bearing, for just a moment, seemed uncertain. Then he threw back his thin shoulders.
“Attach the rope,” he commanded.
Amalaric croaked a reply. It was all that he could manage in his defense. For the red-hot eyes of Hell peered again from the shadowy blot behind the tree’s thick trunk.
The coarse rope tightened around Amalaric’s neck. Jarn’s oldest companions shoved him closer toward the Esus Tree. Amalaric’s limbs were incapable of resisting. Horror consumed him. He trembled in terror of the watching thing that seemed this night to have been vomited from the Netherworld.
The bear-like warrior twirled the loop of rope and heaved it high. It went over a thick branch and uncoiled down to the waiting companions.
“Hoist him high!” the shaman shouted. “Then tie off the end. As he dangles, you shall pitch javelins into his flesh and sacrifice him to Esus.”
Amalaric made a mad cackle. The world was mad. Five older warriors grabbed their end of the rope. They hauled mighty. The noose horribly tightened around Amalaric’s throat. As it did, he braced his muscles. They chanted and pulled, hoisting him off the ground and up into the tree.
It was a sickening, choking experience. Higher, and he viewed the sinister wise women twirling and leaping in their vile dance of Death.
“Amalaric, son of Styr!” the shaman mocked from below. “Now you will pay with your blood. Now you shall grease the way for one greater and better than you are. Jarn Shield-Breaker was of the god’s blood. He died a cowardly death. But it is you who are the coward.”
The shaman turned to the warriors. “Pick up your javelins.”
The blood pounded in Amalaric’s head. It was hard to think as he twisted in the tree, hanging by his throat. He was the sacrifice tonight. He would pave—
The shaman screamed.
Amalaric tried to see what occurred. It was hard. The blood pounded in his brain and his arms were tightly tied behind him. He could only manage gasps of air as he kept his throat muscles flexed against the binding rope.
Like a tentacle, a length of shadow snaked out from behind the Esus Tree. The dark tentacle coiled around the shaman’s torso. It tightened, and the shaman screamed again.
The warriors stood in a rough circle. A few held their weakly flickering torches. The others gripped javelins. The old crones danced around them.
“Is this the best you can offer Esus?” the shaman chanted in a deeply shocking voice. It was not his voice, but of something bigger, stronger and vastly more powerful.
“He of my blood lies dead on a bier. You hoist up a cowardly warrior and allow the oldest to dance for me. I am not appeased.”
“L-Lord…” the bear-like warrior managed to say.
The shadowy black coil tightened around the shaman’s chest. He screamed as bones snapped. He writhed and uselessly clawed at the tendril of darkness. His hands passed through the night stuff.
Tortured words now bayed from the shaman’s throat. “Esus walks abroad this night! Now he will walk in power among the Dire Wolf Clan! He will lead the Zimrians! He will give them a champion from the Halls of the Dead. He will bring fire, sword and butchery to the lands of men. Tonight, Esus will cast his mightiest spell of necromancy!”
The shaman punctuated his speech with a horrible gurgle as the coil of darkness splintered the rest of his bones. Blood poured from his nostrils as the antlered man-creature of mummery slumped in the grasp of darkness.
Amalaric’s vision swam as consciousness threatened to leave him. He twisted in the Esus Tree, at the end of the coarse rope. His head pounded dreadfully.
Below the branches of the Esus Tree, he seemed to see darkness that walked. He spied a shadowy thing of horror. There were bellows of pain, shrieks and hoarse pleading for mercy. Those sounds then became something even more horrible.
The immense shadow twisted the bear-like warrior’s head from his heavy torso. It flung the head so it wetly smacked onto the chest of Jarn’s corpse.
Amalaric continued to twist at the end of the rope. He managed to glance below once more.
More bloody heads with horror-stricken features now lay on the corpse. Alien, vile words filled Amalaric’s hearing. It caused the pounding in his head to blast with agony. He was unable to breathe. A terrible spell warped the root of the world. Amalaric writhed as he heard it. It might have destroyed his sanity. The very ground seemed to buck and heave. Maybe it was Amalaric’s imagination.
Banshees howled. Things cried out that never should have speech. And on the bier, the corpse of Jarn Shield-Breaker stirred.
“No,” Amalaric croaked.
Dead Jarn Shield-Breaker sat up, causing the ripped-off heads to tumble from his body. He grasped the sword of Esus. In a disjointed manner, he slid to his feet. He swayed as if he might topple. Then, step-by-step, Jarn Shield-Breaker staggered to the tied rope. He swayed before it. Slowly, his headed tilted back, until he looked up at Amalaric.
The sword lifted and chopped, slicing the rope. Amalaric plummeted, and crashed against the earth. He lay stunned.
Soon, his bonds were sawn through. The loop was tugged off his rope-scarred throat. And Amalaric found himself staring into the dead and glassy eyes of Jarn Shield-Breaker’s animated corpse.
“Afterganger,” Amalaric whispered in horror.
Jarn’s cold hand with the curly kinks of hair on the knuckles clutched the top of Amalaric’s head. With a surge of strength, the living c
orpse pushed Amalaric down onto his knees before it.
Images exploded into Amalaric’s mind. Words formed. You are the voice of Esus. I am his sword. Together, we shall wield the clans into a horde and ravage the worlds of men.
Amalaric whimpered. The immensely powerful hand tightened as if it might crush his skull.
“Yes Lord,” whispered Amalaric. “What about my sister? The outlander has her.”
Not for much longer. Then the afterganger of Jarn Shield-Breaker hoisted Amalaric to his feet, propelling him toward the encampment of Zimrian warriors.
-9-
Lod caught up with Mari and Hul. They blundered through the woods, moving blindly in the darkness. No starlight penetrated this underworld of leaves. If the moon had risen, they were unaware of it. Bark crumpled in their hands. Branches rattled and soon the soil turned damp.
“Wait,” whispered an exhausted Mari.
Hul appeared unhearing. By the sounds, his legs churned and muck slopped at his tread.
Lod hurried, clutching the dark blot of Hul and yanking him to a halt. He felt Hul’s sweat-soaked furs and he sensed his companion’s fear.
Somewhere to their left, although muted by many trees, an eerie scream erupted. It sounded like a large feline, a forest panther perhaps or something bigger, more sinister.
“What is that?” whispered Hul.
“This is the night of the Blood Moon,” Mari whispered. “Tonight, the animals obey Esus.”
“That’s no panther,” said Lod, “and no bear makes such a cry.”
“It is one of Esus’s sons,” she said. “Our god has grown angry and sends one of his own to reclaim me. Save yourself. I am doomed. I never should have run.”
“We have swords,” said Lod.
“Those are meaningless against Esus.”
“I slew the thag, remember?”
Mari touched his arm. “Yes. It was unbelievable.”
“We didn’t smell the Hiddekel before,” Hul said. “I think we’re headed into a swamp.”
“The swamp must lie near the Hiddekel,” Lod said.
The Lod Saga (Lost Civilizations: 6) Page 18
