Fuelled by his rage, Hauk sliced his way through the enemy ranks, spitting and cursing as he went. Behind him, Valdür and the others fought on. After the initial shock of facing the Drékar head-on, they were now battling furiously. All of them had sensed their chieftain’s mood. It was clear this was no ordinary raid.
Hauk fought his way through the scrum of bodies and emerged on the far side of the clearing. His axe had broken in two and his rippling muscles were drenched with blood, but his face was still locked in furious snarl. “Svärd,” he roared, determined to discover why his son had failed him. A fist slammed into the side of his head and he rolled down the side of the hill, losing his shattered weapon as he fell. As soon as he could, he clambered back to his feet, raising his arm just in time to fend off another blow. He grabbed his attacker’s throat and squeezed. The Norscan’s windpipe crunched beneath his iron grip and Hauk tossed him aside with a grunt.
Then he paused.
Somewhere below him on the hillside, he could still hear the staccato war cry that had led him to attack. He squinted through the darkness at a group of shapes rushing through the grass. Rather than joining the fight, they were dashing back and forth beneath the boughs of a wide tree. Why had they signalled the attack without even reaching the enemy? “Svärd?” he grunted, staggering towards the shadowy figures. As he approached the group, Hauk began to recognise the faces of his men. Then he finally saw Svärd. He was preparing to launch a javelin at the tree.
“What are you doing?” cried Hauk, dashing towards his son. Then he gasped and stumbled to a halt. His men were not surrounding a tree. The tall shape he had seen was a living creature: a towering, hulking mockery of a man, with the horned head of an ox and four arms, each of which was thicker than Hauk’s chest and covered in filthy, matted fur. As Hauk edged closer he grimaced, realising that the monster had two mouths. As well as the gaping, slavering jaws in its face, the thing had a long slitlike opening in its chest, lined with glistening fangs that had once been ribs. Two of its thick arms ended in bone blades that were smeared with the blood of Hauk’s men. As Svärd and the others struggled to fend off its thudding blows, the thing lurched back and forth, emitting a perfect imitation of their war cry.
Hauk cursed. He had been tricked. This grotesque monster had somehow been taught to mimic their attack signal. The Drékar must have bought its allegiance with the promise of human flesh. Hauk grabbed a spear from the ground and rushed to attack. “Bring it down!” he roared. “Bring it down!”
Sväla thrust her knife towards the grinning shaman. “Keep back, Ungaur,” she hissed.
“I have no quarrel with you, Sväla,” he replied, backing away from the brazier and speaking in a gentle whisper. “Hauk is to blame. He leads us to war against the will of Völtar. No wonder we suffer such bloody defeats. No wonder our lands have been stolen.” Ungaur ran his tongue across the black spines in his mouth. “No vigil could atone for such sacrilege. Nothing you can do can help him now. Even if your flame survives the night, Hauk will not.”
“The shaman’s right,” said another tribesman, stepping into the firelight. He waved at the scars that covered his weather-beaten skin. “I’m not afraid to fight. Or to die.” He nodded at the brazier. “But I won’t follow a chieftain against the will of Völtar. We must listen to Ungaur the Blessed. He is the Voice of the Wolf.”
“Then tell me: when did the wolf become a sheep?” cried Sväla, shaking her head in disbelief. “While we starve, the Drékar grow fat. They revel in our cowardice, along with all the other tribesmen who’ve turned their backs on us. Would you really let them pass through our lands—laden with the very food and gold we need? Your chieftain remembers his oaths, but he will not simply lie down and die when salvation is at hand.” The anger in Sväla’s voice was answered by a sudden blast of wind that flattened the flames to the base of the bronze bowl. She gasped and raised her furs as a shield. As the gust died down, she peered into the brazier.
The crowd pressed forwards, straining to see into the bowl.
“My husband still lives,” said Sväla, as a single flame lit up her face. “Völtar the Wolf will bring him home.”
The creature lashed out with its sharpened blades of bone. Each one dripped with venom and as they hacked into the Norscans’ flesh the men screamed in agony, clutching at wounds that immediately began to fester and bum. Hauk launched his spear with a howl, but the weapon bounced uselessly off the monster’s thick hide and fell to the ground.
A young, shaven-headed warrior sprinted through the moonlit grass to Hauk’s side. He was tattooed with tribal markings and his whole face was pierced with teeth: wolves’ canines that sprouted from every inch of his skin in a fierce display of self-mutilation. “Völtar forgive me,” he gasped, kneeling before the chieftain and letting his axe thud to the ground. His eyes were wide with panic. “That thing appeared from nowhere and began making the attack signal. There was nothing I could do.”
Hauk spat on the ground and signalled for his son to rise. “We cannot fail, Svärd,” he snapped. “Everything rests on this.” He grabbed the youth by his biceps and shook him like a child. “Don’t let me down, Svärd, fight! Then fight harder! We can’t return empty handed.”
Svärd nodded and regained a little of his composure. “What about the others?” he asked, waving up the hill.
Hauk grinned through bloody teeth. “Valdür the Old is with us. He’s leading the attack.”
“I knew it,” replied Svärd. “I knew he would see through Ungaur’s lies.” He lifted his axe from the ground and gripped it in both hands. “Then maybe Völtar is with us.” He nodded at the scrum of figures, trying desperately to bring down the lurching creature. “Let’s kill this thing, so I can go and see the old man in action.” He grinned back at Hauk, causing his chin to sprout a beard of yellow wolves’ teeth.
Hauk laughed as they ran towards the monster. “You may be young Svärd, but by Völtar you’re ugly.”
“And what will become of us now?” cried Ungaur, baring his black needles at the crowd. “Sväla’s beloved has not just thrown away his own life, he has thrown away ours too.” He waved his staff at the horizon. “He has taken our finest warriors to their deaths. Even Valdür the Old has fallen under his spell. So who will protect us? Who will safeguard our homes the next time we’re attacked?” He turned back to the woman huddled over the brazier. “Hauk’s refusal to obey the will of Völtar has guaranteed our destruction, even you should be able to see that, Sväla.” He stepped closer, ignoring the knife she waved in his direction. “Maybe you think you owe him your loyalty, whatever the outcome?” He tried to hide his iron spines and adopt a concerned expression. “But I can assure you, he has not always shown such loyalty to you.”
Sväla hesitated and looked over at the shaman. “I don’t know what poison you’re trying to spread, Ungaur, but you might as well save your breath.” She turned back to the fire. “I realised a long time ago that your heart is as black as your teeth.”
Ungaur raised his eyebrows and shrugged. “There’s no poison, Sväla. It simply hurts me to see you risking the fury of Völtar, for a man who does not even respect the sanctity of your marriage.” As he finished speaking, Ungaur looked pointedly in the direction of a pretty young woman, standing just a few feet away.
Sväla lowered her knife and followed Ungaur’s gaze. The woman was her exact opposite: voluptuous, raven-haired and still in the first flush of youth, where Sväla’s own boyish frame was bony and scarred after a lifetime of hardship. “Æstrid? What are you saying? What about her?”
The girl blushed and turned away, smirking at the men stood nearest to her.
A wave of laughter rippled through the crowd.
“Do you see?” asked Ungaur, holding out an open hand to Sväla. “He’s lied to all of us, even you. Völtar has abandoned him and he’s even abandoned himself.”
Sväla was still staring at Æstrid. She shook her head and walked towards her. “I don’t believe i
t.” She sneered and waved her knife at the girl. “Hauk wouldn’t lower himself to this. What would he want with such a child?”
The young girl’s face coloured even darker and she glared back at Sväla. “What would you know about his wants, old woman?”
Sväla strode towards the girl and punched her square in the face.
Æstrid collapsed without a sound. Then she sat up and looked around in disbelief. She wiped her hand across her mouth and hissed as she saw it was smeared with blood. “You’re too senile to see the truth,” she spat.
The tribesmen gathered around, smirking and muttering lewd comments.
Æstrid climbed unsteadily to her feet and looked over at the shaman. He nodded at her and she reached down into her cleavage, drawing out an iron ring on the end of a leather strip. She squared up to Sväla. “If you know him so well, how do you explain this?”
Sväla drew back her fist to strike her again, then paused. “What is…?” Her words trailed off as she looked c loser at the ring.
Æstrid placed her hands on her hips and sniggered. “Recognise it? He begged me, Sväla. Begged me for a place in my bed. We did things you could never even dream of.” She held the ring up so that it glinted in the moonlight. “He knew he might die tonight and he wanted me to have this, as a mark of his love.”
Sväla grabbed Æstrid by her hair and yanked her to her knees. Then she pressed her knife to the girl’s throat. “You lie,” she said, but her voice trembled with doubt. “He would never give his wedding ring to a whore like you.” With a flick of the knife she sliced the cord from the girl’s neck and held it up for a better look.
“Go on,” hissed Æstrid, scrabbling away. “Take a good look.” She looked around at the crowd of leering tribesmen and laughed. “I don’t need a trinket to keep hold of a man.”
Sväla peered at the ring for a few seconds, still shaking her head in disbelief. Then she let out a strangled sob as she saw a small rune scratched into the metal. “It’s his,” she gasped.
Hauk shuddered as one of the claws closed around his body. As it gripped his flesh, it burned into him like a firebrand. He gasped at the pain, but did not lash out in defence. As the monster lifted him towards its chest he kept his spear gripped firmly in both hands and made no attempt to fight back. Beneath him lay dozens of his men. Those who were still alive were screaming in agony and clutching at their acid-scorched flesh. Svärd and a few of the others were hurling spears at the creature but they had barely managed to scratch its skin.
“Father!” cried Svärd as the creature lifted the chieftain above their heads.
Hauk howled as he felt his skin blister and bubble. It was not just the pain that made him cry out. From this vantage point he could see the battle on top of the hill. Valdür the Old was still leading the attack—Hauk could clearly see his silver-streaked topknot as he hacked and lunged through the melee—but things were not going well. The Drékar had completely surrounded his men and the Fallen were hopelessly outnumbered. “There shouldn’t be so many,” he gasped. “I’ve been tricked.”
Hauk had no more time to consider the fate of his men. A blast of warm, foetid breath washed over him and he turned to face the gaping chest mouth of the monster. As it opened wider to devour him, he saw a flaccid tongue that was bubbling with the same virulent substance that oozed from its limbs.
Still, Hauk held onto his spear.
“Father!” cried Svärd again, hacking uselessly at the monster’s cloven hooves. Another of the beast’s claws reached down and locked around his tattooed head, causing him to wail in agony.
As the monster thrust Hauk into its open jaws, the chieftain finally made his move. Just inches away from the creature’s teeth, he drew back his spear and thrust it into the thing’s trembling throat.
The monster loosed the men in its claws and reeled backwards with a piercing scream. Black acid poured from its chest and it lumbered back across the hillside, lifting the pitch of its scream higher and clutching desperately at the spear jammed between its yawning ribs.
Hauk dropped to the ground, rolled to a stop and climbed to his feet. His muscles were streaming with blood and acid but he remained silent as he tore off a strip from one of his furs and began wiping the poison from his body. As he removed the acid, it tore away the top layer of his skin, leaving behind an angry, raw mass of wheals and glistening sinew. “Use your rope,” he gasped to his men, trying to ignore the pain. “It’s dying. Lasso its legs.”
The men leapt to obey and easily brought the screaming monster to its knees. Once there, they lashed more ropes around its flailing limbs and staked it to the ground. Within a few minutes they had the thing trapped and began jamming their spears into its straining, thrashing bulk. The monster’s screams grew even louder as the Norscans levered open the mouth in its chest and plunged their spears into the soft flesh inside. The men forgot about their pain as they were consumed by a vengeful bloodlust. Even after the creature’s final scream, they carried on hacking and slicing at its steaming viscera.
“Stop,” called Hauk, pointing at their smouldering flesh. “Clean its blood from your bodies.”
The men backed away from the corpse and began sloughing off their blistered flesh, but Hauk did not give them long. He lifted an acid-scarred axe from the ground and let out a staccato war cry as he sprinted up the hill. “We’ve wasted too much time. We’ve Drékar to kill.”
They crested the brow of the incline and Hauk saw Valdür and his men, still fighting valiantly, despite the impossible odds.
“There are so many of them,” gasped Svärd, staggering up to his father’s side.
Hauk nodded, not even looking at his son. “The scout lied,” he muttered, shaking his head in disbelief.
“Lørden? Why would he lie?”
Hauk turned to look at his son and gasped. “Your face,” he said, grabbing the boy by his shoulders and pulling him close.
Svärd shrugged. Several of his piercings had been torn from his cheeks and his shaven head was blistered and bloody from the acid. “What of it?” he grinned. “It’s not as much of a mess as your chest.”
Hauk looked down and saw that the boy was right. In some places the acid had burned so deep that his ribs were gleaming in the moonlight. He shook his head and turned back to the battle. “Lørden must have lied. It’s the only explanation. Someone must have paid him to betray me. How else did they know we were going to attack? How else could they have tricked us into fighting that beast?”
Svärd frowned. “Who would have done that to us?”
Hauk shrugged and looked around. The survivors of Svärd’s group had all reached the top of the hill and assembled around him. “No matter,” Hauk said, lifting his axe aloft once more. “The more men there are to kill, the more gold we’ll find.” He levelled his axe at the struggling figure of Valdür and grinned. “If we’re not quick though, the old man will take it all for himself.”
With Hauk at their head, the men charged across the hilltop and tore into the backs of the unsuspecting Drékar.
The Fallen butchered several of the Drékar before they realised they were being attacked from a new direction. Valdür and his men let out a victorious roar as they saw their chieftain returning to the fight and pressed forwards with renewed determination. Attacked from both sides, the bloody-faced Drékar were soon penned in like sheep—struggling to raise their javelins and axes in the crush of bodies.
Hauk let out another staccato cry and it was answered by dozens of his men.
Just as Hauk was beginning to think victory was in reach, a tall figure shouldered his way through the carnage and slammed a fist into his face.
Hauk rolled across the ground and leapt back to his feet with a torrent of fresh blood rushing from his nose. The man who had floored him made an impressive sight. He was as broad and heavily muscled as all the other Norscans and every inch of his powerful frame was covered with bright red paint. Even his short crest of hair was dyed red. His only clothing was
a loincloth and that was dyed the same colour. He carried no weapons, but his right hand was a mass of iron and scar tissue. Plates of jagged metal had melded with the Norscan’s flesh, replacing his fist with a crude, iron lump hammer. Only the man’s eyes showed a flash of white as he launched himself at Hauk.
“Rurik,” gasped Hauk, recognising the Drékar’s chieftain. He dodged the lump of bloody metal swinging towards his face and crouched low, punching his attacker hard in the stomach.
Rurik grunted and fell back into the crush of bodies.
Hauk strode forwards and raised his axe for the killing blow.
Sväla dropped to her knees and clutched the ring to her chest. “Hauk,” she whispered.
“He’s lied to us all,” said Ungaur, stepping closer and placing a hand on the woman’s shoulder. “There can be no other explanation. Why would he insist on leading us to these endless defeats when Völtar has warned him to bide his time? He must be worshipping some other master. He’s betrayed us for his own gain, Sväla.”
Sväla shook her head. “I can’t believe he would lie to me.”
Ungaur shrugged. “But you have the evidence in your hands. We all knew about his infidelity, but to be honest, it’s the least of his crimes.”
Sväla climbed wearily to her feet. With her certainty gone, her strength had vanished too. Suddenly she felt every minute of her night-long vigil. Her muscles burned as she looked past the crowd to the distant horizon. Dawn was finally rising across the fields, rippling over the swaying grass and transforming it into an ocean of gold. Sväla’s eyes were so full of tears that it took her a few seconds to notice the thin trail of smoke snaking up from the brazier.
She rushed over to the bronze bowl and peered inside.
The fire was out.
Hauk was dead.
Sväla howled at the sky. Her string of incoherent curses was so filled with despair that the other Norscans dropped the smirking expressions from their faces. They backed away, looking to the shaman for reassurance.
[Heroes 04] - Sigvald Page 4
