[Heroes 04] - Sigvald

by Darius Hinks - (ebook by Undead)

  Sigvald dropped to his knees behind his shield as another column of fire rolled towards him. The force of the impact shoved him back across the polished stones and his arms trembled with the exertion of holding the shield in place, but the metal was true and the flames roared harmlessly over his head.

  As the blast dropped away, Sigvald scrambled to his feet and charged again, hammering his sword into one of its long claws.

  Galrauch’s roar spiralled into an ear-splitting screech and it launched itself back against the cave wall, with Sigvald still dangling from its foot. As the full weight of the monster slammed against the rocks, the whole chamber began to collapse. Great clumps of crystal began crashing to the ground and it seemed as though the mountain itself groaned in sympathy for the creature’s wound.

  Sigvald loosed his sword and rolled clear, raising his shield over his head as a storm of rocks clattered over him. As he bounded to his feet he saw the dragon clawing wildly at the collapsing wall, carving great rents in the rock with its thrashing talons. The whole cavern slumped and shifted with a series of grinding moans and Sigvald span around, looking desperately for an escape route.

  The dragon let out another furious screech as it tumbled back through the hole it had created and Sigvald saw that it had revealed a third cave, and this one was glowing with moonlight.

  He dashed back towards the monster and scrambled up over its heaving torso. As he climbed, the creature’s heads snaked round towards him, its wide, drooling jaws dripping with fire.

  Sigvald leapt over the dragon’s shoulder and landed in the cavern beyond, rolling clear just as Galrauch slammed to the ground behind him.

  The ground sloped up away from him towards another archway and another stair. Sigvald dashed towards the exit, but before he was halfway across the cave he stumbled to a halt and shook his head. He turned around to face Galrauch with a furious look on his face. The dragon hauled its massive body upright and glared back at him, shrouded in fire and smoke as it rose up to its full height. Sigvald’s rapier looked like a child’s toy as it wobbled between the joints of the creature’s massive claw.

  Sigvald threw his shield to the ground and strode towards the dragon with a defiant swagger. “You are a lizard,” he cried, “and I am Sigvald the Magnificent!” His eyes flashed as he pointed to the ground. “Prostrate yourself, animal! How dare you even look me in the eye!”

  Galrauch hesitated, confused by the fearlessness of its tiny opponent.

  “Kneel, lizard!” screamed Sigvald. His face was purple and corded with throbbing veins. “You will not deny me my prize.”

  Galrauch shuffled backwards, seemingly on the verge of retreat. Then it raised its wings, filling the whole cavern with a tattered canopy of dragon hide and let out another deafening screech.

  Sigvald clawed at his scorched hair and howled in frustration as he realised the monster was not going to obey him. He sprinted across the shattered stones and threw himself at the rearing dragon.

  Galrauch belched another blinding gout of fire, but Sigvald was already clambering up its chest with his sword back in his hand. The monster continued screeching as it launched itself at the far wall.

  The dragon exploded from the mountainside in a cloud of smoke and dust, launching itself into the night sky with a single beat of its vast wings.

  Sigvald tumbled free and crashed down onto the crystal slopes, bouncing and jolting over the rocks like a broken doll. After rolling and flailing wildly for a few seconds, he finally crunched into the side of a large boulder. He lay motionless for a moment, then sat up with a hoarse whimper. He saw his reflection in the crystal and gasped. His golden locks were gone, replaced by a shrivelled mass of black spirals, and the delicate strands of filigree were hanging, twisted and broken from his cuirass. He slumped back in horror, gingerly pressing his hands against a deep gash in his cheek. “Belus,” he whispered, “I gave you my soul. How can you abandon me to ugliness?”

  As Sigvald sat there, clutching his head in hands, he thought he heard a voice, drifting on the ice-laden wind. “Sigvald,” it seemed to cry. He looked up and peered through the snowstorm. He felt a flood of relief as he recognised Oddrún’s teetering, lurching gait. The chancellor was rushing up the mountain towards him, appearing and disappearing as the columns of snow whirled around him. The prince leant forward, trying to make out the words. As the wind shifted direction, he caught a brief snatch: “—you! Watch out!” was all he could hear.

  “Oddrún,” he gasped, lurching to his feet. He winced as he stood, and looked down to see a jagged hole in one of his ornate greaves. “Help me Oddrún!” he cried, waving at his scorched hair and his ruined armour. “I’m hideous.”

  “Above you!” came Oddrún’s reply, slicing though the storm.

  Sigvald cursed as he remembered the dragon. He leapt aside just in time to avoid a column of fire that lashed across the rocks towards him. As he tumbled to a halt, he looked up to see Galrauch swooping away into the darkness, trailing flames and smoke.

  Sigvald climbed awkwardly to his feet and limped towards the distant shape of Oddrún. “Ask the head,” he cried. “How can I kill it?”

  Sigvald’s words were snatched away by the bitter wind and he cursed, looking around for a sign of the dragon. The sky was still pulsing with garish colours and the same lunatic carnival was still drifting overhead, but there was no sign of Galrauch. “He’s fled,” muttered Sigvald in disbelief. Rage consumed him and he clambered up onto a rock to scour the heaving, mountainous clouds. “The skull is mine,” he spat, wrenching out a clump of his blackened hair. “I will not be denied my prize.” He raised the fistful of hair to the heavens and howled into the storm. “Fight me, you spineless lizard!”

  The whole mountain shuddered as Galrauch slammed into it. An explosion of ice, snow and crystals enveloped the prince as he fell from his perch and hurtled through the air. He landed with a grunt. Terrible pain knifed into the side of his chest. As the clouds whirled around him, he sensed the dragon’s huge mass rushing towards him across the rocks. Sigvald tried to scramble away but the pain in his side was incredible. He groaned in confusion as he saw a dark fountain of blood pouring from a gash in his breastplate. “How?” he gasped, rolling down into a crevasse. As he crunched down onto the rocks, he began to feel an unfamiliar emotion: fear for his life. “Belus,” he gasped, clutching at the wound and trying to stem the blood. “I gave you my soul. We made a pact. This can’t be—”

  Sigvald’s words died in his mouth as the two heads of the dragon loomed into view. The separate halves of the creature’s neck snaked around each other as the heads swooped lower. “I’m immortal,” Sigvald tried to explain, but his mouth was filling up with blood and the words came out as a garbled belch.

  Galrauch rocked back on its haunches to study its supine victim, creating a small landslide as it settled down to enjoy its kill. Shattered crystals tumbled over the prince, leaving a web of fine cuts over his face.

  As the dragon drew back its heads for a final blast of fire, Sigvald heard Oddrún, still calling to him from the distance. He looked back down the slope and reached out a desperate hand to the chancellor, but knew there was no way he could reach him in time. Oddrún had opened the gold casket and raised it over his head. He was yelling something, but the storm was still too fierce for Sigvald to be sure of his words.

  Galrauch looked up at the sound of Oddrún’s cry.

  “The Sundered?” croaked Sigvald, shaking his head as he finally made out Oddrún’s words. “What?” He thought he must be mistaken. What could that mean? Before he could think any more about it, white hot pain exploded in his leg. Sigvald screamed and looked back at the dragon in horror. Rather than incinerating him, the creature had sliced one of its long talons through the hole in his leg armour. It was playing with him like a cat with a mouse.

  As the prince prepared himself for a slow, painful death, he heard Oddrún’s voice again. “The Sundered! The Sundered!” the chancellor was howling, a
s though it was the answer to everything.

  Sigvald writhed in agony as Galrauch slowly tore the flesh away from his leg. Then, with his own blood raining down on him, the prince suddenly began to laugh. “The Sundered,” he groaned, “of course.”

  Ignoring the awful pain in his leg and his chest, Sigvald drew a deep, ragged breath and began to sing. The prince’s voice was no less beautiful than his flesh and it rang out through the storm with heartbreaking clarity. The death song of the elven slave had haunted him for weeks—ever since the night of Baron Schüler’s arrival—and as he sang it now he felt all the tragedy of her proud, doomed race. The words tumbled out of him in a magnificent, spiralling polyphony, as though they had a will of their own. He forgot everything: the dragon, his wounds, the storm; all of it slipped away as he lurched to his feet, closed his eyes and allowed the song to tear through him. His heart pounded as he sang and it seemed as though a whole chorus of elves were joining his lament. He climbed up onto one of the rocks and raised his chin, lifting his voice to the heavens and abandoning himself to the terrible pathos of the melody.

  Sigvald felt rough hands shaking him. He opened his eyes to see Oddrún looming over him. The prince’s song faltered and he shook his head in confusion, unsure how the chancellor had suddenly reached his side. He had lost all track of time as he sang.

  “We must flee,” said the giant.

  Sigvald’s eyes were full of tears as he looked up at his chancellor. The echoes of the ancient song were still ringing in his ears. “What?” he gasped.

  Oddrún gestured up the mountain and Sigvald saw that the dragon was attempting to devour itself. Sigvald’s song had injured it more fatally than any weapon could have done. As it smashed its way across the glittering rocks, its two heads were lunging at each other, tearing long wounds in its winding necks and screaming in pain and anger. The huge creature was shrouded in smoke and as it rolled around, whole chunks of the mountain disintegrated, tumbling down towards them.

  Sigvald attempted to climb down from his perch, but as the power of the song left him, so did his strength. He fell to the ground, gasping as he saw the extent of his injuries. “How can this be?” he groaned, looking up at Oddrún and waving to the blood pouring from his ruined armour.

  Oddrún nodded. “The dragon’s talons. They’re charged with the power of its god.” He hauled Sigvald up from the ground. “We have to go.”

  Sigvald nodded weakly. Then his body stiffened and he grabbed Oddrún’s tatty robes. “The talons!” he gasped. “Belus won’t aid me unless I take one.”

  Oddrún shook his head. “Impossible,” he said, waving up at the thrashing, screeching dragon.

  Sigvald narrowed his eyes. “I will have that brass skull.”

  They both looked up at Galrauch and saw that one of the heads had locked its jaws around the throat of the other, pinning it to the ground. The dragon’s huge wings were beating wildly, covering the mountainside with rolling clouds of smoke, but its body was sprawled motionless as the two heads duelled.

  “This is my chance,” gasped Sigvald, lurching back towards the creature. The tattered muscles in his leg immediately gave way and he fell to the ground with a curse. He looked back at Oddrún, his eyes burning with hunger. “Quick!” he cried. “You’ll have to do it.”

  The chancellor flinched and backed away, shaking his head, but as he saw the determination in Sigvald’s eyes, his narrow shoulders slumped and he looked around for a weapon. There was a long shard of crystal lying on the ground nearby, so he grabbed it and hurried up towards the struggling monster.

  As he neared the jumble of thrashing limbs and trembling wings, Oddrún paused, unsure how to proceed.

  “There!” cried Sigvald, as a bloody claw slammed down a few feet away.

  Oddrún acted fast, before he could consider the insanity of the situation. He gripped the shard of crystal in both hands and hammered it down with all his strength, slicing it into one of the dragon’s long toes.

  Galrauch let out an agonised shriek and withdrew its claw in a spray of blood.

  Oddrún raised his arms over his head to protect himself, but the dragon was too busy destroying itself to attack. The giant looked down to see a severed toe at his feet. The thing was as big as his arm and pumping gouts of black blood over the rocks. It ended in a long, blue-grey talon.

  Sigvald’s ashen, blood-splattered face lit up in a broad grin.

  As Oddrún stumbled back towards him, clutching the talon under his arm, Sigvald’s laughter rang out, as clear and musical as an elven song.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Sigvald limped into the pavilion. He was bleeding heavily from countless wounds, only a few blackened clumps of hair were left on his head and his handsome features were lined with scars, but, despite everything that had happened to him, there was a defiant grin on his face. “I have it,” he gasped, hurling the bloody talon onto the lawn.

  Belus Pül recoiled, turning its head away and pressing a trembling hand against its chest with a theatrical flourish. As Sigvald approached, the daemon hurried over to its scribe, waving at the nest of twitching limbs. “The deity’s tranquil garden was invaded by a wretched-looking youth, whose repugnant face was a vile mockery of its own child, Sigvald the Magnificent. The hideous changeling had brought with it some kind of filthy animal bone.”

  This was not the response Sigvald had expected. The muscles in his jaw rippled as he glared back at the white-robed figure. “I’ve done as you asked,” he snapped. “I’ve brought you a talon from the dragon, Galrauch.” He closed his eyes and gingerly touched the blackened spirals hanging down from his scorched head. “You have let this happen to me. You have reneged on our deal.” He pointed at the gory mess below his knee. “We’re sworn to each other. You must make me beautiful again.”

  The daemon crossed the lawn and as it walked, strands of grass spiralled up from its footprints. The green blades multiplied and wrapped around each other, plaiting themselves into an ornate emerald cabinet. Belus leant wearily against the glittering piece of furniture and sighed. “The heavenly being reeled under the usual onslaught of abuse, but tried to remain calm. It reminded Sigvald—for, incredibly, it was he—that a talon imbued with the sorcery of the Great Schemer would doubtless have transformative qualities. Such potent magic could affect even the Prince of the Decadent Host. Only the most exhausting rites could undo such damage.”

  Sigvald shook his head in disbelief. “You can’t leave me like this!” he cried, levelling his finger at the severed claw lying on the grass. “You sent me to face that wretched lizard, now you must restore me.”

  Ignoring Sigvald, Belus opened the cabinet and nodded at a shelf inside. The scribe scuttled spider-like across the lawn, picked up the claw and lifted it up on a nest of spindly limbs, then it hurried towards the cabinet and placed it on the shelf. The daemon nodded in satisfaction, closed the cabinet door, and then stepped back to watch as the cupboard disintegrated back into blades of grass that spiralled down into the lawn, leaving no trace of the talon.

  “Belus decided that Sigvald’s intentions were probably good, and resolved to allow him another chance to prove himself. The slovenly state of the prince’s attire repulsed the sensitive deity, but it knew that there would be no wisdom in rewarding its ill-mannered prodigy before the three trials had been completed.”

  Sigvald let out a bitter laugh. “You mean to send me out into the world looking like this?” He folded his arms across his battered cuirass and shook his head. “I won’t do it.” He nodded to the miscellany of strange objects hung around the daemon’s right arm. “We made a deal, Belus. You owe me your allegiance.”

  The daemon gave no sign it had heard Sigvald’s words. It looked down at its hand and smiled as a lily sprouted from between its fingers. As Sigvald clenched his teeth in rage, the daemon closed its eyes and sniffed the petals with a sigh of pleasure.

  Sigvald clenched his fists as the daemon crossed the lawn and sat on the chair that
hung from the juniper tree.

  “What do you want?” he growled.

  The sexless youth gave no reply, but it raised one of its eyebrows disapprovingly.

  Sigvald limped towards the swing, grimacing with each step. “How can I please you, my beneficent lord?” he said, twisting his voice into a more deferential tone.

  The daemon stroked its smooth head and smiled. It indicated that the scribe should return to its pile of scrolls. Once the creature was back in place, Belus addressed it in a gentle, caring voice. “As Sigvald offered his services again, the deity was reminded of what had first drawn it to the prince. Sigvald’s fearlessness was intoxicating. Alone amongst his kind he was strong enough to serve such an elevated being.”

  Sigvald attempted a bow, but ended up dropping to his knees with a gasp.

  The daemon waved vaguely towards the east of the garden. “Luckily for Sigvald, the deity had no great ordeal in store for him. All it required was the death of a single witless creature, called Bargau. The treacherous oaf had long ago ceased paying tribute to its master and Belus Pül had finally run out of patience. Such betrayal could not be allowed to pass unheeded. The blessed one decided that such a simple trial would be easy enough to complete. Bargau eked out its pitiful existence in a forest just a few miles away.” The daemon paused, using one of its small horns to scratch an itch on the back of its hand. Then it continued, waving to the wall of the tent and the shapes milling around outside. “The dashing prince felt the trial would be far too dull if he was escorted by his soldiers, so he offered to leave them behind once more.”

  Sigvald remained crouched on the grass for a few seconds, looking up at the daemon with a pained expression on his face. Then he began to smile and hauled himself to his feet. “It’s true,” he said, “that without soldiers, or even a sword, the trial will be quite interesting.” He stretched his battered arms up over his head and let out a sigh of pleasure. “I too am beginning to recall our first acquaintance, my lord.” He gave a single nod of farewell and left the tent.