by Sean Rodden
Sarrane.
And then a crashing wave of anger had flooded the empty place inside him, a frigid burning, a torrid freezing; a dichotomous rage with which Tulnarron was familiar, intimately so, but that was not quite his own.
Arumarron.
His son and Heir had not been at the scene of Sarrane’s death, but the lad had been near. Near enough to know, near enough to… see. Hours had passed, anguished and wrenching, and the day had long succumbed to the furious flumes of a storming night, but even now the lad was racing for justice, raging for vengeance. The lad? Nay. The man. The greatest champion ever to emerge from the line of Eccuron.
And that line was long and laden with glory, and across twenty centuries had produced many of the Fiannar’s finest warriors: The indomitable Thundarron; Ruthallane the Red and the dark-souled Singer called Dragon Eye; his own father, the great Abnegator; Master Tulnarron and, of course, the renowned founder of the House himself.
But the legend of Arumarron would eclipse them all.
And it had all begun in that fundamental moment that the husband’s right to revenge was claimed by the son.
Thunder roared, torrents screeched, a greatsword’s broad blade cleaved clean through the midriff of a thickly armoured half-Urk.
The Master of the House of Eccuron would live the rest of his life a widower, in the shadow of his son, building castles in the rain.
Even so.
Young Master Sennadan reined his mirarran to a halt, dismounted, his boots splashing in a puddle of reddened muck. The rain rattled off his helm and spattered into his eyes, but he paid it little heed as he fisted his soiled rillagh and approached the huddled leaders of the forces defending Lar Thurrad.
“The mirarra are gallant and faithful creatures, my friends,” the icy-eyed Mistress of the House of Serra-Collean yelled through an extended peal of thunder, “but they were not made for this! They cannot see as they should, and all they smell is blood and rain. Consider the agony in your ears, and know that their pain is one hundredfold your own. We must release them!”
“Agreed!” called at least one voice.
“But what of the lines, Mistress?” worried another.
“Our lines mean nothing now, Avondele,” grumbled Durhammon, the Master of the House of Dalorion. A blood-stained tourniquet was tied tightly about one thigh, and his brow and left eye were bound with a dirty bandage. “Less than nothing. We waste more energy and suffer more losses in our efforts to maintain formation than we would should we throw the whole of our strength into simply fighting the enemy.”
“Oh, this rain, this darkness – they work against us,” said a shattered voice, a reedy throat roared raw and anonymous in the mayhem of war. “Madness is the only method this night allows.” A gruesome, near toothless grimace. “Not that I’m complaining.”
“The Teller knows that Hell is a sweeter place, old one. Release the mirarra, certainly, for all is chaos and ruin here, and even now the Steel Feather bends toward breaking.”
“There is bending and there is breaking, Master Durhammon,” Sennadan interjected as he gestured his steed away. The sole son of fallen Berradan was soaked to the skin, to the sinew, to the very soul, but somehow the storm failed to truly touch him. “Only one of the pair is acceptable, and even then but hardly. The Steel Feather will fly and the Silver Star will shine long after the Light leaves our eyes.”
“I am solidly in favour of abandoning formation, thyrkin,” rumbled the Mad Earl of Invarnoth. His large blue eyes, dimmed now but still keen, flicked to Janne’s cold hard face, then quickly danced away as she caught his glance. “And of turning your horses loose, of course.” Ingvar had eschewed his furs in favour of an oilskin cloak, but still looked every bit the image of a towering winter bruin, huge and dangerous, and the more so for the darkness and the rain. “Lines, squares – such order does not come naturally to the Sons of Noth, and despite my fostering and subsequent education, my very skin prickles against it.”
“We are agreed then,” stated Durhammon. “We fight as Tulnarron fights, on foot, wild and free, and let Cothra guide our blades!”
“As you say, Durm! But our Houses must remain together!” insisted Mistress Janne. “United, we are stronger!” She then grinned cold and white at the Nothiring, like a predacious beast baring its teeth to its meal. “And keep that beautiful barbarian alive! I like the way he looks at me!”
All there laughed, then shouted their accord – all save Teillerian, who nodded gravely and punched his chest, but said nothing. A Fian of dark visions, the Master of the House of Mirmaddon perceived he would never see some of those brave and noble souls again, and he did not trust his voice to keep that knowledge from them. Their knowing would only hasten their dooms. He was the first to turn and vanish into the rain.
A brilliant flash of lightning exploded, briefly illuminating the terrible turmoil before the battered hills.
Thousands of grey worms wrestling in a pool of pink mud, waiting to drown.
Mumbling and muttering, the Thyric priest followed Ingvar Dragonsbane away from the place of parley. The old man’s chains dragged through the muck behind him, sizzling and crackling with excess energy, like a pair of overly excited lightning eels writhing in greasy black shallows. Must stay together, the tall ugly bitch with the bad attitude had asserted. United, we are stronger, she had so pretentiously proclaimed. Tilbeder hissed and fumed, and actual steam spumed from his ears.
Together, he sneered. United.
Fuck that.
This was the god’s night. The god’s night! Thyr Odwensen, god of thunder and war, patron deity of warriors and madmen, walked the field of battle this night, his lightning breaking the heavens, his thunder shaking the earth, his inexhaustible fury afire in the pounding, thudding, drumming blood of every berserker heart. He was there. The venerable Celebrant could feel the god in his shrunken brittle bones, in his marrow, like a great dark fire hiding in hollow reeds. Yes, the mighty Thyr was there, manifest, and the duty of all Nothirings – no, their very reason for being – was to fight for him.
For the Thunderer. For him. And only him.
And as the god’s loyal servant and most elevated representative on the earthly plane, the Unchained Celebrant would lead them all into glory.
But semantics be damned.
They will fight for me.
The Mad Earl of Invarnoth shouted orders into the wind and the rain, and the Sons of Noth roared as one and clanged steel weapons on studded oaken shields. No further attempts would be made to hold unnatural lines, to maintain illogical formations. No longer was law to be squeezed from the blood-logged sponge of chaos. No more futile efforts to impose an irrational modicum of control. No further, no longer, no more.
But only murder and mayhem and madmen shrieking in the night.
Tilbeder cackled gleefully and gathered his chains.
Yes! This night they will fight and they will die… for me!
Squatting within the rotting gore and comparative safety of dead Arn’badt’s excavated abdomen, Waif watched the magnificent debacle of battle through round glistening eyes. Her smile was cherubic, euphoric, and she applauded in absolute delight as the chafing reins of order were so willingly and so readily discarded, allowing chaos to reign in the rain. Desperate Fiannar fought on foot, wild with wrath, distinguishable in the darkness from their berserking allies only for their battledress and lethal proficiency.
Peel away the waxen skin of Man’s self-imposed civility, and the raw red flesh of primal passions is exposed – rage, hunger, burning lust. All men can be reduced to their true bestial state, slavering at the maw, clawing at their meals and into their mates with the same unbound abandon. Flay the holiest saint, and one will find a homicidal sadist. Cut a little deeper to reveal that all men desire to kill. Scrape the bones, and all men want to die.
The little girl giggled.
Perceiving the laughter as permission to speak, Sten Hjerte asked, “When do you want my Wulfings to engag
e, Splendid One?”
A look of mild irritation flashed across Waif’s angelic face.
“Patience, my beautiful barbarian. It is such a gorgeous night! Can you not just relax and enjoy yourself for a while?” The burned thing nestled snugly in the crook of one slim arm, the child slid her hands down, a sultry sound of purest bliss slipping from her lips. Her lids fluttered over her big blue eyes. “You really should try it sometime, pup. Indulge yourself in diversion… in… mmmm… release.”
The Wulfic Prince stared into the rain, fixating on an imagined point in the darkness, a deliberate stratagem to keep his eyes from straying to the mad baby. For he knew where the girl’s hands were – and what her tiny fingers were doing. The Wulfing horked into the night. He despised himself for following the demon-child, for heeding her every command, for being unable to resist her tyrannical rule – but he reviled himself even more for the heated stirring of his loins.
Powerless to do otherwise, Sten Hjerte reached down into his furs.
Bronnus Teagh was not a happy man. He had rested little and slept not at all for the past two days and one night, and a second night was aging quickly. The muscles in his grizzled face worked up and down beneath the cheek guards of his crested helm, clenching and releasing, as though he was chewing on his own earlier words. We would do much better to march tired over dry ground than rested over wet. The wisdom there was irrefutable, and its logic would have proven unassailable had the option not been torn from them.
Less than an hour into the march, the rain had come. Earlier than expected, worse than imagined. The new night sky had opened and vast empyreal oceans emptied. The winds seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, and the temperature plummeted to a bone-shuddering cold. The horses clamped their tails, bowed their backs, dropped their heads. The riders followed the lead of their mounts, helmed and hooded heads bowed, bodies hunched low, and surely would have tucked tails had they been endowed with them. The Northern Plains had swiftly become a viscous soup of muck and crushed grass, and the abject misery of the troop, though left unspoken by one and all, was nevertheless explicit.
A rain-blurred shape moved close to the Iron Captain’s side.
“Something amiss, dear brother?” Axennus called across the few feet of rain-riven night that separated them. “You almost look like you have a question for me regarding the Senator’s daughter!”
“We need to find shelter!” Bronnus yelled back. “At least for the horses! They are reluctant now. Soon they will resist us!”
“Nonsense!” disputed the Commander, incongruently grinning in the deluge. “My sweet Genevieve would never resist me!”
“Please, dear brother – never inform me of how you can be so certain of that!” But the Captain’s jibe was lost in the wind and the rain, and even the lean grey mare missed it for her wretchedness and flattened ears. Bronnus raised his voice: “What kind of name is Genevieve anyway?”
“This coming from a man who calls his horse Allen!”
“What?”
“Nothing!”
The allied captains and commanders converged on the brothers’ position.
“We move too slowly!” shouted Collinan. “There is death on this wind and bitter tears in the rain. Yet under this thunder the Horn of Defurien calls. The House of Cilcannan must ride with speed while we still can!”
“And this Eye of the Watch with them,” agreed Harlastian, rain weeping from the rim of his cowl, “for soon even the mirarra will be mired in this morass.”
“Say that ten times fast!” shouted Axennus, his teeth gleaming.
“What?”
“Nothing!”
“My Ithramians will ride for as long as we are able,” stated Prince Arbamas, “and then proceed on foot. First General Midnight Sun will lead them. I will ride with the Deathward, and slay as many of the enemy as I can, And those I cannot slay I will attempt to draw away, even should it mean my death – for I too hear Defurien’s Horn, and the sorrow in its wail breaks my heart.” He turned to the Erelians, his broad shoulders square, his head high, his argent eyes bright and clear. If the man felt the storm at all, it was only as one might regard a minor nuisance easily dismissed. And should his heart have been breaking, he suffered the pain as a cinder rock would endure flame – quietly, black and hard. “Commander Teagh, what will the Southmen do?”
“We will – ”
“A word, please, Commander, yes?” Undercaptain Teji Nashi interjected.
Axennus and Bronnus exchanged squinted glances in the rain, then followed the little Diceman a few lengths into the angry night. Their mounts turned and faced one another, necks bent, noses touching, seeking comfort. The brothers caught a subtle flutter of the Doctor’s fingers, and the intrusive noise of the storm faded, fell back and away, and the rain about them relented. Bronnus scowled. He was having some difficulty adjusting to there being a sorcerer and a cadre of adepts in the company – the Captain’s impressive ability to adapt to the changing realities of his world had been taking something of a beating of late. But he would have been the first to admit that the presence of the Diceman and his apprentices at Lindanshield had been more than a little… helpful.
“Left Tenant Runningwolf has returned,” revealed Teji Nashi through a warm grin. “And he has brought with him some friends.”
The Iron Captain gasped. “How is that even poss – ”
“How many friends, Doc?”
The Diceman’s grin widened, brightened. “Why, all of them, Commander.”
Axennus met Bronnus’ dark eyes with his shining hazel own. No words were spoken. None were necessary. Then both Southmen looked into the night, but if that which they sought was out there, the rain and the dark yet wholly concealed it.
“The Left Tenant has returned, but he is not here, yes? The path he took was somewhat unorthodox, you see, and he and our friends are lost in the storm on the Northern Plains. They have mislaid themselves in a place of no stars, no landmarks, where the winds wander like the thoughts of an addled mind. Now where was I? Oh, yes. Even the splendid creature who guides them is disoriented, for she drank overdeeply of waters meant to but wet the lips. A necessary but costly exercise in immoderation, yes?”
“We must go to them,” declared Bronnus. “There are worse things than rain roaming Lindannan this night. Can you lead us to them, Undercaptain?”
“Indeed, we must. Yes, there are. And I can, of course.” The little Diceman smiled as four indistinct forms seemed to take shape a short distance away. “And in this night of wet and wind and thirsty terrain, you will find that my queer but quite competent quartet will be of utmost service to us, yes?”
Earth. Air. Water. Fire.
“I imagine so, Doctor,” said Axennus, his handsome face aglow with enthusiasm. “I shall inform our allies of our intentions.”
Teji Nashi grinned, his soft brown eyes flashing, and for half a heartthud two little golden lights flared at his shoulder.
“No need, my dear Commander, for they have heard us, you see, and you will find that they have already gone, while our own comrades await your orders.” And the remaining riders of the Erelian company appeared in the night, vague and nebulous, the very phantoms after which their brigade had been named. “We will ride to the Rhelman now, yes?”
Axennus’ smile was as white as Bronnus’ scowl was black.
Yes! Oh yes, we will ride!
Tulnarron knelt thigh-deep in the mud, his forearms pressed tightly against his abdomen, holding his guts in with his hands.
Blood oozed between his fingers and streamed from his gaping mouth. Desperately, he gasped for breath past the gruesome gurgling in his throat. His greatsword lay a few paces away, dropped or discarded, slowly sinking into a pool of black muck. He had not even seen his assailant, had not recognized the crude iron weapon that had gored him. A spear of some sort? A pike? And had it entered through the belly or the back? He could not remember – and he knew not why that bothered him so.
A smoo
th fluid numbness spread throughout him as physical agony fled his form. He groaned, the sound of a vast vault door on rusted hinges swinging shut. A single bone-rattling shudder took him.
Then darkness came.
And the Master of the House of Eccuron crashed to his side, splashing mud and blood, his innards slinking past slack hands, spilling into the night.
Thunder crashed, lightning flashed, and Ingvar Dragonsbane bawled a primal war-cry as he slashed his way with battle-axe and bastard sword into a cluster of the enemy. He did not register what race they were – he was too far into the fury for that – only that they died as all his opponents died in war, screaming and weeping and futilely beseeching indifferent gods. To both sides and behind him berserking Northmen tore at the foe, mindlessly hewing and hacking, utterly reckless of their own welfare, all caution, all care tossed like so many rusted pails of piss into the pounding rain.
A blinding explosion of power near to the north, and the Unchained Celebrant punched through a towering wall of stone giants, his chains snapping and crackling over his head. Graniantish limbs and fragments of petrous armour sailed up into the storm, then plummeted down upon the frenetic furor of war. Tilbeder cackled and shrieked, and his chains flogged the night as he charged into the gap created by his rogue lightning. Heedless and unhesitant, hundreds of howling Nothirings poured after him.
Thyr the Thunderer loved madmen. And madmen loved anarchy.
Somewhere in the midst of the mounting mayhem, a very happy little girl giggled.
A wretched figure leapt over the wall of corpses that surrounded the fallen Master of the House of Eccuron. Squatting like a strange grey crab in the torrential rain and the bedlam of battle, the dreadfully gaunt Watcher bent over the body curled in the muck. Strands of stringy hair dangled down to gently graze Tulnarron’s ashen cheeks; hands badly scarred by new burns and fingers crooked with old breaks fluttered over the torn torso. Whispered words floated into the darkness. Slowly, like worms wiggling back into their holes, the victim’s viscera began to withdraw into the ripped belly. But too slowly, far too slowly. And soon, despite the increased urgency of the haggard Watcher’s whispers, the entrails slithered to a stop, so many grisly snakes lying twisted and twined, dying in the rain.
