The Spine of the World

by Philip Athans

On Morik came, his sword working the thug’s blade over and under. He thrust ahead and retracted quickly when the swordsman blocked, then came forward after a subtle roll of his slender sword that disengaged the thug’s blade. Staggering, the man retreated, blood running from one shoulder. He started to turn and flee, but Morik kept pace, forcing him to work defensively.

  Morik heard another cry of alarm behind him, followed by the crack of breaking branches. He smiled with the knowledge that Wulfgar continued to clear out the archers.

  “Please, mister,” Morik’s prey grunted as more and more of the rogue’s attacks slipped through with stinging results and it became clear that Morik was the superior swordsman. “We was just needing your coin.”

  “Then you wouldn’t have harmed me and my friend after you took our coin?” Morik asked cynically.

  The man shook his head vigorously, and Morik used the distraction to slip through yet again, drawing a line of red on the man’s cheek. Morik’s prey fell to his knees with a yelp and tossed his sword to the ground, begging for mercy.

  “I am known as a merciful sort,” Morik said with mock sympathy, hearing Wulfgar approaching fast, “but my friend, I fear, is not.”

  Wulfgar stormed by and grabbed the kneeling man by the throat, hoisting him into the air and running him back into a tree. With one arm—the other tucked defensively with a broken arrow shaft protruding from his shoulder— Wulfgar held the highwayman by the throat off the ground, choking the life out of him.

  “I could stop him,” Morik explained, walking over and putting his hand on his huge friend’s bulging forearm. Only then did he notice Wulfgar’s serious wound. “You must lead us to your camp.”

  “No camp!” the man gasped. Wulfgar pressed and twisted.

  “I will! I will!” the thug squealed, his voice going away as Wulfgar tightened his grip, choking all sounds and all air. His face locked in an expression of the purest rage, the barbarian pressed on.

  “Let him go,” Morik said.

  No answer. The man in Wulfgar’s grasp wriggled and slapped but could neither break the hold nor draw breath.

  “Wulfgar!” Morik called, and he grabbed at the big man’s arm with both hands, tugging fiercely. “Snap out of it, man!”

  Wulfgar wasn’t hearing any of it, didn’t even seem to notice the rogue.

  “You will thank me for this,” Morik vowed, though he was not so sure as he balled up his fist and smashed Wulfgar on the side of the head.

  Wulfgar did let go of the thug, who slumped unconscious at the base of the tree, but only to backhand Morik, a blow that sent the rogue staggering backward, with Wulfgar coming in pursuit. Morik lifted his sword, ready to plunge it through the big man’s heart if necessary, but at the last moment Wulfgar stopped, blinking repeatedly, as if he had just come awake. Morik recognized that Wulfgar had returned from wherever he had gone to this time and place.

  “He’ll take us to the camp now,” the rogue said.

  Wulfgar nodded dumbly, his gaze still foggy. He looked dispassionately at the broken arrow shaft poking from his wounded shoulder. The barbarian blanched, looked to Morik in puzzlement, then collapsed face down in the dirt.

  Wulfgar awoke in the back of the wagon on the edge of a field lined by towering pines. He lifted his head with some effort and nearly panicked. A woman walking past was one of the thugs from the road. What happened? Had they lost? Before full panic set in, though, he heard Morik’s light-hearted voice, and he forced himself up higher, wincing with pain as he put some weight on his injured arm. Wulfgar looked at that shoulder curiously. The arrow shaft was gone, the wound cleaned and dressed.

  Morik sat a short distance away, chatting amiably and sharing a bottle with another of the gnoll highwaymen as if they were old friends. Wulfgar slid to the end of the wagon and rolled his legs over, climbing unsteadily to his feet. The world swam before his eyes, black spots crossing his field of vision. The feeling passed quickly, though, and Wulfgar gingerly but deliberately made his way over to Morik.

  “Ah, you’re awake. A drink, my friend?” the rogue asked, holding out the bottle.

  Frowning, Wulfgar shook his head.

  “Come now, ye gots to be drinkin’,” the dog-faced gnoll sitting next to Morik slurred. He spooned a glob of thick stew into his mouth, half of it falling to the ground or down the front of his tunic.

  Wulfgar glared at Morik’s wretched new comrade.

  “Rest easy, my friend,” Morik said, recognizing that dangerous look. “Mickers here is a friend, a loyal one now that Togo is dead.”

  “Send him away,” Wulfgar said, and the gnoll dropped his jaw in surprise.

  Morik came up fast, moving to Wulfgar’s side and taking him by the good arm. “They are allies,” he explained. “All of them. They were loyal to Togo, and now they are loyal to me. And to you.”

  “Send them away,” Wulfgar repeated fiercely.

  “We’re out on the road,” Morik argued. “We need eyes, scouts to survey potential territory and swords to help us hold it fast.”

  “No,” Wulfgar said flatly.

  “You don’t understand the dangers, my friend,” Morik said reasonably, hoping to pacify his large friend.

  “Send them away!” Wulfgar yelled suddenly. Seeing he’d make no progress with Morik, he stormed up to Mickers. “Be gone from here and from this forest!”

  Mickers looked past the big man. Morik gave a resigned shrug.

  Mickers stood up. “I’ll stay with him,” he said, pointing to the rogue.

  Wulfgar slapped the stew bowl from the gnoll’s hand and grabbed the front of his shirt, pulling him up to his tiptoes. “One last chance to leave of your own accord,” the big man growled as he shoved Mickers back several steps.

  “Mister Morik?” Mickers complained.

  “Oh, be gone,” Morik said unhappily.

  “And the rest of us, too?” asked another one of the humans of the bandit band, standing amidst a tumble of rocks on the edge of the field. He held a strung bow.

  “Them or me, Morik,” Wulfgar said, his tone leaving no room for debate. The barbarian and the rogue both glanced back to the archer to see that the man had put an arrow to his bowstring.

  Wulfgar’s eyes flared with simmering rage, and he started toward the archer. “One shot,” he called steadily. “You will get one shot at me. Will you hit the mark?”

  The archer lifted his bow.

  “I don’t think you will,” Wulfgar said, smiling. “No, you will miss because you know.”

  “Know what?” the archer dared ask.

  “Know that even if your arrow strikes me, it will not kill me,” Wulfgar replied, and he continued his deliberate stalk. “Not right away, not before I get my hands around your throat.”

  The man drew his bowstring back, but Wulfgar only smiled more confidently and continued forward. The archer glanced around nervously, looking for support, but there was none to be found. Realizing he had taken on too great a foe, the man eased his string, turned, and ran off.

  Wulfgar turned back. Mickers, too, had sprinted away.

  “Now we’ll have to watch out for them,” Morik observed glumly when Wulfgar returned to him. “You cost us allies.”

  “I’ll not ally myself with murdering thieves!” Wulfgar said simply.

  Morik jumped back from him. “What am I, if not a thief?”

  Wulfgar’s expression softened. “Well, perhaps just one,” he corrected with a chuckle.

  Morik laughed uneasily. “Here, my big and not so smart friend,” he said, reaching for another bottle. “A drink to the two of us. Highwaymen!”

  “Will we find the same fate as our predecessors?” Wulfgar wondered aloud.

  “Our predecessors were not so smart,” Morik explained. “I knew where to find them because they were too predictable. A good highwayman strikes and runs on to the next target area. A good highwayman seems like ten separate bands, always one step ahead of the city guards, ahead of those who ride into the cities wi
th information enough to find and defeat him.”

  “You sound as if you know the life well.”

  “I have done it from time to time,” Morik admitted. “Just because we’re on the wild road doesn’t mean we must live like savages,” the rogue repeated what was fast becoming his mantra. He held the bottle out toward Wulfgar.

  It took all the willpower he could muster for Wulfgar to refuse that drink. His shoulder ached, and he was still agitated about the thugs. Retreat into a swirl of semi consciousness was very inviting at that moment.

  But he did refuse by walking away from a stunned Morik. Moving to the other end of the field, he scrambled up a tree, settled into a comfortable niche, and sat back to survey the outlying lands.

  His gaze was drawn repeatedly to the mountains in the north, the Spine of the World, the barrier between him and that other world of Icewind Dale, that life he might have known and might still know. He thought of his friends again, mostly of Catti-brie. The barbarian fell asleep to dreams of her close in his arms, kissing him gently, a respite from the pains of the world.

  Suddenly Catti-brie backed away, and as Wulfgar watched, small ivory horns sprouted from her forehead and great bat wings extended behind her. A succubus, a demon of the Abyss, tricking him again in the hell of Errtu’s torments, assuming the guise of comfort to seduce him.

  Wulfgar’s eyes popped open wide, his breath coming in labored gasps. He tried to dismiss the horrible images, but they wouldn’t let him go. Not this time. So poignant and distinct were they that the barbarian wondered if all of this, his last months of life, had been but a ruse by Errtu to bring him hope again so that the demon might stomp it. He saw the succubus, the horrid creature that had seduced him …

  “No!” Wulfgar growled, for it was too ugly a memory, too horrible for him to confront it yet again.

  I stole your seed, the succubus said to his mind, and he could not deny it. They had done it to him several times in the years of his torment, had taken his seed and spawned alu-demons, Wulfgar’s children. It was the first time Wulfgar had been able to consciously recall the memory since his return to the surface, the first time the horror of seeing his demonic offspring had forced itself through the mental barriers he had erected.

  He saw them now, saw Errtu bring to him one such child, a crying infant, its mother succubus standing behind the demon. He saw Errtu present the infant high in the air, and then, right before Wulfgar’s eyes, right before its howling mother’s eyes, the great demon bit the child’s head off. A spray of blood showered Wulfgar, who was unable to draw breath, unable to comprehend that Errtu had found a way to get at him yet again, the worst way of all.

  Wulfgar half scrambled and half tumbled out of the tree, landing hard on his injured shoulder, reopening the wound. Ignoring the pain, he sprinted across the field and found Morik resting beside the wagon. Wulfgar went right to the crates and frantically tore one open.

  His children! The offspring of his stolen seed!

  The potent liquid burned all the way down, the heat of it spreading, spreading, dulling Wulfgar’s senses, blurring the horrid images.

  ou must give love time to blossom, my lord,” Temigast whispered to Lord Feringal. He’d ushered the young lord to the far side of the garden, away from Meralda, who was staring out over the sea wall. The steward had discovered the amorous young man pressuring Meralda to marry him the very next tenday. The flustered woman was making polite excuse after polite excuse, with stubborn Feringal defeating each one.

  “Time to blossom?” Feringal echoed incredulously. “I am going mad with desire. I can think of nothing but Meralda!”

  He said the last loudly, and both men glanced to see a frowning Meralda looking back at them.

  “As it should be,” Steward Temigast whispered. “Let us discover if the feeling holds strong over the course of time. The duration of such feelings is the true meaning of love, my lord.”

  “You doubt me still?” a horrified Lord Feringal replied.

  “No, my lord, not I,” Temigast explained, “but the villagers must see your union to a woman of Meralda’s station as true love and not infatuation. You must consider her reputation.”

  That last statement gave Lord Feringal pause. He glanced back at the woman, then at Temigast, obviously confused. “If she is married to me, then what harm could come to her reputation?”

  “If the marriage is quickly brought, then the peasants will assume she used her womanly tricks to bewitch you,” Temigast explained. “Better for her, by far, if you spend the tendays showing your honest and respectful love for her. Many will resent her in any case, my lord, out of jealousy. Now you must protect her, and the best way to do that is to take your time with the engagement.”

  “How much time?” the eager young lord asked.

  “The spring equinox,” Temigast offered, bringing another horrified look from Feringal. “It is only proper.”

  “I shall die,” wailed Feringal.

  Temigast frowned at the overwrought lord. “We can arrange a meeting with another woman if your needs become too great.”

  Lord Feringal shook his head vigorously. “I cannot think of passion with another woman.”

  Smiling warmly, Temigast patted the young man on the shoulder. “That is the correct answer for a man who is truly in love,” he said. “Perhaps we can arrange the wedding for the turn of the year.”

  Lord Feringal’s face brightened, then he frowned again. “Five months,” he grumbled.

  “But think of the pleasure when the time has passed.”

  “I think of nothing else,” said a glum Feringal.

  “What were you speaking of?” Meralda asked when Feringal joined her by the wall after Temigast excused himself from the garden.

  “The wedding, of course,” the lord replied. “Steward Temigast believes we must wait until the turn of the year. He believes love to be a growing, blossoming thing,” said Feringal, his voice tinged with doubt.

  “And so it is,” Meralda agreed with relief and gratitude to Temigast.

  Feringal grabbed her suddenly and pulled her close. “I cannot believe that my love for you could grow any stronger,” he explained. He kissed her, and Meralda returned it, and glad she was that he didn’t try to take it any further than that, as had been his usual tactics.

  Instead, Lord Feringal pushed her back to arms’ length. “Temigast has warned me to show my respect for you,” he admitted. “To show the villagers that our love is a real and lasting thing. And so I shall by waiting. Besides, that will give Priscilla the time she needs to prepare the event. She has promised a wedding such as Auckney—as the whole of the North—has never before seen.”

  Meralda’s smile was genuine indeed. She was glad for the delay, glad for the time she needed to put her feelings for Lord Feringal and Jaka in the proper order, to come to terms with her decision and her responsibility. Meralda was certain she could go through with this, and not as a suffering woman. She could marry Lord Feringal and act as lady of Auckney for the sake of her mother and her family. Perhaps it would not be such a terrible thing.

  The woman looked with a glimmer of affection at Feringal, who stood watching the dark waves. Impulsively she put an arm around the man’s waist and rested her head on his shoulder and was rewarded with a chaste but grateful smile from her husband-to-be. He said nothing, didn’t even try to take the touch further. Meralda had to admit it was … pleasant.

  “Oh, tell me everything!” Tori whispered, scrambling to Meralda’s bed when the older girl at last returned home that night. “Did he touch you?”

  “We talked and watched the waves,” Meralda replied noncommittally.

  “Do you love him yet?”

  Meralda stared at her sister. Did she love Lord Feringal? No, she could say for certain she did not, at least not in the heated manner in which she longed for Jaka, but perhaps that was all right. Perhaps she would come to love the generous lord of Auckney. Certainly Lord Feringal wasn’t an ugly man—far fr
om it. As their relationship grew, as they began to move beyond the tortured man’s desperate groping, Meralda was starting to see his many good qualities, qualities she could indeed grow to love.

  “Don’t you still love Jaka?” Tori asked.

  Meralda’s contented smile dissipated at once with the painful reminder. She didn’t answer, and for once Tori had the sense to let it drop as Meralda turned over, curled in upon herself, and tried hard not to cry.

  It was a night of torrid dreams that left her tangled in her blankets. Still, Meralda’s mood was better that next morning, and it improved even more when she entered the common room to hear her mother talking with Mam Gardener, one of their nosier neighbors—the little gnome had a beak that could shame a vulture—happily telling the visitor about her stroll in the castle garden.

  “Mam Gardener brought us some eggs,” Biaste Ganderlay explained, pointing to a skillet of scrambled eggs. “Help yourself, as I’m not wanting to get back up.”

  Meralda smiled at the generous gnome, then moved to the pan. Inexplicably, the young woman felt her stomach lurch at the sight and the smell and had to rush from the house to throw up beside the small bush outside the door.

  Mam Gardener was there beside her in an instant. “Are you all right, girl?” she asked.

  Meralda, more surprised than sick, stood back up. “The rich food at the castle,” she explained. “They’re feeding me too good, I fear.”

  Mam Gardener howled with laughter. “Oh, but you’ll be getting used to that!” she said. “All fat and plump you’ll get, living easy and eating well.”

  Meralda returned her smile and went back into the house.

  “You still got to eat,” Mam Gardener said, guiding her toward the eggs.

  Even the thought of the eggs made Meralda’s stomach turn again. “I’m thinking that I need to go and lay down,” she explained, pulling away to head back to her room.

  She heard the older ladies discussing her plight, with Mam telling Biaste about the rich food. Biaste, no stranger to illness, hoped that to be all it was.

  Privately, Meralda wasn’t so sure. Only then did she consider the timeline since her encounter with Jaka two tendays before. It was true she’d not had her monthly, but she hadn’t thought much about it, for she’d never been regular in that manner anyway….