Red Axe, Black Sun

by Michael Karner

  Ravage’s bow sang. It was a deep buzz coming from a monstrosity, sending a broadhead through the rows that split the crowd in two. This was one of the strongest bows ever built, though it was made for close quarters, with bladed limbs. It wasn’t a weapon of finesse and accuracy, but raw brutish strength only an orc like Ravage could muster. He had arrowheads for various situations, some with hooks, others mace-like. They all had the same effect on his opponents. Their impacts inspired fear, but you could not run from an arrow. He forced them to come close to him.

  “Lock them in melee!”

  Coralaev carved open an enemy from thigh to shoulder and separated a leg from another. He deflected a blow with the iron rings on the back of his bush-hook and locked weapons. His head got caught between two spears, pinning him first at the neck, then decapitating him as if with huge scissors. The head spun wildly, trailing a spurt of blood through the air.

  The spearmen detached Coralaev’s ladder from the battlements and threw it back into the sea of attackers.

  “Back where you came from, worm!”

  Ravage let out a terrifying scream and hit his rival’s breastplate with a hook-arrow that bust his armor and tore his heart out.

  He and Ysara were the last taking their stand on the wall.

  “Throw them down the abyss!”

  The two of them would be overrun and cast back over the wall if their comrades didn’t move up the ladders that very moment.

  “Push!”

  The defenders stopped to fight. They simply pushed, shoving them with their shields and mass to the abyss.

  “I can’t hold any longer!”

  Ysara lost grip and put her back to the battlement, feeling her ribs and lungs getting crushed. At last, reinforcements arrived on the top of the ladders. But there was no ground left for them.

  “For glory!”

  They simply threw themselves into the fray, jumping on shields, blades and spears till there was space—a space littered with bodies and slick blood.

  INSIDE THE SIEGE TOWER, the dull knock of projectiles against the outside was ever present. With its doors shut, its occupants were safe from harm but in complete darkness. It allowed one to go into one’s self before the fighting began. Godsmite followed breathing techniques that made him relax. Other berserkers beside him spat on the floor, hit their heads or bit into shields. To each their own.

  The behemoth they all were in was moving relentlessly, pushed by dozens of lesser men in stories below.

  “Forward! Forward! Push!”

  He felt the movements, like being transported in a closed box. Tower-mounted catapult rounds clashed against the siege engine to stop it. The aftermath of the impacts was flames licking against the surface, where animal skins prevented the fire from spreading. Some puked in the confined spaces of the siege tower, which contributed to the stale smell. Godsmite saw someone wet himself a row in front of him. Everyone had the image of cattle led to the slaughter in their mind, but it was the strength to change it that set the strong apart from the weak. Once the gangplank touched down, it would be a causeway to glory, and the fights would take place in breathtaking heights worthy to be remembered.

  In the dark corner of the last row, Barknar stood silent beside his hooded companion.

  “I even brought you here,” he whispered matter-of-factly. “Let’s hope I’ll never see you again.”

  Sendel Varon smiled and gave no answer.

  THE CAUSEWAY TO GLORY OPENED. It let in blinding light and arrows.

  “Loose!”

  Some in the row in front of Godsmite caught bodkin-heads, but to their credit no one went down. They were pumped up like he was. To be hit was simply expected. They hadn’t come this far to give in. They had come to take names and cut threads. Godsmite had a name. There was just no one left alive to know it, except himself. To everyone else he had become the nameless one.

  With a booming roar matching one of the primal creatures from the abyssal depths of the ice sea, he threw himself into the enemy. His frame looked too big to maneuver over the narrow gangplank, his two-handed club disproportionate.

  “Hold your ground!”

  Godsmite body-checked the first man who opposed him down the plank and was over the shattered battlements in the course of a heartbeat. He saw the lambs that were gathered to oppose him for the first time, and he acknowledged them a last time before his battle-frenzied brain shut down all rational thinking.

  Noble champions of the self-proclaimed protector of mankind, freed criminals with the promise of ultimate freedom, and the lowest scum out of the ghetto of non-humans Godfrey had ammassed against him.

  Not one of them was even remotely worthy of taking his life.

  He was the greatest result of genetic selection the north had ever produced. He was the missing king among the barbarians, yet no one knew him. This would change. This fight was not for Tancred, nor was it for Jarnsaxa, who had fallen for his strength or mystery. It was the birth of a kingdom.

  “All on him!”

  Geilir, Ruschil, Halof, Gunnlaug, Yasemin were at his side and collected the remains of Godsmite’s foes. A young man named Connor Wyle followed behind. He’d need to stay close if he cherished his life. And he’d better remember the story, if he didn’t contribute much else to the fight. For Godsmite didn’t remember once the inner wolf claimed him.

  “KILL HIM! Kill him, before he – ”

  Sendel Varon looked past the carnage the nameless left behind. Down the wall, at the burning pyre by the gate, the two mages wove their hideous magic. Those were the targets he was here to eliminate.

  They didn’t know what they were doing in their hubris, manipulating the fabric of reality, sending them all on a path of damnation. But he had seen enough of the crippling fallout with his own eyes to know there was nothing to leave undone to stop them.

  “Mighty star power burning in our veins, consume the world and all living…”

  “Now you’re gonna die!”

  An elf-thug confronted him with axe and shield; he was sporting tribal tattoos and skin-rings. He wore the clothes of a ganger, padded against street violence and gang wars. Sendel pitied his kin for two things. How far he had fallen and that they were on different sides. He would need the support of the non-humans to succeed on his mission. But as long as he was hooded and in disguise, there was no other way past than to slay him as a means to an end.

  “How does it feel to be dead?” the elf-thug said.

  Sendel suppressed his urge to fall back into his indoctrinated lithe motions to kill the thug. He stopped himself and slashed uncontrolled and unnecessarily brutally with his long knife, instead of executing a clean cut that would have sufficed.

  “You tell me,” Sendel said.

  THE ELF-GANGER SLUMPED DOWN with a face scratched like from a tiger claw. Sendel was being watched by the lictor that had seen him escape after his first assault. Lictor Freya was with him on the wall, only strides away, and had her back turned to him again.

  JARNSAXA FELT THE BREATH OF DEATH on her neck in the form of passing arrows and bolts. The tremble of war was in the knees of her mount and her own legs and arms. She tucked her head low under the mane of her horse and deflected a missile with the blade of her sickle-sword. It ricocheted away and blew up grit like the hooves of the cavalry.

  “Keep going! Good boy!”

  She switched to her composite bow and strafed the wall with short arrows out of her thigh-quiver, twitching her upper body and letting go of the reins. The speed was neck-breaking. Rubble and bodies were in the way, but her horse coped with that. Jarnsaxa had to keep herself in the saddle only with the power of her legs. It was the second run now, and the gate still wasn’t broken open. The mages were losing their power, and time was running out. The doors were on fire and giving in, but Jarnsaxa wasn’t sure if it was enough to break through. She wouldn’t know unless she tried. The warlord stowed away her composite bow and drew her sickle-bladed weapon.

  “Bring the r
iders down! Fell their beasts!”

  Jarnsaxa jerked the reins, hooked in her spurs, and covered the eyes of her mount. It would trust her blindly. If she was confident enough to go where her horse was taking her, then her horse would share the same confidence.

  “Have no fear! I’m with you! Have no fear!”

  They clashed into the gate, splintering wood and belching flames into the inside of the gatehouse. Her horse tripped and threw her out of the saddle. She fell with a hard bump, sliding from the speed before she crashed against a shield and took it down.

  “Incoming! Kill them! Kill them all!”

  There were mortal enemies waiting behind the gate, but her impact had brought them to fall. Jarnsaxa shook off the stars she was seeing and slowly got to her feet. She barely moved out of the way in time before her cavalry would have trampled her.

  “Charge!”

  Pactur entered, followed by two mounted warriors. Each of them drove the tip of the spear a little further, brushing bodies and obstacles aside until they were stopped by the torrent.

  “Into the breach!”

  The rank and file pressed on to bail their warlord out. Thora Merigoi had the banner with her, perforated, bloody and torn. She reached out to Jarnsaxa, but the warlord shook her head.

  “You keep it,” she panted. “We have to take this gate at all costs!”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  COW HEAD BAY

  DRYSTON WAS LEAVING THE BATTLE. A small group had formed at the docks, boarding boats that they got hold of from the nearby fishing villages, dikes and ferry ports. An orc shipmaster called Copper assigned them to their boats, managing weight and space limitations.

  You had to have someone who knew the waters. Underestimating the tides and changes of wind could threaten the entire operation. That meant relying on locals. Technically, everyone who wasn’t forced to take up arms against the king by Jarl Godfrey was still a servant or could be bribed to become one. Shipmaster Copper was one of them.

  “Easy lads, in rows of two! Get moving!”

  King Tancred approached him, watching his men board, and handed him a bag of coins.

  “You have served your king well, Copper,” Tancred said. He pointed to the other shore of the lake. “Now your job is to get us in there.”

  “Wind’s fair,” Copper answered. “We should get going.”

  Dryston got on board without hesitation. He took Jade by the hand and helped her to climb up after him. She pressed herself close to him. For the first time in a long while, Dryston could feel her tremble.

  “I wish we could have made life better with the time we had,” she breathed into his ear. A flash of the moments when they were together in the infirmary tent blinked up before his inner sight. Just a night before, and it almost felt like another life. A time where everything had been fine and on the way to go well.

  Dryston turned. He hadn’t known her that way. The die-hard, not afraid of anything attitude had gone. It was bad timing to show such feelings at a moment like this, but she was only human. It let Dryston’s mind slip into a state he wasn’t familiar with, and which was definitely harmful in advent of the violence awaiting them. It made him crave Jade’s presence and Kyra’s the same, and made him think how wrong the maiming and taking of lives was in contrast to what life offered in the presence of the right people.

  The boat rocked as it plowed away from the dock through the waves of the dark, obscure lake. Jade held onto him.

  “You’ll be fine,” Dryston said.

  “I know,” Jade replied too quickly.

  Dryston saw Cormack on the neighboring boat, standing at the prow, mirroring the image of himself. Tancred held onto the canvas close behind and studied them with grim pride on his face.

  Every good leader knew that those who positioned themselves first and foremost, were always those to look out for.

  “SET SAILS!” the king commanded.

  Dryston felt that he was being watched. He locked eyes with the king and earned a respectful nod. Gestures like these made you almost forget that he was the reason for all this madness. The closer you were to him, the more dangerous it was. It was a strange feeling, to protect someone’s life you wanted dead. But the death of a king was not the solution. No king and no ruler meant freedom, but it also meant famine, disease, poverty. The death of a king was the victory of chaos. The question was, when was the right time to withdraw?

  THE LAKE WAS DEEP AND OLD ENOUGH to hold sunken ships and secrets that were lost forever. It was a dark, troubled water, agitated in waves from the strong wind that blew off the mountains behind Skybridge and made it look like the sea. Snowflakes whipped against Jade’s face, as she stared into the depths beneath her. She shivered. If the boat underneath her would give way, there was nothing that could hold her. The barbarians were used to the sea. They didn’t fear the lake as much as she did, even though they knew what awaited them if they fell into it with full gear. There was a difference between dying on the battlefield and drowning. It was a whole other hell, not only in the feeling in life, but after that.

  Kristen Rain’s boat was hit by a catapult-round and swallowed by its enveloping fireball. Broken open in a way that made it possible to look through the entry from bow to stern, it filled with water and sank swiftly like a stone. Everyone that was on board got pulled to the lightless ground of the lake by its slipstream in mere seconds. They were disturbingly silent deaths, swallowed by the deep. On the other decks, it got noisy. More meteor-like projectiles hit the water-surface and gushed up geysers of foam. Fire missiles rained in and nailed against mast and bulkhead, transforming the boats into swimming hedgehogs.

  ONE OF GODFREY’S BOAT PATROLS met them head on. It consisted of three smaller vessels and two bulkier ships.

  There were heavy iron chains stretched from hulk to hulk that would catch any boat passing in between. They tore open the starboard of Hakon’s ship, splintering the oars successively like toothpicks. Then they crashed, one ship at each side. The impact, like a hammer blow, sent warriors from each of the smaller boats flying onto Hakon’s ship. The shockwave tore through the deck and split off planks from the floor. Waves gushed in along with armor-clad enemy warriors.

  Skadi found marines were a breed of their own, reckless and not afraid to die by blade or the sea. Maybe it was because their life was one of the most miserable she could imagine. Wetness, cold, disease and hunger. They had not much else to lose. The boarding party threw long-handled throwing axes in an arc behind Skadi. She wondered why they had lobbed them over their enemies, until she witnessed the devastation they were causing when set loose, bouncing off, ripping planks and ropes open.

  The three ships were locked in melee like gargantuan sea-monsters, thrashing around with uncontrolled oars. The boats of Tancred’s force could not afford to let one of theirs be separated. They had to stay together and make their numbers count. The other three ships from Godfrey were keeping them busy and holding them off.

  The stretched chains were dictating where their vessels would go.

  Belrand jumped over the railing of his longboat and utterly mauled the mounting where the heavy chain was housed. He threw his dagger and impaled a mariner with it, before jumping back onto his own ship, evading retaliation. Copper assisted his withdrawal with his orcish cutlass, getting caught between the two vessels drifting away with each foot on another ship’s bulwark. He fell into the gap and held onto an oar, being helped out by Belrand before he would be crushed between the boats.

  Where most participants only saw utter chaos, Tancred had a strategic map in view. He knew the positions of each ship, as well as their functions to bring his attack force to a halt before they could land. He just had to lead his men to the picture he was seeing. Or guide them through the mist, when they were blindfolded. He commanded the champions, and others would follow.

  “You two, over here! Skarin, relieve Hakon’s crew. Belrand, get back on the left. Dryston, Jade, wait till the waves bring them back togethe
r, then flank them over the ship on the right. Look alive, brothers!”

  “For the king!”

  Dryston obeyed without hesitating, Jade close on his steps. They jumped over the bulwark onto the incoming ship. Gravity seemed to be in another direction on the new platform. Something pulled them to the side as the vessel rocked. Oars clanked against each other, powerful enough to batter heads. Dryston of Decia and Jade Cyrus held onto the mast and waited till the level stabilized, then continued to press forward.

  The enemy marines didn’t abide by this rule. They used their hands to claw onto the invaders, or their bodies to throw themselves against them. Some failed or missed the right moment, interrupted by a sudden shift, and tumbled down, or out over the railing. But they also inflicted more damage than the ones who played it safe.

  Cormack and Skadi were in the thick of it. They were bruised and torn and badly outnumbered. Dryston wasn’t sure if they would reach them in time. He couldn’t be sure of anything, and it didn’t make any difference to think about what would happen. There was no way to change that. What was supposed to happen would happen. No doubts or fears about the future would alter that.

  A long-handled hammer smashed the ground beneath Skadi and Cormack’s boots. They both went down like through a trapdoor to the under-level. Dryston could see their hands flailing in the air when they touched down into the water. Cormack’s fingernails clawed onto the deck, and he caught Skadi’s arm with his other hand. He was losing his grip, and the second hammer blow was about to follow. He let go of Skadi.

  With shocked eyes, Dryston witnessed Skadi tumble into the waves, her dragon-tattooed back disappearing under a spray of water. He realized he was screaming out her name when he dived headlong into the chasm on the deck. Dryston’s hip bumped against the wooden boards, sending him skidding into the water. The only bargaining chip he had to get the antidote to the poison slipped from his grasp. Skadi whirled her arms in the stream, freezing and choking on water. The next moment, she was gone.