by B. V. Larson
“Then the Jewels you crave will be lost with me.”
“Well said, but a small matter of sorcery will recover them.”
While speaking with Herla, Brand had been edging away down the path. Now, he willed the axe to flash and he turned to continue his march around the mound. He only had a few more circuits to make and he would have reached his goal. Perhaps he could somehow win this race.
Behind him, the odd laugh sounded again. “My eyes are old leather! My skin has long since been leeched from my skull! A bolt of lightning could not blind your King now, Axeman!”
Brand made no reply. Instead he saved his strength for wading ahead around the mound. He heard the slow clopping of the dead horse begin anew behind him. Dread ran cold fingers down his back. He wondered which would be worse, to die with a boarspear in his guts or to step off the path into the nothingness between worlds.
He made the seventh circuit, and began the eighth. But Herla was closer than ever now, and Brand knew he could never finish the ninth. His mind raced, trying to come up with a plan.
Halfway through the eighth, he stopped and turned. Herla was only a few paces behind him.
“You must decide what you value more, my death or the Jewel! I’ll not give you both!” Brand said. As he spoke he pulled Lavatis from around his neck and flung it by the chain into the air.
Before it could vanish into the netherworld of the Faerie twilight, however, Herla leaned forward with great speed and thrust his spear into the glittering chain. It snagged on the broad point and rang there with the sound of metal clattering upon metal. Herla pulled it back, making his odd sounds of laughter.
“No!” shouted Brand, aghast at the speed and accuracy of the creature. Why had it not slain him with a cast, if its skill were so great? He could only think that it had not dared to disarm itself. The spear would surely have vanished into twilight if the cast had missed. Not knowing what else to do, Brand swung Ambros at the spearhead. The axe flashed as it clove the head from the shaft of the spear. The broad killing point fell with Lavatis. It lay at the edge of the path, and Brand knelt to reach for it.
He was buffeted by the shaft and nearly knocked from the path. Herla swung it like a club and beat at him. Only one of Brand’s knees remained on the path, and he knew terror as he had never known it before. The numbing cold of the void ate into that part of his flesh that had strayed from the circle of beaten grass. Not even the depths of the Berrywine, running silently beneath a surface of ice, could have been so cold.
He struck with the axe again, but at the horse’s legs this time, as it had stepped closer. Ambros sheared off the right foreleg at the ankle, and the dead horse stumbled, but did not go down. It tossed its head and made an odd, rattling sound. Brand was sickened to think that it could still somehow feel pain.
Scrambling to regain the path and his feet, Brand dragged the chain behind him with Lavatis still dangling from it. Fighting to manage his crippled steed, Herla followed him. His progress had been greatly slowed, however, and now Brand was leaving the horseman behind. As he began the ninth circuit, he looked back to see that the horseman carried the shorn-off horse hoof in one black-gloved hand. He was still coming, although slowly.
Brand thought to hear the last human king say something as he left him behind on the path. “Axeman, you sadden me….”
Shivering, Brand pressed ahead into the unnatural land he sought. He yearned to see the sweet golden sun overhead again.
He finished the ninth circuit and stepped upon the mound in the silvery light of the full moon that always seemed to shine here. He walked slowly up the mound, tired from his struggles and bothered somewhat by his leg, which hadn’t fully regained feeling after touching the void. He could see a circle of figures that stood at the crest of the mound. They worked together to play a quiet doleful tune.
“Oberon!” called Brand to the tallest of them.
The figure rose up and lifted its lantern. Inside the iron cage, a lone Wisp shone her wan light. Brand’s heart fell as he saw he had been tricked. It wasn’t Oberon, but Old Hob who sat atop the mound. Around him capered a dozen or so goblins. They chortled obscenely among themselves as they came to encircle him.
“Ah, the river-boy returns!” said Hob. “I’ve been waiting for thee, there is a debt yet to be paid!”
“Hob, I’ve had a very long day,” said Brand, feeling his exhaustion and rising anger. “You’d best leave me, lest your spratlings be left without a sire.”
“Ho! The river-boy has teeth and dares to shake its axe at the great Hob!” rumbled Hob. Brand noticed that Hob’s advance did stop, despite his words. Around them the furtive pack of goblins shifted their feet.
“Six wisps, doest thou owe me, mortal child,” hissed Old Hob as he shuffled a step or two closer. His long knobby hand snaked out from his stinking robes and moved toward Brand. “For payment, I’ll relieve thee of Ambros the Golden.”
Brand ducked, for even as he watched Hob’s long, snake-like arm reaching forward, the other swept the lantern around in a low arc, aiming for his head. Brand stumbled and rolled once downhill. All around him the goblins rushed in, like jackals closing on a faltering beast. Brand caught himself and rose, however, Ambros still in hand.
The goblins leapt back, chittering in disappointment. Brand caused the axe to flash and cut at them. They fell back in alarm. Then he faced Old Hob, who now towered above him.
“I’ll have your head!” he cried, attacking Hob. Hob parried the slashing axe with his lantern and a great clang rang out across the silvery landscape. The last yellow wisp, released, flittered away into the darkness.
The goblins had scattered. Taking long strides, Hob retreated down the slope. He paused before vanishing into the void. “That’s seven! Seven Wisps doest thou owe me! I have a long memory when it comes to debts, Axeman!” hissed Hob.
Brand was left alone on the hilltop. His head turned toward the distant sound of slowly clopping hooves. As he watched, Herla came into being at the bottom of the hill on the opposite side from Hob. He saw with relief that the horse was having difficulty mounting the slope with a shorn-off hoof.
“Old Hob, heed me,” he shouted. “I would parlay with you.”
Old hob was only half-visible in the twilight, having nearly reached the bottom of the mound.
Herla paused in his efforts. He was busy with his horse and his hound. Could it be he painted the shorn hoof with blood from the hound’s bowl? That is how it looked to Brand, and he sickened at the sight of it.
“What is it, river-boy? Thou owes me a debt.”
“I acknowledge this debt, and I wish to arrange repayment,” said Brand. “I would offer you a Jewel to help me defeat Herla,” said Brand.
“That is an interesting proposal,” said Hob. He took several strides back up the mound and became more fully visible. “Thou hast my attention fully.”
“I would, of course, require a boon,” said Brand. Old Hob had spotted Herla now, and they both eyed the dead king warily.
“Ha! As I suspected, of course! Nothing but base trickery. A boon? The debtor requests a boon? Nonsense,” sputtered Hob.
“Well, if you have no interest in the Goblin Folk acquiring a Jewel of power, our discussion is at an end.” Brand made an easy gesture of dismissal.
Hob shuffled two more half strides up the mound toward Brand. He eyed Brand with slitted eyes. “What would be the nature of this boon? And what would be the nature of my repayment?”
“Osang. If I defeat Herla, and you have given me material aid to do so, I will grant you possession of the Huntsman’s horn.”
“The horn Osang?” asked Hob, almost as if he could not believe his ears.
“It would be fitting, don’t you think, for the lord of goblins to possess such a thing? It contains within it the Lavender Jewel of Shadow magic. Is it not the goblin way to have dominion over sight, sound and stealth?”
“What must I do?” asked Hob in a harsh whisper, taking yet another half-
stride.
“You must help me defeat Herla. You must stand with me and fight, or help in some other way.”
Hob laughed at this. He did, however, take another few strides up the mound. He was now better than half-way up the slope. “Despite the fact that we have clashed at arms twice, such behavior is not the normal goblin way. We do not stand and fight face-to-face with anyone. We prefer subtler methods.”
“I care not what your methods might be, only that they are effective.”
“Osang should belong to the goblin folk. Long have I said it,” whispered Old Hob, half to himself, “I agree to your terms, Axeman.”
Hob took another stride upslope.
“All right then, if you will not be a comrade at my side, then give me a trick to help me defeat Herla. And hurry, he has finished repairing his horse with blood from his wooden bowl. Surely, you must know some weakness I can exploit.”
The huge goblin shuffled another step closer. Brand felt the axe twitch at the nearness of Hob. It wanted nothing more than to cleave the monster’s head from its grotesque body, and for once Brand agreed with it. But he held it in check nonetheless, for Herla was moving again.
Herla became more distinct, his outline fully formed at the bottom of the mound. He was in the same world as those who stood conspiring on the hilltop. The Huntsman cast aside the wood shaft of his boarspear and drew his sword.
Brand snapped his head back to Hob, who had taken the moment of his distraction to creep another shuffling step closer. Brand looked high, fully expecting to see Hob’s lantern coming down to dash his brains out of his helmet.
But Hob didn’t attack him. Instead, he leaned down, stooping over Brand. His noisome breath washed over Brand as he spoke in a hushed voice.
“One thing I do know.”
“Speak!” Brand commanded.
“I know the true name of the hound that has ridden with Herla for all the long, long years.”
“Tell me.”
And so Hob whispered the true name of the hound in Brand’s ear, and Brand shuddered to hear it. For it was a vile and evil name, a unique name that none other on Earth nor in Twilight had ever shared with it.
“I understand now,” said Brand. “Herla is the one haunted.”
Hob nodded and retreated.
Herla lifted his sword in challenge. “Have you changed your mind, boy?” asked Herla. “As perhaps the only kinsman I recognize in this world, I offer you another chance before I must slay you.”
“I will not yield,” said Brand.
Herla nodded, having expected nothing less. “Know that after you die, I would shed a tear for thy passing, if only my eyes were capable of it.”
Brand held his axe aloft, and knowing that battle was near, it gave him strength. “I will not shed one for you, Herla. You and your hound have drunk the blood of too many. Come, meet the Axeman.”
And so with a ghastly cry of challenge, Herla charged up. The steep slope caused the charge to slow. Osang did not provide him speed or flight in this place, Brand was relieved to see.
Brand managed to sidestep the charge, but it was a close thing.
They came to blows. The fight was terribly uneven. Brand knew himself to be little more than an untrained farm boy. It was one thing to chop at rhinogs that were little more than hairy beasts. It was quite another to face a true lord of battle, who had fought for nearly a millennium from horseback, and who had slain thousands of men before Brand.
The only thing that kept Brand alive at all was the flashing axe and the guidance and strength of arm it gave him. And so he managed to meet the blade that licked out in silver flashes from Herla’s arm.
The stag antlers of Herla’s headpiece blackened out the stars from his vision. The Lavender Jewel Osang didn’t flash or blind him, but it did pulse with each stroke of Herla’s sword.
Brand backed away, panting, beating down the other’s faster, lighter blade. He tried to circle in front of the horse to get a low cut where Herla could not parry. But his opponent would have none of that and kept circling the horse to match him. Brand caught the other’s attacks, but just barely. Any lesser weapon would have failed him miserably. An axe was not meant for this sort of thing. Any axe is a weapon designed to bash down the enemy weapon, to knock it aside. One could not stand and parry and thrust with an axe. An axeman had to be on the attack, his only defense was to weave an attack such that any enemy coming close would be cloven in two.
But Herla knew of such tactics. He knew when to give ground and when to advance. And he controlled his horse with such precision that it was as if he had four legs himself. He knew how to get around an axeman’s guard, the moment to step in, when the axe had made its cut and was on a downward path. Before Brand could turn it and cut a new arc in the reverse direction, his sword would lash out, forcing Brand to stumble back or catch the sword with the haft of his weapon.
Judging he was close enough, Brand called to the dog. He did call it by its true name.
The dog reacted, lifting its evil head to eye Brand curiously. Herla and his horse cantered back a step, surprised.
The bloodhound met Brand’s eye, and Brand knew then that the thing was something more than a dog. It was something else entirely.
“You call my pet?” asked Herla, chuckling. “Do you perhaps think she will turn on her master? Maybe bite my hand?”
Herla stepped close to attack again, and such was the ferocity of the attack that Brand knew then he was lost. Before, the huntsman must have been holding back, testing him. But now he came on with a violence that no mortal could withstand. The blade flickered faster than the eye could follow. Brand wove his axe in a defensive pattern, but the tip of the sword slipped past and pierced his mail at the shoulder. His left arm hung limp and bleeding.
Brand called the dog’s name again.
The horse reacted as if stricken and threw its head. Herla struggled to turn it back to press his advantage. He lifted Osang to his lips and blew a single clear note. At the bottom of the mound, dark figures on horseback began to slowly appear out of the mist. Herla had summoned his coursers.
Brand raised the axe, willing it to flash its most brilliant. Ambros did as he bid, and a blazing light shone forth that would have burned away the flesh and eyes of any normal man. Even Herla was affected. He cursed and threw a black-gloved fist over his face. Then he recovered and moved forward, holding his sword out for a killing thrust.
“Sange!” cried Brand, speaking the dog’s true name a third time. Hearing it, the dog did alight, hopping from Herla’s saddle for the first time after nine centuries of riding.
Chapter Seventeen
Osang
The bloodhound landed on the ground between them. It looked from one to the other, and it lifted its lips from its sharp fangs and grinned at them. Brand saw something in its eyes. He saw the red glimmer of ruby light. Then it ran away down the slope.
“Blood magic,” said Brand, staring at it. He understood then, seeing the thing run from them, that it had long been Herla’s master, not the other way around.
Herla stared with him after the retreating bloodhound. He let his sword arm drop to his side. The coursers, who had been advancing up the slope, held their ground in a great circle around them.
“You have not defeated me, Axeman,” said Herla.
“No.”
“You have, however, freed me at long last.”
“So I had hoped,” Brand said.
“You are truly of the Clan Rabing, Axeman. I, as your King, wish to return you a favor for having freed me of the bloodhound.”
“Speak.”
“I grant you title to these lands, to these kingdoms of the Dead. I will tell you that if you drive out the evil that sleeps here, these lands can flourish again and times can be good for our people. There is a power here that has turned this place foul. A power like the bloodhound that was my master for all these long years, even as I dreamed that I was its master.”
Herla’s dead eyes
looked down at the ground, and he pondered the earth which had awaited him patiently for centuries. Finally, the earth would feel the touch of his feet. “Do you know from whence came this mound?” he asked Brand.
Brand shook his head.
“It is a burial spot for our people. Here are buried all the kings that built these castles. To this place all our kings eventually come to rest,” Herla said. He lifted Osang then and winded it for a final time. The coursers moved uneasily in their saddles. Their steeds stamped, but blew no pluming breath. Each of them raised a weapon in salute of their king.
“Know thee all that Brand is now the lord of this land. The last living lord. The hound has jumped from my horse and our curse is finally lifted. We can step down from our mounts and rest our weary bones. I command you all to do so.”
After he finished speaking, Herla and all the Wild Hunt stepped down from their horses. The horses stepped lightly, feeling no burden for the first time in their memories. The horses melted first, then their riders. Herla still stood, however, after the others had faded to dust and black smoke.
“You are free, but your bones will still dissolve?” asked Brand.
“This is as it must be,” Herla said, nodding. “We have lived on in death for far too long. I thank you, Axeman.”
He raised his sword in one hand and held it high. In the other hand he held high Osang, the horn of Shadow magic, and he sank down into the mound. After a moment, only the horn and the sword remained lying at Brand’s feet.
Brand put his axe away on his back again.
He shed a single tear, not for Herla, but for the passing of the last king of humanity. He had been a force of evil, but even the Faerie had feared him, and it was hard not to be prideful of that fact. Possibly, for many centuries, Herla had been the only human they had not dared to mock or scorn.
Then Brand heard a raspy throat being cleared. He didn’t need to turn to know that Old Hob crept closer up the slope out of the shadows.
