by Steve Feasey
‘The new king sent you?’ Bortib asked eventually. ‘Just the two of you? No soldiers?’
Lann shook his head. ‘We are here with the king’s blessing – but we were sent here by a god.’
‘A god? What is this? Who are you?’
‘The thing that killed your animals is not of this world,’ Lann said. ‘It has come from another place, a place where it and others like it have waited patiently for their chance to cross over.’
The sound of a baby waking up somewhere else in the house caused the farmer’s wife to hurry out of the room.
‘These creatures do not fear man,’ continued Lann. ‘But they fear this.’ He patted the black scabbard hanging at his side. The others couldn’t know it, but the action caused the sword to renew its strange lament inside his head. Ignoring the voice, he carried on. ‘Astrid and I are only two, but the asghoul that has your daughter would rather face a hundred mounted soldiers than this blade.’ He hadn’t realised he’d got to his feet, and was completely taken aback when Farmer Bortib dropped to his knees before him, grasping at the hem of his cloak and thanking him. Embarrassed, Lann helped the man to his feet and fixed him with a kind smile.
‘I think we had better go to sleep. We will need your help in the morning to find the place where you discovered the dead calf. My hope is that the Dreadblade can lead us to the asghoul from there. We will leave here at first light.’
They woke to find the world covered in a wet, grey blanket of fog, its cold creeping up around their feet and legs as the horses picked their way across the ground, whickering nervously.
‘It has been like this for days,’ Bortib said, sitting astride his pony.
Astrid shivered. There was something about the fog that made her deeply uneasy. It swirled and eddied, rocks and bushes looming out of it and disappearing again.
They rode in silence until eventually Bortib pulled his mount to a halt. Peering through the miasma, he pointed up ahead. ‘I found the calf near the foot of those hills.’
‘And your daughter was taken from the yard behind your farmhouse?’ Astrid asked.
‘Aye. Saffren was feeding the hens. My wife went to fetch her in for her tea, but she was nowhere to be found. We searched everywhere for her. That’s how I discovered the dead animal out here.’
‘You can go back now,’ Lann said to the man in a quiet voice. ‘This is the place. I can feel it.’
‘I’d rather stay. I can fight. I can—’
‘No. This is no place for you.’
Bortib opened his mouth to argue but Astrid stopped him. Reaching across, she placed her hand on his.
‘Please,’ she said gently when he turned to face her. ‘Go back to your wife and baby. We do not doubt your bravery, but Lann and I stand more chance of rescuing your daughter if we do not have the worry of keeping you safe. We will do everything we can to bring Saffren back to you, I promise.’
There was a pause, and then the farmer gave a sad nod of his head before turning his mount around and moving off dejectedly.
‘The sword speaks to you, doesn’t it?’ Astrid said once the man was gone. ‘That’s why you’ve been so quiet all the way here.’
‘It does. It tells me that the creature is close by.’ He paused, then added, ‘It knows we are coming for it.’
‘How? How can it know?’
‘The sword told it.’ He nudged his horse forward into the foothills. ‘It told the asghoul to be ready.’
‘So much for the element of surprise,’ Astrid muttered under her breath.
After a short ride they spotted a land-hollow up ahead, a small but dense wood of evergreen trees growing up from it. Fog flowed down into that depression in the land, pooling and thickening as it did. With the bottom of the trees hidden, the visible portion of the plants appeared like a wooded island in a bleak, grey lake.
‘There,’ Lann said, nodding ahead. ‘We should leave the horses here and proceed on foot.’
‘Do you have any idea what an asghoul looks like?’ Astrid said in a low voice as they walked down to the edge of the woods.
‘No, but I think we are soon to find out.’ He nodded at the bow in her hand. ‘You should stay back a little and use that. Just try not to shoot me in the back by mistake, eh?’
‘You’ve seen how good I am with this, Lannigon Gudbrandr. If I shoot you in the back, it will not be by mistake.’ The serious expression on her face gave way to a broad grin, and the pair shared a smile at this gallows humour. As he turned away she considered her feelings for him – how he stirred up conflicting emotions and feelings in her. Sometimes he was infuriatingly innocent, at others wise beyond his years. She shook her head, telling herself to concentrate on the matter at hand.
Trees, their trunks wet with moisture, loomed out at them as they reached the bottom of the slope and made their way into the wood itself. The sound was all wrong, distorted and muffled with strange echoes that tricked the mind as to the direction of noises. The temperature was different, too: it was a good deal lower than it had been in the foothills.
Astrid unslung her bow and drew an arrow from her quiver as Lann passed her, walking fearlessly ahead towards an unknown danger. He was hardly recognisable as the boy she’d bested at sword skills. Was it purely the black sword’s influence? Or was it something else? Something that had been there all along, but hidden somehow?
Just then, the forest suddenly went quiet; unnaturally so, as if everything in it were holding its breath and waiting to see what would happen next. She’d almost forgotten the black bangle she wore around her upper arm, but it seemed to tingle and tighten a fraction in that moment.
The asghoul appeared out of nowhere. One second it wasn’t there, the next it was, materialising out of the mist behind Lann. The thing was hideous. Horned antlers protruded from a misshapen head that looked as if it had been made from melted wax. Its eyes were deep set and blank, and like its head, the creature’s body and limbs seemed too long, as if grotesquely stretched. The thing’s elongated hands ended in black and wicked-looking claws, and she watched as the creature pulled back its arm, ready to thrust those deadly daggers through the flesh and muscle of the boy before it.
‘Lann!’ she managed to call out. But he was already moving, swivelling on his heel, the sword moving round in a deadly arc that should have scythed the creature’s body in two.
But the blade cut only mist. The asghoul had disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.
‘It came out of nowhere,’ Astrid whispered.
If Lann was shaken by the experience, he didn’t show it. When he spoke, his voice was calm and assured. ‘Thanks for the warning,’ he said. ‘But we were lucky it materialised behind me and not you.’
‘We should proceed together,’ she told him. ‘That way we can keep an eye on each other’s backs.’
He nodded his agreement, then paused, frowning, and she guessed the blade was speaking to him again.
‘The girl,’ he said, nodding off to his left. ‘She’s this way.’
They set off again, cautiously moving through trees that seemed even more sinister now, their branches recalling the asghoul’s antlers.
Astrid was aware something was watching them. The armlet tingled against the skin of her arm, alerting her to the monster’s presence. Sometimes she thought the thing was to her left, sometimes to her right or behind her, as if it were shifting around, waiting for its moment.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Lann come to a stop, his body tense. The bangle prickled a warning at the very moment the snap of a twig behind her told her she was the one in danger this time. Dropping her shoulder, she threw herself into a forward roll and was able to avoid the asghoul’s deadly claws as they raked the air where she’d just been. Pulling the string of her bow and unleashing the arrow before she was even back to her feet, she was rewarded when the projectile found a home in the creature’s shoulder, the hit accompanied by a terrifying screech that echoed through the trees. The second arrow was n
ocked and almost loosed when the creature winked out of existence again.
Lann was quickly at her side, the concern on his face clear to see as he took in the sight of blood leaking from her left boot. The monster had caught her foot as she rolled away. Astrid felt sickeningly dizzy for a moment as the pain of the wound swept through her.
‘It’ll be fine,’ she said, doing her best to give him a reassuring smile. ‘And I’m not the only one bleeding now. The monster has one of my arrows in it.’
‘At least we know it can be hit. And it’ll be warier now.’
They carried on, picking their way through the mist. Astrid’s heart was hammering in her ears. Despite her trust in the armlet to give her a moment’s forewarning, her wounded foot meant she might not react quickly enough when the monster next appeared. In all her time out with the huntsmen in the forests near her home, she’d never felt as if she were both the hunter and the hunted at the same time. And never had she stalked so deadly a prey.
As they came upon a small clearing they saw a girl bundled up against the roots of a huge tree, her eyes widening in a mixture of surprise and hope as she saw them. That she was Bortib’s daughter there was no doubt: the fiery red hair atop her head was the same colour as her father’s. A great wave of relief filled Astrid at the sight of the child, and she wanted nothing more than to free the farmer’s daughter and be gone from these woods as quickly as possible. When they drew closer they saw that she was bound by thick vines, lashing her firmly in place.
Lann hurried forward and began to slice through the girl’s bonds with the Dreadblade while Astrid kept watch. When the bangle around her arm tingled, Astrid had no time to call out. The asghoul was ahead of her, its hand raised, deadly claws extended to slash into Lann’s back. Astrid raised her bow and loosed the arrow in a single fluid movement, sending the missile, not into the exposed back of the asghoul, but straight through the rear of that clawed hand, the power of the shot twisting the creature about and pinning the hand to the trunk of the tree the girl was secured to. Lann reacted in the same moment the arrow was loosed from Astrid’s bow. He rose quickly to his feet, instinctively swinging the sword up and round, so that its deadly edge carved clean through the monster’s forearm, which now hung from the tree like some terrible effigy.
The scream the creature let out sent icy shivers running through each of them. The asghoul looked from Lann to Astrid, then backed away, snarling and hissing as it clutched what remained of its ruined limb. It snapped its teeth in their direction, but it was clear to both that the monster was fearful in a way that it had not been before.
‘It can’t dematerialise now.’
Lann and Astrid spun around at the sound of a familiar voice. The god Storren stared across at the asghoul with open disgust. ‘It needs to be whole to do that. Separating the arm has trapped it here.’
Astrid was the first to react, confidence filling her for the first time since they’d set foot in the woods.
She pulled her bowstring back and took aim, letting the arrow go and watching as it found a home in the asghoul’s chest, sinking the creature to its knees. It screeched angrily at them, slapping at the arrow shaft and snapping it before swiping out with its remaining arm in an effort to wound the onrushing boy. But the black blade easily deflected the monster’s feeble attack, and when the dark weapon swung through the air one last time it was to separate the creature’s head from its body.
Astrid was already at his side, and the pair stared down at the creature for a moment. Then, without a word, they turned and held each other, as if to reassure themselves that they were unbroken and alive.
‘You did well,’ the god said, nodding at them both. ‘An asghoul is a formidable opponent. Perhaps there is hope for this world yet.’ He gestured at the decapitated head. ‘Take some of the monster’s antler.’
‘We didn’t come here to collect hunting trophies,’ Astrid said.
‘No, you did not. But such an object is capable of closing a portal into the Void. You must be quick. A dead shadow creature like an asghoul cannot stay in this realm for long.’
Astrid watched as Lann, the Dreadblade already raised over his head, brought it down to hack off a sizeable section of the antler. He picked it up just as the body and the severed arm of the asghoul disappeared.
‘How—?’ Lann turned to talk to the god, but there was nothing but mist where he had stood moments before.
Kneeling next to the girl, Lann wrapped his cloak around her shoulders. ‘We’ll get you home to your parents soon. But first we need to tend to my friend’s wounds, all right?’ She nodded back at him, and he noticed how blue her lips were. ‘And while we’re at it, I think you could do with warming up.’
They built a fire large enough to take the chill out of the air, and Astrid held the shaking child while Lann foraged nearby for plant stuffs he knew could help to stop infections. Having returned with what he needed, he set about putting stitches into the flesh of her calf before bandaging the leaves he’d gathered directly on to the wound. The gash was deep, and his needlework wasn’t anywhere near as accomplished as his aunt’s. Despite this, Astrid never complained once; in fact, he caught her looking with interest at his work, her grey eyes wide and serious.
Despite their exhaustion, none of them wished to stay in that place a moment longer than necessary. Having extinguished the fire, Lann carried the youngster back through the woods; slowly, so that Astrid would not have to struggle too much on her wounded leg.
Both of them noticed how the mist had already begun to thin.
‘You are sure you will not stay?’ Bortib asked, repeating the offer he had made moments earlier. He and his wife were beside themselves with relief at the return of their daughter, who was now safely tucked up in bed inside the farmhouse. ‘Not even for one night?’ The four of them were outside, Lann and Astrid making last-minute checks of their horses and equipment.
‘We cannot,’ Astrid answered. ‘Another of our party is heading towards danger, and we need to reach her before she meets it.’
‘There will be more monsters, won’t there?’ Bortib asked, his wife by his side now.
It was Lann who answered. ‘I fear there will be, yes. That is, unless we succeed in what we must do next.’
‘Then we wish you all the luck the gods can send your way. Here.’ The man held out a tiny leather pouch.
Thinking it was money they were trying to offer, Lann shook his head, but the farmer reached out and pressed it into his hand. It was fantastically light.
‘Seeds,’ Bortib said, nodding his head. ‘There is something about you, Jarl Gudbrandr … something that tells me you’ve grown from the land before. Take these, and I hope they will remind you of us when you finally get a chance to sow them.’
A memory came to Lann then: of tending Fleya’s garden, the sun on his back and the smell of soil and the feel of the rich earth beneath his fingers. He swallowed at the lump that rose in his throat. Putting the little bag safely inside a pocket, he nodded his thanks and climbed up into the saddle of his horse.
The pair didn’t look back as they rode away, but they knew they were being watched and prayed for. They knew, too, that these small acts of goodwill would have to sustain them through the horrors that lay ahead.
Vissergott
33
Fleya was almost there now. The horse, like her, was weary as it plodded up the hill that rose steadily ahead of them, its head hanging low to the ground. Urging the beast on, she reached the top of the ridge and looked down on the broad headland that was known simply as Vissergott. What she saw filled her with dread.
‘By all the gods, Kelewulf, what have you done?’ she murmured under her breath.
Below her, massive, glassy black blocks of shadowglas had been placed on top of each other to form a distorted and misshapen arch. The thing was huge, a vast and terrible portal. She eyed the shadowglas blocks and suppressed a cold shiver of fear. It was the same material that the gods had used to fa
shion the Nemesis Arch when they’d banished Lorgukk and his evil minions from this world, and now it was being used again to try and return them. She had never seen so much of the stuff, and a part of her marvelled at the sheer force of will and majik that must have been needed to create it. Cursing under her breath, she turned her attention to the creature working below her. Kelewulf and the lich had summoned an Earth Elemental to help them carry out the task, and the huge, hulking golem was down there now, moving what appeared to be the last of the vast black blocks across the landscape to complete the final part of the edifice.
The structure was not even complete, and yet it was already beginning to wreak horror and chaos on their world. More and more fissures in the fabric that separated the two realms were opening up, letting creatures like the asghoul through. If Kelewulf successfully managed to activate a huge opening like the one she saw below, who knew what chaos and destruction would follow?
A cold wind blew in off the sea up ahead of her, tousling a strand of hair across her face.
She stared at the portal again, deep in thought. Fleya doubted such a thing could be held open for any length of time. The effort to do so would be immense, beyond anything even the undead lich was capable of. They could not bring Lorgukk back – not without the heart. So why bother to create it?
It was an act of evil, perpetrated by a maniac hell-bent on causing death and destruction. She wondered to what depths young Kelewulf had sunk even to consider such a thing, and how much dominion the lich held over the human body it inhabited. Her heart sank, both in sorrow and fear for the boy’s soul.
She had to stop them. But how? There was no way she could simply confront the giant Elemental down there. It had been summoned not just for its colossal strength, but to act as a guardian for this place. A place that was …
She stood perfectly still, then, looking out over the landscape and the sea beyond. Vissergott was a headland. The tower had been built here because it was easy to defend against any attack made on it from the land.
