Talohna Origins- The Northmen

by J D Franx

  “You feel that, my lord?” the wizard asked. A concerned frown marred his normally calm features. “The ground shakes.”

  Engier cleaved his axe to the right and struck out with his shield clearing the immediate area of undead. “I do,” he said, just as several dozen horsemen burst through the open gate. The massive blade and spike-armored warhorses from the Riddari clan trampled countless numbers of undead into the dirt. They were a little late, but the horsemen from the northern plains had attacked, which meant that Boulder’s Sea Lords had also arrived in time. Engier knew the savage pirates would be attacking on foot with Boulder and his fabled white horse leading the way. The sea-faring clan would demand a lot of favor in return even though he and Boulder had been friends for decades, but he’d return it happily. The pirates fought with an insane ferocity that far outmatched the average Northmen. Out of nowhere, the ground began to shake in earnest and this time it wasn’t caused by the Riddari horsemen entering the fray. The earth heaved under his feet, tossing both him and his wizard to the ground.

  “What’s happening, Drengr?” he barked.

  The wizard shook his head and was thrown to the ground a second time when he tried to stand. “Land shifts, quakes. It has to be, my lord.” Drengr groaned and rolled over on to his hands and knees.

  “The high catwalk,” Engier shouted. Struggling back to his feet like a drunken youth, he lurched and stumbled his way to the rampart ladders. “We need to see what this is. Come on.”

  “That is a bad idea, lord, the walls could come down...” Drengr began, but was quickly interrupted.

  “We need to see what’s going on,” Engier called back over his shoulder, “No matter the risk. Look, even the dead have stopped fighting.” The walking dead had stopped attacking and stood still, staring straight ahead as if unsure of what to do or where to go. It lasted several seconds and then another wave of quakes hit. It reacted wildly with the undead. They went into a frenzy, attacking and gnashing at anything that moved, including each other.

  Drengr took one look and immediately nodded before quickly following after Engier, if for no other reason than to watch his Jarl’s back.

  Engier pulled himself onto the upper catwalk before turning back to help Drengr. The entire fortress shook. He knew the walls wouldn’t hold for long against the intense pressure caused by the twisting earth.

  “Look,” his wizard said pointing across the valley. “The Sea Lords made it as well.”

  Engier knew the Riddari horsemen would never have attacked before the Sea Lords’ arrival whether or not the missives he sent made it through the front lines. He could see the Riddari assault striking at the walking dead from the east all the way up to the fortress while the northern mountain clans hit hard from the west. The Sea Lords, who obviously had not met Brenna’s outrider, fought their way up the middle from the south led by Boulder Sea-Fare and his notorious pale white horse. Even with the massive numbers of undead falling, the walking dead still had to number close to four or five hundred and now that they had frenzied, the concept of friend and foe had vanished as if the necromancers had lost all control of their creations. For the time being, the clans had a slight advantage in numbers compared to the undead. Even though for every Northman warrior who fell dead, an undead warrior quickly rose in his place. Even so, Engier could see that his alliance was well on their way to winning the battle and therefore the war.

  “The mountain clans attack as well,” he yelled over the clash of battle and the sickening growl of twisting earth. “Come, Drengr, shaking ground or not, we have a battle to wi—” He was cut short as the wall shook, groaning from another quake rippling through the valley and under the castle. The battlement heaved and surged forward. It smashed into his face while his feet shot out from under him. The impact nearly tossed him over the edge into the horde of undead, but instead, he grabbed the arrow curtain and pulled himself back up even as the entire wall of the fortress swayed from the stress of the tremors. Looking down over the edge, his blood went cold when dozens of undead shrieked in what could only be agony. They turned and launched themselves at the high walls, desperately climbing over one another in an attempt to reach them. As the worst of the land shifts caught his attention far across the valley, the dead below him continued to frenzy, scrambling and scratching their way up the wall. The ground heaved and the hills on the western side of the valley vanished into the earth, swallowed by a widening fissure.

  As the quakes rolled toward him and the crumbling fortress, Engier shouted with everything he had. “Take cover! Everyone get down!” he yelled, and then stared in horror as the valley rippled like waves in a pond after dropping a large stone in its water.

  “Gods protect us,” Drengr whispered at his side.

  Engier could only nod while he stared helplessly across the valley. The fissure expanded greatly and raced away through the eastern mountains where the Riddari had launched their attack, before it widened further and continued out to sea. The fissure pulled the ocean out from the land with it. Engier frowned at the absurdity of being on the verge of winning an impossible war only to realize the resulting tsunami might eventually come back to land and quite possibly wipe the entire valley and the fortress clean of all life, and death.

  “It has been good to know you, Jarl Engier,” Drengr said as he stared out at their possible doom.

  “It has, my friend...” Engier said, but was cut off by another heave of the earth. Dozens of undead flowed up over the wall’s edge and even more clawed their way through the arrow curtains. Engier chopped and hacked at the enemy as they overran the ramparts while Drengr touched off several runes, one of which tossed dozens of undead warriors back over the edge with a massive blast of compressed air, but it was all for nothing. The fortress’ outer wall buckled under them, and Engier plummeted into the rubble with an undead warrior reaching for his throat with bone claws and rotted, gnashing teeth. He swung his axe, embedding it in the dead

  man’s head before the rubble swallowed them whole.

  STEINN FORTRESS

  2 DAYS LATER

  “Quiet,” Brenna hissed and tossed a large stone to her left. The sounds of thrown rock and men grunting ceased so she titled her head, listening close to the ruins under her feet. The last of the fading quakes had stopped an hour ago and with no sign of Engier, Brenna was forced to take command of the clans. She gave the order to search for those who were up on the fortress walls when they collapsed. A low thud vibrated under her feet several times. “Dig faster,” she demanded. “They’re still alive.”

  “Jarl Brenna?”

  “Yes, Eyja?” she answered and quickly worked her way down the pile of stone towards her housekarl. Eyja Banasar, approached slowly, leaving her horse and a small group of Brenna’s best warriors well back from the collapse.

  “The rebel wizards fell back and we’ve found no trace of them so far. Kaatan’s group has yet to return.”

  “And the walking dead?” Brenna asked.

  “The last big quake seems to have severed the connection between the undead and the magic used to animate them. All of them have fallen, no longer alive. Our warriors began dismembering the corpses an hour ago and burning the remains. It will take a while to finish, but they won’t rise again when they’re done. Our priests have said prayers to help the lost souls reach the afterlife.”

  “Thank you, Housekarl. Get some rest, but make sure we have a watch on any of the approach points to the fortress. We don’t need any surprises.”

  “Already done, ma’am,” Eyja answered and then bowed.

  “Jarl Brenna!” one of the searchers shouted from the top of the rubble. “Here! A body!”

  “You and your men grab some rest, Eyja,” Brenna said as she turned and headed back up the fallen wall.

  Several of the fortress’ miners who had organized the search pulled a body out from under a broken wooden support beam. She frowned when she recognized Drengr’s lifeless corpse. “Dammit,” she mumbled and stared to
the heavens. “Damn you, Tyr. We have one cursed wizard and you let the bastard die before the war is over.”

  “Hurry, Jarl Brenna. Here,” one of the miner’s shouted.

  She rushed the last few feet but stopped dead as the miner turned over Drengr’s body. One of the walking dead corpses had somehow gotten tangled up with Engier’s clan wizard and it was abundantly clear that he fought hard to survive. The handle of a long dagger, embedded in the undead’s chest, was still clutched in Drengr’s closed fist. A sticky red substance oozed from a dozen different dagger wounds all over the corpse and it dripped in Drengr’s eyes, neck and into the garish wound in his chest.

  Brenna pointed at the red ooze. “What is that?” she asked with a snarl of disgust.

  “I am not sure, Jarl Brenna,” the miner said. “But it does look similar to the red weep that comes from the bloodstone before we mine it, but only when it is under extreme pressure from our mother earth. My sister and I have studied it as much as we can to be sure it is still safe for our people to mine.”

  She nodded, stowing the info away for later. “What is your name, miner?”

  “Davur Braun, ma’am,” he answered as he helped several miners lift the wizard’s body onto a wooden cart.

  “Davur, I want you and your sister to stay with Drengr’s body and then you will report directly to me until Jarl Engier is found. Understand?”

  “I do, ma’am, but my sister won’t...”

  “Why not?” she snapped.

  “My apologies, Jarl, but she and my wife were in the upper mine helping move the large piece of bloodstone when the far wall collapsed. That crew has not broken through the rubble there yet. They are still lost to us at the moment.”

  “Then you will stay with these two bodies for now,” Brenna said. “We no longer have a wizard and something strange is happening here.”

  “Of course, Jarl...” Davur agreed, but his words were cut off by a shout from their left.

  “A survivor, Jarl Brenna!”

  She hopped over the broken stone and wooden beams, arriving at the exact moment two large miners partially pulled Engier up from the rubble, but it seemed his legs were still trapped under a beam.

  “He’s alive?” she cried.

  “Of course I’m bastard alive,” Engier snarled. “Get me out of here, the rubble is crawling with undead. They’re skittering around down there like a bunch of over-sized Gorun Desert spid— Bastard!” Engier swung his fist as a corpse lurched from the rubble to his right. The creature had no weapon and its long-rotted robes revealed that it had been a wizard in a life many decades past. Brenna swallowed her initial shock and ripped her sword from its sheath. Slashing downwards, she cleaved the corpse’s head from its body without harming Engier. The creature slumped into death and only then did she notice the weeping red liquid oozing from its body.

  “Just like the other one,” she said, shocked. “What the hell happened down there, Engier?”

  The older Jarl shook his head. “When the quakes hit, the walking dead disengaged from our fighters and turned on each other before hundreds swept up against the wall. It was as if something drove them into a berserker frenzy. They were erratic, moving faster than we’ve seen.”

  “Something is very wrong,” she agreed as an unearthly scream rolled through the fortress. Brenna scanned the ruins searching for the source. Her eyes came to a stop on the healer’s makeshift tent to the side of the main courtyard, and the cart with Drengr’s body. Red veins raced across his skin as he fought against the corpse found entangled with his remains. Both were no longer dead, and the wizard stabbed the creature desperately as it snapped and clawed at his face, trying to bite him. It acted with a crazed hysteria Brenna was glad she hadn’t seen during the battle.

  The red marks spread quickly across Drengr’s flesh and his screams increased in volume until they became a roar of anger. Brenna stared in repugnant horror, unable to move, as red magic exploded from the wizard’s hands and tore through the dead man. Pieces of bone and desiccated flesh flew from the reanimated corpse as the red magic flayed the creature until nothing remained but a pile of smoking rot. Blood flowed down the wizard’s chin as he chewed his bottom lip and cast his eyes around the ruined fortress.

  “W… Wh… What happened?” he gasped before he collapsed, unconscious.

  STEINN FORTRESS

  “You should be resting, Jarl Engier,” Brenna said. “A few hours’ rest will not be sufficient if there is another attack. The fighting is done for now and my scouts believe the rebels have run.” Lowering her voice, she leaned closer. “Go get some sleep while you can, Engier. I know I plan to.”

  “I will, once I know Drengr is all right,” he replied.

  Brenna was right. He was still exhausted and if another attack followed, he’d tire quickly in battle, but he wasn’t able to rest because he was worried about Drengr. Even though he was an Ama Taugr wizard, Drengr had proven himself loyal to the clan countless times and had become a trusted advisor, as well as a damn good friend. Sighing, Engier sat on a log outside the healer’s hut near the mine entrance. His head pounded as though Thor’s hammer bounced around inside his skull. “What happened? How did the clans make out?”

  “Well, considering all that happened... The Sea Lords, the Riddari, and the other northern clans all fared well. Everyone lost men and women, but surprisingly few. We are now close to five hundred strong, all the clans are camped within the fortress or around it.”

  “Have you called council yet?” he asked.

  “No, I knew the clan leaders would defer to you, so until we have some answers to give them there was no sense in meeting. I did let them know that getting together with them is our priority.”

  “And Drengr?” he asked and glanced over his shoulder to the field stone hut that the clans’ healers had claimed for their more permanent medical building. “The crazy woman wouldn’t let me in the tent, she certainly won’t let me in the stone hut.”

  “He’s alive, somehow, but… It’s that red shit,” Brenna hissed. “Thank the gods that none of it got on you. It ate into your wizard like a living thing… He was dead when we pulled him from the rubble, Engier. I checked myself… he was gone, nearly two days dead.”

  “Has the red stopped spreading yet?”

  “Yes,” she said. “It seems to be inside his blood. His veins look like a bright red map from the Aldr river’s lower delta lands.”

  He scratched his chin, frowning. “It has to be related to the bloodstone magic the rebels were using to raise the dead.”

  “One of the miners might be able to help with that, he mentioned what they call the red weep. It seems the bloodstone actually weeps when under immense pressure from other rock formations. He returned to the dig crew to help look for his wife and sister. So he’ll be in the mines until after dark.”

  The knowledge left him even more baffled. “Very well. We’ll go see him tonight.”

  Brenna groaned and sat down beside him. “What do we do now, Engier? The undead are… well, dead, and there’s no sign of Sabjorn or his companions...” She stopped as if to catch her breath and a light sigh escaped her lips as she continued. “You know that I was forced to take the title and power of Jarl, but I have never not wanted to be Jarl more than I do right now. Our people are scared and confused, even the battle-hardened are uneasy.”

  He didn’t know how to answer her, so he shook his head, and not surprisingly, she pressed harder.

  “Something is not right since the quakes,” she said. “Others in several clans have mentioned feeling unlike themselves, strangely uneasy, or unbalanced. Even myself. I can’t explain it, I don’t feel like my feet are…” she paused, searching for a word.

  “On solid ground,” he finished for her. “I noticed. My balance is off and my head throbs, but I thought it was from the fortress wall landing on my head.”

  “It’s worse than that, I think,” she replied. He could hear the worry as it quivered through her voice. “
The sun set in the north last night and rose in the southwest this very morn. We need to know what happened out there beyond the plains and Drengr needs help we cannot give him.”

  “Jarl Brenna,” Engier admonished, frowning. “I sincerely hope you are not suggesting—”

  The younger Jarl cut him off, and the serious lack of respect and etiquette let him know how desperate she felt. “What choice do we have?” she persisted. “No one else will know what’s wrong with him and with our world.”

  “I am well aware of your personal dislike of them. I have heard that it borders on fascination, but I will not lead what is left of our people up that cursed mountain unless I know for sure something has happened to all of Sokn.”

  “The Skeyth must know what has happened.”

  “Why are you so obsessed with them?” he asked. “I’ve heard stories, like most have, but...”

  “My father spent years trying to locate them when he first became Jarl. Many of our villages near the foot of Freyja’s Grace have lost dozens of children, had animals die from poisoning. Young, pre-skall Ama Taugr young ones from two of our villages were discovered with their throats slit. They were found by their parents in the morning, yet they had no idea that someone was in their house during the night. Our villages have even lost fully trained and skilled Rynstars in the same manner. Just like every other clan who live near the foot of that gods-cursed mountain range, our people have suffered greatly at Skeyth hands.”