Swords of Steel Omnibus
Page 13
Rotten-teeth tried to rise, but the stranger’s broadsword hacked at the man’s neck, and his head rolled on the floor, face leering upward in a black-tooth grimace. The fight had been over as soon as it had started.
The stranger looked behind the bar at the cringing barkeep and laid two small jewels on the bar. “Use this to pay for the damage and get some real whores around this place so the sell-swords will stop trying to rut with children.”
The stranger then walked out the door of the Wolfshead Inn to where his horse was tethered in front of the tavern. As he prepared to mount the great white steed, a young girl’s voice cried to him, “Wait, sire! Where are you bound? We have no home, nor way to travel.” It was Taren.
The stranger answered, “I am bound for Tuatha, where I hail from; but first, I have business on the outskirts of Aroon-Joon. You can follow me until we get to Arthing; then we must go our separate ways. Take the horses that belonged to the soldiers; they have no need of them now. Mount quickly and let us be gone before more soldiers come.”
Tarac and his sister mounted the mercenaries’ steeds. “What is your name, man?”
“My name is Argantyr! Now make haste before you become a guest in someone’s dungeon!” The three raced off for the outskirts of Aroon-Joon.
* * *
Tharat sat alone at his supper table savoring the flesh of the slow-roasted urchin who had had the misfortune of becoming lost deep in the woods and ensnared in one of the old wizard’s traps. Tharat snapped his teeth as he dipped his spoon into a bowl of boiled potatoes and spooned some more out. No sooner had he brought the oversized wooden spoon up to his mouth than there came a knock at the door. Tharat was immediately wary. No one knew where he lived. It must be someone who had gotten lost and was seeking shelter for the night. A wide grin split the wizard’s face and he became excited about the potential opportunity and the possibilities. A slow roasted babe or a small child was tender; but a fully grown adult human would supply him with meat for some time. What if there were more than one person? His heart raced and he snapped his teeth together. The rapping at the door came again.
“One moment!” shouted the wizard as he got up and ran over to the door. “Now, who is it?”
The voice of a young girl answered, “I am just a poor girl with an infant who seeks shelter this night.” The excitement was more than Tharat could contain. He hurriedly flung the front door wide and saw a girl standing in the doorway with a bundle. Tharat grinned and gestured for the girl to enter his home as he stammered, “Right this way! Right this way, you poor child. Poor child with a child. How fortunate for me. Fortunate for me, that is, because I am all alone and welcome your company…” His words trailed off as he turned to shut the door to his house, but instead his throat was seized in an iron grip. Argantyr commanded Taren, “Now take your blanket and get back to the horses and wait with your brother. I will join you ere long.”
Tharat’s eyes were wide with fear as Argantyr held him against the wall and strangled him—recognition upon the dying wizard’s face. Argantyr growled at Tharat, “I know you know who I am, Tharat. The witch showed me what Klak and Arju-Lao did to me in her scrying orb. She also showed me your part in it, and for that you are going to pay with your life! Just as they did.”
* * *
Argantyr released Tharat; the wizard had expired some moments agone. Argantyr rummaged through the dead sorcerer’s house looking for something of value. Argantyr did not need any gold or jewels; he had taken all that Klak’s mercenaries had amassed when he and Thorn had destroyed the Wolf along with his entire army. Argantyr took what spoils that he could carry with him, and the rest he had hidden in a secret place to gather upon his return. No, he knew that Tharat dealt in unique magickal objects that the old wizard would trade for the human flesh that he craved.
Argantyr found one room in the house that was locked. He kicked the door in with a loud thud and looked upon the chamber. The room was lined with shelves of books on all sorts of gramarye and dark magicks—books dedicated entirely to subjects as varying as necromancy and shapeshifting to pacts with demons and vampirism. Argantyr’s eyes scanned the room by the light of a large candle he had taken from Tharat’s dining table; he looked upon daggers and swords of various makes and sizes—most of them covered in runes similar to those that were on Thorn’s armor and the dagger that he had used to kill Arju-Lao. He saw scrying orbs, pendulums, and rings and pendants with mystical signs and sigils. With a snort, Argantyr turned to leave the room but stopped as his eyes lighted on a familiar sight. Hanging in the corner was a large wolf’s hide like the one that Klak had worn and used to shapeshift into the werewolf that had made him nearly invincible in battle. Argantyr stepped forward and took the magickal cloak down from its hanger. He threw it over his shoulder and walked back to the bookshelf. Argantyr removed the book dedicated to shapeshifting titled On the Black Art of the Fenrir and Becoming the Lycanthrope. With the book in one hand and the wolf’s skin thrown over his shoulder, Argantyr stepped over the dead wizard’s body and left the house.
Taren and Tarac had heeded well Argantyr’s instructions and waited with the horses. They stared at the weird wolfskin draped over the man’s shoulder as they all mounted their horses, but thought it better not to ask any questions of the man who had agreed to be their protector until they had reached the more orderly and civilized lands of Arthing.
Argantyr was a man of scant words. After imbibing a few cups of wine around the campfire on the first night of their journey, Tarac had asked the warrior, “So what will you do once you reach your native land of Tuatha, Argantyr? Live a life of wine, women and song?” Taren sat listening intently to every word; she was concerned about parting company with this strange man who had saved her virtue and, she was certain, the life of her brother back at the Wolfshead Inn.
Argantyr answered the boy in his deeply resonating voice, “Aye, Tarac, I will live a life of wine, women, and song; but first, I must satisfy my wanderlust. I will go to Gurmania and raise a band of mercenaries; then, carve a kingdom for myself to the north in Scaldavia, perhaps all of the way from Aesirland to Vanirland.” Taren and Tarac sat quietly as they realized that they could not follow Argantyr; his life was to be one of conquest, usurped thrones, and blood-soaked crowns. “Best get your blankets and get some sleep,” Argantyr told the youths. “There is a long day’s ride ahead of us on the morrow.”
As Argantyr drifted off to sleep he heard the baying of a lone wolf in the distance; he wondered to himself, “What will it be like…?”
Return to Stynar Vort
By Joe “Deathmaster” Minichino
“There is no hell for those who rejoice at their damnation,
And no heaven for those without need of salvation”
—The Uncrowned
Part I: The Fall of Stynar Vort
I
It was sunset when the relentless snow joined forces with Helved in the storming of the walls of Stynar Vort.
From the snow-blasted battlements an archer shouted: “The enemy is in! The north wall is breached!” as the Helvedians broke the defensive line.
“Sound the…” The soldier’s cry was silenced by the blade that pierced his back and emerged a foot out of his chest. His killer retracted the sword and with a jubilant cry hurled the wretched archer headlong into the castle courtyard.
Huethys, commander of the army of Stynar Vort, instinctively grabbed King Gaetys’ arm just in time as the falling soldier crashed, head-first and helmetless, not three feet away from him, spraying blood and brains.
“Huethys, sound the retreat!” the king roared at his commander and friend. “Get the soldiers in the citadel, then find me in the throne room!”
Huethys hurried up the stone steps to the unused altar to the long forgotten blood god Styne. Amidst flying arrows, he climbed the altar, which lay atop a rock in the middle of the courtyard, and from there he repeatedly blew the retreat with his horn and shouted battle-tongue commands.
The ruse of dropping the wall-walks had gained the defenders enough time for a safe retreat.
But commands in the Helvedian tongue rang out from the battlements: soldiers knotted ropes and secured them to the battlements and began descending the titanic walls of the fortress, wearing their shield on their backs to protect them from missile attacks.
Twenty times a thousand men of Helved entered the virgin walls of the mythical Stynar Vort.
II
“No one has ever breached Stynar Vort. I would give my soul to go out there and tear the jugulars from their necks!” growled a feral King Gaetys. Taking a breath to regain his poise, he continued, “the citadel’s resilience has never been tested, and we have to protect the people. We need to lead them out through the tunnels of Swartheime. And beyond that… I do not know.”
“The enemy is climbing the walls of Styns-Ueg as we speak. Whatever we decide to do, we must do it immediately,” said Huethys. “As for the Swartheime tunnels… I am not even sure they are more than a legend. And if they are there, we do not know if they are viable or to where they lead. What will our people do once they reach an exit? I say let us make a last stand, and die honourably.”
“The passages exist, Commander Huethys. I have been there,” interrupted old Bedar, the King’s Counsellor. “And so does Styne’s Chamber, which many believe to be a story. I have been there as well. And I propose we use both,” he said, with a solemn air.
“I know nothing of this, Bedar. How come you possess knowledge I do not have?” Gaetys questioned his white bearded counsellor. His hand stealthily and subconsciously reached for the handle of the long dagger at his side.
“It is a little known fact—my Lord—that the King’s Counsellor is also the High Priest of Styne,” explained Bedar. “According to the Mountain Scrolls, the fortress is a manifestation of the Blood God himself. Let us follow the custom of our ancestors, and let the king ask for protection at this desperate hour.”
“So what do you propose we do?” asked Gaetys.
“Lead the people out by the tunnels,” answered Bedar. “They will only have to wait until Styne has saved us all from the Helvedians. Meanwhile, Your Majesty, Commander Huethys and I will descend into Styne’s Chamber, to perform the Eternal Life ritual, and conjure Styne’s supernatural help.”
“What will be the price of Styne’s help?” asked the king. “Would it not be better to ride to battle, one last time, and die for our home?”
“I would rather die by the friendly taste of steel which I understand, than be saved by that which I do not,” interjected Huethys.
“There is no honour if there is no legacy!” exclaimed Bedar, uncharacteristically shouting, his beard shaking in great wrath. “Your name is not going to be in any song! What is the value of sacrifice if it does not yield salvation? Put down your sword and your pride and put the lives of the people of Stynar Vort ahead!”
“Perhaps you are right, Bedar. Whatever the price, we will pay it,” answered King Gaetys. “Huethys, call the royal guard to accompany us to the—”
“No!” interrupted Bedar. “That would be sacrilege! When performing the Eternal Life ritual, only the High Priest and two individuals, representing the sacred virtues of Death and Rebirth, are permitted in the chamber.”
III
The stairs to the chamber were only reachable from Bedar’s room, which was the top floor of a tower adjacent to the main building in the citadel. Before entering the passage, Bedar warned the others: “I have only been to the Chamber once, many years ago. It’s an exhaustingly long descent. There are no windows, and it is easy to become overwhelmed with panic when you are hundreds of feet from the outside world and just as many from reaching our destination.”
The king glanced out the window at the very moment when Helved’s soldiers opened the Blood Gates of Stynar Vort against the backdrop of a sunset snow storm. The massive blood-tinted metal doors creaked with the strain of disuse since they had not been opened in memory of man. The triumphant roar of the invaders flooded into the courtyard.
“They are in…” the king mumbled.
“Then we have to be fast,” answered the commander, “or all will be lost.”
The door to the passage was a grotesque relief of a man struggling with a gigantic serpent, something Gaetys recognised as “The Taming of Seyden,” a scene of one of Styne’s legends from his childhood. Bedar operated a mechanism which he purposely shielded from view with his body, and the relief opened like a door, beyond which was a narrow passage leading to spiral stairs.
Bedar took three torches, lit one, and gave Gaetys and Huethys the other two. “One torch at a time, torchbearer at the back. The stairs are so narrow and steep that anyone walking behind a torchbearer would be too close to the flame and unable to see ahead.”
The three proceeded into the passage and down the steps for what seemed like an interminable time. Bedar kept his lucid and composed demeanour, while Gaetys and Huethys seemed much more uncomfortable, at first because of the oppressing closeness of the walls. Then the king and his commander started hearing distant echoing voices of tormented souls, the growls and grunts of unseen creatures of the darkness, and a barely audible laughter of demoniacal madness.
Huethys became convinced that each brick in the wall was a face, frozen in terror and covered in blood. At last, far beyond the point where an untrained mind would have given in to the temptation of going insane, a dim glow faintly lit the steps ahead of the three men. The stairs terminated their dizzying spiral to straighten into wider steps that descended into the greenish light.
Bedar lead the way into the Chamber, and paused for a brief moment under the stony arch of the entrance to the sacred place.
Two glowing yellow-green flames were suspended in midair in the room, and the air was heavy with dampness and the smell of mould.
Despite being out of the oppressive spiral of the stairs, the atmosphere was of unadulterated evil as it became clear the room was a subterranean temple: an imposing and finely decorated altar stood at its centre, raised from the floor by a few steps, and oriented so that the performant of whatever dark and perverse ritual was taking place in this temple would be facing the farthest wall. On this wall was an enormous, vitreous hemisphere that looked as if made of transparent marble. The altar’s surface was strangely shaped, in that it was slightly slanted, and on its lower end the otherwise flat surface formed a funnel with a hole carved into the altar itself. Precisely above the funnel, a slanting pipe, piercing the chamber’s ceiling, stood some six feet above it, as if whatever liquid the pipe conducted was meant to fall straight into the altar’s funnel.
The decorations on the altar’s side represented scenes of stories untold, with demonic looking figures, serpents, chains and daggers, mountains and people marching. Scattered everywhere within the decorated strip of stone were eyes made of the same material as the great hemisphere on the wall. Bedar looked back to Gaetys and Huethys, and gestured them to wait at the entrance of the chamber at the bottom of the stairs. He climbed the dais to the altar. Placing
his left hand over the funnel, he reached with his right hand to his belt, extracted a carefully hidden long-bladed althame, and ran its blade on the palm of his left hand. He clenched his hand into a fist to squeeze blood down the funnel, then pronounced the prayer: “Take my blood, O Styne, made pure by Seyden’s Tooth, the sacred althame.”
A low hum, almost imperceptible to ears, suddenly rang through the air, but while it was hard to hear, its vibration could be felt in the eardrums and teeth in the most uncomfortable way. The glassy hemisphere on the wall instantly lit up like the eye of a colossal cat, which stared directly at Bedar. The old man tried to hide his incredulity and addressed the eye on the wall, looking at the floor and his voice breaking with fear. “Almighty Styne, protector of the Mountain, it is your servant Bedar, High Priest of Stynar Vort, who asks for your help in this desperate hour of need.”
“Humans,” answered a deep cavernous voice that had not spoken in a thousand years. “Ungrateful, forgetful, unfaithful creatures. That is what humans are!
“I gave you an unvanquishable home, and eternal protection, in return for blood. But you have forgotten me, for a thousand years… and you forgot the blood you promised… and now you want protection. You have sinned for generations. You owe me all that blood… a thousand years of it.”
“I will restore your cult as the rightful protector of Stynar Vort,” answered Bedar, “and I can give you the blood you want, all of it, today. But we are moments away from extermination, and if we are defeated, then you will be forever forgotten and no blood will ever run from the altars of Styne again…”