Was Carroll right? Was this Hell? And what would happen to a soul that died there, as he knew he would? Blake had never been a particularly God-fearing man, and the day’s events certainly didn’t fit into anything he’d been taught at his childhood Sunday School. But he still believed there had to be more to the universe than this.
Blake knew in his heart that Carroll was wrong. The world was not a zero-sum game. There was somewhere else, somewhere they hadn’t yet seen; somewhere that gave them strength and that powered the strange rites Carroll had used. A holy space – that was how Carroll had described his protective circle. Well what made it holy? Blake didn’t know but he was sure the answer lay somewhere other than the charnel pit of a world beyond the portal.
Clutching the bag of explosives, he leaped into the portal…
…and hit a solid wall.
The heavy bag ripped from his grip and tumbled down into the darkness as Blake staggered to his feet, standing on nothing at all.
Something was blocking the portal. Something as unyielding as Carroll’s circle of protection.
Of course he couldn’t pass through. The life energy in the joined world was equal. If the titanic might of the world-creature beyond the portal couldn’t pull itself through, then of course Mr and Mrs Blake’s little boy wasn’t just going to be able to jump across.
“Shit!” he swore. He had lost the bag. Far below he could see it caught in a particularly knotted tangle of dark fronds. He saw something open under it, something he would hesitate to cause a mouth but for which there existed no other word in any sane reality.
Blake unslung his rifle and fired.
His rounds tore through the closing teeth and into the bag beyond.
The world-creature spasmed as the high explosives tore into its body. The creatures living in its fronds died in their dozens as the blast wave rolled outwards.
Blake felt the barrier give way beneath his feet and at the same time, some otherworldly suction, more than mere gravity started to pull him into the pit.
Life energy had been lost.
It would have to be replaced.
The blast wave from the detonation billowed upward. The cloud of expanding gasses was not troubled by the metaphysical barrier, and lifted Blake, throwing him clear of the pit.
He scrambled to his feet; he had been willing to die, but damned if he was going to give up a second chance at life.
He turned to run but dizziness swept in as his eyes and other senses fed him contradictory information. It was like a shift in gravity; down was no longer toward the sand beneath his boots but rather behind him as the other-worldly force pulled him toward the portal.
He wasn’t the only one affected by the strange pull. The vast creature at its center screamed and struggled as it was sucked back into the rift. Its tendrils writhed, thrashing and wrapping around each other to form thick cables of living tissue that whipped around entire buildings. The living ropes pulled tight, tension slicing through the blast-damaged structures like a garrotte. Wood splintered, adding to the cacophony as the enormous creature fought to maintain its beachhead in this world.
One of the smaller creatures could resist no longer and fell, screeching toward the pit. Its cartwheeling fall careened into the fore-limb of one of the bigger creatures with a sickening crunch, knocking it from its precarious hold and they both fell across the glistening threshold of the gate between worlds.
Blake kept running but it was as if he was on a treadmill. As fast as he ran, the tendrils sliding beneath his feet meant all he could do was slow his advance toward oblivion.
He saw the shattered house in front of him, saw Carroll and the others clinging to its timbers, but they too were being sucked toward this terrible maw.
Blake felt dirt beneath his boots. He hardly dared look back but he had to see what was coming. The portal was smaller now, barely half its former size and plugged with tentacles. They whipped around, desperately trying to cling on, but the world creature was lost. Too much of it was back in its own dimension. As more and more of it was sucked back through, it had less strength to force the portal open. The universe was trying to right itself.
The glittering circle that marked the boundary between worlds shrunk until it was just a few yards across. The last of the tentacles whipped through like a child sucking up the last strands of spaghetti and the glittering circle fell to a brilliant point of light.
The energy that had been held in stasis suddenly erupted. The point of light burst outward again and everything that had been frozen halfway through the original explosion was freed in a titanic detonation. The circle of destruction raced outwards, scattering the buildings into atoms, the shock-front racing away from them in all directions, chasing away the cloud in an ever-expanding circle half a mile high.
For the first time in hours, Blake saw the sun. It beamed down on him and Carroll and Pollin and the injured Fernandez.
Blake had seen Hell and maybe this world wasn’t heaven, but it was good enough for now.
Only Stones In Their Place
Christine Morgan
“We ride!” cried Kjarstan. “We ride for slaughter, for wealth, and for glory!”
His men shouted in answer, voicing great cheers. They rattled spear-shafts on shields in a drumming wooden thunder. Their banner, a white sword on a triangle of red, flapped from the pole Kjarstan’s nephew held aloft.
“Our king has sent summons!” Kjarstan went on, his stallion’s hard hooves striking up muddy splashes from the soft, thaw-soaked earth. “He has need of us, those good and loyal, oath-sworn! Need of our sword-might, our strength and our courage!”
Heartier still were the cheers to greet this. Even the humblest of peasant-horses, seized from plow’s purpose, tossed their heads and snorted like proud battle-steeds.
“Shake from your limbs the weight of this long winter’s weariness! Rouse your blood and war-fire! When we are old men, white-haired and wizened, we may sit by the hearth-stones… those of us not yet then gone to gold-shingled Valhalla! For now, there are foes to be cut down and plundered!”
Oh, but their blood and war-fire were roused. They’d struck at Pedham with the ending of autumn, when the harvest was in, the livestock butchered, the smoke-houses and granaries full. Once they had taken the village, there’d been little to do but wait. Wait, tend their weapons, gamble, and talk.
Under such circumstances, even the best of men would grow restless. The simplest squabble, a dispute over dice or rivalry for a woman, an ill-spoken insult or ill-timed jest could flare into violence as an ember into flame.
Now, though…
Kjarstan grinned, teeth a broad flash through his face-plate and a blond bristle of beard. His mail-coat, helm, and arm-rings gleamed in the morning’s thin light. It was a grey day and clouded, the land wet from recent rain and snow-melt, and the wind off the sea carried a damp, heavy chill … but spring had come.
Spring had come, as had the summons.
The king’s messenger went by ship around the headlands and along the coast, bringing word wherever allies could be found. But there were not ships enough to carry them all with their war-gear and horses. Kjarstan had sent Udr and Anbjorn, two of his own best warriors, back with the messenger as proof in good faith of his oath and intent; the others, almost sixty strong, would meet them again in a matter of days.
And then they would put an end to the armies of Gunnleif Guthnarsson. Gunnleif the outlaw, the traitor, the oath-breaker and kin-slayer.
“What say you?” Kjarstan asked his men now. “Are you rested and ready? Do your swords thirst and your axes hunger?”
Many throats as one bellowed back their affirmation.
“Will you see our foes flee before us, and fall to our fury?”
Again, they bellowed, and louder – so loud the skies shook.
“For Earl Kjarstan! Kjarstan and the king!”
“The king!”
“King Jorfyn!”
“For Thor, Tyr and Odin!
”
“Death, death to Gunnleif and his craven piss-dogs!”
Yes, they were eager, they were rested and ready, and they would ride!
“We will have victory!” Kjarstan told them. “Victory and rich reward! Let us fatten our purses on Gunnleif’s stolen silver! Let us earn generous gifts, our king’s gratitude in gold! We’ll drape our women in amber and jet, and bring jeweled trinkets as toys for our children!”
Further back, where hovels and thatch-houses huddled around a log-timbered hall, the surviving villagers looked on with dull, beaten eyes. They would be hungry in the weeks to come; Kjarstan and his men had feasted well from their larders, drained dry their ale-barrels, and depleted their stores.
But such was their lot. They were farmers and swineherds, not warriors. Those who’d fought back had been slain. These remaining could count themselves lucky enough. They still had their lives, their homes were un-burned, and some even had their families intact.
If, of course, a few young widows and daughters would not be staying, preferring to follow those whose furs and fleeces they’d warmed through the cold nights…
If, perhaps, a promising youth or two had decided to forsake farm and field in hopes of proving his worth alongside the men from the north…
Well, such it was and so it would be.
“And,” Kjarstan said, slowly drawing his blade from its scabbard with a scraping hiss of metal, “we will make name for ourselves!”
His men roared their approval.
“Make name by action and deed, such that the skalds will long sing of us and see us never forgotten! To honor our fathers and theirs before them; to leave lasting legacy of pride for our sons and their sons and their sons’ sons after!” He swept his sword in a shining arc.
“Kjarstan! Kjarstan!”
“To battle and slaughter and glory!”
“We ride, my war-brothers…” He tugged on the reins so his horse reared up high, fore-hooves lashing the air. Then he kicked his heels into the beast’s side and set off at a gallop. “We ride!”
* * *
On groaning hinges, the door opened. Its draft flickered the candlelight and stirred dark wisps of hair escaped from the long plait hanging over Hreyth’s mail-clad shoulder.
She glanced up from the table, where was spread a wolf’s pelt with rune-marked bones scattered upon it. They were old, those bones. Time-worn and hand-worn, ivoried with age, shaped and polished. The runes set into them were blood-red, soot-black, and gold.
Egil stood in the doorway, his wide shape filling it. He was not a tall man, nor fat, but big just the same. Slab-thick with muscle, barrel-chested, brawny and strong. His leather coat seemed ever to strain at the seams.
“It’s happened,” he said. His voice was like that of millstones taught to speak – grinding and gritty, crushing the grains of thought into the flour of words.
Dread moved in her heart. Dread, but no surprise. “Where?”
“Along the high-hill river valley between Pedham and Langenvik.”
Her fingers brushed through silver-soft fur as she swept up a handful of rune-bones and poured them, with brittle clicks and clatters, into their bag. The bag she tied at her belt, which held also a sheathed seax – her short but sharp stabbing blade.
“How many?” she asked.
“Fifty.”
“Fifty?” At that, surprise did come, flavoring the dread, enhancing it the way salt enhanced the taste of a broth.
“At least.”
Hreyth touched the ash-wood amulet of Yggdrasil, the World-Tree, hanging around her neck on a cord.
Fifty at least.
She looked at Egil, the craggy outcrop of his nose, the knotted jut of his jaw, the broken expanse of his brow. His skull was bald, scar-gnarled, and misshapen. When he gave over to his battle-rage, there was no warrior more ferocious and feared, and his sword Life-Breaker had sent many men to the corpse-halls.
But his eyes, meeting hers, shared her unease.
“We must be quick,” she said, and reached for her cloak.
* * *
Kjarstan’s boldness and boasting, his promises of war-plunder and wealth as they brought death to their enemies, had carried them well through the first days of their ride. They talked and laughed, joked and sang. Every man of them, they knew, would win glory and fame.
Too long had they sat idle, wintering in their seized hall, feasting and fucking and throwing dice. Too long since they’d felt the crisp wind on their faces, heard the ring of steel and the clash of shield-walls. Too long since they’d slashed and stabbed, hewn and hacked, heard the screams of their enemies, smelled the blood-stink and shit-stink of gutted entrails.
Oh, there was joy in it – joy in war, joy in slaughter and carnage. A joy and a passion and a fire like nothing else. Whatever delights a man might take from riches, from meat and mead, or in the arms of a woman… only when he confronted death could he truly be most alive.
And if he should be struck down? If he should be pierced by sword-blades or spear-points, cut by axes, fall and be killed? A man could hope for no better end! Who would wish to die old and infirm, weak and feeble? To die of sickness, or drowning, or foolish mishap? A man must die well to earn his place at Odin’s table!
Away from the sea, into the high country, they rode. The coastline fell away behind them. Creeks tumbled down rocky clefts. Vales lay open, bleak and muddy, but beginning to green. Twigs budded. New grass grew. Snow lingered in the lee-shadows of ridges, dirty ice-patches un-reached by the sun. Now and then, hares scampered or a scrawny deer stepped. Once, they glimpsed a bear, lean and hungry, but not so hungry as to dare menace men and horses.
They made camp by night, building fires, setting watches, sleeping bundled in blankets and cloaks. Jugs of sour barley-beer they’d brought with them, bread and hard cheese, smoked fish. To those who’d come from Pedham, the few youths and women never before gone far from home, it was both a frightening and exciting adventure.
Soon, they reached the high-hill river valley, long and slope-sided as if scooped in a trench from the earth. Above it rose rugged peaks, white-topped the year ‘round. The river itself, fed by many more rushing creeks, flowed fast and full. Stones and boulders littered the ground, strewn like pebble-pieces of some giant’s game.
Clouds drifted in. The day, not warm to begin with, cooled and grew damp. Mists whirled in ghostly skeins along the water. The horses’ breath billowed steamy vapor. Men and women pulled their cloaks more tightly around their bodies; beads like dew-drops collected on the fur trim of hoods.
The red banner hung limp and dispirited from its pole. Stefnir, Kjarstan’s nephew, swiped moisture from his forehead and wrung it from his fair hair, then cursed as some trickled down the nape of his neck.
The talk, laughter, jokes and singing dwindled. Soon they went on in silence, a sodden silence broken only by the plodding squish of hooves, the creak of straps, and the faint jingle of mail.
The mists thickened. Or a fog rose. Or the clouds lowered. Or all of those, together and combined. The world turned to greyness, dreary and blurred. The snow-peaks vanished, the land lost its edges, the trees faded to suggestions, and the boulders became indistinct. The river, off to their left, was a liquid whisper more felt than heard or seen.
“Stay close,” said Kjarstan, his voice both oddly loud and oddly muffled. “No one goes straying, no one gets separated.”
So he said, but when each of them could only see a few horse-lengths to either side, such words proved less than reassuring.
“It will clear soon,” Kjarstan added. “If it does not, or this Hel’s-gloom worsens, we’ll stop for a while and wait it out.”
The horses trudged on, heads low, manes and tails dripping. Everything smelled of wet wool and leather. Unwelcome thoughts insinuated their way into minds. Hel, as Kjarstan had mentioned… Hel, goddess in whose bleak realm resided the miserable dead who had not won their way to Valhalla…
Someone did try to bolster
their spirits with another song, but the sound of it was a dirge and was soon let trail away. The silence returned.
Stefnir gripped the banner-pole with a half-numb, clammy hand. His other held the reins, though slackly, his horse following that of Rikolf, just ahead.
How suddenly their moods had changed… how distant in memory seemed the smoke and hearth-fires and cheer of the hall… or the fervor of riding to battle… how far and distant and impossible…
His horse stopped. Stefnir saw that Rikolf’s had stopped as well, though he could barely make out more than its hindquarters. Not even Rikolf’s red cloak was visible.
From somewhere behind him came a sudden low gasp, or cough. Stefnir turned his head, but only grey fog and vague shapes met his gaze. He opened his mouth to call a question – was everyone all right? – but his skin prickled with unaccountable gooseflesh before a single word passed his lips.
With his knees, he nudged his horse a few paces forward, meaning to bring himself up alongside Rikolf. He would ask the older man before bleating like some frightened little lamb–
Rikolf’s saddle was empty. His horse only stood there, head down, reins dangling.
A cry wavered out of the mist – a woman’s cry – over almost as soon as it began. He heard a man’s grunt, and a thump.
His nerves shrieked.
“What is it? Who’s there?” he shouted.
No one answered.
“Kjarstan?”
There still was no answer.
“Anyone!?”
And still, no one answered.
The silence returned again.
The silence returned again, and was complete.
SNAFU: Hunters Page 8