by C. L. Werner
‘Should have known you’d join us here, Wulfrik,’ Skafhogg said as he came loping through the smoke and saw his captain. ‘Where do you think the southlings have hidden their treasure?’
Wulfrik smiled at his helmsman and gestured with his bloody sword at the keep. ‘Be sure to tap the walls and rip open anything that sounds hollow,’ he advised. He caught the snaggletoothed warrior’s arm before he could move. ‘Make sure the best gets aboard the Seafang.’
‘Wulfrik?’ a haggard voice coughed. The hero turned from his helmsman, looking about the courtyard until his eyes settled upon a ragged figure imprisoned in a set of wooden stocks. The prisoner had been a large, powerful man once, but hot irons had torn his muscles, pincers had removed his eyes and hammers had broken his teeth. Still, there was something familiar about the prisoner.
Wulfrik approached the prisoner, studying his tortured frame. No one would think Broendulf fair again.
‘Wulfrik?’ the captive called, seeming to sense the hero’s nearness despite the hollow pits where his eyes should be.
The hero kept his silence, thinking instead upon the pact he had made with Broendulf. Like all his other dreams, it was a hollow mockery of what it should be. Something that was not worth the winning.
‘By the blood of Kharnath!’ Broendulf cried. ‘Let me die with a blade in my hand!’
Wulfrik glanced over at Skafhogg, then back at Broendulf. Savagely, he drove the point of his sword into the captive’s brain. ‘Call to your own gods, southling,’ Wulfrik spat. ‘Those of the north will not hear you.’
Skafhogg grunted in amusement at the callous execution. Wulfrik wiped Broendulf’s blood from his sword and pointed to the keep. ‘Take whatever we can carry. I want the Seafang’s holds filled to bursting. We wouldn’t want to disappoint Sveinbjorn.’ The comment brought a cruel smile onto Skafhogg’s face. Wulfrik turned away, facing the tall narrow tower at the western corner of the courtyard. It was about the tower that Zarnath’s scent was strongest.
‘I’ll be in here if you need me,’ Wulfrik told his helmsman, a tone of such malignance in his voice that Skafhogg wouldn’t have dared disturb the hero if the Emperor and all his armies appeared outside the walls of Wisborg.
There was the promise of death in Wulfrik’s voice. Death that would be slow and horrible for the man who had been marked for destruction.
Stossel crouched upon the floor of his laboratory, a circle drawn in his own blood marking the floor all around him. Seven candles, black as midnight and crafted from the fat of murderers, smouldered at the tips of the star the wizard had scribed in the middle of the circle. He stared at the hideous symbol, feeling its dark energies saturating the air. Even if he survived this night, there would be no hiding this transgression into the black arts. If the witch hunters did not come for him, then the astromancers would dispatch a magister vigilant to make him answer for his crimes.
The wizard was resigned to his fate. He had seen the tragedy that resulted from trying to run from the future. All his efforts to escape from his hunter had led to destruction. He felt no remorse for the Norscans who had perished upon the voyages he had tricked Wulfrik into making, even less for the degenerate dwarfs who had been slaughtered by the northmen. He regretted the elves who had died because of his trickery, but in his desperation he had seen no other way to destroy Wulfrik. Now it was the innocents of his own lands who died because of his failures, their screams which filled the air.
No, Ludwig Stossel had earned death many times over. But if he could obliterate the monstrous champion of the Dark Gods, if he could strike down Wulfrik before he died, then perhaps he might redeem some small measure of worth for his blackened soul.
His breath haggard with the effort of the profane ritual, Stossel lifted his eyes to his familiar. Grylikh was hopping excitedly about its perch, its keen eyes watching the wizard’s every motion. He wondered for a moment at his familiar’s energy, puzzling over the reason it did not share the fatigue which taxed his own spirit.
Stossel dismissed the imp’s erratic behaviour, concentrating instead upon the complex hieroglyphs he now summoned from memory. Far below him, he could hear the door to his tower being smashed open. He knew who it was that came to violate his sanctum. The wizard had gambled his soul on this last effort to destroy his enemy and atone for the evil he had brought upon Wisborg. Now he would see if his gamble had paid off.
Eerie figures shimmered in the air before Stossel as the astromancer spoke the ancient syllables of each name-picture which formed in his mind. The spectral hieroglyphs fractured into wisps of energy as the next was spoken. The strands of power slithered about the laboratory, flitting around the legs of tables, crawling up the sides of chairs before finally draining into a fist-sized diamond locked within a setting of obsidian.
At first the diamond glowed only slightly, but as more and more magical energy flowed into it, the pallid gem began to give off an amber pulse of light. Faster and faster the pulses came and with them there sounded a dull pounding, like the beat of a hammer against stone.
The obsidian shape in which the diamond was set had stood in shadow when the astromancer began his ritual. Now, by the amber pulses of light, it stood revealed, a monstrous, man-like shape ten feet tall. The statue’s physique was that of a powerfully athletic youth, its only raiment a loincloth of obsidian. However its head was a grisly mockery of life, a jackal’s skull crowned with a golden headdress.
Stossel had created the ghastly statue in mimicry of the ushabti crafted by the ancient liche-priests of Khemri. Grylikh had led him to the ritual to construct the guardian statue, hidden deep within an old treatise on the vanished kingdoms of Nehekhara. The imp had also found for him the scroll which related the spell to give the statue motion and motivation.
Despite the horror of what he had done, Stossel felt a sense of pride as the throb of the ushabti’s diamond heart pulsed through the tower. He spoke the name-sign which would give his creation motion, awed when the obsidian statue took a quaking step across the laboratory. Quickly he berated himself for such arrogance. It was the same ignorant thrill of power he’d felt as a youth receiving his first portents, the jubilation of an apprentice evoking his first rainstorm, never appreciating the power he wielded.
This was evil magic, black sorcery of the foulest stripe. It belonged to the world of necromancy and daemonology, not the refined schools of wizardry. The seductive power of what he had done only added to Stossel’s repugnance. He understood now why the witch hunters were ever distrustful of wizards. It was so easy for them to be overwhelmed by the power they could command.
Stossel wondered if even destroying Wulfrik could justify this being he had created. Could the destruction of one evil ever condone the birth of another? The wizard turned a questioning glance at Grylikh, but the shrike simply continued to hop about on its perch, offering neither approval nor condemnation.
Then the door of the laboratory came crashing inwards. Stossel looked at the crazed warrior standing in the doorway, his armour soaked in the blood of innocent men. All moral qualms vanished from his mind as the wizard stared at Wulfrik.
‘Kiiiillll,’ the astromancer hissed. ‘Kiiiilll hiiiimmm.’
Wulfrik bashed in the oak door, the last barrier between himself and Zarnath’s stink. He stood at the top of the spiral staircase that coiled its way through the wizard’s tower and glared across the dark laboratory, lips curling from his fangs as he saw the sorcerer sitting upon the floor. Eagerly, the hero’s fingers tightened about his sword.
Before the Norscan could charge across the room and deal death to his betrayer, a huge shape lurched out from the shadows. Wulfrik’s body grew tense as he watched the mighty ushabti step into the centre of the chamber, barring his path to Zarnath. There was no life in the empty sockets of the carved skull that served it for a face, no mind locked within its stone body. There was nothing at all within this hulking automaton which the Gift of Tongues could goad into reckl
ess fury; he might as soon curse the sea as cast insult upon the golem-beast.
Wulfrik heard Zarnath’s hissed command. In response, the ushabti slowly turned, reaching to one of the walls, its stone hands tearing a massive greatsword and an equally enormous siege shield from where they were bolted to the wall. In the monster’s hands, the huge two-handed sword looked as slim as the silver-steel blades of the elf-folk, the massive siege shield little bigger than a buckler in the statue’s grip.
Armed now, the ushabti lumbered forwards to carry out the command of its master. Wulfrik did not wait for the monstrous statue to attack. Howling like a maddened beast, the northman leapt across one of the wooden tables scattered throughout the wizard’s laboratory. A sword in either hand, he lashed out at the automaton, eager to remove this last obstacle between him and his revenge.
With surprising quickness, the ushabti met Wulfrik’s attack. It raised its sword in a quick parry, nearly ripping the sword from the hero’s right hand. Wulfrik’s other blade clanged against the bronze plate of the siege shield, inflicting no more hurt to it than a scratch across its painted face. The ushabti stomped forwards, flinging the northman away as it exerted its stony strength.
Reeling away from the statue, Wulfrik felt his back slam against one of the tables. Quickly he rolled aside as the ushabti brought its sword swinging around, shearing through the bottles and alembics standing upon the table, sending shards of glass and strangely coloured vapours flying about the chamber. He drove at the statue’s side, trying to strike it before the monster could recover, but again found the heavy siege shield raised against his blades.
Wulfrik dodged away as the ushabti swung towards him, its massive sword slashing down in a cleaving arc. This time when he swatted it aside, he did lose one of his own weapons, the impact of the ushabti’s blow pulsing through his left arm, stunning the nerves into numbness. His sword clattered across the floor as it fell from his deadened grip.
The ushabti gave no sign of satisfaction at partially disarming its enemy, but continued to press Wulfrik with the same slavish obedience. Its shield warded off a strike from his remaining sword, its own blade coming flashing down in a brutal arc that passed close enough to the hero that he could feel air swish across his throat.
The hero kicked a stool at the ushabti, then flipped across a table as the monster stormed after him. Its stone legs crunched through the wooden stool, obliterating the obstruction, but at the cost of some of the statue’s coordination. When the ushabti brought its sword slashing down at the man slipping around the table, the edge slammed instead into the oak surface, gouging a deep rent in the wood.
For an instant, the automaton’s weapon was trapped. Before it could rip the blade free, Wulfrik brought his own sword slashing across its hand. The volcanic glass of its fingers was shattered by the ferocious impact. The ushabti reeled away, holding its broken hand in the air.
Wulfrik leapt atop the table, intending to force his advantage. Before he could swing his blade at the ushabti’s skull, the marauder dived to the floor, the heavy siege shield slicing through the air as the statue flung it at him. The shield slammed into the shelves against the wall, shattering bottles, flinging books and jars across the floor and sending the mummified husk of a swamp lizard plummeting down the stairway.
Before Wulfrik could scramble from cover, the statue was ripping its sword free from the table with its good hand. The jackal-skull grinned at the northman as the ushabti swatted the obstacle aside and closed upon him. The hero tried to parry the downward thrust of its blade, but the impact of the blow brought him to his knees. The statue struck at him with the stone club of its injured hand, the jagged obsidian edges shearing through his armour. Wulfrik cried out in pain as twisted links of mail bit into his flesh.
Dodging another sweep of the automaton’s sword, Wulfrik stumbled upon the debris littering the floor. The ushabti rushed him, its sword striking sparks from the wall as Wulfrik ducked beneath its murderous edge.
Wulfrik staggered away from the remorseless statue, driven back to the doorway from which he had started. He glared into the dead visage of the ushabti, enraged that his death should be brought at the hands of a thing unable to recognise its accomplishment.
A croaking caw diverted his attention for an instant from the monster. Wulfrik’s eyes darted to the floor, shocked to see a black bird hopping about the debris. His shock turned to a grim smile when he saw the object the bird was so interested in. It was a metal flask with a gromril stopper. The Gift of Tongues didn’t allow Wulfrik to read the archaic letters scrawled across its surface, but he didn’t need to read the flask to know what was inside it. The smell of its contents was too strong even for metal to hold captive. It was a smell no warrior of Norsca could ever forget.
The ushabti lunged at him once more, sword slashing at his darting body. This time Wulfrik did not retreat from the monster, but instead sprang past it, rolling along the floor. The black bird hastily retreated as the northman’s violent slide brought him within reach of the metal flask. The sizzling trickle streaming from the dislodged stopper and burning little pits in the floor told Wulfrik the arcane symbols had not lied about its contents. Few things were more caustic than troll bile.
The jackal-headed statue swung towards Wulfrik, raising its heavy sword to cut the northman in half. He snarled back at the ushabti, knocking the stopper free with the edge of his sword and splashing the flask’s contents across the monster’s chest.
Smoke rose from the obsidian statue as the troll bile ate into it. The ushabti staggered back, shaking its head from side to side in an almost human gesture of disorientation. The massive diamond continued to pulse in the centre of its chest – even troll bile could work no more harm than an ugly discolouration upon diamond – but the obsidian around it grew brittle and cracked apart.
The monster took a few more stumbling steps, then flailed its arms as it reached the top of the stairway. The ushabti fought to retain its balance, a fight it seemed about to win until the diamond suddenly dropped from its chest. Instantly, the statue became a lifeless hulk of stone. Without motion or motivation, it toppled backwards, pitching headlong down the stairway, its body cracking apart as it plummeted from the tower.
Wulfrik rose to his feet, kicking the glowing diamond across the floor. Sparing only a single wary glance at the stairway to assure himself that the automaton showed no sign of returning, he turned his eyes on the wizard squatting in his circle of candles and blood.
The wizard looked far different from when he had appeared to Wulfrik as the Kurgan shaman Zarnath, but the astromancer had neglected to mask his scent as thoroughly as he had his face. Wulfrik would not be deceived. This was the man he had led an army halfway around the world to kill.
Stossel recoiled from Wulfrik’s approach. Gone was the might of his magic, drained from him by the hurried spells unleashed by him during the battle, his vitality further sapped by the desperate animation of the ushabti. Barely a hint of blue light glowed in his hollow eyes now, his body withered into an almost fleshless skeleton, the colour drained from his skin. Strands of hair fell from his beard as he raised his terrified eyes to the advancing northman.
Wulfrik glared at the pathetic wretch, his gaze as merciless as a winter storm.
The wizard turned frantic eyes to the perch of his familiar. Grylikh was still there, hopping excitedly from one foot to the other, but the imp was anything but diminished by its master’s distress. If anything, it had grown in size, swelling with power. Stossel sensed something terrible in the creature and for the first time wondered exactly what it was he had conjured up from the old grimoire to serve him.
Grylikh cawed at Stossel, and the familiar’s shape shifted from that of a shrike into the sleek shadowy form of a raven, a single multi-faceted eye burning at the centre of its face. The black beak seemed to smile at him, the sardonic grin of a patient trickster.
An armoured fist smashed into the wizard’s face, spr
awling him across the floor. Too weak to even lift a hand to defend himself, Stossel could only whimper as Wulfrik loomed over him. The northman’s face was so twisted with hate that it seemed scarcely human. It did not take a prognosticator to read death in the marauder’s blazing eyes.
‘You favour birds, Zarnath?’ Wulfrik snarled as he seized the wizard’s robe and lifted him from the floor. The astromancer pawed feebly at his assailant, trying to hold him back. The pommel of Wulfrik’s sword buried itself in Stossel’s gut, sending him crashing back to the floor again.
Wulfrik glared down at the prone wizard. Slowly he sheathed his sword and drew a dagger from his belt. He marched towards Stossel, driving his boot into the astromancer’s side, flipping him onto his belly.
‘Since you like birds so much, traitor,’ Wulfrik hissed, ‘I will make you one.’
Stossel cried out as Wulfrik stomped a boot into the small of his back. It was the first of the wizard’s screams.
It was not the last.
An hour later, Wulfrik crouched beside the gasping, simpering ruin that had once been Ludwig Stossel, renowned astromancer of Wisborg, magister of the Celestial Order. A man who had learned the secret ways of magic and bound them to his service. A man who had peered into the future and tried to shape it to fit his needs. Prophet and mystic, Stossel had long trespassed in the domains of the gods, believing his foresight placed him beyond their power.
Wulfrik wiped the dying man’s blood from his hands, using the torn tatters of the wizard’s own robes to cleanse himself. He nodded with satisfaction as he studied his work. It had taken every ounce of his will to restrain himself from killing Stossel outright. Now he savoured the obscene spectacle he had created.
The tribes of Norsca called it the blood eagle, a torture reserved for their most hated enemies. It was a gruesome tradition that stretched back into the mists of legend. Wulfrik could think of no better doom to bestow upon the man who had lied so cruelly to him, who had held everything he dreamed of before his eyes and then snatched it away even as he reached for it. The traitor could be thankful the northman could only kill him once.