The Legend of the Winterking: The Crown of Nandur

by J. Kent Holloway

  “Can you help me escape? Can you cut the bonds?”

  More nodding, then he flitted away, swooping around Krin again in a series of mad loops, then disappearing behind him.

  “Argh!” Bryx shouted, suddenly twisting furiously against his post. “White-Hair’s mosquitoes now bite Bryx!”

  “Huh?” Krin turned his head to see Askew, as well as the other two imps working feverishly to free the goblin of his bonds.

  “No, no, no, no, no! Not him. Me! Me!” he hissed. Had his hands been free, Krin would have palmed his face in frustration, but the imps paid him no heed. Instead, they continued biting, and clawing away at the leather straps that held the large goblin in place.

  Why, Lord? Why is nothing ever simple?

  “What’s going on over there?” the shaman yelled, moving toward them. The commotion had even garnered Sair’n Kryl’s attention, because now he stood, looking toward them with sudden interest. It was the first good look Krin had managed to get of the man. He was taller than most citizens of Thana Pel, standing half a head shorter than Krin, and was lankier than expected. His crimson robes hung loose about his frame, though his tunic was belted around the waist with a wide, black belt cushioned by a dark silk sash underneath. A high tagelmust, traditionally worn by many of the magi, adorned his head; its flowing cloth wrapped loosely around his face, obscuring his identity. From Krin’s vantage point, he couldn’t see the man’s eyes, but he felt as though they were burning holes into him even at a distance.

  In his left hand, he held one half of Nandur’s Crown. The second half was in the right. Krin now knew exactly what the man had been doing all this time. For what purpose, he could only guess.

  The Dragon Lord held up one of the antlers so that Krin could get a good look, then walked up to the Rifting Stone, and knelt before it. A moment later, a massive fur-covered arm—easily the size of a good-sized tree trunk—stretched out from the portal, the closed hand opening to reveal five dagger-like fingers. Keeping his head low, Sair’n Kryl lifted one of the antlers, and gently placed it in the Winterking’s hand. Once it was secure, the arm withdrew into the ethereal soup of the rift, and the portal snapped shut with a hiss, and a rush of cold air. The magus stepped away from the stone, and began to stare at Krin; unnerving him.

  The shaman, however, didn’t share his master’s fascination with the young half-elf. Instead, his ire was focused on the emissary of his queen.

  “Bryx! What are you doing?” Brahk said, just as the hunter goblin exploded from his bonds, and lunged. With a shriek, the shaman spun, and ran in the opposite direction, but Bryx was too fast. He tackled the smaller goblin to the ground, and began pummeling him with powerful fists.

  Sair’n Kryl, did nothing except continue staring at Krin, eyeing him with deep suspicion. He then turned toward the woods, and whistled. Two seconds later, there was a great rumble of paws crunching in the new fallen snow, before the three cats burst from the trees, and leapt over the waist-high wall, before running at full speed for the newly liberated Bryx.

  “Look out!” Krin shouted, just as the nearest one reached its great paw toward the goblin’s head. The warning had been fast enough, and Bryx reacted with a speed that belied his injuries. He leapt off the shaman, rolled to his feet, and sprinted across the courtyard toward the weapons rack.

  Krin watched the scene unfold, aware of three things simultaneously: one, the Mad Magus had yet to remove his loathing gaze from Krin; two, the remaining antler was now emitting a strange golden light; and three, the imps had already begun laboring to release his own bonds from behind him.

  As the three giant cats began to encircle the beleaguered Bryx, Krin found himself almost wishing the imps would have left things well enough alone.

  A guy could get killed tangling with these people. Just then, he felt his hands fall free of the straps, and he ran.

  FORTY-FIVE

  Krin ran as fast as his legs would carry him toward the low wall, vaulted over it, and plowed into the woods beyond. As far as he was concerned, the Magi, the dwarves—heck, all of Thana Pel—could hang for all he cared. He had no desire to mess with the brutish creature that had, until moments earlier, stared at him through the rift veil, nor his traitorous magus lackey. Nicholas might be disappointed in him, but he could live with that. That was the point. Running ensured he would live. The same couldn’t be said if he decided to stick around, and fight the good fight.

  So he would run. Not just from Kor Shani, and the giant creature that lurked beyond the rift, but from everything. The quest. The magi. Thana Pel. This, after all, wasn’t his fight. Wasn’t his concern. Why was he risking his life for things he wasn’t even aware of until a few months ago?

  Determined to put all this hero business behind him, Krin set his jaw tighter and pushed forward, resisting the urge to look back. Keeping his eyes fixed dead ahead, he leapt over the underbrush, and sprinted headlong into the thickening woods. Though he had known the forest was thick, the going was tougher than expected. The snow had accumulated a height of just above his calves, forcing him to raise his legs higher to hurtle the drifts between trees.

  The light from the bonfire had illuminated the outer bushes, but the deeper he went, the darker it became. He soon found himself running completely blind.

  Branches and twigs slapped at his face as he pushed through, eliciting stinging red welts across his wind-chilled skin. He nearly tripped as he ducked under one low-hanging limb, and his cloak snagged on one of the tree’s roots jutting up from the ground. When the cloak pulled taut, he was violently jerked back into his haunches. Ripping the fabric from the snag, he scrambled to his feet, and took off again.

  Krin couldn't tell if anyone or anything had followed him. He wasn’t certain that, even now, one of the great Cra'chunas wasn’t poised to leap onto his back, and eviscerate him from behind. So, he kept running; pushing himself beyond his limits. He knew if he could just keep going a little while longer, he would break free of this abysmal forest, as well as the unholy darkness of the Winterking, and his plans.

  Darkness. The word hit him like a fist to the gut. The N’ahk. The Crown.

  He had made a promise. One he couldn't remember precisely, but knew in his bones that he had made it. Willingly. Not only were those antlers important to the people of Thana Pel—the entire world, in fact—but the N’ahk needed them most of all. It were they that had reduced the poor creature into the insane beast he was today. And, paradoxically, it was only by the Crown that the N’ahk would one day find peace from the madness that enslaved him. He knew that. He couldn't explain how he knew that; just that he did.

  So what? He chided himself as he pushed through a particularly heavy cluster of thorn bushes. You were about to quit. Abandon your friends to their fate. People you actually care about! What does it matter if you betray some crazy…

  But before the question had even been fully formed in his mind, the one word he needed to hear had slipped out: Betray.

  His entire life, Krin had been betrayed in one form or another. Betrayed by his parents, for leaving him lost, and alone in the world. It didn’t matter that it was not their fault. That death had taken them from him. In the long run, they had abandoned him to the fate of an orphan…a slave…with no hope of escape.

  He had been betrayed by Nicholas—the one man who had shown him nothing but love and compassion his entire life. For that same love and compassion had come at a cost: his ignorance. His entire life the old man had lied about his heritage. Keeping him from the one thing that mattered most to someone who had lost everything; his birthright.

  And it had taken an act of otherworldly war to propel Krin down a path that would finally lead him to the answers he so desperately needed, and from the most unexpected sources at that.

  The girl, Finleara, had also betrayed him, just as the N’ahk had predicted. She had betrayed everyone, but for Krin, the sting was even more acute since he had developed a rather unexpected emotional attachment to the elf. Ma
ybe because of their kinship as dark elves, or simply they both had been displaced from their homeland, and were strangers in a strange land.

  Perhaps it had just been her smile—when she cared to grace him with it—that shone as bright as the morning star.

  Betraying her father by stealing by the Crown, and her betrothal to their enemy, yet the greatest betrayal was her rejection of Krin. He would have liked to hope she had good reason for her actions…some ulterior motive that would ultimately absolve them. But for now, his heart ached more than ever over what she had done.

  He wouldn’t wish that kind of pain on his worst enemy, and here he was, about to do the very same thing to people he professed to care about. Nicholas. Garhet. Even Ulfilas. If he didn’t change course now, he would be condemning them to a betrayal far worse than anything he had ever experienced.

  A bloodcurdling scream erupted in the distance behind him. A goblin scream. A scream of agonizing pain. Krin skidded to a stop, and turned around in the direction of Kor Shani.

  In the end, Krin supposed, it wouldn’t be the betrayal of his adopted father or friends that had changed his mind about his next course of action. It was simply the fact that he couldn’t let a filthy, malodorous goblin die such an unthinkable death at the hands of someone as vile as Sair’n Kryl.

  FORTY-SIX

  Safely crouched in a tree, more than a couple of stories in the air, Krin looked down into the courtyard of Kor Shani. Bryx was once more secured to his post; his body even bloodier, and more battered than when he last saw him. Claw and tooth marks ravaged nearly every bit of his skin, and Krin marveled that the large goblin was even still breathing. He wasn’t certain whether the fact that the hunter goblin was alive was more due to his rugged tenacity or the product of the shaman’s magicks in order to prolong his agony.

  There were no signs of the Cra'chuna now, but Krin was certain they were lurking about—most likely hunting for him. The portal remained closed, and was now only a flat, round stone set on its end on the ground. Sair’n Kryl and Brahk huddled in front of the stone in a frenzied discussion. Though the magus’s voice was much too low for Krin to hear, the shaman’s was whiny, and high-pitched—even for a goblin—making their discussion relatively easy to follow. Not surprising, they were talking about him.

  “But even now, your pets are tracking the elfling down,” Brahk said. “He surely couldn’t have gone very far.”

  The magus slapped Brahk across the jaw, then hissed a string of indecipherable words.

  Nursing his jaw, the shaman shrugged. “But I don’t understand. You and our Lord, the Krampus, have the Crown now. Why do you still need him alive?”

  Krin’s ears perked at this question. On the one hand, this was good news. If Sair’n Kryl wanted to keep him alive, that might give him a slight advantage over his enemies. Plus, it’s just good to know I have a much better shot at getting out of this alive. At least, for the moment.

  “The N’ahk?” Brahk squealed, backing away from his master. “No one survives the Darkness! How is it…”

  Sair’n Kryl interrupted the question with a dismissive wave, and spoke. Krin strained to hear the words, but just couldn’t make them out.

  “Fine. We’ll keep the whelp alive for now so that he can share the N’ahk’s accursed secrets,” Brahk said with a scowl. “But I warn you, Sair’n Kryl. The son of Kraen-Lil should not be underestimated. His victory over the Beast of the Tower is proof enough. Keep him alive at your own peril.”

  The magus growled something, then lurched forward, and grabbed the goblin by his throat; bodily lifting him off the ground. Brahk shrieked once more, before he was tossed onto a pile of bodies that still tainted the grounds.

  The moment Krin’s eyes landed on the corpses, the odd hum instantly returned from inside his pack. Curious now, he reached inside, and immediately realized the source. The dodecahedron…the Maera-Wif’s artifact.

  Pulling the object from the pack, Krin studied it as best he could in the darkness. As he held it, the thing pulsed in his hand like the steady beat of human heart beat.

  Thum bump. Thum bump. Thum bump.

  He nearly dropped the thing when the comparison sprang to mind, but managed to catch it just as it rolled to the edge of his fingertip. Once secured, he gripped it tight against his chest, and sighed. The last thing he needed was for someone like Sair’n Kryl to get his hands on an object capable of bringing the dead back to …

  Dead? His eyes shot back to the bodies dotting the courtyard.

  Thum bump.

  Had one of the goblin’s legs just twitched? He watched for several minutes, but nothing happened. The dodecahedron seemed to have given up its phantom heartbeat in exchange for the more familiar, steady hum Krin knew.

  Of course not, he thought. It was just a trick of the firelight. Shadows dancing across the bodies.

  Krin’s attention was drawn back to the shaman as he struggled to free himself from the pile of bodies. The creature hissed a string of curses, attempting to roll off the mound, while at the same time encountering resistance from stray limbs, reeking of decay, that jutted out here and there from the pile. He nearly chuckled at the sight, until the artifact thrummed again.

  Thum bump. Thum bump.

  One of the dead’s hands lashed out, grabbing the shaman’s bone necklace. He screamed; simultaneously finding footing enough to leap from the pile of bodies with a single bound. The terrified goblin backed away; his jet black eyes locked on the corpses in terror.

  “Did you see that, my lord?” he yelped. But Sair’n Kryl, now kneeling again before the Rifting Stone, ignored him. The magus’s head was bowed, as if in prayer or meditation. His muscles tensed beneath his robes with the sudden intrusion. Brahk, upon noticing his master’s bristling posture, gritted his teeth, and turned back to look at the bodies.

  Krin held up the artifact, and examined it again. He looked into its hollowed out shell, but could see nothing that explained the object’s strange behavior.

  What is going on? He began itemizing everything he knew about the dodecahedron. One. It had been used by a dark elf-witch who wished to prolong her life for an indefinite amount of time. Two. The object had, according to Finleara, been imbued with the ability to siphon will power—life itself—to the old crone over the centuries. Three. Not only had it prolonged the Nightmare Lady’s life, it also seemed to re-animate the dead bodies of those long-buried within the cairn.

  But how does it work? And is there enough power left in it to be useful?

  The vision of hundreds of disembodied faces of anguished children flashed through his mind, and his guts twisted in nauseating knots at the memory. The dodecahedron had been filled with the will and life force of those children. Suddenly his nausea turned to a seething rage, and he gripped the artifact tighter in his hand.

  How many children? How many had suffered and died for this unholy thing to work? And knowing its power source, could he really even consider using it as well?

  Thum bump.

  Another screech erupted from the courtyard.

  Krin looked down to see Brahk scrambling away on all fours, just as one of the corpses sat up of its own accord. But that was as far as it got. The dodecahedron returned to its steady hum, and the corpse slumped back onto its brothers without so much as a twitch.

  Then again, it might not be up to me. This thing seems to have a will of its own.

  Brahk’s outburst finally elicited Sair’n Kryl’s attention, who stood from his position in front of the Rifting Stone. He left the second half of Nandur’s Crown laying unprotected on a silk pillow in front of the Stone, while he turned to stare at the corpses. After a while, his gaze swept past the bodies, and moved to the forest. Back and forth, the magus scanned the estate, patiently searching for—Krin presumed—him. Did he know about the dodecahedron? Did Finleara tell him about their encounter with the Maera-Wif?

  A minute or so later, Sair’n Kryl let out three sharp whistles, instantly answered by the Cra'chun
a darting out of the woods, and into the courtyard. The magus crouched down, calling the big cats over, where he whispered into their ears. Five seconds later, they each spun in different directions, and began scouring the estate, occasionally stopping to open their mouths to taste for his scent with long black tongues.

  Great, he thought, unconsciously hugging the tree tighter to further hide his body from anyone or anything below. He wondered if they could climb trees. They're cats! Of course, they can! He chided himself for such a silly question. So, Sair’n Kryl must suspect that I’m nearby. He rubbed at the hair of his chin as he watched. With the cat-thingies looking for me, it’s only a matter of time. If I’m going to act, it needs to be now.

  He had already developed a modicum of a plan, if he could pull it off. But he would need a little help, and that would require him to trust—he cringed at the very thought—the imps. If, that is, he could find them. They had never been exceptionally reliable. Nor had he ever been able to summon them at will. He wasn’t certain that he could. But they did seem to appear whenever he needed them most—or rather, they appeared when they could do the most amount of mischief. Krin could only hope his intended plan contained enough mischief to incite them into action.

  He looked around, taking note of where the Cra'chuna were currently located, then whispered, “Hermie? Askew? Sentinel? You guys there?”

  He held his breath, waiting for a response, but when no answer came after a couple of long moments.

  “Guys? I need your help!” He kept his voice low so as not to attract attention.

  Thum bump. The dodecahedron pulsed again. One of the bodies below spasmed, drawing Sair’n Kryl’s attention. The red-robed man stepped away from the Rifting Stone, and moved over to the corpse before glancing around the estate again.

  As Krin watched the activity below, three glowing orbs zipped through the dense foliage, and alighted on a nearby branch just above his head. The moment they landed, the glows faded, and the three imps waved merry salutations to him that went completely unheeded. Hermie’s nose wrinkled in irritation. Taking hold of a good sized acorn, he plucked it from its stem, and chunked it directly at Krin’s head. The impact—or more likely, the surprise of the impact—nearly knocked Krin from his perch. In an attempt to keep his balance, he inadvertently let go of the artifact as he reached for the nearest limb. The dodecahedron tumbled through the air, and sunk into a small pile of snow with an almost inaudible thud.