The Grimoire of Yule (The Shadows of Legend Book 1)

by Adam Golden

  It looked like a man, like the man he and two of his crew had wrestled down the ladder and into this very room. It had the same heavy frame, same rough sun-darkened skin, and coarse greyish white hair, but Vexin knew this was no man. He’d been surprised by the physical changes in the regal aristocrat he remembered from mere weeks before, but they were nothing compared to whatever else had happened to make the polite, subtly arrogant soft creature he recalled into . . . that.

  It crouched above the splayed corpse, up to its elbows in that poor man’s innards. The heavy grey beard on its face was plastered against its chin and neck, and sprayed strings of blood and chunks of flesh this way and that with every movement of its head. A quiet series of snarls and growls, like the sounds of a mangy dog worrying a bone, broke from its throat as it dug in the dead man’s chest. Now and then it lifted its head, sniffing at the thick smoky air before it turned back to its grisly prize. Vexin yelped against his will as the monster put its face into the wound, pulling some fibrous piece of the dead man free with its teeth. Time froze and Vexin’s heart hammered until he thought it might burst.

  God let it burst!

  The monster lifted its head. A low rumbling growl seemed to shake the burning cabin and a smile of malicious joy spread on his bloody lips.

  Vexin pressed himself harder into the wall, never feeling the flames that consumed it as the monster turned eyes that blazed with red menace on new prey.

  —

  Groans and curses passed among the eight-man boarding party as they took in the devastation splayed about the swamped decks of Nemesis. They were stout and sturdy men, hard-eyed killers every one, yet more than one crossed himself furtively or offered some gesture to ward off evil when he thought no one would see.

  Belsnickel pretended not to notice the momentary show of weakness. He knew no better way, short of a shot in the mouth, to get a man’s back up than to challenge his superstitions. Looking about him, the bulky pirate admiral found his own hand twitching toward the worn bit of lucky bone that had ridden on a thong at his belt for nearly forty years. He would have dismissed it as a bit of foolishness if asked, and did so even in his own mind, but the truth of it was he’d humped that little talisman across half the world. He’d lost coin purses and boots, he’d even lost swords and shields at various times, but he always knew where that trinket was. He supposed that said something.

  The rugged brigand lord gave his freshly shorn, scarred head a small shake, rubbing idly at the mass of burned scar tissue on his left cheek. He was letting himself be distracted. Looking for a distraction more likely, putting off dealing with the two or three scores of dead men who littered the splintered, sodden wreck of the Nemesis. The smoke he’d seen on the horizon had told a tale he didn’t want to hear, the drowned bodies that his men had fished out of the sea as they grew closer said the tale was true, but still he’d hoped it wasn’t as bad as it seemed. It was worse. This wasn’t a storm or an accident, this was a slaughter.

  Some of the bodies he saw looked like they might have succumbed to the storm that had blasted his fleet and dragged them to whatever godforsaken bit of brine they were bobbing on now, some but not most. Most looked as though they’d been torn into by some great animal. Huge ragged tears were the order of the day, and two bodies in three had more than one such wound. Arms lay separated from bodies, hands still clutched weapons but lacked arms, and where the sea hadn’t washed the blood away, it had soaked into the drenched timbers, giving the whole ship a mottled, diseased look.

  “Spread out! Look for survivors,” he bellowed, and added after a moment, “go in pairs, and watch your asses! Whatever did this might swim, but if it don’t, it’s still here.”

  That caused a few drawn faces and more than a few clutched weapon hilts, but they went nonetheless.

  Hard men, Belsnickel thought approvingly.

  The world needed the weak he supposed. Sheep played a part every bit as necessary as wolves. Still, he was no shepherd, and sheep didn’t survive long in the Collegium.

  His gaze swept over the floating charnel house around him. These had been hard men, fierce fighters, and daring raiders. He and Vexin handpicked this crew. They were some of the best of Belsnickel’s men, the very fiercest of his wolves, and they were dead to a man. What sort of monster had they stumbled upon?

  His last communication from Vexin had been utterly routine. Nemesis was on the tail end of a far-ranging sweep of raids along the shipping lanes between Thrace and the Empire with a quarter of Belsnickel’s fleet. They’d done well for themselves, no problems at all, not even a hint of weather. Until that insane storm came out of nowhere and smashed what it hadn’t scattered of the pirate fleet. Belsnickel turned away from the carnage strewn around him and looked over the rail at the side of his flagship.

  She was called the Pride of Xerxes, but she was his pride as well. A ship like no other in the world, she’d been built by some eastern potentate who imagined himself the next Alexander the Great. When that fool got himself killed before her hull even felt the salt, she’d been purchased by another fool. This one was a terribly rich merchant. He, like fat old men everywhere, liked pretty young women, who in turn liked grand expensive gifts. Nothing ate at a fortune like the combination of lust and greed, and when the old man’s debts threatened to break him, Belsnickel stepped in. He’d given a small fortune for the Xerxes, but nothing like what she was worth. The ship was massive, one hundred thirty feet long, boasting six banks of oars pulled by 150 men on each side. She was a floating fortress.

  A massive bronze ram cut the waves at the bow, and twin towers stood fore and aft, sheathed in bronze and each topped with a large ballista bolt thrower. Her wooden sides boasted bronze plates that gleamed in the light like gold and made her all but immune to enemy fire. The Xerxes had a crew of nearly a hundred, as well as space for a full complement of three hundred archers and two hundred marines. She was a self-contained battle group, and she gave Belsnickel’s armada power to rival many small nation states. The Xerxes was beautiful, a masterpiece of floating warfare. The man who’d had her constructed might have been a fool, but he and Belsnickel had the same opulent tastes.

  The huge ship was as much a palace as a fortress. Exotic woods, fine marbles, golden ornaments, and gilding were everywhere in her rich cabins and corridors. The massive suite of rooms that served as his cabin, stretched half of the ship’s first deck and could have fitted into many a fine manor house or minor land-bound palace. Even the gigantic rectangular sail that snapped and flailed atop her massive central mast was silk dyed royal purple and worked with enough thread of gold to pay a senator’s ransom.

  The Xerxes had come through that mad storm with little more than nicks and scratches; a gouge or two in her finishes, but intact. It was a testament to her strength and to the fact that most of the real sailors among his men were stationed onboard her decks.

  The Collegium was made up mostly of landsmen and capable lads. They learned quickly, but were utterly outclassed by the sudden calamity they’d found themselves in. His navigators said they’d been blown leagues off course, into the unknown seas beyond the Pillars of Heracles. They’d only found eight ships since the storm’s end, Nemesis made nine. Fourteen were still missing. He could only hope they’d avoided the storm and were whole and waiting in known waters. The question that gnawed at him was whether he kept going, kept looking for others, or took what he’d recovered and made for the gap between Spain and Africa and a return to civilization.

  The chorus of screams spun Belsnickel’s bulk like a top, his thick workmanlike infantry sword in his hand as though by magic. By the time the second round of screams started he was bounding over slick decks and slicker corpses, headed for a ladder. The monster was still onboard.

  —

  It stared into the shimmering surface of the polished silver mirror, trying to discern the murky blurred features of its face. No, not it, he. A man, and yet more, so much more. He sniffed, the stink of wood smoke was almos
t choking, and beneath it the tang of fresh blood mixed with the sharp stink of offal. He looked back over his shoulder at the pile of meat, blood, and hair, and clicked his tongue in vexation. Irritating, regrettable.

  They’d burst in on him, waving weapons and making demands. They didn’t understand. He’d started to explain to them before one of them reached for him. It was a mistake. He’d reacted thoughtlessly, he’d barely stopped himself before they were all totally ruined. He would do better, and there was much to do. He would have to let others serve. He turned back to the cloudy image, and pressed sharp, intense eyes burrowing into the metal, seeking . . . something. Recognition? Understanding? He remembered being something else. He remembered being many other things. Man? He’d been that. Beast? He thought so. What was he now?

  Wizard?

  Monster?

  God?

  Maybe none of those, maybe all of them. He wasn’t sure yet, but he would be soon. His understanding was growing with every moment. Soon he would be ready.

  —

  Belsnickel pounded down the ladder from the main deck. He leapt, skipping the last four rungs, and landed in the depths of Nemesis’s belly with his short sword out and ready. The lower decks were filled with thick smoke. His eyes clouded with tears and his lungs began to burn. There were faint islands of pale light in places where closed lamps still hung, but no signs of active fire that he could see. That was good, but the stillness wasn’t. The screams that had driven him down there were gone as though they’d never been. Here and there he could hear drips and the ever-present creaking of a wooden ship at sea, but beyond that there was nothing. Nemesis was utterly quiet.

  “Silent as a tomb,” the big pirate muttered to himself as he moved forward, sword out before him, probing.

  He’d only gone two dozen paces before he realized there was a sound he hadn’t heard before, a low repetitive sound, like the buzz of insects or a whisper. The bandit leader held his breath, moving with surprising stealth for a man of his bulk. A few paces ahead he could see one of the lamps and, in its small faint orb of illumination, he could just make out a sprawled form lying against the wall.

  The big man abandoned stealth and rushed forward. It was a man, though it took Belsnickel a moment to recognize him. Dabin, he thought was the boy’s name, a scout in the African legions before he decided to follow a more lucrative trade. Good fighter—solid —a man who could be depended on.

  As the pirate admiral knelt and looked into the other man’s face, he felt a chill. Dabin was covered in blood. Not spattered, drenched, as though he’d just dragged himself out of a pool of the stuff, but Belsnickel had seen more than his share of blood. It was the boy’s eyes he noticed. They were wide open, as though locked into a startled moment; they were empty of awareness or recognition. Whatever the former scout was seeing, or had seen, had overridden reality. His lips moved constantly, but even as close as he was, Belsnickel couldn’t make out what he was saying. It sounded foreign. If he remembered correctly, Dabin was from somewhere out on the Black Sea. Several of the men from out that way used a strange polyglot that mashed up words from a half-dozen languages. Belsnickel thought that might be what Dabin was muttering.

  “Dabin . . . come on lad, snap to it. Dabin!” He shook the man gently as he yelled.

  Neither the manhandling or the sound of his dreaded employer’s voice had any effect on the traumatized man.

  Belsnickel sat bat on his heels, considering. What could do that to a man?

  Dabin jerked forward. His body stiff with alarm. Whatever it was he was muttering grew to a fevered chant, and Belsnickel felt the itch that he’d learned long ago meant he was in danger.

  His short sword was still in his hand and a lifetime of experience had taught him cautious confidence. Whatever was behind him had never faced anyone like him, he was sure.

  Dabin managed to shamble to his feet and fled into the darkness as Belsnickel burst upward and spun.

  His swing should have cleaved into the side of the neck of the thickset greybeard who stood less than a pace in front of him. Instead, the blade of his weapon was stuck. Frozen in empty air as though he’d driven it into dense wood. Belsnickel looked down at the black blade that had punched through his thick leather armor and into his heart. It seemed to pulse, to suck in the warmth and light around it. He stared, deep in shock, into the sharp grey eyes of the old man. His mouth hung open. He knew this man . . . didn’t he? He stumbled back and was caught by what felt like a dozen strong hands. It was going dark, but those hard iron eyes were still there. Staring at him, staring into him.

  —

  The Pride of Xerxes cut the waves, her huge gold-bordered sail strained with the wind the ship’s new master had called to propel it. He stood in the bow, almost completely alone. The crew gave him a wide berth. Their leader’s orders had been clear, if strange, and if the Admiral seemed withdrawn and uncharacteristically quiet that was his own business. He stood at the tiller, guiding the Xerxes northwest as he’d been ordered.

  The ship’s new patron stood pointed northwest as unerringly as the needle of a compass. He felt pulled. Destiny awaited. He cursed the plodding slowness of the conveyance, as well as corruption that made his power inconsistent enough to make such methods necessary. He’d failed twice to manifest the rich cloak of crimson velvet trimmed in white fur that now swathed his heavyset form. That wouldn’t do. He became aware of his single companion again, and felt a smile. The man who’d been Dabin amused him with his constant muttering; such an interesting tongue he spoke. His memory and understanding were complete now. He knew who and what he’d been, but he was none of that now. He was something new, and as such, he’d need a new name. He’d agonized over what that might be, but dear sweet Dabin here had solved his problem.

  The poor man was locked in a single moment of torment, single sight, a talon of ebony dread dripping gore as it approached him.

  “Blood claw,” Dabin said, rocking back and forth against the ship’s rail. “Blood claw, blood claw.”

  His tormentor smiled. A fitting name indeed. It had a music in the man’s native tongue that pleased him. He sped the words on the wind in his own voice, sending them like a herald to announce his coming.

  “Sange Klau.”

  The Dark Dues of Deliverance

  “They’re coming!”

  The screeching wail rang down from where a pair of boys stood lookout on the high-peaked roof of the village’s meeting hall. Below them men heaved and hauled at heavy wagons and maneuvered the carts collected from every house and farm for miles to block the roads and create barriers between the buildings.

  Those who had them readied their bows, or hefted hunting spears nervously. The rest brandished whatever makeshift weapons or tools they’d been able to scrounge. The barricade they’d spent the last two days building out of whatever they could find was as strong as they could make it, but most of them knew it wouldn’t be enough.

  “Agnar!”

  A broad-shouldered man, dressed in a rough homespun tunic and steaming with the exertion of moving a heavy grain wagon on his own, turned just in time to catch a thick-hafted boar spear the man who’d called tossed toward him.

  “How many?” Agnar, headman of the village of Kallvatten asked.

  “More than last time,” Bjarne, said. “At least fifty. The far scouts say they see fires west and south. They’re raiding the other villages as well.”

  Agnar’s knuckles popped as he squeezed the thick shaft of his spear. His jaw hurt from the effort of clinching it.

  “There’s nothing we can do for the others,” he said after a moment. The words came out in grated pain. “They’ll have to care for themselves. We’ve got enough to deal with.”

  The other man nodded but didn’t speak. Bjarne didn’t like leaving any Svear to the mercy of the demons. Agnar agreed. He’d tried to convince the nearby villages to consolidate their people into a single place. No one wanted to leave their homes, their crops, and flocks. He unders
tood, he felt the same himself, but fighting this way, in small, scattered groups, was madness. They’d lost too many to that way of thinking already. He clapped Bjarne on his shoulder and gave him a sad smile, and then turned and stalked toward the barricade.

  “Make ready!” The big man’s voice boomed through the young dark of the early night and torches went down into the kindling of the massive bonfires prepared every ten feet along the two hundred feet of bow-shaped palisade that closed off the seaward side of the village.

  A score of thick-columned flames burst into the air and obliterated the darkness. The men and women of Kallvatten stood a little taller and seemed a touch less nervous in the light. Sturdy old Britta Thorsggard uttered a relieved sigh, though she looked embarrassed when she realized others had heard. The big woman’s face went stone hard and fierce as she shook the pair of heavy cleavers in her meaty hands. She had no call for embarrassment, they’d all seen the evil these Skraeling demons could do with shadows.

  Not for the first time in the days since the demon ship had been spotted on their shores, Agnar wished that Kallvatten had a Seidkona of their own. He’d never thought of the sleepy little fishing village as needing a priestess before. He honored Freyja as much as anyone, but if he were honest, he distrusted the opaque rituals of strange powers the Seidr held. Or he had. Now? Now he would happily have a dozen of the strange, imperious old women about him with their wands and runes and muttered curses.

  “There!” someone shouted. A ragged trickle of snapped bowstrings announced shots fired from nervous excitement more than any chance of a decent hit.

  Agnar opened his mouth to shout but heard the strident bass of Bjarne calling down the anxious men and reminding them to wait and shoot together. The Headman checked the iron knife at his side and hefted his spear as he leapt onto the wagon before him. He couldn’t make them out yet. The dark hid them as effectively as a wall, but there was a feeling . . . a wrongness. The night pressed heavily against the light, like a blanket trying to smother a flame.