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

by Adam Golden

  The sound was a strange subdued sort of clacking whistle, barely audible at first. It grew louder and louder, and then it was gone, drowned out by the screaming as hundreds of arrows fell among the defenders of Kallvatten. Men and women more used to wrestling fishnets and gathering grain harvests than shouldering weapons and manning defenses shrieked in terror and dove for cover, huddled behind their meager fortification. Some scurried under wagons, others took up whatever they could use to improvise a shield and called to their friends and neighbors to hold the line.

  Agnar had expected the Skraelings to hit Kallvatten’s hastily-made wall like a forge hammer striking a child’s stick castle. Instead, they blew over it like a rolling fog. By the time the panic of the arrow storm settled, the demons had breezed over the inadequate fortification. They moved like ghosts, untethered from the ground. They leapt like cats and seemed to glide through the air, easily clearing the loaded wagons and stacked barrels. By the time order was restored among the villagers, the invader was among them.

  Agnar roared a challenge as he drove the heavy barbed head of his boar spear through the back of a demon who had the misfortune to land behind him. His thick-soled boot struck the monster in the back and sent its corpse reeling as he pulled his weapon free and swung to find another. The corpse at his feet looked like a man, shockingly average, even puny by the standards of the usually burly northmen, but Agnar had seen too much of these creatures’ work to be fooled. These skraelings were not men, and they deserved less compassion than one would give a rabid animal.

  A lusty bellow nearby lifted his head in time to see Bjarne’s wood axe buried into the neck of another of the night creatures. The stout ginger-bearded woodsman lay about him with a pair of long-handled wedge-shaped blades, and the area around the enraged Svear man was one of the few islands of calm in a storm of noise, blood, and panic.

  —

  Agnar swung the seven-foot length of ash, wood ,and steel in his hand around his head and slammed it into the skull of a demon trying to drag a woman from one of the homes closest to the wall. The creature sprawled and Agnar changed his grip to plunge the gore-crusted head of his spear into the beast’s neck. The fighting was among the buildings now, and the Svear villagers were pressed to breaking. The burly headman had suffered a half -dozen wounds, and now stood leaning heavily on his spear, sucking deep gasping breaths.

  He’d seen Bjarne go down with a pair of demon blades in his body. The gnarled bastard’s axe had taken one of his murderers’ heads before he fell, and Agnar was sure his friend died with a smile. Kellvatten was in flames, and even now he could hear the shrill screams of the women and the more desperate cries from the meeting hall where the skraelings were collecting their prize. Agnar winced as he forced himself to his full height and offered a prayer for strength to the Allfather as he loped off to meet his fate like a man.

  The desperate, pained cries from the unburnt houses ripped at his soul. He tried not to think about the fate the wives, daughters, and mothers of his friends and neighbors were enduring at that moment. Hot tears burned down his cheeks as he moved toward the meeting hall. He knew each of those women, most of them since he was a boy, and he knew that each of them would demand that he do just as he was doing. That conviction kept him moving, slinking like some coward from shadow to shadow. Such sneaking was ergi, unmanly, but some dishonors could be borne when necessary. When he stood in Odin’s hall, he was sure the Allfather would approve of his motives.

  Kellvatten burned all around, but the large central structure of the meeting hall was untouched by flame. The demons had been careful to keep the burning away from their prize. The homes of his people blazed like a ring of torches surrounding the building, lighting the horrid spectacle of Kellvatten’s extinction. The human-looking monsters were busy. Heavy axes worked in concert, smashing at the hall’s thick timber doors, while others pried at the stout iron hinges. Dark pools and long filthy streaks showed where the last defenders had fallen and been dragged away to be piled like split lumber.

  Agnar saw two of the monsters struggling to heft the considerable bulk of Britta Thorsggard onto the pile. Her considerable girth overwhelmed the creatures, and they dropped her beside the pile with a string of curses the Svear man didn’t know.

  He shook his head sadly for the burly matron. She’d fought on long after most of the men were dead. A look of grim determination painted her pale staring face even now. He wondered if he’d see Britta in Valhalla. That brought a grim smile. He feared for the Allfather if He tried to keep goodwife Thorsggard out.

  A high undulating wail of desperate agony ripped Agnar from his thoughts in time to watch a skraeling raider stagger out of the meeting hall, clutching desperately at his throat before he crumpled to the dirt and died. Three more of them drew weapons and stormed into the building, dragging out a young woman who they threw to the ground and started kicking savagely. She was really more girl than woman. No one above the age of thirteen had been closed inside the hall. Some of the parents had armed the older children before the doors were sealed, obviously this girl had used her weapon. Agnar couldn’t make out which girl this one was, but his heart swelled with pride that he knew her fallen parents would have shared. He thought again of those pained screams from the houses, and hoped that girl’s parents had both fallen.

  One of the skraelings started pulling at his clothing, leering down at his victim. It looked like kicking the girl had lost its thrill once she went limp, so he planned a different entertainment. The other two drifted away, disappearing into the hall to help their fellows gather Kellvatten’s youth.

  The second they disappeared from sight Agnar was moving. The girl on the ground was just conscious enough to struggle as the monster pawed at her body and pushed at the hem of her dress, just conscious enough to distract the would-be rapist. Agnar held his weapon low, below waist level. At the last moment some instinct or noise made the skraeling look up, and Agnar saw the split second of alarm before his momentum and the thrust of his strong arm drove the heavy spearhead through the creature’s face and deep into its skull.

  The skraeling toppled back off his intended prey and tore the spear from Agnar’s hands. The big northman staggered, fell, and hurriedly clapped a huge hand over the girl’s mouth before she could scream. Her eyes were wild, senseless, and she struggled madly against him, raking his arms and face with her fingers. He held her pinned against the ground and placed his face over hers so that she couldn’t help but see him.

  “Be still! You know me?” he asked urgently.

  After a moment, her eyes cleared and she nodded.

  “Good,” he said as he released her. “Run. Don’t stop no matter what you hear. Run as far inland as you can. Stay away from the sea, stay away from Svear towns. The skraelings are there. Run, hide, and live.”

  She stared at him dumbly for a moment before he slapped her cheek lightly, jolting her into action.

  “Run!” he hissed.

  She skittered to her feet, turned, and then paused and turned back, throwing herself at Agnar. “Thank you, thank you!” she whispered fiercely.

  “Go child,” Agnar said taking her by the shoulders. “Live, have strong sons and brave daughters, teach them to be fierce and ready. Teach them to be stronger than we were.”

  A hard look crossed the girl’s face. She moved to the demon still pinned to the ground by the spear lodged in his face and pulled the sword from his scabbard.

  “Not child,” she said. “Hervor, I am Hervor. I will learn this weapon. I will teach my children. We will remember when the skraeling came. We will not be caught unaware again, and one day we will fall on these demons in their own lands and drown them in blood!”

  Agnar was taken aback by the ferocity in the dainty creature’s eyes. He opened his mouth to urge her away again, but without another word she turned and bounded away with the speed and grace of a startled deer.

  He watched the night where she’d vanished for a moment and then set his boot
on the dead demon’s face and pulled his spear free of its skull. The effort brought a wave of sharp pains and dizziness. The stalwart northman pushed the pain to the side. Perhaps one day Hervor’s children would master the waves, perhaps they’d travel to far places, bringing fire and sword to the invaders in vengeance for Kellvetten. Perhaps, but today there was only Agnar, and his work wasn’t done yet.

  “Frejya, mother of battles, Odin, Lord of All, grant me strength. Just a few moments more,” he grated under his breath. “A few moments more.”

  —

  The meeting hall was dim and smoky compared to the brilliance cast by the burning village outside. It was alive with the clamor of wailing babes, screaming children, and cursing demons. The rank stink of urine from overexcited young bladders and offal released by those unlucky dead that littered the straw-strewn floor of the once sacred hall was everywhere. Little more than a dozen of the leather-clad monsters were inside, with maybe half as many among the houses. Less than twenty all told. They’d paid a heavy price for their devilry in Kellvatten, though not nearly as heavy as the village itself. There were more than enough left to complete their task.

  There wasn’t a Svear above the age of twelve within the walls, and those younglings brave or foolish enough to fight back were the same ones responsible for the offal smell that filled the large single room. The rest whimpered hopelessly or cried the angry frustrated tears of those too young to really understand what was happening to their quiet little lives. They were prodded or shoved into rough lines and fixed with rope halters about their necks that joined them to one another.

  Those too young to walk were ripped unceremoniously from the arms of those holding them and tossed into sacks held open by the largest of the demons. There was a terrible efficiency to the whole procedure, a sense of workmen going about an unpleasant task they’d become accustomed to.

  In less than an hour the three dozen or so surviving children of Kellvatten had been organized, leashed, and lined up, ready for the march back to the landing boats. The raiders encircled them, encouraging movement with the butts of their spears or the points of their swords. They all blinked furiously as they crossed from the dim interior back to the relative brightness of the flaming village. The children moaned and shrieked at seeing their homes alight. They cried harder at the piles of dead defenders. Some fell to their knees and had to be lifted up, forced into movement. A few moments of confusion ensued, moments when no one was sure what was happening. In those moments, no one noticed when the rearmost raiders fell away.

  —

  Agnar lowered the twisting sack in his arms to the ground with care and sheathed his iron knife, taking up his heavy spear again. The big demons at the rear of the column went down easily, encumbered as they were with their cargo. The others wouldn’t be so simple. He couldn’t fight twelve. Probably not even one or two wounded as he was. All he could do was give the children their best chance to scatter. Maybe some would get away.

  He took a series of quick breaths and then rose from his crouch as he pulled the heavy spear back near his ear. Summoning every bit of strength and skill he could muster, he hurled the bulky spear as if it were a javelin. Without waiting to see if it hit its mark, Agnar whipped his knife free again, bellowed a mad wordless roar, and rushed at the closest skraeling.

  Agnar’s spear slammed into the raider at the head of the prisoner column like a thunderbolt. The heavy barbed head obliterated the invader’s boiled leather breastplate, pulped his heart, and smashed him backward off his feet. A moment of stunned silence fell, a stillness so complete that the luckless skraeling’s last bubbling exhalation sounded loud.

  The area outside the great hall exploded like a kicked ant hill. Confused, chaotic movement spilled everywhere. Raiders jolted out of shock and went for weapons as haltered children screamed and tried to break in every direction. Their bonds held tight, though, and the runners rebounded, strangling themselves and knocking their fellow captives into sprawling heaps on the ground.

  Agnar drove his iron knife into the face of a slight-shouldered raider dressed in rusted ring mail and scooped the heavy hand-axe the man carried before it hit the ground. The axe hadn’t even settled properly into his palm before it was sailing end over end through the air to contact with a second raider’s skull. The wounded headman wrenched his knife free of the corpse and set to sawing at a rope between a pair of prone children. Tiny hands grasped and clawed at him pleadingly.

  “Run!” he screamed at them when the last strands of rope gave way.

  He wrenched himself out of their desperate grasps and threw himself toward the next closest skraeling. The strength flew out of him quickly now. His vision danced and spun, and the colors were all wrong, everything sounded muffled, as though he were under water.

  He jolted suddenly and started to spin right. His left leg buckled. Pain flared distantly and his fogged mind slowly pulled the facts together. He’d been stabbed. The demon he’d been charging was faster than he looked. A long dagger had flicked out like a viper’s tongue and caught Agnar low on his left side, just above the hip. The Northman forced his leg straight and sprang. Two hundred pounds of bone and muscle crashed into the knife-wielding demon and drove it to the ground.

  This was it. A cold numbness spread throughout his body. Valhalla called. The big Svear raised his arms above his head in preparation for a savage double-fisted hammer blow. The much smaller man trapped underneath him pulled his knife from the big man’s side and stabbed again and again. Agnar didn’t even feel the impacts, just saw his blood spraying onto the dead man he hadn’t killed yet.

  He brought his huge fists together and slammed them down with all the strength left in his powerful frame. The little demon’s face crumpled with a ripe squelch. His body went limp under Agnar’s sprawling form. The darkness closed in around the Svear headman, but not before his starring senseless eyes saw a smattering of ragged little forms fleeing into the dark.

  —

  Sabas cinched the kerchief more tightly around his mouth and nose, took a deep breath through his mouth, and bent back to his task. He took hold of a bundle, pushed upward with his knees, and heaved his load over the side into the sea. He was careful to keep his back straight so he didn’t wrench it when he tossed, and he was equally careful to think of his loads as simply ‘bundles’ instead of what they really were. The thick gloves he wore helped separate him from the reality, helped to disguise the feeling of tiny limbs through the rough cloth. He shook off the thought. He couldn’t think about it, he tried hard to not even be on deck when the other ships returned from their various directions to offload their cargo. Bend, grasp, lift, dump, just like unloading hay bales back on the farm. Just like that.

  Except it wasn’t like that at all, was it? Hay was heavier, more difficult to maneuver, but hay smelled clean, fresh, and wholesome. The Xerxes hadn’t smelled of anything but blood, shit, and rot in weeks. Wait, that wasn’t true, was it? No. The ship positively reeked of tension and fear. It had soaked into the timbers themselves, leached through the great boat’s bones so you couldn’t escape it.

  The pirate bent to another rough cloth package, took another deep breath through his mouth and heaved it over. He waited for the muted splash that followed and muttered the terse prayer that had become a kind of mantra, before setting himself to begin again. Another difference from hauling hay was that farm tasks were done in the sunshine. It felt like months since Sabas had felt clean sunshine on his shoulders.

  The brigand paused in his work and looked up at the pale disc of sun in the sky. It was like looking through a dirty window, as though a dark cloud had settled around the Xerxes. How long were they supposed to go on like this?

  That thought made his eyes swing to the central mast and its grisly charms. Nearly two dozen corpses hung by the neck from the sail spar. Gape-mouthed faces of men he’d known and served beside for years were black with suffocation and in various states of rot. Belsnickel had done it himself, hefted each r
ope with his own hands, always with that same stony morose silence that had become so common. Mutiny he called it. They’d only asked a simple question: “Why?” Why all of . . . this? The admiral they’d all served for so long struck down the first of them like he was swatting a bug, no feeling, no pause, just sudden death, and that red-cloaked thing looked on the whole time.

  Sabas pushed thoughts of the sorcerer away. He didn’t know if that one could hear thoughts. He doubted it, or they’d all be dead, but . . .

  The ship shuddered and then shot forward. The old sailor lost his footing and tottered over into the low pile of cloth-wrapped bundles before the rail. He didn’t need to look to know the massive sail still hung limp, or that the oars were still shipped and locked in place. He knew if he looked over the side he’d see the world streaking by at speeds no ship could maintain under even perfect conditions.

  Sorcery.

  The air suddenly reeked of sulfur and ozone. The smell he now recognized as the result of death and dark magic. He swallowed a breath and tried not to think about it. A hand went down to steady himself as he started to lever himself back to his feet. He pretended he couldn’t feel the hard curve of a tiny skull in his palm. When that bundle went into the sea he offered an extra prayer and crossed himself twice. He’d been a killer and a rogue all his life, but this? This was something else, something . . . “Evil,” he muttered and then froze.

  A stifling weight slammed down around his shoulders, as though he’d gained a hundred pounds of armor between one blink and the next. A clammy sheen of cold sweat covered him from head to toe, and he felt as though insects were crawling under his skin. He turned slowly, his body moving with a jerky, unnatural woodenness.

  The Red Cloak. He was standing no more than ten feet behind the sailor. That cavernous fur-rimmed hood was up, but Sabas knew the sorcerer stared right at him. The forlorn bandit was overtaken by the recognition of what an incredible effort it was not to swallow his own tongue. He wanted to cross himself, to jibber like a madman, or to jump into the sea. Sange Klau. The raider ships had been ordered to spread the terror of that name. Sabas doubted even their bloodiest, most atrocious acts could compare to a moment in this creature’s presence. He was frozen, a trembling block of meat and bone that might as well have been granite. That weight about his shoulders continued to press as though it were trying to drive him into the boards of the deck like a nail, and then it was gone.