“Braemorgan!” he screamed, his mind spinning with panic. “Where are you?”
He kept riding on ahead, right through the stream, desperate to fight his way ahead to safety and swinging his sword with the renewed vigor of a cornered beast. One foe he beheaded, another he sent to the snowy earth with a crushed skull. A third warrior, a huge man in a bearskin cloak with massive shoulders and a long black beard came at him brandishing an immense war hammer before he could react. The man swung the heavy hammer in a wide arch, impacting against Agnar’s shield with a terrible force and almost knocking him right out of his saddle. The black-bearded giant raised the hammer high above his head and then brought it down on Agnar’s upraised shield before Agnar could do anything. The hammer hit with tremendous power, throwing Agnar off balance and stunning him for a moment. Only sheer luck kept him upon his horse.
Agnar desperately started to slash back at the huge warrior, but a second attacker came charging at him from the other side, sword upraised to strike at his neck. He shifted in his saddle and parried the blow from the second warrior just in time. As he did so, the hulking man swung the hammer yet again. The weapon impacted with Agnar’s back, between his shoulders. The blow knocked him right off the horse and onto the ground with a great jolt. He landed on his sword arm, knocking the weapon out of his hand in the process. The ground was cold and as hard as granite.
Agnar struggled to regain his feet, unable to find his sword in the chaos. The world had become a confused mass of noise and screaming men. Snow and sky and blood all became one amidst a cloudy haze of pain.
Agnar forgot his sword, wanting only to escape the battle. He stood, clutching his shoulder in agony. The hammer-blow felt like it had broken his shoulder blade as waves of pain pulsed through his torso with every step. He knew he was very likely crippled from the wound, perhaps permanently. Without thinking, he reached down and picked up some random sword lying in the blood-stained snow. Looking up, he saw an enemy charging towards him on foot. He somehow managed to parry the man’s blow and cut him down. A wave of new pain pulsed through his body as he dealt the killing blow. It staggered him, and he nearly passed out. He stumbled and almost fell. The world grew foggy and started to fade around him, the shouts and cries of the battle growing distant and muffled.
Agnar looked all around, desperate to find a route through the battle to the trees beyond. He needed a horse, but he couldn’t find one. Damn it, why wasn’t there a horse? Before he could think of what to do next, another blow struck him in the back, knocking him roughly to the ground by the edge of the stream. He lay there for a long moment, face down in the snow, before rolling over onto his side. He looked up. The world was spinning and he could make little sense of what was going on above him. It sounded like at least one of his remaining soldiers was coming to his aid. A man in armor fell to the ground right next to him, a spear protruding from his chest. Agnar could see the man’s body heat escaping visibly from the wound into the bitter cold air, the warrior’s face frozen forever in agony. He recognized the dead man. He was a good and loyal soldier of The Westmark, but Agnar could not recall the man’s name.
Agnar pushed himself up with one of his arms, struggling to get to his feet. Grimacing in pain, he managed to stand and stagger forward a few steps. He was still lucid enough to a see the giant warrior with the terrifying hammer looming over him on horseback, the weapon descending once again. He had no time to dodge the blow. He raised his sword-arm as if to parry, but his hand was empty. The hammer fell and the world went dark as Agnar fell to the cold, hard ground one last time.
______
Wulfgrim grappled desperately with an enemy soldier, exchanging powerful blows with the man in rapid succession. He finally slew the warrior and looked again for the young Thane Ravenbane. He had last seen Agnar leading a foray into the enemy lines against one of the wizards as Wulfgrim did the same, but had since lost track of him in the chaos of the battle.
Wulfgrim spotted Agnar as the young thane was knocked off his horse by a huge man bearing a massive war hammer. He pointed his horse towards Agnar, digging his spurs into the sides of his horse and charging through the enemy ranks desperate to reach Agnar. He knocked a pair of enemy warriors aside who blocked his way and struggled violently with a third. He managed to stab the warrior in the belly with the sharp point of his axe, looking back up in time to see the gigantic warrior with the war hammer bringing the hammer down upon Agnar’s head. Wulfgrim watched helpless as Agnar fell to the ground lifeless. He saw the warrior with the hammer raising the huge weapon high above his head as he roared loudly. Several enemy warriors around the giant man raised their own weapons in the air.
“Hengist! Hengist!” Wulfgrim could hear them chanting.
All around Wulfgrim, Agnar’s doomed army was surrounded and being slowly overwhelmed by the growing disparity of numbers. Even as Agnar fell, a pair of fireballs fired into the center of the slain thane’s forces. There was still a chance for a few of them to survive the day, however. To the left was a thin spot in the enemy lines, an opening if one acted quickly.
“Make for the trees over yonder!” Wulfgrim shouted to a pair of younger warriors next to him. “Grang’s Teeth! We’ll make it out of this hell yet!”
Wulfgrim turned his horse around and dug his spurs into the animal’s sides as hard as he could. The horse surged forward, charging toward the trees and leaping over the corpse of another horse which lay in the snow. A trio of warriors moved to block Wulfgrim and the two Westmarkers. Wulfgrim did not slow his steed but instead met the enemy warriors with all the remaining strength he could summon. A few moments later, they sent the trio of enemy fighters out of their saddles and into the snow. They reached the forest’s edge as several arrows flew through the air towards them.
One of the arrows pierced Wulfgrim’s leg as they reached the trees, penetrating deep into the flesh right above the knee. Another struck one of the young Westmarkers in the back, sending the lad falling backwards from the saddle. Wulfgrim and the remaining young warrior turned their horses onto a thin path leading away from the battle in the general direction of Loc Goren, riding hard from the grisly scene behind them.
Wulfgrim did his best to cope with the pain from the wound in his leg. It hurt terribly, every bounce sending spasms of white-hot pain through the length of his leg. Even so, he was glad the arrow had hit him and not his horse.
“Ride on!” Wulfgrim shouted, glancing back at the young warrior. They charged down the trail, driving their exhausted horses through the snow without mercy. After a few minutes of such riding they could see no one was pursuing them and slowed their horses down from a full run to a trot.
“They’ve stopped chasing us,” the young warrior said, a look of profound relief on his face.
“We’re not worth the hunt,” Wulfgrim said, pulling up on the reigns until his horse stopped.
“You’re wounded,” the younger man said, looking down at Wulfgrim’s leg.
Wulfgrim glanced down at the wound. The arrow was lodged deeply in his upper leg. Blood covered his entire thigh, steaming in the cold air. He reached down and grabbed hold of the shaft. He snapped it off with a grimace and tossed it into the trees.
“I’ll live,” he said.
Wulfgrim reached into a pocket on his saddlebag and produced a small metal flask. Leaning over, he poured some of the amber liquid within over the wound and then took a healthy swig. He offered it to the young soldier, who accepted it and took a drink.
Wulfgrim took out a long piece of linen from another saddlebag and tied it tight around his wound. It still throbbed with pain but he figured he wouldn’t bleed to death before they made it back across the river.
The young man handed the flask back to Wulfgrim.
“What’s your name, lad?” he asked the young warrior, taking a second swig of whiskey.
“Gosward, son of Gosmund,” the young warrior said.
“Well, Gosward Son of Gosmund,” Wulfgrim said, putting the
flask away. “Give thanks to Grang. You’re going to survive this day.”
Gosward said nothing. They continued on their way, riding along the path a few minutes more and then turning off onto a barely-visible track which ran down a slight incline to the right and disappeared from view as the winter sky grew darker with the rapid approach of night.
_____
Faxon hated the cold of Linlund, even more than the barbarous mercenaries he was being forced to work with. He was born in Llangellan, far to the south, and never imagined such bone-freezing extremes as they had in the northlands. The Westmark was only on the very southern edge of the northlands, too. The ice-locked Kingdoms of Frostheim and Copperwald were still hundreds of miles farther north across endless untamed forests and vast frozen marshes.
Shivering, he pulled his dark red cloak closer, covering the golden amulet around his neck. The talisman was formed into the shape of a demonic dragon’s head with a large ruby in the center representing a single giant eye. The cloak itself was lined with thick ermine, but it was not enough to keep him sufficiently warm. The Northmen riding alongside him watched his discomfort with a mild amusement they did their best to hide. Their fear of the wizard outweighed their desire to laugh.
Faxon would never be mistaken for one of them. He was a strikingly thin man with hollow eyes, a long, protruding chin. He wore no facial hair and was also very small in stature, shorter than many of the women of Linlund. He was so delicately built it looked like the strong northern wind might blow him right out of the saddle at any moment. Faxon’s appearance was made stranger by his long blonde hair, so light it was almost the color of platinum gleaming in the sun. He looked like some bizarre, emaciated child, a freakish-looking little man. The men in Einar’s army had taken to calling him Greagnagr, “The Skeleton”.
No one dared use the name to his face, however. Faxon was both a wizard as well as a high priest of Amundágor, they knew all too well. He was also a man of cruel disposition and no sense of humor. Shortly after he had first arrived a few months earlier to take command of Einar’s mercenaries, one of the berserker captains dared to publicly question his authority. Shouting and gesturing wildly, the hairy Northman loomed over the scrawny wizard. Hundreds of soldiers were watching, many shouting and laughing.
The berserker captain shoved him roughly, and Faxon sprang forward like a coiled snake. He reached up and seized the barbarian by the throat and uttered a single magical word of power. Magical energy flowed from Faxon’s fingers into the berserker’s body, causing the man to twitch violently and gasp for air as glowing magical fire burned him up from the inside. He tried to strike out at Faxon, but was paralyzed. All he could do was writhe. Blue flames shot out from his ears and nose as Faxon watched the man’s eyes melting. It took thirty seconds of unspeakable agony for the man to die, Faxon giggling hysterically the whole time as the berserker howled like a cat being skinned alive. He let go of the man’s throat and let him fall to the ground. The body smoked and smoldered, gradually burning up into ashes over the next few hours. None dared question Faxon’s authority again, not even Einar.
Faxon grinned in spite of the cold, looking over the battlefield with great pleasure. Hundreds of men lay dead or dying slow and painful deaths on the rock-hard ground, their groans and cries still filling the air like sweet music to Faxon’s ears. Scores of horses also lay scattered, a few still burning among the smoldering piles of corpses where his wizards had cast the fireballs. The lingering flames lit up the battlefield as the sun dipped below the horizon, billowing black smoke rising to the sky as the odor of burning flesh filled the air. He breathed it in deeply, savoring it like other men might take joy in inhaling the scent of lilacs.
All in all, Faxon was thoroughly satisfied with himself. He could not quite believe how perfectly the whole thing had come off. Thane Ravenbane had taken the bait, leading a ridiculously small force ten miles from his little base at Loc Goren into territory firmly under Faxon’s control. Once Agnar left Loc Goren it was an easy matter to surround the inexperienced fool and crush him like a bug, hundreds of horsemen looping around behind the imbecile’s position and laying in wait until the battle had been joined.
One of the warriors rode up to Faxon and his entourage of warriors and acolytes. The wizard knew the hulking figure with the long black beard and the huge war hammer well. It was Hengist, the most competent of all the mercenary captains Faxon had assembled to fight under Einar’s banner.
“He lies dead over there, by the stream,” Hengist said, pointing back towards the center of the battlefield.
“I am told you slew him personally,” Faxon said.
“I did!” Hengist said, laughing and waving his hammer. “His skull caved right in!”
“Most satisfactory,” Faxon remarked. “Let us have a look.”
A thin layer of frost already covered the corpses in the evening twilight. It was a grisly scene, but a delight to as Faxon. Limbs and heads lay all around, the snow made filthy with both mud and blood. The victorious warriors crawled over the field, picking through the dead looking for anything of value. A few lucky men found rings or purses holding a few coins. Others claimed weapons or shields.
The body of Agnar Ravenbane lay by the side of the stream, his face down in the red snow. His helmet had fallen off, or been taken off, revealing long strands of thick blonde hair matted with blood and bits of bone and brain.
“The Lord Thane of The Westmark,” Faxon said wryly.
“He was,” Hengist said.
“Where is the sword?”
“There, next to him,” Hengist said, pointing to the blade. It still glowed a light blue. “You said not to touch it.”
“Give it to me,” Faxon said.
Hengist nodded, glancing towards a warrior standing nearby. The warrior bent over, picking up the sword. Stepping forward, he handed it up to Faxon. The wizard held it up, studying it. He could feel the magical energy pulsing through the blade and down into his arm.
“This goes to Einar,” he said.
“Why not keep the thing?” Hengist said, eying the glowing blade enviously. “Why should the fool have it?”
“First, I have no use for such a crude tool,” Faxon said. “Second, Einar will expect to receive the sword. Let the idiot think he runs things.”
Faxon paused, taking one last look at Agnar’s body and savoring the sight. There was no question it had been a magnificent day which would long be celebrated. Tonight Faxon would present Einar with the sword of Brame Ravenbane as a symbol of his ascension as uncontested ruler of The Westmark. With his cousin Agnar dead, Einar would be the sole claimant, the only remaining male Ravenbane. Or soon would be, at any rate.
“What do we do with him?” Hengist asked.
“Chop his head off.” Faxon grinned coldly. “Then stick it on a post in the center of the river at Loc Goren after nightfall. That’ll give them all something to wake up to, I should think. Let Braemorgan and his little band of imbeciles have no illusions regarding their mighty thane’s survival.”
Two
The old soldier at the gate wasn’t bothered by the cold, which he considered a good thing given how cold it’d been of late. It had turned cold the last few days, helped by the unceasing wind blowing down from the north. The guardsman was of Linlundic stock, though, born and raised on the plains south of the Trackless Fens. Weather had little effect on his race of men. So he guarded the keep at Loc Goren without complaint, much as he had done for more than three decades.
The keep itself was nothing spectacular, little more than a round watchtower a few stories high, overlooking the river and the village. Its location atop the hill afforded clear views of the surrounding lands in all directions, however, and one could see most of them from the gate. To the north lay the small village of Loc Goren nestled along the banks of the frozen River Brügerwyn on a long island very close to the river’s edge. It was a modest place, several dozen stone buildings with steeply angled roofs now covered in snow.
To the west, across the river, lay the vast forests of The Westmark. It was three days since the Thane Agnar had gone to his doom in those forests, the old guard recalled. Now his traitorous cousin Einar controlled most of The Westmark and threatened to take over the rest. The only part of the Westmark which remained out of Einar’s control was the narrow strip between the Brügerwyn and the rocky, wild Clegr Hills to the east.
The guard turned his gaze south. The southern road, at least, might yet bring hope of victory even in these winter days when the sun barely rose at all.
Even now, both sides of the southern road were blanketed by countless tents and ramshackle shanties for as far as the eye could see. The wizard Braemorgan had arrived the day before yesterday with fifteen hundred reinforcements who began at once setting up camp along either side of the narrow road. Along with what remained of Agnar’s men, they combined to form an army of three thousand. They settled right in, the wizard remaining inside the keep.
From the fortress Braemorgan could look out his window up on the top floor and see the many tents and the smoke from scores of campfires drifting gently up into the darkening winter sky. Frequently, the wizard’s face would appear at the window staring out either south at the army or sometimes looking out over the river. Men would whisper quietly whenever he appeared, hoping the wizard would soon come up with some grand plan to stop Einar. With Agnar’s death many lost hope, however, and more than a few deserted, slipping away from Loc Goren quietly. Most, however, swore to fight under the banner of Agnar’s sister Morag.
The old soldier agreed was with the majority. He’d lived a long life, and served a noble family. He’d die before serving the usurping rat Einar. If he’d have to call any woman his thane, he’d have it be Morag Ravenbane. In her he saw a spark of something fierce. She had the heart of a she-wolf, that one, a true daughter of Grang.
From beyond the crowded tents came several horsemen along the road. The guard squinted, his eyesight not what it once was. It was still strong enough, however, to recognize the yellow-and-black patterns on the riders’ shields.
Child Of Storms (Volume 1) Page 2