Child Of Storms (Volume 1)

by Alexander DePalma

  “They are all too few of late.” Braemorgan shook his head. “Einar, to the contrary, has seemingly unlimited resources. My spies tell me much to interest you, however. Einar remains crippled from the arrow wounds incurred during your rescue. His right arm is practically useless and he can barely walk due to the hip wound. Reports are that he has grown half-mad as a result of his debilitation. He sees enemies all around him and has had most of his captains put to death for fear they are plotting to overthrow him. He sits within Hárfjall in the dark, his mind slowly rotting. He hasn’t been outdoors in months. They tell me he’s obsessed with killing you, convinced your death will restore him as a full man.”

  “A large chest of gold is promised to whoever brings him your head,” Braemorgan went on. “His assassins have roamed far and wide across the lands, even into Vandoria and the back alleys of Moonstar, searching for you. Everywhere I am known, everywhere I have allies, they’ve looked. I had to come here in disguise, should I be recognized. It was wise to hide you here under a different name, but I fear it has now grown unsafe. You’d be better off among Ironhelm’s people, within their mountain fortress. The dwarves of Thunderforge are loyal, and no assassin would get near you deep within their mountain halls.”

  “Grang’s ass!” Jorn exclaimed. “I’ll not live in some damned mountain hall underground! Perhaps I’d be safest locked in some dungeon surrounded by armed guards. Yes, until one of them is bribed by Einar to slip some poison into my dinner. You would banish me under the soil, never to look upon the sun again!”

  “Don’t be a fool,” Braemorgan snapped. “If Einar takes Swordhaven, his domain will extend to not one hundred miles from here! He might very well be strong enough to gain dominion over all of southern Linlund! His soldiers would occupy this island and find you. It is merely a question of time.”

  “Before what? There is no Jorn here. I am Cahan, the lighthouse keeper’s helper.”

  “You’re a newcomer. You weren’t born here. You’re a tall mainlander who arrived one day out of nowhere not long after Jorn Ravenbane’s disappearance.”

  “I will not leave Glaenavon, perhaps ever.”

  “What? Have you grown as mad as Einar? Why would you stay here in this backwater?”

  Braemorgan’s voice rose, his tone angry.

  “This is a good place,” Jorn answered.

  “It’s that girl, isn’t it?” Braemorgan shouted, looking towards the lighthouse. “By Kaas, you are your father’s son. Loric let his prick do his thinking for him, too! How do you think you came into being in the first place?”

  “What would you know?”

  “I know enough. The girl is attractive, yes, but I can provide you with plenty of her quality wherever you go.”

  “This is not just about that. I love her, and mean to make her my wife.”

  The wizard’s head sank.

  “I am sure she is a very nice girl, Jorn,” he said, his voice calmer. “It is only natural for a young man to become enchanted by such charms as she possesses, especially amidst such isolation. There’d be something wrong with you if you didn’t develop feelings for the girl, given the circumstances. But would you really turn your back on The Westmark to stay here? Would you really reject your destiny?”

  “What destiny? The one I choose, or the one you have chosen for me?”

  “There are larger things at stake here, far larger than either of us…”

  “I don’t care.”

  Braemorgan leaned on his staff heavily, his face ashen. When he spoke again, his tone was still calm.

  “You cannot refuse your destiny, Jorn.”

  “Yet I do.”

  “Then Einar has truly won.”

  “I mean to make Inglefrid my bride. Why shouldn’t I?”

  Braemorgan nodded slowly, choosing his words carefully now.

  “I cannot compel you to do or not to do anything,” he said. “But know this one thing: If you deny your true destiny and choose this life here, do not count on my further protection. I’ve better things to do than fight for those who don’t want to fight for themselves. Consider those who died for you at Loc Goren, or bringing you to safety when you were wounded. Many good men met their end out of loyalty to you, yet now you would turn your back on them. Consider Wulfgrim – consider Morag! - and what they have sacrificed.”

  “But I…I never asked for any of it. It is a lost cause, anyway.”

  “A lost cause? For the first time, I think it may be. The strength that once flowed in your forebear’s veins is finally no more. The blood of Brame Ravenbane is all dissipated and all that is left of his line are degenerate cowards.”

  “How dare you!” Jorn growled. “Were you not the wizard Braemorgan I would snap your neck. Never show your face to me again.”

  “You needn’t worry.”

  Braemorgan turned away, staring out at the ocean in silence. Jorn turned his back on the wizard and made his way back down the hill.

  _____

  A few weeks after Braemorgan left, Jorn was walking up the path on his way back from Skagrog. Inglefrid sent him there to buy some provisions for the week ahead. He was rushing back to give Inglefrid enough time to cook the fish he’d bought for dinner.

  It was a cold but sunny afternoon, a strong wind coming off the water. Jorn walked along with a brisk stride, his worn old elk cloak billowing in the wind.

  The path from Skagrog ran along the cliffs all the way home, finally crossing over a tall hill overlooking the lighthouse at the very end of the journey. Jorn reached the top and stopped in his tracks, surprised to see a small ship parked on the beach underneath the lighthouse. It was a single-masted vessel, long and thin just like the ships of Frostheim which Jorn sometimes saw passing through the straits. It was parked right on the edge of the beach, its bow facing the lighthouse and its scarlet sail emblazoned with a black “X”. Several men, tiny in the distance, stood nearby in the sand. Jorn scanned the scene quickly, at once noticing four more men clad in black chain armor and bearing weapons emerging atop the cliff and approaching the lighthouse. They were fierce in appearance, long reddish hair reaching far down their backs. Their chins were shaved but they had long, bushy moustaches and their arms were covered in brightly-colored tattoos.

  Jorn knew them from their appearance. They were Darwags, sea-going raiders and murderers, the scourge of the North. They worshipped Kaas and Amundágor, openly and proudly. To see them along the coast of Linlund was nearly unheard of, however.

  The Darwags approached Fearach, whose back was to them as he was bent over the short stone wall around his garden mending the damage from recent winds. Jorn screamed a warning as loud he could manage, dropping his parcel and sprinting towards the lighthouse.

  Fearach heard the shout and looked up. Too late, he saw the men coming at him. He rose, hastily muttering the first spell he could think of. He threw a ball of shining white energy at the nearest Darwag, sending the brigand flying back onto the wet grass. One of the three remaining men raised a crossbow, firing it at Fearach before he could react. The crossbow bolt struck him in the chest, knocking him backwards. He fell into the fence and slumped to the ground. One of the Darwags loomed over Fearach, striking the prone old man with his axe over and over again.

  Inglefrid appeared at the door of the lighthouse, screaming and turning back to slam it shut, but she stumbled and fell in her panic. She leapt up quickly, grabbing the door again, but her attackers were too quick. One of the Darwags jammed his foot into the door before she could get it fully closed. She struggled, pushing back against the intruders desperately, but they shoved her savagely backwards and forced their way inside.

  Jorn had sprinted the distance to the lighthouse with ferocious speed. He had no sword, for he’d given up carrying it on the peaceful island. He did have a knife at his belt, though, which he drew as he neared the lighthouse. The three warriors turned to see him sprinting towards them, an unarmored young lad wielding nothing but a common peasant’s knife. One of
them laughed. The crossbowman who shot Fearach met Jorn first, hurrying to load his crossbow as Jorn approached. He dropped the crossbow, starting to draw forth his sword just as Jorn arrived.

  Jorn lunged at the unprepared man, shoving the knife into the Darwag’s chest as far as it would go. As the man fell back, Jorn reached down and grabbed the hilt of the dying man’s sword.

  The next Darwag, a hulking man with wild eyes and strange tattoos covering his arms, came at him with his broadsword. Jorn parried the attack with the dead Darwag’s sword. Jorn slashed back with lightning speed, striking the big Darwag in the neck and sending him to the ground as a fountain of blood gushed upward from his wound.

  The last of the Darwags emerged from the door of the lighthouse, charging at Jorn with a long axe. Jorn could see Inglefrid lying on the floor beyond door. Screaming with inhuman rage, Jorn dodged the man’s axe blow and, with a balance learned from long months on the log which even now stood only yards away, lunged forward and slashed the man in the arm deeply. The axe-wielder shouted in pain, dropping his weapon. Jorn kicked him in the groin roughly, sending him lurching forward to the ground. Then he kicked him repeatedly about the head and neck until the man’s face was a bloody mess. Covered in blood, Jorn tossed the sword aside and ran over to the door.

  Inglefrid lay there on her back, her head turned to one side. It was split open, her forehead cleaved in two and an enormous pool of blood covering the floor around her. Jorn fell to his knees, a dreadful cry of torment escaping his lips. He bent over the dead girl, sobbing and shaking violently. He reached out, touching the side of her face. Her eyes stared out lifelessly at him.

  “No, no, no!” he wailed repeatedly.

  Jorn rose and stepped back out the door. Inglefrid’s killer lay groaning in the grass, still somehow alive. Jorn picked up the sword from the ground and, bending down, grabbing a handful of the Darwag’s long hair and pulled the man roughly up to a kneeling position.

  Jorn yanked back the Darwag’s head, exposing the neck. He brought the sword down upon the man’s throat, taking three violent hacks of the dull blade to bring off the head completely. The body slumped to the grass, the head still in Jorn’s hand. Screaming, Jorn swung around and threw it as far and as high as he could.

  The severed head flew over the sea cliff, landing on the beach with a dull thump. The Darwags on the beach stared at it with dumbfounded silence. Then they looked up to see a tall young man in peasant garb standing at the edge of the sea cliff. Blood was splattered all over his chest, arms, and face. In one hand he held a sword, in the other an axe. The stranger stared down at them with a look of cold fury like none of them had ever seen. One of the warriors on the beach slowly began to back up as Jorn began walking down the path to the beach.

  _____

  The next morning, there was nothing left save the corpses lying in the grass and down below on the beach. Five headless bodies lay in the sand and smoke rose from the charred hulk of their ship. Jorn had burned it in his rage until all that now remained was a smoking wreckage, its mast lying fallen along the surf. Upon the cliff all was silent, the lighthouse empty. Its front door was left open.

  Some distance away, atop the gentle rise overlooking the straits, Jorn finished his digging. In the thick of the morning fog all around him, the lighthouse was barely more than a ghostly spire rising from the mists.

  Jorn buried them in silence, shoveling the dirt over the graves and patting it down with his bare hands. When he was done, he sat next to the graves, clutching Inglefrid’s copper pendant. Hours passed without him hardly moving. He merely sat and stared at the graves. He felt no hunger, nor any thirst. Time itself ceased to mean anything to him as morning passed into afternoon and the shadows grew long around him.

  ____

  Braemorgan took in the scene as he approached, taking note of the bodies of the Darwags in front of the lighthouse. He stepped over to the still-open door of the lighthouse and saw the bloodstain on the floor within. Turning, he looked towards the sea cliff. He could see the burnt ship and the bodies in the sand. Finally, he turned and looked up the hill at the solitary figure slumped to his knees looking downward at the ground. Sighing, he turned and walked slowly up the hill towards Jorn. He soon stood next to Jorn. Jorn saw the wizard, but pretended not to.

  “I am sorry, Jorn,” Braemorgan said. “My spies did not tell me Einar’s assassins were on their way until it was too late for me to stop them.”

  Jorn remained silent.

  “Jorn?” Braemorgan said. “Did you hear me?”

  “Einar’s assassins?” Jorn muttered after some moments. “I thought they were just raiders, Darwagian scum.”

  “Yes, they were Darwags…in the employ of Einar,” Braemorgan said. He paused. “Fearach and the girl…”

  “Dead,” Jorn muttered, looking at the ground.

  Braemorgan’s head sank.

  “She was so beautiful, so sweet, so,” Jorn stammered. “And now…and Fearach, too…How can I go on without them?”

  “Are you going to simply let this affront pass?” Braemorgan asked.

  “Let it pass?” Jorn said. He glared at the graves, contemplating vengeance.

  Vengeance! The word flashed through his thoughts like a thunderbolt. Yes,

  Vengeance! That, at least, was something to live for.

  “Grang’s teeth!” Jorn snarled. “Grang’s feet! Grang’s balls! I’ll strangle Einar with his own guts! I’ll rip out his intestines and wring his neck with them!”

  The subtlest of smiles slowly crept over Braemorgan’s face. He stood just behind Jorn, placing his hand on the young man’s shoulder.

  “Gather your things. You’ll see no more of Glenaevon, Jorn.”

  Twenty

  Willock scanned the valley floor carefully with his spyscope. The morning was clear and crisp.

  “I can’t see ‘em,” he told the others, returning to the camp at the base of the boulder. “They’re well-hidden. It’d be easy for a scouting party to miss them entirely during the daylight.”

  Jorn took a long spoonful of Flatfoot’s breakfast soup. It was surprisingly tasty.

  “I told you,” Jorn said. “They’re not going to attack the gap.”

  “Nonsense,” Ailric said, rolling his eyes. “They’ve thousands of troops massed not a day’s march from the Widowing Gap. Moreover, taking the pass gives them a key strategic advantage for an invasion of the Southlands. Of course they’ll go for it.”

  “Grang’s teeth!” Jorn said. “Must I explain this again? It’s like addressing a half-wit!”

  Jorn put his breakfast aside for a moment. He knew the knight was trying to provoke him, but he still took the bait.

  “Say there are ten thousand troops down there in the valley,” he continued. “Ten thousand gruks and trolls could not take that gap a hundred years ago, before the fortifications. The same number have no chance now. None. The dwarves would slaughter three times that many. That’s no invasion army down there.”

  “Then what is?” Ailric asked.

  “Are you deaf,” Jorn spat back. “Or just stupid?”

  “Tread lightly, Ravenbane,” Ailric said coldly.

  “I told you last night,” Jorn said. “They want to keep the Hammeredshields frozen at the Widowing Gap. They want the dwarves to call for aid, too. Their allies will send what troops they can, thinking the Gap is where the war will be decided once again. It’s the same old mistake down through the ages, fighting a new war just like the previous one and for some damned reason expecting things to be the same the second time around. Grang’s teeth! What idiocy! The real invasion is three hundred miles south and thousands of troops will be wasted watching the Widowing Gap. Amundágor will’ve taken Calaegskarr and be halfway to Barter’s Crossing before anyone realizes what happened.”

  “Don’t count out Lord Hammershield, laddie,” Ironhelm interjected. “He’s no fool, tha’s for sure. He’ll figure it out, and know wha’ to do.” He stood suddenly. “Ach!
The sun shines and we sit about wasting time tall! Let’s be off, already!”

  _____

  “I wish we could have tarried longer in Dunvögen,” Sir Ailric said to Willock as they set out again along the rocky, overgrown old road.

  “I’m not one for cities.” Willock shrugged. “Don’t care for them.”

  “Oh?” Sir Ailric said. “I spoke at length with a dwarf by the name of Steelfist at the feast. He’s Chief Builder for the entire Hammeredshield Clan. He seemed to know everything about the city’s design.”

  “You’re interested in such matters?” Willock said.

  “I’ve poured over many a tome on building and stonemasonry,” the knight said. “And there were Guardian ruins near my brother’s castle in Havenwood, from which I learned a great deal as a lad. You know, many great Knights of Havenwood were renowned builders as well as warriors. Sir Tracitan, slayer of the Saurian Chief Gulgala, he was also an accomplished architect. He designed the great castle of Skeagor Nol on the Havenwood River.”

  “I have beheld Skeagor Nol,” Willock said. “It is imposing.”

  “Dwarven cities are much less prone to fire and pestilence than a human city,” Sir Ailric continued. “Our peoples can learn something from the dwarves when it comes to building cities, my friend.”

  “All that may be true,” Willock said. “Me, I would rather be right here in the middle of the wilderness than in any of the many cities of the realm.”

  “Cities mean civilization!”

  “Then may Une prevent me from every becoming civilized!”

  _____

  A few miles further south a great dark mass came into view covering the valley floor ahead of them. It stretched from east to west across the width of the valley and right up to the edge of both ridges.

  “The Nor Marshes,” Willock announced.

  “What an abysmal looking place,” Flatfoot remarked.

  The marshes lay in the lowest part of the valley, Willock explained, rivers and streams in all directions flowing into it and flooding the landscape. The result was a tangled jungle half-submerged under stagnant and diseased water.