by Unknown
“Maybe they were magicking up something really big,” said Dolan.
“I shudder to think of what such a thing could be,” said Tanch. “No, I'm quite sure that their magic must have gone awry and caused the destruction of the temple and the formation of the circle.”
“What if they put the come hither on one of them Nifle fellows you told of, Mister Claradon, sir?” said Dolan.
“It's hard to imagine such a thing being possible,” said Claradon. “Even if it were, the cultists would have to be mad to attempt such a thing.”
“Nevertheless, the circle is here,” said Theta.
“The cultists see the Lords of Nifleheim as saviors, as blessed minions of their god,” said Gabriel in a slow deliberate voice. “They would have little fear in conjuring them up, if they had the means to do so. Dead gods, maybe that is what they tried. Maybe that is what happened here.”
“So they need not be crazy to want to bring them over,” said Ob. “They just have to be stupid.”
“All of this is academic,” said Tanch, “for despite the colorful myths, my friends, the Lords of Nifleheim aren't men at all. They are more akin to forces of nature. The scholarly texts imply that they are beings of energy and thought, not mortal flesh.”
“Scholarly texts,” mumbled Theta as he shook his head.
“They couldn't really walk our world,” said Tanch. “No, the circle must be here for some other purpose.”
“They can enter Midgaard given the right conditions,” said Theta.
“Respectfully, sir, I don't think such a thing is possible,” said Par Tanch.
“I wonder,” said Claradon, “if perhaps they can change their form and take on a shape akin to a mortal body, becoming some type of avatar. Perhaps, in such a guise, they can enter Midgaard through some mystical portal or gateway.”
“Such a theory would reconcile the ancient texts with the folk stories we have all heard,” said Tanch, “but—”
“Those are nothing but fairy stories, told to scare wet-eared whelps,” said Ob. “There is no truth to them. Them Nifleheim bumpkins are nothing but figments.”
“Let's pray that is the case,” said Tanch. “For if a Lord of Nifleheim did cross over to Midgaard, the entire world would be at utmost peril. Such a fiend would rampage across the land and leave nothing but death and destruction in its wake. No mortal man, be he archwizard or knight champion, could defeat such a beast. I doubt that even the full might of the Lomerian army could put it down.”
“I would defeat it,” said Theta in an even tone, almost, but not quite under his breath.
“Bah!” spouted Ob. “You pompous tin can.”
Theta glared at the gnome, but did not respond. “This is not what you expected,” said Theta to Gabriel.
“No,” said Gabriel. “I expected no Lords of Nifleheim.”
Glimador trotted up, an anxious expression on his face. He leapt off his horse and landed lightly despite his heavy armor.
“What did you find?” said Ob as he pushed past the others to get closer to Glimador.
“A blood trail,” said Glimador. “Right at the circle’s rim.”
“Show us,” said Ob.
***
Brother Donnelin’s horse's eyes were mad with fear and foam flew from its mouth and nose as it galloped for its life. Donnelin’s knees pressed its flanks with all his strength to keep him in his seat as he twisted around, his staff in his right hand pointed toward his pursuers. The priest’s eyes were wide and his mouth hung open, his cheeks numb from a frigid cold that appeared from nowhere, and his nose burned from the acrid stink of the things behind him—a seemingly endless horde of nightmarish creatures that descended on him from all directions but the front.
Through the darkness and the wild chase he couldn’t see them clearly. He only caught fleeting glimpses of fangs and claws and drooling maws when the moonlight peeked through some break in the mist. But he heard them. Their wild caterwauling. Their pounding feet that shook the very earth beneath him as they charged. Horrors to break any man's courage and shatter the most stolid man’s sanity.
They would be on him in a moment—just as Aradon had warned, there was no outrunning them. His only chance was to make it to the circle’s rim and hope that it proved a boundary that they could not cross—otherwise, he was a dead man for certain, bound for Valhalla, if Odin’s favor fell full on him. If not, who knows?
But Brother Donnelin was not ready to yield. He was not just a priest. He was a warrior, a northman, born and bred to battle. He would make the creatures pay dearly for his life. He readied his words of power—holy words, mystical words preserved down through the ages by Odin’s priests. Words capable of sending many of his foes to the void—of that he was certain.
Even as several creatures closed the last few yards between them and leapt, he leveled his staff and shouted a single word of Old High Lomerian. That word reached out across the worlds and tapped the wellspring of magic in the very heart of eternal Asgard. From the magical weave’s source it drew forces beyond the ken of man and pulled them at lightning speed through the shadowy ether, across time and space, to Midgaard, to heed Donnelin's call.
A pulsing sound issued from the tip of Donnelin’s staff, though it went unheard in the riotous din. With it, a shockwave sprang from the staff’s tip and shot outward, expanding in a conical shape, its structure barely visible as a strange distortion in the night air. It collided with the creatures directly behind him, catching some midleap.
It was as if they’d run headlong into a solid wall, or rather, a solid wall that plowed forward and expanded on its way. They crashed against Donnelin's magic in a crunching of bones and a tangle of fractured limbs. The beasts’ charge was shattered as those behind sought to leap over the fallen, but crashed as well, as did the next wave, and the next, and the next, all swept away as the magic thundered on before its power finally waned.
When Donnelin’s horse leaped over a bush, the priest realized he had passed beyond the circle’s rim and into the trees. The eerie fog however still surrounded him, and dear gods, the creatures still came on—the rim proving no barrier to them, at least no longer. As quickly as he could, Donnelin rotated his staff to his right and called down Odin’s wrath again. The creatures that came from that direction broke against his mystical blast just as did the others, and tumbled and splattered against it as it roared on through their ranks, for it was a force beyond them, if all too fleeting for Donnelin’s good.
Still galloping wildly, Donnelin pointed the staff to his left and spoke his word of power for the third and final time. As the wave of sorcerous energy formed and crushed his attackers, one snuck beneath its reach. It flung itself at Donnelin’s horse, a low leap, parallel to the ground. The creature’s claws latched onto the horse’s rear leg. It stumbled and went down, slamming to its belly. Its momentum carried it forward for several yards along the grassy ground.
Donnelin's legs were torn and pinned beneath his fallen steed. His right arm was pinned as well. Its legs broken, the horse could not rise. The beast that had taken it down leapt at Donnelin's throat, but in midair it struck an unseen barrier with a dull echoing thump. The air shimmered about the point of impact, as if a transparent wall stood there; a wall that welcomed Donnelin through, but that would suffer no creature of Nifleheim to pass. With a quick glance to the left and to the right, Donnelin realized that that very spot marked the new edge or boundary of the fog and that that boundary extended far into the distance in both directions, no doubt carving out a broad circle as had the desolate zone's rim. The fog billowed up against it, but could not pass.
The creature could not reach him—he had escaped. Praise the gods. He was safe.
Donnelin's joy lasted but a moment before he saw that his horse's hindquarters lay on the wrong side of the boundary, amidst the fog. That horse, a friend that had served him well the previous ten years, not only was broken and doomed: it would be eaten too.
He saw the thing's eyes first. They we
re red, brick red. And not just the pupils—there were no whites to the eyes at all. They never blinked—they just stared at Donnelin, boring into his soul.
Bruised and bloodied, the creature slowly rose from where it had fallen, its eyes never drifting from Donnelin, its demeanor strangely calm, though its breathing was heavy. The face and body of the thing were too horrific to describe. It was no man, but far more manlike than the creature that had attacked Claradon in the tower. Call it a goblin if you want, just to give it a name. But it was no silly thing from some children's tales. No, call it a demon, for that olden term better describes its nature—a creature out of nightmare called up from hell by forbidden magics. A monster, a true monster.
It reached out a clawed hand and placed it slowly, purposefully on the horse’s hind leg. The horse screamed and tried to kick as the demon closed its fist and the razored claws dug deep into its flesh, but that grip was too powerful for even a horse to overcome.
All the while, Donnelin struggled to pull himself free, but the weight of the horse was too much. He was held fast.
The creature began to pull the horse across the barrier, and dear gods, it grinned when it saw that Donnelin was being dragged along with it. Donnelin turned, twisted, and pulled as hard as he could, desperate to free himself, though his efforts were ineffective.
The horse thrashed, still desperate to get away, its nose filled with the pungent odor of the creature that held it. The creature reached over with another clawed hand and with barely a glance at the horse, sliced deep into its leg; a precise, straight cut that severed an artery and sent blood pulsing into the air. It sprayed onto Donnelin, ran down his cheek, and across the top of his head. The horse thrashed and struggled but soon moved no more.
Donnelin heard more creatures coming, many more.
“Tsk, tsk, so close,” said the demon in a deep clear voice, its wicked smile growing broader. “So close were you, so close; oh, what a pity; how sad for you that Zymog has caught you, and caught you good we have.”
Donnelin's face contorted in shock. He had thought what fronted him was no more than a beast, an animal, and yet it spoke like a man, though its voice carried a haunting reverberation.
“The turns of fate are ever fickle, priest,” it said as saliva dripped down its maw. “Fickle, fickle, fickle,” it shouted in a voice altogether different in tone and pitch from its voice a moment before: as if a different creature had spoken, though the sounds all spewed from the same beast’s mouth.
When next it spoke, it repeated certain phrases. This time, in myriad voices, some deep and booming, others shrill. All wholly different from the first. They were not clownish voices, nor were they the rantings of some mad thing. They were eerie and frightful and grating to the ears. Donnelin shuddered at the sounds and his hair stood on end.
“If your magic had been a second sooner (a second sooner), or your horse a stride faster, you would be off and away (off and away!), clear and free at least until the morrow. But now here you lie before us, and we with such a hunger we can’t describe (a hunger, a hunger, a hunger!).”
Donnelin shuddered and fumbled with the holy symbol that hung from a silver chain about his neck. He steadied it and held it out before him. “Back demon, back to whatever pit you crawled from. In the name of Odin, the all-father, lord of the mighty Aesir, I cast you out. Begone. Begone from here.”
A hideous parody of a laugh escaped the creature’s lips. “Odin holds no power over us, mortal (no power, no power, no power!). Give up your soul freely, and Zymog will end your suffering quickly. Make your choice (make your choice, make your choice).”
“No, make him suffer, suffer, suffer!”
“Never,” said Donnelin. “Go back to hell and plague me no more.”
“What know you of hell, mortal? (What know you?)” said the creature. “More than we, perhaps, for we come not from there, but from paradise (paradise!).” The creature pulled on the horse’s leg again and Donnelin was dragged nearer to the edge of the fog bank.
Donnelin eyed his staff, which had fallen some yards away. There was no hope to retrieve it.
“Your token of power is far from your grasp, priest (far from your grasp). You’ll not hold it again, not in this life. Now you’ve only mortal flesh to fight with, and that can do us little harm. Fled from your friends, did you? (you fled, you fled, you fled!)” said the creature in a voice gone almost soft. “Left them to fight without you? Left them to die? Coward (coward!) they’ll call you. Traitor (traitor!) they’ll mark you. No place with them will you now have. (traitor, traitor, coward and traitor!) Forsake that fraud Odin and give up your soul freely, priest. Pledge it to the one true god, Azathoth the almighty, and all will yet be forgiven. A place of honor in the paradise of Nifleheim can still be yours. (Join us, join us, join us in paradise!)”
“Odin,” yelled Donnelin, as loud as his lungs allowed. “Odin!”
“He cannot hear you, priest,” said the creature. “He’s long since dead and gone to dust (dust, dust), and was nothing more than a mortal man even when he lived.”
The creature’s grin grew wider and eyes wilder as Donnelin slid within its reach. It loomed over Donnelin, ichor dripping onto his face. The creature brushed Donnelin’s protective hand aside and pinned it to the ground. It pressed closer, nose-to-nose. Donnelin turned away; he couldn’t bear to look at it.
“Not a man of courage, you are, yet you do not yield. You mortals are ever the enigmas. (Join us. Join us while you still can).”
With a groan, Donnelin wrenched his arm free from beneath the horse, arced his head forward, and slammed it into the creature as hard as he could. The headbutt pushed the creature back and gave Donnelin the moment he needed to move his arm into position and thrust the short sword it held into the creature's breast with all his strength. It sank deep.
The sword stuck fast on the creature’s breastbone and when it reared back, howling, it pulled Donnelin forward and his legs slipped free from beneath the horse. The creature looked down in shock as the thick black blood spurted from its chest. “Aargh!” screamed the creature, over and again, its many voices now blended into one.
It opened its maw, hatred burning in its eyes, and clamped down on Donnelin’s arm with its dagger-like teeth. It ripped and tore and severed the limb at the wrist. But the bite caught only the false arm that Donnelin wore affixed to his stump. The priest scrambled back, kicking and flailing. The heel of his boot caught the thing square amidst its forehead as it lunged in, and knocked it back. Donnelin rolled and spun and found himself on the good side of the fog’s edge.
The creature threw itself once and then again with terrific force at the unseen barrier, but rebounded off, for the mystical boundary would not yield. The creature slumped against it, holding its chest, its lifeblood drenching the ground. “Your wicked blade has killed Zymog,” bespoke a chorus of voices. “We who’ve lived for a thousand centuries should not die at the hand of a pitiful mortal wretch. This evil deed will be revenged (revenged, revenged, revenged!).”
Even as the light of the creature's eyes grew dim another beast as horrid as the first but of a different type slammed into the unseen barrier, rebounded back, and fell to the ground. Then another of its kind slammed into the boundary, and then another, and then a score of creatures of myriad types, all monstrous and demonic in appearance, did the same. In moments, there were hundreds of wailing, screaming, screeching things, all fighting amongst themselves to be the first to breach the boundary. They jumped, some 10 feet high, others jumped 20 feet or more, but the boundary was still higher, if it had any top at all. After but a few moments, they scrambled atop one another, and formed a monstrous living ladder that grew higher by the second. Donnelin pulled himself to his feet, terror on his face, and limped into the trees as fast as his numb and throbbing legs would carry him.
Donnelin had not gone far when he tripped and fell flat on his belly. Before he could rise, a boot pressed down on the back of his neck and he saw the tip of a
sword blade positioned just in front of his face.
“Do not move, priest,” said a deep voice, though not belonging to the one who held him down.
“Want me kill him?” said the booted man.
“No, he’s a priest,” said the first voice. “What a lucky chance this is. The fates smile on us this night, for I have an important use for him.”
***
“What do you make of it?” said Claradon, as the men gathered where Glimador had led them.
“It is blood, no doubt, but whether that of man or beast I cannot be certain,” said Ob. “A horse fell here—of that I have no doubt. It landed partly within the circle and partly without, though whatever impression it left on the inside has been blotted out. A man lay beside it. There was some thrashing about, and the horse was dragged back within the circle. There are no prints visible of whoever did the dragging.
“What of the man?” said Claradon. “Is there any way to tell who it was?”
Ob studied the ground for some time. “I think he ran for it,” said Ob, his voice brightening. “He may have got clear.”
“Let's follow,” said Claradon. They all turned to follow the meager trail that only Ob seemed able to see. Theta stood nearly fifty yards away, just where the trees started to grow thick and he was staring down at the ground. The others rushed over.
“Did you find something?” said Claradon to Theta.
“Tracks.”
“Move aside, Mr. Fancy Pants,” said Ob. “I need to have a gander.”
“Two large men dragged another to a wagon back there,” said Theta. “They took him. The tracks head south.”
“Toward Lomion City,” said Claradon.
“You are daft, man,” said Ob. “These are Eotrus lands, no one gets taken by nobody around here.”
“Must have been the cultists,” said Tanch as he looked all around. “They could be watching us even now, waiting to pick us off one by one when we’re unaware. Oh, dear.”
“Dagnabbit, he’s right,” said Ob as he stared down at the tracks. “They took him. They dragged him off. Stinking cultists. Let me see them wagon tracks.”