by P D Ceanneir
Louth tried the large doorknob, but the door would not open. He walked around it then looked at Lars.
‘It’s the same on the other side. Is this some sort of magic?’ he said to him.
Lars shook himself out of his shocked state and stuttered as he answered his liege lord.
‘No, sire, this…this is much worse,’ he had no idea why he said that, but it felt right.
Jarl Louth stared at him, wide eyed. Most of the Hinterland people were superstitious and it showed on the Jarl’s face.
‘Everyone out of the hall!’ he shouted, and the women all ran to the stairs that led to the upper balcony. Louth grabbed Lars as he turned to leave.
‘Bring your master here,’ he said, ‘I want him to look at this.’ He nodded towards the Door.
Lars ran as fast as he could. The image of the Door never left his mind.
3
Telmar skipped through the memories.
Despite the Jarl’s order to clear the hall, it seemed to be full with curious onlookers by the time Loremaster Olathe arrived. Olathe was dumfounded and concluded that it was not a magical door. Whatever it was, the Jarl did not want it in his hall, but ten of his strongest Bondsmen could not move it. In the end, they tied a rope around it and tried to drag it out under the pulling force of two horses.
The Door did not move. The ropes snapped.
Telmar spun through more memories. One was of interest. A young Bondsman, in light mail and furs, pointed out something of interest as he stared at the strange object.
‘Was the door not white when we came in?’ he said.
The Jarl, Loremaster, and a score of Bondsmen, all looked at the door. True enough the door was now a light green colour, with a slight tinge of blue. This was the only thing that had changed in this immovable object. No matter how long one stared at it, the changing colour would be impossible to make out. Those in the hall did not know what it meant, but Telmar did. The spectrum of colour was like sand slipping through the narrow section of an hourglass, indicating the passing of time. Once it became black, then time had run out.
The king continued to skip through the mundane images of Lars doing his evening chores then he suddenly found what he needed to see…
…Lars pulled himself over the ledge and onto the sill. He unlatched the willow frame of the bladder window and climbed in - the skin of a pig’s bladder was thin and wind resistant whilst also letting in as much light as possible through the small window. Lars snapped it shut and then ran to the corner of the room where the tall wardrobe was strong enough to bear his weight. He climbed up it and pushed open the loft hatch.
Being a constant visitor to the Great Hall of Jarl Louth gave him a keen insight into its structure and its hidden secrets. Lars was small enough to move through the narrow confines of the loft until he reached the south-western corner that sat just above the main entrance. It was here that six large roof beams met in a network of angles like a wooden spider web. Lars could wedge his body into an area of joints and remain there comfortably for hours. The corner was dark and he had a good view of the Door. He knew that if anyone ever found him he would receive punishment from the Jarl and his Loremaster, but his curiosity about the Door overrode his fear of discovery. Besides, if he remained hidden and quiet, no one would know he was there.
Down below, servants pushed the sections of the long table over to the opposite side of the room from the Door and twenty of the Jarl’s Bondsmen took it in turns to stand guard before it. Each had sword and shields at the ready. About six of them had hunting bows.
Lars watched and waited. Night fell and the colour of the Door changed from a dark blue to a sickly purple...
4
…Lars woke suddenly. He pulled his furs over his shoulder, but the chill had pushed itself into his bones and his teeth chattered.
The hairs on his nape prickled. Something was wrong.
The hall remained shrouded in darkness. The soft orange glow from the central hearth was the only light, which revealed the faint dark forms of the guards slumbering by its yellow stone walls for warmth. The only thing that looked out of the ordinary was the soft white glow that came from the Door in the far corner.
Lars nearly cried out in surprise but managed to cover his mouth. The Door was open. Even from this angle, he could see it was slightly ajar. None of the three guards on watch had noticed, in fact all three were leaning against their spears as if half asleep.
He felt like calling out to them and pointing out the open door. Instead he rummaged inside his pockets and found a small white stone, which he had found on the beach a couple of years ago. It was smooth, polished and often called a White Charm, bringing the owner luck.
It was all he had. Therefore, he placed himself in a position to throw it past a roof beam and directing it towards one of the guards. He nearly fell in the attempt, but he got a fair throw out of the awkward angle he was in. However, the stone overshot the Bondsman he was aiming for and it tumbled over his head into the darkness beside the Door.
The darkness moved and in one quick fluid motion, a blue hand plucked the stone out of mid-air. Lars finally gasped, the sound of his voice echoing around the hall and waking the three Bondsmen and half of those by the hearth.
The three on guard drew their swords and looked around. Now all twenty Bondsmen were on their feet preparing to fight. There was movement all around as shadows shifted because some of the guards lit torches with their flint blocks that they had beside them. The light flooded through the full length of the hall and Lars snuck back into his hiding place as the orange glow dashed away the darkness in his corner.
There were shouts and curses as some of them noticed that the Door was open. Lars saw that the shadows around the object had not vanished, and one of the Bondsmen noticed too. He stepped forward with his torch to probe the darkness. The shadow shifted as someone stepped out of the shadows. All of the spears and swords of the bondsmen suddenly pointed at the blue figure of a tall naked man, a man that Telmar recognised as Cronos.
‘Who are you?’ said a voice, which Lars recognised as belonging to the Jarl who stood in the centre of his men. Clearly, he had stood watch with them in his concern.
Cronos looked at the Jarl with pure white eyes that bore no malice, only a look of profound sadness etched upon his face.
‘I am Cronos, the Harbinger of Doom, he who portents the coming of the Life-Taker, the Behemoth of the Dark God. I come to you to herald a warning to you and your kind, Jarl Louth. Leave this land or die.’
A tall, thin figure moved into the firelight. It was the Loremaster.
‘Who is this Life-Taker you speak of?’ he asked.
Cronos turned from Louth to Olathe, fixing him with a cold emotionless stare.
‘You will know him better as the Helbringer.’
All the men in that room stiffened, and Lars felt a shiver run down his spine. His people often told the myth of the son of Mortis in tales.
Cronos moved back to the Door, which was now a light red in colour.
‘You have until the Door turns black. Then the Helbringer shall be unleashed.’
‘Why? Why us?’ implored the Jarl.
Cronos turned back to him. ‘Life only gives him strength; it is the power in the land that he needs to nourish the Lonely God.’ Then he was gone and the Door clicked shut.
5
‘What did he mean by “The power in the land?”’ asked Telmar as he pulled his hands away from Lars’ temples.
Lars shook his head and rubbed his eyes. ‘I know not, much of what I saw was confusing and terrible. The creature was engorged with power and slaughtering at a whim. The blue-skinned man was just as terrifying in a different way. It was as if he knew, intimately, the horror of what the Helbringer truly was.’
Telmar thought about that. He remembered Cronos’s last words to him, something about not being able to leave the thraldom of the Earth Daemon without his flesh. Could his flesh be this Helbringer?
&n
bsp; ‘I have to see it all,’ he said to himself.
‘If you must, but what I witnessed as a boy would chill the heart of any man,’ said Lars sadly.
Telmar nodded and placed his hands on the Loremaster’s head again. He quickly found the images he sought, a day had passed and the Door, unmovable and ominously silent, was turning from a dark red to a deep black. Lars had found his small niche in the rafters again, but the worry on his mind, and the minds of others in Hildbern, was the reddening of the sky above their town. It was so rich in colour it seemed to drip blood and cast a crimson hue over the houses.
Telmar saw through the eyes of the boy, he saw the Door and the Jarl’s Bondsmen standing in a shield wall before it and…
…Lars gripped one of the roof beams so tightly that he was in danger of cutting off the circulation of blood to his fingers. Nevertheless, he stared at the Door, watching its colour darken to the pitch black of a moonless night and still deepen more to a total extinction of colour.
‘Whatever comes out of that door is not some mythical creature,’ shouted the Jarl to his men. ‘This is just some magic performed by our enemies to drive us from these lands, our lands! Whatever comes out of that door shall meet our steel.’ The Bondsmen clattered their spears off shield rims in acknowledgement of their lord’s speech. However, there was still a sombre mood inside that hall.
Lars watched as the Loremaster stepped out of the shadows and into the late evening light. ‘My lord, I implore you, this is folly. We are angering the gods!’ he said.
‘Nonsense, man, what right does a god have to our souls? What wrong have we done?’ said Louth.
‘This is not a god of our people,’ said Olathe in reply. ‘I sense he is one older and darker that any we know of.’
‘How can that be? Our gods were first amongst the world!’
The Loremaster held his hand beseechingly to the Jarl’s chest as the old lord towered over him. ‘I surmise this is the Dark God that the Rawns call the Dark Force of the Earth. It is too powerful for a mere mortal to fight. We must do as this Cronos instructs, we must flee before its wrath.’
The Jarl growled and looked as if he was about to strike the Loremaster, but at that moment the brass knob at the centre of the black door turned and then it opened to reveal blackness beyond. Olathe and Louth stepped back towards the waiting line of Bondsmen.
Lars watched. Silence descended as everyone held their breath and gripped their spears tightly.
There was no movement from the darkness beyond the Door’s threshold, just a cloying dark that swallowed the firelight from the guttering torches on the walls around the great hall.
Jarl Louth stepped forward. Olathe gripped his arm but the Jarl shrugged it off. He took a couple of steps then stopped to peer into the dark opening.
Nothing stirred…but then Louth flinched in fright as a hand shot out of the darkness and gripped the doorframe. It was small and pale grey, with long dark nails and it stayed there for a few tangible seconds until another hand gripped the opposite edge of the doorframe.
Everyone watched, rapt, as the darkness shifted into a small humanoid shape as it hauled itself out of the doorway, and onto the floor in front of the Jarl. To Lars it looked like a child or a very old shrunken man. It looked hunched and deeply wrinkled, with folds of grey, scaly skin. It had two brown lumps on its head that could have been residual horns. Its legs resembled the hind legs of a horse with three long toes on its feet, and a nub of a tail. On its back ran a row of ridges which could have been its spine sticking out of its skin. It writhed on the floor and mewed pitifully, whining and crying in pain.
Louth turned to his Loremaster. ‘This vile thing cannot be the Helbringer, can it?
Olathe shrugged, clearly confused. ‘I think we should step away from it all the same,’ he said in reply.
The big Jarl scoffed and prodded the thing with the tip of his spear. The pitiful thing cried out in obvious pain like a sick babe. The pug-like features of its face and its large domed skull made it look more like a new-born child the longer Lars stared at it.
So far, it had not opened it eyes. That is until the Jarl knelt before it to get a better look.
It seemed to sense his presence, and it stopped crying. Its head snapped around towards the Jarl and it grinned. The teeth were small, yellow and sharp, the teeth of a predator. It finally opened its eyes to reveal deep red orbs under a malevolently furrowed brow. Louth’s startled face reflected back at him from those deep blood-red eyes.
Then the Helbringer struck. It moved so fast that to Lars it seemed that one moment it was writhing on the floor and the next it had fastened its hands onto the Jarl’s face. Bondsmen moved forward to help Louth. Lars could hear the Jarl scream and saw his body shrinking under his clothing and mail; he literally dried up into a husk within seconds of the touch. The creature grew as it leached up Louth’s soul. Its body filled out, the wrinkles in its skin tightened as its muscles expanded, engorged on life, and it doubled in size within a few seconds until it stood as tall as a man did.
The closest Bondsman threw a spear which punched through the creature’s ribcage to stick out of its back, but the thing barely flinched. Instead, it snapped the shaft and lunged for the thrower as the Bondsman unsheathed his sword, but the Helbringer ignored the thrust of the weapon as it scored a gash along its stomach and gripped the man’s head, crushing it into red mush with one squeeze with long fingered, powerful hands.
Two other warriors jabbed with spears, impaling the thing front and behind, but the monster was growing after absorbing the life force of the last attacker and it lashed out with longer arms. Lars saw it strike three shield men and sent them into the air to hit the far wall very hard. They never got up.
The Helbringer roared as he swiped at another Bondsman, but missed as the warrior ducked. Its hand smashed through a two-foot thick wooden pillar to send a flaming brand over to the other side of the hall to spill its burning contents onto the floor. Flames rose from a wall tapestry and licked upwards.
There were screams from above the feasting hall as Yegrain and her servants ran out of their rooms onto the balcony. They saw the carnage below them as the monster moved quickly to pick up a warrior and smash his drying body against the central hearth, where he burst into fragments of desiccated flesh. The enclosing wall of the fireplace obliterated under the impact of the creature’s strength to send smoke and ash in all directions. The cloud of smoke cloaked Lars’ view of the battle below. He could still hear the thing roaring and the bondsmen screaming as their bodies became like instant dry husks at the Helbringer’s merest touch.
He climbed down from the joists and jumped ten feet to the balcony. The women on the landing screamed all the more when he appeared from out of nowhere.
‘This way!’ he shouted, as he took a door to the servant’s stairs that led to the kitchens. They all followed, still dressed in gowns and most of them barefoot. He urged them outside into the cold.
‘Run to the docks,’ he said and did not bother to see if they obeyed, he ran back to the main entrance of the hall and pushed through the doors.
Inside was pure carnage. Bodies, twisted and grotesque, littered the floor, flames covered the east wall and now rose to the rafters and wrapped around the roof beams. Humanoid shapes still moved within the smoke at the centre of the hall, and the deep roar of the beast deafened him.
As he moved forward, a body flew from the smoke and skidded to a halt at his feet. It was barely recognisable as a Bondsman, the emaciated face twisted in the agony of his death. Lars squinted through the flames and saw coloured lights splash over the walls and the creature screamed in renewed rage, lightning bolts zapped along the walls and ceiling, adding to the destruction. The smoke cleared enough for Lars to see a thin figure in a dark brown robe danced through the flames that crackled and sparked around him. It was Loremaster Olathe, still alive and vainly avoiding the limbs of the creature. He was brandishing his staff of black walnut, sparks and light
ning shot from its tip to zap the monster with magic.
Then the Helbringer stepped out of the fire and smoke and Lars gasped at its size. It was at least twenty feet high now, but hunched over under the burning rafters to bear down on Olathe. Its horns had grown to become two massive pronged protrusions that curled forward from its wide forehead until both tips almost met at the end. Its once loose skin was now stretched tightly over a muscled body that was grey, yet tinged red at the chest and shoulders. The thing was vibrant with life from its feasting of the Jarl and his Bondsmen. Its red eyes burned hatefully as it regarded the Loremaster, it roared loudly to reveal a huge gaping maw enclosing long lethal incisors.
Olathe must have sensed that Lars had opened the doors to the hall as a strong gust of wind rushed in to fan the flames around him and the Helbringer. The Loremaster turned and met his apprentice’s eyes for a few seconds and smiled.
Lars screamed as the Helbringer reached out and picked up the Loremaster. Olathe struggled in its grip and threw a rod of lightning into the things face. The creature screeched in pain, but seemed none the worse from the attack.
Lars watched as the body of the Loremaster shrivelled as he was held in the monster’s hand and then finally breaking into hundreds of dusty particles from the pressure of its grip.
Lars finally found the strength to tear his eyes from the horrific sight and ran from the hall. The street now thronged with people running towards the docks. Behind him the roof of the hall ripped asunder as the Helbringer broke free of the construction and ripped its walls apart as if it was made of flimsy parchment. The flames still surrounded it, but its skin did not burn, it didn’t even appear to be scorched, nothing seems to affect it.
More soldiers and Bondsmen attacked the thing, mainly with hunting bows, yet the creature was so large now that none of the arrows pierced its flesh. The thing traipsed thought the town ripping open the roofs of houses to search for more souls to gorge on.