A Mighty Dawn

by Theodore Brun

She nodded. ‘What about light? We’ll go much faster with a torch.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that. I can see in the shadows.’

  ‘You can?’ It was her turn to be surprised. ‘How?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He thought about telling her what happened. But how could he explain what he didn’t understand himself? ‘I just can. You’ll have to trust me.’

  For the first time, she smiled at him. A forlorn smile, true, but it showed there was still some fight left in her. ‘Your eyes and my mind, huh?’ she said.

  ‘Let’s go.’

  Outside, Lilla immediately stalled, horrified at the two bodies.

  ‘Leave them!’ he shouted.

  But, half-dazed, she bent down and picked a spear out of the lake of blood that had leaked across the floor.

  ‘Come on!’ Erlan urged and led her to the staircase and the cavern of gruesome pits. ‘That way,’ Lilla murmured. ‘Past the demon’s other chamber.’

  They hurried along the pathway. ‘They’re monsters,’ he heard her moan.

  ‘Don’t look!’ They were passing the pit where the Nefelung were carving up their newborn. He kept his eyes fixed ahead. They were about to reach the cut that would lead them away from that hall of horrors when footsteps echoed down the stairway towards them.

  Suddenly another figure appeared. In his hand was the severed head of the Watcher. Erlan stopped in surprise. The figure was like none he’d yet seen in this kingdom of nightmares.

  He was taller than the slavish Nefelung, with the appearance almost of an ordinary man by features and proportion. But his extreme paleness and the sinewy strength in his limbs were unnatural, and in his eyes shone a cruelty born of pure darkness.

  An overlord. A son of Azazel.

  His eyes gleamed with bloodlust. He lifted a long streak of blackened steel. Erlan felt Lilla’s hand on his shoulder, her breath in his ear, whispering words he didn’t understand.

  The overlord raised the Watcher’s head and shook it, then spoke in a voice hard as granite. Whatever he said, his meaning was clear – he wanted revenge.

  Erlan brandished the tail, half-expecting, half-hoping the overlord to cower from it. But he stood his ground, spittle flecking his pale lips as foul words poured forth.

  ‘Take this,’ he said, proffering the tail to Lilla.

  ‘I’ll not touch it.’

  ‘Take it!’ he snarled.

  Bridling her disgust, she did as bid.

  He stepped forward. The overlord came to meet him, uttering a last vengeful cry; then dropping the massive head, he took his black blade in both hands.

  ‘You talk like your father. I took his head. Yours will fare no better.’ Erlan laughed – a cracked, crazy laugh – feeling something dark welling inside him. The overlord bellowed in reply and hurled himself forward, hacking at Erlan’s open flank.

  He shoved his sword to meet the blow, but with no shield and little space, his position was weak.

  ‘Back! Back!’ he shouted.

  He heard Lilla retreat, still speaking her prayers or spells or curses or whatever the Hel she was saying. He cut upwards, knocked away the overlord’s blade, his opponent’s mouth curling into a sneer, hissing something in his demon tongue, shaking his head in contempt.

  But Erlan didn’t wait to listen. He lunged – once, twice. The overlord fell back, slashing down on his arms, but Erlan blocked and lunged again. Still no blow landed. And suddenly he’d over-reached and saw too late the cut from his left. He felt steel hit his side, waited for the blaze of pain.

  But it never came.

  Both froze, stunned that Erlan was still standing. Lilla’s stream of words was louder than ever. Erlan recovered first and struck at the other’s arm. This time the blade bit. The overlord screamed in rage.

  The cut was deep but he was far from finished. He flew at Erlan with fresh fury. A gap flashed ahead and Erlan lurched through it, switching places.

  There was no way to win this fight on the narrow pathway, but now he had his back to the steps. He inched back – step by step, readying himself – planning to leap wide for a killing stroke. The overlord pressed harder. Erlan gave another two yards.

  Suddenly his weak ankle jarred against something heavy. It rolled. He tripped. Saw he was going over, cried out. His back smashed against the ground, and he glimpsed the Watcher’s deathly face past his feet. The overlord’s eyes blazed in triumph as he leaped forward to skewer his foe.

  But Erlan was still moving, gaining speed, slipping down the lip of rock and over the edge.

  In horror, Erlan felt himself plunging headlong towards one of the pits. The drumming below was deafening. The last thing he saw as he went over was the overlord’s victorious sneer.

  He snatched at the dizzying air – for a heartbeat, nothing – then he smashed into something hard. There were shrieks all around, the stench of sweat and rancid flesh. The drumming ceased suddenly. Under him, someone was groaning. And then weird pale faces were crowding over him.

  Their eyes were dead, their jaws working; sweat dripped from their scarred faces. He hauled himself to his feet, Wrathling still welded to his hand.

  The Nefelung he’d landed on was moaning, his body broken. Erlan looked up. The overlord was leaning over, shouting down into the pit. One by one, the Nefelung around him began to look up, began to heed what he was saying.

  His face was a mask of urgency, but then a long blood-slicked spear erupted from his chest – just for a second – and was gone. It was so brief, Erlan thought maybe he’d imagined it. But the overlord’s sneer melted, his sword fell and then he tumbled forward into the pit.

  Erlan threw himself aside as the body thumped onto the miserable Nefelung, the sword following hard after it. The others went wild, leaping about like the ground was burning. He got up quickly and looked about. The overlord lay on one side, limbs wrenched like a broken doll, his chest a gaping hole.

  ‘Erlan! Erlan! Are you down there?’ Lilla’s voice. Of course, Lilla!

  He bellowed her name. Then there she was, peering into the pit. The Nefelung were closing in on him, jaws gurning. They looked like they’d tear him limb from limb.

  ‘Lilla! The tail – throw down the tail!’

  He saw her look behind her, and then a shadow was flying like a flailing serpent through the air. It splattered to the ground beside the broken bodies.

  Erlan snatched it up, brandishing it in front of him. The nearest Nefelung recoiled with a whimper. He pushed forward, driving them away in confusion, but with no idea which way to go.

  ‘Can you see a way out?’ he yelled.

  ‘I can’t see!’

  ‘Look again!’

  ‘I’m trying!’ She leaned forward, straining her eyes into the shadows. Suddenly she pointed. ‘There, on the far side. There are steps back up.’

  He turned to where she was pointing. The hideous faces surged around him. He cracked the tail and the Nefelung nearest to him trembled, pushing back.

  The shrieks and yells faded into wails and whimpers, each Nefelung cowering from him as he moved through the throng. At last, he saw steps out of the pit.

  He hurried to them and, ignoring the pain in his ankle, took them two at a time. Below, the Nefelung were herding around the foot of the steps as if, at a distance from the dreaded tail, they dared come after him.

  At the top, he saw a pathway disappearing into darkness one way. The other, it skirted the pit-wall back to Lilla, waiting with the bloodied spear in her hands.

  He hurried along it, hundreds of pairs of eyes on him from below. At last he reached her. He wanted to hug her from pure relief, but she’d already turned away.

  ‘Hey!’ he said, taking her elbow. ‘You saved my life.’

  ‘Not yet I haven’t.’ She pointed down at the crowd of Nefelung, who were halfway up the staircase and seemed to be growing bolder every moment. He glanced down and saw one of the larger Nefelung had picked up the overlord’s sword, was turning it in his hand. ‘Come on
!’ Her cheeks were ash-grey. ‘Now!’ she screamed.

  ‘My eyes, your mind, right?’ he said, looping the tail over his sheath.

  She nodded.

  ‘You’d better be as smart as you think you are, Princess.’

  ‘We’re about to find out.’ She put her hand in his and they set off up the stairs.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Kai had waited longer than a night and a day.

  Course, he’d known he would if Erlan hadn’t emerged by then. But it was well on in the third day, and still no sign.

  If Sviggar’s scouts were worth their salt they shouldn’t be far away. Though he doubted even the best huntsmen could’ve followed their tracks after that snowfall. Unless they’d found their markers, which he supposed was some hope.

  Anyway, if Erlan was gone, what did he care if Sviggar got his revenge?

  So he went on waiting. And with a bloody raw arm into the bargain, and ever the chance some other wild beasty would come and have another go at him. But after the wolf – or man, or whatever the Hel it was – and after he’d rounded up the horses. . . well, the truth of it was he was bored out of his skull.

  He’d sat staring at the icefall for three days now, under grey skies and drifting mists, thinking there couldn’t be a more miserable place in all the world. He’d waited, buried under furs, moving only to chuck more wood on the fire, and dreaming up snatches of songs about the shapes in the ice. And above all, he watched that dark hole, hoping for something. . . anything to happen.

  While he waited, he got to thinking. Supposing there was a whole pack of murderous creatures down that hole – was Erlan likely to chop ’em all to bits on his own? He might get out – maybe with the princess if she was lucky – but there’d still be plenty of ’em left to cause a heap more trouble.

  If someone blocked their way out, they’d be corked down there like flies in a bottle. That’d be the end of their trouble-making, eh? They’d have to stay down there for ever. Although he guessed the king still wanted his ‘red day’ or whatever he called it. He could hardly have that if he couldn’t get at them. Even so, it seemed a happy solution.

  So long as Erlan got out.

  And looking at the icefall, he wondered – supposing it was the best thing that should be done, could it be done?

  The entrance was maybe fifteen feet high, top to bottom. And you could only squeeze two men at a time through the gap at most. So it was hardly a big hole to fill.

  Either side of the icefall stood two cliffs of black sandstone. In the last three days, his eyes had scaled them a hundred times. Each went straight up, more or less, but there were jags and cracks and ledges all the way to the top.

  On the morning of the third day he’d noticed a crack on the right-hand cliff that was long and deep and – far as he could see – uninterrupted. The cliff looked steady enough, but he’d picked out a slab the size of a small hall that seemed hardly attached to the rest. It was a wonder it hadn’t fallen already, by his reckoning.

  The slab was mostly all of a piece; except right at the bottom, where the crack emerged, the last few feet splintered into smaller fragments. These appeared to act as a sort of foundation, holding the slab in place.

  What if someone knocked that away? It was only a collection of little rocks, after all. If you knocked any of ’em away. . . Why, wouldn’t the whole cliff come down?

  He smiled at the thought. He’d like to see that!

  Wouldn’t be much of a hole after that, he chuckled. There wouldn’t be much icefall left either.

  He shrugged. It might work. And looking at the cliff, he set about figuring a way up to the bottom of the slab. By late afternoon, he reckoned he had a route. And so on to his next problem. It was one thing to drop an enormous rock onto the gap. Another thing entirely to get the Hel out of the way.

  He’d just begun thinking this one through, when there was a noise from the crack.

  His eyes darted to the darkness. He listened. This time he was certain, and then he was throwing off his furs, pulling his sword from its sheath, and heaving through the powder fast as he could. He reached the crack and leaned inside.

  ‘Hello!’ he yelled. ‘Erlan!’

  He pricked an ear. No answer. He listened again. Another noise.

  ‘Erlan? Is that you?’

  This time, there was a reply, muffled and smothered by echoes.

  ‘Erlan!’ he cried again. ‘I’m coming!’ He made to go in, then realized he had no light. ‘Hel take me for a fool!’ Three days to make a torch and he’d never even thought of it. He went inside, tried to grope forward, but it was no good. The back of the cavern was black as pitch.

  The fire – of course!

  He waded through the snow a second time, pulled a half-burned branch from the fire, then turned back. He was still a dozen yards from the icefall when he heard footsteps and two ragged figures tumbled out of the gap.

  ‘Erlan!’

  ‘Kai!’ cried his master, gasping at the cold air. His face was black with dirt and blood; his hair matted red; the arm of his mailshirt cut, with a blood-soaked flap hanging loose; and his eyes wild. But it was certainly him.

  Beside him, the princess was shielding her eyes from the blinding glare looking like some spectral handmaiden of Hel, face streaked with grime.

  Kai dropped the burning stick and ran to his friend. ‘You’re alive!’

  ‘Aye – for now – but we’ve no time to lose.’ Suddenly a terrible shriek rose up out of the depths of the cavern.

  ‘They’re coming!’ cried Lilla. ‘They were hard behind us in the caves.’

  ‘Where’s the king?’ said Erlan. ‘His men – are they here?’

  ‘No. Just me. How many are following?’

  ‘Many,’ said Erlan, grimly. As if to seal his words, another howl rose up from the darkness, and then another, nearer now. ‘Quick! Fetch the shields – we’ll need them.’

  Only now did Kai notice the long-spear in Lilla’s hand, blood crusting half its length. ‘If we must die, at least it’ll be breathing the clean air of this world,’ she said.

  ‘But master – we don’t need to face them! There’s another way. I can seal them inside. All of them.’ Seemed like as good a time as any to make a bold claim.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘This entrance – I can close it.’

  ‘How?’

  Kai threw down his sword and clapped his hands in delight – then regretted it. His left arm was still mighty tender. ‘Just watch, master!’ And seeing the doubt on Lilla’s face, he cried, ‘Fear not, my lady – I can stop them!’

  Not waiting for an answer, Kai set himself at the cliff. He looked up and gave a low whistle, his hand going to the back of his belt where his hand-axe was safely tucked. ‘Ain’t much in this world a bit of hammering can’t fix,’ he muttered, then put his hands to the wall.

  The rock was ice cold to the touch.

  ‘What the Hel are you doing?’ asked Erlan, caught between curiosity and impatience. ‘We need you here with us – with a sword in your hand!’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  His fingers were strong and well used to the cold, but as soon as he gripped the rock, he felt a twinge deep in his forearm. All right then – this was going to be unpleasant. He gritted his teeth and took his weight anyway and found he could keep his grip. In his head, he rehearsed the sequence of holds he’d mapped out from the comfort of his furs. And up he went.

  He soon discovered some holds were better than he’d figured; others a good deal worse. But, the pain in his arm notwithstanding, he reckoned he could get there. After all, hadn’t he climbed a thousand trees as a kid? He’d never come close to falling, though his mother always said one day he would.

  Not me, I’m as agile as a squirr—

  Suddenly his foothold gave and he found himself dangling twenty-five feet up with his fingers wedged liked pegs in a crack. He winced as his knuckles tore.

  ‘Hey!’ yelled Erlan.
‘Be careful up there!’

  Kai released a long breath. ‘Aye – the thought had occurred to me.’ Maybe squirrels do fall after all, just no one’s around to see it.

  He looked up. Maybe ten feet to go. He drew up his legs and found another toehold. Ten feet. And then? There was a yell from below. ‘They’re here! Kai – hurry – for all our sakes, hurry!’

  He glanced down as another shriek burst from the darkness, and with it figures appearing into the open. Two of them – then a third.

  Dirty little tykes, he thought, watching Erlan lift his sword and the princess brace her spear. ‘Guess we’re all in now.’

  He was out of time. Already the shouts and yells of combat carried to his perch. He shinned up the last ten feet like a cat up a tree, at last within reach of the shattered rocks he reckoned held up the big slab.

  Satisfied with his grip, he reached behind and pulled out his little axe.

  He heard Lilla scream below and glanced down. There were a couple of darker shapes motionless in the snow, then more creatures emerging from the icefall.

  ‘Kai! Kai!’ cried Lilla, sounding desperate. ‘Do it now!’

  He looked up and grunted. Aye, this was the weakest part of his plan. Getting out of the way of a falling rock the size of a house. Still, he reckoned the main weight of it was off to the left. Once it started to go, he could scoot right and be out of the way. He scanned that way and noted two or three good handholds and a decent ledge for his feet.

  I’ll be fine. It’s all about timing. Knowing when the thing’s about to go.

  He started hammering at the rocks with the butt of his axe. Below him, Erlan was bellowing like a bull. Chips of stone skittered off down the cliff. His arm was burning. He had to use his left arm, of course, so he could escape to the right, and he wasn’t sure that wolf hadn’t cracked his bloody bone. Still, he went at it busily, chunks of rock flaking and falling away, and then a lump the size of his fist cracked and broke off.

  He grinned at his progress, but it still wasn’t fast enough for them below. Suddenly a bigger piece of rock swivelled, leaving the end jutting out. He leaned away to give himself more room, and with a backhanded blow sent it sailing into the air.