Balan gawked at the gate. Balissa was yelling at the Mad Watch to man the gates and the walls. They were dead scared of her, but most ran to obey. ‘Doesn’t matter. It is hopeless! There are thousands of the enemies. The Mad Watch is scattered all over the place. The Temple and the town will fall! You had best fly away!’
‘Here,’ I told him. ‘Give me all your toys.’
‘All my toys?’ he asked, confused.
‘Toys,’ I told him and searched him. In the end, I had all I wanted.
‘What will you do?’ he asked, curious.
I leaned on him. ‘The Temple. There is something very special down there. I know. Father told me. Many wondrous artifacts. A throne, I hear. The real throne of Morag.’
‘Oh no,’ he breathed. ‘The book was always a bit vague about that place. Apparently, they made their home there during the Hel’s War and …’ he began, and I saw he was curious to know more. I could see it from his excited eyes. He had developed goals for himself, ones he could not ignore.
‘But you won’t see it,’ I told him flatly, and I saw I had broken his cold heart.
I picked him up and tossed him far, far from the wall, where he splattered on the wall of a blue mansion. I saw Lith supporting Taram outside the gates, limping away, and I made a throat cutting motion to them both. Sand was keeping Illastria safe. That was the only thing I had asked of him. That did not break his oath to Lith. And he was doing it.
The drum boomed. The first of the southern enemy soldiers were in sight, and there was a brief scuffle at the gate as Lith struggled to explain they were allies. Soon, there would be a thousand Hammer Legionnaires gathered before the gate. And more.
I looked down to the yard. To the left, the remains of the old temple were nestled, sad, and forgotten. Weeds were growing amidst the stones, and carvings were faded in the surface of the rocks. There once stood the gateway to one of the other worlds, perhaps Asgaard. And below it, the home Hel’s armies had carved in the stone lands of Dagnar, thousands of years past.
‘They had better be there still,’ I whispered and ran down the stairs. There I found an old lady and ordered a Mad Watch member to take her up. After that, I walked out and to the walls.
CHAPTER 20
Balissa sighed as I climbed to the wall. I held Bjornag’s two-hander, my hand on sheeted Tear Drinker and I stared at the massively tall female, whose helmet was under her armpit. She had bright blue eyes, the blue tinted skin of a Jotun, and a superior, noble bearing of an arrogant bastard. Her eyebrows were lively; her face lean as ice and her mouth had a perpetual pout. Her tall spear glinted as she pointed out to the Sun Square. Wind ruffled her red-blonde hair that was thick around her shoulders
I saw an army of dark-armored men; all hefting round, embossed shields of gray and black make; spears, javelins and heavy hammers, their helmets very wide, the rims reaching to their shoulders. Most had chain mail draped across their mouths. ‘That will be uncomfortable when the air freezes,’ Balissa said, observing the armor over the lips of the enemy. ‘Steel and ice and sweaty skin. Perhaps they can piss on each other’s faces to remove the frozen chain.’ I chuckled dutifully, but in truth, they were too many. They stood in blocks of nearly five hundred men, and there were four such blocks. Some three hundred undead soldiers formed their own block. This was the Bull Legion, judging by the horned beast in the black and red standards. They might slaughter us with ease, I thought. Balissa spat at them. ‘You know we are buggered, right?’
‘I know,’ I growled at her.
‘Because of you,’ she whispered. ‘Your inability to tell truly evil from good.’
‘I don’t know what to tell you, Balissa,’ I told her tiredly. ‘I trusted my family, the people around me and never knew the truth. Shut up and tell me how to win this battle.’
She eyed the enemy, the shaken Mad Watch and remained silent. ‘You know how.’ She eyed the gauntlet with fear and wonder.
‘If I open the vaults,’ I told her, ‘what will happen?’
She sighed. ‘It might go very ill for Dagnar. It will change things. It might save us.’
‘How?’
‘You are the Beast of the North.’ She chuckled. ‘No matter if you do or do not open the vault, Dagnar will change; the humans will suffer, and the north will shake to its foundations, but perhaps something good will grow out of it if you do open it? Do not, and the dead will rule. You might bring us all something different, very, very different, if you open it up. The dead? They won’t give us mercy. You have to remember …’ she said and cursed as the army before us rippled in anticipation; a great drum began to bang, and an officer wearing a blue cape appeared. Then I saw Lith, in a conical garment, walking for the man and pulling on a golden, horned helmet. ‘One Eyed Priest,’ she said with a pouty grin. ‘It means Hel’s Priest, for her eye is lost, and hence are the worlds shattered from each other.’
‘You were saying?’ I asked her.
‘I was saying,’ she told me, ‘that you are a Jotun. You are of the Ymirblood, a Toe of a Giant, a Jotun of Nifleheim, scion of Jotunheimr and foe to gods and their creations. Men are not our friends. Magor felt responsible for them, some of our kin agreed, but in the end, we are not friends or kin. They will turn on us.’
‘I have a hard time thinking they would choose those dead over a Jotun,’ I told her, eyeing the enemy officer walking forward.
‘They will choose us,’ she affirmed. ‘But abandon us when we have done their filthy work. Should you decide to save our asses and open our former base, their lives will change. Some will die. There will be more conflict in the world. The High King will face stiff resistance, but it will break all of Midgard. But at least many will survive. Death will come either way, but some will live if you go there and succeed.’
‘How?’ I asked.
‘You will see,’ she said softly. ‘The general the gods sent here is formidable. Might be a prisoner now, but if freed, it will change men’s perceptions and allegiances for good.’ She chortled, shaking her head, and I began to get irritated. She slapped the wall. ‘But if you do not, they are sure to die. What is down there can possibly spare them, but there will be conflict later.’
I shrugged and wiped my hand across my face. ‘I was a human. Still am, partly. I say we spare most of them. And take risks.’
‘Some of them, I think. Not most. And no, you are not a human at all, you damned fool,’ she hissed. ‘We live amongst them, for here we were royals and lacked nothing. We do not love them.’
‘Magor felt responsible for them,’ I told her. ‘You just said so.’
‘Magor was a great king,’ she agreed, ‘but he would never choose his slaves over his own people. And his true allies. But free them and it, Maskan, and let us not worry about Dagnar and the north. The old ways will be gone. Midgard will change.’
‘You cannot tell me anything? What is down there, exactly?’ I asked her again.
She shook her head. ‘Something we once surrendered to. But Magor tricked it and sealed it in there with the Black Grip, your gauntlet. It was the base of war in Hel’s War on worlds. Remember. Whatever happens to humans, as a result, we have nothing in common with them. You are responsible to your people. Me. And those we locked in there.’
‘I will—’
‘You? On the wall!’ yelled an imperious voice with a strange, clipped accent. The officer.
‘They want you, my king,’ Balissa chuckled. ‘Look kingly.’
‘You lost?’ I yelled down at the officer, who wore a full, golden helm with a bull painted in the middle. ‘Dagnar has a king, and I cannot remember inviting you.’
‘Dagnar,’ the man said with a growl, ‘has a king indeed. Always did. Danegells are traitors, and the High King condemns you do die. You inhuman vermin.’
‘The whore,’ I laughed and nodded at Lith, ‘is no human.’
The officer glanced at Lith’s golden mask and the contingent of dead. ‘They are more. The god touches them. Our god. The
High King, the one Lord over us all, is the true god of men. They are like him, his seed, and his kin and serve his will. Now. Fly away, I know you can. And you men!’ he yelled, and the Mad Watch stiffened. ‘You have our word you will be spared, should you throw down your weapons.’
I laughed hugely as the men on the wall eyed me. ‘Yes! Go down to them. Look at your city men! My father always guarded Dagnar, and never once burned it. Hear the screams of your women and children out there?’
The officer stiffened and spat. The Mad Watch remained quiet, pondering the words of their strange new lord and those of a savage conqueror. ‘Choose now,’ the officer yelled.
‘We are no longer Balic’s subjects, my lord! Not since he burns our homes,’ I yelled and was rewarded by a ragged, rumbling scream of the Mad Watch. They raised their swords and axes to the air; spears thrust up to the sky defiantly, and they laughed at death. They should have been enjoying the Yule feast. Instead, they would soak in blood. The two thousand Hammer Legionnaires banged their shields together, and the officer turned to confer with Lith.
‘So, they will come and dance,’ Balissa stated. ‘What now?’
‘Can we hurl them back?’ asked a timid Mad Watch captain. ‘We have only a few hundred men. Many died out there in the city and in the battle. And they destroyed the ballista.’ I looked at the mighty things. They were broken beyond repair.
‘The walls are not very tall,’ Balissa said. ‘They are more ceremonial than anything.’
‘We can lock the Tower, no?’ I asked and turned to look that way.
The doors had been hacked to pieces.
Balissa snorted. ‘Once they are open, they are like any door. Now they are useless. I say we fight them here and then retreat to the tower anyway. Easier to defend unless they bring siege. And they will, but not today, maybe. There is a store of food and arms there, I think, to last a good while. Unless they lost it as well.’
I nodded and looked at the wall. There were now some three hundred Mad Watch guardsmen on the walls, barely enough to man it. The gate was propped by slabs of stone, debris, and corpses and jabbed to the ground by spears and wedges.
I pulled the captain to me. ‘Give the orders. When the time comes, we retreat there.’ I nodded at the tower.
‘Can you …’ he began and stammered.
‘Use magic?’ I asked him. He nodded. ‘Yes, we can. But—’
‘It’s not enough,’ Balissa said darkly. ‘It would be sufficient if we had more Jotuns working for us. I’m exhausted already. So are you.’ She glanced at me as the captain went. ‘Go and change Midgard.’
‘The place was closed twenty years ago, Balissa,’ I told her. ‘Whatever is down there, they will be starved.’
‘They won’t,’ she said. ‘They are not Jotuns. Neither is the one we tricked. She will not need to eat often, and the others are quite ingenious.’
‘Woman? What are they?’ I asked.
‘Useful,’ she said. ‘Push them back!’ she screamed, and I realized the enemy had suddenly charged. Two thousand iron-studded and leather-shod feet trampled the ground; drums were banging madly behind the ranks and golden helmed officers screamed at their men to take the walls.
Balissa turned me. ‘Good luck. I will fight until it is hopeless. Then I shall flee if I can. Hope to see you again, numbskull, my king,’ she said with a small grin. I nodded at her, eyed the Temple dubiously, hoping to decide on a suitable course of action. I could not go yet. I had to do something first. I ran through the gatehouse, cursed the disabled siege ballista, the empty caltrop boxes and kicked at what had been arrow racks. They had done an excellent job in dismantling our defenses. I reached the other side of the wall, where men of the Mad Watch looked mesmerized as the enemy carried ladders for the wall. I grew in size to twelve feet and pointed my sword at the foes. The guard stepped back from me. ‘Those fight for the dead. Some of us shall die, but they have to come over the wall. They thought the Tower would be theirs already and have not prepared for this.’ I prayed that was true. ‘They were not expecting trouble. They would have slaughtered you where you slept. This is a gift to us. We shall fight like the mad, and mad you are, are you not?’ I asked them with a bellowing voice. They looked dubious and fingered their weapons nervously. Some nodded. Most of the Watch was gone. Scattered and dead. ‘Are you with me? Or shall your damned king fight alone?’
They hesitated. They had seen Balissa standing tall as a giant. They had seen me hurtle through the doors to the Tower as a Jotun. They had seen our powers. I saw the first legionnaires reach the wall.
‘Kill the sons of bitches,’ a Watch officer growled. ‘For Dagnar!’ Not for the king, I thought, but it would do.
The enemy was not totally unprepared. They had ladders.
They went up. Then they crashed down, trembling, despite their sturdy make, for men were already scaling them. A throng of dark-armored enemies milled around the base of the wall; a dozen men were hammering at the gate, and there were a thousand men waiting a little ways from the Tower of Temple’s wall while the others made ready to break us. I heard Balissa scream a challenge, and then I felt air rippling with a spell and saw a blistering hot and freezing cold ice storm whip up in the middle of a pushing group of enemies. Flesh froze, others burned spectacularly, and men screamed and flew around. I knew Balisssa was tired and could not throw many such spells, and this had not been as strong as the first one. I noticed Lith dancing as she also was casting a spell, and a fiery spear grew from her hand. She threw it; it flew to smash against someone, and there it exploded. The rock broke, a crenellation fell on the legionnaires, and the Watch suffered injuries and no doubt deaths. Then she did it again at another spot, and the officer of the Hammers rode back and forth, eyeing all the efforts until he disappeared below and stood in front of the gate. A man screamed in the gatehouse, an apparent victim of a swift javelin or arrow. Lith ordered Valkai to lead men to the gate, men with heavy mauls. He did. Sand and some of the dead, who did not join the battle, guarded Illastria.
I turned to look at the ladder right in front of me. I heard steps and curses below and hazarded a glance over the rim. Arrow went by my face, but I saw a burly man clambering up. I grew large and thick, and his eyes went from madly brave to shocked as he saw the size of the enemy waiting for him, but up he came until I hacked down at him. His helmet split; his hauberk was rent, and he fell to take down the next man on the rungs. Another jumped up soon, grinning with terrified determination, and I roared as I kicked him far, a broken man. I leaned over to grab the ladder and spat as javelins rained around me, hitting my armor. I pulled the ladder up. There were men holding it up, and they came with it. I pulled it, dragged it over and squashed the men still clinging on. I reached for the last of them, a tall man trying to escape to the gatehouse and threw him in a high arch at the enemy ranks below. The Mad Watch cheered wildly, their voices tiny amidst the howls of the pressing enemy, and they truly began to fight. Spears waited for the enemy to appear over the ladder, and then men died. Many fell, a dozen. Dark, deadly javelins flew in swarms over the wall, striking sparks off the stone, a few impaling and wounding Watchmen.
‘Keep killing the motherless goats!’ I screamed and noticed something out of place. A chanting concentration of troops were marching for the middle part of our wall, two hundred grim men, pushing their milling companions aside. They were holding shields high, and I saw there were ladders, very tall ladders amongst the group. They were determined to take the wall, as determined as a starving thief, and then they acted. A hundred men lifted a dozen ladders up while some held onto them. The ladders were already full of men as the Hammer Legion lifted them high, grunting with the effort, and they landed high between two previously embattled ladders on the wall. It looked like a bridge, full of scuttling, armored beetles. The ladders crashed down on the wall. The impact shook some of the enemies off; others fell over to our side and the stone below. But many of the savage fighters jumped to the wall itself, amidst Mad
Watch, who were suddenly fighting a desperate battle to repel the enemy. Several enemy linked shields in the middle of the turmoil, wielding heavy, deadly hammers at the less experienced guardsmen. A man fell, his face caved in. Another followed, his neck was broken as he tottered to the side. More men clambered up the ladder, holding theirs shields up, and some five Mad Watchmen were caught between the men on the wall and the legionnaires who were climbing. Two of my men fell in confusion; one ran away only to die as a javelin pierced his neck. Two more dropped their weapons and begged for mercy, but there was none to be had. A golden helmed officer jumped up to the wall, ten of his men braced themselves, and I acted.
I ran for them. The wall trembled; they threw javelins at me, their eyes full of terror. My sword went up; they hid behind their shields, and I swiped the huge weapon at them. There was a jarring crash, a thrumming noise as the sword shuddered redly and three of the enemies were dead or dying, limbs hacked off, shields rent. I roared and went in kicking at the enemy, stepping on one, and faced the officer, who hacked desperately at my midriff, drawing blood with his ax. I kicked him so hard. his helmet flew off with his head. Yet more and more of the enemy came to me, and then I heard an officer of the Mad Watch screaming.
‘The gate! It is breaking!’ A group of Mad Watch turned to repel men at the ladders, but that was when Lith joined the fight in our stretch of wall. I felt her, rather than saw her, for she was holding a great spell, and I knew I had to move. Her mask appeared at the end of the ladder at the other end of my wall.
A wall of wickedly hot flames spread to the left and right of me. Men burned indiscriminately, to their bone, their soul, perhaps, for they screamed hideously. A hundred perhaps less were charred by Lith’s spell. She was pushing the fires towards me.
I jumped off the wall. I had to, anyway. I jumped to the enemy side. I thought desperately as I saw the shocked opponents look up from under their broad helmets at a plummeting, armored giant of twelve feet tall, about to break into them. A wolf? A bear? What was the limit? And then I decided. I changed in the air as I came down, and when I hit the army below, it was not a soft-bellied wolf or a furry bear that hit them. It was a sauk, the lizard. There was slithering power in the form. It was a ferocious, merciless killing machine. I had the dark, leathery, and horned skin, powerful ripping claws, and bursting speed. It was perfect for the chaos. A hammer struck my skin but bounced off. A spear went wide as a man toppled over my back. There were many desperate men trapped under me, and I clawed them to death, roared so hard some of the enemy dropped their weapons and toppled over. Then I slithered forward. To move like that, as if the world was still. I was fast, flexible, strange, and I was soon lathered with blood, theirs, and mine. I moved through groups of men, crushing them under my claws and bulk, drawing flesh and meat from quivering bodies with each step, biting swiftly and savagely at limbs and heads, and I roared when I tried to laugh, for the hammers were feeble indeed against my skin. One struck my snout, though, and I went into a berserk frenzy. I loped, jumped, ripped, and bit at the enemy; slit gullets, slashed shields to pieces and ran around wildly in the helpless milling mass of enemies. I hunted officers, the golden helmeted, sturdy men, and bit off their arms and heads and felt blood flow as the enemies were swarming me with daggers, swords, and spears now. I killed fifty, maybe more, and while many legionnaires died and some even ran, I sensed the walls were falling. A horn blared desperately, a call to retreat. The gate broke. I heard a Jotun scream for men to run, and so I realized—even in my bestial rage—that I had to run as well. I loped right, then left, screamed at a flurry of javelins that hit me. I saw two hundred men marching for me, using spears and hammers to herd me, and so I charged. I crushed spears, took hammer hits and bowled over a dozen enemies. They screamed, hit at each other and me, and so I transformed in the chaos, crawling around in the pile of twitching bodies to take a face and armor of an officer I had killed. They yelled in confusion, all around me, urged each other to kill the beast but suddenly they realized there was none to kill.
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