by Chris Sharp
IN ALL HIS suffering and dying, Neither-Nor had never been horribly burned before. Though he couldn’t move or make a sound, the first thing he was aware of was screaming pain across much of his body. He felt like he’d been flayed, or perhaps coated with a swarm of angry wasps as jolts of white-hot agony jabbed into his mind. After what might have been minutes or days, the debilitating assault ebbed, and his skin was left feeling like it crawled with a whole colony of riled ants.
Finally his body shuddered to life and he produced a long, low wheeze. He peeled his eyes open to the blur of another campfire, and he wondered if he’d ever left his spot above the Iron Wood. Then he remembered the Rock Wolf hunting party, and the image of the big goblin’s blade jamming through his back and out his chest. Ain’t possible. I was dead fer good.
“Oi, welcome back, frien’,” came the rumbling voice of the infernal troll. “Took ya long enough, dis time.”
The troll who called himself Slud was standing beside a little fire, covered now in heavy furs and carrying the meanest-looking ax that Neither-Nor had ever seen. Maybe he really was some creature spat up from his nightmares, but Neither-Nor was too tired to fight anymore. “How?”
“Slud took yer map ’n’ worked on yer back las’ time ya was out . . . If yer done wit’ all de leapin’ ’n’ snarlin’, ya can come over and get yer belly right.” Slud motioned to long strips of cured meat drying out on the rocks beside the flame. “But if yer lookin’ fer more, dis time Slud’ll chop ya ta bits ’n’ use ya fer kindlin’.”
Neither-Nor met the troll’s dark gaze, then eyed the runes etched along the twin blades of the ax, and nodded. He stood with a wince and moved to the fire, noticing his moon blade and gut sticker in a pile nearby. He was thrilled to see them, but he tried to play it off like he didn’t care. The two blades were filthy with day-old blood and in need of a good whetstone, but they hadn’t been lost as he’d feared. They’d been forged by his grandfather over a century ago, both cast from the metal of an elven sword found on a forgotten battlefield. He’d never met another blade that held its edge so well; hundreds of lives had been taken by each. They were all that remained of the once-proud Moon Blade Clan.
But the troll was watching, and Neither-Nor doubted he’d ever been so hungry in all his lives. He dropped to his knees beside the meat and started devouring it in frantic gulps as Slud reclined against a recently felled tree on the opposite side of the fire.
“Why?” Neither-Nor managed to ask between bites.
The firelight reflected in the blacks of the troll’s eyes. “Seems Neider-Nor ’n’ Slud want de same t’ing. Why not work it togedda?”
“Yeah, what’s that?” asked the goblin mid-chew.
“Rock Wolf Clan’s gotta go,” the troll answered.
Neither-Nor choked on his last bite, coughing a ragged clump of meat into his hand. He put it back in his mouth and kept chewing, waiting to see if Slud laughed. He didn’t. “More’n ten thousand goblins behind that stockade wall. Prob’ly five thousand fighters and half as many mountain wolves with ’em.” He took another bite. “What’re you and me s’posed to do ’gainst that?”
“So ya know where ’tis den.” Slud flashed a wicked smile. “Slud knew dere was a reason ta keep ya ’round.”
TEN: Walk with Thunder
THE SPIRITS OF THE AIR had been left to their own devices, but the flames continued a slowed advance along the ridge. The ground was still hot below Agnes’s feet. A crust of char covered the earth in the fire’s wake, and the dense, towering woods had been turned to a spotty field of blackened spikes. The air was heavy with smoke, and with every breath, Agnes sucked more of it into her lungs, inhaling the essence of the trees she’d destroyed. All of the forest’s anger and sadness was hers to taste, but the smoke was murder on her voice—reduced now to a husky whisper.
The faun’s blood had soothed her throat for a spell, more heady and delectable than she’d expected, but the effect hadn’t lasted long. After she’d silenced the goblin warlock and announced her presence to the Rock Wolves she’d gone back down the cliff for more. She’d tried to fill one of the discarded drink sacks for the road, but most of the precious blood had already leaked out to congeal on the rocks. She took a short swig of what was left, mixed with crab-apple cider, and stopped climbing to eye the lake through the burnt landscape. A thin layer of ash coated the water.
The nixie had done her part as promised. She was an old spirit in her own right who remembered when the walls of ancient Rome had gone up—Nicaeva, she’d named herself, and like ancient Angerboda, she’d carried her hatred of the old gods with her across the ages. In her younger days, Aunt Agnes had helped the water nymph track down one of the splintered remnants of the god called Dionysus who’d wronged her so long ago. Together the witches had dragged him below the water and dined on his flesh. Now, that favor had been repaid in Slud’s safe passage, though Agnes suspected that the watery temptress had taken something extra for herself in the bargain. The nixie’s chaste youth in the service of Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt, had long since been abandoned.
Agnes kept moving after the fire. She could sense the place where the goblin warlock had made his stand nearby, still able to hear the echo of his last psychic scream imprinted on the land. She’d used her aerial servants as her conduit, blowing through the feeble partitions in his mind and flooding him with millennia of memories and grief—enough to drive him mad in an instant if he’d marshalled the will to survive at all.
Perhaps that would be sufficient to draw the Khan out of his fortress and bring him to the field where Slud could get at him. But Agnes had heard that Arok, supposed King of the Mountain, had become paranoid and lazy, rarely leaving his great hall behind the inner stockade of the clan compound. She’d need to do more to give the troll lad his chance, but the elementals of the air had grown weary of her command, and her cracked voice had lost the timbre to properly form the intricacies of the old giant tongue.
Instead, she scooped two smoldering coals from the ground and blew fresh life into them. The coals flared orange, and the heat bit into her palms as she whispered to the spirits of the flame locked within. “Come forth. I release you from the embers.”
The orange glow of burning trees framed the slope against the darkening sky. Agnes’s legs worked faster to bring her across the ruined land. The day was retreating quickly, and a cold snap descended from the snow-capped crown of the mountain. It always loomed above, the mountain, reminding all who trod upon it that they were small, insignificant. At this elevation, the weather could turn in an instant, with plummeting temperatures and heavy bands of snow from previously clear skies, but the air around Agnes grew hotter as she climbed. Her hands began to vibrate, and flames sprang up between her hooked fingers. She crested the hill where the warlock had fallen and breathed in the resonance of his suffering with a shudder. The flames in her grip swelled, and the coals in her palms cracked open. Two tiny salamanders crawled out.
Agnes smiled and held them up for a closer look as the flames in her hands were consumed by the little creatures. They started to grow, feasting on the heat. They were charcoal black with smooth, shiny bodies, but as they moved to survey their surroundings, bright orange cracks showed the flow of molten lava within. In seconds, they’d already grown to fill the length of her palm, and she stooped to gently place them on the scorched forest bed. The salamanders continued to swell as the smoldering remains of fallen branches flared around them. They took a few darting steps through the ash field and lashed glowing tongues into the air.
Agnes pointed in the direction of the Rock Wolf stronghold, still half a night’s walk across the ridge. “Go, follow the flames, feed on virgin forest. Soon an army will come to challenge your hunger.” The salamanders scurried off toward the fire line, gathering speed and size as they went. Agnes had seen these same minor elementals grow to the size of large horses and burn hot enough to melt stone. The Rock Wolves would have to answer.
As if in
protest of her actions, a wolf howl rose up from a higher slope, then another, and more followed. These were not the pinched wails of the traitorous mutts who’d bowed down to the goblins; they were the proud and sorrowful calls of the free wolves of the Pack. Their dwindling numbers had fought and died at the hands of the Rock Wolf goblins for decades, driven ever higher, though still they would not relinquish their home on the mountain. Agnes cocked her head to listen, easily finding the thunderous footfalls of her protégé moving toward the howls on the ridge.
Then a piercing howl sounded above the rest, and all the others were instantly silenced. Agnes closed her eyes and smiled. She knew this wolf. The hands of her former self had helped to birth him years past—the only pup to survive that litter, with black fur and golden eyes that looked back with recognition. His call rose and fell gradually, filled with a lifetime of rage and regret. In it, she felt the stirring of memory, the last haunting cry of Fenrir, Angerboda’s son, before he’d charged to battle and devoured the one-eyed god who would slay him in turn. This alpha was the direct descendant of that Demon Wolf of yore, the last in Fenrir’s line.
It seemed that the mountain intended for her two erstwhile children to meet. She doubted it would go well for both sides.
NEITHER-NOR STOPPED abruptly after the last wolf howl. “Fuck.” He scanned the trees and turned back to Slud with a scowl and a whisper. “You’ve no idea where ya brought us, do ya, troll?”
Slud made the goblin walk in front, and he still hadn’t given him his weapons—figuring that the wily killer would likely stab him in the back if he was armed and had an opportunity, and that he was less likely to run away without the blades. “Goin’ to de Rock Wolf walls. Sounds like we found some ’head o’ time. We kill ’n’ keep goin’.” He unslung his ax and let the cold settle into his hands.
“Those ain’t Rock Wolves, ya fool!” The goblin hunched low, and his eyes darted about the trees. “This territory belongs to the free wolves of the Pack. Goblins don’t come here . . . Gimme me blades or lemme go over the edge. Can’t come back from inside a wolf belly.”
Slud glanced over the cliff where the forest fire flared big and bright once more, casting an orange flicker across the night slope. “Slud don’t run from a few dogs.” He tossed the bag of weapons and sundries to Neither-Nor’s feet, and the goblin scrambled to reclaim his knives with a hint of glee overlaying the worry.
With the moon blade and gut sticker in his hands, Neither-Nor turned back to the woods where dark shapes loped silently through the trees. He rolled his neck and hocked a loogie as eyes glinted from the shadows. “These ain’t normal wolves.”
Slud counted over fifteen pairs of watching eyes before a curt growl sounded from upslope. The circling beasts advanced on all sides, stepping into the firelight in practiced unison, with lolling tongues and restrained snarls all around. They were the biggest wolves that Slud had ever seen, each of them almost as long as a cave bear, with shaggy manes at their shoulders and broad jaws that seemed to smile. “Oi, big lot.”
Neither-Nor took a second look at the waiting ledge as the blades started to dance in his grip. He was pretty sure that if he jumped he could come back to life from the landing before the wolves could get down to him.
Slud adjusted his grip on the ax. The wood and metal felt like it was vibrating with excitement—it wanted to hit something, and these wolves would do nicely. But the upslope shadows spat out a massive shape, and two piercing golden eyes cut through the dark. It was a black wolf even bigger than the others, and its gaze seemed to glow as it laughed with a staccato snarl. Slud took a step back and cocked the ax to swing.
“Goblin scum,” said the wolf in a low growl. His huge head dropped below the peaks of his shoulder blades as his intelligent eyes moved between them. His pelt was marred by countless battle scars, and the other wolves moved away from his approach. “You walk so loudly we could hear your tread from the other side of the mountain.”
In the stories, Agnes had told Slud of animals that talked, but he’d never met one before. Some of his favorite tales had been about the Demon Wolf, Fenrir, who was as cunning as he was savage. He’d asked Agnes to tell him the stories of the Binding of Fenrir, and Fenrir Odin’s Bane, more than a hundred times each, but that wolf had died ages past.
“Luther,” said Neither-Nor with a little bow, though his blades were ready to dance. “Didn’t mean no trespass. Neither-Nor was dead in a sack, and this one don’t know better.”
Luther’s eyes held the goblin’s as he sniffed. “Neither-Nor . . . We’ve heard of you.” The other wolves pressed in with a series of yips between them, corralling the intruders closer to the drop. Luther’s golden eyes moved up to Slud, and he sniffed again. “But you’re no goblin.”
“Nope.” Slud shifted to the side and widened his grip on the handle.
“We thought your kind all dead,” said the wolf, stepping closer.
“Not Slud.” The cold had traveled up his arms to his chest. His breathing was steady and slow. He bounced the ax head to test the weight.
Luther eyed the ax with a hint of recognition, then returned his gaze to Slud. The wolf stopped advancing and sat on his haunches, tall enough to face Slud’s chest and tower over Neither-Nor. “What of the old witch from the Iron Wood?”
“Aunt Agnes? Dead ’n’ burnt, like da rest.”
Luther cocked his head and an ear swiveled toward the fire that raged below. “You saw her burn?”
“Slud tossed ’er to de flames hisself.”
The black wolf laughed again, hushed and without humor, and the rest of the pack yipped and snarled along with him. Slud wasn’t sure what the joke was, and he was fairly certain the other wolves didn’t either, but soon Luther’s attempt at mirth devolved into a low growl, and the rest of the pack fell silent.
Neither-Nor had been steadily inching closer to the drop-off, but he stopped fast as Luther’s gaze found him again. “Where you going, goblin?”
Slud also looked over his shoulder at his traveling companion—he bounced the ax and smacked his lips against a tusk before answering for him. “Neider-Nor’s takin’ Slud to de Rock Wolf camp.” He turned back to Luther and stepped closer—just within ax reach. The other wolves bristled but Slud ignored them. “Gonna kill de Khan ’n’ every fuckin’ goblin or wolf dat gets in de way,” he answered. “Sounds to Slud like dat’s not yer lot, but we’ll let de ax decide, if ya prefer?”
Luther flashed his teeth in something between a snarl and a grin. Slud grinned back. The wolf’s snout lowered, and his ears flattened against his head as the surrounding wolves rose in a chorus of growls. Neither-Nor glanced between the closest threats as they readied to lunge. His blades prepared to answer as he took a backward step toward the drop. But the alpha wolf produced a curt snarl and the other wolves froze in confusion. They looked to their leader for more, but the black wolf still hadn’t taken his eyes from Slud. Reluctantly, some of them began to turn away, retreating back up the mountain.
The giant gray wolf closest to Luther let out a questioning whimper, and the alpha lunged with a ferocious snapping of his jaws into her haunches. She instantly took off, yipping into the shadows with her tail tucked low. The other stragglers bolted, disappearing into the dark as quickly as they’d come. Luther was the only wolf that remained. Slud and Neither-Nor still didn’t lower their weapons.
The black wolf turned back to Slud. “Kill the Khan, what then? You become king of goblins?”
“Slud don’t know de future, just know what he gotta do.”
“Go, then. Kill them all, and the wolves of the Pack will come to eat the corpses. You are free to pass through our territory this once.”
“Ain’t yer territory, wolf.” Slud looked up at the tallest peak where Agnes said his people had once lived. “All kings—trolls, goblins, or wolves—dat mountain’ll be here long after we bleed out on ’er slopes.” He swung the ax shaft to his shoulder with one hand, and the curved, two-headed blade at his ear ran
g with unspent energy. “Sooner or later, we all gotta choose—run, bow down, or die.”
Luther dipped his head in what was almost a bow. “Tell Agnes the debt is paid when you see her.”
“Slud ain’t plannin’ to die so soon,” he countered.
The wolf’s smile was unsettling, even to Slud. “Death cares not for your plans, troll. You above all must know that.” Luther turned and loped away, vanishing into the shadows in a few long strides. Slud lowered the disappointed ax and looked back at Neither-Nor, still wavering on the edge of the cliff.
The goblin dropped his knives at his sides. “Who the fuck’re ya?”
Slud shrugged and kept walking. “Don’t know yet, but aimin’ to find out.”
ELEVEN: Watchers on High
THE ENDLESS HAMMERING of drums in the clearing below made Dingle’s cage vibrate. Every twinge and sway sent another shock of pain through him, but he still hadn’t managed to pass out. Short-Fuse and Long-Pig had beaten him stupid before they’d locked him in and hoisted him up—dangling now a hundred feet above the cobbles from the lowest branch of the Clan tree at the heart of the compound. Other unfortunates were rotting in the cages around him, each offering a window into his short, horrendous future.
The goblin-shaped cages were lined with inward-facing spikes. Designed to keep Dingle’s arms, body, and head pinned in place, with needlelike points poking at his skin in a hundred spots. If he moved at all they would draw blood, but the spikes weren’t long enough to kill if he moved a lot. He was locked in a seated position with enough support to keep him alive while the elements tenderized his flesh. The birds circled, their dark eyes always watching. His naked feet hung below for the biting flies.