In The Shadow Of The Beast

by Harlan H Howard

  ‘I know you young Fellhammer, I have always known. Son of Veronique Mortaron, lord heir to the realm of Atos and the great city of Corrinth Vardis. I name thee.’

  Sigourd’s world began to drip and melt, the surrounding walls of black volcanic rock appearing to turn to ice and run before his very eyes. The chamber was slumping in on itself, even the face of the old man began to warp, like wax held too near the flame. The only thing that stayed constant and true in all this twisted madness was the cold blue of the fire, burning dazzlingly, the flames leaping and jostling, it became the sole focus of Sigourd’s attention, filling his minds eye. Sigourd cast aside the steel cup, now empty of the delicately sweet tea. It clattered noisily into a darkened recess of the conical room and lay still. The lids of his eyes began to grow heavy, so unbearably heavy, and finally his knees gave out beneath him. Sigourd collapsed unconscious to the floor with a dull thud, his head striking wickedly the cold ground.

  The old man came to stand beside the fallen prince, looked down upon Sigourd for brief moments with eyes that shimmered with the reflection of the fire. Slowly he kneeled and reached out a skeletally thin hand to rest gently upon Sigourd’s brow. The light of madness played behind his dark eyes as surely as the reflected glimmering of the cold blue flames.

  Jonn Grumble had thrown himself into that great fissure in the belly of the mountain almost without hesitation. Almost. It had taken him a moment to realize what he was looking at and steel himself against the sensation that what he saw was looking back at him from out of the darkness. He had known instantly that Sigourd and the old man had passed through, understood it in a most primitive way, like a sense echo of their passing. It was that same primitive insight that tied such knots in his stomach now. He knew that to step beyond the fissure, into that total darkness would signal a crossing over into territories beyond his ken. Into things that he sensed were not for men of his ilk to know. But his friend was in danger, and so steeling himself with that knowledge and the determination of his oath of fealty, he pressed on and had now emerged into the beyond, the site of a hidden lake far below the mountain. Across the waters at the center of the lake he could make out what appeared to be the giant volcanic skull, and it seemed obvious to presume that his friend and the old man were inside that very structure. But how to get there?

  Jonn Grumble marveled at the magnificent scope of the great rock basin. Never in all his days, nor even his wildest dreams had he ever encountered so grand a place.

  Stepping to the waters edge, he could see no way in which to cross the lake to get to the small isle at its center. He was also not inclined to believe that the frail old man with whom they’d been traveling had strength enough to swim the distance between the shore and the skull. Sigourd perhaps, but not the old man. There must be a way across, hidden from sight.

  After a few moments more in which Jonn Grumble considered his limited options, he decided that his only recourse was to try and swim it after all. Stripping off his overcoat and cloak, he moved up to the water’s edge and stopped dead. As he peered into the eerily glowing waters of the lake something caught his eye beneath the surface. The dark waters began to clear as silt and mud settled, and it took Jonn a moment to realize that the bed of the lake was littered with human remains. The skulls of numberless hundreds of the dead looked up at him, grinning balefully from their final resting place.

  Jonn’s mouth fell open in horror. As it did so the heavy plum seed he’d been rolling around in his mouth dropped into the water with a loud ‘plunk’. Ripples began to cast out across the surface of the lake. And then something from the darkness of the other side began to stir.

  A blood red sky churned high above Sigourd as clouds that were black with malice swirled like dervishes, and from some distant hilltop he could hear the far away braying of wolves, their cries carried on fetid winds that whipped this way and that.

  Sigourd was in his nightmare, trapped again in the rush of madness that had so preoccupied his sleep of late. But somehow he was aware he was in the dream in a way he had not been before. He was conscious of his delusion, and was stunned to see that even here, the landscape his mind had conjured to ensnare him was as real as any other he’d experienced in his life.

  Running, Sigourd was always running and this time was no different. Pursued by the faceless thing beneath the deep hood through an ancient forest of gnarled trees so huge they almost pierced the belly of that blood sky.

  He must fight, turn and face his pursuer for there was no outrunning it. As he had done before, he slowed, allowing whatever it was that chased him down to gain on him. Steadily closer until the thing was in range, and when it appeared that there was no longer any chance of escape, Sigourd turned and pounced!

  He battered the hooded thing to the ground, ‘What do you want!”’ he screamed at the thing that lay prone beneath him. Sigourd pulled back that deeply shadowed hood to reveal...the old man, who looked up at Sigourd with a cold fire burning in his eyes.

  ‘You!’ he snarled through sneering, withered lips. Sigourd stumbled back in shock. How could he be here, in Sigourd’s dream?

  ‘Who are you!?’ cried Sigourd.

  ‘You know me young Lord Fellhammer. I am the one you seek.’

  With that the old man threw off his cloak in a flash of sickly radiance so bright Sigourd was forced to turn away. When finally the brilliance subsided, and Sigourd looked back to see what had become of the old man he was stunned to see a towering monstrosity. In place of the elder there stood a lumbering knight with flesh the color of rotten meat and sheathed in corroded armor that glinted dully like the rising sun peeking meekly through dawn mists. In one hand the creature held a halberd easily twice the size of Sigourd, the keen edge of its long blade seeming to glow with the same sickly light that Sigourd had seen in the lake. The other hand reached out to grab at Sigourd, who recoiled in horror at the abhorrent creature before him.

  He opened his mouth to shout his defiance, but the howling winds of the seething skies suddenly rushed in to choke him, the sound of his horror lost in the gale as he staggered back gagging on the rush of air.

  It was as if the nightmare had decided to turn on him, betraying him to whatever cruel machinations fate had conspired to lay at his feet.

  The knight reared up to its full terrifying height, over a head greater than the tallest members of Sigourds household guard, and twice as thick across the back and shoulders as any man, even a cruel and grotesque parody of man, had the right to be.

  The sheer scale of the thing beggared belief. It was so thickly corded with slabs of brawny muscle that the amour adorning it seemed hardly enough to contain the swollen mass beneath.

  When the creature spoke, there was no trace of the frail and elderly note that lingered in the throat of the old man. This thing’s voice rumbled like the pillars of heaven shaking before a great storm. The sound heavy with malignant energies that pulsed through every syllable it uttered, ‘I am Brodus Klay, guardsman in the service of The Baron Vicenzo Mortaron, and protector of the realm. And you...,’ it said, pointing a massive armored finger at Sigourd, ‘...are an abomination.’

  The arrival of the dragon boat had been unsettling in itself, but Jonn Grumble’s attempts at communicating with the boatman had been even more so. After the boat had reached the shore, the boatman stood there silently, seemingly waiting for something to happen while he had made a few belligerent attempts to communicate. When that had failed, Jonn decided that taking the initiative was the only way forward, and so he’d cautiously clambered aboard the boat and allowed the silent boatman to do whatever it was he was supposed to.

  Now, sitting here in the dragon as the boatman steered them quietly toward that black skull, Jonn Grumble could not help but wonder at the nature of the wickedness he’d found himself in.

  As they neared the shore of the atoll, it occurred to him that he would probably find out sooner rather than later.

  The massive halberd swept in an arc again, missing
Sigourd by inches as he dived for cover. The blade sailed over his head and thundered into an outcropping of rock. Sparks flew from the impact, dancing over the surface of the land as the monster deftly swung the blade around, ready to strike again.

  ‘Why are you doing this!?’ shouted Sigourd above the howling winds.

  ‘Because out here, on the fringes of creation, I have seen your destiny loosed upon the world, and I will not suffer it to pass!’

  As he spoke, Brodus Klay brought the halberd around again, swinging it hard and fast in his attempt to take Sigourd’s head clean from his shoulders.

  ‘You are the progeny of wolves, your blood sire is the the purestrain that has hunted the race of man since the dawn of creation,’ he continued.

  ‘What madness are you speaking!?’ said Sigourd again, as he scrambled in desperation, trying to put some distance between himself and that deadly blade.

  ‘Madness?’ thundered Klay, ‘Yes, perhaps I have been driven mad. Out here on the edge of creation, hunting your forebears in the name of my baron. I have learned many things in these mountains. They have revealed their sorcery to me and I will harness that power to bring ruin upon the race of wulfen.’

  The monster swung the blade again, and again Sigourd ducked, throwing himself to the ground as the heavy steel of the halberd flickered above his head, this time felling an arthritically twisted tree near the line of the forest. The tree crashed to the ground with a dry splintering. As Sigourd rolled to his feet, he heard again the howling of distant wolves as if from a mountain top some leagues distant, the sound simultaneously chilling his blood and stirring some secret desire deep within him.

  The churning sky was lit with flashes of coruscating lighting that lanced from the heavens, preceding a great thunderous booming, the sound of the skies splitting.

  Sigourd was driven back by the lumbering knight, to the edge of a cliff that overlooked a roiling sea far below. Black waters crashed unendingly against a jagged shore, the noise almost as shockingly loud as the sound of the sky tearing itself asunder.

  Before long Sigourd had reached the edge of the cliff, his back to the open skies and a punishing drop into those black waters. Brodus Klay loomed before him, a mad glee upon his face.

  Reaching the landing at the top of the stone stairwell, Jonn Grumble could see the flickering glow of the cold blue fire beyond a narrow portal. Moving cautiously he strained to hear what might lay waiting for him, but all he could detect was the hammering of his own heart and the pulsing of the blood in his ears. He was dismayed by the cold he felt in this place, it insinuated itself into his skin and crept into his marrow to chill the very core of him in a way that Jonn knew was the result of fell sorcery than any influence of nature.

  As he peered around the lip of the portal, Jonn Grumble struggled to make sense of the dizzying array of light that seemed to swirl within the volcanic glass, like a kaleidoscope they were more than mere reflections of the strange blue fire at the center of the room. It seemed as if the light was within the very walls themselves.

  And there, crouched over the prone form of Sigourd, cast in stark relief against the light of the fire was the old man. His eyes were closed and he appeared feverish as he mumbled incoherently to himself, his hand resting lightly upon Sigourd’s brow.

  Jonn slipped into the chamber as quietly as he could, moving like a whisper amongst the swirling light of the walls, he came to stand near the old man, his sword staff in his hand.

  ‘You’re trickstering won’t get you out of this one you old bastard,’ said the wild man as he emerged from the shadows, a murderous gleam in his eye.

  The old man looked up suddenly, his eyes flickering open. There was a beat before a wry smile crept over his face. Without warning the old man swept his steel cup full of sweet tea from the floor where he’d lain it, and cast the thing at Jonn Grumble. The wild man quickly sidestepped as the object sailed past him and into the fire pit. The contents of the cup were ignited in the cold fire, which whooshed over the lip of the pit in a blossoming ball of blue flame. That magical fires caught with the swirling light within the walls, and instantly the conical room was engulfed in a maelstrom of seething spirit fire. As the room went up, the old man threw himself screaming at Jonn Grumble, all trace of his previous infirmity vanished in an instant.

  Brodus Klay raised his halberd high overhead, ready to deliver the killing blow. Sigourd had reached the limits of his route of escape, and there was now nowhere left to run. All he could do was crouch before the towering madman and accept his fate with the good grace of his royal breeding. Sigourd watched the gleaming edge of the halberd’s blade as it hovered above his head, ready to descend and bring about the demise of the heir to the throne of Atos.

  Although Sigourd knew that he was trapped in a dreamscape, he was instinctively aware that to die here in this realm would mean his end in the real world. It was a certainty that came to Sigourd as surely as he could recall the face of Isolde. And so, with her name upon his lips, he prepared himself to meet the gods.

  But the deathblow never came. Sigourd looked up to see that Brodus Klay had lowered his weapon, and was turning slowly to look back in the direction of the forest which was ablaze with an ethereal blue fire.

  All around the blue fire raged. It climbed the sheer walls of the chamber ravenously. It seemed impossible that fire could so readily engulf a structure made of volcanic rock, yet all around Jonn Grumble and the old man the chamber burned like tinder, roiling black smoke coming out of the fire to fill the air beneath that strange conical ceiling.

  Jonn danced back out of range of the old man’s frenzied attack, the latter’s clawed fingers scraping empty space instead of the flesh of Jonn’s face.

  He was astonished at the transformation that had overtaken the old bastard. In the space of a heartbeat he’d turned from a benign old father figure into a ravening, screeching monster.

  Putting enough space between him and the old man to bring his sword staff to bear, Jonn Grumble wheeled the blade in a death arc that only narrowly missed severing his attacker’s head entirely.

  Snatching up his gnarled wooden staff, the old man used it to expertly deflect Jonn’s follow up attack, and spun his own weapon into a two handed grip as he ducked back out of range of another fervid attack.

  The two men stood apart, each daring the the other to make the next move.

  ‘You have no idea what this boy is do you wild man?’ said the elder.

  ‘Whatever he is, it can’t be worse than whatever you are, you old freak.’

  ‘Oh but it is,’ crowed the old man, ‘much worse.’

  There was a quiet ‘snick’ as the old man drew his staff apart into two separate parts, revealing a wicked looking blade that had been concealed inside the core of the weapon.

  Once more he flew at Jonn Grumble who brought his sword staff up to deflect the downward strike of the old man’s secret sword. The two weapons rung off each other again and again as the old man threw every savage blow he could at the wild man. Jonn Grumble held his ground, parrying what blows he could catch and sidestepping those that he was not fast enough to deflect.

  And so it went, both men dancing to avoid each others blades as well as the gathering blue flames that soon enough would consume them both just as it was consuming the interior of the skull. But of course, they would all succumb to the choking black smoke before the fire ever got near enough to singe a hair on their heads.

  Jonn Grumble knew he had to bring the encounter to an immediate conclusion before that happened. The old man’s attack was furious, but in the whirlwind of his flashing blade, Jonn Grumble was able to see intermittent openings in his opponent’s defense that would allow him just the rapid conclusion he was looking for.

  Timing was everything in just such a gambit. One mis-step, one inch out of position, one heartbeat too soon or too slow and it would be the wild mans immediate end.

  He waited until the old man thrust again, over extending his reach f
or a fraction of a second, and in that instant he lunged forward and drove the tip of his blade up into the old man’s neck, just below his chin. The effect was as sudden as Jonn had hoped, the old man pinned to the end of the sword staff blinked in surprise, hardly able to comprehend his situation. An instant later he gagged on a mouthful of blood that welled up from inside his neck, spilling out of his mouth dark and red like old wine.

  As Brodus Klay turned back to face Sigourd, there was something like fear in his eyes. It had momentarily subsumed the madness that burned there, and Sigourd could but guess at what would give a madman cause to be afraid.

  Brodus Klay suddenly staggered, clutching at his neck as if an invisible arrow had punctured the swollen meat there, a moment later he vomited up a great mouthful of black blood that bubbled and drizzled down over his chin and the great breast plate of his burnished armor.

  Sigourd saw his opening, and pounced!

  He landed upon the broad chest of the grotesque knight, and used the only weapon available to him, sinking the razor sharp canines of his fanged maw into the throat of the monster.

  It hadn’t even occurred to Sigourd that he’d been in possession of fangs until this very instant. What had happened to him? What change had the dreamscape wrought upon his flesh?

  Sigourd threw back his head and bit down again, sinking his unnaturally long teeth into Brodus Klay’s throat for a second time. The monster groaned as the teeth sank into his flesh, the sound coming out of him like the low rumble of glaciers grinding together. Brodus Klay beat his mighty fists upon Sigourd, the hammer blows raining down upon his back in a bludgeoning, murderous fury. Sigourd bit deeper in desperation, knowing that this was the only chance he was going to get at turning the tables on his would be executioner.