But the glad shout was lost under a great brazen bellow.
And the hammer of vast leathery wings drove a whelming wind down upon the Châkka, striking them to their knees.
And a huge, scaled monster slammed down among the Dwarves in the courtyard before the gates, crushing Châkka beneath its enormous bulk.
Sleeth the Orm had come, and he was terrible.
Double-bitted Dwarven axes leapt to Châkka hands, but great claws like scimitars lashed out, riving and slashing, cleaving Dwarves in twain. Warriors rushed forward shouting battle cries, but huge jaws snapped, teeth clashing and tearing, rending through flesh and armor alike. Châkka squads fell back to regroup, but a massive sinuous tail whipped about, striking, smashing, crushing.
But most devastating of all, jets of dire spume shot forth from Sleeth’s throat, and where they touched, stone bubbled and metal smoldered and flesh charred, though no flame burned—for Sleeth was a Cold-drake, bereft of his fire by Adon. Even so, this Orm’s breath was deadly, for a cloud of poison boiled from his mouth, and Dwarves died gasping, their lungs aflame as they fell dead unto the stone.
And nought that the Dwarves did brought hurt unto Sleeth, for their axes but glanced away from the Dragon-armored hide, and Sleeth slew them even as they desperately raised their blades for yet another blow. Châkka were struck down as they tried to win past Sleeth and gain the mighty holtdoors of Blackstone, hoping to shut the gates and bar the Cold-drake from the Dwarvenholt. But Sleeth stood before the portal and would not yield.
Young and old, hale and weak, male and female, sire, dam, child, it mattered not: Sleeth slew indiscriminately. By fang and claw and lashing tail, by charring spume and poison breath he felled them. For Death incarnate had come unto Blackstone, and amid cries of despair, Châkka by the hundreds died. Not all, for some escaped into the winter night, yet more than two-thirds fell to the Dragon. But none, not a single Dwarf, had won past the dread monster and into the Châkkaholt.
And when all the Dwarves were slain or had fled weeping into the frigid darkness, Sleeth roared in triumph, his voice like immense, massive, coarse brass slabs clashing and shearing one upon the other, his mighty clangor crashing out into the night. And as the echoes shocked and slapped among the icy crags, the great Orm turned and with his mighty claws he rent the gates blanging down from their hinges, and then he ponderously slithered into Blackstone to make it into his lair, slithered into Blackstone to claim a treasure trove, slithered into Blackstone where a great banquet of Winterfest lay waiting—a feast no Châk would ever eat . . .
. . . and sixteen hundred years passed.
CHAPTER 6
Enemy of My Enemy, Enemy of Mine
Late Summer, 3E1602
[The Present]
All night, Elyn and the Dwarf rode easterly into Aralan as the Moon crept upward past the zenith and then downward at their backs, casting pale shadows upon the grassy reaches of the land. Neither spoke to the other, though they did stop long enough to staunch the worst of their wounds, each in turn standing ward while the other bound his own hurts. Neither did more than a crude job of it, for both were anxious to be on their way, and they could feel a malevolence dogging their tracks, though no sign of pursuit was at hand.
Carefully pacing their steeds, they rode till dawn light illumed the eastern sky, and then they sought a rest-site, for both were weary unto their very bones.
At the edge of a sheltering coppice they found a running stream, and set up camp, each glaring with distaste at the other. The Dwarf was still covered with swamp muck, now dried, and looked like some grotesque troglodyte in the glancing rays of the Sun, just now lipping the horizon. On the other hand, Elyn fared not much better, for she, too, was bespattered from head to foot by mire grime, also dried.
“Four and four, Rider,” declared the Dwarf in a voice that brooked no argument, “and I’ll take the first watch. Sleep now, I am tired.”
“Not until I care for Wind, Dwarf.”
Limping, Elyn led the mare to drink, and fed the grey a small amount of a mix of oats, wheat, and barley, taken from a saddlebag, and rubbed her down while she ate it. When the grain was gone, she tethered Wind in the long grass nearby.
Returning to the campsite, Elyn looked at the Dwarf, her eyes narrowing. “Truce?” she asked. “Truce,” he replied, whereupon she flung herself down upon the sward and instantly fell asleep.
Four hours later, at the Dwarf’s prodding, Elyn groggily came awake. Adon! I’m sore! Stiffly, she stood, feeling all of the bruises, batterings, and cuts she had taken from the Wrg. She hardly noticed the Dwarf as she swept up her spear and her saddlebags and hobbled to a nearby pool in the brook, and when she looked back, he was already sound asleep in the long sweet grass.
Swiftly, she pulled off her left boot, and gingerly, the right one. Just above the ankle, where the Rutchen cudgel had struck, there was a swelling, sore to the touch, but she could walk. Wincing, she carefully stripped from her grimy leathers—Garn! I’m purple blotched all over!—and eased into the chill, sparkling water. While keeping a watchful eye on the surrounding ’scape, she washed herself, taking care to thoroughly cleanse the cuts and scrapes. During her frequent scans of the grassland, she could not help but note that the pony, too, had been rubbed down, and was staked nearby. Hmmph! At least the Dwarf cares for his mount.
Refreshed, she emerged from the stream and sat on the grassy bank to let the warm Sun dry her, all the while keeping her right foot in the cool swift water, hoping that the swelling would subside.
At last, she took some salve from a saddlebag and treated her cuts—left arm, left calf—rebinding them with new cloth strips. She donned a fresh jerkin and a pair of breeks, and then her boots, groaning with aches as she did so, forcing the swollen ankle down and in.
Elyn washed the old bandages, and laid them out to dry. And using her dagger, she carefully scraped the dried muck from her leathers, and wiped them clean with a damp cloth, then turned them inside-out to air, scrubbing down the interior as well, sponging away sweat salt and dried blood.
When she was finished she returned to the campsite and took up her saber, thumbing its sharp edge as in enmity she glowered down upon the sleeping Dwarf. It was obvious that he, too, had used his watch to tend to himself: he was no longer mud spattered; his coal black hair and black forked beard were clean and glossy; he wore dark brown breeks and a tan jerkin; too, he had new bandages on both arms and, Elyn assumed, his cut leg as well. Also, his weapons and armor had been cleaned and oiled: a dark steel helm, a black-iron chain shirt, a steel warhammer with a leather-bound haft, and a double-bitted, two-handed axe, and a light crossbow with red quarrels.
Pah! Regardless as to whether he is well kept or not, still he is a Dwarf!
And she could barely wait to be rid of him, and fleetingly thought of saddling up now and riding onward.
Elyn turned, and her eye fell upon—A Dragonhide shield! . . . Ah, fie, no! It could not be the same. . . . Yet, where else would a Dwarf—or anyone—come upon such?
Her mind in a turmoil, Elyn cleaned her saber and oiled it, and followed with her other weapons, and her helm. Calmed by this routine activity, she took up her sling and went out into the grass, heading for a small roll in the land, keeping an eye to the Sun.
As her watch ended, Elyn brought two rabbits back to the site, casting them to the earth and waking the Dwarf with a prod of her boot.
“This time, Woman,” growled the Dwarf, “it’s two and two, for the Sun will be down by then, and Evil comes afoot in the dark.”
Saying nothing of the shield, Elyn eased to the ground and once more fell asleep.
When the Dwarf wakened her, there was the savory smell of spitted rabbit: one remained, fat dripping into the hot coals of a small cookfire. And at hand was a small store of dead branches to keep the blaze going. As now the Dwarf fell aslumber, eagerly she tore into the hot juicy meat, trying to avoid burning herself, not quite succeeding. A glance at the Sun told tha
t there were but perhaps two hours remaining ere the duskingtide would wash across the land, just two hours till she would be shed of this Dwarf. She also noted that the pony was now saddled, although he remained tethered in lush grass.
When she finished the last of the coney, Elyn fed a bit of wood to the fire, then stepped to the stream and washed her greasy hands and face. Next, she changed back into her leathers, and gave Wind another bit of grain; and as the mare ate, Elyn curried her and then saddled her, slipping lance and bow and saber and long-knife into the well-worn saddle-scabbards, looping her black-oxen horn by its leather thong over her shoulder, sliding her dagger into her belt.
As the Sun touched the horizon, Elyn stirred the embers of the campfire, adding a branch or two to kindle flames, and set a small stewpan of water to boil. And at the onset of twilight the odor of steeping tea was redolent upon the air.
Waking the Dwarf, she hunkered down and filled her tin cup with the hot liquid, and without saying a word, she offered him some as well.
They sat in silence and sipped tea in the cool night air, watching the twilight deepen as orange faded through pink and into violet. How long they sat thus, nursing the hot drink and feeling their cuts and bruises and aches and pains, they did not measure. But winking stars filled the sky and a silvery Moon began to rise ere either said aught:
“Which way do you ride, Dwarf?” Elyn prodded the embers with a short stick.
“East, Woman. I go east.”
“Rach! That is my direction.”
“Think not to go with me, Rider, for I would quick be rid of you. Our alliance of yesternight is ended! Done! Would that I had not met you at all!” In the firelight, the Dwarf’s black eyes glittered with rancor.
Elyn’s voice spat venom: “If you had not met me, Dwarf, you would now be at the bottom of a quag hole, fodder for swamp reeds!”
“And you, Rider, would be soup bones in some Ůkh’s cooking pot!”
“Jackass Dwarf,”—Elyn’s words were filled with acrimony—“you cost me my best rope!”
Angrily, the Dwarf stood and stumped to his saddlebags and rummaged among his belongings, then stalked back. “Here, Rider, I would not be in your debt!” He flung down a coil of silken line beside her. “You will find no better, for it is Châkka made.”
Furious, Elyn leapt to her feet. “You pigheaded—” Movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention: Moonlimned sillhouettes afoot among the trees. She lunged at the Dwarf, knocking him aside as a cruel barbed lance hissed through the space where he had been, spearing into the earth.
Howling, four Drōkha charged from the coppice. And as the Dwarf snatched up his axe, Elyn jerked the Wrg spear from the ground and hurled it with all her might, spitting one of the Spawn ere he had taken five running strides.
The Dwarf stepped to the fore to meet the charge, his double-bitted axe at the ready in a two-handed grip: right hand high near the blade, left hand low near the haft butt. As is the way of Dwarven axe battle, he would use the helve to parry the weapons of the Hrōks; and he would stab forward with the cruel iron beak jutting from the head of the haft, or would shift his grip to strike with fury, lashing out the steel blade in deadly sweeping blows, driven by the power of his broad Châkka shoulders.
Elyn had nought but a dagger at her belt, for her saber, bow and arrows, sling and bullets, and spear were all saddle-scabbarded on Wind. Rach! I should have kept the Drōkhen spear!
Cursing herself for a fool, dagger in hand, Elyn turned and ran for the tethered horse, one of the Wrg hard on her heels. If she could just reach her weapons in time . . . But Wind had caught the airborne scent of spilled Drōkh blood and—eyes rolling white, nostrils flaring wide—danced away hindward as Elyn dashed nigh.
Now the Drōkh was upon them, wicked tulwar glittering in the moonlight. Like a Rutch it looked, but with straighter limbs, and greater bulk and height, Man sized; still it was swart of skin and yellow eyed, with ears flaring outward like bat wings. And Drōkha are skilled with weaponry, unlike the smaller Rutcha, who depend upon sheer numbers to o’erwhelm a foe. And this Drōkh sought to skewer Elyn upon his long, curved blade.
Darting, the Warrior Maid kept the horse between her and the foe, feinting first this way and then that, as Wind snorted bloodscent and jigged sidle steps, straining back, prancing in fear at the end of a tether, the Drōkh ducking and bobbing on the opposite side of the mare, catching glimpses of his quarry through the grey’s dancing legs, seeking a way to get at the Woman.
And Elyn could not get to her saber, for it was on the side with the Drōkh. And a tulwar in skilled hands could easily defeat a dagger; and if she threw and missed . . .
Suddenly, the Warrior Maid lunged for the tether and grasped it, her sharp blade slashing through the line, cutting the wrenching mare free as the Wrg leapt forward, tulwar whistling, hacking downward.
Desperately, Elyn dove aside, hitting the ground hard, rolling, crying out, “V’ttacku, Vat! Doda!”
Snarling, the Drōkh sprang forward, his curved blade raised for the final blow . . . and died as Wind’s flailing hooves crushed the back of his skull, the mare trampling upon his smashed-down corpse, the grey obeying the Warrior Maiden’s shouted battle command “Attack, Wind! Kill!”
At Elyn’s sharp whistle, Wind stopped plunging, stopped rearing up and smashing down upon this dead enemy, stopped her lunging and stood, the whites of her eyes showing, nostrils flared and snorting, legs atremble—but still she stood. The Princess leapt astride, pulling the spear from its straps, intent upon lancing Wrg from horseback. But she needn’t have bothered, for when she looked up she saw the Dwarf come running, bloody axe in hand, ready to aid if need be, his two Hrōks lying dead in ever-widening pools of dark grume.
Gazing up at this Warrior Woman in the moonlight, “You fight well, Rider,” he rasped grudgingly.
“And you, too, Dwarf,” she replied.
Perhaps . . .
Perhaps . . .
The same thought crossed both their minds.
Suddenly Elyn shivered. Someone just stepped on my grave—the saying came unbidden to her consciousness. But she knew that the tremble had instead come from the feeling that an unseen malevolence watched.
“Look, Dwarf, you said it yourself: ‘Evil comes afoot in the dark.’ Two nights now we’ve been attacked. Perhaps we should ride a ways together.”
“Look yourself, Woman,” growled the Dwarf, “you are a Rider. I can never be your comrade—”
“Rach!” Elyn spat. “Forget it, Dwarf! I should have—”
“Hold!” the Dwarf shouted her down. “Fool Woman! List to me ere you caterwaul! I deem we must ride some distance together. I would fain have it elsewise, but I ken something evil indeed is afoot, and we have little choice. Much as I mislike it, this truce between us must stand for another night. Even so, do not make the mistake of thinking of me as a comrade, for that I will never be.”
“Comrade! I? I think of you as a comrade?” Elyn’s voice rose in incredulous disbelief. Then she flared, “One more night, Dwarf! That’s all!”
Angrily Elyn dismounted, and began jamming items into her saddlebags. “And another thing, Dwarf—don’t call me ‘fool Woman’ ever again; I am a Warrior Maiden; I am Elyn.”
As they glared at one another, the belligerent silence between them stretched thin . . . to be broken at last:
“And this jackass is named Thork,” gritted the Dwarf.
And so, bristling with hostility, Elyn and Thork gathered up their belongings and quenched the fire; and without a backward glance at the slain Drōkha, they set forth once more in an easterly direction, two mismatched silhouettes riding unto the rising Moon.
CHAPTER 7
Wolves upon the Sea
Spring, 3E1601
[Last Year]
Each of the four Dragonships—Longwyrm, Surfbison, Foamelk, and Wavestrider—was beached on the shallow spit of land at the very root of the fjord. Amid a hubbub, a great number of Fjordsmen bo
arded, sixty or seventy to a boat, warriors all, each bearing arms and armor and a sea chest of clothing and other personal goods. These were raiders, and were bound upon a mission of revenge, yet would bear the Harlingar to the shores of the Land where lay the Vanadurin’s goal, ere sailing onward to extract a payment for a deed most foul done to them.
Supplies were loaded—mainly food and water. Yet, to the puzzlement of the Fjordsmen, each ship’s cargo included a small, disassembled waggon, as well as an extraordinary amount of sailcloth. Blocks and tackle were carried aboard, coils of rope, buckets and tools, and bundles and bags containing unknown stores, all borne here by Vanadurin packhorse. Lastly, Harlingar and horses were taken aboard, ten to a Dragonship—Elgo leading Shade up the ramp and down again, into the ship Longwyrm, with Ruric and Flint following after. There, too, were led sturdy tarpan ponies, two aboard each longboat, all the steeds gathered into ship’s center, separated one from the other by slender poles affixed thwartwise from wale to wale. These simple wooden-shaft stalls were common to the Dragonships, for the Fjordsmen oft’ used mounts when foraying inland from distant beaches across the water, and a total of forty horses and eight ponies spread among the four ships was not exceptional.
As each ship was laden to the full, crew and passengers alike, crowding the deck, moved to the stern, unweighting the bow, and amid groans and grunts and good-natured oaths, Men from the stad slid each ship backwards, shoving the prow off the spit and into the brine.
Finally, all four ships were afloat, ready to begin the voyage. And amid the cheering of the stadfolk ashore, Captains shouted orders and oars were manned; steerboards were pressed hard over as one side hauled fore whilst the other backed water, and the ships swung slowly about till their fierce carven visages pointed toward the distant curve of the fjord, aiming for the Boreal Sea beyond. Sails were unfurled, and each beitass set, the whisker poles trimming the square to catch what wind blew down in the sheltered fjord.
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