by A. J. Smith
The warriors of Ursa recovered quickly, spurred on to fight by shouted commands and the meagre force of defenders who faced them. Their fear of Rowanoco’s company remained, but the mass of warriors still pushed into Ulric’s Yard. The battle had swayed back and forth, but now came down to a single, dense melee in the courtyard of Halla’s city.
Alahan fought to her left, Timon to her right. She could hear Falling Cloud, but not see him, and she had no idea where anyone else was or how they fared. If Rowanoco’s company had turned the battle, she couldn’t tell from where she fought. Certainly the defenders held their ground, spurred on by the spectral priests; but they gained no territory in Ulric’s Yard.
The icy winds accompanied them, churning across their lines and getting in the eyes of Rulag’s army. Snow and ice appeared in their beards, and hands were raised to shield against the glare. It was a slight advantage, but allowed Halla to kill three men quickly and push forward, alongside Alahan and Timon. Together, they formed the point of the defence, with Rowanoco’s company spreading out either side of them. The priests now mingled with the defenders, fighting side by side with Low Kasters, cloud-men, warriors of Tiergarten and survivors of the dragon fleet.
Then she saw Rulag Ursa. The melee parted momentarily and she saw him. Just within the gate, at the rear of the vanguard, strode the Lord Bear Tamer himself. He looked as she remembered – barrel-chested, green-eyed, blond-haired and tall, clad in thick bear furs and wielding a great-axe. At his flank stood a priest of Jarvik who Halla recognized from her youth; he was named Harrod. Algenon Teardrop had taken his name and his honour, refusing to accept his hate-filled sermons.
‘Ursa!’ roared Tricken Ice Fang from the left flank. ‘Decided to show yourself, troll cunt?’
She couldn’t see the red-haired chain-master, but Rulag took note of the insult and strode from Halla’s field of vision. But she had no time to worry for Tricken; she had men to kill and a newly inspired force of defenders to lead.
Alahan was less restrained. As soon as the exemplar saw the Lord Bear Tamer, he broke ranks and chopped his way into a small gap, ahead of their lines. Timon the Butcher followed him, causing a bulge in their lines as Halla and others moved to cover them. To their left, a towering priest crowned in a flowing mantle of ice clubbed two attackers to the cobbled stone. To their right, Rorg and two frenzying Low Kasters threw themselves forward. His men died, but the chieftain reached Timon and the two of them covered Alahan’s back, their bulging heads seeping blood across their faces.
‘You’ve betrayed the Ice Giant,’ boomed the young thain.
The priests delivered similar admonitions, and Halla found herself caught up in a frosty wave, where all that mattered were axes, hammers and blood. They might win, they might lose – she no longer thought about it. Rowanoco had spoken and every defender of Tiergarten was now prepared to die for the Ice Giant. Either they would break or they would break the forces of Ursa.
She spared a glance across Ulric’s Yard and realized that they had blunted Rulag’s advantage of numbers. Everywhere across the courtyard, Rowanoco’s company fought groups of axe-men. Each priest was a giant among men, towering over their opponents and keeping five or more attackers at bay. She saw one fall, hacked apart by a dozen axes and returning to the form of a broken body of an old man on the bloody ground, but the company had pushed them forward and pushed Rulag’s army back.
The melee had broken up sufficiently for her to see Tricken and Rulag. The two warriors swung immense blows at each other, standing toe-to-toe on the left flank. The lines had moved and Halla was now a little way behind Alahan. The exemplar was fighting right-to-left, killing men who stood between him and the lord of Jarvik. Tricken kept the Betrayer busy, but Halla could tell her chain-master was outmatched. Harrod, to Ursa’s left, stood guard over his lord, clubbing his war-hammer into the head of any man who got too close to the duel.
Rexel Falling Cloud appeared by her side, a small trickle of blood coating his thigh. He’d been covering her back and a cluster of dead men lay in his wake. ‘Tricken’s going to die,’ he said in a hoarse rumble.
‘Let’s move,’ she replied, taking two large strides forward.
The defenders now advanced in a fork, with Halla and Alahan at the two points. At the corners of her vision she saw men of Ursa hesitate. They would kill a man of Tiergarten and then pause, faced with an enormous apparition of the Ice Giant’s anger. The pause was enough to see them dead, and each hesitation allowed Rowanoco’s company to drive them further back. The other defenders travelled with the priests, covering them and, in turn, using them as cover.
She gasped with anguish as Rulag dealt Tricken a fatal blow to the back of the head. Her chain-master went limp and toppled forward, even as Alahan tackled the thain of Jarvik to the ground.
‘Fight me, you treacherous bastard,’ screamed Alahan, smashing the haft of his axe into Rulag’s face. The Lord Bear Tamer didn’t fall and swung his great-axe defensively, keeping Alahan back as he recovered from the blow. He shook his head and growled like a hound. The hardened wood of Alahan’s axe-haft had broken his nose, but anger and adrenaline pushed away the pain. A clear section of Ulric’s Yard, soaked in blood, became their battleground. Timon covered Alahan and the priest, Harrod, covered Rulag.
The Betrayer’s men were on the back foot, pushed against the walls as larger and larger clusters fled from Rowanoco’s company. Even so, they still held the walls and the gatehouse. Warriors on both sides kept an eye on the duel, knowing that everything came down to Alahan and Rulag, but having one eye gave Halla the luxury of ignoring them. All she knew was that they fought on the left flank.
She wearily swung her axe for the thousandth time, driving a man to his knees and feeling tears on her cheek. Another man died as she drove her axe into his face. Maybe they weren’t tears; maybe blood was seeping into her eyes from the cleaved flesh of every man she’d killed.
Then the points of the fork met and she stood before Rulag and Alahan. The duel consumed a large section of Ulric’s Yard and dominated the line between attacker and defender. Even Rowanoco’s company stood back from the duel, though they still killed any attacker who dared to face them. To her left, Falling Cloud decapitated a berserker. Far across the courtyard, she saw Heinrich Blood, standing on a barrel and loosing arrows at the gatehouse. All along the forward battlements, cloud-men launched throwing-axes at men of Ursa. There were now as many men running back across the plains of Summer Wolf as fought in Ulric’s Yard. She suddenly thought they were going to win. But still, Alahan fought Rulag.
‘I stand for strength!’ shrieked the Betrayer, swinging his huge axe from high.
‘Then I stand for honour and freedom,’ replied Alahan, dodging the attack. ‘And I stand for the Earth Shaker. You stand for nothing but betrayal.’
Their axes clashed high and low. Rulag was bigger and stronger, but let his rage cloud his skill. Alahan appeared untouchable, stepping left and right, his battleaxe used as much to deflect as to parry. The larger man grunted each time he swung his huge axe and Halla knew he’d exhaust himself before he’d land a blow.
Harrod, the priest of Jarvik, appeared to recognize that his lord would lose and took matters into his own hands. He glanced across the clear ground and clenched his teeth. Timon and Halla were close, but not close enough to stop the hammer-blow striking Alahan in the back. The exemplar grunted and flew forward, landing at Timon’s feet and writhing in pain.
Halla didn’t hesitate. She engaged Harrod, forcing him to raise his hammer to block her axe. She followed up with a kick to his groin and a punch to his throat. When he flinched in pain and dropped his guard, she drove her axe into the top of his head and kicked his corpse to the floor.
Timon stood guard over Alahan as men of Ursa lined up to kill the prone exemplar and Rulag backed away, breathing heavily. The Lord Bear Tamer saw that half his men were running. And then he saw Halla.
‘One-Eye the Axe-Maiden,’ he snarled. �
�A man should have taught you your place by now.’
Halla thought him foolish for taking the time to insult her before attacking. She used the pause to dart forward and drive her axe at his face. He managed to keep the edge at bay with a hasty parry, but was too surprised to see the follow-up attack. The haft of her axe swung round and smashed into the side of his head, sending him reeling. Before she could deliver a killing blow, she had to turn to face another attack as Rulag’s personal guard came to his aid.
‘Coward!’ she shouted, dropping into a defensive posture.
She could now see clear moonlight through the press of bodies. Rowanoco’s company was smaller, with peaceful bodies and scattered war-hammers paying silent tribute to their sacrifice. The remainder acted as moving bulwarks, from where defenders fought for Tiergarten. They appeared as engines of war, larger, stronger and louder than any other warrior fighting in Ulric’s Yard – and she dared to think that they had won the day.
‘Get the fuck out of my city!’ she shouted, splitting a man’s head in two and kicking another between the legs.
‘Kill me if you can, troll cunts,’ roared Falling Cloud, ignoring his wounds and covering her flank.
‘Varorg awaits you,’ shrieked Timon, frothing at the mouth and standing over his wounded friend.
They were no longer defenders. Rulag’s army was on the edge. Sections had already broken and fled from the city, while others, cornered, threw down their weapons. Even Rulag’s personal guards were teetering, their loyalty not strong enough that they were willing to die. The lord of Jarvik just stood there as his army melted away, wide-eyed astonishment assaulting his grizzled face.
At that moment, as the army of Ursa began to break, a large, glossy black raven plummeted from the sky and struck Rulag in the face. He wailed in pain and grabbed at the bird, its claws scratching viciously at his skin and eyes. The bird cawed as Rulag smashed it against the cobbled stone and flailed at the gruesome wounds where his eyes had been. His men, already on the back foot, stared at their lord, but none sacrificed their own retreat to help him. Within a second, he knelt alone on Ulric’s Yard, his bloodied arms held apart and his mangled face turned to the night sky.
‘I am Rulag Ursa,’ shouted the man, blood streaming from a face scratched beyond recognition. ‘And I claim these lands. I will be the Tyrant of Fjorlan.’
They were his last words. Halla ended the battle and the Lord Bear Tamer’s life with a single downward swing of her axe.
CHAPTER 26
UTHA THE SHADOW IN THE HALLS BEYOND THE WORLD
‘RANDALL, YOU’RE ALIVE!’ He looked at his squire through a glassy orb of blue and green light, large enough for him to see the young man from head to toe. ‘Randall... can you hear me?’ He banged on the orb and felt his hand being repulsed by crackling surges of raw energy. ‘What’s happening? Where am I?’
He remembered the buzzing, coming from all around him. He remembered Voon’s blank face, staring at him, but he didn’t recall how Randall came to be in front of him, or why he was behind an impenetrable barrier of energy. Or why his chest burned with pain.
‘Randall!’ he shouted, pounding soundlessly on the orb.
The young man was peering at the orb, but didn’t register Utha, as if the barrier was solid on the other side.
‘He cannot hear you,’ said a sensuous voice from behind.
Utha didn’t turn round at first. He leant forwards against the orb and took a deep breath, trying to orient himself. Whatever he’d been through left a sickening taste in his mouth and a dull thud at the back of his head. He could see the face of a cracked and twisted old woman, infused with hatred and power. He felt that he had met the Queen in Red and that he had not had the best of the encounter. The pain in his chest revealed a strange new scar, as if he’d been stabbed, but he didn’t remember the wound.
‘You are still alive,’ said the female voice. ‘You have passed beyond the petty indulgences of mortality.’
‘And I’m stuck with you,’ he replied wearily. ‘After all this distance and all this death, I’m left with a fucking spider.’
He quickly admitted to himself that he was trying to pick a fight with Ruth. He felt a crackle flow over his skin and a waft of unnatural energy, but all he wanted to do was argue, or maybe punch someone.
‘We have passed beyond. Matters of annoyance are now irrelevant.’
‘Shut up,’ replied Utha. ‘Why didn’t Randall come with me?’
His squire looked at the orb with sad eyes slanted into a weary frown. Over his shoulder, Voon stood. The exemplar of Jaa looked brighter and more alive than Utha remembered.
‘What happened to him?’ he asked.
‘I apologize,’ said Ruth. ‘Do you wish me to shut up or answer your questions?’
Utha closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. At least he was still alive. ‘I’d like an answer,’ he murmured.
‘Very well,’ she replied. ‘Randall did not accompany you because he would have died. And Voon looks different because he is no longer Voon. His body has been claimed by Jaa.’
‘What the fuck does that mean?’
‘Do you remember Dalian Thief Taker? Well, he lives again, in the body of the exemplar.’
‘Good for him,’ grunted Utha apathetically. ‘Just tell me where I am.’
She laughed. It was a horrible sound, suggesting irony, scorn and self-righteous horse-shit. Utha dared not look around and answer his own question, for fear that he wouldn’t understand what he saw.
‘Where am I?’ he whispered.
‘Look, Utha the Shadow... look at your prize.’
He slowly turned, tearing his eyes from Randall. Ruth stood, petite and human, in the foreground. Behind her, through unimaginable distance, he saw beyond the world. At first no shapes, just colours and light. Then, as he focused, his mind began to interpret the view and show him what looked like stairs of flickering red stone. Above, lightning flashed against the black and blue sky, showing glimpses of far-off lines and structures, perhaps halls, perhaps something else.
‘The staircase, the labyrinth and the Guardian,’ he said, looking up the immense steps taking form in front of his eyes. They were wide and irregular, large enough for ten men to walk abreast.
He looked down and saw no weapons, no armour, just a black robe and tinges of shadowy light. He didn’t know if a sword or an axe would be of any use, but he wanted one, if only for illusory peace of mind.
‘You do not need weapons of metal here,’ said Ruth. ‘Your body and mind are enough. Do not think of yourself as an interloper. You are more a creature of this realm than of the other.’
‘Voon said he’d teach me,’ said Utha, not turning from the ethereal staircase. ‘Before I lost him in the Jekkan causeway.’
She shook her head. ‘You do not need instruction. I have seen into your mind and seen all the strength I needed to see. In the realm of void, you may need to protect me.’
He stared at her. She was as he remembered, just a small woman of uncertain heritage. Thin, with long black hair and dark eyes. She didn’t shine or sparkle. There was no energy crackling from her limbs as there was with him, no sign or clue that she wasn’t just as she appeared.
‘And how does a Gorlan mother fit into my journey?’ he asked. ‘Other than to make a man of Randall.’
‘I imagine it will come as no surprise that I have not been entirely honest. I had my own reasons for accompanying you.’
‘In the Fell you said you’d guide me,’ he replied. ‘Was that a lie too?’
‘No. I will be your guide, but not for your sake – for my own.’
He glared, sick of ambiguity. ‘Explain.’
‘I am dying, Utha, last Old Blood of the Shadow Giants. The power that sustains me is gone. It has waned, faded, dripped through the gaps of the world, and I can feel it no longer.’
‘That is a poor explanation,’ he replied. ‘What does your death have to do with anything?’
For a
moment, Ruth’s face fell into an expression of vulnerability, making her appear smaller and younger than before. She looked around at the bare, ethereal landscape before the staircase, then wove a sinuous pattern in the air, calling into being a pair of sturdy, wooden chairs. He didn’t ask how she’d done it, nor did he marvel at the display of power. He had no doubts that he could do similar here in the void. All she had done was will the energy into a new shape, a lesser version of building a hall or forming a pathway.
‘Be seated,’ she said. ‘This is as good and as safe a place as any.’
They sat at the same time, eyes locked together, two small beings in the midst of enormity.
‘Are we going to tell stories now?’ asked Utha. ‘Because I have no stomach for your tales of woe.’
‘My tales are your tales,’ she replied. ‘For your power comes from beyond just as mine used to. We are both of us infused with unearthly energy, though yours grows mighty, while mine infuses me no longer.’
He flinched as a huge spider beast flickered across Ruth’s shadow. It had eight thick legs and a sleek abdomen, but from its midriff rose a feminine torso and two sinewy arms. The shadowy head was wreathed in fleshy feelers, forming a grotesque beard to a face blessedly obscured.
‘Her name was Atlach-Nacha,’ she continued. ‘An Old One from before the time of Giants. She, like all mighty creatures of the void, fed her energy into the realm of form. As the One God blessed his clerics with conviction, and Rowanoco gave his priests strength, so Atlach-Nacha gave her Gorlan mothers immortality and power over mind and form.’
‘You’re a fucking priest – cleric? Whatever?’