“Please do, it will save me a lot of riddling.”
“The Empire twice forgotten they think is the old Kirluni Empire, and sundered from the ice means the northern part of it. Mortentia. Apparently the upper part of the Mortentian continent is under ice, so that’s where they think the action is.”
“I hated that place.” Rashad complained. “And I hoped never to see it again.”
“I also.” Replied Derbas. “I’ve never been so wet and cold. A union of the misbegotten is trickier, for it could mean so many things, but they think ‘misbegotten’ means creatures made from men that aren’t men.”
“That is a long list.” Rashad observed. “Trolls, giants, ogres, goblins, stoneskin, Nibelung …”
“And the Brizaki themselves, or so they think. He apparently thinks he’s supposed to forge this union. There are five lines that just sound like misery, and one line with dragons in the middle of them, but the people to be cursed are clearly ‘men.’ That’s not ambiguous.”
“So he wants to form a union to get rid of men?”
“Perhaps, it is hard to know what he means to do. But honestly, getting rid of men would hardly be new for him, No? He certainly killed thousands in the last war, and the gods only know how many he has killed in Vherador. What is new is that he’s already halfway to forging his union. He’s taken the goblins and the tarks into his fold. Some trolls, too.”
“He’s mad. How does he expect to tame them?”
“I don’t think he intends to. I think he means to let them off the leash, not put them on it.”
“Hidor wash us. He is mad.”
“Dangerously mad. Mad with ambition. He seeks to clean his own blood by getting rid of the men who stain it. The augury has some good things, too. Apparently the Emperor of Old is going to lead us out of the shadows. That’s Marten, and he’s mentioned three times.” Derbas said hopefully.
“And he’s been dead ten thousand years.” Replied Rashad.
“Yes, but I don’t think that’s to be taken too literally. Anyway, here is where we come into it, and this is why he sent the agents into my citadel: ‘In a far northern land shall blood of Marten stain his own hand, and so break the magic so that magic may come again.’ You know what that has to be, don’t you?”
“Are you saying we are responsible?”
“I’m saying we’re in this thing, yes. Marten’s own hand, that’s not unclear at all, is it?”
“We did what needed to be done.”
“I don’t doubt it. But what we did, it had effects. Things we didn’t foresee. We took a perilous weapon we did not understand and we placed it by an artifact of such power that no one understands it.” Derbas turned his head from side to side, perplexed. “We might have been a bit reckless.”
“You think so? Half of the wizards in Rammas became powerless overnight.”
“Right. Well, we were younger and more foolish. Still, we broke the magic. Which is odd, because the augury says ‘blood of Marten shall stain his own hand.’ The black sword is the stain, the hand is the Fist of Marten, but ‘blood of Marten’? That’s clearly not a reference to us. We’re children of the flame, Araqueshi. Marten has nothing to do with us. Blood of Marten can only be the Kirluni, and their race goes no further south than Tolrissa. Even the Tolrissans are a mongrelly lot, part Vheradoran, part Hulmini, part Kirluni and a whole lot of Thimenian raider.”
“Someone who was with us? One of our party?”
“But who? By the time we left the tomb of Marten, Bunderkim had died, and he was no Kirluni. There remained only we four. You, me, Mutabele and Otten Ottenson. Mutabele is a child of the Wildlands, so he’s out, and I’d bet my last coin that Otten was at least ninety percent Thimenian, which makes him Sheo’s get, a child of the sky.”
“Ah, but you are forgetting someone.” Rashad replied. “Our guide.”
“The Aulig? I don’t even remember the man’s name.”
“I do. It was Eskeriel. And if I recall correctly it was he who guided us to Marten’s lost city. We never would have gotten there without him. We never would have gotten the task done.”
“Gotten it done?” Derbas replied. “You are too proud. It was he who placed the sword.”
“Couldn’t be helped. None of the rest of us could pass the wards.”
“Right. And we never understood why. Once the task was finished there was no need to inquire. Marten’s most guarded holy of holies and our hired man walked right into it while it would have surely killed us to attempt it. It did kill Bunderkim.”
“It was his heart.” Derbas said unconvincingly.
“So it always is the heart. But what stopped his heart? And why didn’t the hired man’s heart stop beating? And he’s an Aulig. They don’t call themselves Marten’s people for nothing. He’s of Marten’s blood.”
“And so is half of Tolrissa and so are most of the men of the hundred kingdoms.” Derbas amended.
“They don’t claim it, though.”
“No, they wouldn’t. Doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”
“True but not relevant.” Rashad’s voice was detached.
“So if he is the one man who could pass the wards, he is the one man who could place the sword within the dampening field of the fist.” Derbas was thinking aloud. “And if he could place it there, he could retrieve it.”
“And is it not the thing the black gods fear?”
“All gods likely fear it. It was poison and death and corruption, and made to kill a god.”
“It was power, too. And that is what the Brizaki came here looking for, is it not? They wanted to know who our companions were, and what we did with it.”
“It is.” Derbas replied wonderingly. “How did you know?”
“Because he will dare what none else will dare.”
“He was just a guide. A simple man.” Derbas protested.
“Now it is you that is proud, Derbas. And I did not mean the Aulig, I meant the Emperor. Ahatlaki wants the weapon, and he means to use it.”
“Foolishness. It would destroy him. It killed the others who coveted it within days. Even we dared not touch it.”
“I don’t think it would, at least, not right away. Not before he drowns the north in blood. He is very skilled in such things. As for your simple man, apparently he was not so simple as we thought. Apparently he is a man who can change the world.”
“So you hold us responsible, Rashad?” Derbas asked, throwing his cousin’s question back on him.
“We could have cast it into the sea.” The priest replied.
“It came from the sea.” Derbas complained. “From the fall of Hrantalas.”
“And never should have been recovered.” Then, patiently, Rashad added: “He cannot have such a weapon. Whether we hold ourselves liable for past deeds or no, if we do not prevent his obtaining it, we will be responsible for what happens after. Also, we must see to this Aulig, this Eskeriel. He must be informed of the role he must play, for it appears he is a man who can save the world.
“He ‘may dare all, may save all, may destroy all’, according to the Augury. We must ensure that he does the right thing. We must convince him to ‘break the magic so that the magic may come again.’ I don’t yet know how he will do that, but it appears that it is our task to help him.”
“But I hated that place. It was so damnably wet. Cold, too.”
Chapter 48: Muharl Ogre Country
When the Hounds brought word to the Hellwinter branch of the Mad River tribe of the Muharl Ogres that an ogre had claimed the kingship, all of the shes went into heat at once, and the resulting tumult nearly annihilated them. Like all of the chieftains who heard the news, Goosekiller gathered his surviving boyos about him and determined to slaughter the impudent Gutcrusher and the boyos who dared to stand with him.
The Muharl feared death, like all living creatures, but they feared bending knee to a king nearly as much. Written in the story of their bones and blood was the notion that one day they would have a k
ing, but also written was the terror of destruction that a king would bring. In the countless generations back to their beginning there had been many kings and claimants, and every one accompanied by a cataclysm of destruction, strife and slaughter.
No chieftain could abide the notion of a king that was not himself, and the Muharl did not bend knee easily. Gutcrusher the arrogant would not need to seek out enemies, his rivals would come in droves. They were intent on bringing him down.
On a bright and sunlit morning three days before the summer solstice he was not concerned about the implications of his claim, for he had larger thoughts in his mind as he sat on a boulder at the edge of a dying fire with his nine boyos all around him. “By the Black God’s shriveled pecker, I’m hungry.” He complained.
“Aye.” Wolf said, agreeing. “Two days and nothing to eat, and here it is high summer. Smash everything.”
“There’s game down in the valleys.” Balls answered hopefully. “We could run down a stag, maybe.”
“Ten of us here.” Replied One-eye. “A stag won’t last a day. We need a herd of them.”
“Well we aren’t going to eat just sitting on our asses.” Wolf replied.
The camp of the Ogre King was divided, and the division was stark. On the sunward side of the fire sat Gutcrusher and his three most trusted lieutenants, Wolf, Balls and One-eye, each of them armored from head to toe in grimly glittering swag. On the other side, squinting in the sunlight, sat six equally large but less well-equipped ogres, the remains of Skullbuster’s Nine. Although each of the six now had at least one weapon from the Black Mountain, and five of them had a piece of armor or a helmet or two, they looked poorly equipped compared to the four who were more favored by fortune and early opportunity. While the four leaders spoke casually and easily, these six did not. They felt keenly their subordinate position, and they were still stunned at having been forced to bend knee two days earlier.
Splitnose, either because he was not as bright or because he was bolder than his fellows, dared to address the food question. “We aren’t far from the Summer Caves of the Bloodhands. The caves are full of food and there is good hunting there.” He carried a gladius that was as long as a broadsword but heavier, and he had a steel buckler on his arm, making him a terrifying prospect in a fight. Terrifying for any ogre not in this fantastically equipped band, anyway. He was nearly naked otherwise, with only boots and a loincloth. His nose had in fact been split during his brief youth, and it added a thick and nasal quality to his voice, as if he were perpetually congested.
Gutcrusher grinned and nodded. “Aye, I was whelped there. It’s coming up midsummer. There’ll be some boyos around. Maybe some shes.” He licked his lips speculatively. He had never had a she, not a real one, just a few Aulig slags from time to time.
“Riches, bitches and the Black God’s favor.” Wolf said speculatively, and all of the ogres gave thought to what he said, which was not easy for them.
It took them two days of fast trekking to get out of the blasted lands and back into the Muharl country proper. Although Gutcrusher did not know it, his band was hunted as they marched, but had he known it he would have little cared. He knew that his luck had grown into a broad and all-encompassing thing, he would have called it destiny had he known the word. He felt the Black God looking over his shoulder in delight at the antics of a favorite son.
The landscape around them changed from shattered and storm blasted ruin to empty hills until they finally entered that country that they called the Web of Bones, a complicated network of hills, ravines and creek beds that gradually climbed into foothills and forest. On a windy evening beneath stars that seemed as uncertain as a dying breath they came to a place lit by torches hung in iron brackets, lashes of flame that guttered in the wind, reaching for them harmlessly.
A road was here. A broad and straight path cobbled in broken slabs of marble and granite, for once before the memories of memory began this had been a city, and a large one. It cut into a broad hillside that was honeycombed with fire-blackened caverns, so that ruins of ancient buildings lay at their feet like the vomit of a forgotten god of stone.
Whelps ran through the ruins and a flock of them scattered at the coming of Gutcrusher’s band, eager to be the first to tell their elders, but terrified, too. The ogre whelps were all males, about the size and shape of small men, but thicker in the bones and bellies. Each was no more than eleven summers old, for the ones that survived to that age were expelled from this place, to find their way in the wilderness or die. Their chances at survival and reaching adulthood were slim, but much higher than among the female ogre whelps, for females murdered their rivals from the day they spawned.
Gutcrusher knew the place, for he’d spawned here nearly twenty years earlier, and he came home on the night of the summer solstice, bringing with him dread and peril. He went straightaway to the hillside, walking unconcerned past the many Muharl who puffed out their chests and hurled insults at the would-be king.
“Bah, look at the little girl!” Shouted one mighty ogre. “Gets him a suit of armor and starts taking on airs, I reckon!” Brave words, but when Gutcrusher turned to meet his stare, he backed down fast.
“Let the Blackhand have him!” Shouted another.
“Aye, Blackhand will do for him soon enough. The goatshredding pretender!”
With Balls behind him and Wolf and One-eye behind Balls, Gutcrusher stepped into a great cavern long remembered and smelled a she in heat. He nearly lost his wits. All of his band went to rigid attention, sniffing and wondering.
“Who in seven hells?” Wolf asked, but Gutcrusher saw. A brown-furred she sat up from a high bed of furs and stared at them. Her eyes were deep and black as night, her teats were bare and her ass was fantastically shaped, and imagination stirred within him images of what might lie beneath her sark, or dress. Her hair was piled high upon the top of her perfect head.
“So you are the one who says he is a king.” She said, and her voice was low and throaty. Gutcrusher’s blood rose and he found himself unable to speak. “I am Azha the Fury.”
Gutcrusher had heard the story, along with every male from the Blue River to the Boneyard. A tall fighting wench of surpassing beauty, Azha the fury had disposed of every other virgin bitch in the Bloodhands, putting down her rivals with a devious cunning befitting the daughter of a big band’s chief, and then she had broken promises to the males who had murdered them on her behalf, refusing to mate during her first heat. Blood feuds and death had followed, and the bones of twenty bucks were picked clean by crows in her wake. Gutcrusher could believe it. He had never seen a wench so very finely made, and her voice and the smell of her heat made him want to rend and slay.
But although the scent of her nearly drove him insane, Gutcrusher was here on business, so he passed her by without speaking, and walked deep into the heart of the hill. She sat behind him as one amazed, and when his nine followers fell into step behind him, she was stunned. Not only was she ripe with her heat, but she had looked at them long and spoken, and usually this was enough to set the bucks to killing each other for her favor. These ogres had ignored her like a hag at the cookpots, and her eyes widened in outrage. She determined to follow them and see herself avenged.
Gutcrusher walked into the large square cavern that was the center of power among the Bloodhands, and there looked upon the Blackhand and the Blackhand looked back.
The Blackhand was as large as a Fargi and as cunning as a Vesthan, it was said, and he wore a steel collar and greaves. He sat upon a throne, such as it was, a pile of furs nearly ogre high, furs taken from the many ogres he had killed over the long years, it was said. Beside him but close at hand lay his sword, a weapon shaped as Wolf’s gladius, but made of dark and deadly blacksteel. He turned to an equally large ogre who sat beside him and spoke.
“Is this the pretender?” His voice was dark and experienced in evil.
“Aye. He is called Gutcrusher.” Said the Blackhand’s guard, loud enough for every oth
er ogre in the hall to hear, and there were at least twenty, and all armed and poised to kill. “That Vesthan bitch Velsa spawned him, you remember?” There was twittering in the cavern.
Gutcrusher laughed. Neither the ogres in this cavern nor their stupid games bothered him. “I see you have Redspear to help you remember things, old one. Does he help you chew your food as well?”
The Blackhand sat up, his relaxed manner vanishing. His face was a mask of wrath, for none had dared speak to him with such insolence in many seasons. Redspear’s eyes glittered with anger. “I remember just fine.” He replied. “I remember a stinking Vesthan wench who bawled like a yearling and ran off when her snot-nosed crying whelp came of age. And now snot-nose has come back, wearing a bit of armor and calling himself a king. I say king of the snotnosed.”
“I’ll kill you for that.” Gutcrusher promised. At his words five ogres placed themselves between the Blackhand and Gutcrusher. They were carrying very long spears with iron tips, making it impossible to reach the Blackhand without bloodshed. Gutcrusher felt rather than heard Balls getting his own deadly spear ready.
“Bah.” The Blackhand replied. “Maybe you and I strip off our armor and see who kills who?”
“And maybe you need me to put a bag over my eyes and tie a hand behind my back, too? You’ve become a talker, Blackhand, and too weak in the balls to sire your daughter when she came in heat, I hear.” These were deadly insults, and Gutcrusher readied himself for the big chief’s charge, but it never came.
The Blackhand panted his fury for a long moment, then calmed. “When you get old like I am, Gutcrusher, maybe you won’t be so quick to fight.” The Blackhand responded. “There are five hands of chieftains and their boyos coming to these caves, and every one of them wants to kill you and take your swag.” He hefted his mighty sword. “I am already as rich as any king, and I can wait my turn to pick over your bones.”
Gutcrusher laughed again, his mighty voice echoing through the cavern. “You are fat and useless, Blackhand. I’m going to enjoy dancing in your entrails after I breed your wenches.”
War of the Misread Augury: Book One of the Black Griffin Rising Trilogy Page 52