04 - Sigvald

by Darius Hinks - (ebook by Undead)

  Sväla’s eyes narrowed. “Go on.”

  “It’s nothing really,” said Olandír with a nervous shrug. “I’m just so lonely here.” He looked around at the gloomy ruins and then back at Sväla. “If you agree to take me with you, as a navigator, I could show you the route north, to the Wastes, and escape this place.”

  Sväla was clearly surprised by the man’s request but, despite the chorus of gasps from the other elders, she nodded. “Let’s see what you can remember in the morning, Olandír. If you can prove your worth, I’ll consider giving you a place on one of our longships.”

  Olandír grinned and grabbed Sväla’s hand.

  She tried not to grimace at his clammy touch and nodded at the shadows beyond the fire. “Make yourself a bed. We’ll talk more tomorrow.”

  Svärd groaned as he tried to make himself comfortable on the stone floor. It was the early hours of the morning and the fire was out. It seemed that everyone but him had managed to fall asleep. “Why did I suggest camping here?” he muttered, rolling onto his back and looking up at the stars. The pervasive fog left everything cold and damp and the furs under his head stank like an old dog. As he lay there, feeling sorry for himself, the events of the day filtered through his sleepy brain. He remembered the look of fear on Sväla’s face as the dawn broke over the fleet and she realised how lost they were. Then he remembered his first sight of the strange ruins that covered the island. As he recalled the delicate mosaics that covered the paths, he let out a small gasp of surprise and sat up. “The chain,” he whispered.

  He looked around at the mounds of damp, snoring bodies. It was all too easy to spot the stranger. No one had been keen to sleep next to such an odd creature and there was an empty space around his gangly body. From this distance, Svärd could not see his ankle but the more he thought about it, the more certain he was. The clasp he had seen on Olandír’s leg carried a design he had seen in the centuries-old mosaics. It was hard to say why, but in the still of the night, that simple fact seemed immensely important. He closed his eyes and tried to recall the faded images Valdür had found. As the illustrations filled his thoughts he saw the strange smiths quite clearly, surveying their handiwork with pride: a slender chain, emanating immense waves of power, so that as they raised it aloft it seemed like they had created a new sun.

  “It couldn’t be the same thing, could it?” he whispered, staring at the sleeping stranger. Could the beautiful chain have lain undiscovered on the island for centuries, only to be found by such a repulsive being? He looked at the glowing embers of the fire and saw that the elders were all asleep. Even Valdür was sprawled across the flagstones, snoring merrily to himself. I’ll tell them first thing tomorrow, Svärd decided, lying down again and closing his eyes. As he lay there, unable to sleep, visions of the beautiful chain needled at his thoughts, and after a few minutes he sat up again with an annoyed sigh, more awake than ever.

  He looked up at the crumbling walls that surrounded the courtyard. Valdür had posted sentries, but those he could see all had their backs to him, facing out to the surrounding hills. He considered telling one of the guards about the chain but then decided that they would think he was mad. He remembered that he had only seen a fragment of a clasp, and that it might not even be the same piece of jewellery. “And what if it is?” he whispered. However he tried, though, he could not put the chain out of his mind. The more he thought about the image in the mosaic, the more he began to think the chain was some kind of powerful weapon. He looked over at his sleeping mother and felt a rush of anger. Maybe the chain would enable him to finally take his rightful place in the tribe?

  Svärd decided that he would never rest until he could convince himself that it was not the same piece of jewellery. He crawled slowly though the sleeping tribesmen towards Olandír. As he reached the edge of the empty space that surrounded the stranger, he saw a glint of metal on the sleeping man’s ankle. He nodded, relieved to find that he had not imagined the thing, but it was too far away for him to make out any details. He looked around to make sure he was not being watched, conscious of how ridiculous he must look, and crept to the man’s side.

  Olandír was gurgling and belching, but he seemed fast asleep, so Svärd edged closer, trying to move as quietly as possible. As he lowered his face to the old man’s ankle he saw the silver clasp, peeping out from beneath a mound of seaweed. He felt a rush of excitement. As he had suspected, the sun and moon device engraved into the metal was exactly the same as the one on the bracelet in the mosaic. His eyes widened as he reached out to trace his finger over it. Norscan metalwork consisted of crude, functional lumps of iron and Svärd had never seen such a delicate, beautiful piece as this.

  As his finger brushed against the clasp, it popped open with a faint click.

  Svärd flinched as the silver chain slid from Olandír’s leg and tinkled onto the stone floor. The sound echoed faintly through the dark and he looked at Olandír’s face to see if he was still asleep.

  The old man’s blank eyes were fixed on Svärd and his sagging mouth was stretched in a wide grin.

  “I’m sorry,” whispered Svärd, suddenly terrified. He looked around to see if anyone was watching.

  Olandír did not answer, but climbed to his feet instead and stretched out his long limbs with a satisfied yawn. As he stretched, his yawn became a moan of pleasure.

  Svärd picked the bracelet up from the floor and held it up to the old man. “It’s not broken,” he said. “I can fix it back on, if you…” His words trailed off as realised that Olandír looked even stranger than before. As he stretched his limbs, they began to elongate and twist. His frail, grey body bulged and swelled like ripening fruit and his muscles began to ripple and spread across his widening chest.

  As Svärd backed away in shock, the wet tearing sound emanating from Olandír’s flesh woke up those sleeping nearest to him. As the old man grew in stature, growing several feet in a few seconds, horrified cries echoed through the fog. The Norscans were being dragged from their dreams to find a grotesque giant leering down at them.

  “Valdür!” yelled Svärd, with a note of panic in his voice.

  Over by the remains of the fire, the elders began to stir.

  In less than a minute, the old man had doubled in size and he was still growing. As his bones cracked and realigned, a huge leathery crest sprouted from his back and arched out from his spine and over his scalp, like the fin of a sea creature. Olandír’s groans of pleasure grew in volume and became an avian screech that echoed around the courtyard. As his arms stretched and undulated, his legs melted into a single, thick tail that began writhing, snake-like across the flagstones.

  Svärd gasped in horror as he saw that the old man’s head was changing too. His skull had snapped itself into a long, bovine snout and his beard had become a nest of tentacles that twisted and rippled. The boy looked down at the tiny, insignificant-looking chain in his fist and shook his head.

  The screams of panic grew in volume as more of the Norscans clambered to their feet.

  “We’re being attacked!” cried someone.

  As the commotion grew, an axe span out of the crowd and thudded into the monster’s burgeoning muscles.

  Olandír stopped screeching and looked down at the weapon in his chest, then he turned to the crowd edging towards him, as though noticing them for the first time. He singled out the man who had hurled the weapon and lashed out at him with his tail.

  The tribesman died with a strangled cough as the tail smashed his chest to a pulp and sent him tumbling across the ground.

  More axes and spears flew up at the monster. Some sank into Olandír’s moist flesh, but most bounced off—deflected by the thick, silvery scales that had sprouted from his still-growing body.

  “What happened?” cried Sväla, as she and the other elders reached Svärd’s side.

  Svärd shook his head in fear and confusion and held out the chain to his mother. “It was an accident. I removed this and he began to change.”
/>   Sväla took the sparkling metal and frowned at it. “What do you mean? Who began to change?”

  “Olandír,” gasped the boy, pointing up at the towering monster. “This is the old man.”

  “Watch out!” cried Valdür, shoving them both aside as the monster’s tail swept across the courtyard, knocking dozens of Norscans from their feet.

  A blur of red muscle charged past them as Rurik Iron Fist launched himself at the monster. He let out a roar as he scrambled up Olandír’s tail and slammed his mutant fist into the creature’s belly.

  Olandír was now twenty feet tall and still growing, but the force of Rurik’s hammer blow doubled him over in pain and sent him crashing down onto the flagstones.

  Rurik rolled clear just in time to avoid Olandír’s tail as it pounded onto the ground, then he drew back his metal-infused fist for another punch.

  The chieftain’s bravery roused some of the other Norscans to action and as the monster tried to rise, it found itself straining beneath the weight of dozens of burly, fur-clad warriors.

  Svärd saw his chance to redeem himself and leapt onto the creature’s back along with the others. He landed awkwardly on its thick scales but managed to draw his knife without falling off, clutching onto a spiny fin with his other hand.

  Svärd’s battle cry was drowned out by an ear-splitting screech as the monster lurched back up from the ground, flexing its multiplying muscles and shrugging its attackers off as easily as if they were children.

  Svärd was hurled through the air and slammed into the nearest wall with a crunch. He slid down onto the flagstones and lay still.

  As the monster’s screaming caw grew in rage and volume, it reared up over the Norscans, even larger than before.

  “Back!” cried Valdür, waving his spear to the mist-shrouded hills. “We can’t kill that. Get out of the ruins.”

  A few of the tribesmen refused the order, continuing to hack at the monster’s tail with their axes and hurl spears at its writhing torso, but most were all too glad to flee. As Olandír continued to grow, he let out another agonised screech, clawing at the weapons that had pierced his chest.

  “Svärd!” cried Valdür, spotting the boy’s unconscious body, sprawled on the ground behind the monster. With Sväla racing after him, he dodged between Olandír’s blows and dropped down beside Svärd, lifting his head up from the floor.

  The boy’s face was drenched with blood from a deep gash in his forehead and his eyes rolled wildly as they tried to fix on Valdür’s face.

  “Svärd,” gasped Sväla as she dropped beside them and saw the dazed expression on the boy’s face. “Is he all right?”

  Valdür shook his head and was about to reply, when a deafening screech sliced through the fog.

  They turned to see Olandír looming over them. The other Norscans had mostly vanished into the night, but Valdür, Sväla and the boy were trapped: by the monster on one side and the wall on the other. Olandír was drunk on pain and newfound power. As he swayed back and forth, his white eyes gleamed and flashed in the moonlight and his serpentine tail lashed out at the few tribesmen who were still trying to hack chunks out of it. His huge jaws spread in a grin as he looked down at the three figures trapped by the wall. With the fog spiralling around him like a cloak, he drew back one of his scaled fists and punched it down towards them.

  Valdür and Sväla shoved the boy aside as the monster’s fist vaporised the floor where he had been lying.

  There was a rumbling crash as the monster drew back his fist, leaving the flagstones to collapse into a void.

  Sväla and the others tumbled into the hole and disappeared from view.

  They plunged through a cloud of dust and slammed onto a dirt floor. Sväla choked and spluttered as she clambered to her feet and looked around for the others. They had dropped into some kind of crypt. The shaft of moonlight that followed them through the hole revealed a series of crumbling stone arches, trailing away into the darkness. Valdür was a few feet away. He was covered in grey dust and resembled a ghost, groaning as he lurched towards her, with Svärd slumped over his broad shoulders.

  There was another explosion of stone as the monster’s fist came crashing down through the hole, pounding into the floor of the crypt with such force that Sväla and Valdür were knocked back into the shadows.

  “Quick,” gasped Valdür heading off towards a pale light in the distance and gesturing for Sväla to follow.

  The light was weak and hundreds of feet away and as they ran they stubbed their toes against fallen pillars and staggered up unexpected steps. Above, they heard the sound of the monster as it threw its body furiously around the courtyard. Dust settled over them as the ceiling of the crypt cracked and bowed beneath Olandír’s immense weight.

  Sväla hung on to Valdür’s furs as they stumbled though the dark. “There!” she hissed, squeezing the chieftain’s arm. The glow up ahead was growing brighter and they could see clearly now that it was moonlight.

  Valdür grunted in acknowledgement and hurried towards it.

  “Will he live?” asked Sväla as they tumbled out onto the hillside, gulping down the dust-free air.

  Valdür looked at Svärd and frowned. Then he nodded at the silver expanse spread out below them. The Norscans were gathering in their thousands at the edge of the sea, looking back in horror at the enormous being rising up from the ruins. “We need to join the others. Then we can examine his wounds.”

  “No!” cried Sväla wrenching the boy from Valdür’s shoulders and putting him down on the grass. “I’ll not lose him too.”

  “I’m fine,” groaned Svärd with a crooked sneer, swaying slightly as he tried to stand. “The prophet’s son will fight again.” His face was completely drained of colour and there was a gleaming patch of bone visible in the centre of his forehead, but his pride was unshaken.

  Sväla wiped the sneer from his face with a fierce slap. “What were you thinking, you stupid child?” She was trembling with rage as she waved the silver chain in front of his face.

  Svärd lolled back from the impact of the blow. Only his mother’s furious grip held him upright. He spat some blood on the ground and glared back at her, then he gestured weakly down to the crowd of figures on the beach. “Looks like Ungaur has changed his mind about sailing in the fog.”

  Valdür looked back at the sea and saw that some of the tribesmen were hauling themselves onto the longships. “We need to get down there,” he said, gesturing back at the frenzied monster. “Or stay here and keep that thing company for the rest of eternity.”

  They stumbled down over the dunes, with Svärd slung between them, doing his best to run. Behind them, Olandír was still screeching and thrashing furiously around the ruins as a small group of determined Norscans continued hacking at his rippling flesh.

  “To the ships,” cried Sväla as the crowd on the beach turned in their direction. “All of you!”

  No one needed much encouragement and there was soon a stampede of wide-eyed people sprinting through the surf towards the drifting shadows of the longships.

  Valdür dragged Sväla and her son up onto the deck of their ship, then he clamped his hands over his ears as the screams of the monster suddenly rose in pitch.

  As the oarsmen rushed over to their benches, Sväla rushed aft and looked back at the island.

  Olandír no longer looked as though he belonged on land at all. His writhing mass of scales and fins resembled a horror from the ocean’s darkest depths. He was snaking down the sand dunes towards the beach, reaching out to the ships as they upped anchor and sliced out through the tumbling waves.

  Sväla noticed a flash of colour on its face. “Rurik,” she said, her voice hoarse with shock.

  The chieftain had clambered up Olandír’s neck and, as Sväla looked on in amazement, he pounded his metal fist into the monster’s blank left eye. Blood bubbled over him in great gouts as the creature staggered back in pain. It clamped a hand over the bloody mess, but Rurik had already swung across
its snout and punched again, blinding the other eye.

  As Olandír lurched and writhed in agony, the red-skinned figure of Rurik could still be seen, silhouetted in front of the moon as he grasped the monster’s crest in one hand and raised his bloody fist to the heavens.

  Sväla raised her own fist in a silent reply, as the sails behind her unfurled and snapped full of wind, hurling her out to sea.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Víga-Barói moaned with pleasure and looked down at his chest. A fist-sized chunk of rock had punched through his cuirass and embedded itself deep between his ribs. He stumbled to a halt, ignoring the torrent of figures that barged past him as he studied the gaping wound. He smiled as though he were studying a beautiful flower. Some of his ribs had burst through his skin and as he fingered the shattered bones his nerves screamed in agony. “My prince,” he muttered, his voice trembling with gratitude.

  All around him the Decadent Host were disintegrating: wings tore loose from hunched backs, purple bellies exploded in showers of viscera and bestial heads span clear of their severed necks. As the garish army collapsed and died along the slender bridge, the towering fortress of Ör poured lethal light over them, belching luminous death on the mutated creatures and armour-clad knights.

  “Faster,” roared Víga-Barói, levelling his sword at the skull-clad tower. “Outrun the guns.”

  It seemed impossible that any of them could reach the far end of the bridge. It was half a mile long and only wide enough for four of them to march abreast. The structure was already deep with corpses and the crimson lake below was a soup of bodies and broken limbs. Despite this, the monsters rallied again at Víga-Barói’s signal and surged forward, scrambling across the carcasses of their fallen brothers.

  Blood-red lights glimmered on the walls of the distant citadel as Mord Huk’s men dragged another huge gun into view. Even at this distance it was clear that the cannon was as much animal as machine. Its barrel pulsed and twitched with life and as it was wheeled into place it whined and hissed as though it were in pain. There was a loud crack and it sprayed energy in all directions, eviscerating the stunted figures huddled around it and launching another lurid blast down on the advancing army.