by Warhammer
The Sarls would never accept Sveinbjorn as their king now. Wulfrik knew that, even if the Aesling prince was too proud and bitter to see it for himself. Since Wulfrik’s return, Hjordis had been quite vocal in decrying Sveinbjorn as a weakling who had won her unfairly. The very legitimacy of the prince’s claim on her had come into question, and opinion already favoured the hero Wulfrik over the usurper Sveinbjorn.
Viglundr was the real enigma. Wulfrik was certain the cunning old king knew what was going on, yet he made no move to stop it. Thoughts of rich treasures had clouded the king’s judgement. Or perhaps he felt secure enough in his own position to undo whatever damage Hjordis and Wulfrik caused Sveinbjorn. After all, Sveinbjorn had stayed behind while the Sarls hunted the Trolltree. Viglundr had not.
A cold smile worked onto Wulfrik’s face as he glanced at Viglundr. The old king would bide his time. He would wait until the riches Wulfrik had promised him were safely in Ormskaro before he made his move. When that time came, Viglundr would learn he was too late. And then Wulfrik would take from the treacherous old king everything he possessed.
The cry of a shrike echoed from the clearing below. Wulfrik waved down to the hunter who had made the cry. The trap was complete. Now it was time to set the bait. The hero raised both fists over his head. In answer to the gesture, dozens of Sarls drew axes and rushed a stand of saplings growing along the southern edge of the clearing. Ruthlessly, they hacked away at the trees, sending slivers of wood dancing in every direction. Other northmen gathered the chunks of wood, dropping them into cauldrons of boiling water. Soon the pungent aroma of sap was thick about the clearing.
For hours the woodsmen attacked the saplings, laying into the trees with as much violence and noise as they could. The smell of sap continued to thicken, hugging the ground as a faint breeze sent it crawling into the forest. From the cliff, Wulfrik and Viglundr listened to the northmen work, their eyes never leaving the deep woods.
Wulfrik saw the first sign that their trap had worked. A faint movement of the distant treetops was the first warning. Only the hero’s animal-keen eyes saw the motion, but soon other scouts became aware that something gigantic was making its way through the forest. The sound of ponderous footfalls and snapping branches increased, becoming audible to the woodsmen in the clearing. Fear was in their faces as they scrambled for cover, but not a man among them cried out. Afraid though they were, none of them wanted to be remembered as the man who warned the Trolltree.
Branches continued to snap and creak until it seemed the entire forest was in motion. There was no mistaking the wild, frantic motion of the trees now, as though a mighty gale swept through them. The ground rumbled from the impact of tremendous feet, booming like a titan’s drum.
It was no imagination but an eerie reality that the trees at the edge of the clearing parted, leaning away to allow the monster to emerge from the forest. The beast crawled forwards on all fours like some great and terrible hound. Its immense body was covered in bark, split and cracked and hoary with age. When it was clear of the trees, the beast lurched upwards, standing upon its hind legs in crude semblance of a man, though a man built of wood rather than flesh. A gash-like mouth, with jagged splinters for teeth and yellow moss for gums, yawned from the middle of the thing’s torso. Great pits which burned with something like marsh-fire served it as eyes. Immense arms studded with thorn-like branches dangled from what passed for its shoulders, each hand ending in a crooked finger of timber and a hooked talon of gnarled wood.
There was no need for Wulfrik to stare down at the Trolltree. The wooden monster stood one hundred and fifty feet, even without anything that might be called a head rising from its broad shoulders. Even the tallest tree in its forest was a dwarf compared to the giant treeblood. Only by crawling through the forest had the ancient monster managed to hide itself.
Now it had no interest in hiding. Wulfrik felt the hair rise on his neck as the Trolltree’s glowing eyes passed across him, as he felt the creature’s primordial hate sear into him. There was wisdom in that gaze, timeless and inhuman, but it was a wisdom that had become rotten with loneliness and hate.
The Trolltree swung away from its silent contemplation of Wulfrik, glaring down at the fallen saplings and the boiling cauldrons. Though the monster’s gash-like mouth did not move, a great groan sighed up from the treeman, an anguished cry of pain and mourning.
Wulfrik expected the Trolltree to be drawn to the fallen trees. Instead the monster swung back towards him, its fiery eyes narrowed to smouldering embers. Slowly, clumsily, it raised one of its immense arms.
‘Look out!’ Wulfrik roared, pushing Viglundr away. The king scrambled through the rocks as the Trolltree’s clawed hand came crashing down. The talons dug deep into the cliff, shearing several feet from its face as the treeman pulled its arm back.
Coughing from the dust the impact had stirred, his face bleeding from shards of rock thrown up by the Trolltree’s fist, Wulfrik struck at the monster. His sword cracked against the Trolltree’s hand, chewing into the wood, causing bright red sap to bubble into the gash.
‘Now! Now!’ Wulfrik howled.
In the clearing below, northmen erupted from the bushes, hurling axes at the Trolltree. The monster turned towards them as the blades bit home, chips of wood flying from its legs and back. The warriors whooped war cries and jeers at the treeman, fleeing as it took a shuddering step after them. One man, slower than the others, screamed as the Trolltree caught him in its claws. The timber fingers closed in a brutal vice about the struggling warrior, crushing him to pulp before letting the mutilated remains drip back to earth.
‘That’s it!’ Wulfrik grinned as he watched the monster pursue the Sarls. ‘A little more, you dumb damn brute!’
The Trolltree’s steps became faster as it lurched after the fleeing warriors, building momentum like some living avalanche with each yard it travelled. The cries of the men became screams of terror as the treeman closed upon them.
Then the monster’s foot crashed through the thin skin of sticks and leaves covering the pit Wulfrik’s men had spent most of the day digging. The marshfires in the Trolltree’s face widened with surprise as it found itself toppling forwards. A cloud of dust exploded from the pit as the treeman crashed.
Instantly, other warriors were in action, leaping from the bushes, each man carrying a heavy chain. They charged at the fallen monster, thrusting axes and jagged spears into its wooden skin, the heft of each weapon attached to one of the chains. In a short time, the treeman’s body was pitted by dozens of blades, burdened with yards of heavy chain. As the Trolltree struggled to rise from the pit, its powerful exertions pulled on the chains. Massive boulders to which the chains had been anchored were dragged from the bushes. Some of the Sarls wailed in horror at this display of the Trolltree’s awful strength; others cursed and rushed to burden the monster with still more chain.
Eventually, the weight of steel and stone binding it was too great even for the Trolltree’s strength. The monster’s thrashings became little more than a frenzied rocking back and forth in its pit. A few warriors, too near the feet of the beast, were ripped apart when thick roots whipped out from the treeblood, but the northmen quickly learned to stay clear of the beast’s feet. Instead they clambered atop the prone monster’s chest, chopping away at it with axes, cracking its bark with hammer and spike.
Wulfrik marched across the clearing and stared into the Trolltree’s burning eyes. He felt a sense of regret that he could not have faced this beast on more equal terms. It would have been a battle unequalled in the sagas. He could pity this creature, ancient beyond its time, lurking forgotten and abandoned in a world that had passed it by. Better to die with purpose than to linger lost and alone with nothing to love and nothing to love it in return.
The hero watched the Trolltree’s eyes flicker and wink out. The great beast’s body shivered and was still. There was an unaccountable sense of sadness in the air as the treeblood died, the sorrow that marks the passing of
something which shall never be seen again. It was some time before the Sarls rallied from their melancholy and the immensity of their accomplishment dawned upon them. Cheers thundered through the wood. Some cheered Viglundr. Most cheered Wulfrik.
‘Be careful with the beast’s carcass!’ Wulfrik ordered when the cheering had faded to a low roar. ‘This timber is mine and I’ll crack the skull of any man who abuses it!’
Wulfrik smiled as men clambered over the Trolltree’s body, this time not to kill but to cut. Like butchers at a hunt, carpenters and shipwrights scrambled over the body, using saws and axes to section the mighty carcass. The Trolltree’s wooden flesh would form the ribs of a new Seafang; its backbone would be the keel of Wulfrik’s ship.
‘You have your monster,’ Viglundr said when he joined Wulfrik beside the dead Trolltree. ‘When do I get my treasure?’
Wulfrik did not look at the king when he answered, seeing instead the image of an Empire town and a man who pretended to be a Kurgan.
‘Soon,’ Wulfrik promised. ‘I am as eager to strike against the southlings as any man in Ormskaro.’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Ludwig Stossel stared for the thousandth time into the cold ball of crystal, trying to force it to show him what he desired to learn. But the artefact that had served him so faithfully for twenty years persisted in remaining stubbornly silent. It was a silence that the wizard found profoundly disturbing.
He turned away from the mahogany table, casting a black silk cloth over the frustrating crystal sphere. At first he had been willing to accept the sphere’s silence as evidence that he had succeeded, that the threat to his life and soul was gone. Even the wisest prognosticator of the Celestial College could not see into the realm of death itself. Morr guarded his gardens too fiercely for any wizard to pierce that veil, though the wizards of the Amethyst Order had some skill at evoking spirits from the otherworld.
Stossel stared gloomily about his laboratory, gazing at the shelves of arcane tomes and the tables littered with magical paraphernalia. He had wrested many secrets from his studies, secrets unknown even to the masters of his order. He had learned how to send his spirit striding across the land while leaving his body safely behind. He had discovered the art of assuming another countenance so perfectly that he could fool even another wizard. He had learned to disguise his spells so that they drew faintly upon all the winds of magic, and in so doing did not leave the telltale aura of Azyr, the blue wind. He had learned the ritual to summon Grylikh, his powerful familiar.
The astromancer regarded Grylikh on his golden perch. No longer needing the fearsome aspect it had adopted in Norsca, the familiar wore the less frightening shape of a marble-hued shrike. The bird cocked its head and returned Stossel’s scrutiny with an air of expectancy. It would obey whatever orders he gave it. The problem was, Stossel had no idea what to do.
Many years ago he had discovered the death that awaited him. He would die by the hand of a barbarian named Wulfrik, his soul to be fed to Tzeentch, the ghastly Dark God of Sorcery. It was the kind of fate that would chill the blood of Sigmar himself. But an astromancer knew how easily the threads of fate could be altered. There was not one future, but many. And by acting at the right time, a man who had foreseen that future could change it.
Stossel had acted first by sending Grylikh to watch Ormskaro. Through the crystal, he had seen Wulfrik return to the settlement again and again to rest and refit his ship. He had seen the barbarian take counsel with the seer Agnarr. It was here that Stossel caused his familiar to keep watch. The seer had never suspected the gibbering imp he captured and set in a cage was actually a spy and, when the time came, an assassin.
When Grylikh heard Wulfrik describe a dream to the seer which meant Stossel was the barbarian’s next victim, the knowledge was instantly conveyed to its master. It had taken powerful spells to speed the astromancer to Ormskaro, to strike at Wulfrik before it was too late.
It was unthinkable to strike Wulfrik directly. To do so would shift the barbarian’s curse onto himself and place his own life in thrall to the Ruinous Powers. If he would escape the marauder’s sword, he had to be cunning. He had to lead Wulfrik to his death but take no direct hand in it.
Stossel used his magic to become Zarnath the Kurgan, and in this guise he had played upon Wulfrik’s deepest desires. He’d led the barbarian and his crew to the deadliest places the wizard could think of. Somehow, he had survived the Dark Lands and the degenerate dwarfs of that fell place. Leading Wulfrik to Ulthuan, Stossel had hoped to destroy both the man and his devil-ship.
Somehow, both Wulfrik and his ship had survived. Where they were, what they were doing, Stossel did not know. His crystal refused to show him either Wulfrik or the Seafang. Even Ormskaro was blocked from his sight. He had seen other signs, though. He had seen an exodus of Norse warriors and raiders journeying into the lands of the Sarls. He had seen the gathering of a great fleet written upon the stars. War was brewing in the icy north.
The astromancer knew where the battle would be fought. Only circumstance had caused him to make the discovery, to learn both that Wulfrik was alive and that the barbarian was after him. He had been called to attend Baron Kruger, Lord Protector of the town of Wisborg – another of the baron’s attempts to prevent his wife’s infidelities. So convinced was Baron Kruger of the baroness’s indiscretions that it always came as a shock to him when Stossel couldn’t give him any forewarning. One look at his wife, however, was enough to convince a rational man that the baron’s fears were groundless.
Upon entering the castle, however, it was Stossel who received a shock. A prisoner was locked in stocks in the courtyard. A prisoner the astromancer was horrified to recognise. The man was Broendulf, a member of the Seafang’s crew!
Stossel overcame his shock long enough to discover that Broendulf had been in Wisborg for at least a week, posing as a sailor from Middenland. He’d been arrested for starting a brawl in one of the taverns and sending no less than five men to the healers and two others to the priests of Morr. The fact that their prisoner was a Norscan barbarian came as a surprise to Baron Kruger and the reeve of Wisborg, one it took a great amount of persuasion to get them to accept.
Stossel felt like ripping his beard out by its roots every time he thought about Baron Kruger’s disbelief. The baron’s response to his warning had been lethargic at best. It was harvest season. Bringing all the farmers into the walls of the town would mean losing the better part of the crop. Moreover, there were the traders to think about, buying up supplies of wheat and barley to sustain Altdorf through the winter. Kruger needed something more than a Norscan vagabond and a wizard’s unfounded fears to warrant sealing up Wisborg. Grudgingly, he had sent messages out to neighbouring towns and even a man to Altdorf to advise that there might be trouble threatening Wisborg, but he’d couched it in such vague terms that the peril might be as minor as weevils or as nebulous as underfolk sightings.
Wulfrik was coming. Stossel knew it as firmly as he knew anything. The question wasn’t if, but when. The wizard stepped to the narrow window of his laboratory. Rising above the town, the astromancer’s tower gave him a good view of Wisborg. He frowned as he stared out across the tile roofs and watched the little plumes of smoke rising from chimneypots. He could see children playing in the streets, drovers moving their stock to the docks, farmers bringing their crops to market. The smell of baking bread rose to fill his nose.
Stossel wondered if he would ever see Wisborg like this again. His presence had caused a terrible doom to hang over the heads of every inhabitant of the town. It was too late now to run, to try to lead the menace away. The astromancer might save himself that way, at least for a time, but Wisborg’s danger would remain.
‘No,’ the astromancer said, turning away from the window. ‘The only thing to do is stay and fight. Even if the baron refuses to listen, I know what is coming and will be ready for it.’ He sighed and shook his head. ‘Perhaps that is what I should have done from the start instead of
trying to trick fate.’
On its perch, Grylikh hopped from one foot to the other, sharing the wizard’s agitation. But the bird’s eyes were not on Stossel. They stared instead past him, past the window, at the black waters of the River Reik.
The mists parted slowly as the Seafang emerged once more from the border-realm. Wulfrik ran an admiring hand along the gunwale of his new ship. It was the finest he’d ever set foot upon, sleek as a merwyrm and powerful as a behemoth. The spine of the Trolltree made for an impressive keel, and a ship that boasted forty-three benches. The tall mast was fitted into a kerling fashioned from the treeblood’s foot, the woollen sail sewn with runes to speed the wind and draw the favour of the gods.
Wulfrik looked out across his crew, hungry warriors drawn from across the length and breadth of Norsca by the promise of plunder and the prospect of battle. Eighty-six men sat upon their sea chests, rowing the Seafang against the slow current of the river. There were another hundred and forty standing at the ready, shields slung across their arms. These men had proven their courage during the frightening passage through the border-realm, prepared to defend the rowers from the daemons of the void. The eight who had been found to be cowards were strangled during the passage – even now some of the crew were pitching their stripped bodies into the river. Wulfrik would suffer no cowards on this voyage.
Ahead, through the darkness, Wulfrik could see the familiar towers of Zarnath’s refuge. The gods had shown favour to him by letting the Seafang return under cover of night. The hero only hoped they would continue to favour him. Man for man, the southlings were weak, as weak as their simpering gods. But the southlings had a strength the northmen lacked: numbers. Given a chance, the Empire could muster armies even the greatest High King had never imagined.
Wulfrik didn’t want to give them that chance. At least not until he was ready.
The hero turned away from the prow of his ship, glancing back at the darkness sternwards. He could see the last shreds of fog dissipating. He waited until he was certain the mists were completely gone, then turned to his helmsman.