by Warhammer
Einarr rose from his bed, ignoring the trembling in his arms as he did so. ‘If the gods look so unfavourably upon me, then why am I here? Many times did they have the chance to strike me down when I was captive in Skraevold. Many times I should have died before I ever saw my home again.’
‘Only a seer can guess the ways of the gods,’ Tulkir said. ‘Old-father Ulfarr is casting the runes even now, to find what must be done to appease them. What he says must be done, we shall do. The two curs who returned here with their swords sheathed I had killed for being timid. You, Einarr, I fear I will kill for being too bold.’
The jarl and his bondsmen turned and filed from the longhouse, their visit to Einarr finished. The wounded man watched them leave his home, a great weight pressing upon his chest. He tried to push his doubts aside with visions of hate and revenge, but knew he could not. He knew only too well the unpardonable crime he had committed by killing Alfkaell. A man who killed a seer, even one from an enemy village, rendered his own life forfeit. Tulkir could have had him killed the moment Einarr had admitted his deed. Instead he chose to wait until Vinnskor’s own seer had made his divinations. Einarr repented calling Tulkir a coward. It had been wrong to call him such.
‘This is a strange thing.’ Einarr turned his head to find Spjall looking through the pile of clothing he had taken from the dead Aesling in Skraevold. The vitki held the dagger Einarr had fashioned from Alfkaell’s staff, turning the blade in his hand, watching as the light from the hearth danced across the pale elf-steel.
‘I took that from the bloodfather,’ Einarr said. The words caused Spjall to drop the weapon as though it had suddenly changed into a viper. ‘It is an ugly thing,’ the warrior admitted. ‘I should get rid of it now, but I do not want people saying I did so to try and hide my crime.’
Spjall continued to study the sinister blade. He was an old friend of Sigdan, who had voyaged far with Einarr’s father in their younger days. The vitki looked upon the son of his old friend almost as his own kinsman, always trying to help Einarr with whatever wisdom his grey years could remember. The bold warrior was often in need of calmer, more measured advice, but never so much as he did now.
‘The people of Vinnskor know you better than that,’ Spjall rejoined. He gathered the ox-hide bag that held his herbs and ointments and hobbled towards the exit of the longhouse. ‘Einarr Sigdansson would rather die than admit fear, even fear of the gods. It is your strength and your doom.’ The old healer paused as he started to leave. He lifted his gnarled hands to his neck, rummaging about in the throat of the heavy fur cloak he wore. When his hands emerged, they lifted a neck ring of silver thread over his head. A motley assortment of bone charms and talismans dangled from the ring, along with stone amulets depicting the sacred runes of the four great gods.
‘I will give you this neck ring, in the hopes that it may spare you the ire of the gods,’ Spjall said. ‘It came from the hoard of a Kurgan prince whose tomb I found in the Troll Lands beyond Kislev when I was still a young warrior.’
‘And you think this trinket will make the gods show mercy?’ Einarr tried to keep his incredulity from his voice.
‘Look well on me, Einarr,’ Spjall said. ‘I am the oldest man in this village; I have lived beyond the years of my sons and their sons. The gods have looked with favour upon me. The Kurgan prince had many great and wonderful treasures in his tomb, the gods looked favourably on him too.’ Einarr and Asta watched as Spjall drew his own dagger and cut the thread. The old vitki began removing the charms and talismans from the thread, stuffing each bit of bone or trinket of metal into his ox-hide bag until at last he was left with only a thread of silver.
‘How is this? Not even a wolf-fang to grace my necklace?’ Spjall ignored Einarr’s humour and twisted the ends of the neck ring together. He stepped towards the warrior’s bed.
‘It will be up to you to find your own talismans,’ the vitki told him, ‘just as I had to find my own. You will know them when you find them. The gods will tell you.’ Before Spjall placed the neck ring around Einarr’s head, he showed the warrior the ends he had twisted together. They were now smooth and unbroken, as perfect as though the vitki had never cut it.
‘Why give this to me?’ Einarr asked, awed by the magic he had just seen. The gifts of the gods were never less than impressive.
‘Because I am old and will walk with my ancestors soon,’ Spjall told him, turning back towards the door. ‘Because now I feel the same feeling I did when I added my talismans to the ring. It moves me to pass it on to you, Einarr. May its magic see you to glory and doom.’
Amidst the heavy furs of his bed, Einarr crushed Asta’s warm, lithe body against his. His hand caressed the scaly skin that covered the back of her neck and shoulders, the coppery plates feeling smooth beneath his touch. Asta bore the mark of the gods in her flesh, had been marked that way when she had been born. It had been another of the things about her that made her the most pursued woman in Vinnskor. But in the end, it had been Einarr who had caught her.
‘You are supposed to be resting,’ Asta scolded him, her face turned towards the fire.
‘You forget that I have been away for two weeks,’ Einarr reminded her, moving his hand to stroke her long pale hair. ‘It is a long time to go without a wench.’
Asta tried to stifle the sob of fear that rose within her, but Einarr heard her fright just the same. He turned her towards him, looking into her frightened face. ‘Have I learned such harsh manners that you cry so?’ he asked, concern in his voice. Asta pressed her cheek against his chest.
‘I thought you dead,’ she sobbed. ‘Slain by the Aeslings, your skull resting on their altar to Kharnath.’
Einarr brushed the tears rolling down his wife’s face, trying to soothe her. ‘But I’m not dead. I’ve come back to you. Not even the Aeslings could keep me from coming back. Not even the gods could keep me from coming back.’
Asta recoiled from him, crawling to the other side of the bed, staring at him in horror. ‘Don’t say such things!’ she begged. ‘Not now, not when Ulfarr casts the runes and asks the gods what is to be done with you! I can’t lose you again, Einarr! I won’t lose you again.’
‘The runes will show Ulfarr what they will,’ Einarr sighed, leaning back amongst the furs. ‘Worrying about it will help nothing.’ Einarr’s calm, resigned words only intensified his wife’s terror. She scrambled back across the bed to him, grabbing his hand, pulling at him.
‘Then let’s be away, Einarr,’ she pleaded. ‘Take what we can and leave. We can go to the lands of the Sarls or even the southlands. I don’t care, so long as we are together.’
Einarr pulled his hand free from her grasp. ‘What sort of life would we have among the Sarls? Would you have our children raised among another tribe, or worse reared to be decadent Empire folk? If you fear the gods, do you think you can simply run from their wrath?’ He shook his head. ‘No, I will not run, Asta. If I am to find my doom here, then here is where I will stand.’ He could see the terror in his wife’s eyes as he spoke his words. He smiled and tried to calm her. Carefully he removed the silver neck ring Spjall had given him and placed it over Asta’s head.
‘There, Spjall said this would keep me safe,’ Einarr said. ‘Now it will keep you safe.’ Asta started to protest but Einarr pressed a finger against her lips to silence her words. ‘I am the bravest man in Vinnskor,’ he said, ‘and knowing that you are protected by the gods will make me braver still.’
Einarr started to pull Asta back towards him when both of them suddenly spun around and stared at the door. Outside, in the village, they could hear a great tumult, voices screaming and crying out in alarm. Einarr cursed and pushed himself from the bed, reaching for his wool tunic. He looked around for his axe.
Tulkir had waited too long. The Aeslings were attacking Vinnskor!
Shrieks of agony and terror filled the air as Einarr rushed from his long house. The ragged, torn remains of the bondsman Dreng were splashed across the narrow lane. Disme
mbered limbs and broken skulls were strewn in every direction and the ground itself seemed to have been transformed into a gore-hued slime. The magnitude of the carnage stunned Einarr. How could the Aeslings have visited such violence upon the village in the few short moments it had taken him to fetch his axe?
The answer to his question wallowed amidst the ruin of Emla’s home, its shifting bulk caving out the walls as it heaved and oozed its way through the gaping hole it had ripped from the roof. Einarr felt his stomach churn as he looked upon the thing, as its stench of old blood slammed into his senses. Einarr had travelled the mountains and seas of Norsca for many years and seen many strange and terrible monsters, things that had been kissed by the power of the gods. But never had he seen such a thing, a thing that made him want to claw his eyes out so that he might see it no more. A thing that even he, a son of the north, could only call ‘abomination’.
The monster was bigger than an ox, bigger than the largest troll or ogre he had ever seen. As it slobbered through the wreckage of the long house, its form seemed to expand outward, pressing against the very walls as though in defiance of the timbers that contrived to contain it. Shape, it seemed to have none, flesh and limbs growing and contracting with the thing’s every motion. Tentacles flailed at the air, only to twist into enormous claw-tipped paws and then wilt away into nothing.
Massive legs, thick as a dragonboat’s prow and tipped with enormous talons, pushed the monster across the rubble only to collapse into undulating tendrils of formless meat then reform into the scrabbling limbs of a spider. Across its entire body, there was only one constant, the blood-deep hue that saturated its flesh, gore dripping from the multitude of wound-like welts that peppered its hide. As the blood oozed across the abomination’s skin, the hide itself seemed to suck it back inside, like a sponge drinking the sea.
The bloodbeast howled as it crushed the building to splinters, the hideous sound shuddering through the village. The sound staggered Einarr, felling him to his knees as blood spilled from his ears.
A great body of warriors had surrounded the monster, threatening it with swords, spears and any other weapon they could find. But even these bold, veterans of numberless battles feared to close upon the thing. The ground was wet with the ruin of those who had tried. A few hardier souls jabbed at it with torches, while a handful of huntsmen tried to pepper it with arrows. The shafts struck the monster’s gory hide, shaking as they sank deep into its changeling flesh. Then, to the horror of the bowmen, the monster’s flesh seemed to clutch at the arrows imbedded in it and drag them deeper into its body until no sign of them remained.
As Einarr and those warriors who had been closest to the beast’s howl recovered from the crippling sound, the monster was in motion once more, pressing its bulk against the front of the house and spilling its twisted mass into the small garth outside. A half-dozen warriors shouted in terror as the thing flopped across the ground towards them, yet for all their fear, they charged it, lashing at it with sword, axe and flail. Einarr could see Oflati and his son among the attackers, their axes biting deep into the monster’s shapeless mass. The monster stumbled or reared onto what might have been its haunches and from what should have been its chest, a monstrous face seemed to be pushing its way free. The gory hide burst in a shower of steaming blood as a naked skull, hound-like and a dozen times larger than that of a man, gibbered and shrieked at the stunned warriors. The body of the monster shuddered and collapsed upon itself, reforming behind its new head while the ragged scraps of meat hanging from where the skull had pushed itself free lashed wildly through the air and wrapped themselves around the canine head, swiftly clothing it in blood-hued flesh.
Oflati was on the ground, screaming in agony, half of his own face burned away by the sizzling blood the monster had sprayed across the garth. The thing glared down at him with its eight enormous black eyes, then opened its gigantic jaws and snapped the bondsman in half.
Arrows and torches rained about the beast as Oflati’s death cry echoed into the darkness. Einarr ran through the barrage, chopping at the abomination’s flank with his axe. The weapon sank deep into its body and Einarr could not shake the impression that the beast’s body was built from something more like boiled meat than living flesh. He pulled his axe free, cringing as a spray of steaming blood gushed from the wound. Gallons of the sizzling fluid erupted into the air, yet the beast seemed to take no notice of its hurt, concentrating instead on snapping up the rest of Oflati’s men. Einarr chopped again into the beast, howling with frustration as he watched the original wound close upon itself even as his second blow struck home. This time, as blood spurted from the wound, Einarr saw what seemed to be faces shrieking at him from within the gore. He drew back in horror when he saw the face of Thorwald among those trapped inside the crimson sludge.
‘The head! Strike at the head!’
Einarr turned to see Tulkir a few feet behind him. The jarl’s helmet was dented, one of his arms purple and broken as it dangled useless beside him. Blood was splattered across his armour and his sword, the magnificent blade he had named Fangwyrm and which had seen him through thirty years of battle, had snapped and left him with less than half a foot of weapon.
‘Steel and fire don’t hurt this thing!’ Einarr roared. ‘It is touched by the gods. It needs magic to turn it back. Where is Ulfarr?’
‘Dead,’ wheezed Rafn. The warrior was bleeding in a dozen places where the beast’s steaming blood had struck him, one of his legs slashed so deep by the horror’s flailing tentacles that Einarr could see the bone. ‘The old-father’s hut was the first place the thing struck. For all it seems mindless, there is cunning and purpose in the beast.’
Rafn’s words struck Einarr like a hammer. It had come here with a purpose, and he was that purpose. Kharnath had sent it to claim him for his blood-drenched realm. All those the beast had killed, all those it would kill, it was because he had thought he could cheat the Blood God.
‘It is here for me,’ Einarr swore. ‘Call off our men! I will lead it from the village!’
Tulkir watched as the monster crushed another Baersonling warrior beneath its talons and licked the man’s blood from its paws. While he watched, a screaming youth drove an iron-tipped spear straight into one of the thing’s eyes. It did not seem to notice the injury at all and continued to nibble at the man clutched in its paws.
‘Get it out of here!’ Tulkir snarled. ‘And may the gods damn you to the blackest hells for bringing it here!’ The jarl looked as though he might take the ruin of Fangwyrm and drive it into Einarr’s chest, so great was the wrath in his eyes. Einarr simply nodded and turned to face the beast again. He had brought doom and slaughter to Vinnskor and for that he deserved whatever fate the gods demanded.
Einarr strode towards the beast, then stopped as he became aware he was not alone. Rafn, limping on his mangled leg, was trying to keep pace with him, his axe clenched tight against his chest. Einarr waved him back.
‘I must do this on my own!’ Einarr growled at him.
‘That thing ate my father! The crows take what you must do!’ Rafn roared back. The sound of the warrior’s rage attracted the attention of the beast. Its long, serpent-like neck arched above its back and its wolfish face drooled hungrily as it glowered down at Rafn. Before Einarr could even move, the beast’s jaws shot out from its skull, snapping close in front of Rafn. As the jaws retracted into the beast’s head, Rafn toppled forward, the white bone of his skull exposed where the beast’s fangs had pulled his face free.
A savage war cry exploded from Einarr as he hurled himself at the beast. His axe chopped into one of the abomination’s flailing tentacles, severing it from its body. The mast-like column of flesh crashed to the ground, narrowly missing the enraged axeman. Before his very eyes, it corroded into a stagnant heap of scarlet mush. The beast coughed and croaked with what Einarr hoped was pain and took a swipe at him with one of its enormous paws. Einarr dodged the blow, striking out at the malformed limb as it passed him, the
edge of his axe chewing into the back of its foremost talon. The beast coughed again and lashed out once more, this time with a pair of tentacles. Only by dragging every ounce of speed from his body was the warrior able to dance between the flailing limbs. The beast reared back once more, blood dripping from its fanged muzzle.
‘Follow me you blood-worm filth!’ Einarr screamed at the thing. ‘I am what you came for!’ Einarr jumped back as the monster struck at him with one of its panther-like paws. He waited for the thing to surge towards him. For a moment, the monster’s multitude of eyes stared at him. Then the moment passed. It swung its trunk-like neck around, closing its jaws around the shrieking body of a mangled reaver. Einarr stood in stunned horror as the beast shuddered back across the garth, towards the warriors assembled on the other side of the village.
If it had come for him, it certainly didn’t seem to remember. Now its only concern was to feed and to slaughter, to mutilate and kill. Somehow, that thought was even more horrible. With a cry of despair, Einarr raced back across the garth and flung himself at the beast. He crashed against its slimy back, chopping frenziedly into its gore-drenched skin. Sizzling gore splattered across him, but still he hacked and tore into the thing. The burning blood seared his hands, his skin coming off in scabby strips as he tried to maintain his hold upon his axe. He saw the screaming, accusing faces of his kinsmen and his neighbours as the beast’s blood spurted into the black sky. But still he tore and chopped and ripped and cut.
Only when the blood-slick axe slipped from his hands did Einarr relent. Gasping, he reached down to recover his weapon. As he rose once more, he saw the beast’s hound-like head. It was turned back towards him once more, a hideous suggestion of amusement about its ghastly features. Einarr looked at the monster’s back, watched in despair as the countless wounds he had dealt it oozed shut before his eyes. Then a massive pillar of flesh erupted from the side of the monster, a great tree-like tail tipped with an immense knob of bone. Before Einarr could react, the tail smacked into him, swatting him aside like a bull swatting flies.