by Warhammer
All of them felt the hideous touch of winter slashing through them, but it was Vallac, the Kurgan, who seemed least susceptible to the icy claws raking across his flesh. Indeed, steam seemed to be rising from the man’s exposed face whenever Einarr looked at him and Vallac alone did not have clumps of ice clinging to his brow. Einarr was reminded of the burning sludge the Kurgan had spat into the face of the gor and wondered if perhaps this was further evidence of the fires the gods had stoked inside Vallac when they had touched him and transformed his flesh.
At the head of the small procession, his small body dripping with chains, Zhardrach reluctantly tested the ice as they made their passage across the wastes. Close behind the dwarf stalked Thognathog, the end of the dwarf’s chain wrapped around the ogre’s waist like a belt. Early in their crossing of the Frozen Sea, Zhardrach had tried to eliminate the ogre by finding a soft patch in the ice. Thognathog had broken through the weak surface, nearly drowning and losing much of his supplies before managing to climb out from the frigid waters. Now Zhardrach would need to be more careful – if it happened again he would be dragged down with Thognathog to a watery grave. Einarr noted that the dwarf was much more careful since the new arrangement had been implemented.
The loss of Thognathog’s provisions had been a serious setback. A hungry ogre wasn’t something even the bravest Norse warrior wanted marching alongside him, ogres had a curious way of placing food before fellowship in even the best of circumstances. Even plundering the provisions of the rest of his warband did little to solve the problem. Einarr was forced to relent and agree to Orgrim’s suggestion that the renegade be allowed to break off from the group and hunt whatever game might be found scratching an existence from the ice. The woodsman would stalk off alone, brushing aside Birna’s offers to help him. They would watch him vanish into the mists, hunched over and sniffing at the ground as he faded into the icy night. The Aesling would never fail to return the next morning, his beard often matted with blood, his arms filled with the mangled carcass of seals and snow rats. How any man could track game across the windswept ice, Einarr did not know. He might have asked Orgrim, but the renegade was always irritable after his hunts, quick to snap at anyone trying to pry into his habits.
Through it all, the old witch Urda somehow managed to keep pace with the others. Einarr was impressed by the crone’s determination and willpower, refusing to allow herself to linger behind, refusing to be far from Einarr’s side. He could understand the thinking that gave the old woman such strength. Of all the members of their small warband, only Einarr himself had any reason to keep her around. Orgrim, he knew, would just as soon kill the hag as look at her and Thognathog had little reason to look kindly on any Aesling. Zhardrach blamed the Aeslings as a people for his current predicament, and no dwarf forgave any betrayal easily. Vallac and Birna both distrusted the witch intensely and warned Einarr about the dangers of keeping her around at every opportunity. No, Einarr alone had a vested interest in keeping Urda alive, and the witch knew it well. He only hoped that she did not take it into mind to test just how much control she had over him.
Four days after setting out from the Aesling quarry, the undulating, unearthly landscape was broken by the first artificial feature the warband had yet seen upon the Frozen Sea. It was a great smooth furrow, a patch of level ice that cut its way through the unmoving waves. There was no question but that some intelligence had carved the furrow through the ice, it was too regular to be a caprice of either storm or sea. Einarr was at once struck by the immensity of such a feat, of hacking such a road across the Frozen Sea. It wound across the ice as far as the eye could follow in either direction and was wider across than the entire village of Vinnskor. None among them could say who had made such a road, nor why. Einarr did not trouble himself over such questions. It was enough that the path was there.
They made better time, travelling along the path instead of climbing the jagged curves of the frozen waves. The depth of the furrow sheltered them from the worst of the wind, giving them all a much needed respite from the malice of the elements. Yet almost from the first, a nameless dread began to prey upon Einarr’s mind as they marched along the ice road, a nebulous terror that set the hairs on his arms shivering yet which refused all effort to quantify and recognise it. Einarr could see that his companions felt it too. Orgrim no longer ranged ahead of the group, the renegade slinking close by his comrades for the first time since they had left his forest cave. Even Zhardrach did not shun them as he had, keeping close to Thognathog despite the rumbling of the ogre’s belly. Whatever preyed upon their senses, it was something more than an imagined fear.
On their fifth day travelling along the path, Einarr called Vallac to him. The Kurgan was a seasoned warrior and had seen much in his wanderings. Of all those in his warband, Einarr respected Vallac enough to listen to his council. He needed the advice of another warrior. His question to Vallac was a simple one, one that did not require the cryptic wisdom of witches and seers. Should they abandon the path or should they continue to follow it?
The Kurgan rubbed his fingers against the gold loops piercing his brow as he considered Einarr’s question. ‘My instincts say to me that we should flee,’ Vallac said at last, his voice low, his words for Einarr’s ears alone. Even so, he saw Orgrim’s head snap around as Vallac whispered, the renegade picking up the hushed conversation even across the dozen yards that separated them. Vallac ignored the berserker’s unnatural eavesdropping and continued. ‘My mind tells me that we make good time by using the trail. But even I tire of sheltering from the wind beneath the curl of the waves. I weary of huddling together, sucking the warmth from one another’s bodies like great leeches. Not a one of us has been spared being cut by the knife-edges of the waves, our blood freezing with every new wound. We have little food and cannot depend upon Orgrim’s hunts to get more. There will be game beyond this frozen hell. The sooner we are free of it, the sooner we eat.’ The Kurgan shifted his gaze, watching as Thognathog tore a strip of leather from the patch-work jerkin the ogre had stitched for himself and shoved it into one of his mouths. ‘I worry that your ogre grows weary of an empty belly.’
Einarr nodded in agreement. ‘We might be able to do without for some time yet, but Thognathog is quickly reaching his limit.’ The warrior sighed, shaking his head. ‘The ogre’s strength would be a great boon in overcoming whatever guardians infest the Plague Lord’s palace.’
‘How many of us will even set eyes upon Skoroth’s tower if the ogre decides he wants meat while we are still crawling across this oblivion?’ Vallac cautioned. It was a concern that had weighed heavily upon Einarr’s mind every time he heard the ogre’s belly growl. Even so, he did not want to act until he was certain there was no other way.
‘This path leads somewhere,’ Einarr said. ‘Someone built it. If we follow it, we may find them. If they are people of flesh, then they must eat and if they eat, they will have food.’
The Kurgan nodded in agreement. ‘Then we stick to the trail, whatever daemons haunt it.’ Vallac smiled, clapping his hand against Einarr’s shoulder. ‘That is the choice I should have made had Tzeentch’s mark been burned into my flesh instead of yours.’
Einarr opened his mouth to reply, but as he did so, he was suddenly struck by an intensification of the crawling dread that had plagued them for so long. It seemed to pass through his body like a tremor, causing his stomach to churn like a storm swept sea. The air around him seemed to take on a malignant, stagnant quality, almost as though all the life had drained out of it. He could see that the others felt it too. Vallac had fallen to his knees, trying to spit his sickness onto the ice. Urda was crumpled into a trembling pile of rags and fur, Birna standing over the witch with her bow drawn and an arrow nocked, her eyes wide and haunted. Thognathog was on his feet again, his heads scanning the trench, trying to find whatever had aroused his fear. Zhardrach cringed in the ogre’s shadow, quite willing to put the brute between himself and whatever lurked within the trench.
/> It was Orgrim’s reaction that set Einarr most on edge. The berserker was not scanning the horizon for any sign of a foe, nor crouched against the ground trying to vomit an already empty belly. Instead the renegade stood as still as a statue, his eyes staring intently at the ice some distance from his feet. Every hair on Orgrim’s body seemed to be standing erect, from the ratty locks that covered his head to the wiry mass that Einarr observed covering his hands. The woodsman’s nostrils were flared wide, like those of some great hound, trying to pick up the scent of what he sensed was near.
While Einarr watched Orgrim, he suddenly noticed something more. The ice was darker where the berserker’s eyes were fixed, as though there were some great shadow beneath the ice. As Einarr watched, the shadow grew, blackening the ground as it became larger and more distinct. Something huge was moving beneath the ice, speeding up from the depths towards the surface!
Einarr shouted a warning to his comrades an instant before the ground shook and they were all thrown from their feet. The grinding shriek of splintering ice clawed through the air as great slabs of the trench were tossed into the sky. A putrid stink slammed into Einarr’s senses as he recovered from his fall, the stink of rotten fish and the black deeps of the ocean. He wiped at his face as his eyes started to water, concerned that the tears would freeze in the winter wind. Through his frosty gaze, he could see an enormous shape, like a barren tree, lashing against the night sky. It writhed and flailed, crashing against the ice with tremendous fury and nearly knocking Einarr down again. It was grey and scaly, somehow reminding him of a colossal rat’s tail. Great green welts marked the back and sides of the thing, but as it rose again into the air, Einarr saw that its underside was puckered with hundreds of plate-sized beaks that snapped and slobbered with an idiot fury.
The ice shuddered again and a second grey tendril exploded from the blackness beneath their feet. It scraped against the wall of the furrow, narrowly missing Birna’s head as she crouched low against the ground. The drooling beaks clacked and cracked above her as the hideous limb groped blindly for the prey it could sense was nearby. Einarr did not wait for it to find its quarry. With a roar, he sprinted across the trench, Alfwyrm clutched in his fist. Savagely, the warrior hacked into the side of the immense stalk, sinking the edge of his steel several inches into the blubbery flesh. Translucent treacle exploded from the wound, bathing Einarr’s body in stinging filth. The tendril whipped away from Einarr’s sword, crashing against the side of the trench with such violence that part of the wall crumbled and crashed down into the furrow. Birna leapt from the frozen debris, narrowly missing the flailing tentacle as she tried to avoid being crushed.
Einarr braced himself as the ice groaned and shrieked once more. A third, then a fourth tentacle exploded up through the ice, lashing madly against the sky. Thognathog charged one of the new tentacles, dragging a protesting Zhardrach after him. The ogre’s huge arms wrapped around the stalk-like limb, striving to crush it in his powerful grip. The grey colour of the tentacles darkened into a vivid red as the ogre attacked. But mighty as the ogre’s strength was, the thing beneath the ice was mightier still. The tentacle whipped itself ferociously through the air, pulling Thognathog with it, the violence of its movements growing more and more frenzied until at last it shook itself free of the ogre’s hold, flinging both ogre and dwarf across the trench.
The ogre had barely crashed into the wall of the trench before the ice splintered again and three more tentacles breached the surface. The floor of the furrow was now pitted with holes and Einarr could see the thing’s scaly blubber pressing close against the ice it had not yet destroyed. He could see Vallac and Orgrim hacking away at the tentacles, splattering the ice with its greasy ichor. Birna sank arrow after arrow into its blubbery flesh, provoking agitated swipes from the limbs but giving no evidence of any lasting hurt.
‘We must flee,’ Urda’s crackling whisper hissed at Einarr’s side. ‘You cannot hope to best such a beast with sword and axe.’ Einarr shook off the witch’s clutching hands, glaring at the flailing pillars of crimson flesh sprouting from the ice. He moved to join Vallac and Orgrim as they chopped and slashed at the noxious things.
‘If you would fight the kraken, you will die,’ the witch pronounced. ‘Your quest will end here and your village will rot in its grave. Tchar will spit your spirit from the halls of your ancestors and you will walk the wastes forever.’ The witch’s words and the panic with which she said them broke through the battle lust that filled Einarr’s mind. He sheathed his sword and shouted to his comrades.
‘Warriors of the Steelfist!’ he roared. ‘We do not fight the beast here! Like sparrows before a hawk, we must flee or die! If we would fight it we must find solid ground to face it on!’ His comrades did not think about their leader’s words, the wisdom in them was too obvious for thought. Vallac and Birna hurried after him as Einarr led the retreat across the trench. Even Orgrim displayed no great eagerness to linger behind, loping after them as soon as he found himself alone among the forest of flailing tendrils. As they ran, Einarr looked over his shoulder. The tentacles continued to whip across the ice for some time before whatever intelligence guided them decided they had gone. With eerie unison, the hideous limbs shot back beneath the ice, only the great holes they had torn in the surface betraying that they had ever been there.
Einarr should have felt some measure of relief when they withdrew, but instead his impression of dread intensified. He shouted a warning as he saw the immense shadow of the kraken shooting towards them beneath the ice. The warband braced themselves as the trench shook once more and the kraken’s hideous limbs erupted through the ice. The monster’s blubbery flesh changed from scarlet to purple as its frustrated tendrils clawed at the ice. One of the tentacles whipped across Vallac’s back, shearing through his armour and nearly flaying the flesh from his body. The Kurgan roared in pain, trying to avenge his agony by skewering the offending limb with his sword. As he made to strike the tentacle, a second tendril snaked around his waist, lifting him from the ice. Vallac stabbed at the limb that had caught him, trying to force it to release him.
‘While it is busy with the Kurgan, we can flee.’ The witch’s voice had lost some of its panic, a cunning calm entering her tone.
Einarr spun on Urda, repulsed by the hag’s cowardice. ‘Use your sorcery, crone!’ he snarled. ‘Or by the Dark Gods, he will not be the only one to feed the kraken.’ Urda sneered at Einarr’s hostile words.
‘You are lost without me,’ she said. Einarr grabbed the witch’s throat, pulling her close.
‘If you would betray him, why shouldn’t you betray me?’ The question caused fear to return to Urda’s eyes. The witch nodded her head in submission, cringing back as Einarr released her.
Birna and Orgrim tried to attack the tentacle that held Vallac, slashing it with their blades. Einarr appreciated the infernal cunning that governed the kraken, as it continued to stretch its captive higher and higher, beyond the reach of his rescuers. At the same time, other tentacles swiped at Birna and Orgrim, trying to catch them within coils of scaly blubber. The kraken was using Vallac as bait to draw more prey within its reach. Einarr glared back at Urda.
The witch had poured her runestones into her hand. While Einarr watched, the stone eye set into her forehead began to glow. He could feel heat drifting from her rune-eye, a sensation so profound that he likened it to Zhardrach’s forge. The glow soon transferred from the stone in Urda’s forehead to one of those she held in her hand. The witch’s face contorted in agony as the blazing stone singed her flesh. Ghastly words slobbered from her withered lips as she clenched her fist. With a final shriek of unholy power, the hag hurled the blazing rock at the kraken.
The stone struck the tentacle holding Vallac, roaring as it exploded into a nimbus of flame. The ice shook as the behemoth beneath it shuddered. The tentacles lashing against the surface recoiled, whipping back down into their holes. The limb that had held Vallac shivered against the ice, its vitality slowly
ebbing. Where Urda’s runestone had struck it there was now only a twisted mess of charred blubber. Vallac struggled to free himself from the dead weight that was coiled around him, calling out to Birna and Orgrim to help him.
‘Collect your Kurgan,’ Urda wheezed as she collapsed against the ice, pressing her charred hand against the soothing cold. ‘It will not take the kraken long to forget its pain and remember its hunger. If we have not found sanctuary from it by then, its fury will kill us all.’
CHAPTER TEN
The warband scrambled across the ice, only too aware of the menacing shadow that followed them beneath the surface. For the better part of a day the kraken had pursued them. At first, Einarr had thought they could lose it by abandoning the ice road, emerging from the trench and scrambling across the frozen waves. But they were in the monster’s element and it would not be denied. The thicker ice of the Frozen Sea’s surface broke before the kraken’s tentacles as easily as the floor of the furrow had, the only difference being the inability of its intended prey to see its black bulk haunting them beneath the ice. Not without misgivings, Einarr ordered a return to the trench. He was under no delusion that they could lose the beast, but at least they would have better warning before it attacked. Besides, he was still convinced that the ice road led somewhere, somewhere with solid ground beneath it where they could take sanctuary from the kraken’s single-minded pursuit.
They were in sad shape. Vallac, battered and bleeding from his encounter with the kraken, kept an only slightly better pace than the aged and feeble Urda. Thognathog had to carry Zhardrach draped over his massive shoulder, the dwarf still insensible after being flung through the air by the monster’s assault. The ogre himself had fallen into a brooding silence, punctuated by the fitful rumbling of his gut. Einarr imagined that the ogre carried the dwarf for no reason beyond a quick snack as soon as the kraken lost interest in them. Orgrim was a jumble of nerves, leaping at shadows, his already feral mind further disordered from being hunted by something he could neither see nor smell. Einarr feared that the time might not be long in coming before the berserker’s thin grip on sanity snapped completely and he turned on his comrades. Whenever he locked eyes with Orgrim, they were yellow and bestial with little reason shining behind them. There was no mistaking the unnatural sharpness of his teeth now, nor the lengthening of his fingers into savage claws.