by Warhammer
Ice started to re-form at the very edges of the hole, rapidly expanding to consume all of the water that remained. The liquid froze solid all around the kraken, even as it struggled to free itself. The great beak snapped and slobbered at the ice, trying to crush it within its powerful jaws, but the enchantment would not be so easily overcome. Every sliver of ice the kraken broke free clung to its body, freezing against its scaly flesh. The water that rushed up from the depths to replace the ice froze in turn. Soon the kraken was encased in a solid field far stronger than that which had claimed the ship. The monster’s tentacles continued to flail at the ice, but with every passing moment, the beast’s exertions became weaker. The vibrant colours on its hide faded into a wretched grey and its eyes clouded over with a film of frost.
A booming war cry bellowed from Thognathog’s mighty frame. The huge ogre leaped down from the cliff, his massive hands closed around one of the bronze harpoons from the ship. Like a boulder smashing down the side of a mountain, the immense ogre crashed into the trapped kraken, digging the harpoon deep into its clammy flesh. Thognathog howled again, ripping the spear free and slamming it once more into the imprisoned beast. Purple ichor exploded from the wounds, coating the ogre in greasy ink, but still he stabbed at the beast.
Again and again, Thognathog plunged his weapon into the kraken, rupturing organs with each strike. From the cliff above, his comrades cheered him on, even Zhardrach enjoying the destruction the ogre was visiting upon their terrible foe. Only when there was no life left in the behemoth did Thognathog relent, stabbing the harpoon one last time into the kraken’s bulk. He lifted his heads, grinning back at the cheering humans.
‘Before you climb back up here,’ Einarr called down to him, ‘see about cutting some meat off that brute. After trying so hard to make a meal of us, it is only fair we fatten ourselves on it.’
‘Are you sure kraken meat is safe?’ Vallac asked, a nervous timbre in his voice. Einarr considered the question for a moment.
‘Make certain the dwarf gets the first taste,’ he answered. ‘If he doesn’t dry up and die, then we’ll know its safe to eat.’ Vallac chuckled at the Norscan’s response. Einarr shared the Kurgan’s humour, fuelling his laughter with the relief that overcoming the kraken had brought. He turned, seeing the others sharing in the joy of simply being alive after such an ordeal. Then his eyes settled on Urda, crouched in the shadow of a frozen wave, her cloak drawn tight around her. As he saw the witch, his own merriment died. Grimly, he marched to where the hag was huddled.
‘Well done, hag,’ Einarr told Urda. Whatever reply the witch might have made was lost to her chattering teeth. Einarr smiled at the old woman’s discomfort. ‘Perhaps next time you will have sense enough not to doubt me. Or at least make sure I am dead before you leave me behind.’ He did not wait for her to make a response, directing his attention instead to his other companions.
‘The beast is dead, but we still have a long way to go before this frozen hell is behind us,’ he told them. ‘The sooner we start moving, the sooner we shall put solid earth beneath our toes again.’
After their experience with the kraken, the promise of standing on real ground again was all Einarr’s warband needed to motivate them.
The battle with the kraken was many days behind them before the craggy cliffs on the eastern boundary of the Frozen Sea loomed upon the horizon. There was little cheer as Einarr’s warband laid eyes upon the imposing landscape. It towered hundreds of feet above the surface of the sea, every inch of it looking jagged and lethal. There was no sign of any break in the immense wall of rock and ice, it looked as regular as the wall of a titan’s castle, and as imposing. After weeks of hardship and privation on the ice, with nothing but seal meat and ice crabs to sustain them, nothing but snow to drink and little more than good intentions to shelter them from the biting cold, the mere sight of the cliffs was like a physical blow to them.
Einarr paced among them, growling orders, forcing them to move on. It was not that he did not appreciate their despair, he felt the enormity of what lay before them as keenly as anyone, but he knew that if they stopped, if they let the cliffs overcome them, then they would all die upon the ice.
‘Orgrim, you have the sharpest eyes, see if you can’t find the best approach.’ Einarr could see that the renegade wasn’t particularly hopeful as he loped off across the frozen waves, but he didn’t much care. Lifted by hope or crushed by despair, they would conquer the cliffs.
‘I’m not climbing that,’ Urda stated, slumping down in the snow. ‘And you are mad to even try.’
Einarr stared down at the crone. To be truthful, he was surprised the hag had lasted this far, he was amazed she was still breathing, much less able to walk on her own feet. Whatever force drove her on, it was powerful.
‘Mad or no, we will climb them,’ Einarr said, clenching his fist. The witch shook her head.
‘Not if the gods gave me back forty of my winters could I climb that,’ she swore. ‘Besides, there is my hand to consider.’ Urda held the hand that had been charred in the fight with the kraken out to Einarr, reminding him of the change that had come over it. The breath of the gods had washed over them constantly as they crawled across the Frozen Sea. All of them sported some degree of change to their bodies, from tufts of hair where no hair had been to patches of feathers and fur. Zhardrach had developed a set of tiny fingers sprouting from his neck while Birna’s nails had lengthened and hardened until they resembled the talons of a bird. In Urda’s case, her injured hand had calcified, changing into something that was more stone than flesh. The fingers of her hand had fused into a crab-like claw of stone. Looking at it, he agreed that it was useless for climbing the cliff’s craggy face.
‘Thognathog will carry you then,’ Einarr told her. ‘I’ll not leave you behind.’
‘Your concern touches me,’ Urda said. Einarr laughed.
‘It is not you that concerns me, it is your magic,’ he said. ‘A witch will be most useful dealing with the sorcerer Skoroth.’
It was Urda’s turn to laugh, her wheezing cackle knifing its way through Einarr’s ears. ‘Skoroth is the Plague Lord, the scion of Neiglen,’ she said. ‘One of the mightiest vassals of the Plague God. You vastly overestimate my abilities. Setting me against him would be like setting a rat against a tiger.’
‘The tiger may have the power, old woman,’ Einarr said, ‘but that rat has deceit on her side.’
Urda looked past the warrior, staring at the imposing heights of the cliffs. ‘Just now, the rat would be content to have a pair of wings.’
The climb was every bit as difficult as they had expected. Einarr had Thognathog undo Zhardrach’s chains, using the dwarf’s manacles to tether himself and his companions. If one of them lost their grip, the chain would bind him to the others, arresting his fall. It was an old Norse trick used when climbing their own inhospitable mountains. Einarr had seen the tactic save many an unfortunate climber from plummeting down the side of a mountain. He hoped the trick would serve him well here. Orgrim and Birna were Norse, like himself, and no strangers to climbing up the ragged side of a cliff. He was less certain about Zhardrach and Vallac, especially since the Kurgan seemed to have taken sick after they left the ship, his body wracked by a cough and his throat swollen to a grotesque degree.
Thognathog carried Urda, lashing the witch’s protesting frame to his shoulder. The immense ogre had to climb without the security of the chain – his huge body would pull everyone attached to him into the abyss if he lost his grip. Einarr felt that Tchar had guided his steps so far, but he wasn’t about to blindly trust the trickster god.
Long hours they climbed, their hands torn by the icy rocks, their bodies nearly frozen by the wind that howled down upon them from the heights. Twice Zhardrach lost his grip, the dwarf tumbling down the cliff face until the length of the chain arrested his fall. Despite his concerns, Vallac proved an apt, if slow climber. With something more solid than a broken mainmast beneath him, the Kurgan seemed le
ss timid in his movements. With his three arms, Thognathog easily outdistanced even the Norse, crawling up the rocks like some mammoth spider. If the ogre found the passage an easy one, his passenger did not. Urda’s thin shrieks of fright drifted down to them every time the wind slackened. The sound would interrupt the string of curses dripping from Zhardrach’s mouth as the dwarf chuckled at her discomfort.
Only a few hundred yards from the top, the wind finally died away. Just as they were beginning to appreciated the respite, Thognathog’s rumbling voices shouted down to Einarr. He could not make out the ogre’s words, but there was no mistaking the alarm in his tone. Einarr craned his head upward, shocked to see Thognathog clinging with one arm to the cliff, his other arms swatting at something with sapphire feathers and scarlet wings. Whatever it was squawked and hissed at the ogre even as it dove at him with splayed talons. While Einarr watched, a second bird crawled free from a little burrow gouged in the face of the cliff. He could see its beaked face stare up at Thognathog, then twist downward and fix its beady eyes on him. The bird dove from its hole, spreading two sets of wings as it plummeted down towards him. Behind it, other birds were emerging from their own holes.
Einarr called out to his comrades and wrapped some of the slack in the chain around a small outcropping, hoping that it would help anchor him a bit more firmly. He could see Birna trying to brace her body against the sides of a small fissure while unslinging her bow. Zhardrach hurled a few particularly colourful oaths into the wind and tried to crush himself behind a jagged fang of rock. Vallac simply pressed himself even closer to the cliff face, trying to tighten his grip on the rock. Above him, Einarr could see Orgrim planting his feet on a small ledge and dragging his axe from his belt.
Then the burrow-hawks were among them, a shrieking mass of sapphire feathers and razor talons. The first closed upon Orgrim, swirling about him in a scratching, clawing riot of lashing wings and snapping beaks. The berserker swung his axe through the swarm, cracking the wing of one hawk and sending it crashing down the side of the cliff. More than this, Einarr did not have time to see, for another pair of hawks dove towards him.
The first of the hawks buried its talons in Einarr’s cloak, scrabbling at the heavy bear pelt to gain its footing. The other dove for his face, smacking its sharp beak against his helm. Sparks danced through Einarr’s vision as the bird pounded against his head, trying to penetrate it and puncture his skull. The warrior stabbed up at the bird with his sword, sending it squawking back into the air. The second hawk, its talons buried in his cloak, stabbed its beak into his shoulder. Einarr rolled with the blow, twisting his body and crushing the bird against the side of the cliff. The broken, tattered hawk flopped against him, its bleeding wreckage trembling as life oozed from it, its talons locked within the fur of his cloak.
Einarr had no time to free himself of the dying bird’s weight. Already the first hawk returned, shrieking its rage as it hurtled down at him. This time it brought three of its fellows to help it overcome the Norscan. Einarr roared up at the hawk, daring it to do its worst.
The air was suddenly filled with a sharp, stringent cry, the shriek of some bird of prey. Yet there was something more about the sound than the cry of a mere beast. Somehow, Einarr thought he could detect Birna’s voice within the sound and he thought again of the ravens and the beastman camp.
The burrow-hawks hesitated, beating their blue wings against the air. Einarr could see now that they were hideously twisted in shape and form, beyond their extra sets of wings. None of the birds were alike, each displaying the touch of the gods upon its abhorrent form. One had a grotesque wattle beneath its throat, another had the long, sinuous head of a serpent and a third had sharp thorns growing from its legs. The sight of the severe mutations gave Einarr pause. Against a natural beast, he did not question his courage and his strength, but against things that had been so thoroughly reshaped by the gods he doubted his own abilities.
The hawks did not hesitate long, but gave voice to an ear-shattering clamour of squawking and shrieking. It seemed to Einarr almost as if the things were laughing. The din was silenced when a black-feathered arrow sprouted from the breast of one hawk and the misshapen animal plummeted from the sky. Einarr shifted his gaze, observing Birna nocking another arrow. Then the hawks were on him once more.
Einarr slashed and hacked at the flying predators as they pecked and clawed at him, but was unable to strike the vile birds, successful only in warding off the worst of their attentions. Clinging to the side of the cliff, he was barely able to move while the hawks had complete freedom. It was hardly a fair struggle.
Blood rained down on Einarr’s head and he saw another burrow-hawk fall from the sky, this one with Orgrim’s axe buried in it. A moment later a savage howl split the air. Einarr saw Orgrim hurtle past him, the berserker’s hairy hands locked around the torn mass of a hawk. Einarr braced himself as the chain was pulled tight by Orgrim’s weight. With the chain taut, it was all Einarr could do to breathe, much less fend off the hawks. Once again, he felt sharp claws sink into the fur cloak covering his back.
Beneath him, other burrow-hawks dove for Vallac, deciding that the prey higher up was proving deadlier than they liked. One of the birds tore into the Kurgan’s back, sending bright rivulets of blood flashing through the air. Vallac howled in pain, tightening his hold on the cliff as he felt the hawk try to pull him away. He twisted his head around, locking eyes with the burrow-hawk’s. He opened his mouth and breathed full into the bird’s face. His bloated throat collapsed as a fiery cloud engulfed the hawk. The thing shrieked as it pulled away, but already its feathers were alight. Like a firebrand, the burning bird toppled down the side of the cliff.
The attack faltered as the stench of burning hawk drifted upwards. Birna called out again with her bird voice, and this time the hawks found no amusement in her call. Squawking in fright, they shot upwards, scrambling back into their burrows. Einarr wiped the blood from his face as he saw the last of them vanish into their holes. Then he looked down to where Orgrim dangled from his chain. Straining, Einarr began to pull the berserker back up the cliff. From the side of his eye, he could see Vallac climbing up to help him.
‘It seems you have learned new tricks,’ Einarr called out to him.
‘Flesh is but the clay of Tchar,’ the Kurgan called back.
‘Be thankful Tchar decided to bless you,’ Birna shouted from her refuge. Einarr could see that she too had not avoided the attentions of the hawks. Her raiment was tattered from their claws and her frosty hair was dark with blood from a gash in her scalp. ‘The filthy things were too wilful to obey me. But like any beast, they fear flame.’
‘What did you say to them before they flew off?’ Einarr asked.
‘I told them we would burn them all, bring fire to their nests and smash their eggs.’
Einarr smiled grimly and shook his head. ‘I wish we had time to do that. Remind me on the way back.’
The short climb after the attack of the burrow-hawks was harder than the drudgery that had preceded it. Torn and bleeding from the talons of the birds, Einarr could feel his strength draining away every time he stretched his hand and pulled his body upward. But he knew that there would be no rest until he reached the top. If he hesitated now, he would be lost and with him Asta and all of Vinnskor. He would not allow that.
Straining, drawing on reserves of strength he didn’t know he had, Einarr finally reached the top. He collapsed on the jagged edge of the cliff, unable even to help his comrades as they finished their own tortuous climbs. Birna crashed down into the snow beside him, too exhausted even to roll onto her back. Einarr mustered the strength to roll her onto her side so that her face wasn’t buried in the snow, then collapsed again. He was dimly aware of Orgrim and Vallac slumping against the rocks somewhere to his left. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as Zhardrach pulled himself over the edge. The dwarf was flushed, his features crimson behind his coiled beard, but Einarr could tell from the way he was breathing th
at he was in much better shape than the rest of them. He shouldn’t have been surprised. The endurance of the dwarfs was renowned, and there was no reason to think the fire dwarfs were any different.
A murderous gleam flickered in Zhardrach’s cruel eyes and he began to wrap the chain around his hands and creep towards Einarr. He tried to move but every muscle in his body tensed in protest. Zhardrach smiled as he took note of Einarr’s infirmity. Helpless was a condition he preferred his enemies to be in.
The dwarf roared in protest as he was suddenly plucked from the ground. Thognathog’s enormous hands crushed the dwarf’s arms to his sides. The ogre’s hideous faces glared at the squirming captive, ignoring the furious curses streaming from his mouth.
‘Thognathog, stop that racket,’ Einarr swore. ‘Some of us are trying to sleep.’ The ogre nodded his left head while grinning maliciously at Zhardrach. With his third hand he smacked the dwarf’s head. A fresh stream of obscenities exploded from his mouth as he recoiled from the blow. Thognathog scowled and struck him again. With the third blow, Zhardrach’s eyes rolled back in his head and the dwarf slumped unconscious in the ogre’s fist.
‘Thank you,’ Einarr said. ‘Make sure he’s wearing his bracelets again before he wakes up,’ he added. The ogre nodded his understanding and began gathering the chains from the humans sprawled across the snow.
‘Wake us up before we freeze to death,’ Einarr told Thognathog, every word an effort for his weary mind to conceive, ‘and not a moment sooner.’
Einarr awoke to Thognathog’s none-too-gentle shoving. His body protested this fresh abuse, but any reprimand he might have made was silenced by the warm glow of the fire the ogre had built. Einarr leaned into the warmth, every cut and bruise in his body forgotten in the simple pleasure of feeling the chill driven from his flesh. As Thognathog stirred the others, they did likewise, Vallac drawing so near to the flames that Einarr thought the Kurgan himself would catch fire.