Mark of the Witchwyrm

by Steve Van Samson

  A choked sound pulled all attention to the serpentine horror bounding toward them. Its mouth was open, full of teeth and a very human sort of hate.

  "Kro?!" Belmorn turned the name into a complex question.

  "It's alright. Just don't move," came an edged whisper only loud enough for them to hear. "Not a goddamned hair, do you hear me?"

  Sprinting on two legs with heavy, clawed strides, the witchwyrm closed the gap via the shortest distance between two points. Not around the camp but across it. It stomped by the green mass at the center as if it were just another tree. With fangs out and ready, the thing lunged.

  Rivka had already buried her head in the black fur of Belmorn's cloak. She didn't see the unlikely series of events that followed.

  The head struck out, then elastically snapped back. Confused, the witch tugged on its snared back leg, but could get no closer to the hated prey. When the pulling failed, it coughed up a protesting bark and turned to investigate.

  The thorn-laden creepers of the abominable vampire rose were tightening their grip. Sliding up that dragonish leg, scoring the scaled flesh as they went. The beast whipped its tail, thrashing neck and head from side to side. Jaws clicked and snapped. Even the forearms lashed out. But for all its primal rage and desperation, the witch had no power to free itself.

  Already, one leg was almost completely covered. The coils tightened, constricting the appendage like a boa around a deer. More heavy ropes fell to strangle the beast's second leg, while still others knotted around the tail, gathering just below the meat of the hooked scorpion-barb, binding it.

  Green eyes bulged. The creature who had inspired terror for so long was finally introduced to the concept. And so it was that in the ruined camp of Mannis Morgrig, a new sound was born. A single voice composed of many--high and piercing and horrible. For the first time in her entire life... the dreaded witch of the Veld was screaming.

  11 - 5

  "The tail!" shouted Kro without restraint. "Belmorn... while the rose has her, we have to sever the barb! Without it she can't vanish!"

  Belmorn understood and pulled out his axes. Then he turned back to the girl with a fearsome tone. "Don't move."

  Still clenching her dagger, Rivka nodded and offered no argument.

  The blackfoot dropped from his saddle and shot forward. His fists gripped the leather-wrapped handles but loosely--spinning them so the blades were pointed out. He took in the scene: Two towering nightmares, locked in mortal combat. Studying every detail of the witchwyrm and this bigger, uglier cousin of the rose that had once held fast a stranger called Tenebrus Kro. Before him were horrors, to be sure. But as he took them in, he smiled.

  River or no river... horrors were a blackfoot's stock and trade.

  "The vines!" Kro warned. "We have to cut some away to get at the tail. Just be careful! Don't want to end up like them." He nodded toward the man-sized pods that had been arranged around the central bloom.

  Belmorn frowned. His instincts were screaming. Demanding that he do as his father had taught him so many decades earlier. The way of the blackfoot was to hunt--not with bow or spear, but with one's entire body. To leap aback creatures, fist full of roped harpoons in one hand and a Graelian axe in the other. How many eels had he ridden? How many harpoons had he hammered in so that his fellows on the other end of the ropes might haul the day's catch onto shore?

  As Belmorn reached the tail, he could see how fast this new and improved rose did its work. The back legs and scorpion barb were already close to mummified, but the witch was far from beaten. Front legs tore at the green mass that was the rose's body--spattering the camp with shreds of wet plant matter. As a large greenish blob hit Belmorn in the shoulder, he knew there was no telling which of the titans would be victorious. Kro was right, they had to act now. Had to sever the witch's connection to wherever she kept vanishing off to.

  With two leaping strides the blackfoot launched himself forward. His twin axes were already swinging, already slicing the air and when they came down, a thick section of vines offered little resistance.

  The Maldaavan blade moved in a coppery blur, severing its fair share of the unnatural plant. As Kro swung his weapon, righteous indignation flowed through his body. The mutated abomination was his creation. The smoke and the seeds, the gland and the oils inside--the oil of the size-shifter. The strange eyeless seal which was, somehow, also that serpent-necked beast the skalds had named Jörmungandr--the world serpent.

  WHIMM!! WHUMM!!

  The red blade flashed twice more, singing as it flew.

  Air and salt. Water and flame. The alchemist's creed returned. All that planning... for nothing. How could it have gone so wrong, so fast?

  All of this could have been avoided. If only he'd been more careful when first approaching the rose. If only he'd brought a torch or better, a sword.

  THUKK!!

  An axe snapped another vine, finally exposing some of the witch's tail. The monsters struggled barely ten feet away. Belmorn looked up. The thorny ropes knotted and wound so tightly around the tail, the barb looked like it was suffocating.

  As if it were turning purple.

  The blackfoot lifted his axe and poured every ounce of strength he had left into a single perfect strike. But when the axe blade reached the tail, it bounced back--deflected as if by the clash of steel!

  Rattled to his core, Belmorn stared. The tail was intact--unblemished. He couldn't believe it. His jaw opened and closed, but no words came.

  "Belmorn."

  Hearing his name made the blackfoot turn.

  "Move."

  The attack swung mere inches from Belmorn's face, moving in a coppery blur. He looked at the exposed section of tail. To the very spot that had refused his own strike so utterly. Kro's red sword had done what his axe could not. The tail had not been severed but by Rinh, it was bleeding.

  Lashing with one of its front legs, the witch screeched and lunged forward. Its tail, weighted by the still-clinging vines, swung wild, smashing into a tree and sending a shower of splinters down on the men.

  The eyes of Tenebrus Kro contained nothing beyond that gleaming barb, if perhaps the tiniest glint of madness.

  "The tail!" he bellowed. "Belmorn! Cut it off! Now!"

  Belmorn raised his axe, but it was too late. In a series of loud SNAPS, vine after vine gave way to the might of the silver and black nightmare. The two men backed away, realizing their folly. Too many vines had been cut away. The tail was no longer being strangled.

  The head of the witchwyrm swung round fixing on the men with one bulging, hate-filled eye. That eye began to glow with a fiendish, ember-green light. Then, the beast vanished.

  Heavy vines, no longer supported, fell and crashed to the ground.

  "No!" Shouted Kro. "No-o-o-o!"

  Seconds later, the beast reappeared on the far edge of the camp. With a cough of rage, it tried to stand, but fell flat. After a second attempt brought it close enough to upright, the beast heaved itself forward, scourging the ground with massive talons.

  It turned to face the two men who had been the cause of all. The beast stared, seething with slitted eyes. There was nothing between it and them.

  The witchwyrm took a step forward, teetering. Then it reeled back and coughed up a single bark that pounded the skin of the two men. Belmorn and Kro looked to the horses. They would never reach their mounts before the witch reached them. And the girl, the look on her face--volumes could be written on the true nature of terror and never fully capture that look. Belmorn's heart split down the center at the sight of it. After all they had done... to fail her like this.

  The witch stopped its noise. It was ready. The chase was over. The game's final move, spent. Belmorn had managed to catch Rivka's gaze and he meant to hold it.

  Look at me, girl. He thought with all his might. Only at me.

  The arrow came from out of nowhere. From behind the men, arcing over their heads and down to stick in the witch's neck. Before the thing knew what happen
ed, before even the pain had a chance to reach its brain, more speeding shafts appeared.

  As if in a dream, Belmorn felt himself turning for an explanation. Everything unfolded in a strange, slower than usual motion. A garrison of armored men charged through the trees behind him, bows, swords, and pistols in hand. All weapons pointed directly at the horrible reptilian thing.

  Before such odds, the witch shrank. Taking a step back, its eyes began to glow again. The edges of its silhouette rushed to meet at the center, and in the blink of an eye, the thing was gone.

  Arrows plunged into the earth where their target had stood only moments before.

  A loud unseen crash resounded from somewhere nearby. This was followed by shrieks and snapping, cracking branches. The sounds were moving away. Barreling clumsily through the trees, spitting unrestrained fury, the witch was retreating.

  Belmorn's only response to this was to gape and stare as a rider appeared from behind.

  The man's pale armor was more ornate than the rest. From his shoulders a pitch-dark cape draped down, flapping gently on one side. The garment was a stark contrast to man's crop of wild white-blond hair. Briefly, the rider turned to the two dumbstruck men on the ground and fixed them with a glare the color of ice.

  Belmorn looked at the girl in his saddle. She was frightened, roughly twenty paces away and there wasn't a thing he could do to reach her. Admonished or not, the Roonik guard had them dead to rights. No amount of boiling outrage was going to change that. For now, all he could do was be still and keep squeezing those axe handles.

  From high on his saddle, Henric Galttauer nodded in the direction of the writhing plant monster.

  "Oil. Torches. Burn me that ugly thing to the fucking ground."

  Belmorn watched as three of the Roonik Guards responded by producing bottles of dark liquid. These crashed upon the base of the towering plant--shattering on impact. Beautiful, terrible, the rose seemed to know what was coming. Petals slowly closed, while the man-shaped pods were pulled closer to the center. As he saw this unfold, Belmorn could not decide if the damned thing looked afraid or just unwilling to share.

  Next came the torchbearers. In unison, five flaming batons were hurled--flying end over end like hand axes. The oil went up instantly and in dramatic fashion. Burning in a great roar of hot air and sound that pressed against the surrounding faces.

  Belmorn, Kro, the girl on the giant horse, the men-at-arms, and their commanding officer, all stood in silence. Neither as enemies or allies, but as strangers in a crowd--with less regard for each other than for the spectacle before them.

  The mutated rose burned, just as the good captain had commanded. Right to the fucking ground.

  PART TWELVE

  WITCH BLOOD

  12 - 1

  Rivka sat, frozen. Just watching, waiting. The violence of the scene had been replaced by a quiet, smoldering tension. Though surrounded, she was alone--a very small girl in a very large saddle.

  Rander and Mr. Kro were on the ground--between her and a small garrison of soldiers. The Roonik men had appeared out of nowhere and much to her surprise, had driven off the monster. The witch.

  The girl's eyes shifted from man to man as flames of the still burning rose creature danced upon her face and the curved blade in her hand. Rivka recognized the captain right away. He had passed her many times on the cobbles--once or twice even giving her a bit of something to eat.

  "Tenebrus Kro." The captain glared down from the perch of his jet-black stallion. He had said the name as if it were the answer to some great and confounding riddle.

  "Captain," Kro fired back without looking. "Finally found the knob to your front door, I see. What the hell are you doing here?"

  Imperfect silence stretched in the campsite. For over a minute, the only sounds were the wind and the rustling of nervous hooves. Rivka didn't like this. She wished Rander was with her again. Wanted nothing more than to disappear into the black fur of his cloak.

  "What should have been done a long time ago." The captain sneered.

  "We are tracking someone. A villain. We weren't far when we heard... I don't know what it was. Shrieking." The captain was looking at Mr. Kro again. "Fortunately for you, we followed it here."

  Kro waved this off. "Oh please, Henric. I had everything under control."

  The captain's mouth curled into a smirk. "That thing there." He nodded at the burning mass of plant matter. "Your doing, I presume?"

  "Hardly the most noteworthy of my sins, but yes." Kro clenched his jaw and released a weary sigh. "Figured I'd capitalize on a bit of bad fortune. Pit monster against monster and hope for the best. Believe it or not, it turned out alright... until the end there. Now if you don't mind, my friends and I have work left to do."

  Galttauer looked to the man with the high collar--sparing careful regard for the strange axes he held.

  "Friends, you say?" The captain raised an eyebrow, donned the beginnings of a wry smirk. "Thought you'd already killed all of those."

  Furious, Kro lunged. And while Belmorn's arm stopped him from going far, it was too late. Rivka's ears were filled with a flurry of metallic sounds and the zipping whisks of arrows being pulled. Before she could exhale, the tip of the weapon had already settled upon their new target.

  "Hold!" the captain's voice clapped like thunder. His cold eyes moved over his men in a slow, glaring sweep. "If an arrow flies, it will be that man's post. Clear?"

  "Aye, Sir," the guards barked in chorus.

  "Henric. Listen to me. We can end this right now." Kro's words fired like lead balls from a pistol. "You saw it. The witch is on the run! For the first time in its life, that bitch is afraid." He held out his red blade, allowing light to glisten off the yellow drops that had yet to be absorbed. "And better... she's bleeding."

  Galttauer inclined his head and widened his eyes at the foreign weapon. "The color of the metal." Genuine awe touched his voice. "A Maldaavan blade? Is it possible?"

  "I spent half my life traveling this world. You really think I'd have nothing to show for it?" Kro hissed through clenched teeth.

  "I've heard stories of such weapons, but never seen one." Galttauer's eyes darted from the sword to the spot where the witch had crashed through the trees. "They say that wounds opened with Maldaavan steel are immortal things."

  "Not quite. But let's just say that the cut on her tail is not going to be healing soon." A lopsided grin grew on Kro's face. "Don't you get it? We can track her now. But I smell a storm in the air. If fresh snow falls it could cover up the drops, which is why we must move fast. Unless of course you'd rather haul us back to Roon and give her plenty of time to heal and return to full strength. Then, who knows? Maybe she'll finally sniff out your precious shield city and the tasty treats inside before another seven years has a chance to pass."

  "Kro." Belmorn dropped his collar, exposing his face to the cold air as well as too many untrusting eyes. "That's enough."

  "Enough? Enough?!" Kro seemed at a loss. His fury was plain. He wanted to scream. To force the man in the black cape to confront all that his own cowardice had wrought. Kro's chestnut mare. His priceless, irreplaceable ingredients. A precious plan that had taken only moments to go up in smoke. And worst of all... the Pershten.

  What had become of Bror and all the troll mothers and young ones after the blasts of Morgrig's infernal horn had summoned the monster straight to their hiding place? To the only sanctuary they had left?

  None of it would have happened, if only the good Captain had done his duty, and kept the woods clear of scurrying things. Vermin. Rats that fancied themselves, wolves.

  By the Gods, Tenebrus Kro wanted to scream all this and more--to spit his frustrations, right in the face of Henric Galttauer.

  For a moment, the captain was quiet.

  "Sir." The whisper came from one of the guards. "That's him. The one who escaped us. There stands the Red Wolf."

  Slowly, Galttauer's eyes moved to the other man. The tall one with the axes.
/>   Feeling like a painting on display, Belmorn's frown deepened. Part of him yearned for this to be the end. At least then he could go out swinging at the smug son of a bitch who had thrown him in a cell and paraded him through a humiliating, farcical trial.

  Suddenly Belmorn's mind snapped back. Once again he was on Magnus' back racing away from her. She--the Hispidian witchyrm. Wind whipped at his face as he galloped toward the group of bandits he had heard so much about. Mannis Morgrig--finally he had a face for the name that had been hung around his neck like so much rotting albatross.

  "Mannis Morgrig is dead." Asserted Kro. "I encountered him and his merry band the other day though we didn't part on good terms. Seems he didn't like my gardening." He gestured to the smoldering remains of the enormous rose creature. "He took what men he had left and tracked me and my companions. Caught up to us near the moat. That was when the witch found us. The idiot brought her down on our heads... with this."

  Kro tossed the blowing horn which the captain caught.

  "The Red Wolf has vanished, Henric. Just like so many others. Though we managed to pilfer his howl."

  Listening, Galttauer turned the horn over in his hands, spotting a small depiction of a wolf. It had been carved rather crudely into the side and painted red. When he spoke again it was in a flat, matter of fact sort of way that left no room for questions.

  "I am afraid you are mistaken, Guardsman. It seems Morgrig is no longer our problem."

  "Aye, Sir," barked Guardsman Schmidt, straightening his back as an echoing wail cut the tension.

  The sound was tragic, mournful--made by something in pain. Hearing it inspired no sympathy in Belmorn, but plenty of the opposite. His eyes went to a splatter of yellow green blood on the snow ahead. The result of Kro's final strike.