Hammerhold Tales: Thrallborn (10 page)

He tried to think of what the gnolls had done to him. He thought of the men and women pinned to the farm's wall. He thought of the long march from Mistveil. He thought of Hilmr's cruelty in not allowing him to stand during the march. He felt the anger rising. He thought of the stinging lashes from Hilmr's whip. He thought of the taunting jeers from his captors. The rage was filling his chest. He stepped out into the corridor. Three arrows flew at him like angry hornets. One grazed his face, one bit into his thigh and the other passed harmlessly. The rage was struck down by pain and fear. Sawain's resolve began crumbling.

No, no. Focus. Focus your pain into rage. Hate them. Kill them.

“KILL THEM!”

Sawain's roar bounced back into his ears several times, emboldening him each time. The gnolls, who were reloading their bows for another barrage were stunned momentarily. The rage overcame Sawain. His eyes filled with crimson and a reserve of hidden strength caused his legs to carry him farther and faster than ever. By the time the gnolls had taken aim again, he was halfway across the room.

He flung both of his hammers with such force that the archer who received them misfired and crumpled to the ground. He drew his striking hammer mid bound. Two more arrows were released. Sawain did not feel their bites. He was upon the next gnoll. His hammer came down on its skull, splitting it clean in two. Gray matter and blood splattered Sawain's face, fueling his rage further. He turned to face the last gnoll. He was already before Sawain, mace in hand.

Sawain felt the blow of the heavy iron ball against his face. It nearly knocked him senseless. He was on his back. The red was fading. The gnoll stood over him, bow in hand again. It was sneering. its yellow eyes mocked him. It knocked an arrow and drew the bow back. its ugly voice rang in Sawain's ears.

“You should have stuck to playing hero with your friends, boy.”

That voice.

Sawain's eyes focused and the rage flowed through him again, erupting like a great mountain of fire. It exploded in a furious roar. Hilmr loosed his arrow. It buried itself into Sawain's chest, just below his sternum. The roar faded, so did the rage. His eyes filled with darkness. All he could see were those eyes. Those evil yellow eyes, glaring at him. Hilmr made a parting insult, spat on Sawain, and departed. The cold took over. His body went numb.

“I'm not through with you, yet, my son.”

Sawain opened his eyes. He was cold, stiff, but not dead. He sat up. It was a painful experience. He had arrows in his leg, arms, and chest. He had lost a lot of blood, but he was not dead yet.

How is this possible?

“Arise my son, and wash yourself.”

Sawain did as he was told. He willed himself to rise to his feet. It was not easy. He had no strength left. He was barely able to walk. He staggered to the dais and climbed upon it with much effort. He looked into the basin. It was filled with dirty water. It was cloudy and muddy. Black slime floated on the surface.

I can't wash in this. I need to clean it first. But how?

He looked around for a solution. He noticed a mural on the far wall of what looked like a glowing, radiant warlord. Other warriors bowed around him, offering him crimson stained swords. He saw the bodies of the dead gnolls laying on the ground and had an idea. He struggled over to one of the corpses. He drew the gnoll's sword from its scabbard and plunged it into the fallen foe. When he drew it out again, it was covered in the gnoll's blood. He dragged himself back to the pool. It was much harder this time. He was nearly ready to just give up.

Somehow, he found enough strength to lift himself upon the dais again. He extended the bloody blade over the water. He didn't know why he thought this would do anything, something just told him he should. He dropped the sword into the water.

When it splashed into the basin, the water immediately began to boil violently. A moment of this passed and the water settled. The sword was gone and the water was clear and clean. Sawain smiled as everything began to grow dim again.

“I accept the offering you have presented me, my son. Now, bathe in the water, made clean by the blood of your enemies.”

Sawain could only smile and close his eyes as he fell face first into the purifying pool. The water enveloped him. He was free floating. He opened his eyes and all the could see was a light in the darkness. His chest tightened. He needed air. He was about to drown. He swam toward the light. It grew brighter and brighter, but he was running out of breath.

He could not take any more. He let out his breath in a muffled scream and took in lungfuls of water. He was surprised when the rushing water turned to air in his chest. The light surrounded him and blinded him. He closed his eyes until it faded. When he opened them, he was standing in a glorious throne room.

The walls were made of ivory and the rafters were made of living lightning. The walls were adorned with an array of marvelous arms and armor unlike anything Sawain had ever seen before. Their metal shone like the sun. Their workings were perfect. The hall was carpeted with a deep blue fabric. The hall rose at the far end. On the raised platform stood a gleaming golden throne with decorative reliefs of storm clouds and streaks of lightning. The lightning bolts were actually moving. To the left of the throne sat an anvil, as black as a storm cloud. To the right sat a forge that glowed with electric brilliance.

On the throne itself sat a man of grandiose proportions. He was twice as large as any man. He was wearing armor that shone with a brilliance like pure light. Sawain could not make out its intricate details because it hurt his eyes to look straight at it. A helmet of like fashion adorned his brow. He gripped a large silvery great sword in his left hand, resting its tip on the floor of his pedestal. The man was incredibly muscle-bound, with not an ounce of fat visible. His shoulder length hair and long, curly beard shone like the morning sun. His eyes were a bright electric blue. Sawain's knees grew weak in his presence and he had no choice but to kneel before him.

The man smiled and lifted his right hand, motioning for Sawain to rise.

“Stand, my son. Now is not the time for falling to your knees. A mighty battle awaits you. Do you know who I am?”

“You are Turin, god of tempests and master of the Sturmforge.”

Sawain was surprised that he knew this. Axel had never told him anything about the gods. He had been told that no one knew the gods' names anymore.

Turin nodded, his eyes shining like stars, “Good, you are starting to remember. You remember my name, but do you remember yours?”

Sawain opened his mouth to reply, but nothing came out.

What IS my name, again? I can't remember.

Turin's demeanor sank again, “No, it seems as if you do not. Do not worry, my son, for you will remember it in time. For now, we will call you Sawain. Sawain, ill omens are brewing in the skies. None remain of mortal kin that can read them, but I can. The stars tell of a long-dead god's stirrings. His name is forgotten even to me. If he was to awaken, all would remember his name. This must not be allowed to happen, but the gods are disconnected from Hammerhold now. He will destroy your world and plunge it into the shadow of undeath. My brethren would dissuade me from caring. They would tell me to let the mortals perish. That it would serve them right for their betrayal. I cannot do this, though. I know your kind can be redeemed. That is where you come in, my son.”

“Me? How can I redeem mortal-kind? I'm just a thrallborn. I'm not a hero.”

Turin shook his head slowly, “No, you are not a hero, not yet, but you have the qualities needed to become so much more.”

Sawain did not understand, “But, Lord Turin, I was killed at the hands of my enemy. How does that make me a worthy hero?”

Turin smiled again, “You died trying to save a people that did not even know your name. You died to save the lives of those who would hate and scorn you.”

Sawain felt ashamed, “No, my Lord, I died for selfish reasons. I wanted to prove I was just as good a hero as my mentor. I am not worthy.”

Turin grinned broadly, rising from his seat. “You speak honestly, but I see a deeper truth, my son. Now, go. You will become my champion. You will become a hero, but you will still have to earn the title. If you still want it, seek out my standing stones, my son. It is there that you will find the path to your destiny. You are a fated soul, you will do great things, but be warned, the path you take will cost you greatly.”

Sawain's eyes opened. He was lying int the basin of water in the chamber where he fought the gnolls. Half a dozen arrows were floating in the water around him. He checked his body for wounds. His clothes were tattered, but his body was whole.

Was that a dream? Did I really just meet a god or did I make it all up? What about this water? How am I not dead? Hilmr!

Sawain clambered out of the basin, sopping wet, legs still shaky. There was no sign of Hilmr. Sawain did not know if he was long gone or if he was lying in wait somewhere, ready to finish the job he started. Sawain began searching the room for his weapons. It did not take him long to find them. During his search, he noticed a piece of parchment on one of the bedrolls. He looked it over, out of curiosity. He was surprised to find it was written in common. The letters were tidy and well formed.

Hilmr,

I am pleased to hear that your ploy with the stones worked. While you are busy killing the Segrammir's men, our forces will move from the south and tear the hold in half. The Grey King rewards his followers handsomely, old friend. You will always have a haven of rest in Jordborg.

~X

Sawain read it two more times to be sure of what he was reading. Jordborg had drawn an alliance with the gnolls. Not just any gnolls, but with Hilmr's clan. The anger that fueled Sawain churned in his belly again as he folded the paper and put it in his satchel.

t was time to go meet the Segrammir.

Chapter Nine

Sawain rummaged through the cargo the gnolls had brought into the temple. Most of it was rancid meat and weapons, mostly rusty daggers and swords. He decided to pull the leather breastplate off of one of the fallen gnolls that looked roughly his size. It was damp, spattered with blood, and smelled awful, but it offered him more protection than the coat alone did, so he put it on. He wore the coat over the leather armor. He was disappointed in the gnollish haul. It looked more like they were setting up a war camp than a raider's hideout.

A campfire was smoldering on the stone floor in the center of the room. He realized he was wet and that going out into the cold like that could kill him again, so he used some of the crates to rekindle the fire and sat down by the blaze to rest a bit. He closed his eyes and fell asleep again. He awoke with a start. It felt as if he only closed his eyes and drifted off for a moment, but when he looked around, all that was left of his fire was ashes. He was dry, though.

He left the main chamber and felt his way through the dark corridors of the sunken temple until he managed to find the entrance again. Sunlight poured into the antechamber from outside. Sawain stood in the room, squinting until his vision adapted to the sudden change in light. He climbed to the doorway, feeling the cold wind on his face. The frigid wave of air revived his spirit further and awoke in him his desire for adventure. He poked his head outside to make sure the coast was clear.

There was no sign of the gnolls, no trace of Hilmr. The hills sounded peaceful enough, with the occasional bird song flitting through the open sky. The sun was well into its progress across its domain, sinking towards the west. Sawain would not be able to get far before the gnoll hunting packs would be active again. He could not stay in the temple either, since Hilmr was likely to return with a larger posse to finish whatever work Sawain had interrupted. He also noted the ominous black clouds moving in from the north. The temperatures were dropping since he delved into the temple, and it was beginning to freeze.

Sawain broke from his shelter within the temple and plunged into the thorny wood he first emerged from, following his path backwards from the night before. Once he was back in the briar thicket, he tried to work out the path he took before encountering the gnolls, with little success. He wandered for hours in the wood, running into countless dead ends of briar thickets so large, he would be torn to shreds if he had tried to break through them. It grew darker and darker with each frustrating delay. Finally, just as darkness was setting in, whether by divine providence or sheer luck, Sawain found the Alfhaven Road.

The stars began their nightly dance in the heavens as Sawain cut hard westward, back to Anvilheim. He had urgent news of betrayal to deliver to the Segrammir before it was too late. The cold winter night air was sharper than even the blades that had torn at his flesh the night before. It filled his lungs with air heavy as lead and scored them with a thousand icy stabs. His hands and feet were numb from the night frost. He could hear the already frozen ground crunching beneath his boots. He had to press on through the searing pain inside and outside of his body.

The clouds he noted before stole over the starry sky within the hour, whipping up frigid bursts of wind that chilled Sawain to his core. He began to worry about the possibility of snow. If it snowed, he wondered if he could handle it, equipped as he was. Hammerhold winters, even in the Fells, could bring hard freezes that would turn all but the best prepared into icy corpses. His other concern came in the form of how easily he could be tracked, leaving footprints in the snow.

The first flurries of the storm stung his face as he struggled up a large hill that lead into the valley of Vigils, where Fort Vigilant stood as a dedicated sentinel over the borderlands east of Anvilheim. When he made it to the top of the hill and looked down into the valley, a chill filled him from head to toe that had nothing to do with winter's presence.

The entire valley was full of campfires and tents. It looked as if the stars had fallen from the black sky and embedded themselves in the valley itself. This sight filled Sawain's vision. He could not see a single spot westward of his vantage point that was not occupied by a fire or tent. Countless figures writhed among them, some small, some very large. The light thrown off from the fires scrambled Sawain's night vision, making it hard for him to make out details, especially from this distance. The next thing he noticed struck him with a deeper horror.

A large black plume of smoke arose from Fort Vigilant. The gates were splintered, their remains burning in bonfires around the outer wall. A great fissure was visible in the fort. It split the eastern wall, leaving a jagged gap in the defenses and ran from there to the southwest corner, where the turret tower holding up that convergence of the walls lay in complete ruin. The fort was torn asunder.

Sawain had only ever seen the fall of Mistveil Farm. He witnessed the burning and the pillaging the gnolls were capable of, but this was something altogether different. Fort Vigilant was the size of a small town. Axel once told him that it was home to a thousand loyal soldiers of Anvilheim. It had survived centuries of giant assaults from the north and gnoll raids from the south and, as its name implied, stayed ever vigilant, according to his history lessons from Syd. To see it in ruin, torn apart as if it was made of sticks and straw, scared Sawain greatly. He slowly realized that this army at his feet was responsible for the slaughter. He also realized that he was completely cut off from Anvilheim.

He remembered what the note he found had said about cutting through Anvilheim. His assumptions led him astray. It was not the city itself that was the target of Jordborg's ambition, but the entire hold. He also began to wonder if Jordborg really had anything to do with this at all, or if there was a greater evil at work. Syd and Axel never mentioned a Grey King. Either way, he could not make it to Anvilheim. He was cut off from his friends and from anyone he could trust. He did not know how far south this army stretched and did not want to risk being anywhere near them when it came time to rest. There was no way he could survive in the Frostwylde, either, so his only option was to go east and seek out aid from Alfhaven.

Axel once told him that the elves of Alfhaven were strict practitioners of isolation. They did not want any dealings with the other holds and did not want other holds encroaching on their business. He was not confident that Alfhaven would ride to Anvilheim's aid, but he had to try. At least he might find shelter there, being half elf. He set off eastward towards the forest.

The snow began to fall harder, quickly dusting the dirt road with a brilliant white sheet. Sawain looked back and saw dark footprints in the road behind that led straight to him. He decided it would be a bad idea to stay on the road, so he cut southeast, leaving the clean cut trail and keeping to the forest of rocks that perforated the landscape of the Fells.

An hour passed and hunger pains began to gnaw at Sawain's stomach. He had not eaten since he left the city. He had been able to ignore it up til now. He needed to find something to eat, but he was not particularly well suited for hunting with only his hammers at his side. He found a tall rock outcrop and crouched close against the lee side of the makeshift shelter. He searched his pack for anything useful and found the loaf of bread he brought with him. It was flattened, stale, and frozen, but food was food. He bit ravenously at it, trying to break loose a piece to eat. It was stubborn. It also tasted faintly of blood. He tried to ignore this as he chewed vehemently at the loaf. A minute passed before Sawain was able to loosen a piece of the frozen bread and chew it properly. He worked vigorously at the meal until he had finished it. This was by no means a filling meal. Sawain was still hungry, but at least he could tolerate it again.

If any other teenager playing hero was out here in this snowstorm, on a near empty stomach, they would probably not make it through the night. Sawain was different from any of those children on the streets of Anvilheim. When it got cold, they had a place to run to to stay warm, even the urchins. His childhood knew no warmth. He slept on a cold earthen floor in the slave quarters with nothing to keep him warm but an overused animal hide. He was used to bitter cold winter nights like this. He knew how to use the snow as a natural barrier against the biting wind. In the slave quarters, they would pack snow into the windows and door cracks to keep the frostbite at bay.

Sawain used this trick on a different scale. As the snow continued to build up, and quickly so, Sawain kept shoveling it with his hands, keeping a small spot behind the rock clear. He also gathered snow from nearby to build up his little barrier faster. Within an hour, he had a three foot tall wall of snow all around him in a four foot diameter. Weariness was overtaking him at this point. He tried to curve his walls inward to make a sort of roof, but did not have much luck with it. Instead, he burrowed into the far wall for a few feet, resting only to keep his hands from succumbing to frost bite.

Snow began to fill his little hole as he curled up as tightly as possible in his makeshift snow shelter. He used one of the arrows he kept from the temple to drill a hole to the surface of the snow that he could use to keep fresh air flowing into his snow cocoon and then wrapped himself up as much as possible in his leather jacket, covering his face as well as possible.

He was cold, he was exhausted, he was hungry, and his hands were on the verge of frostbite, but he was alive, and most importantly, hidden as the blizzard filled up the rest of his hole. He felt at ease and safe, regardless of the fact that he was in poor condition. He turned his thoughts to Hilmr and the massive army that destroyed Fort Vigilant. Rage filled his heart as he thought of all the brave men and women that were slaughtered so viciously as they defended their homeland. He thought of the families torn asunder by this act of war. The rage that built up inside of him burned hotter than any fire he could have made. It was this burning fury that kept Sawain warm as he fell into a troubled sleep that night.

Sawain was standing on the peak of a great mountain, staring down at the world below him. He could see glistening white tundra at his feet that eventually turned into rolling green hills and valleys dotted with many rocks and farms. To his right, he saw a majestic mountain range that separated the hills from a vast desert and to his left, he saw a lush green forest that stretched as far as he could see in that direction.

It was all so beautiful and peaceful. That was when he noticed a black spot at his feet. He did not notice it before, but now, it spilled out from the foot of the mountain like black blood. The oozing puddle slowly spread out into the snowy plains, tainting everything it touched. It soon spilled out on the grassy hills, killing whatever it touched and growing in momentum. It spread from the plains to the sea and into the mountains as well, but Sawain noticed something. While the rest of the world was dying, the forest was holding the darkness at bay. Darkness spilled over the land, covering everything with an unrelenting night. Sawain then noticed a few points of light that pierced the darkness. Many of them were dim, but one shone out brightly. This light came from the forest that was holding off the shadows.

This light shot out from the forest edge and cut through the darkness. Wherever it went, the darkness parted. It connected with four other points of light at the center of the land and then shot straight for Sawain. The light filled his spirit. He could feel the great mountain crumbling beneath his feet.

Sawain's eyes opened in darkness. It was cold. He was unable to move his arms. He kicked with his legs, breaking the loose snow that encased him. After several minutes of struggling, he was able to break free of his icy shelter. The morning sun shone brilliantly on the white sheet of snow that covered the Fells, only broken by the larger rock formations. There was at least three feet of snow on the ground. Sawain was not sure how he was going to travel when the snow was as deep as it was now.

Sawain's shelter had kept him alive throughout the night, but now he was wet and it was well below freezing outside. His hands were already suffering and he could feel the warmth draining from him quickly. He knew that he had little other choice but to keep moving and hope he could find better shelter soon.

He pulled himself up on the snow and took his first step. He was surprised to find that the snow had actually more compacted and was solid enough to hold his weight. He carefully moved across it. His feet sank a few inches, but the snow continued to hold him well enough to make progress. The going was slower than the day before, but at least he was going.

Hunger and cold continued to wrack his body. He was really struggling as the deep chill of winter bit into his soaked clothes. His arms and legs moved slower and he could feel his body giving in to hypothermia. He couldn't allow this to be the end. He had to press on. He had to fulfill his vendetta and he had to save Anvilheim. His fury at the thought of dying now kindled a fire in his heart that tried to fight back the frost. It did so for a while, but as the day went on, Sawain grew hungrier and colder. He was climbing a particularly large hill when that flame flickered out.

He just couldn't take it anymore. He was too cold. Too tired.

I'll just sit down at the top of this hill. I'll take a short nap.

When he got to the top of the hill, all he could see was more hills and rocks in every direction. He still was nowhere near the forest. He felt hope slip away just as his feet slipped out from under him.