The Beast of the North (43 page)

‘You manipulated a child, but I suppose that is accurate,’ I spat. ‘You stole a baby from his family because you wanted to kill his father. You waited and crafted your spells and cast your web over an innocent, surrounded him with a fake family, pushed him over to hate his own, then struck when both Father and I were vulnerable. You did it for the throne. And here you are. But it is over now.’

‘My quest is over,’ he said softly. ‘Mir made me a draugr lord, and I obey her. I was offered a lifetime of crafting wondrous things, but I am tired. What would be greater than Larkgrin, ever? I was driven to seek the seat of the king. So often, I saw him sitting here, dealing with Red Midgard, and I admit it, I envied him. And his queen. I was but the keeper of the secrets, an official of no name and no admirers. I wanted the seat. And now I have sat there. It was nothing. The dead watched me; I ordered them to bow, and they did, and I felt nothing. I am bored. Tired. And hate my family. They were always unkind, quarrelsome, conniving and scheming bitches. Save for Ann. She was so sad, all the time. I am happy she got out. And now it is over.’

‘You failed in taking Dagnar,’ I told him, prodding him with my sword. ‘Utterly. And I will stop Mir from taking our army to fight the northerners. Mir will not benefit from your madness. No matter what you are planning, you will fail. I’ll stop the pretender king.’

‘The king?’ he chuckled. ‘I suppose you guess Crec will lose the army.’

I spat. ‘They won’t get into battle. I’ll stop them. And the weather will not kill the army before I warn them. They are hardy men, no matter if it is winter,’ I spat. ‘Crec will never come back here. Everyone has seen what you are. The armies will mutiny when I get to them, and I will make sure Ygrin knows what—’

‘Die,’ he laughed dryly. ‘The armies will disappear. Ygrin won't kill our men. Neither will winter. For the High King is out there.’

‘What?’ I asked him, trying to understand what he was saying. ‘The High King?’

‘Yes, the High King Balic,’ he confirmed. ‘The Hammer Legions are coming. At least thirty thousand veterans. Six to seven legions. Almost half the troops of the Verdant Lands. They will land in Red Midgard, and they will rip our armies apart one by one. Crec and Mir will make sure they won’t fail. And as for Dagnar?’ He laughed. ‘We have it. But we really want more.’

‘What do you want, you undead filth?’ I asked.

‘Didn’t you ask Lith?’ he growled.

‘Yes,’ I grimaced. ‘She lied, of course.’

He smiled sadly. ‘Lith’s rebellion. Like she always wanted what Shaduril had, she wants what her mother and father have. There is something else hidden in those tunnels below the city. And when you kill me, she will lead them. She will rule the city. Though there will not be a city left.’

A drum rolled.

It was a dull sound, odd and ominous and disquieting blasts of a blaring horn; an ululating, disconcerting, strange sound that chilled all who heard it into silence, followed it.

‘What is that?’

‘I was supposed to rule Dagnar,’ he said ruefully. ‘Lith will. She is a One Eyed Priest, Maskan. We all are. We all serve the High King. That mask? It’s the mask of a southern priest.’

‘The High King?’ I asked him. ‘Does he know what you are?’

‘Mir is the draugr queen,’ he laughed dryly. ‘He, the High King is the draugr king. I lost my wife to him the night we died. They planned this together across the continents. You don’t understand, Maskan. Blacktowers do not want to rule this land. We want to destroy it. And we do so at the command of the king. The High King. He seeks to topple the one subject of his that could lead a rebellion. Magic using Jotuns. Later he will destroy everyone one by one.’

‘You bastards. What was that blare?’ I asked him as the sword pricked his face. ‘The troops that have not yet shown their faces?’

‘That is an army. Not all the legions will land in the north. We smuggled some here, little by little, and after the Old City was cleared, it was an ideal place to hide them. That gauntlet,’ he nodded at the fabulous armor, ‘will give you spells and powers to fight the army that is descending from Valkai’s dungeon, but it wont last. I was to oversee the destruction. Lith wants the honor. She is making a bid for me and Mir in his eyes.’ I heard commotion far down. I walked next to Balan and looked down to the city.

It was in a fire.

The army Mir had created of the dead was a paltry joke in comparison to the Hammer Legion raging all across Dagnar. They were emerging from the recesses of the Old City. They climbed all over the place, free to reign terror now that the Danegells were truly gone, and the army had marched out. They were the men I had seen changing in the months leading up to the Yule feast. There were foreign black and red standards marching in the haze of the harbor, the Fourth Ring, the Third Ring and even the Second Ring. The gates had fallen, and I saw pockets of Mad Watch running about, fighting as they did, dying as Hammers of the High King struck at them ferociously. They were powerful, and savage men in black, wide helmets and long chain mail and cuirasses, their shins and arms covered in leather. They howled in their shield walls, crushed all resistance, pounced on the mortally surprised populace, and marched forward. Always up the hill. They were taking the rest of the gates, the harbor, but thousands were streaming through the streets for the Temple.

‘It is useless, Maskan. There are nearly four thousand of them. You never saw but a few of them. Fly away; find a new life for yourself. Your relatives are gone,’ he said as he saw me looking down and followed my gaze. There down at the Tower’s gate, Valkai’s men had taken it. A man, a draugr was leaning on its side, hurt and battered, his face gone. Taram. Sand was there, next to confused looking Illastria. And Lith was there as well. Balan snorted. ‘Just do not trust the dead. I see you hurt Taram? And gave him to Lith? She wants him as well. Cannot let go. Now she truly has him!’

‘I will not trust anyone ever again,’ I told him coldly.

He sighed. ‘Yes, you will. Now, Lith will rule for a while. They will tell Mir I died in battle as you attacked us, but she hopes to take as much power for herself as possible. She will blame it all on you if the High King or Mir might ask why I died. They will get power as the dead only really care about the results. Lies are in our nature.’ He chuckled sadly. ‘You made a mistake, again.’

I grasped his neck and bent his face down to the gate. There, some two to three hundred Mad Watch soldiers stood by my horse in front of the Tower. They were likely the only band of organized soldiers available to the city. They faced the four hundred enemy undead, survivors of Balan and the men who had served our cause. Valkai was growling, and they thickened into a column at the gateway, determined to hold it. And they would. I saw Lith gesturing at my poor friend Sand, ordering him to step away to help Taram and to guide Illastria to her, and he did, though reluctantly. The Mad Watch looked on, shuddering with indecision. ‘Look below.’

‘Hah,’ Balan said. ‘Less than three hundred soldiers? What good will that do? Is that Sand? Your last relative. So to speak.’ He squinted.

‘That is Sand,’ I told him.

‘Lith’s now.’ He chuckled. ‘I could go down there and order them to step down. Will you spare me if I do? It won’t matter due to the Legions, but perhaps you want to see Lith executed before you die?’

I watched as the Blacktower men chanted in a thick column of bristling shields and spears, some of the dead anxiously looking back towards the Sun Court. I saw the Hammer Legion marching resolutely through the gates of the First Ring, slaying men and women, even children as they went, streaming right and left, the majority, several thousand coming from the Temple. ‘Sand is not family. He is a friend. My best friend. But I do have a family. A sister.’

‘Are you mad?’ he asked softly, eyeing me with undead intensity.

‘She is my family,’ I pointed at the warhorse. ‘I did not trust Lith. And as for your offer? No, thank you. I don’t need or trust you. I’ll do my own executing.’

‘What? A horse?’

‘That down there is the one who you called the Black Brother. But it is not a brother at all, but a sister.’

The horse changed, and a giant emerged. The saddle fell to the bloody ground, broken. It was she, a sister, the Black Sister, in fact. She was an ice Jotun like I was; one of the great warriors in the lost armies of Hel’s war, the last Jotun in Midgard, in addition to me, of course. I looked at her gleaming, tall armor; the dverg-made magical armor of a giant; a tall spear, as tall as the gates. She laughed so harshly it rang in our ears. The giantess’s name was Balissa Danegell, and she had answered the call of my gauntlet, enraged, and alone out in the mountains. None had been suspicious when I demanded to be seated on the beast in the Tenginell stables that I claimed was known to be Black Brother’s. The deception had to be perfect, and the dead love such perfect deceptions, and they never doubted they had been fooled. It had been perfect, for me.

Valkai stared at her in shocked anger, hissing at Lith. Taram disappeared into the shadows, and Sand pulled Illastria out of the gate and far from the bristling band of undead blocking it. Lith pointed her spear at Balissa, shaking her head, giving commands. I felt Balissa draw in an enormous amount of power, weave and fold the icy winds and frigid ice of our homelands, and then she blew the enemy a kiss as she released the spell. And then she quickly cast something after, which was a scorching hot wind.

It was a powerful, terrible combination of spells.

A horrific gust of wind whipped through the enemy ranks. It was a spell like mine, but it was her specialty. The cold wind tore off gobble stones, grass, mortar from the walls. Then it hit the thickly packed enemy troop. It froze some; the following scorching hot wind burned others, and the mix of two opposite powers was not unlike a hammer blow on a roach. Bones broke; faces froze, flattened, necks were severed, limbs ripped off, and what remained, burned. Hundreds of spears rattled together as a significant chunk of the enemy column practically flew out of the gates, frozen and burning. Balissa tottered, near exhausted, and then walked forward to kick at the remaining, dazed enemy who were running, fearless undead or not. She picked up stragglers and smashed them, brutally speared some, and finally casually closed the gates. She looked up and frowned.

I waved at her, and she nodded back at me, stiffly. She blamed me for the loss of my father and our brothers. But I was all she had.

Balan gawked at the gate. Balissa was yelling at the Mad Watch to man the gates and the walls. They were dead scared of her, but most ran to obey. ‘Doesn’t matter. It is hopeless! There are thousands of the enemies. The Mad Watch is scattered all over the place. The Temple and the town will fall! You had best fly away!’

‘Here,’ I told him. ‘Give me all your toys.’

‘All my toys?’ he asked, confused.

‘Toys,’ I told him and searched him. In the end, I had all I wanted.

‘What will you do?’ he asked, curious.

I leaned on him. ‘The Temple. There is something very special down there. I know. Father told me. Many wondrous artifacts. A throne, I hear. The real throne of Morag.’

‘Oh no,’ he breathed. ‘The book was always a bit vague about that place. Apparently, they made their home there during the Hel’s War and …’ he began, and I saw he was curious to know more. I could see it from his excited eyes. He had developed goals for himself, ones he could not ignore.

‘But you won’t see it,’ I told him flatly, and I saw I had broken his cold heart.

I picked him up and tossed him far, far from the wall, where he splattered on the wall of a blue mansion. I saw Lith supporting Taram outside the gates, limping away, and I made a throat cutting motion to them both. Sand was keeping Illastria safe. That was the only thing I had asked of him. That did not break his oath to Lith. And he was doing it.

The drum boomed. The first of the southern enemy soldiers were in sight, and there was a brief scuffle at the gate as Lith struggled to explain they were allies. Soon, there would be a thousand Hammer Legionnaires gathered before the gate. And more.

I looked down to the yard. To the left, the remains of the old temple were nestled, sad, and forgotten. Weeds were growing amidst the stones, and carvings were faded in the surface of the rocks. There once stood the gateway to one of the other worlds, perhaps Asgaard. And below it, the home Hel’s armies had carved in the stone lands of Dagnar, thousands of years past.

‘They had better be there still,’ I whispered and ran down the stairs. There I found an old lady and ordered a Mad Watch member to take her up. After that, I walked out and to the walls.

B
alissa sighed as I climbed to the wall. I held Bjornag’s two-hander, my hand on sheeted Tear Drinker and I stared at the massively tall female, whose helmet was under her armpit. She had bright blue eyes, the blue tinted skin of a Jotun, and a superior, noble bearing of an arrogant bastard. Her eyebrows were lively; her face lean as ice and her mouth had a perpetual pout. Her tall spear glinted as she pointed out to the Sun Square. Wind ruffled her red-blonde hair that was thick around her shoulders

I saw an army of dark-armored men; all hefting round, embossed shields of gray and black make; spears, javelins and heavy hammers, their helmets very wide, the rims reaching to their shoulders. Most had chain mail draped across their mouths. ‘That will be uncomfortable when the air freezes,’ Balissa said, observing the armor over the lips of the enemy. ‘Steel and ice and sweaty skin. Perhaps they can piss on each other’s faces to remove the frozen chain.’ I chuckled dutifully, but in truth, they were too many. They stood in blocks of nearly five hundred men, and there were four such blocks. Some three hundred undead soldiers formed their own block. This was the Bull Legion, judging by the horned beast in the black and red standards. They might slaughter us with ease, I thought. Balissa spat at them. ‘You know we are buggered, right?’

‘I know,’ I growled at her.

‘Because of you,’ she whispered. ‘Your inability to tell truly evil from good.’

‘I don’t know what to tell you, Balissa,’ I told her tiredly. ‘I trusted my family, the people around me and never knew the truth. Shut up and tell me how to win this battle.’

She eyed the enemy, the shaken Mad Watch and remained silent. ‘You know how.’ She eyed the gauntlet with fear and wonder.

‘If I open the vaults,’ I told her, ‘what will happen?’

She sighed. ‘It might go very ill for Dagnar. It will change things. It might save us.’

‘How?’

‘You are the Beast of the North.’ She chuckled. ‘No matter if you do or do not open the vault, Dagnar will change; the humans will suffer, and the north will shake to its foundations, but perhaps something good will grow out of it if you do open it? Do not, and the dead will rule. You might bring us all something different, very, very different, if you open it up. The dead? They won’t give us mercy. You have to remember …’ she said and cursed as the army before us rippled in anticipation; a great drum began to bang, and an officer wearing a blue cape appeared. Then I saw Lith, in a conical garment, walking for the man and pulling on a golden, horned helmet. ‘One Eyed Priest,’ she said with a pouty grin. ‘It means Hel’s Priest, for her eye is lost, and hence are the worlds shattered from each other.’

‘You were saying?’ I asked her.

‘I was saying,’ she told me, ‘that you are a Jotun. You are of the Ymirblood, a Toe of a Giant, a Jotun of Nifleheim, scion of Jotunheimr and foe to gods and their creations. Men are not our friends. Magor felt responsible for them, some of our kin agreed, but in the end, we are not friends or kin. They will turn on us.’

‘I have a hard time thinking they would choose those dead over a Jotun,’ I told her, eyeing the enemy officer walking forward.

‘They will choose us,’ she affirmed. ‘But abandon us when we have done their filthy work. Should you decide to save our asses and open our former base, their lives will change. Some will die. There will be more conflict in the world. The High King will face stiff resistance, but it will break all of Midgard. But at least many will survive. Death will come either way, but some will live if you go there and succeed.’

‘How?’ I asked.

‘You will see,’ she said softly. ‘The general the gods sent here is formidable. Might be a prisoner now, but if freed, it will change men’s perceptions and allegiances for good.’ She chortled, shaking her head, and I began to get irritated. She slapped the wall. ‘But if you do not, they are sure to die. What is down there can possibly spare them, but there will be conflict later.’

I shrugged and wiped my hand across my face. ‘I was a human. Still am, partly. I say we spare most of them. And take risks.’

‘Some of them, I think. Not most. And no, you are not a human at all, you damned fool,’ she hissed. ‘We live amongst them, for here we were royals and lacked nothing. We do not love them.’

‘Magor felt responsible for them,’ I told her. ‘You just said so.’

‘Magor was a great king,’ she agreed, ‘but he would never choose his slaves over his own people. And his true allies. But free them and it, Maskan, and let us not worry about Dagnar and the north. The old ways will be gone. Midgard will change.’

‘You cannot tell me anything? What is down there, exactly?’ I asked her again.

She shook her head. ‘Something we once surrendered to. But Magor tricked it and sealed it in there with the Black Grip, your gauntlet. It was the base of war in Hel’s War on worlds. Remember. Whatever happens to humans, as a result, we have nothing in common with them. You are responsible to your people. Me. And those we locked in there.’

‘I will—’

‘You? On the wall!’ yelled an imperious voice with a strange, clipped accent. The officer.

‘They want you, my king,’ Balissa chuckled. ‘Look kingly.’

‘You lost?’ I yelled down at the officer, who wore a full, golden helm with a bull painted in the middle. ‘Dagnar has a king, and I cannot remember inviting you.’

‘Dagnar,’ the man said with a growl, ‘has a king indeed. Always did. Danegells are traitors, and the High King condemns you do die. You inhuman vermin.’

‘The whore,’ I laughed and nodded at Lith, ‘is no human.’

The officer glanced at Lith’s golden mask and the contingent of dead. ‘They are more. The god touches them. Our god. The High King, the one Lord over us all, is the true god of men. They are like him, his seed, and his kin and serve his will. Now. Fly away, I know you can. And you men!’ he yelled, and the Mad Watch stiffened. ‘You have our word you will be spared, should you throw down your weapons.’

I laughed hugely as the men on the wall eyed me. ‘Yes! Go down to them. Look at your city men! My father always guarded Dagnar, and never once burned it. Hear the screams of your women and children out there?’

The officer stiffened and spat. The Mad Watch remained quiet, pondering the words of their strange new lord and those of a savage conqueror. ‘Choose now,’ the officer yelled.

‘We are no longer Balic’s subjects, my lord! Not since he burns our homes,’ I yelled and was rewarded by a ragged, rumbling scream of the Mad Watch. They raised their swords and axes to the air; spears thrust up to the sky defiantly, and they laughed at death. They should have been enjoying the Yule feast. Instead, they would soak in blood. The two thousand Hammer Legionnaires banged their shields together, and the officer turned to confer with Lith.

‘So, they will come and dance,’ Balissa stated. ‘What now?’

‘Can we hurl them back?’ asked a timid Mad Watch captain. ‘We have only a few hundred men. Many died out there in the city and in the battle. And they destroyed the ballista.’ I looked at the mighty things. They were broken beyond repair.

‘The walls are not very tall,’ Balissa said. ‘They are more ceremonial than anything.’

‘We can lock the Tower, no?’ I asked and turned to look that way.

The doors had been hacked to pieces.

Balissa snorted. ‘Once they are open, they are like any door. Now they are useless. I say we fight them here and then retreat to the tower anyway. Easier to defend unless they bring siege. And they will, but not today, maybe. There is a store of food and arms there, I think, to last a good while. Unless they lost it as well.’

I nodded and looked at the wall. There were now some three hundred Mad Watch guardsmen on the walls, barely enough to man it. The gate was propped by slabs of stone, debris, and corpses and jabbed to the ground by spears and wedges.

I pulled the captain to me. ‘Give the orders. When the time comes, we retreat there.’ I nodded at the tower.

‘Can you …’ he began and stammered.

‘Use magic?’ I asked him. He nodded. ‘Yes, we can. But—’

‘It’s not enough,’ Balissa said darkly. ‘It would be sufficient if we had more Jotuns working for us. I’m exhausted already. So are you.’ She glanced at me as the captain went. ‘Go and change Midgard.’

‘The place was closed twenty years ago, Balissa,’ I told her. ‘Whatever is down there, they will be starved.’

‘They won’t,’ she said. ‘They are not Jotuns. Neither is the one we tricked. She will not need to eat often, and the others are quite ingenious.’

‘Woman? What are they?’ I asked.

‘Useful,’ she said. ‘Push them back!’ she screamed, and I realized the enemy had suddenly charged. Two thousand iron-studded and leather-shod feet trampled the ground; drums were banging madly behind the ranks and golden helmed officers screamed at their men to take the walls.

Balissa turned me. ‘Good luck. I will fight until it is hopeless. Then I shall flee if I can. Hope to see you again, numbskull, my king,’ she said with a small grin. I nodded at her, eyed the Temple dubiously, hoping to decide on a suitable course of action. I could not go yet. I had to do something first. I ran through the gatehouse, cursed the disabled siege ballista, the empty caltrop boxes and kicked at what had been arrow racks. They had done an excellent job in dismantling our defenses. I reached the other side of the wall, where men of the Mad Watch looked mesmerized as the enemy carried ladders for the wall. I grew in size to twelve feet and pointed my sword at the foes. The guard stepped back from me. ‘Those fight for the dead. Some of us shall die, but they have to come over the wall. They thought the Tower would be theirs already and have not prepared for this.’ I prayed that was true. ‘They were not expecting trouble. They would have slaughtered you where you slept. This is a gift to us. We shall fight like the mad, and mad you are, are you not?’ I asked them with a bellowing voice. They looked dubious and fingered their weapons nervously. Some nodded. Most of the Watch was gone. Scattered and dead. ‘Are you with me? Or shall your damned king fight alone?’

They hesitated. They had seen Balissa standing tall as a giant. They had seen me hurtle through the doors to the Tower as a Jotun. They had seen our powers. I saw the first legionnaires reach the wall.

‘Kill the sons of bitches,’ a Watch officer growled. ‘For Dagnar!’
Not for the king,
I thought, but it would do.

The enemy was not totally unprepared. They had ladders.

They went up. Then they crashed down, trembling, despite their sturdy make, for men were already scaling them. A throng of dark-armored enemies milled around the base of the wall; a dozen men were hammering at the gate, and there were a thousand men waiting a little ways from the Tower of Temple’s wall while the others made ready to break us. I heard Balissa scream a challenge, and then I felt air rippling with a spell and saw a blistering hot and freezing cold ice storm whip up in the middle of a pushing group of enemies. Flesh froze, others burned spectacularly, and men screamed and flew around. I knew Balisssa was tired and could not throw many such spells, and this had not been as strong as the first one. I noticed Lith dancing as she also was casting a spell, and a fiery spear grew from her hand. She threw it; it flew to smash against someone, and there it exploded. The rock broke, a crenellation fell on the legionnaires, and the Watch suffered injuries and no doubt deaths. Then she did it again at another spot, and the officer of the Hammers rode back and forth, eyeing all the efforts until he disappeared below and stood in front of the gate. A man screamed in the gatehouse, an apparent victim of a swift javelin or arrow. Lith ordered Valkai to lead men to the gate, men with heavy mauls. He did. Sand and some of the dead, who did not join the battle, guarded Illastria.

I turned to look at the ladder right in front of me. I heard steps and curses below and hazarded a glance over the rim. Arrow went by my face, but I saw a burly man clambering up. I grew large and thick, and his eyes went from madly brave to shocked as he saw the size of the enemy waiting for him, but up he came until I hacked down at him. His helmet split; his hauberk was rent, and he fell to take down the next man on the rungs. Another jumped up soon, grinning with terrified determination, and I roared as I kicked him far, a broken man. I leaned over to grab the ladder and spat as javelins rained around me, hitting my armor. I pulled the ladder up. There were men holding it up, and they came with it. I pulled it, dragged it over and squashed the men still clinging on. I reached for the last of them, a tall man trying to escape to the gatehouse and threw him in a high arch at the enemy ranks below. The Mad Watch cheered wildly, their voices tiny amidst the howls of the pressing enemy, and they truly began to fight. Spears waited for the enemy to appear over the ladder, and then men died. Many fell, a dozen. Dark, deadly javelins flew in swarms over the wall, striking sparks off the stone, a few impaling and wounding Watchmen.

‘Keep killing the motherless goats!’ I screamed and noticed something out of place. A chanting concentration of troops were marching for the middle part of our wall, two hundred grim men, pushing their milling companions aside. They were holding shields high, and I saw there were ladders, very tall ladders amongst the group. They were determined to take the wall, as determined as a starving thief, and then they acted. A hundred men lifted a dozen ladders up while some held onto them. The ladders were already full of men as the Hammer Legion lifted them high, grunting with the effort, and they landed high between two previously embattled ladders on the wall. It looked like a bridge, full of scuttling, armored beetles. The ladders crashed down on the wall. The impact shook some of the enemies off; others fell over to our side and the stone below. But many of the savage fighters jumped to the wall itself, amidst Mad Watch, who were suddenly fighting a desperate battle to repel the enemy. Several enemy linked shields in the middle of the turmoil, wielding heavy, deadly hammers at the less experienced guardsmen. A man fell, his face caved in. Another followed, his neck was broken as he tottered to the side. More men clambered up the ladder, holding theirs shields up, and some five Mad Watchmen were caught between the men on the wall and the legionnaires who were climbing. Two of my men fell in confusion; one ran away only to die as a javelin pierced his neck. Two more dropped their weapons and begged for mercy, but there was none to be had. A golden helmed officer jumped up to the wall, ten of his men braced themselves, and I acted.