Child Of Storms (Volume 1) (3 page)

Shivering, he pulled his dark red cloak closer, covering the golden amulet around his neck. The talisman was formed into the shape of a demonic dragon’s head with a large ruby in the center representing a single giant eye. The cloak itself was lined with thick ermine, but it was not enough to keep him sufficiently warm. The Northmen riding alongside him watched his discomfort with a mild amusement they did their best to hide. Their fear of the wizard outweighed their desire to laugh.

Faxon would never be mistaken for one of them. He was a strikingly thin man with hollow eyes, a long, protruding chin. He wore no facial hair and was also very small in stature, shorter than many of the women of Linlund. He was so delicately built it looked like the strong northern wind might blow him right out of the saddle at any moment. Faxon’s appearance was made stranger by his long blonde hair, so light it was almost the color of platinum gleaming in the sun. He looked like some bizarre, emaciated child, a freakish-looking little man. The men in Einar’s army had taken to calling him
Greagnagr
, “The Skeleton”.

No one dared use the name to his face, however. Faxon was both a wizard as well as a high priest of Amundágor, they knew all too well.  He was also a man of cruel disposition and no sense of humor. Shortly after he had first arrived a few months earlier to take command of Einar’s mercenaries, one of the berserker captains dared to publicly question his authority.
Shouting and gesturing wildly, the hairy Northman loomed over the scrawny wizard. Hundreds of soldiers were watching, many shouting and laughing.

The berserker captain shoved him roughly, and Faxon sprang forward like a coiled snake. He reached up and seized the barbarian by the throat and uttered a single magical word of power. Magical energy flowed from Faxon’s fingers into the berserker’s body, causing the man to twitch violently and gasp for air as glowing magical fire burned him up from the inside. He tried to strike out at Faxon, but was paralyzed. All he could do was writhe. Blue flames shot out from his ears and nose as Faxon watched the man’s eyes melting. It took thirty seconds of unspeakable agony for the man to die, Faxon giggling hysterically the whole time as the berserker howled like a cat being skinned alive. He let go of the man’s throat and let him fall to the ground. The body smoked and smoldered, gradually burning up into ashes over the next few hours. None dared question Faxon’s authority again, not even Einar.

              Faxon grinned in spite of the cold, looking over the battlefield with great pleasure. Hundreds of men lay dead or dying slow and painful deaths on the rock-hard ground, their groans and cries still filling the air like sweet music to Faxon’s ears. Scores of horses also lay scattered, a few still burning among the smoldering piles of corpses where his wizards had cast the fireballs. The lingering flames lit up the battlefield as the sun dipped below the horizon, billowing black smoke rising to the sky as the odor of burning flesh filled the air. He breathed it in deeply, savoring it like other men might take joy in inhaling the scent of lilacs.

All in all, Faxon was thoroughly satisfied with himself. He could not quite believe how perfectly the whole thing had come off. Thane Ravenbane had taken the bait, leading a ridiculously small force ten miles from his little base at Loc Goren into territory firmly under Faxon’s control. Once Agnar left Loc Goren it was an easy matter to surround the inexperienced fool and crush him like a bug, hundreds of horsemen looping around behind the imbecile’s position and laying in wait until the battle had been joined.

              One of the warriors rode up to Faxon and his entourage of warriors and acolytes. The wizard knew the hulking figure with the long black beard and the huge war hammer well. It was Hengist, the most competent of all the mercenary captains Faxon had assembled to fight under Einar’s banner.

             
“He lies dead over there, by the stream,” Hengist said, pointing back towards the center of the battlefield.

             
“I am told you slew him personally,” Faxon said.

             
“I did!” Hengist said, laughing and waving his hammer. “His skull caved right in!”

“Most satisfactory,” Faxon remarked. “Let us have a look.”

A thin layer of frost already covered the corpses in the evening twilight. It was a grisly scene, but a delight to as Faxon. Limbs and heads lay all around, the snow made filthy with both mud and blood. The victorious warriors crawled over the field, picking through the dead looking for anything of value. A few lucky men found rings or purses holding a few coins. Others claimed weapons or shields.

The body of Agnar Ravenbane lay by the side of the stream, his face down in the red snow. His helmet had fallen off, or been taken off, revealing long strands of thick blonde hair matted with blood and bits of bone and brain.

“The Lord Thane of The Westmark,” Faxon said wryly.

“He was,” Hengist said.

“Where is the sword?”

“There, next to him,” Hengist said, pointing to the blade. It still glowed a light blue. “You said not to touch it.”

“Give it to me,” Faxon said.

Hengist nodded, glancing towards a warrior standing nearby. The warrior bent over, picking up the sword. Stepping forward, he handed it up to Faxon. The wizard held it up, studying it. He could feel the magical energy pulsing through the blade and down into his arm.

“This goes to Einar,” he said.

“Why not keep the thing?” Hengist said, eying the glowing blade enviously. “Why should the fool have it?”

“First, I have no use for such a crude tool,” Faxon said. “Second, Einar will expect to receive the sword. Let the idiot think he runs things.”

Faxon paused, taking one last look at Agnar’s body and savoring the sight. There was no question it had been a magnificent day which would long be celebrated. Tonight Faxon would present Einar with the sword of Brame Ravenbane as a symbol of his ascension as uncontested ruler of The Westmark. With his cousin Agnar dead, Einar would be the sole claimant, the only remaining male Ravenbane. Or soon would be, at any rate.

“What do we do with him?” Hengist asked.

“
Chop his head off.” Faxon grinned coldly. “Then stick it on a post in the center of the river at Loc Goren after nightfall. That’ll give them all something to wake up to, I should think. Let Braemorgan and his little band of imbeciles have no illusions regarding their mighty thane’s survival.”

Two

             
The old soldier at the gate wasn’t bothered by the cold, which he considered a good thing given how cold it’d been of late. It had turned cold the last few days, helped by the unceasing wind blowing down from the north. The guardsman was of Linlundic stock, though, born and raised on the plains south of the Trackless Fens. Weather had little effect on his race of men. So he guarded the keep at Loc Goren without complaint, much as he had done for more than three decades.

The keep itself was nothing spectacular, little more than a round watchtower a few stories high, overlooking the river and the village. Its location atop the hill afforded clear views of the surrounding lands in all directions, however, and one could see most of them from the gate. To the north lay the small village of Loc Goren nestled along the banks of the frozen River Brügerwyn on a long island very close to the river’s edge. It was a modest place, several dozen stone buildings with steeply angled roofs now covered in snow.

To the west, across the river, lay the vast forests of The Westmark. It was three days since the Thane Agnar had gone to his doom in those forests, the old guard recalled. Now his traitorous cousin Einar controlled most of The Westmark and threatened to take over the rest. The only part of the Westmark which remained out of Einar’s control was the narrow strip between the Brügerwyn and the rocky, wild Clegr Hills to the east.

The guard turned his gaze south. The southern road, at least, might yet bring hope of victory even in these winter days when the sun barely rose at all.

              Even now, both sides of the southern road were blanketed by countless tents and ramshackle shanties for as far as the eye could see. The wizard Braemorgan had arrived the day before yesterday with fifteen hundred reinforcements who began at once setting up camp along either side of the narrow road. Along with what remained of Agnar’s men, they combined to form an army of three thousand. They settled right in, the wizard remaining inside the keep.

From the fortress Braemorgan could look out his window up on the top floor and see the many tents and the smoke from scores of campfires drifting gently up into the darkening winter sky. Frequently, the wizard’s face would appear at the window staring out either south at the army or sometimes looking out
over the river. Men would whisper quietly whenever he appeared, hoping the wizard would soon come up with some grand plan to stop Einar. With Agnar’s death many lost hope, however, and more than a few deserted, slipping away from Loc Goren quietly. Most, however, swore to fight under the banner of Agnar’s sister Morag.

             
The old soldier agreed was with the majority. He’d lived a long life, and served a noble family. He’d die before serving the usurping rat Einar. If he’d have to call any woman his thane, he’d have it be Morag Ravenbane. In her he saw a spark of something fierce. She had the heart of a she-wolf, that one, a true daughter of Grang.

From beyond the crowded tents came several horsemen along the road. The guard squinted, his eyesight not what it once was. It was still strong enough, however, to recognize the yellow-and-black patterns on the riders’ shields.

              He turned to the younger guard standing next to him.

“Send word to Braemorgan that Thane Ardabur’s here,” he snapped. “Then find Lady Morag and let her know, right away.”

_____

              Ardabur barely acknowledged the men camped along either side of the road. He rode past them quickly, returning their cheers and shouts with an absent-minded wave of his arm. He took note of their condition, though. They may have seemed in good spirits, but they looked tired, cold, and too few.

Ardabur had ridden hard the entire day to make it to Loc Goren as quickly as he could, and was in no joyous mood. As he guided his horse up the path to the keep, he brooded on the circumstances of his visit. It’d probably take at least five thousand men to retake The Westmark, and it looked they were going to be at least a thousand short even when Ardabur’s own men arrived the next day. Armies could always be raised, Ardabur knew, given enough gold and a powerful thane to lead them. The gold could be raised, in time, but what was really needed was the right man to lead the coming fight. He had to be experienced and battle-hardened, the type of man whom warriors would gladly follow.

He’d just the right candidate in mind.

______

             
The wizard Braemorgan was an exceedingly strange-looking figure. He always left an indelible impression on whomever he happened to meet, and over the decades and centuries that was many persons. First off, he was exceptionally tall. He was also thin, which for some reason made him look even taller. He wore no beard nor any facial hair whatsoever, his chin as smooth as a young woman’s. His face was not a young person’s and yet not an old man’s, either. Rather, it had an ageless quality which was hard to define. He had long, stark white hair that fell down past his shoulders.

What was oddest about Braemorgan appearance, however, was not his height or his hair or his strange ageless face with no beard. Rather, it was his eyes. They were large, expressive, and frequently filled with a penetrating clarity that looked like it could tear right through any veil of modesty or spot any deception.

Each was the complete opposite of the other. His left eye was the palest gray imaginable, almost silvery white. His right eye, on the other hand, had a pupil of absolute black. The contrast between the two was disconcerting, enough to have more than once caused mighty kings to tremble under the wizard’s stern gaze.

Braemorgan stared down from the window of the war council chamber with his strange eyes, watching Ardabur arrive. He turned to the blonde-bearded man in chain mail standing besides him.

              “Bring him right up,” the wizard said. His voice was deep but not booming. “And summon the others at once.”

             
The guard nodded and left the room, closing the door behind him. Braemorgan turned back to the window. The sun hung low in the sky, the shadows of early evening lengthening as night came on. He sighed, turning from away.

The council chamber was not large, nor grandly decorated. A small table stood at its center, a modest chandelier hanging above it providing some measure of light from a dozen magically-shining orbs. Braemorgan’s eyes fell upon the large fireplace warming the room and the huge, cruel looking axe hanging over it. The weapon was four feet long, not including the long axe head of gleaming steel, slender and razor-sharp as it tapered into a barbed sword point. The shaft was carved with all manner of runes.

Braemorgan grinned sadly. Twenty years ago this coming spring Thane Uilfric had slain the troll chieftain Tanaluk and taken the axe as a trophy. Uilfric proudly hung it above the fireplace, a fitting reminder of past triumphs. Now Uilfric was three months rotting in the grave, his son Loric falling in battle eight years before. And then young Agnar followed his father and grandfather to the next world, slain in his very first battle.

             
The door opened again and Thane Ardabur entered, scowling. Ardabur was not a large man, but his stern demeanor and air of authority made up for any deficit in size. In much the same way, his bald head, jet-black beard, and flashing eyes made him seem older than his thirty years. He moved and spoke with a wolfish tenacity and an energy which amazed Braemorgan with its constant intensity.

             
“Welcome, Thane Ardabur,” Braemorgan said evenly.

             
“What the hell happened here?” Ardabur snarled.

“Young Thane Agnar went and got himself killed, as you no doubt read in my letter,” Braemorgan said.

The wizard stepped forward towards the table. He picked up the large pitcher sitting there, pouring mead seasoned with nutmeg and pepper from far-away Shandorr into two of the mugs on the table.

             
“Oh, I heard that much,” Ardabur said.

             
“It is a tragedy,” Braemorgan said.

             
“It’s a damned disaster, is what it is. Grang’s teeth!”

The old wizard nodded. He put the pitcher back down and picked up both mugs.

“Such a promising young thane,” Braemorgan sighed.

             
Ardabur unhooked his thick fur cloak and threw it across the back of a nearby chair.

             
“He was a fool,” he snapped.

             
“He was
hasty
,” Braemorgan said, moving around the table and handing Ardabur one of the mugs. “Since he was a little boy, he was too quick to decide things. He never learned to stop and think before acting. That’s not surprising, really. His grandfather was the same way at that age, but survived that reckless stage of youth and learned prudence.”

             
Ardabur said nothing, taking a long sip of his mead.

             
“Wulfgrim,” Braemorgan said, looking past Ardabur. “Good. Take your seats, gentlemen, and we can begin the council.”

             
Ardabur turned around, nodding at the old veteran who limped into the room leaning heavily on a walking stick.

             
“I am glad to see you up and walking,” Braemorgan said, patting Wulfgrim on the back handily. Wulfgrim sat down at the table and Braemorgan poured him a mug of the mead.

             
“The healers have done well,” Wulfgrim said. “They’ll have me back in fighting form before long.”

             
“I am sure of it,” Braemorgan said.

The wizard glanced over at the door, smiling warmly at the newest arrival.

“Thane Ardabur,” he said. “I’m sure you will recall Lady Morag. Now that she is here we may begin.”

             
A tall young woman dressed in a simple dark green dress with a dark purple cloak slung over her shoulders entered. She was flanked by a tall guard who bowed and backed out of the room as she stepped in, closing the door. Everyone stood at her entry, even hobbled Wulfgrim.

Morag Ravenbane was young, but possessed a dignified bearing beyond her years. She had exceptionally bright red hair pulled back into a single braid which reached all the way down the length of her back. Her face was proud and strikingly beautiful, with clear white skin and large, bright green eyes. Her dress was modest, a simple green dress and dark purple cloak.

She strode into the room with purpose, a haughty air about her.

             
“Milady,” Ardabur said. “I am grieved to hear of your brother’s death. He was a fine lad.”

             
“Thane Ardabur,” Morag snapped coldly. “You are late. Where is your army?”

“Still a day away,” Ardabur said, sitting back down. “If it doesn’t snow again.”

Braemorgan and Morag took seats at either head of the table, Wulfgrim and Ardabur taking the seats directly across from each other. Braemorgan poured Morag a mug of mead and sat down.

             
“Where is the dwarf?” Ardabur said. “Did he fall in battle, too?”

             
“Lord Ironhelm?” Braemorgan said. “No, he is otherwise occupied but very much alive. Let us get down to the matter of this council.”

             
“Start with explaining what the fuck happened,” Ardabur snapped.

             
“Very well,” Braemorgan said patiently. “Since you insist. I’ve been able to decipher most of what occurred. Very few survived the battle, including Wulfgrim, but that has helped in terms of putting together the facts of the matter. All report that Agnar fought with courage and skill in his first battle. Indeed, he led a charge and felled several of the enemy before succumbing.”

             
“There is no doubt he fought well,” Wulfgrim said, nodding. “He fell fighting.”

Braemorgan paused, sipping his drink.

“Three days ago Agnar received a report from one of his spies, a man by the name of Furloch,” he said. “This Furloch told him that Einar had a small garrison camped in a tiny hamlet ten miles from here across the river, no more than fifty men but to be reinforced in a couple of days with two hundred. The village, Furloch explained, was being used by Einar as a staging area for an attack on Loc Goren planned for the spring. Our young thane thought he had a rare opportunity before him. An isolated garrison could easily be cut off and destroyed. It would be a small but stinging defeat for Einar. The problem for Agnar was he could only spare two hundred mounted warriors for the expedition. I was still a full day away with one thousand men and Ardabur was two more days behind me. Had the weather last week been better, I would have been here and been able to both advise and accompany Agnar.”

             
“That thrice-damned blizzard!” Ardabur said.

             
“The wheels of history often turn upon such trivialities as the weather,” Braemorgan said. “Because of that blizzard, both of us were stranded for three days with two thousand men between the two of us. We’d have been here. For, you see, the spy’s report was but a ruse, false intelligence meant to trap Agnar.”