Gateway to Nifleheim (3 page)

Donnelin looked about in a panic and assessed the situation. The entire company had been thrown to the dirt, man, and horse alike. Battered, bruised, and bleeding, all but one or two, not counting the wizards, still lived. The dead, taken by shrapnel lodged in their heads.

Could they ride out? Were the horses able? Did they have enough time? Yes, they could. He was certain of it, but they had little time to spare. He tried not to think of what had charged out of the mist, but the image of those things was burned forever into his mind’s eye. He knew Talbon’s magic had killed untold numbers of them. It had to have. The wizards’ sacrifice had not won the day, but it bought the rest of the company time—the time they needed to withdraw, and to live to fight another day.

“Ready yourselves,” boomed Lord Eotrus. “Get to your feet, men.”

Those who could followed his commands.

“Aradon,” shouted Donnelin. “We must flee. For Odin’s sake, we cannot stop what is out there.”

Eotrus turned his head toward his old friend. Blood streamed from his nose and from gashes in his cheek and forehead. “We will hold them here.”

“That is madness,” said Donnelin. “Our best magic is spent and swords will not win the day. Not against those things. We must flee.”

“A man cannot outrun his fate,” said Eotrus before he turned back toward the sounds. “Though I would think no less of any man that tried.”

The soldiers formed up around their lord and pressed close into a tight wedge. Their faces carried a mixture of shock, fear, anger, pain, and disbelief.

“Eotrus!” burst from the old lord’s throat as he spurred his horse and charged forward to meet his fate, his sword held out before him, his horse mad with fear. His soldiers followed him, as they always followed him, one last time, into the very mouth of hell.

Talbon’s eyes opened and he shuddered as he regained consciousness. His skin felt afire from head to toe, muscles twitched and cramped up all over his body, and his hair stood on end. His legs were pinned beneath his horse. He could barely see, the smoke and mist so thick about him. His nose stung from a pungent, bestial odor like that of a slaughterhouse. His hand found his staff, which mercifully had fallen just beside him. He looked around and nearly panicked when he realized that he was alone but for two corpses. Two Eotrus soldiers, dead, who knows how, laid in the dirt not far away. Though he knew each man in the company, from his vantage point, he couldn’t name them, nor did he have any idea what had befallen his apprentices, or the others. They were all gone. They had left him for dead. He needed to find them, but he knew better than to call out and give away his position. He squirmed and struggled, as quietly as he could, until he freed himself from the horse—his legs bruised and numb, but not broken.

The wailing had stopped sometime before he awoke, but an eerie sound persisted and frayed his nerves. Talbon’s every instinct told him to flee as fast as he could and not look back. But which way to go? The low rumbling sound that assailed him came from all directions, and it was slowly getting louder, closer. Then he realized what it was he heard: breathing.

Dead gods, they were all around him, lurking in the dark just beyond his vision. He couldn’t see them no matter how hard he strained, but they were there. He smelled them. He heard their breathing and their rustling about in the dark like giant rodents. By the gods, Aradon was right: this time, there would be no escape. There was no way out, no direction to run. This was the end. Why they hadn’t finished him as he lay unconscious, he couldn't fathom, but he would make them regret that decision.

He pulled himself to his feet, his head pounding. He realized that the others must have charged unto their deaths. He was the last. “So a warrior's death it will be,” he whispered. “So be it. I will make my father proud, in this at least. To victory and Valhalla.” Then he spoke in his loudest voice. “You will not feast on the flesh of an archmage of Lomion today, creatures. Feel the wrath of Par Talbon, son of Mardack, of the ancient line of Montrose.” The tip of the wizard’s staff began to glow and a beacon of light burst forth from it in all directions. It drove back the smoke, mist, and the darkness, and revealed the unspeakable horde that encircled him not ten yards out.

As the beasts charged screeching and roaring, Talbon grinned, and spoke but one word in the old tongue as he used all his strength to break his arcane staff across his knee. The ancient staff exploded—a magical blast the likes of which Midgaard had not seen in an age. Leagues away, the mighty walls of Dor Eotrus shook.

II

THE OUT
ER DOR

A group of armed men on horseback slowly rode through the sprawling, moonlit streets of the Outer Dor—the town that surrounded the citadel called Dor Eotrus. Though bundled against the night air, their accoutrements and bearing marked them as more than mundane passersby to those few citizens out and about despite the late hour.

One of the lead riders was diminutive, the size of a young child, though his gravelly voice and wrinkled face marked him as the oldest of the group by many years. Beside him loomed a glinty-armored leviathan of a knight known as Angle Theta. Next came Sir Ector, a young knight of more pedestrian proportions, and Dolan Silk, a wiry man of sickly pallor and strange ears. Behind them rode several soldiers dressed in the blue and gold livery of House Eotrus.

“Like a good baker’s belly, the Outer Dor grows a bit every year whether we like it or not,” said Ob, the tiny man, to Theta. “For generations, the town got on fine with two walls, the inner being a good bit taller than the outer, as it should be—you’ll see when we get there. Solid the walls are—granite and mortar, cut into blocks big as a wagon. Smooth and plumb even after all these years. You don't see that kind of workmanship anymore; almost certainly gnomish.” Ob uncorked his wineskin, lifted it to his lips, and took a generous drink.

“Ten years ago, we put up a third wall a good ways out. Not as stout and fancy as the old two, but solid enough to stop what don’t belong. We figured that gave the folks room enough for growth, good pastry notwithstanding. But only three stinking years later, we were bursting at the seams with new folk, and they set to building outside the walls again.”

Theta looked at the well-ordered rows of wooden buildings and gravel covered streets that extended well beyond the outermost wall. “They’ve been busy,” he said in an accent that was difficult to place, save to say that it was foreign.

“Most show up on our doorstep and set straight away to building,” said Ob. “At least they’re not slackers, not most of them anyways, and they’ve kept our carpenters well fed these past few years.”

“From where do they come?” said Theta. “And what attracts them?”

“Some come from the east, out towards Kern, but most are from down south around Lomion City.”

“My father says most seek a quieter life away from the big cities,” said Ector, “but some others want a bit of adventure.”

“Which do they find here?” said Theta.

“It’s not the quiet or the adventure,” said Ob. “Freedom is why they come here. Some folks think the council has gone a bit oppressive these last years, so they set out chasing greener pastures, and some of them end up hereabouts. You see we got the freedom up here in the North, away from the big cities and the stinking bureaucrats. Here a man can live as he wants, so long as he leaves others to do the same. That’s the way we like it. That’s the way it has always been around here, and that’s the way it’s always going to be, as long as there’s an Eotrus in charge.”

“Freedom has ever been a magnet,” said Theta. “But it’s also a target.”

“Well, freedom for these pilgrims means me and mine gotta ride through muck and mud every time we leave the Dor,” said Ob. “Within the walls, there are cobblestones on every street—solid stuff, like any civilized place has. You can walk about and not get mud all over you—not like out here in this pigsty. The worst of it is, there are no sewers out here, so the whole place stinks and never stops stinking, not even in the deep winter. The lighting is spotty and the well water is suspect. The buildings are all wood, even the foundations, instead of honest stone like most everywhere within the walls. The whole place is just not civilized, if you ask me. Our own fault, I suppose, letting folks do as they will. But if they want to live like this, they should go live in the woods. At least out there it don’t stink.”

“The buildings look solid and well kept—permanent construction,” said Theta. “This is no nomad camp or shantytown. The streets are straight and level. There's no garbage lying about. And no beggars. Most towns aren’t half as good.”

“Aye, that might be true enough,” said Ob. “But it’s not up to Eotrus standards all the same. We should’ve built another wall. My mistake it was. Aradon wanted to, but I talked him out of it. I figured that rather than waste good stone and sweat and a heap of silver on more masonry, we would tell the folks that anyone what wants to build outside is on their own come trouble. I figured that would put the fear in them, since folks don’t care to see to themselves, all lonesome like, when things go bad. But it didn’t work. I’m not ashamed to admit when I’m wrong. That’s the gnome way, you know.”

“Must not get much trouble around these parts,” said Dolan, who also spoke with an accent, though different from Theta’s, “or them folks would’ve heeded your warnings, they would have.”

Ob looked over his shoulder at Dolan, eyebrows raised. “Dor Eotrus guards Lomion’s northern border, sonny. We’re on the edge of the wild out here, so believe me, we get our share of trouble, time and again. It comes down from the mountains, more often than not,” he said, pointing at the white-capped peaks in the distance. “There’s no civilization out that way, my friend. None at all. All a man will find in the deep mountains is death. Sometimes quick, sometimes slow. Whatever trouble what comes this way, whether from the mountains or not, it’s we Eotrus that stop it cold, and protect the realm, as is our duty. Most of the time, it’s lugron, there’s a mess of them up in the hills, in caves and such; bandits every once in a while; a man-eater: wolf, lion, or bear, now and again. In years past, we had trolls down on us too, but they’ve not been seen in numbers in a gnome’s age. Every once in a long while, something worse comes down from the north, with the cold and the dark and the mist; things held over from the old world, maybe even back to the Dawn Age; stuff best not spoken of, not even here, not even amongst men like us. And if you go up in them mountains, and none of them things kill you, the cold will. You’ve never felt cold, real cold, until you spend a night high up one of them peaks. First, it will freeze your bones solid so that you can hardly move. Then it will freeze the blood in your veins; no man survives that, tough or not.”

“I guess we’ll stay clear of the mountains,” said Dolan. “With all those dangers that come down this way, why do folks build outside the walls?”

“Some folks’ memories aren’t long enough for their own good,” said Ob. “Or else they’re just stupid.”

“Common afflictions, both,” said Theta.

“Aye,” said Ob. “Your manservant speaks his mind,” he said, referring to Dolan.

“Every man should,” said Theta. “Not that he has much to say.”

“Not much at all,” said Dolan. “I’m practically mute, I am.”

“Sometimes them what says the least, says the most,” said Ob.”

Theta smiled. “Another truth.”

“If the folks out hereabouts aren’t afraid of much,” said Dolan, “why do they flee us?”

“What do you mean?” said Ob.

“People have been blowing out their candles, pulling their curtains, and closing their shutters all up and down the street since we rode into sight,” said Ector. “And those few folks still out, scampered inside at the first sight of us.”

Ob stopped his horse and looked around for some moments. “Good eyes, lad. You’re right. Something’s not right here. It’s too quiet. I should’ve been paying better heed. Let’s make haste to the gate and see what’s what.”

The group rode at a trot to the raised portcullis that stood at an opening in the outer wall.

“The guard has been doubled,” said Ector.

“Tripled,” said Ob. “And there be crossbowmen up on the allures. There’s been trouble for certain.”

Apparently recognizing Ob, the guards moved aside, bowed respectfully, and waved them through. Ob pulled up his horse, stopping a few feet from the nearest guard. “What trouble?” he said.

The young blond-haired man looked uncertain and turned to his fellows for support, but they were busy staring at their boots.

“Speak, you dolt,” said Ob. “What goes on here? Why have we got so many men on the wall?”

“A patrol has gone missing, Castellan,” said the guard.

Theta raised an eyebrow at that.

Ob paused for a moment and stared at the guard, but the man offered nothing more. Ob turned toward his companions. “Let’s get to the citadel. There is more to this than just some overdue patrol and I aim to get to the bottom of it, and quick.”

“You didn’t tell us that you were the governor of this keep,” said Theta.

“You didn’t ask,” said Ob. “But I’m no governor, anyhow. I’m the Castellan of Dor Eotrus, as that fool said—though I suppose, it is much the same thing.”

“You had me fooled, you did,” said Dolan. “I figured Mr. Ector was the captain of your patrol, and that you were his chief scout.”

“That’s what we wanted you to think,” said Ob. “The roads can be dangerous these days, even for the likes of us, so we don’t always reveal who is who when we come upon strangers on the road, especially if they’re stinking foreigners. No offense. But since you’ve now taken an interest and we’ve made it safe and sound to the Dor, I’ll tell you that Ector is Lord Eotrus’s son. The gatemen were bowing to him, not me. I don’t go in for that treatment and they know it. Now let’s move.”

III

THE WAILING