The Beast of the North (44 page)

I ran for them. The wall trembled; they threw javelins at me, their eyes full of terror. My sword went up; they hid behind their shields, and I swiped the huge weapon at them. There was a jarring crash, a thrumming noise as the sword shuddered redly and three of the enemies were dead or dying, limbs hacked off, shields rent. I roared and went in kicking at the enemy, stepping on one, and faced the officer, who hacked desperately at my midriff, drawing blood with his ax. I kicked him so hard. his helmet flew off with his head. Yet more and more of the enemy came to me, and then I heard an officer of the Mad Watch screaming.

‘The gate! It is breaking!’ A group of Mad Watch turned to repel men at the ladders, but that was when Lith joined the fight in our stretch of wall. I felt her, rather than saw her, for she was holding a great spell, and I knew I had to move. Her mask appeared at the end of the ladder at the other end of my wall.

A wall of wickedly hot flames spread to the left and right of me. Men burned indiscriminately, to their bone, their soul, perhaps, for they screamed hideously. A hundred perhaps less were charred by Lith’s spell. She was pushing the fires towards me.

I jumped off the wall. I had to, anyway. I jumped to the enemy side. I thought desperately as I saw the shocked opponents look up from under their broad helmets at a plummeting, armored giant of twelve feet tall, about to break into them. A wolf? A bear? What was the limit? And then I decided. I changed in the air as I came down, and when I hit the army below, it was not a soft-bellied wolf or a furry bear that hit them. It was a sauk, the lizard. There was slithering power in the form. It was a ferocious, merciless killing machine. I had the dark, leathery, and horned skin, powerful ripping claws, and bursting speed. It was perfect for the chaos. A hammer struck my skin but bounced off. A spear went wide as a man toppled over my back. There were many desperate men trapped under me, and I clawed them to death, roared so hard some of the enemy dropped their weapons and toppled over. Then I slithered forward. To move like that, as if the world was still. I was fast, flexible, strange, and I was soon lathered with blood, theirs, and mine. I moved through groups of men, crushing them under my claws and bulk, drawing flesh and meat from quivering bodies with each step, biting swiftly and savagely at limbs and heads, and I roared when I tried to laugh, for the hammers were feeble indeed against my skin. One struck my snout, though, and I went into a berserk frenzy. I loped, jumped, ripped, and bit at the enemy; slit gullets, slashed shields to pieces and ran around wildly in the helpless milling mass of enemies. I hunted officers, the golden helmeted, sturdy men, and bit off their arms and heads and felt blood flow as the enemies were swarming me with daggers, swords, and spears now. I killed fifty, maybe more, and while many legionnaires died and some even ran, I sensed the walls were falling. A horn blared desperately, a call to retreat. The gate broke. I heard a Jotun scream for men to run, and so I realized—even in my bestial rage—that I had to run as well. I loped right, then left, screamed at a flurry of javelins that hit me. I saw two hundred men marching for me, using spears and hammers to herd me, and so I charged. I crushed spears, took hammer hits and bowled over a dozen enemies. They screamed, hit at each other and me, and so I transformed in the chaos, crawling around in the pile of twitching bodies to take a face and armor of an officer I had killed. They yelled in confusion, all around me, urged each other to kill the beast but suddenly they realized there was none to kill.

‘Where in One Man’s name did he go?’ one asked, bleeding.

‘Turned into a bloody mouse?’ Another, a man with lip torn off answered painfully. Men jumped around, looking for a mouse. I was trembling with exhaustion and took a breath, then another, covered in nicks and wounds.

Then I saw Taram.

He was limping along the men, his eyes burning with hate, his arm missing. He had disguised his torn face, but everyone saw he was not entirely human. He looked confused for a moment, and then his eyes brightened in understanding. ‘Men, ware! He—’

‘This way, men!’ I bellowed and guided the confused mass of men to the gate. ‘Half stay at the gate, the rest join in the attack on the tower. Riches and women, boys, to the one who kills a giant!’

They yelled agreement and loped off in a confused mass, the reluctant half staying by the gate, locking shields to hold it, missing an opportunity for riches and women. There was an officer there with men already, and the confusion helped as the rest loped after me. The enemy was flowing for the Tower, over the walls, through the gates. I sensed Taram was running after us, cursing us, yelling at us to stop, but few did. I was looking for Lith and saw her, gathering men for an attack on the base of the wall. And Sand was there, guarding Illastria.

The tower was under siege.

A thousand enemy soldiers were milling around it. Javelins were thrown at the defenders of the gate; some hundred bedraggled Mad Watch soldiers, and I saw Balissa there. A spell flickered in the middle of a group of Legionnaires. They slipped and fell, cursing as a pool of water solidified, trapping many. At the same time, Lith’s spell of fire burst in the doorway, intense and fiery, but Balissa countered it with snow hail, and then the mighty Jotun cast another spell of icy wind, throwing a dozen enemy into a terrified, dying and dead pile of shivering, bleeding men. I saw Lith was tottering aside, holding her mask.

I pointed a finger at the gate to the Tower. ‘Reinforce them! Do not let them shut the doors!’ Men ran forth to obey; I pushed them, eyed them, growled at them as I imagined a Hammer Officer would and saw Taram running forward, his face raging.

‘There is a Jotun out here!’ he shrieked, his sword trembling in rage.

‘Where?’ I asked, and he saw me, ran to me, and pulled at me.

‘The thrice damned idiots thought the sauk just disappeared into the thin air! He took a new face—’ he began and tried to yank at me to follow him. I grinned at him, saw him blanch, and punched him so hard he flew through a troop of men. I dodged out of sight, bellowing at men to charge the tower, which they did, and I wondered how to get in. I ran past Sand, bumped into him and poor Illastria, then changed direction and ran for the Temple.

Three Hammer officers raised their weapons; javelins were drawn back, thrown, and men hollered inside the blazing doorway. A hundred enemies charged after the charging officers, and even though some fell under the feet of their comrades, pierced by a few javelins and spears thrown back, they charged through with manic intensity, even through the fires. I saw Balissa's spear flicker, thrusting aside five enemies into red ruin; some fell to the flames, dead, but then, after moments of battle, the sounds receded, and I knew they were retreating up the tower.

I stopped. There were hundreds and hundreds of the enemy, and there truly was no way for us to defeat them. I turned to look at the Temple. It was standing forlornly on the side of the tower, once rumored to be a gateway to other worlds. There were many like it scattered all over the world, but this one had supposedly led to Asgard, where Odin ruled. He too was a god of one eye, like Hel.

I cursed myself and went forward. I pushed and pulled through a throng of men. Screams could be heard as men died in the tower. I saw a glimpse of Hammer Legionnaires rolling down stairs as the desperate defenders fought a hard fight to survive. There were no prisoners to be taken; none would surrender.

Some of the enemies were marching around the tower, others were running, all looking to block any possible escape route. I joined a group, passed through the ancient stones of the temple and slunk away from them. I concentrated on my gauntlet, and it answered. The door. It was close. My eyes sought the image it had shown me, and then I saw it. Not far from me, there was the red stone slab the size of a man, which I approached reverently. It was not part of the temple; no, it was easy to see. It was not as skillfully built as the Temple had obviously been, but cruder, more primal, closer to what a giant would revere, strong and naturally intricate. I stepped near it, trembling and hesitating. I changed my hand to reveal the gauntlet, and it whispered to me of a complicated spell that was tied to the artifact itself. I called for deep embers of certain molten rivers, combined them with heat and hot winds in a certain strange way, and released it on the gauntlet. Then I pressed it on the stone.

It clicked.

There was no mighty show of lights, or explosions. No pillars were growing out of the sand, nor was there a bizarre guardian with a weapon, accosting me, demanding for a password, denying my right to enter.

I took a breath. The stone shot open.

Then I went down to the dark and tapped the stone as I did, calling for the same spell again. The door closed with a click, and the sounds of battle faded. Shadows fled along the walls; I went down broad steps, and I felt magical wards renew themselves, flitting thought the stone, sealing the place tight.

‘The Jotuns trapped you here and have ruled above ever since.’

Maskan to Baduhanna

I
walked down stairs that were dusty in most places, but not in all. I bent to the dark ground, realized there had been people walking on the steps, for there were shuffling marks; feet had been dragging through dust, and I decided I had to see better. I fell on my fours, shed my skin, and took the stealthy form of a gigantic wolf once again, feeling every fiber in my body shrieking from pain and exertion. I looked around. All around the doorway, the stone had been hewed, torn, scratched, and hauled away. In places, the quarrying work had reached an entirely smooth stone, and that did not show a single scratch mark. The spell was strong. It created a cocoon around the area. I felt a brief bout of panic as I thought of being caught there under the rock. What if the spell did not work again? I shook my head, abandoned the doubts, and took my way down. The stairway was surprisingly short, ending up in a crude doorway, which I crossed. I sniffed the air and smelled strange things.

There was life down there. Down, for I was on a ledge.

And below, there was a city.

It was multilayered, spiraling down and down, filled with stone houses, all bluish of grey, dark and pale white, lights burning inside, doorways open to the trails that inevitably led to the bottom, where a dim light shone. I gazed that way and smelled a sweet body of water. There was a lake deep inside the hill, far, far down. I stalked to a bridge, spanning a crevasse of dreadful depth. All along the way, similar quarrying work had been attempted, only to meet with the strange, smooth rock. I smelled and now heard movement in the nearest of the houses and walked towards them. There was speech, guttural speech, dark and gritty, like stone speaking. I slunk along the routes and spied a carved, tall building guarding the road. There was a chair outside it, leaning on a doorway and a bitter smelling mug of ale. I went forward and gazed inside.

There were creatures there. They wore no shirts; they were dark as night, their hair brown, and white, and silver jewelry adorned their beards. They were superbly crafted specimens, their necks thick like trees, arms gnarled and heaped with glistening muscle. Their faces were haggard, bony, and their lips were thin. They were chucking, obviously drunk, and they were perhaps four feet tall.

They were dverger. They were legendary creatures, to be sure; the very best of smiths, strong warriors, and rumors said they were evil and selfish. Those were the stories.
Like stories of Jotuns,
I chuckled, and that came out as a growl.

The dverger turned, having been engrossed in a small feast. One groped for a wicked scimitar, the other grabbed a maul, and they eyed me. They said nothing, did not move, and I decided one nodded at me, carefully, ever so slowly.

I walked past the doorway, smelled food being cooked, and more and more of the guttural speech invaded my ears. I passed shops, taverns and heard a flute playing. I stalked past a smithy, a fabulous thing full of steel weapons, intricate cups of excellent make, plates and jewelry, the smith a white-haired, entirely gray dverg, who turned to stare at me with an appraising, sharp look. I went down the spiraling ways, stalked over rubble and debris of a building being constructed.

Behind me, a horn blared. It was a strange, non-threatening noise; one that was intended to alarm the strange city of my presence, but seemingly in a non-hostile way. Hundreds of the dverger appeared, holding tankards of drink and plates full of mushroom-like food. I noticed some were fat and short; strangely squat, and I decided they were not dverger at all, but some other race. I stalked past the staring troops of dverger, and I heard them following me in the shadows, filling the path behind me.

So it went on, seemingly for a long time, and I despaired, for the tower would undoubtedly be fallen, and Lith would be seated on Rose Thorne. Balissa would be slain or fled, the city burning and Red Midgard gone. Did it matter? Yes, I decided. I was both human and a Jotun. The dead had made me a strange mix of the two, raising me as one of the men, and then thrust me to the intrigues of the Jotuns and the dead, and so I was determined to stay confused, a man and a giant.

And a wolf; I chuckled and growled as I stalked through the strangely harmonious town. What were they? Remnants of Hel’s army? From where? Dverger? Mercenaries long lost in the wars and imprisoned? Did Father command them? What did they think of Hel now? And would they fight against the feral dead, who served their former mistress?

‘They will if they wish to leave this hole,’ I said and realized I had again growled, but this time so loudly the army of dverger had stopped. I slunk along, eyeing them carefully, but none raised a weapon. And they, I noticed, were all carrying them. Many were armored now in thick, tight-fitting plate and chain, and many were armed with mattocks, shields, tapering spears, wicked axes, hammers and mauls, many eyeing me from under their dark helmets. One pointed at the bottom of the pit, and I glanced there and saw the luminescent lake. It was shining with blue and green lights, deep and alive with fish that swam lazily on its shores. In the middle, there was a flat island, not very large, and filled with strange rocks. I sniffed the air and sensed there was something else down there.

It was alive.

I spotted a haze in the middle of the island. Then I realized the stones scattered across it were skulls. I changed my skin and fell on my fours, as I grew to my size of twelve feet. The dverger made a rumbling sound that I realized were speaking excitedly. I looked at their faces, and there was a strange mixture of hope, savagery, and glee in the furry smiles that greeted me. Their teeth were very white. ‘What is down there?’ I asked them in the common and saw them blinking their eyes, then smattering something to each other. They finally pushed forth a dverg who was armed with a long hafted hammer, bare-chested and wide as a barrel. His face was dark as coal, and I could not understand him, as he bowed and spat and tried to make some point.

I looked at the gauntlet and searched for an answer. Visions of a legion of such warriors, marching in dark tunnels filled my mind, and I knew I saw visions of long past. There was another, the Old City burning as the savage warriors hacked through stone and flesh to take it from men, in eras long past. I saw a battle in the city, a siege and dverger being burned on pyres by their kin. I saw my father, and another like him, as they fought against something I could not make out. In the dark by the lake.

Here.

I also saw a spell in my mind, a subtle, small thing of wind and ice mixed with some of the heat of Muspelheim, and I grasped the spell, gathered it, and released it at myself.

‘Do you understand?` the dverg was asking. ‘You damnable big lummox.’

‘Yea, you runty snot nosed, shit snuffling bastard,’ I growled at him.

His eyes brightened, and he flashed a quick grin. ‘Thrun Tain Shug,’ he pointed a finger at his own chest. ‘You?’

‘Maskan,’ I said. ‘Danegell,’ I added. ‘Son of Magor. And the Beast of the North as he is dead.’

Thrun nodded and stroked his beard shrewdly. ‘Yes. I see. Or smell him in you. Hel’s own general, Lord of all the Ymritoe kin and leader of our armies in Midgard. He and your grandfather,’ he said and nodded ominously towards the lake, ‘left us here. That was not so long ago, but it has been tedious.’

The human in me blinked. ‘That is thousands of years past.’

Thrun nodded suspiciously. ‘I see, I see. You think that is long? There is a story here to be told, and gladly we hear it at another time. How goes the war above? We don’t know; you see since your father locked us in here with the bitch. He made peace, a pact with her after your grandfather died in battle, then escaped like a mouse and left us behind. Granted, we should have moved quicker, but there you are. You owe us.’

There was a thrumming noise coming from the boulder-like creatures. ‘I know nothing of such matters,’ I growled. ‘I was born twenty years ago.’

‘Man-years!’ Thrun asked. ‘A baby giant? Lok’s tits, how amusing!’

‘Do I look like a damned baby?’ I yelled so hard his beard flew over his shoulder. ‘There is war above, but the Danegells ruled the men since they left this place.’

He bowed in some form of apology and then froze in shock. ‘Rule men? We stopped killing them?’

‘Yes!’

He huffed. ‘You smell like a man. Ruled the men?’ He did not look happy.

‘Yes, ruled them. Ruled them well!’ I yelled. They all looked at each other.

‘And so I take it the war above ended after your father shut the doors?’

I went to my knee before him. ‘Yes. He took over the north. I don’t know why, but he abandoned Hel’s War. And now he is dead. Because Hel decided to try again, and there is Hel’s own dead above, attempting to take over Midgard. And I hate them. I will fight them. Have already.’

Thrun growled and stared at me intently. ‘We made a contract with the goddess Hel. We would fight for her. Always for her, until she releases us. That is the deal.’

‘Is that so?’ I growled back. ‘Fight on, then. You shall not get out of the tomb until I say so. Keep quarrying.’

Thrun let his maul fall to his side with a thump. ‘For your father and long years we have lived here, you owe us better. And—’

‘You just said years do not matter to dverger, didn’t you? Stop weeping,’ I spat.

He scowled at that, and the army around him growled and hissed. It was an uncanny sound. Thrun nodded at my gauntlet. ‘We might find it in ourselves to betray our general, to slay you, take that thing our best smiths crafted in times past,’ he pointed at the gauntlet, ‘and hope to learn to use it to go up and help Hel’s armies.’ He was trembling with rage, eyeing me despondently, his people of like mind. There were hundreds of the dverger by then.

I snorted. ‘Yea. You have a lot to be upset over. My father commanded you and left you here, for you are single-minded and unyielding, just like the dead, only less subtle.’

Thrun sputtered. ‘Subtle! I have you know—’

‘The dead rule, Thrun,’ I told slowly. ‘They are subtle. They’ll trick you, fool you, and make deals with the living, only to betray them in the end, and gods know what is genuine and false when one speaks. You and your contracts with Hel. Bah! You are dolts. The army above might have you. They would welcome you. Then, when all the living are gone, they will eat you. They only want to purge all the living from Midgard. Where is your home? Do you not wish to see it?’

‘Svartalfheim, the lands below and under the root and stone, and a fine home it is. My clan left it; we were paid well,’ he said with a scowl. ‘And there is no way back. None. Unless the gates have been reopened.’

‘They have not,’ I told him. ‘They are still closed. Closed, dead, and lifeless. And the dead will take the worlds until no living thing breathes. You are no friends of them.’

Thrun said nothing for a time, struggling with his honor, his promises, and his very nature.

I looked down to the lake. ‘What is in there?’

‘The bitch,’ he said darkly.

‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

He pointed his finger down to the lake. ‘She was Odin’s general. She rallied the humans to fight us. She brought them back from the brink of defeat. She gathered thousands under arms and sieged us here for years. Finally, they broke in, killed thousands and your grandfather …’ he stammered. ‘He died here. He fought her, challenged her to a duel, and she won. Your father swore an oath to her, and while the foolish cow thought she had won, he raced away and locked her in. Tricked her. Under lock she was, no matter her power.’

‘With you,’ I stated. ‘She let you live?’

‘Yes, with us,’ he spat. ‘Occasionally, she challenges us to fight her, and of course, we do, for it would be dickless to refuse. She gets bored, you see.’

‘What is she?’ I asked him.

His wrinkled face took on a speculative look. ‘Tell you what, boy. We will follow you to hammer at Hel’s toes if you beat the wench.’

‘We can just sneak out?’ I asked him.

He laughed. ‘She would know. She would. Looks docile, but she is awake. She would attack us, she would escape and once free, she could just rally the humans again up there and have us killed.’

‘Can’t you kill her?’ I growled. ‘Dverg weapons are supposed to be legendary.’

He looked very glum. ‘We could. It would be too costly. And yes, our weapons are superb. And we have people who can See the Shades. But only the greatest of our smiths can create weapons that kill such a creature with ease. Your weapons,’ he said and eyed the Red’s sword, ‘were made by Katal Killtar, ages ago, and we have nothing like it. Only your average man slaying things. It would take hundreds and hundreds to kill her without such weapons. A feast for the lizards. We wish to live.’

‘So,’ I said slowly. ‘I should talk to her.’

‘Either kill her or make a deal. You should. I think it’s fair. A payment for your father’s betrayal, I believe. And, if we leave this place, and fight for you, of course, you promise to carry our crime of oath breaking when you meet Hel. It’s a pact. Our souls will not be punished for abandoning her.’

‘Deal,’ I said, not really caring about Hel and her deals.

‘And the gauntlet stays with us when you do fight her,’ he added with a twinkle in his eye.

‘I though I was to either fight or make a deal,’ I growled. ‘I’ll need it if it is the former.’