—<ONE>—

Fire and Retribution

 

 

Lord Aetulff was dead, and they carried the body from his village in a long procession through the snow towards the surf-pounded shoreline. Those that had served under him, those despised few who had survived the long flight from the vengeful blades of their enemies, followed the solemn bier with their broken swords carried before them. Their lives were forfeit, but there were few enough men remaining along the coastline to put them to death for their cowardice.

The chieftain’s favoured huscarls carried the body on a palanquin of broken shields, the body wrapped in a tattered flag brought from the south. The body was light; a wasting sickness had eaten the flesh from his bones upon his return from the disastrous war. Zhek Askah had said it was punishment from the gods, and none dared gainsay him.

Broken in spirit, Aetulff’s wounded body had lingered six seasons after the defeat before finally succumbing. He had been strong, and he took a long, painful time to die.

His sons were all dead, slain in battle as the gods decreed, and none now remained to preserve his line. He had died in the knowledge that no living creature would carry his name into the future. He would die unremembered and his bloody deeds would be forgotten in a generation.

The womenfolk did not follow the body, and his shame was complete.

The shield bearers followed a path to the water, where a fire burned in a pit hacked into the frozen ground. The waters of the ocean were dark, cold and unforgiving, and a storm-battered ship rose and fell with the surge and retreat of the tide. Sturdily built from overlapping timbers and tar, a rearing wolf’s head was carved at its prow. It was a proud vessel and had carried them through the worst storms the gods could hurl from the skies. It deserved better, but if the last year and a half had taught the people of the settlement anything, it was that this world cared nothing for what was deserved.

The warriors following the body climbed aboard and turned to help lift the dead chieftain onto his ship. They were strong men and it took no effort to manoeuvre him onto a tiered pile of precious timbers and kindling. One by one, the warriors slashed their forearms with the broken blades of their swords. They spilled their blood over their dead war chief and dropped their useless weapons to the deck. Blood shed and swords surrendered, they climbed over the gunwale, which looked bare without lines of ranked-up kite shields and banks of fighting men hauling at the oars.

One warrior with a winged helm of raven’s feathers waited until the others had splashed down into the sea before upending a flask of oil over the body. He doused the ship’s timbers with what remained and tossed the flask to the deck. The raven-helmed warrior tugged a tied rope at the mainmast, and the black sail unfurled with a boom of hide.

He turned and dropped over the side of the ship, wading ashore to take his place with the rest of his forsaken band. Their war chief had died, yet they had lived. Their shame would be never-ending. Women would shun them, children would spit on them and they would be right to do so. The gods would curse them for all eternity until they made good on their debt.

The freezing wind caught the sail, and the ship eased away from the shore, wallowing without a steersman to guide it or rowers to power it. The tide and wind quickly dragged the ship away from the land, twisting it around like a leaf in a millpond. The treacherous currents and riptides around this region of the coast had dashed many an unwary vessel against the cliffs, yet they bore Lord Aetulff’s ship out to sea with gentle swells. Gulls wheeled above its mast, adding their throaty caws to the chief’s lament.

The raven-helmed warrior lifted a bow from the shingle and nocked an arrow to the string. He held the cloth-wrapped tip in the fire until it caught light and hauled back on the string. The wind dropped and he loosed the shaft, the fiery missile describing a graceful arc through the greying sky until it hammered home in the ship’s mast.

Slowly, then with greater ferocity as the oil caught light, the ship burned. Flames roared to life, hungrily devouring the rotten meat of the dead man and setting to work on the oily timbers. Within moments, the ship was ablaze from bow to stern, black smoke trailing a mournful line towards the sky.

The warriors watched it until it split apart with a sound like a heart breaking. It slid over onto its side and with a final slurp of water vanished beneath the surface.

Lord Aetulff was dead and no one mourned him.

 

From a cave mouth high on the cliffs above the village, a man in tattered furs and a cloak of feathers watched the last voyage of the doomed wolfship. His face was bearded and long hair hung in matted ropes from his head. Once it had been jet black, but it was now so wadded with mud and dirt that its true colour had long since been obscured. The filth of living in a cave encrusted his skin and his arms were rank with sores and rashes that burned and tingled pleasurably in equal measure.

The villagers called him Wyrtgeorn, though he could make little sense of the word. What he had bothered to learn of their language allowed him only the most basic understanding. A fetish-draped shaman had spat it at him a year and a half ago when he and the wizened immortal stepped from the wolfship that now burned to ashes. Though he did not know its meaning, it was a name to hide behind, a shield to hold before the deeds of his true name.

The immortal had left the village, imploring him to travel onwards into the northern wastes, but he had refused, climbing the cliff and making this cave his home. He knew he should have gone; his presence here would draw the hunters, but something had kept him from leaving, as though invisible shackles held him here.

He shook off such gloomy thoughts, and watched the wolfship slide beneath the waves. A rolling fogbank crept in from the south, obscuring the horizon and making the air taste of wet cloth. He watched the warriors as they trudged through the snow to the village, all too familiar with the shame they bore for their survival.

He threw a guilty look over his shoulder, wincing as the wound that would never heal flared with old pain. The immortal had given him a cloth-wrapped bundle as they fled across the ocean, and even without unwrapping it, he knew what lay within. How such a thing was possible was a mystery. He had thrown it away in the wake of defeat, yet there it was.

He kept it wedged in a cleft at the back of the cave. He knew he should hurl it into the sea, but also knew he would not.

Something moved in the fog, and he lifted a hand to shield his eyes from the winter sun.

A phantom of the mist, or something darker?

His right hand twitched with the memory of slaughter, and his gaze slid towards the settlement as old instincts and new senses prickled with danger.

From out of the fog, a dozen ships cut through the water towards village.

 

Powerful sweeps of oars drove the ships onward, and their decks were crammed with armed men in gleaming iron breastplates and full-face helms of bronze. They clutched axes and swords and spears, and he sensed their anger, even from high on the cliff. He looked back into his cave, but closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He had feared this moment ever since he stepped onto the shore, but now that it was here, he found himself utterly calm.

The same calm he felt before a duel. The same calm he felt before he killed.

He watched the ships surge through the crashing breakers and slide up the shingle beach. The village’s few warriors ran to meet them with axes held high over their shoulders, old men and youngsters mainly. Fifty men of sword-bearing age were all that were left to defend the village.

Nowhere near enough.

Whooping war shouts echoed from the stony beach as women and children ran towards the cliffs. There was no escape there, just a postponement of the inevitable. These warriors would leave no survivors. They never did.

Even isolated in his cave, he had heard the recent scare stories of the seaborne raiders, the killers from across the ocean who wiped out entire tribes in their vengeful slaughters. Their crimson and white sails were the terror of the coastline, a sight to drive fear into the hearts of those that had once been masters of the ocean.

A score of armed men dropped from the lead ship, led by a warrior in gleaming silver armour and a gold-crowned helm. He bore a mighty warhammer and smashed one of the village warriors from his feet with a single blow. More ships beached, and in moments a hundred warriors were ashore. Arrows leapt from the decks of the ships, serrated tips slicing into proud flesh, and flame-wrapped barbs landing amid the tinder-dry homes of the villagers.

A dozen warriors were dropping into the surf with every passing second. Though the defenders of the settlement were hopelessly outnumbered, they fought with the fury of warriors given one last chance to reclaim their honour in death.

Lightly armoured men with bows fanned out onto the beach, taking aim at the fleeing villagers and cutting them down with lethally accurate shafts. Iron clashed with iron on the shore as the last of the defenders were overwhelmed. He watched the raven-helmed warrior hurl himself at the leader of these reavers from the sea with his axe slashing down over his head. The warhammer swept up, and the blade slammed down on its haft. Such a blow should have shattered any normal weapon and split the enemy’s skull, but he knew that this was no ordinary warhammer. Nor was the warrior who bore it any ordinary foe.

The warhammer spun in the warrior’s hand, faster than any weapon of such weight and power should move. Its head slammed into raven-helm’s face, caving his skull to shards and knocking him to the red snow.

“No pyre for you,” he said as the warriors from the sea advanced into the settlement.

Its buildings were burning and its people dead, yet the raiders kicked them down, leaving nothing standing to indicate that anyone had once called this bay home. This was no raid for gold or slaves or plunder. This was an attack of destruction.

The raiders hauled the bodies of the defenders from the sea and began stripping their helmets. One by one, the warrior with the warhammer bent to look at their faces, but each time he would shake his head in disappointment.

Wyrtgeorn chuckled as the warrior shook his head and hissed, “You won’t find what you’re looking for among the dead.”

He heard a noise from further down the cliff and pulled back into the shadow of the cave mouth. A slender, hard-faced woman carried a pair of children up the icy cliff paths towards the cave. Her steps were faltering, and he saw a pair of arrows jutting from her back. She saw him and tried to speak, but no words came, only a froth of bubbling blood.

She reached the ledge before his cave and collapsed onto her knees. Her eyes were frantic. Only seconds of life remained to her and she knew it.

“Wyrtgeorn,” she said in a language not her own. “Save… my… children.”

He backed away from her, shaking his head.

“You must!” she said, thrusting the youngsters toward him. He saw they were twins, one a boy, the other a girl. Both howled with uncontrollable sobs. The woman’s eyes closed and she swayed as death reached up to claim her. The woman’s daughter threw her arms around her mother’s neck and the pair of them fell from the cliff, falling a hundred yards into the sea.

The warriors on the shoreline saw them fall, their eyes drawn up to the cave on the cliff. He knew he was invisible in the shadows, but the boy stood on the ledge as plain as day. Four warriors ran from the beach towards the cliff paths, and the man cursed. He felt a tugging at his fur jerkin and looked down into the coldest blue eyes he had ever seen. The boy stood with his fists bunched at his sides, and there was pleading desperation in the way he met the man’s gaze.

“You are Wyrtgeorn,” said the boy in the man’s own tongue. “Why did you not come down and fight them?”

“Because I have no wish to commit suicide,” he replied.

“They have killed my tribe,” wept the boy. “Why won’t you kill them?”

“I will kill anyone who tries to kill me,” said the man.

“Good,” said the boy. “Zhek Askah said you were a great warrior.”

“I don’t know who that is.”

“The shaman who named you Wyrtgeorn. Lord Aetulff wanted you and your friend slain, but Zhek Askah said you were a killer of men and that we should let you live in the cave.”

“Did he now?” replied the man. “I wonder why. Perhaps it was to save your life.”

Four warriors were climbing towards them, carefully picking their way along the treacherous path. They carried long knives, eschewing axes on so narrow a ledge. The man watched them come: confident, arrogant and with a swagger that didn’t match their abilities. He’d watched them fight on the shore. They were competent warriors, but no more than that.

“There is a passage at the back of the cave,” said the man. “It leads through the rock and comes out a few miles north of the village. Wait for me there. I will join you shortly.”

“I don’t want to run,” said the boy, and the man saw fierce determination behind his fear.

“No,” he agreed. “You don’t, but sometimes that’s all you can do.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing,” said the man. “It doesn’t matter. But I know now why I did not leave this cave.”

Before the boy could ask any more, the light at the mouth of the cave was blocked as two of the warriors reached his squalid dwelling place.

“Get behind me,” said the man, pushing the boy away.

The first warrior stepped cautiously into the cave, his eyes adjusting to the gloom. A second followed close behind. The blades of their knives glittered in the dim light.

“What do we have here?” he said, his voice heavily accented. “A hermit and a shit-scared boy. Should be nice and easy, lads.”

“You should go and never come back,” said the man, his voice calm and even.

“You know that’s not going to happen,” said the warrior.

“I know,” agreed the man, leaping forwards with dazzling speed. Before the warrior was even aware he was under attack, the man slammed the heel of his hand against his throat. Windpipe crushed, the warrior dropped to his knees, already choking to death.

The man caught the falling dagger and plunged it into the throat of the second warrior. The blade sliced into the gap between his iron torque and the visor of his helmet. He gave a strangled gurgle and toppled to the ground as his lifeblood squirted over his killer and the walls of the cave.

Lethal instincts returned with a vengeance as the hot stink of blood filled the man’s nostrils. He leapt, feet first, towards the remaining two warriors. His booted feet slammed into a chest encased in a heavy hauberk of linked iron rings, and the warrior was pitched from the ledge, arms flailing as he fell to his death. The man landed lightly as the last warrior thrust a dagger towards his guts. He swayed aside, locking the warrior’s arm beneath his own, and sent two lightning-quick stabs of his purloined dagger through the visor of his victim’s helmet.

“No glorious sights in the Halls of Ulric for you,” hissed the man, letting the body fall from the ledge to dash itself on the rocks far below. He stood on the edge of the rocky spit of stone before his cave, his arms and upper body drenched in blood. His heart should be racing, yet it beat with a casual rhythm, as though he rested in a peaceful meadow beneath the clearest sky.

Looking down at the beach, he saw the raiders staring up in horror. Alone of the raiders, the warrior in the gold-crowned helm met his gaze. A dozen men ran for the cliff path with murder in their hearts. The man threw the dagger away and returned to the cave, moving with grim inevitability to the cleft in the rock.

Quickly he pulled out a pitch-blackened bundle of cloth and carefully undid the rotted length of twine that secured it. The boy looked on in wonder as he revealed a glittering sword with an ivory handle and gold-inlaid hilt. The blade was slightly curved, in the manner of the Taleuten horsemen, and it shone like fresh-minted silver.

His hands closed around the hilt like a long lost friend, and he sighed as though welcoming a midnight lover.

“Zhek Askah was right,” said the boy. “You are a great warrior, Wyrtgeorn.”

“I am the greatest warrior,” said the man, stripping the sword belt from the first man he had killed. He slid his own blade home. It was a loose fit, the scabbard designed for an Unberogen stabbing sword. “And do not call me Wyrtgeorn. It is not my name.”

“It isn’t?”

“No. My name is Azazel,” he said, letting the name settle in his mouth, as though he hadn’t really earned it until now. The boy looked up at him with a mixture of awe and wariness.

Azazel smiled and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, leading him towards the hidden passageway through the rocks. The warriors pursuing them would find the entrance, but they would never find them in the warren of tunnels that lay beyond.

The boy looked back at the slice of light at the cave mouth and hesitated.

“There is no going back,” said Azazel. “There never is.”

 

The bodies were taken from the cave and carried down the narrow cliff path to the waiting ships. None of their number would be left behind on this cold land, they would be taken back to their homelands for the proper funerary rites to be observed. Their souls demanded no less. Wolfgart studied the ground and splashes of blood on the walls with eyes of cold anger, tracing the course of the fight, though it could hardly be called a fight such was the speed with which his comrades had been killed.

He ran a gloved hand through his long red hair, pushing the woven braids from his face as he shook his head. Wolfgart was no youngster, but his body had lost only a little of its youthful power since he had first swung a sword in battle.

His body was a warrior’s, yet his face was that of a rogue.

“It was him, wasn’t it?” said a voice behind him.

“Aye,” agreed Wolfgart. “But then you knew that, didn’t you?”

“As soon as I saw him on the ledge,” said the warrior with the gold-crowned helm.

Wolfgart gestured to the tracks and scrapes on the cave floor. “It happened so damn quick, the poor buggers didn’t have a chance. He killed Caeadda first and took his weapon. Then he cut Radulf’s throat with it. You saw what he did to Paega and Earic.”

The warrior removed his helm and handed it to another behind him. His golden hair was bound in a short scalp-lock and his face was handsome with a rugged edge that made him a leader to follow in war and an Emperor to obey in peace.

Sigmar, ruler of the lands of men and Emperor of the twelve tribes.

“Only Gerreon could have killed them so quickly,” said Sigmar, his differently coloured eyes tracing the course of the fight and reaching the same conclusion as Wolfgart. “I should have known he would be here.”

Wolfgart turned to look up at his friend and Emperor. “Why? How could you know he would be here?”

“The burning ship,” said Sigmar. “It is how the Norsii send their dead to the gods. To fight in the shadow of unquiet souls is an omen of ill-fortune.”

“Aye, well we’ve had enough of them over the last year,” grumbled Wolfgart.

Sigmar nodded and moved to the back of the cave, peering into the darkness of a rough passageway. Wolfgart’s eyes were drawn to the mighty warhammer hung on Sigmar’s wide leather belt. The hammer’s rune-encrusted haft glittered with pale winter’s light and its heavy head was unblemished by so much as a single drop of blood. This was Ghal-Maraz, ancient weapon of dwarfcraft that had been gifted to Sigmar by King Kurgan of the mountain folk.

Sigmar turned and Wolfgart was struck by the change that had come upon him in this last year. Though he had just entered his fortieth summer, Sigmar carried himself with the poise and strength of a man half his age, yet it was his eyes where he bore the weight of years. The rise of his Empire had been hard won, built upon foundations of blood and sacrifice. Friends and loved ones had been lost along the way, and enemies old and new tore at the newly-birthed Empire with avaricious claws.

A full year had passed since the defeat of the Norsii invasion at the foot of the Fauschlag Rock; a year that had seen Sigmar’s raiding fleets scouring the icy coastlines of the north. Village after village was burned to the ground and its people put to the sword. Wolfgart had been as vocal in his support as any when Sigmar had announced his plan to take the fight to the lands of the Norsii, believing that such vengeance would safeguard the Empire for decades to come.

Now he wasn’t so sure, for these raids were building hatred for the lands of the south that would only fester and grow stronger with every passing year. With every bloody slaughter, Wolfgart understood that Sigmar’s reason for these attacks was more personal. In every ruined village, he sought signs of the swordsman Gerreon, the traitor who had killed the woman he loved and plunged a broken sword into the heart of his dearest friend.

Wolfgart rose to his feet, his height a match for Sigmar’s. The wan light entering the cave only served to highlight the frustration he saw in his friend’s face.

Sigmar slammed a gauntleted fist into the rock of the cave.

“He was here,” snapped Sigmar. “He was here and we missed him. We were so close.”

“Aye, we got close, but he’s gone now,” said Wolfgart.

“Gather the men,” ordered Sigmar. “That passageway likely opens out somewhere north of the village. If we hurry we can mount a pursuit.”

Sigmar made to pass him, but Wolfgart laid a hand on the centre of the Emperor’s breastplate. Though the air in the cave was cold, the ancient metal was warm to the touch, the magic bound to it sending a threatening vibration through Wolfgart’s fingertips.

“He’s gone,” said Wolfgart. “You know it too. Who knows where these tunnels lead, and do you really want to go haring off into the darkness after someone like Gerreon? It’s time to go home, Sigmar.”

“Really? I seem to remember you were the one who called me a fool for not going after him the last time.”

“Aye, that was me, but I was young and foolish then. I’m older now. Can’t say as I’m much wiser, but I know when a quest is hopeless. The Empire needs you, my friend. It’s been the hardest year for our people, and they need their Emperor to guide them. The suffering doesn’t end just because the fighting stops.”

Sigmar looked set to argue, but the light of anger went out of his eyes. Wolfgart hated to be the one to tell him these truths, but there was no one else. Not anymore.

“Pendrag was better at this sort of thing than me,” said Wolfgart, feeling the ache of loss once again. “But he’s not here, and I’m all you’ve got. Like I told you in the Brackenwalsch, you’re stuck with me.”

“Aye, Pendrag was the wisest of us,” agreed Sigmar, looking over his shoulder at the darkened passageway.

Wolfgart saw him accept the truth of his words and his shoulders slumped just a little.

“The Empire needs us,” said Wolfgart. “But more to the point, it needs you.”

“You are wiser than you know,” said Sigmar. “It’s starting to worry me.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t let it go to my head,” said Wolfgart. “I live in a house of women who keep telling me how much cleverer than me they are.”

“Then let’s get you back to them,” said Sigmar. “They must be missing that.”

“Aye,” said Wolfgart with a broad smile. “Let’s do that.”

 

They watched from a concealed ledge further along the cliffs. A rutted track twisted through the rocks and defiles behind them, leading down towards the bleak landscape of the north. Beyond the cliffs, the achingly wide vista became ever more irregular, a harsh mix of tundra, ice shelf and blasted wilderness. The horizon shimmered, and the boundary between earth and sky blurred as though the difference between them was maddeningly inconstant.

Beyond the horizon, Azazel knew the world grew stranger still, the land no longer bound by the laws of nature and man. It was a shifting realm of nightmares and Chaos, its character broken and bitter, like a land shaped by spiteful gods.

Azazel smiled, knowing that was exactly true. He could feel the breath of northern powers sweeping down from the realm of the gods, laden with ruin and aeons-old malice. He and Kar Odacen had ventured far into that forsaken wilderness, travelling paths known only to madmen or those whose lungs drew breath of the air touched by the great gods of the north.

It had changed them both, though Azazel remembered little of the journey save the monumental tomb of an ancient warrior and a duel with its guardian. The quest into the north had reshaped him in ways beyond his comprehension. His body was faster and stronger than was humanly possible, and his senses were honed to preternatural levels.

Those senses now told him he would venture into that wilderness again.

They were silent as to whether he would ever return.

He and the boy had threaded their way through the tunnels of the cliffs, finally emerging in a sheltered defile high on the flanks of the mountain. They lay in a concealed ravine high above the soaring white cliffs that marked the boundary of this icy realm, watching as black smoke from the burning settlement pressed down on the bay like a mourning shroud. A hundred and thirty-four people had lived there, mostly women and children, with fifty men to bear swords. All were now dead, slain by a man he had once called friend.

Azazel hadn’t known any of the villagers and felt nothing at their deaths. Everyone had been slain, but this one boy had survived. That had to mean something, didn’t it?

Azazel looked down at the young boy He was clean limbed and looked strong for his age, with a shock of hair so blond it was almost white. His high cheekbones were characteristic of the Norsii tribes, and Azazel saw he would grow into a strikingly handsome man.

Tears cut through the grime on his young face, his body wracked with sobs now that the adrenaline of fear had worn off. Azazel sensed a confluence of fates in their meeting, the twisted schemes of higher powers at work. Kar Odacen would have said it was the will of the gods that had brought them together, but the shaman had been raving and delusional when Azazel had seen him last.

Perhaps it was the will of the gods, but who could tell? Anything could be interpreted as a sign from the gods, and it was no use trying to guess their intent. All he could do was follow his instincts, and his instincts were telling him that this boy was special in ways he couldn’t even begin to imagine.

He returned his attention to the south, watching as the crimson sails of the raiders from the Empire pushed out to sea, past where Lord Aetulff’s wolfship had sunk beneath the waves. The ships cleared the headland, but instead of turning along the coastline to seek fresh slaughter they kept going, aiming their tapered prows to the south.

“Are they going home?” asked the boy.

Azazel nodded. “It looks like it, yes.”

“Good,” sobbed the boy.

Azazel slapped him hard, knocking him back onto his haunches. Instantly, the boy was on his feet, his grief swamped by anger. He reached for a sword that wasn’t there, and hurled himself at Azazel.

“I’ll kill you!” he screamed.

Azazel sidestepped his rush and pushed the boy to the ground. Before the boy could rise, he planted a booted foot in his chest.

“Anger is not your friend, boy,” said Azazel. “Learn to control it or I will throw you from these cliffs. Listen to me, and listen well. You are the last of your tribe. No other will take you in except as a slave, and the land will kill you if you do not start using your head. We are going to travel into the north and you will do exactly as I say or it will be the death of us both. I will teach you what you need to survive, but if you ever disobey me, even once, I will kill you. Do you understand me?”

The boy nodded. His grief and anger were gone, replaced by smouldering resentment.

That was good. It was a beginning.

He held his hand out to the boy, hauling him to his feet. An angry red weal burned on his cheek where Azazel had struck him.

“That is the first lesson I will teach you,” said Azazel. “It won’t be the last, but it will be the least painful.”

The boy regarded him coldly, rubbing his cheek and holding himself straighter.

“Look out there,” said Azazel, pointing out to the ocean. “What do you see?”

“The raiders’ ships,” said the boy.

“Yes, and they are going home to a land that hates you.”

“Will they be back?”

“I doubt it. Southerners don’t do well with this cold. Even the Udose don’t get winters like we do up here.”

The boy looked at him with a sneer curling his lip. “You say ‘we’ like you are one of us.”

“I am more part of this land than you will ever be,” Azazel promised him. He turned from the diminishing ships, setting a brisk pace along the path over the cliffs. This was the first day of their journey, and who knew how long it would last.

The boy trotted after him, throwing careful glances towards the smoke rising from the ruin of his home.

“Will we ever come back here?” he asked.

“Oh yes,” promised Azazel. “One day we will. I promise. It will be many years from now, but we will return and we will avenge all that has befallen us.”

“Good,” said the boy, his jaw clenched and his blue eyes cold and dead.

Azazel paused in his march as a thought occurred to him.

“What is your name, boy?” he asked. “What do they call you?”

The boy drew his shoulders back, and said, “I am called Morkar.”