PATH OF WARRIORS

Neil McIntosh

 

 

A chill wind drove in across the sea, churning the water into great crests, steel grey flecked with white. A storm was coming. Change was coming. A finger of cold, plucked from the sea, entered the boy’s heart and pierced it like a dagger. Change was coming, and things would never be the same again.

Stefan looked up towards his father, standing like a statue at his side. His father did not return his glance, but kept his stare fixed beyond the raging waters, out towards the far horizon where the sun was a deep orange globe sinking into the sea. Fedor Kumansky was waiting. Waiting for the change.

Questions formed upon the boy’s lips and faded away, unspoken. A feeling, one that he barely yet knew as fear, was growing inside him. On either side of them, the huge sugar-ice cliffs that marked the shores of Mother Kislev stretched away into the distance. Before them, the boundless ocean besieged the shore.

They were standing on the edge of the world. It was the world Stefan had known all of his life, but this unknowing fear that swelled like the sea in the pit of his stomach was something that he had not felt before in all his eleven years.

He tightened his grip upon his father’s hand, pinching with his fingernails until they bit deep into the tough, leathery skin until, at last, his father looked down at him. Fedor Kumansky smiled for his son, and Stefan saw that the smile was a mask. “What is going to happen, father?”

By way of answer, Fedor Kumansky extended an arm out to sea. There, where moments before there had been only the jagged line separating sky and ocean, tiny black specks now peppered the horizon.

The ships were too far distant for Stefan to make them out, but it was a common enough sight. Here, where the mighty Sea of Claws funnelled down into the estuary that became the River Lynsk, the traffic of ships was ceaseless. Fishermen, traders, merchants ferrying their wares to and from the great city of Erengrad and beyond. Stefan found the sight of the ships almost comforting. Except that the tiny masted vessels gathering on the horizon seemed to be multiplying by the moment. There were too many of them.

“So many ships,” Stefan said, quietly. “Perhaps they have sailed all the way from Marienburg, or even from L’Anguille, to trade with us?”

His father shook his head, slowly, and in that movement Stefan knew that the small branch of comfort he clung to was gone.

“I have waited for sight of these ships,” his father said. “Waited, through waking hours and times of sleep. Waited in the hope that they would never come. But last night the gods spoke to me through my dreams. They told me of the dark clouds about to gather.” He drew his son to him.

“No,” Fedor said at last. “I don’t think they come from Marienburg, nor from L’Anguille or anywhere to the west.” He drew his cloak tighter round him to fend off the biting cold of the wind. “I think they come from the north. And I fear they have no wish to trade with us.”

North. Stefan turned the word over in his mind. North was not a place; he had never seen the north nor met any man or woman from his village who had been there. But he had heard of “north”, and knew it as the thing that had seeded the fear that turned his stomach. North was the savage lands of Norsca, or worse; the savage, nameless lands whose ships set sail upon the seas of his dreams, his nightmares.

The salt air stung Stefan’s face and tears prickled in the corners of his eyes. He looked to his father for some sign of what he was feeling, but Fedor’s face was blank. The time of his waiting was over. The dark shapes were more numerous now, and larger. Stefan could make out the outline of the sails billowing full-blown upon tall masts. Fedor Kumansky laid his arm gently across his son’s shoulders, and turned him away from the sea.

“The time has come,” he told Stefan, softly. “And we have work to do.”

Father and son retraced their steps upon the flint path that led from the cliffs back towards their village, into the heart of Odensk. Their pace was brisk but not hurried; a good sort of pace for a crisp, cold day at the beginning of spring. Stefan sensed no panic in his father’s measured strides across the headland, but at each timbered house along the path into the village Fedor stopped, and rapped hard upon the door with his staff.

Calm, sombre faces appeared in doorways. Strong, upright men with proud, weather-beaten faces much like his father’s. Fedor clasped each one of them by the hand, but this was not a time for greetings. To each of his kinsmen, the same words, clear, spoken almost without emotion: “The time has come.”

Where there had been one man and his son soon there were a hundred, moving through the streets of Odensk, the same message passing from mouth to mouth. Each repetition met with the same response. Knives that had only seen service gutting fish were cleaned ready for a grimmer purpose. Broadswords tarnished with the rust of peaceful years were brought down and polished with oil. Staffs became clubs in the hands of men who had spent their lives at peace. And from out of an underground store, long-disused and fastened with padlocks, two small cannons were removed and wheeled slowly towards the cove where the seas broke hard upon the shore.

The sleepy afternoon quiet of the fishing port had been broken, the people roused to a level and kind of activity that Stefan had never seen before. Half running at his father’s side, he watched as the village transformed itself into something new, something frightening. Tools of life turned to weapons of war; men hardened by work stood ready to become warriors. Homesteads became fortresses.

By the time Stefan and his father reached the low thatched building that was their own home, the sun had gone and a chill twilight was settling over Odensk. Stefan tried to imagine the fleet of ships as they closed upon the coast; tried to imagine the construction of the masts, the shape and position of the sails; tried to picture the faces of the men, on deck or climbing in the rigging, hoping that somehow they looked no different to his father and the men of Odensk. Most of all he tried to imagine the ships turning away before they entered the mouth of the cove, hoping against hope that their intentions were not, after all, warlike.

But in his young heart he knew that there was no hope. His father’s expression, and the calm, repeated mantra at each door along the way told him that. The time had come, and there would be no returning.

 

Mikhal was still in the salting sheds, helping the women clean and gut the fish ready for market. He looked up expectantly as he saw his father enter. Stefan ran to his younger brother and embraced him, hugging his body tight against his own.

Their father moved to the centre of the long room and called for quiet.

“The time for work is over now,” he said. “All of you go home. And may the gods watch over us all.” There was a moment of silence, and then the women began to collect together their bundles of food and belongings. A few celebrated the working day ending prematurely, others looked curious or suspicious. The elder women amongst them stayed quiet, but gathered their things together and left as quickly as they could.

Fedor Kumansky led the two boys across the courtyard to the house. He turned down the wick on the single oil lamp until the room was lit only by a faint amber glow. Then he drew the heavy curtain across the narrow window, closing out the last of the fading twilight. The embers of a fire still burned low in the hearth, and the room was suffused with a smoky warmth. For a moment Stefan felt safe again, comforted by this familiar world.

“Listen to me.” Fedor gripped him tightly by the shoulders. “Soon I must leave you. You and Mikhal must stay here, where you will be safe. After I’ve gone you will lock all of the doors and bar the shutters across the windows. Open them to no one, no one, until I get back. And whatever happens, Stefan, you must look after your brother. You understand that?”

Stefan nodded. He understood, and he did not understand. He understood that his childhood was ending, understood that the time of his being a man was beginning. Understood that he was Mikhal’s protector now, no longer his playmate. But he did not understand why. He took his brother’s hand.

“But you will return, father, won’t you?”

Fedor bent down and removed the silver chain from around his neck. He showed the boys the locket he held in his hand, an oval tablet inscribed with the likeness of Shallya, the Goddess of Healing.

“This was your mother’s,” he told the boys. “She gave it to me just before she died. It became my pledge to her that I would always care for you, our sons.” Stefan touched the locket, and a picture of his mother, faint in his memory, came back to him. He pressed the silver tablet into his brother’s palm.

“It feels cold,” said Mikhal.

“I’m giving this to you now,” Fedor told Stefan. “Keep it safe for me, just as I will keep my pledge to your mother.”

“Why do you have to go?” Mikhal asked. Tears ran down his cheeks, and he was shivering despite the warmth from the fire. Stefan drew a protective arm around his brother, as his father had so often done with him.

“The time has come for me to fight,” Fedor said. His voice was grave but calm, and Stefan suddenly realised that his father had been preparing for this night for a very long time. He hugged Mikhal tightly but his shivering would not stop.

“Why do you have to fight?” he implored. “Stay here with us!”

“Bad people are coming,” their father said. “And we must fight them, or they will destroy us.” He smiled, trying to soften the message in his words. Standing in the yellow glow of the oil lamp he looked very tall, very strong. It seemed inconceivable that anyone, or anything, could defeat him. “Don’t worry,” he said. “We’re ready for them.”

Stefan’s mouth felt dry and tight as he spoke. “We can fight too,” he said. “We can fight by your side.”

His father shook his head. “No, you must show your bravery by staying here. And staying safe. Look after your little brother. That is your duty now.”

Stefan looked down at the icon of the goddess, and twisted the braided silver chain around his fingers.

“I’ll keep us safe until you return,” he said at last.

His father bent and placed a kiss on the forehead of each son. “Keep faith in the goddess. She’ll watch over you always.”

Fedor Kumansky unlocked a cupboard by the side of the hearth and reached inside. Stefan looked in awe at the sword in its scabbard fastened to the stiff leather harness. Fedor drew the harness around his waist and secured it tightly. Then he took two short daggers from the cupboard, and stuck one inside his belt. He hesitated, turning the second knife over in his hands, then laid it upon the table in front of the boys, and nodded.

“Stefan, my cloak,” he said gently.

Mikhal had stopped shivering now. Either that, or Stefan was holding him so tightly that he could no longer shiver. Both boys were transfixed by the sight of their father with the sword. Their father, the warrior.

“Are the bad ones going to come into the village?” Mikhal asked.

“No,” his father said. “We’re going to stop them before they get that far.”

Stefan could feel his heart beating faster and faster. The sick fear in his stomach had returned. “But,” he said, “you’ll come back for us, you promise?”

Fedor Kumansky paused, one hand outstretched towards the heavy oak door, the other held out to his children. His gaze was fixed upon the ground, but at last he looked up and met Stefan’s eye.

“Keep your brother safe,” he said. “I’ll come back. I promise.”

Stefan felt something inside him about to burst. He wanted to sob, to cling to his father, stop him leaving the house. Then they would all be safe. But he knew that was not possible. Another Stefan was starting to emerge from the child that had woken that morning, a Stefan who knew that could not be. But still he needed something, some words of reassurance from his father that he could cling to.

“Father,” he said. Fedor Kumansky had the door half-open. He turned and looked back sadly at his sons.

“Is this how things must be now?” Stefan asked. “Will it always be like this, forever?”

“No,” his father said, quietly. “Nothing lasts forever.”

 

Fedor was one of the last to arrive at the cove. The beachhead was in total darkness, but from the voices audible above the roar of the waves, Fedor knew that the men from the village were there in force. As he drew closer, bodies and faces became visible. They must have numbered nearly a hundred, men armed with swords, knives, staves, anything that would deliver a blow. At each end of the bay, the two cannons sat primed and ready to fire. Set against the enormity of the ocean, they looked puny and useless.

Fedor scanned the faces of the men around him. He had known many of them since he himself had been a child. Daily they risked their lives together on the ocean, trawling for fish with their nets, pitting their strength against the cruel power of the Sea of Claws. These were brave men all, Fedor knew. His trust of them was no less than the trust they placed in him. For a moment his heart lifted; they might yet prevail.

The gathering storm that he watched from the cliff-tops that afternoon had not abated. The sea boiled in great plumes around the rocks and crashed down upon the shore. Only a fool would contemplate landing a boat in weather like this. A fool, or a madman. He looked around at his kinsmen, and guessed many of them had the same idea. Perhaps the storm would save them.

He joined a group of villagers who were studying the sea with a spyglass.

“How many ships?” he asked them.

Jan Scherensky lowered the glass and handed it to Fedor. “A dozen, maybe more,” he replied. “Not all are bearing lights, so it’s hard to be sure.”

Fedor took the glass and looked out into the channel. A spread of lights bobbed up and down upon the water line, sometimes dipping below the towering waves, but moving ever closer to shore. It might almost have been the fishing fleet, returning to port after the long night at sea. But these were no honest fishermen.

“Well,” he said at last. “They’re headed in towards the mouth of the estuary, that’s for sure.”

Heads around him nodded solemnly. The older ones amongst them remembered the last time, when the Reavers had visited bloody slaughter upon their homes. Maybe this time it wasn’t the Reavers, but one thing was certain: few travelled this way from the north in friendship or for trade.

“They’ll be headed up river,” Jakob Kolb muttered. “Maybe they even fancy a crack at Erengrad itself.”

Fedor nodded. “It was possible. History had it that raiders had got that far before. The question is,” he said, “whether they’ve a mind to stop off here first.” He knew in his own mind what the answer to that question was.

Andrei Markarov took the glass from Fedor and put it to his eye. He was a young man, well over six foot tall, and one of the strongest in the village. And yet Fedor marked the fear in his eyes as he took the glass. A young wife and three small children at home. Fedor knew exactly where that fear came from.

“All the lights in the village are doused,” Andrei said. “Maybe they won’t even know we’re here.”

“Maybe,” Jakob agreed. “And maybe not.”

“At any rate,” Jan Scherensky added, “it would be madness to try and land their boats in this storm.”

Madness indeed, Fedor thought. He fell to wondering what form that madness might take. Very soon, one way or another, they would find out.

Within a matter of minutes, the dark shapes of the ships themselves were visible through the gloom, and voices from the men on deck were drifting in to shore. Fedor motioned his men back to take cover behind the shelter of the rocks lining the bay. Nothing must give their presence away; they must stay silent as the grave, and wait.

Jakob Kolb crouched down behind a crag of rock beside his friend. “Small ships,” he observed. “Small enough to navigate the channels of the Lynsk.”

Fedor nodded. “And big enough to cause us plenty of trouble. How many do you make now?”

Jakob raised the glass above the rim of rock. “Fourteen,” he said at last. “Men on deck of most of them. High in the water; no cargo aboard. They mean to carry back more than they bring.”

Fedor felt the muscles in his stomach tighten. “Pray to the gods they keep going,” he said, then added: “Gods forgive me that I should wish misfortune on others.”

The wind suddenly dropped, smoothing the waves. Far above them, the moon Mannslieb emerged from behind the clouds. Silver light washed over the bay, picking out the black fleet in the water below.

The lead ship reached the entrance to the bay, then tacked away from the beachhead towards the mouth of the Lynsk. The second and third ships in the convoy made to follow. Fedor’s heart gave a leap; he shook Jacob’s arm in early celebration. “Keep sailing,” he muttered, “keep sailing.”

Then a voice nearby said: “Oh no!”

The fourth boat was turning in mid-stream, back towards the shallows of the bay.

“Not this way,” Fedor found himself whispering. “Not this way, not this way.”

Shouts broke out amongst the men on the fourth boat. Moments later, a burning flare, flew up from the deck of the ship, lighting the night sky a vivid scarlet.

“What have they seen?” someone shouted. “Why are they stopping?”

Fedor watched the leading vessels sway and churn in the water. He knew that could mean only one thing: they were turning around.

A second and third flare spiralled skywards. Now every one of the ships in the fleet seemed to be ablaze with lights. Voices screamed commands in a language that bore no resemblance to any tongue of man that Fedor had heard before.

Several splashes in the water, almost simultaneously. They’re dropping anchor, he realised. He lifted the glass to his eyes once more and saw the rowing boats being lowered into the water from the decks of at least three of the ships.

Fedor Kumansky rose from behind the rock and drew himself up to his full height. His throat felt parched and tight; his voice, when he spoke seemed small and insignificant, but he forced it out, summoning all the power he could muster to carry his commands above the sounds of the invaders closing on the shore.

“Aim the cannon!” he shouted. “Be ready to fight for your lives.”

 

For a long time after their father had gone there had been only silence. The two boys sat cross-legged by the fire the only other light the dim glow of the oil-lamp which they had been forbidden to turn any higher. To distract his younger brother from his fears, Stefan had told stories: imaginary tales of the lands beyond Kislev; the princes of Bretonnia, of the magicians that wove their spells across the vast lands of the Empire. And he told Mikhal of the brave warriors of Kislev, the strong, upright men like their own father, men who would never be defeated, not by any foe.

The light from the lamp guttered and died. The only light and warmth in the room now came from the embers in the hearth.

“It’s dark,” Mikhal protested. “Light a candle, Stefan.”

“We mustn’t,” Stefan said, firmly. “Not until father’s back. We have to wait.”

“How long?” Mikhal demanded. Stefan made no reply; he wanted the question answered too, and suddenly he wished he had a big brother of his own to protect him and answer his questions. Most of all, like Mikhal, he wished their father would return.

He crept to the window and levered open the shutter far enough to allow him to peer out into the night. It was a sight he had never seen before: the village in total darkness. Not a single light burned in any of the windows of the houses spread around the edge of the square. The streets were empty, the temple bells stilled. Even the birds that settled after dark in the trees beyond the house had fallen silent.

For a moment the thought leapt into Stefan’s mind that they had been abandoned, that he and Mikhal were the only ones left in the whole village of Odensk. But that was stupid, just a child’s imagination. There must be others, people in every one of the houses, perhaps even now looking out from their windows, like him. In the dark he just couldn’t see them, that was all.

But suddenly the darkness was no longer total. At the very far end of the street, along the path that led down to the bay, he could see the orange flicker of a lamp or torch being carried up the hill. The silence was no longer total either; Stefan could hear voices following behind the light, though he couldn’t yet make out any of the words. A surge of excitement filled Stefan’s body. He closed his eyes and made a wish, wished that the news was good, that, in a few moments, the door would be flung open and their father would be standing on the step in front of them, his arms spread as wide as the grin upon his face.

“Mikhal,” Stefan called to his brother, remembering moments later he had promised to keep his voice low. “Mikhal,” he repeated in a whisper. “Come here and see.”

Mikhal joined his brother at the window, elbowing Stefan aside to get a better view. The single lamp had become a procession, the voices swollen to the sound of a large crowd. The air rang with the clatter of footsteps, marching up the hill that led towards the centre of the village.

A wave of relief rushed over Stefan. It was over. His father and the others were coming back. He reached up to unfasten the window, ready to call out to his father as he spied him approaching the house.

His hand fastened upon the latch and then froze. Maybe it was the sound of heavy boots upon the cobble stone—too loud, or too many. Or maybe it was something in the building cacophony of voices, voices singing songs his childhood had never taught him, in a tongue he still could not recognise. Without thinking, Stefan found himself reaching out towards Mikhal, but his younger brother had slipped away from the window.

He turned and saw Mikhal tugging hard upon the door.

“I’m going outside!” Mikhal shouted. “Find father!”

“No!” The intensity in Stefan’s voice frightened them both. But the bolts were already drawn back; the door was open.

 

Fedor Kumansky gazed at the bloody carnage all around him and wept. The men of Odensk had been prepared. They were strong, and though they had lived for peace, they were ready to fight fearlessly to protect their homesteads. It had made no difference.

He brushed away tears with a hand stained red with blood whilst he rested upon his sword to draw precious breath. All around, his brothers of the sea lay dead or dying, slaughtered by creatures driven by a single purpose; to destroy every living thing that lay in their path.

At first, the battle had gone well. The invaders hadn’t seen Fedor’s men lying in wait behind the rocks, and each of the cannons had found their mark. The two boats that had been lowered from the ships at anchor were destroyed, the men inside killed or thrown into the heavy swell of the sea.

But even as the first boats sank, three more were in the water, then five, then six. Within minutes the mouth of the bay was clogged with oared vessels being rowed hard towards the shoreline.

The cannons were reloaded and fired a second, a third time, but the men of Odensk might as well have tried to hold back the tide itself. The invaders made no attempt to rescue those who had been pitched into the water. They were left to die as the next wave of boats ploughed onwards, relentless.

Fedor drew the sword from its scabbard and held it high above his head. Moonlight glinted off the newly-polished steel.

“Rise up!” he called to his men. “We’ll send them back wherever they’ve sailed from, and make them rue they ever made the voyage south!”

Cheers rang out from the rocks around and behind him. Men emerged in their dozens, no longer fishermen, but warriors. Andrei Markarov appeared at his side, his face flushed and excited. “Don’t worry,” he told Fedor. “We’re all ready for this.”

“I know,” Fedor replied quietly. “I know we are.”

Andrei turned and urged his comrades forward. “Come on!” he yelled, stabbing down at the beach with his sword. “This barren strip of land will be their first and last taste of Mother Kislev! Let us make them pay dearly for each yard!”

The leading boats had run aground in the shallows of the bay. Now the men of Odensk would come face to face with those who would take their land, their living, their lives.

As one the villagers rose up to form a human shield. Together they would drive the invaders back into the sea, and the waters would run red with their blood.

Figures were in the water, ploughing through the waves towards the beach. Fedor tried to take stock of their numbers and quickly lost count. Tens, dozens, it might be hundreds. The air around him sang with the sound of arrows being loosed, as all those nearby who carried bows launched the next attack into the swirling waters of the bay. Fedor saw several of the advancing figures stumble and fall beneath the onslaught. Countless other arrows found their mark, but seemingly made no impact. The invaders strode on through the waters oblivious to the arrow shafts lodged in their flesh, or tore out the wooden shafts from their bodies and tossed them aside as if they were no more than irritations.

Any hope that the invaders could be forced back before they had got as far as the beach died there and then. Fedor Kumansky said his prayers to the gods and stepped forward towards the water’s edge. He thought about the life he was about to set behind him, a hard life of peaceful struggle and simple reward. He thought about his wife, lain six years in the cold ground. And he thought about his sons, Stefan and Mikhal, waiting on his safe return at home. He begged the Goddess Shallya for her vigilance in protecting them.

He looked into the faces of his attackers. Surely they, too, must be men like he, men with homes and loved ones that they longed to see again. Surely some sense could still intervene before the madness engulfed them all.

But Fedor Kumansky saw nothing of the kind. The faces that stared back at him had long ago been leeched of any vestige of humanity as he understood it. In fact, he was not certain if many of them were human at all. Most wore the coarse fur jerkins and horned steel caps of the Norse hordes, but on some the marks of mutation were clear. Stretched jaws gaped open to display rows of yellowed rodents teeth. Horns grown out of bone jutted through ruptured faces and foreheads. Skin sparkled with the chill lustre of the serpent’s scales. But one thing they had in common, every one: their eyes, vacant, almost unseeing, empty of compassion. They offered him no hope, no respite. This would be unto death.

The opposing forces met where surf crashed upon the shore. Fedor stood at the edge of his world, and cast a last glance inland towards the village. The invaders were shouting orders at each other in a harsh, guttural tongue, their rough voices obliterating even the sounds of the waves. Tall figures dressed in dark, foul-smelling skins were advancing on him on three sides. Fedor picked a target at random, and attacked.

As he ran towards the thick-set figure he had marked out, it struck Fedor Kumansky that he had not fought another being for more than six years. His opponent turned towards him almost in slow-motion, and he aimed his first blow. There was a moment that seemed to last forever as Fedor looked at the man; his milk-white face and fair hair poking out from beneath the rounded iron cap upon his head; the small scars pocking the baby-smooth skin on his face. The sly, hungry grin that spread over his features as he met Fedor’s eyes.

Fedor swung his sword, and felt it judder as it struck home, cutting through leather, cloth, or bone—he couldn’t tell. His opponent tottered as though slightly drunk, but did not fall. Fedor saw the man’s sword arm swinging up towards him. All of a sudden, Fedor found himself possessed by a furious frenzy. He pulled back his sword, parried the blow aimed towards him then struck again and again, hacking at the other’s man’s body as he might cleave meat from a bone. Blood sprayed out of a deep cut through the man’s neck as, finally, he toppled into the shallow water lapping the beach.

Fedor experienced a moment of pure horror, looking down upon a scene from the very pit of Morr. Then he felt something cut through the cloth of his shirt, cold metal grazing the skin below his ribs. He spun round to find a huge figure bearing down on him, knives in both of its hands, the same insane, blind bloodlust in its eyes. Fedor took his sword in both hands, stepped back and swung a blow directly into the Norse’s face, the blade paring flesh away from bone.

He wasn’t seeing men, or even mutants, any longer. Fedor Kumansky’s existence had become distilled into one simple equation: kill or be killed. And he went about that business with every ounce of his being.

But, even as he fought, Fedor was aware that they were being pushed back up the beach, on to the path that would lead eventually to the village. He saw Jacob Kolb on his knees, trying to fend off the blows raining down upon him from a Norscan wielding a fierce-looking, double-headed axe. Fedor cut a path through the battleground with his sword, his desperation to reach his friend endowing him with the strength of two men. He lunged with his sword, slicing through a Norse arm, severing it above the elbow.

“Get up, old friend! Get up!” He lifted Jakob’s face towards his own and wiped away the filth crusting his friend’s face. But Jakob was already dead, he had seen the last light of this world. Fedor had barely a moment to mark his grief before something landed heavily upon his back, sending him sprawling face-down. Long fingers ending in sharpened talons fastened a grip around his neck. Fedor felt as though the very life was being squeezed from him. Then, just as suddenly, the pressure eased and the weight was lifted off his back. Fedor turned to see Andrei freeing his sword from the mutant’s body with the help of his boot. Andrei’s face was caked with blood. He stretched out a hand and helped Fedor to his feet.

All around him Fedor saw the dead and the dying. Friends, brothers he had toiled with very working day of his life. Men who would not be beaten by anything had given their all, given their lives. And it was not enough.

“We must re-group,” Fedor said, fighting for his breath. “Pull back to the village. They’ll destroy us out here.”

“But—”

“No buts, Andrei. This is not glory. This is survival. Survival of our loved ones. Gather whoever you can. We pull back, to the village. We must defend our homes.”

 

Stefan’s heart pounded hard inside his chest. Mikhal had either not heard, or not heeded him. By the time Stefan had reached the door of the house his brother had gone. Now he stood in the empty village square, calling Mikhal’s name. His breath came in short, tight bursts, frosting the cold night air. The surrounding houses were still wrapped in darkness, but in the distance street a house at the edge of the village was on fire. Orange flames licked the night sky, and thick coils of suffocating smoke rolled up the hill towards Stefan.

Moments later a figure emerged from the smoke, staggering wildly from one side of the road to the other. The man was clutching the side of his stomach with one hand and cradling his head in the other. His face looked wet, and red.

Stefan felt his body tense. His hand was inside the pocket of his jerkin, clutching the handle of the short knife as though his life depended upon it. The man slowed his pace as he got closer to the centre of the village and looked up at Stefan.

Stefan recognised him. It was Jan Scherensky, one of the men who worked the nets on his father’s boats. His son was a friend of Stefan’s; they had played together only a day or so ago. It all seemed a lifetime away now.

Stefan stared at the man in shock. As well as his face, one side of his body seemed to be have been drenched in blood. Something thick and dark oozed from a hole that had opened up beneath Jan’s ribs. Scherensky noticed Stefan standing by the side of the road and limped towards him.

“In the name of the gods, Stefan,” he shouted, “save yourself.”

Stefan was stunned. It was a while before he could reply.

“I can’t,” he said at last. “I have to find Mikhal.”

Jan Scherensky knelt upon the ground as though he had been overcome by tiredness. He held out a hand towards Stefan and Stefan took it in his own. He didn’t know what else to do.

“Jan,” Stefan said, “what’s happened to my father?”

Other figures were starting to emerge from the smoke and flames at the end of the village. Men carrying torches, marching towards them. Scherensky looked back down the street then turned back to Stefan, his eyes bright with fear.

“Save yourself,” he repeated. “Save yourself.”

He slipped forward, his forehead cracking hard against the cobblestones. Stefan shook Scherensky’s body in desperation, trying to stir him back to life. He hadn’t said anything about his father. He needed to be told that his father was safe.

But Scherensky wasn’t going to tell him anything now, and eventually Stefan let go, and left him lying in the road. The marching men hadn’t yet reached as far as the village square. They were stopping at every house along the way, Stefan realised. The air was filled with the sounds of wooden doors being broken down, glass being smashed. And the sound of the screaming.

The sky flared orange as more and more homes were lit by the flames that danced along the wood-slatted sides of the houses and across their straw-thatched roofs. Soon the whole village would be engulfed.

Stefan saw something move in the shadows on the far side of the square. A tiny figure, huddled in fear by the side of the road. Stefan ran towards him, calling his brother’s name above the rising crescendo of destruction all around them. As he reached the centre of the square, he saw the men coming. Two men, taller than any he had seen before, rushed towards him. One was carrying a blazing torch and a heavy axe, the other had something swinging from his hand, a ball or a bundle of some kind.

Stefan froze. He looked into the faces of the men. They were laughing. Their soldiers’ clothes were matted with filth and blood. Stefan saw now what it was that the second man was carrying. His fist was clenched around the hair of a severed head.

Stefan found he was paralysed, rooted to the spot. He wanted to reach Mikhal and the safety of the shadows, but could not move. The men kept running. For a moment it seemed that they would run straight past him. Their eyes seemed to look through Stefan as though he wasn’t there. Then, at the last moment, the second man pulled up short. The dead villager’s head swung from side to side in his bloody hand. Stefan recognised a face. Sickness forced its way up from the pit of his stomach into his mouth.

The Norse tossed his trophy to the ground and turned towards Stefan. He was young, probably little more than a boy himself. His features looked human but his eyes were the colour of blood, set like dark red stones in his smooth, white face. His face broke into an leering grin, exposing a row of sharpened teeth like those of a wild dog or a wolf. He said something to Stefan that Stefan didn’t understand, and reached out to touch him. Stefan flinched away in terror and a voice called out: “Leave him alone!”

Both Norse turned at the sound of the small, frightened voice. Mikhal tried to scramble away out of sight but it was too late. The white-faced monster laughed evilly, and pulled a short knife from his belt. The first man moved round behind Mikhal to cut off his escape. He was whistling.

Stefan heard his father’s voice in his head. His fear dissolved, and with it the ice that had frozen his limbs. Suddenly he was running, desperately running to put himself between Mikhal and the Norse. The knife lying in his pocket chafed against his skin as he ran.

He was no longer thinking. Every movement of his body was driven by instinct alone. The younger of the two men appeared not to notice him. His attention was fixed upon Mikhal now, like a snake mesmerising its prey. The Norse crouched down and beckoned Mikhal towards him. His companion was laughing a cruel, hoarse laugh.

At the last moment the Norseman saw Stefan. As he turned towards him, Stefan lashed out with his feet, kicking the man in the guts. Mikhal darted forward, escaping the clumsy lunge of the other man.

“Run!” Stefan yelled at his brother. The younger man uttered a curse and grabbed wildly at Stefan. Stefan fended him off, hardly realising he had the knife in his hand. He heard the Norse scream. He caught a brief glimpse of the man’s face; saw the socket running red with blood where the ruby eye had been gouged out. The Norseman screamed with pain and rage, and struck out blindly. Stefan felt a cold spike of pain shoot up through his arm.

Then he was running, running with his brother, away from the square, towards their home, the heat of the flames scorching the skin at the back of his neck, the voices of the pursuing Norsemen rising above the screams from the village. A sweet smell of burning wood mixed with the stench of the butcher’s slab.

Mikhal dashed ahead of Stefan, towards the door of the house that still lay open to the night. Stefan clutched his younger brother by the hand and hauled him along in his wake.

“Our house,” Mikhal shouted. “Our house is over there!”

“No,” he said, fighting for breath. “Not there. They’re burning the houses.”

“But I want to go back,” Mikhal protested. “I want to go home, Stefan.”

Stefan charged on past the house, dragging Mikhal behind him. He knew that their lives depended on them keeping going. “We can’t go there again,” he repeated. “We can’t go back.”

“But father—”

“Father will know where we’ve gone.”

His mind was racing, trying to sift the sounds rushing through his ears. He could no longer hear the voices of the Norse behind them. He begun to hope that, for the moment at least, they had lost their pursuers. The dark outline of the salting house loomed up in front of them; the oddly comforting scents of the sea mingled with the smell of smoke and carnage.

“In here,” he gasped, tugging his brother’s arm. “Hurry, Mikhal!”

The air inside the thick stone walls of the salting house felt still and cool. Moonlight creeping through the narrow slats across the window was mirrored in the silver scales of the gutted fish that lay motionless in their hundreds, row upon row spread out to dry upon the shelves.

Stefan stopped still and held Mikhal to him. He placed a hand across his brother’s mouth.

“Quiet.”

Some way in the distance they heard the sound of footsteps approaching the shed. Stefan looked around in desperation for somewhere to hide themselves. Stefan walked between the salting trays to the large open vat at the end of the room where the guts from the cleaned fish were collected, and lifted himself up onto the lip of the vessel. A familiar stench of rotting entrails filled his nostrils. The vat was almost full.

Stefan swallowed hard and called Mikhal over. There was no other choice if they wanted to stay alive. “I can’t,” Mikhal said, horrified.

Secretly, Stefan agreed. “Yes, you can,” he told him. He took a firm grip on his brother and lifted him up onto the edge of the vat.

“Take a deep breath,” he told Mikhal. “Take a deep breath and pray.”

Stefan lifted a leg over the edge of the vat so that he was balanced over the mass of stinking entrails. Part of him could not believe he was about to do this. The other part of him told him that he had to.

Mikhal looked at him in horror and disgust. “I know,” Stefan said. “But I promised. I promised father.”

He pushed Mikhal backwards into the slippery mass, then followed on, trying not to crush Mikhal beneath him. His eyes, nose and mouth filled with a cold oily pulp that stank beyond belief. Stefan choked and gagged, fighting to draw breath. The darkness enveloping them was total. After a while Stefan pushed an arm upwards until it broke through the surface of the vat. A little light and air leaked in.

Stefan spat out the vile tasting scraps that had forced their way into his mouth. He whispered Mikhal’s name quietly and heard his brother sob a muted reply.

“How long?” his brother whimpered.

“Hush…” Stefan felt for Mikhal’s hand in the oily mess and tried to take a grip upon it. “We must wait,” he said.

At first there was only the silence, and the distant sounds of fighting in the village. Then Stefan thought he heard another sound, closer at hand. The sound of the door being opened. Not kicked apart, like the other houses in the village, but eased open gently, as though someone were playing a game of hide and seek.

He listened carefully, tracking the muffled footsteps around the interior of the salting shed. Stefan felt his body begin to tremble. The footsteps completed a half-circuit of the room and then stopped. For a full minute the silence was absolute.

Stefan held his breath. The urge to look outside and see what was happening was overwhelming.

Then a voice spoke somewhere in the darkness. It was the voice of the white-faced Norseman, the man that he had wounded, speaking in Stefan’s mother tongue.

“Boys,” he drawled, slowly, slurring his speech around the foreign words. “You come out now, be good. You be safe with us. You see.”

Stefan clamped a hand tight over Mikhal’s mouth. His heart was pounding so hard in his chest he was sure it could be heard all round the room.

“Boys! You do a bad thing with knife. You got to say sorry now!”

Then a second voice. Stefan couldn’t tell what the second man was saying, but his tone sounded harsh, impatient. Outside there was a sudden explosion, and light flashed through the window-slats. Shouts rang out, some in Norse, some in Kislevite.

The first voice cursed in Norse, then shouted out again Stefan’s own language: “I find you, one day. I find you, I promise.” Then Stefan heard the sound of the door being thrown open, and footsteps retreating into the distance.

More than anything else, Stefan wanted to climb out from the vat. His body was chilled through and soaked in cloying, stinking oil that covered him from head to foot. His wrist throbbed savagely from the encounter with the norse. Yet he understood that the only possibly safe place for the two of them was right there. Somehow he did not think the norse would be back.

He tried his best to hug Mikhal and give him some reassurance. He did his best to find some way of getting comfortable and the confines of the cold, filthy tank.

And he waited, waited for he knew not what.

The faint messages from the world outside changed as the night wore on. At first the sounds of battle had intensified; the clash of steel and inhuman screams of triumph or pain seemed at one point to be ringing the building itself. It was impossible to tell which way the battle was going. He could only hope that, somehow, his father had prevailed and the invaders had been destroyed.

Gradually the sounds receded, fading into the background as the fighting either drew farther away, or simply ended. Perhaps, Stefan thought, the Norsemen had given up. Or perhaps there was no one left to fight. He pushed the thought away, and waited. Miraculously, Mikhal had fallen into an uneasy sleep, punctuated by moans and, sometimes, yelps of pain. But Stefan had not the heart to wake him. Who knew what the new day was to bring for either of them?

 

Stefan came to with a jolt, shocked by the realisation that he, too, had fallen asleep. He had no idea how long now they lad lain hidden, but faint grey light had begun to creep through the windows of the salting house. Dawn had come.

He listened. Now there was no sound at all, above the steady whisper of Mikhal’s breathing. Nothing. Even the birds were silent.

His body ached with stiffness and cold, and his wrist throbbed with incessant pain. Stefan raised his left hand and looked at it. A broad red gash had been carved across the palm. The salty slurry had served to staunch the flow of blood, but the wound was deep, and would take a long time to heal.

He found he had lost most of his sense of taste and smell, which was probably just as well, for he surely stank. Stefan stood up slowly until he was able to rest his arms on the lip of the vat and look out across the salting house floor.

Sooner or later, he knew, they would have to find the courage to venture out. And it might as well be now. He doubted anyhow that he could bear hiding in the stinking vat of entrails any longer.

Everything was exactly as it was the day before, or a thousand days before that. And it was quiet, peaceful even. Just for a moment Stefan allowed himself the childish hope that, somehow, all of that dark night had been just a dream. He stifled the thought quickly and stirred his brother.

“We can get out now. Go and find father.”

“Are you all right?” Mikhal asked him.

“Yes, I’m fine,” Stefan said. In fact he could not remember ever feeling worse. He hoped that once he started walking his limbs would return to normal. He took a few steps forward, trying to ignore the pains and the revolting filth that covered every inch of his body.

The door of the salting house hung open, flapping to and fro in a gentle breeze. Stefan was just able to make out the faint scent of burning wood that hung still on the air, reminding him of bonfires on the Feast Days. He took Mikhal’s hand, and led him outside.

The sun had not yet risen over Odensk. The light was cold and grey, misted with the smoke from dying fires. But even in this half-light Stefan could see enough to realise that the village he knew had gone.

His first thought was of the fire in the hearth when he and his father got up at first light. All around him, fires smouldered and cooled.

The village was no more. Where wooden buildings had stood, only blackened piles of debris remained. Only those few buildings made from brick or stone had survived. The wind swept dunes of pale grey ash along the street.

Stefan searched with his brother through a cold new land. Up the path that led from the salting house, towards the square in the centre of what once had been the village of Odensk.

Around a bend in the path their search came to an end.

Stefan grabbed at Mikhal to hold him back, but he was too slow.

“He kept his promise!” Mikhal shouted. “He promised to come back!”

Even before Mikhal’s shouts of joy had turned to howling despair, Stefan knew what they had found. He knew, too, that the door that led back to his old life, his child’s life in Odensk had shut forever; that in a moment he would have no choice but to step through a door into another life altogether. The grey dawn was giving birth to a cruel new world.

Stefan advanced a few more steps and sank to his knees in front of the figure lying outstretched before them. Mikhal was sobbing now, pounding the hard ground with his little fists in grief and rage, but, for the moment, Stefan did not hear him.

He had seen death before, seen it reflected in the glass-beaded eyes of the fish spread in rows across the wooden slats. But this was different.

“You’re right,” he whispered to Mikhal. “He kept his promise to come back.”

Stefan’s fingers closed upon the silver icon clutched in his hand, but the goddess had no comfort to offer him. He looked to the sky, the pitiless grey sky stretching out above them, and said a silent prayer.

He looked again at death, and death looked back at him through his father’s eyes.

Nothing in his life, not even the horror of that last, long night, had prepared Stefan for this. He wanted to understand how this could be, how the world that had kept him safe from harm through all his years could now have dealt so savage a blow.

He wanted to howl with rage, to beat against the cruel earth like Mikhal had done; but that belonged on the other side of the door that had closed behind him. And he wanted revenge, desperate bloody revenge, upon the men, the monsters, that had destroyed his life. But that lay beyond the door through which he had yet to pass.

He lifted Mikhal gently to his feet. Gradually the convulsions racking his brother’s body subsided.

“Stefan,” he said, his voice choked with tears. “Will things always be like this?”

“No,” Stefan replied at last. He took his brother’s hand and held it tight inside his own. His wound hurt, a burning, stabbing pain. But Stefan knew that he must bear it, for pain would be his companion now.

“Things won’t always be like this,” he whispered. He held Mikhal within his arms, rocking his little brother to and fro as their father used to do. “Nothing lasts forever.”

“Where will we go now?” Mikhal demanded of him, his voice beseeching. Stefan shook his head, slowly. He did not know where they would go, but he knew that he alone would have to decide. Gently, he pulled his brother away from their father’s body and started back towards what once had been their home. After only a few moments he realised it was futile. Their home was gone; it lay with childhood in a place that existed only in the past. Now they must walk the path that led to the future. Now they must walk the path of warriors.

Stefan Kumansky stopped and looked around him. To the north lay the sea, and the cruel lands from whence the tide of death had swept through their village. That would not be their path; not yet, at least. He turned away from the sea, away from the ruins of Odensk, and faced inland.

“Come on,” he said gently, taking Mikhal’s hand. “It’s time.”

Together the two boys took the first steps along the road that lead to the place that Stefan still knew only as the World. The first steps along the long road that would lead to vengeance.