Gateway to Nifleheim Read online

  “The pious priest to the end,” said Talbon.

  “I thought I would have more time,” said Eotrus quietly. “Thank Odin the boys aren't here. Gabriel and Ob should be with us, here at the end, but perhaps it’s best that they’re not. My boys will be alone in the world now—except for them. The walls of the Dor are high and strong. They’ve never been breached. Our folk may yet have time to mount a defense. That will give my sons a chance. By Odin, they must have that chance; I must give them that at least. All may not yet be lost if the breach be small and if few make it through. Gabriel would know better what to do. He should have told me more; I pray that he told me enough. We must stem the tide and close the gap, though it cost us all our lives. What nobler purpose could any man aspire to? We will do our fathers proud before we breathe our last.”

  “I don’t understand what you’re saying,” said Donnelin. “You’re not making any sense, but Valhalla can wait. I say we stop them here, whatever they are, and drink tonight in Dor Eotrus as is our place.”

  “If this enemy be as deadly as you imply,” said Talbon. “Let us flee while we yet can. They’re still a ways off. We can make it back to the Dor and prepare the defenses. As you said, the walls are strong.”

  “We can’t run fast enough,” said Eotrus. “Not from what's coming.”

  “Not even on horse?” said Talbon.

  “Not even.”

  The blood drained from Talbon’s face and he stood motionless for several moments, staring ahead.

  “Prepare yourselves, men,” said Eotrus, loud enough for all his troops to hear, his voice strong and bold again. His eyes on the mist, Aradon Eotrus drew his ancestral longsword from its ornate scabbard and raised the finely wrought steel blade to his face—a salute from olden times—then lowered it again, though he kept it at the ready. He turned to Talbon and his apprentices and his voice quickened. “Make ready to dispel the mist and unleash your most powerful sorceries. Hold nothing back, nothing at all. Do you understand me?”

  “Aye,” said the men, nodding.

  Talbon turned toward his apprentices. Unlike the soldiers in the party, these men were young; two were just boys, though each had labored years in their training. The identical arcane tokens that hung from silver chains about their necks glinted in the light of Midgaard’s two moons. Talbon whispered to them. They dismounted and formed a line, Talbon at the center. “I still can't see them,” said Talbon. “But by Thor’s blood, I swear, whatever fronts us now will writhe in hellfire. I will blast them to naught but ash and dust.” He raised his staff before him; his men did the same as whispered words of some forgotten tongue passed their lips.

  Eotrus looked over his shoulder at his troops and spoke in his loudest voice. “Tonight we face an enemy unlike any that we’ve seen before. There will be no parley or retreat, only battle and blood, victory or death. And if it be death, we will go steeped in glory and honor and the blood of our enemies. No matter what comes out of that mist, let not your resolve or courage falter.”

  Shock and uncertainty filled the men's faces. Archers readied their arrows—their bowstrings pulled taut by numb fingers. The soldiers and knights pulled their swords and readied their lances as a deep rumbling sound began, quickly intensified, and eclipsed the wailing. Soon, the very ground began to shake and shudder.

  “Talbon,” shouted Eotrus. “Dispel the mist. Now!”

  At his liege's command, the sorcerer uttered forgotten words of eldritch power, secret words lost to all but the chosen few. The ancient sorcery he called up crushed the unnatural mist back against the night, though the darkness lingered beyond the limits of the soldiers' torchlight.

  “For glory and honor,” shouted Lord Eotrus. “For Odin. For Lomion.”

  “For Lomion,” shouted the men.

  “Ready now, men,” said Brother Donnelin. “Hold the line. Here they come.”

  Lord Eotrus's face grew ashen and his eyes wide as the abominable horror that thundered down on them came into view.

  “Dead gods,” said Donnelin, the confidence gone from his face as the group’s horses reared, screamed, and stomped.

  Before any could act, fearful words of terrible power spewed from Talbon’s lips and those of his apprentices: words of the old tongue of the Magus Mysterious, incomprehensible and unpronounceable, except by learned adepts of their esoteric sorcery. Talbon had rarely spoken those words in anger. His apprentices had only whispered them in secret training. They had never spoken them in unison, for in so doing, the strength of the spell they unleashed was amplified tenfold. The power they called up from the grand weave of magic made the wizards’ outstretched hands violently shake. A searing pain gripped them and coursed through their bodies. Their hands glowed for a moment before beams of blue fire erupted from their fingertips. The wild strands of energy shot this way and that before they combined with the magic of their fellows into a raging torrent, an undulating wave of coruscating blue magic and crackling death. That arcane fire lit up the night, roared forward, crashed into their foes, and exploded with awesome power beyond the ken of common men.

  Donnelin fell as the world upended about him. A blast of searing wind thrashed and spun him. Shrapnel pelted him, foot to face. He landed on his side, dazed, but conscious. He groaned and scrambled to a sitting position, his ears ringing, surprised his muscles still worked, and shocked that he bore no mortal wound. Acrid smoke hung heavy around him and limited his vision even more so than had the mist.

  The groans, cries, and stirrings of men and horses sounded from behind him, but in front, through the smoke, he saw nothing but death. There laid the remains of Talbon’s apprentices—one on his knees, the others prone. Most were reduced to little more than ash, somehow bound together in blackened shapes that were caricatures of the men they had been. The one on the end, the most powerful of them, writhed about in the dirt, though no sound escaped his throat. Mercifully, he lived for but a few moments, aflame from head to toe, before he went still and death took him. He and his brethren were consumed from within by their own mystic fires that raged uncontrolled when they unleashed their sorcery. “Magic is a powerful tool,” goes an old Lomerian saying, “but comes with a weighty price.” Even as Donnelin looked on, the wizards’ remains crumbled to dust and a strong breeze from up ahead scattered them.

  Donnelin turned his face and closed his eyes and mouth to stave off the ash, but cringed as he felt and heard it blowing against him, soiling his cloak and pants.

  The breeze carried an overwhelming scent of burned flesh, but it wasn’t the flesh of the wizards. It was an acrid, putrid, nauseating foulness beyond words. A smell of death: the death of their enemies, laid waste before them by magics of greater power than Donnelin had ever seen. The wizards had put them down with one great blast of magic and saved the day, though it cost them their very lives.

  The priest struggled to his feet, coughing and gasping. He spat grit from his mouth that he hoped wasn’t the remains of the wizards, and lifted his shirt over his nose and mouth to dampen the foul odor. To his right, he saw Talbon. He wasn’t burned like the others, but he lay still, his eyes closed, his horse dead atop him, smoking and charred.

  Donnelin swayed where he stood, unsteady on his feet. He prayed that he was trapped in a fevered nightmare—some figment of his imagination, or even the onset of madness. Anything that made it not real. He started and nearly fell over when Lord Eotrus shouted, “Get up!”

  Donnelin turned and saw the old lord pull himself to his feet. Eotrus nearly dragged his stunned horse up with him. “Get up,” he roared, “they’re not done with us yet, nor we with them. Make ready, men.”

  Dazed as he was, those words pulled Donnelin back to reality. He knew where he was. He knew it was real, there was no escaping that, but he didn't grasp the meaning of Eotrus’s words until he noted the sound. The wailing. It was still there. It had been all along, though somehow Donnelin hadn’t noticed it. It was distant, as it had been minutes before, but with each passing mo
ment, it grew louder, and they grew closer. Those things. Those things from the mist. “Dead gods,” he said. “What in the nine worlds were they? There can't be more of them. There can't be.”

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

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

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

  Those who could followed his commands.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  II

  THE OUTER DOR

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “Which do they find here?” said Theta.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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