The Wolf Hammer, page 9
part #1 of Odin's Bastard Series
“Push, push,” Shian was chanting.
“Puuuuush!” I screamed. “Kill the motherless goats!”
And the men complied.
Spears were seeking flesh over the chaos of the first ranks. I saw several enemies without shields yelling and screaming, as spears claimed their lives, and then our spears mowed more of them down and over their last ranks. We were suddenly there, trampling the bastards, and driving into a camp where men were crawling and running way.
The enemy ranks were butchered in heaps of shattered lines, surrounded in many places, and I found I had no shields or enemy trying to slay me. Then I saw Arn’s horse on its side, not far. I didn’t stop to think as I ran at it and the other dead beasts around it.
There were men around the one Arn had ridden.
They hacked down with an ax and a sword at the animal’s gear. I saw Arn trying to get to his feet, his armor entangled in a saddle, his leg under the beast.
There were four men.
All were blond, tall, chained and rich with silver.
They were nobles of White Tower, possibly, or some others, rebelling against the High King.
They saw me coming as I was loping before the men of Hardhand. They were yelling, but I couldn’t hear them. I heard roaring fire in my ears and felt the savagery that was somehow familiar.
I laughed, I knew that much, and then I charged them, men as large as I was.
One swung an ax, and it passed over my head, as I dodged low. I came up and crashed into another thick warrior, the blade tearing through his armor and belly. I dodged right, ripping at the sword as an ax and a hammer crashed to the man I had stabbed, passing just inches from me. I whirled and caught a spear with my sword. The man, out of balance, bowled into me, and we fell together. He tried to claw at me, and I struck my helmet into his face. He cursed, spat blood and teeth on mine, and pulled a dagger.
He struck down with it, but I sawed my sword into his thigh. He howled, crying with pain, trying to get up.
A hammer struck his head and splattered the skull, and me.
His friend had been desperate to hit me and didn’t seem to care about his friend’s well-being. The man fell dead over me.
Burdened by the corpse, also protected by it, I hacked around and struck an ankle, and a man fell on his side, screaming, but I lost my blade as he fell.
I pushed the body and saw a man with a hammer, hopping about, lining up a new strike.
Failing to find a right spot, he kicked the corpse off me and then aimed at me with an iron boot. I grimaced, cursed, and twisted away, but the man swung the hammer with a short chop and struck my back.
I felt terrible pain, but then I realized he had struck my hammer, flattening me on the mud and blood, but I would survive.
I turned and twisted, and the bastard was swinging again.
“Bastard, shit,” he roared. “High King loving arse humper, you traitor,” he said spitefully, and the hammer struck.
He then screamed and fell on his side, the hammer falling to the bloody mud. I saw Elgin, quivering, with that silly sword on the man’s back.
Then Shian, bloodied and grinning, pushed a javelin into the weeping man’s arse, and Borin appeared, slitting his throat. She had left the standard standing in the middle of an open field, the broken crown no longer silvery, but red.
I was laughing, full of bliss, so happy I could cry.
I had felt so alive, so pleased, like each death had fed me joy, and then I felt shame.
“The battle,” I said, for men were still dying all over. “Tell me.”
“We lost a hundred, they lost a thousand,” said Borin. “They are looting now. Our men, that is, not theirs.”
“Good, loot,” I laughed. “Help me up.”
Borin helped me up as I watched the battle’s ending, and a thousand sad tales. Men were still dying, being killed while our men robbed them, and men were running far in the woods, being hunted by our fleeter men.
I turned to watch Elgin.
He looked terrified.
I turned to grasp his sword from the corpse and pulled it out.
He nearly fainted.
“Well done, adeling,” I said with a grin and walked to the fallen horse, finding the enemy captain. A man was about to rob him, but I shoved him. He scuttled away, fast.
“You seem odd,” Borin said. “Normal. Not unhappy. How are you feeling?”
“He is happy,” Shian said, and I saw she was licking her bloodied lips. “He is just perfect. Nothing’s wrong with him, right now.”
Borin leaned on me. “I tell you what. If you like, we can try our hand at swords one day. Later. If you win, I’m going to do what you want.”
“If you win?” I asked.
“You’ll die,” he said with a wink.
“Let him be,” Shian said, and pushed past him back. “He is dealing with the captain.”
I ignored her and Borin, and stepped on the horse, under which I could see the man’s eyes. Arn was young and brave.
His leg was still stuck, as was his armor.
He looked defiant and then suddenly tired, leaning back in the mud.
“Traitor,” he hissed. “We stood with you in Lorin, but that you sell your skins like this? Traitor. Filth. You are from the east, no?”
I crouched next to him, leaning close. He flinched, gathering bravery for what would follow. “Tell me, Captain Arn, what reason does Jarl Barrac to resist the High King? I am just curious.”
“We are true to our oaths. There are others,” he said. “Red—”
“Why does Barrac,” I asked, “wish to—”
“Jarl,” he hissed.
I put the fancy sword over his chest. “Why?”
He shook his head. “He thinks it will be well. That he will be rescued. He has wounded rebels hidden in his keep. He sees victory, still. Come and siege!”
I squinted at him. “Rescued? By whom?”
“By someone,” he said. “He is no fool. He doesn’t tell the likes of me. He says the spider has a safe nest, and flies cannot harm him, and shadow lies over the High King.”
“Oh?” I asked. “You said he has wounded rebels. From Lorin?”
He nodded.
“Who?”
“He doesn’t tell us,” Arn hissed. “He is ever hiding away from us. I fear for my lord. But he is confident. So I shall die with confidence, as well.”
There was something strange about the whole affair.
And my missing memory was involved.
I smiled at him.
I eased the blade into his throat.
Eglin made a meowing sound.
I turned to him and spoke to Ajax. “Arrange for a hunt. Hunt the enemy down. And make camp here. Make sure to find Gar Atenguard and bring him here, not to Yggra. You will do this, Ajax. Personally. Explain to him what we have been doing, and why. Tell him his son Eglin showed initiative and bravery and killed the enemy captain, where Yggra failed to do so much as lift his cock to take a piss. Don’t tell him that. Use your imagination. Though, not too much imagination.”
Ajax grinned and saluted me.
I turned to watch the adeling.
Eglin shook his head. “Thank you. I shall make sure, if Father finally takes me seriously, that you will be well rewarded.”
“Leave the sword in the one’s head,” I said. “And I thank you for the rewards. The men will be paid, but I want something else. Something specific.”
He looked uncertain, not unlike a deer approaching a deep lake, in need of a drink, but still aware such lakes might harbor dark secrets.
But his thirst was great.
“Anything for Shian’s lord,” he said, a dreamy look on his face.
***
I watched Gar Atenguard as he screamed at Yggra in the middle of a bloody battlefield and held a hand on Eglin’s weak shoulder.
“He was right!” Gar roared. “Truly he was! They were escaping. You were a fool. Always too timid, always hiding behind words of wisdom, when action is needed. We are,” Gar said, his white hair shaking with rare anger, “the High King’s trusted servants. We were as Jarls, and we are now. We must never forget that! Yggra, Eglin did well. Even the High King will have heard his name. Not yours, though. He will wonder why!”
“Father!” Yggra called out. “He stole the mercenaries, and he disobeyed. Will the High King hear of that? I was not—”
“It is you, boy,” said Gar, tall and handsome, “who must prove himself now. I shall take you to the siege, and Tarl Vittar will prepare it. He shall give you your orders. Make sure you look like an Atenguard, for you are my heir. Alas! You are.”
We watched them as did many others. Ajax was eating looted bit of bread, and Borin was enjoying wine from a bloody bottle.
Shian was chuckling. “Eglin is glowing. How shall we use him, then?”
I wasn’t sure yet.
Luck was with us.
Yggra was shaking from emotions, and there were many. Fear, anger, rage, and he hated Eglin over everything else. Eglin’s smug appearance and bloodied armor didn’t help.
Gar held his face. “You are in need of a shake-up, son. In Lorin, you were a messenger. Not even in the line. And a defiler of royals, too.”
Ajax leaned closer. “Yggra there. He was one of the first men to get to your father’s body. There were many others, to be fair. Tarl Vittar and Rikas, his daughter, were there too. Lon Graymoor, perhaps first of all. Many soldiers. Thieves. Bastards.”
I watched Yggra.
Something about his name triggered a memory.
A memory I hated.
He had been there when my mother had died.
And something else had happened.
“They are all very well guarded,” I told Shian, who was near. Borin was coming over too, as Ajax was arranging for the men to prepare to march with the looted gear on wagons. The bridge had been repaired.
Shian nodded. “Since the war, they all have guards. Gar, Yggra, and the Vittar especially. The High King has elven guards all around him, all the time. Spies all over. See. With Gar?”
I noticed two small figures on horses. Both were hooded and clad in robes.
“Elves,” she whispered. “Guarding the new kings and High King’s own. Yggra has men, hundred or so loyal dogs, but no elves. They cannot spare them for everyone. The adelings and the princesses must make do with common soldiers alone.” She sighed. “Either we find a way to murder them all at the same time, or we take one in our own time, but it will be impossible. The guards will raise alarms. The elves are all dangerous, masterful in the arts of magic. Some are strong enough to slay a jotun or to harm a demi-god. They will need to be killed. Somehow. Naergoth, their leader, is the blood-hound of Odin, they say, the High King’s right hand. Some say he rivals a god in his power.”
“Some people exaggerate,” I said. “Perhaps Naergoth himself?”
She grinned. “I think Elgin will be a great ally. He might be able to tell us about many things, though perhaps not before he trusts us, and is a true friend.”
I nodded. “I agree.”
“He is not very well guarded,” she murmured. “Lug and few other men. Yggra set things up like that. Out of spite.”
I smiled. “Yes. How are the men?”
Borin stepped up. “Fat, like lazy rats. Ate well with Arn’s rations falling in our hands.”
“Very poetic,” I rumbled.
“The troop will be ready to march,” he said. “A thousand and a half. Lots of wounded. The dead are buried. Need new spears. Bolts. Rest.” He tilted his head. “How do you think this will play out? I heard you.”
“Eglin will be ours now,” I said. “Or soon. Everyone will come to the White Tower. The High King is marching, Graymoor is sailing, and we are already here. During the war, inside the city, Eglin will be our ally. That sounds like an opportunity.”
“Yes, it does sound like one,” Borin said darkly. “But what of the elves and guards?”
“They will have to be all in the same place,” I said. “And Elgin is our key. But I think I will want to have a chat with Yggra in private first.”
“He is with an army,” Borin said. “No matter what harm you cause him otherwise, he is with his men, in sight of an army.”
“Unless he is desperate,” I said. “Unless he must prove…”
I had a thought, and that thought blossomed into a flower.
“Is there,” I asked them, “a place where such as them would settle in for a siege?”
“Inside the city,” Borin said. “A guard keep in White Tower town. Nothing outside it, though. But part of the sea-wall of White Tower is on solid ground, just a sliver, and on that spot, there is a keep. It guards the only land-gate, see? That’s the place. No other. Then you would siege the main keep on the mountainside. You know about the White Tower? The city below, the keep up there?”
I had a vague memory. I nodded.
“Good,” he said.
“A mountain?” I asked.
“Yes, a mountainside, and city below,” he told me, exasperated. “I thought you said you know about it. But why do you need to speak to Yggra?”
“I think I remember Father cursing him, above all others,” I said. “More so than Vittar.”
Ajax shifted uncertainly. “Surely he can be questioned if we just figure out how to kill them together?”
Shian frowned. “He knows what he is doing.”
“He doesn’t even remember how he got to—"
I put a hand on Ajax’s shoulder. “If we must kill them together,” I said with a dry smile, “the chances are they are all dead. I will want to talk to Yggra alone. First.”
“We can do it,” Shian said.
Ajax didn’t look happy. “Fine. But how?” he asked.
I didn’t say anything.
“Yggra is still in charge,” said Shian finally. “Miraculously.”
I nodded. Gar was offering his ring, a red, thick jewel gleaming, a king’s ring, to Yggra, and Yggra was kissing it like he would a lover.
“The High King gave them all such rings,” Borin said greedily. “I bet I could lose one in a game of dice. Just like that.”
Gar loved his son.
Yggra. Not Eglin, but the fool.
He was giving him another chance, but Eglin was also now a hero.
“Tell me,” I said. “Gar is going back?”
Shian nodded. “They will meet the High King in a tavern, half a day away. He is leaving after we start the siege of the city. The High King’s army is drawing close, but he will see things in person, in the White Tower.”
I nodded with a smile, and Shian smirked at me.
“He has a plan,” she said.
“Here is what we shall do,” I said. “We will need Eglin.”
“Elgin,” she said, “look at him. Happy as never before. He will want more. All of it.”
“Yggra,” I said, “is going to fail again. Elgin will gain power. Then we will find ourselves some answers, and all the bastards will be in the same nest for us to take. I have it all planned. Eglin has to be committed to our cause, though. Fully.”
“He will be,” Shian said. “I promise you.”
They grinned like the dead.
It was getting dangerous.
“The men follow you now,” said Ajax softly. “They saw you in battle. Mad as a bee-stung bear.”
I grinned.
I loved war. Odin help me, but I did.
“Listen,” I said. “This is what we will do. And if everything goes well, some of us might survive. But first, we shall need a new king in Aten. For that, we need a fallen adeling, a damning corpse, and a ring.”
As I spoke, they stared at me with horror in their eyes, and then they nodded. We went to work.
CHAPTER 3
Gar Atenguard marched with us to the White Tower, inspected the fleet—twenty galleys and our sorry excuses for ships—and now he was leaving, almost as soon as he had arrived, flanked by a hundred men and two elves. He was marching off to welcome the High King, who had drawn surprisingly close with his thousands, fresh from a victorious war in the south.
Gar had left Yggra behind in control of Aten’s forces, and Yggra was doing his best to regain his favor, hating Eglin with a passion.
The fleet of Aten was rowing past the Wave of Palator, now beached near the White Tower’s bay and in sight of the sea walls, and they, too, would beach nearby for the night.
The bay itself was closed off by patrolling galleys.
I turned to look at the city and knew I had seen it before.
Mother had traveled there, at least twice, but the hazy curtain over my memory was still in place.
It was a white tower; indeed, that gave the jarldom its name. The main castle was a massive set of lofty towers on a rocky outcropping of a mountain-side beyond the bay. The whole thing was protected by a rugged mountain on the landside, surrounding it. The Oath Makers had surrounded that mountain, in case they had a secret way in and out on that far side. The northern side, the bay-side, was the best approach. You could advance by the sea. A tall, thick sea-wall plagued by dead moss blocked half of the bay. The eastern part ended in a tall mountain wall. The western part ran a bit on dry ground, where a sliver of land was guarded by squat fortress and gates. A large town spread below the fort, and it would be a nightmare to take.
The castle on the mountain’s side, above the city, would be even worse.
The Jarl Barrac was stubborn like a spider, indeed.
He had a proper nest, and if he harbored rebels and false hopes of survival and aid, it would soon all be tested.
Who would aid him?
The east had fallen. Graymoor, Barrac’s relative, apparently, had changed sides and betrayed us all. The north had also betrayed our cause more than once.
He had warriors, many thousands on the walls, and the fortress.
They would not last.
For now, they were more than enough to keep the sea-wall, to secure the chains that blocked the only way in between two huge sea-towers, and even the castle on top, which was walled too. They would be easy to defend for a longer time. A winding way led from the city to the gates, and no man could approach it without getting killed by the war-machines on those walls. There would be ballista, oil, arrows.
