Mud and Horn, Sword and Sparrow (Runehammer Books Book 1)

  A Runehammer Book Copyright Runhammer Games 2016

  For Mom

  Winter settled on Castle Manac like a crust. The tide pools surrounding it became sandpaper death traps, and the outer swamp was layered in blackish freeze that even a war horse could not tread.

  For these reasons, a winter siege on the fortress was never dared, and The Red Lord was counting on it. This was not a season of wit and sense, though, but of madness. So it was the four heroes met their end in that frosted muck.

  Lo, what a world! What cruelty in fate we know, for these were the finest of folk! I am here to tell their tale, and let none forget how we all came to enjoy what we now call freedom.

  MUD

  ANDHORN

  SWORD

  ANDSPARROW

  1

  It began as so many tales do: a one-eyed hunchback was bleeding out. His blood was rolling across the road through cobble cracks, and he winced as the sun descended. A black shaft jutted from his gut, its fletching made of crow’s quills, and the triple red stripe of the Groat Goblin Clan shone clear as day.

  Onto this scene, in the warm light of evening, walked a Northman. He was nine helms tall and wide as an ox. He wore leather-bound steel scales and long, pointy plate boots. At his hip a great longsword was held in nine buckles. That sword was called Fenrir, the Grey Wolf. He was King Akram’s Captain at Arms, and he strode with nobility and valor. The jingle of his steel skin caught the hunchback’s weary attention.

  “Good eve, friend,” Vald began with his booming tone, “you’re hurt!”

  The hunchback stared blankly.

  “Hardly a courtesy, stranger.” Vald did not reach for his

  sword, for to even grasp the hilt of that legendary artifact was to prepare for slaughter. “How came you to this fate?” “Erk- Folk say there is a beast in yonder wood,” the hunchback croaked, “The Goblins of these hills call it Manac the Stag. It is half bull, half elk, with glowing eyes and razor hooves. In search of this monster I came by Goblin raiders, and they planted a shaft in my belly before I could flee.”

  “Why seek such a thing?” Vald had a strange feeling, and set his feet. “Folk say there is a beast in yonder wood,” he began again, gurgling, “The Goblins of these hills call it Manac the Stag.” he went on and finished the same speech. His long- lost eye was a dark hollow, and his good eye milky and vacant.

  “Enough games, creature,” Fenrir itched at hi s side, but Vald held firm and fixed his eyes on the hunchback. The slits of his helm framed the wretched man in strange symmetry. The black blood curdled and sank into the road.

  “Folk say -”

  “Enough!” Vald barked. But the hunchback went on, and repeated the same story. As he did so, his weird voice bubbling and crunching, the hairs at Vald’s neck stood. He could feel the crackle of witching, and his steel-clad fingers wrapped slowly around the hilt of Fenrir. He scanned the surrounding forest and took one half step forward.

  Silence. With one armored toe he extended forward and nudged the hunchback. The creature slumped lifelessly onto the cobbles face first, revealing a grisly abomination: the “man” was hollowed out from behind. The entire character, it seemed, was only flesh and skin propped with sticks and axe-hafts. From the rear, it was like a hollowed out log with eyeholes and nodules of dripping ooze. At that second, Vald knew he had taken the bait, but it was too late: they were upon him.

  Goblins. The Clan called Groat. Twenty or more, pouring from the roadside rock and rubble like rats.

  Most folk who live gentler lives believe goblins to be like men, or shriveled Dwarves with long ears and jagged teeth. This is all myth. In fact, a Goblin is a sort of rodent. In the Epoch of Stone, when myriads of races were emerging from the deeps, their kind felt sunlight for the first time. Back then they were little more than keen-eyed weasels on two legs. Now they were tribal blacksmiths and berzerkers. They lived by a code of hunger and bloodlust. Their thirst for death was matched by cunning, though, and they have long been known to use traps and bewitching illusions. From their hidey holes they sprung. Vald was no simple kill, so they exploded with ferocity. Claw and tooth whirled with stone axe and iron pick in a cloud of prickling death. Each black-furred fiend was no more than an arm tall, though, and they bounced from the gleaming breast of the Northman like water on rock.

  “Wretched tricksters!” Vald bellowed, “Fenrir will drink you dry and shame your kin! Flee now or make a tomb of this pass!” His pose was unflinching, his blade still clad in scabbard and strap. The goblins did not abate, but scrabbled on the pavers and made a second attack. This offense Vald would not endure, and he pulled Fenrir, World-Eater, Sword of Waves, the Grey Wolf, from its sheath.

  The weapon was two arms in length and as broad as a man’s hand. The quillons were twined into spiral antlers, and the fuller groove was adorned in curling leaf motifs. At the pommel, rose petal carvings echoed a theme of thorned vines that was repeated in the chappe. The steel was swirled and opalescent with masterful folds. On this silver sea the sun danced as Vald drew it forth, and that white gleam drew cold terror in the goblins’ racing hearts. Above his crested helm he drew the weapon. One hand was curled ‘round the sharkskin grip, and the second braced the pommel like a wine cup. There he held his stance for a split second as the goblins convulsed and flailed like children.

  “You made this quarrel, whelps!” he cried, and let fly his stroke.

  The sword arced like a crescent moon, white and fleeting. It sliced the air with a metallic whine, and when still it stood again no blood dared soil its glow. Through the endsummer air a spray of black ichor and bloody mist did explode. In great, stretching tendrils and ropey coils it splashed and flew. Fully half of the goblin force either fell, were hewn in twain, or were cast bodily to the far side of the road. Those that survived gathered their sad pretense of valor and riposted in unison, using Vald’s follow-through to their advantage. Their picks bit and their frantic thumbless hands scratched. They assailed him, crying out in chittering Goblin-tongue: Die! Die! For Hydranax! For red death in rocky womb! Die!

  Vald, the greatest hero of Akram, Lord of the Greenway, paid no mind to their howls and pricking. From his braced stance he redoubted and drew Fenrir across his front knee. In an instant he was reset, leaned from the front foot to the rear, and in one horrible upward backhand stroke he let the Grey Wolf fly once more.

  No burial was made, no alms spoken. Onward did Vald walk, and that place of black death he left behind is now called Goblin Pass. Some say the spirits of those doomed scum still skitter and hiss there on moonlit evenings, ever seeking their ghostly revenge.

  2

  It began as so many tales do: a blood-red crow was gnawing on a human eyeball. The eldritch bird stood at the black entrance to a realm of sticks and shadow. Few believed they were even real; the Red Crows. Some say they were made by demons, others whispered of a blood-pact ages old. No matter. This wretch chewed the eyeball of some poor soul and defied all the old tales. It stood guard on a lone branch in the grey-mantled bogs of Hurun, and there waited like death as the black sun coiled in the tangle.

  A bug-swarm twisted by and the loam steamed in the morning gloom.

  “Declarative, but meaningless,” a whisper shook the reeds. “Mere perception! Mere observation! What hope has a fool to see the seer?” the voice was weak and wispy. The air was still and it was midday. In the bogs midday seemed to last for ages, and through this muggy sickness a lone figure trudged.

  “Mud and soup, sticks and stupid,” he muttered. He was an Orc, tall as a farm steed and slender with toil. His boots were muck-caked
fur and he wore a ragged canvas tabard bound by a broad studded belt. His hair was a black, matted fop that fell to his shoulders and concealed his face. From a distance, only his lower teeth and the wet gleam of his eyes could be seen. He had been wandering through the bogs for so long he had no name, or home, or even purpose. In his mind, he was simply called Mud.

  “The elf loosed his arrow, the Orc fell,” he went on, trudging, “must be here somewhere, must be answers…” he trailed off as one boot slowly bubbled into pitch and he looked up. There on a leaning stick that decades ago must have been a tree trunk sat a red crow. It surveyed him, and in its crimson beak a milky eyeball rolled ghoulishly. “Hello, friend,” Mud began, “good morn.”

  The crow, dark red feathers and six black eyes, spun its head, blinked, and stood fast. The eyeball was pointed upward in its beak, as if to gaze at the grey featureless sky.

  “Aye,” Mud acknowledged. “Old knights have passed these forests, on the peat stands a mist of morrow’s bride; tell me of their march.”

  The bird moved two steps up the branch, then looked downward by cocking its head to one side. Mud saw this, again heard a voice that was not there, and nodded. With effort he strode forward, pulling on the trunk for leverage. At that the red bird took wing and flapped away. Mud looked down, and what he saw was not good.

  There lying, caked in black tar and flies, was a soggy, pale corpse. It wore a broad studded belt and had a head of wavy black hair that covered most of the face. A cold tremor of terror crept down Mud’s back, but the morbid draw was irresistible. He took a twig from the muddy grass and pushed the hair aside. The face of this poor soul was sundered by some terrible three-clawed gouge. One eye socket was black and empty, the other swollen shut. Ooze and mire caked the days-old wound.

  He gazed on his own mangled body, and did not move.

  His stomach turned, a sickly sweat dripped from his nose ring. For an eternity he stood there, transfixed in some nightmare, staring at his dead self. He had long ago gone mad wandering these bogs, and now it was getting worse. The grey blanket above boiled and slid by as those hours past, and he sat down.

  He sat down next to his own corpse, and withdrew a crust of a trencher. The bread was dirty and hard as tree bark, but still good. Like a distracted child staring into space he sat there and ate, and pulled from his wine skin, and knew peace.

  “A feast,” he said. His voice broke the silence in a terrible way. “I will die here, and again sit beside my dead self,” a long pause, “but first, the pools. I will find them. I will find her.”

  A small sound above and he noticed the red crow had returned. It loosed the eyeball from its beak and the grisly orb fell into Mud’s lap. Calmly, with the dread only the touched can know, he took it and placed it in his belt pouch. Half a dozen other eyeballs wetly greeted the new addition.

  “Find the pools, and Manac will fall.” He stood, and the journey continued. When he looked back, the bird was gone, the corpse had sunk into the muck, or vanished into his mind, and only a tuft of bent grass stared back.

  So it went for a count of days, or was it years, beyond his memory. The crust of trencher seemed to last forever, as did the bogs....it was like a dream from which he could not wake.

  But that all changed, for he finally reached the pools.

  The Pools of Madness have been mentioned in several old texts, including Nahrlotep’s Book, The Witcher’s Codex, and the rare Arconum Metato. All three are tucked away in the vast maze library of King Akram, and forbidden to all but the highest ranking wizards of his court. They all mention the same vague legend: that those who can find the pools may gaze into their black water and see beyond time and space. Some mages claim the pools are a form of seer’s bowl, while others believe they are a myth, and only grant visions because the arduous swamp journey to reach them drives all to madness.

  Either way, Mud was now in sight of them.

  There were three circular black tarns, devoid of cattails or grass. Each was a puddle of slick black muckish water, almost like a thin tar. They were purest black, and had a peculiar look, for they did not reflect the cloudy sky or glare like any normal brackish water. Mud approached, moving warily, his senses suddenly on edge. The water was as black as the space between the stars.

  Mud knew the legends. He knew of the pools and their visions. Long, off key fiddle bows and the bales of broken horns droned in his ears. He knew of the dark magic that was said to gather here. Another step, boot on peat, and the three puddles yawned and bent. Another step, closer, the backs of his hands were covered in triangular writing. The grass formed wheels and wires of folding delusion. This was it, the moment he had dared madness to meet.

  He had to know. His family, his people, his very race lay in the shadow of evil and horror. Orcs were the devil’s imps; a twisted form of fallen grace. Everyone he had ever loved was a fanged, long-eared abomination, but deep down he knew it was wrong. He had to know if their souls were tormented, if the Orc was an agent of evil, or victims of some plague. Her green eyes gazed back at him through the featureless black water. Her beautiful green eyes…

  He squinted away the memories. He squinted away the cracks in his mind: burying his children, walking through the wind-blown ashes of his people, piling the dead after the Elf raids. He squinted it all away.

  “Show me!” he yelled, “show me the truth you blasted muck! The Orc is not evil! We are a good people! Why do you curse us and bring us death and darkness? Show me the truth, and I will guide my folk to a future beyond all this death!”

  The water was silent and still. The silence of the bogs was oppressive.

  He stared, and cleared the hair from his face. The water combined, and folded, and darkened, and coiled, and descended. Then: nothing. Her green eyes looked away.

  Mud’s hands closed into fists.

  Nothing.

  “Show me!”

  The black expanded and engulfed him. He closed his eyes.

  When next they opened, he lay on a cobbled road. He was caked in dried black filth, and his bones ached. The sun was high and the sky clear. The road wound through rocky green hills, and the pavers were sagged and spreading, their age apparent.

  “Stay on your back, villain,” a voice sounded from nearby. The sound made Mud flinch. He hadn’t heard a voice in what seemed ages. He didn’t move; still paralyzed by confusion.

  “You’ll be manacled, and brought as a slave to the mines of Westburg,” the voice continued, growing nearer. It was a mighty, commanding voice. “We’ve had enough of your kind in these lands, Orc.”

  Mud mustered the strength to look, and saw a Northman take a step forward. He was a mighty figure, clad in leatherbound steel scales and plate greaves. At this man’s belt a gleaming longsword hung on nine silver buckles, and the crest of King Akram was blazoned on his raiment.

  “I am Vald, Captain of King Akram’s army, and my road has been too long. Put these on your brutish wrists and offer me no offense, or I will cleave you in two.” He dropped a pair of iron manacles at Mud’s feet. Mud bent, with effort, and shackled himself. What care had he for captivity when only the yawning black was there to answer the doom of his folk? None.

  “Do what you will, human,” he muttered.

  “SIlence, savage!” Vald’s tone turned cruel and angry, “How dare you use the common tongue with me? You, who kill and ravage for sport, and blight our home with your deformity! On your feet!”

  Mud complied, and slumped forward. He did not meet eyes with the Northman, nor care to, for his doom was already complete. He tried to conjure those green eyes for comfort, but saw nothing.

  “Now,” Vald continued, relaxing his tone, “we foot to Westburg’s garrison gate. It is only two days from here, so set your toes West, beast.”

  They walked together, an unlikely and dire pair in the day’s failing light.

  So started the dark days of Alfheim, when the blackest evils would roost in noble hearts, the ancient sins of the mighty bring them lo
w, and the wretched would find bloody redemption.

  3

  It began as so many tales do: a woman was giving birth to a smoking demon. The walls bent inward, the burning inside was relentless. Her sight was blasphemed by a thousand runes and criss-crossing triangles. Terrible forces were at work. Her tears were hot and swirled with blood. The curse was real. She set her teeth. The whispers on millenia pressed in on her mind: ancient, evil magicks. She shook her head to ward the horror away, but it was within her; burning within her like a hot coal.

  She snapped back to the present with a jarring bite of cold. The wind was changing direction, and grey leaves, mixed with a dust of snow, swirled around the fire like witchcraft.

  “Horn,” a voice called from across the fire, “snap out of it, girl. We’ve a watch to keep.” It was her captain, Eras, talking. He was an elven warrior elite. His knife belt was woven with scale motifs, his bow was carved of tusk, and his gaze was sly and stern in the flickering darkness.

  “The watch will be kept,” she hissed back at him. The pain of her memories faded, which was Eras’ exact intention.

  “Very well,” he acknowledged. The Elf man was tall for his kind, and stood. Golden braids whipped about his beardless chin. He had trained her; indeed rescued her. They and the others, now at rest nearby, were an envoy of hunters in service of Queen Lydea. Their charge was to cleanse the canyons of Orc raiders, and return with the head of their chieftain.

  Eras’ ears perked, twitched, and he was off in a silent whoosh. Horn did not stir or flinch. He could handle himself. The night wore on, and she drifted back into memory…

  It was late day, her bed chamber was humid and candlelit, but a few rays of sun managed to slide in through the drape. The midwives were gathered around her, and she was dizzy with childbirth. Sweat boiled on her golden eyebrows. She did not scream, or beg for mercy. The elven way was soundless and agonizing and swift.