The Shield of Hannar (Runehammer Novels Book 2) Read online

  And murder it was, for this troop was no elven army, or royal cadre. They were avengers driven by the rage of some hateful rebel. Their armor was not uniform, and their fighting style was wild and bloodthirsty. This was not war, this was savagery.

  “They’ve got us on our heels, boys!” Mars yelled, knocking a sword aside with Ruin and returning the attack tenfold. “A plan would be fantastic.”

  Wrimm leaned to one side, caught a kopesh slash in the ribs, broke the blade with one gloved hand, and crushed the attacker’s skull like a pumpkin. “Something drives these poor wretches forward! Their fury is reckless, and I’m hungry as an ox!”

  The dwarves laughed. It was not a laugh of mirth or even humor, but a form of battle cry. When war was upon them their courage was unbroken, even as their kin died stick-straight, or flying through mid-air like champions in the arena.

  “Have a look, Wrimm! We’ll hold the damn stairs,” Hunnin bellowed, shoving two spear thrusts back. The elven attackers were enraged, and redoubled their effort. One spear pierced clean through the dwarven wall and into Hunnin’s shoulder. He howled with anger, “That’s my mug arm, you filthy waif!” With his shield arm, still mostly unhurt, he extended upward, then down in a wide arc. The heavy shield snapped the spear like a twig, and pitched its wielder forward, setting him face to face with Hunnin. Though far shorter, Hunnin’s mighty skull was twice the mass of that point-eared ranger, and he head-butted the lovely face into a red ending.

  Wrimm took his position above, scanned the battle, and made report. “They swarm and swirl like locusts,” he started, “Some captain is at their fore, there by the silos across the courtyard. He is a robed figure, all in red, but the smoke is relentless!”

  “What of Kuro, and Ol’ Jeb?” Mars yelled back, “Still in the fight?”

  Wrimm swallowed, tightened his grip on his hammer, “Fallen…” he muttered. Their captain had died, two elven throats in his broad hands. “There are too many of them!”

  “Too many for what,” Hunnin laughed, “a bloody tea party?” With that, he ended his opponents, and the splash of elven blood gave him an epiphany. “Come on, gents, let’s be cowards!”

  Now it is important to note here that dwarven humor can be quite dry, especially when facing certain death. But there is an unspoken understanding between their kind that courage will never falter. Their trust in one another is intrinsic, their loyalty like the air in their lungs. So, the three fighters took Hunnin’s cue without question, and followed when he darted from combat into the nearby smith’s hut.

  In one fast motion, back threw Hunnin a great heavy rug, and below it a hatch was yanked open. In went all four dwarves, clanging and banging like steel beetles. This tunnel all of Fort Friendship knew, it led out to the well for use in siege situations. They raced down its shadowy narrow.

  The battle pressed inward, into the fort. The elves had a terrible momentum, and now and again returned to their captain’s post, and as they did, seemed rejuvenated or bolstered, then re-entered the fray with murderous fury renewed. It was an odd, magical thing. The worst kind of magical thing.

  Several elves saw Hunnin and his company flee into the hut, and paid no heed. “Cowards,” they assumed, and continued the killing. This was the elven hubris at work that would spell their undoing decades later at Duros-Tem, where the Falcon king laid their people low with valor true. Hunnin was counting on this hubris, and his gamble paid off.

  The four dwarves found themselves outside the fort gate, rushing in on the elven rear ranks. The fools had trapped themselves. The stout fighters waded into their enemy and hewed them like wheat. They began to scatter, but Wrimm held fast the gate bar, and swung it down with a bang. Now they were penned in, being destroyed from three sides, and the tide turned.

  But it mattered not, for this company of elves drew its strength from the black dimensions beyond the mortal world.

  Their captain turned to this new threat, Mars at its lead swinging Ruin like a figure from a mythic tapestry. From the red robes and ring mail of the elven champion, a long, thin hand emerged and revealed an object. It was glowing and prismatic, a thrumming thing with sharp, ragged edges like stone plucked from the deep earth. The air grew hot as brimstone and the eyes of the elven ragers glowed like coals.

  “Devilry!” Scratch yelled. Scratch never spoke, and the call jarred every dwarf there.

  And devilry it was.

  Hunnin again proved his great worth and wit, for instead of hacking and smashing at the soldiers, he darted to one foot, then the other, spun and dove forward like a sprinter. At the captain’s door was he in an instant, and the elven soldiers all turned, shocked and threatened by the maneuver.

  His kin made good on the opening, and crushed the burnished cuirass of every elf that drew breath. But as Hunnin lifted his weapon and strained to land one mighty attack on that artifact-wielding demon, a great red bolt of lightning arced in the smoke with a deafening crack of thunder.

  Every combatant fell like a twig in the din. Hunnin was struck square in the forehead with the bolt, blowing what hair remained into oblivion, scorching him, and leaving a gaping hole near his neck, where his thick shoulder muscles sizzled and went slack.

  “Hunnin!” Mars howled. He scrabbled to his boots, lurched forward, and grabbed Hunnin by the shirt. Wrimm and Scratch hurled their hammers in unison, striking the weird robed figure squarely, but he was unhurt.

  Then it happened. A dead elf gained his feet, shook the dizzy of death from his crimson-stained eyes, and renewed the fight. Then another. The dwarves were outmatched, and wise enough in war to know.

  The four of them bunched up with the other half-dozen survivors still fighting, backed to one end of the court, and bashed through the log wall to make an egress. The fighting never stopped, Hunnin was barely breathing. The bitter, metallic taste of defeat came to Mars’ throat, and they darted into the woods to disappear.

  That was how the War of the Wall began. And, not many know it is so, but Hunnin, father of Hannar, was the first dwarf ever to lay eyes on the creature that would one day be known as Red Fang.

  7

  The air in the woods that morning was low and warm, drifting up from the seething heat of Kath. The dwarves of Fort Friendship huddled in a hollow together, stealing a few moments rest before the elves were upon them again.

  Hunnin was wounded terribly and would not survive much more running, so the fight was inevitable. As Wrimm opened his eyes, he saw Scratch at the watch, and Mars doing one-armed pushups on a nearby boulder. This gave Wrimm a warmth, for he knew the courage of dwarves would never break, even under the strain of a thousand years. Their tales would be legends, and they could walk among the gods without shame.

  “It’s a good day,” Mars said, breaking the forest quiet and standing up, “A good, warm day to fight. Scratch old boy, surely you’ve a scrap of bacon and tomatoes in that satchel of yours.”

  Scratch grinned wide, revealed his traveler’s cache, and started a tiny fire.

  “Don’t be shy,” Mars continued, hopping down and walking over to them, “Let the devils see us! Let them ambush or jump down from trees or hurl bloody magical porcupines at us! Blasted liars and murderers every one! Let them come! But not before breakfast, by Udin!”

  To this the survivors gave a grumble and a cheer, and one of them hopped up from his hidey hole. His name was Brann, and though new to the fort, he’d already proven his worth a dozen times over. He was clad in a ring mail skirt and a smith’s belt only. His bare dwarven feet were like clubs all covered in earth and moss, and his blonde beard was stained red from the battle. No weapons or armor or shield had he, but his chest was broad, and his breath deep, and his eyes held fury undimmed.

  “It’s Hunnin we fight for,” he said with a bright tone, “We slay them all and make for the farms of Ell valley. There we mend our man-at-arms, and get word to King Akram of this treachery.”

  Mars nodded.

  The rest of the dwarves, ten in all
, stood and helped with the cooking. They tossed each other strips of bacon, balanced fried tomatoes on their noses, and guzzled their last skin of stout. It was a merry breakfast, save for Hunnin’s slumped form, wrapped in a smith’s apron. Still breathing, he lay unconscious, that hideous wound at his skull and neck gaping but bloodless.

  “Brann, why not let our guests know breakfast is concluded.” Mars cracked his knuckles, belted in his cuirass and helm with silent routine, and took deep breaths through his great broad nose. It was a very good day to fight.

  The other dwarves followed, hefting up shield and spear alike, and forming an impromptu phalanx in the hollow without words. Scratch stomped Wrimm’s toes for fun, and they smacked and picked at each other like bored children.

  Stashed they Hunnin’s limp form in root’s shadow nearby, safe and sound, with a hot slab of bacon near his nostrils to make his deadly dreams good and bright.

  “Oy you pale cowards!” Brann yelled, but in a sing song tone that mocked the elves with dwarven mirth unmatched, “Why not pop out your hidey holes and die good deaths here with us? Mars has done enough pushups for all of us, so there’s no need for a warmup!”

  The company chuckled and mocked his oratory skills.

  “Besides, you pale little liars, I’ve no weapon nor steel skin to stop you, come on out and give ol’ Brann a fight to remember, eh?”

  There was a long quiet, and the wind in the treetops rushed and abated in strange rhythms. If one twig snapped at that moment, battle would be joined, but no sound defied the grim nothing.

  Finally, a low, unnatural voice broke the moment.

  “Brann Goor’s son,” the voice hissed from the rocks at the hollow’s southern edge. “You crave death so eagerly for one so young?” The voice belonged to the red-robed captain of the elven legion, who then revealed himself among the boulders. The dwarves tensed on their toes, but none sprung, for the captain was well beyond five strides. They were ready to fight, but not fools.

  “Get on with it, wizard,” Mars answered, swinging his immense great sword down from his shoulder, one hand on hilt and one clutching leather-wrapped blade.

  “Yes, yes, you rude little ape,” the captain’s words returned from a black hood shadow. “Curious, how impish little savages like you have repelled my kin over the years. But I have overcome the weakness and false mercy that has kept our superiority at bay, wretch. I am your slaughter, yet your foreheads are too thick even to be afraid.”

  Brann bent to one side, lifted a fist-sized pebble, and before anyone even noticed, hurled it directly at the captain’s head. It met its mark with a whack, knocking the hood back. The captain was an elf, normal enough, save a pale, veiny look to his hairless head. He was thick-muscled and had the jaw of a fighting man, but the deep temples and forehead of a scribner or magician. The rock left a great red welt on one brow.

  The dwarves broke into raucous laughter, and the captain trembled with rage. From the stones nearby arose the legion of elves, their number somehow undiminished from the previous battle. They were at least fifty strong, and though many bore the wounds from the battle at the fort, they moved as if unhindered by them.

  “You didn’t bring enough men!” Brann bragged, putting his fists up like an old-time ring fighter.

  The anger left the captain’s face, and again he withdrew that odd-looking object from the sleeve of his robe. It was sort of crystal or fragment of flouritic rock. It vibrated as he muttered some black spell, but dwarves are not known for a fear of anything, least of all spells and magic.

  The words ended as the dwarves leaned into fighting stances, and at the instant the tension became unbearable, Mars sprang into action as the spell was unleashed.

  What happened then was a thing of terror: A story that was told and retold for centuries to frighten children and bolster warriors’ hearts.

  8

  Elisa, the Headsman, the deadly bride of Englemoor, was laid low. In the black tar of those city tunnels she lost her wits, and fell to her wounds to bleed in the muck. Only her hill-blood, forged through hard living in the cold and the hunger of the North, kept her alive.

  It seemed a life age she languished in the bowels of the city. Day and night became one, long feverish madness. The tunnels yawned and twisted when she fled angry voices above, and rats skittered on her when she slept. Her dreams were black, and in those rare moments of lucidity she enjoyed, she wondered if her arranged marriage would have been so bad as to choose this life instead.

  But, that choice was well behind her. She was a symbol now, an example of female defiance, of freedom, of strength. There was no going back. The yoke that women had endured was generations old, and it would not be cast aside easily. And so she endured, and healed, and her intentions grew dark and unnatural.

  History has faded how long she festered in that dark hell, for stories this old lose their corners in places. The business of Englemoor went on. It was believed she died somewhere below, alone. This fate gave a convenient ending to the Bloody Bride story. Men who beat their wives had nothing to fear as long they thought her gone.

  When her wounds at last were closed, and scars formed, it was near the day the elves took Fort Friendship. But the folk of Englemoor knew nothing of elven treachery, save Elisa, who discovered the beginning of a coming storm.

  It was morning. She was free from fever, and rested, and fed on found scraps. Her mind never truly returned to normal, though, and she prowled the dark like a serpent. She had to escape the city and feel sunlight again or she might lose her mind completely.

  That is when she saw the first of them. A dark blur slid through a grated sun ray in the gloom, when the town was still asleep. It was a slurping, wet, rubbery thing. Called from some elder dimension by elven blasphemy, for no other race had magicks as they possessed. The tentacled mass was etched in elven writing and bulging blue veins. Barbed suckers accentuated the horror.

  “You’re in my home, wretch,” Elisa muttered. Her voice was hoarse and low; she had changed. “What treacherous plot brings you here?”

  The thing seemed to hear her odd banter, for in gloom’s shadow it coiled, and paused, then sprung like a cobra.

  Its mass was deceptive. The fat, blobby body was four stone at least, and barreled into Elisa like an iron cauldron. She braced with one foot back, catching the whipping coils with both massive hands and straining to hold her ground. It wrapped, and constricted, and the suckers burned her flesh with acidic spit and tiny hooked teeth.

  “Gods!” she burped, stumbling back. The headsman’s axe, a massive thing that barely fit upright in the tunnels, was just out of reach. So was the eye-holed hood she had made her own grim death’s mask. It was a contest of her bare hands and the monster’s lashes.

  A third tentacle came from nowhere, swinging around like a scorpion’s tail. It wrapped solidly about her head, blinding her and burning her horribly. She spun like a wrestler, slamming into the wet pavers below with terrible force. One rubbery whip burst under her enormous weight, and blue ichor splashed onto the moss, burning it into grey smoke.

  In a feat of strength beyond most, Elisa pushed upward with one arm, separating the whip from her face and pinning the monster to the ground. Her lower hand she made into a terrible fist, squeezing acid blood from the thing like an untied hogwurst. She extended her upper hand, spreading her mighty shoulders, and her muscles bulged and popped like a draught horse. The thing was torn utterly in two.

  She flopped to the wet stones and tenderly touched the burns across her head and face. In a drain’s pool, she saw herself and knew that what beauty she once had was truly gone. She saw only a monster. That reflection drove her pushed her closer to madness than any tenure in the sewers or nights in black fever. It occurred to her, there in the depths, that to think one’s self a monster is the first step to becoming one.

  She steeled her emotions, and stood. In hood’s shadow her eyes fumed, and she lifted the axe with grim purpose. Stepping over the ruined beast she t
ook pause. In the tunnel beyond, just now revealed in dawn’s glow, a sight from nightmare unfolded.

  Thousands of them. They piled and whipped and tangled like a bed of breeding snakes. Wet slurping and rubbery slaps punctuated the hellish visions of their brood. It was a mass as high as a man and thrice as wide, like a ball of ropes all knotting and probing and twitching with slime-skinned death.

  So, she ran. She did not stop until she reached the river drains, and sunlight renewed on Launder’s Rock. From that small crag, she could see Englemoor laid out, and like a weird colossus she stood motionless in the sun surveying her past. Death stalked them all.

  Would she remain, and be their hated savior and herald of doom, or take to the road’s foot and become a wraith of the wild? Though her look was a terror to behold, and her mind a black pit of confusion and determination, she was not evil, and the decision came to her easily. There was no leaving. Englemoor was the target of some dark spell, and spells make nauseous the hill folk.

  She stooped in her hellish hood, leaned the axe, and washed the filth from her fists. The sun climbed, and on golden skin those warm rays renewed her.

  “They’ll not listen to a murderer,” she mumbled, tightening her ragged wraps, and rubbing one sore shoulder. She looked long at that hooded face in the water. “The Headsman will draw them out, and we’ll crush these poisonous demons together.

  “Fight alongside your accusers?” some new voice echoed in her mind.

  “At least expose the threat,” she returned. “Then it’s to the road. I’ve enough of towns and tunnels.”

  She stood, tall with new purpose. Hers was an exquisite form of ferocity, like an avatar of ancient bloodlines in the Age of Titans. She rested one hand on her chest, a rare and feminine gesture. She was still a woman after all. Some wisp of an old dream danced at the edge of her shadowy mind, but she could not place it. Her softer side was truly dead.