Gray Wolf: The Demon-Haunted Forest (Part II)
The Frost Giant
Nothing remained but the stone foundations, but Thorne could imagine the city as it had been at the beginning of history, when the northern lands had been the center of civilization. The Gray Wolf had made sacrifice here, slitting the throats of his captive ancestors, and their dark gods had rewarded them in turn. The secret of black powder, he remembered, and the deep science of alchemy. The first airship, its means of construction now forgotten, which opened the lands of the south. The west cried out for a new conqueror, a leader to unify the squabbling tribes and plunder the eastern steppes, and Thorne, who craved glory as a baby cries for its mother’s milk, stood at the threshold of a dream, the fulfillment of his true purpose.
The walls of the temple were gone and the roof had caved in, but its heart remained intact, a rectangular excavation that extended the length of a plowman’s field. They made their way downward, crawling over the broken stones of one collapsed wall. The old priests cut into the stone, an inversion of the natural order to ensure that their prayers reached the heart of the earth. A deep fissure had opened in one corner of the temple floor, and when Camille stepped too close to the edge, the ground crumbled beneath her feet. She overbalanced, and for a panicked instant, Thorne was certain that she would plummet to her death, but Luca’s quick hand arrested her fall. She rewarded his action with a shy smile, and Thorne grimaced as his gaze lingered on her face. Perhaps he should have let her fall. The area surrounding the altar was oddly well-lit; a full moon shone brightly overhead, but the stones seemed to radiate an eldritch light of their own, and had the moon been absent and the stars obscured by the blackest clouds, their destination would have been no less clearly marked. Thorne approached the altar, trembling a little as he addressed his companions.
“Are we ready?”
He carried the bow in his left hand, one arrow nocked in the string, as he slipped through the darkness. The sword was slung between his shoulder blades, and a dagger was sheathed in his belt, but Ulf hoped to avoid a pitched battle – of the remaining trio, one appeared better-suited for lounging in a lord’s castellum than for fighting, but the knight that led the party bore the countenance of an unfed wolf. It was better to rely on the bow, to follow from a safe distance and riddle the pair with arrows at the first whiff of trouble. And the girl? She carried no weapon, and Ulf could not divine the reason for her presence – was she an innocent captive, or a willing participant? He considered his options and decided, for now, to leave her unharmed.
He froze as something touched his boot, then leapt aside in sudden shock. The viper was thick-bodied and roughly the length of his arm, and it left a meandering path in its wake as it slithered over the frozen ground. A lone serpent was of no great import, and Ulf had encountered the viper’s kin during the short summers, but its presence was belied by the lateness of the year – the serpent should have been underground by now, waiting out the cold in a deep slumber. He prodded it with the bow, and the snake bit sluggishly at the wood.
“Ho there,” he whispered. “Did the old gods send you to guard their tombs, or has something else disturbed your rest?”
He scanned the nearby ground until he found the remnant of an old foundation with its cornerstone pried away. The missing stone had concealed a hollow spot in the earth, and a half-dozen more serpents writhed at the bottom. He frowned – that cornerstone would have equaled the weight of a grown man, and Ulf wondered how, and for what purpose, the travelers had dislodged it. He glanced back at the lone reptile in the his path – driven from its nest, the snake would freeze within the hour. Ulf held no superstition regarding serpents, good or ill, but Tyra held a special reverence for the scaly creatures and claimed that a viper in the forest was a good omen. Is it a good omen if he bites you? His wife would have acted without hesitation, but Ulf moved with greater care, circling the reptile to avoid its triangular head, and he trembled a little as his fingers closed around the tail. He took three steps, bent at the waist with arm outstretched to keep his distance from the legless body, and perhaps Tyra was correct after all, for the rock that sailed through the air passed harmlessly, a good foot from his head. Ulf dropped the snake and snatched up the bow as he stared at what emerged from the forest with wide, fearful eyes.
Luca marveled at her sudden lethargy, for the girl did not shy away as he gripped her arm, and though Thorne’s dagger was in hand, she offered no resistance as he guided her to the altar. Is she afraid, or merely simpleminded? He had no particular devotion to the Great Household, and the sigil that adorned his left arm held no deeper meaning, but in this place, the living world touched the land of the dead, and a giddy sensation of excitement swam in the pit of his stomach. He stared at her face in wonder, for she was neither fearful nor stupid – she was entranced, as if she saw her fate, and welcomed it, and Luca wondered what her blue eyes would witness in their final instant of life. He waited for Thorne to deliver the killing blow, and the sigil on his left arm began to tingle – a warning, perhaps, or the rendering of a final judgement.
The blade struck home, then the pain came, and Luca staggered, releasing his grip on the girl as he sank to his knees. He tried to rise, but his head struck the stone altar, and the plea that welled in his throat was stifled by the hiss of air that emanated from his wounded lung. His eyes caromed wildly about, and his last vision was of the girl, watching him with untainted innocence as the darkness closed from all sides. Another moment’s bloody work, and Sir Robert Thorne laid the heart upon the altar. The organ began to shrivel as a thin plume of smoke rose from its center, and he cast a quizzical look at the girl.
“The gods have accepted our sacrifice,” she said.
The frost giant was over nine feet tall, with, misshapen arms that dangled almost to the knees, and Ulf marveled at its presence – frost giants inhabited the wastelands at the far reaches of the world, and to see one so far south was surely an ill omen from the gods. It plucked a sapling by its roots, leering at him through a filthy beard, and Ulf fired his remaining arrows in quick succession before drawing his sword. There was no chance of outdistancing those long legs, and his only hope was to goad it forward and pray that the next missile did not find its mark.
“Don’t tarry like a coward,” he growled. “Come and fight!”
The frost giant circled, a trio of arrows protruding from its chest, and Ulf met each movement step for step, keeping the sword between himself and his enemy. He sidestepped as it attacked with a clumsy swing, and a fountain of snow sailed upward as the sapling crashed into the frozen earth. A second strike passed within inches of his head, but Ulf bided his time, for the frost giant was losing patience, and the long limbs were almost within reach of his blade. A third swing, and he lunged, striking at the vulnerable legs.
The fist that crashed into his shoulder was little more than a glancing blow, but it dented his chainmail and knocked him from his feet as the air was driven from his lungs. A pair of quick strides, and the frost giant was upon him, seizing his tunic and knocking the sword from his hand. Reeking breath assailed his nostrils, and as the frost giant opened its mouth, ready to crush his skull with a set of misshapen teeth, Ulf’s right hand probed wildly in the snow, searching for the sword. There was movement beneath his skin, and as his fingers closed around the viper’s body, it writhed in his hand, seeking to bite. Ulf snatched up the serpent and thrust it into the giant’s face. It struck him with one wide paw, and he wondered whether his next sight would be of death’s gray land, but the weight on his chest lifted, and to his surprise, he found that he could sit up. The wind no longer whistled in the trees, and it took several seconds to comprehend the cacophony that rang in his ears.
The frost giant was screaming.
Its arms pinwheeled and its huge feet stomped the ground in some macabre pantomime of dance as the serpent’s body, attached just below the jawline, snapped through the air like a drover’s whip. The frost giant staggered, tripped, and fell backward, and it lay with its body wedged into the space left by the missing foundation stone. Ulf snatched up his sword – the venom had done its work, but the frost giant was still alive, its eyes fixed coldly upon his face as it ripped the viper from its throat and pushed its body slowly, inexorably upright. Ulf struck, throwing his weight into the swing as the broadsword split the joint between shoulder and arm.
There is power in the blood of unnatural things, and the hot liquid that poured from the wound pooled in the lowermost reaches of the serpents’ nest, warming their bodies, filling them with a vitality that the frigid air could not overcome. The vipers swarmed upward, stinging at the intruder with needlelike fangs, and the frost giant’s face grew black as it fought desperately for breath. The eyes bulged, then swelled shut, and Ulf was overcome by a wave of pity – he raised the sword in a final act of mercy and severed the head. The vipers slowly retreated to their den, their anger assuaged and their bodies growing sluggish once again, and he whispered a silent prayer that the Creator would grant them a well-earned winter’s rest.
Thorne had expected something – a sharpening of the vision, the filling of his limbs with newfound strength – but he was left only with the cold feeling that tickled the base of his spine, the unease of a wanderer stumbling upon a sleeping dragon. Shadows swirled and danced on the fringes of his vision, odd shapes cast by a light that he could not perceive, and he wondered whether Luca had felt a similar disquiet in his final, fateful seconds of existence. The heart was gone, its blackened vestiges absorbed into the altar.
“What happens now?” he asked.
“One thing remains.” Camille’s voice was ethereal, beautiful, and it filled him with dread. “The Gray Wolf approaches.”
“Shall I deal with him?”
There was no answer from the woman at the altar, and he turned to leave, nearly tripping over the body of Luca. The corpse was already beginning to rot, and the scent of decay filled his nostrils as Thorne sidestepped his old friend. He made his way up the slope, glad to quit the dank environs of the temple, and as he reached the surface, he turned for a final look toward Camille, standing rigidly at the altar as the shadows swirled about her still form.
To be continued…