Fury Read online

  “That’s why that tavern was called the Wyrm’s Tooth. They supposedly had one of three teeth that had been knocked out of its mouth by an ancient hero over the mantle there.”

  Gathelaus pondered. “Yes, I heard stories in my youth, but didn’t think they could be true, but there is more truth in myth, than in…”

  Niels cut him off. “I heard the same from an old man in the tavern.”

  “It is an old saying.”

  “Do you think there could be dragons once more? I had heard they were all gone, but there was the one in KhoPeshli.”

  Gathelaus shifted uncomfortably at the memory. “But that was a sorcerer possessing a dragon’s body.”

  “It wasn’t a necrotic dragon; it had wings and blew fire and everything.”

  “True enough, it must have come from somewhere, and Ole did say something about dragons being awakened down upon some holy mountain far south of Valchiki. Perhaps that event woke more than just the one we saw before? Maybe it woke them wherever they slept all over the world?”

  “The bard in the tavern said that sometimes the wyrms can sleep for ages. Sounds like this one has awakened, and now it’s hungry after a good long sleep of centuries.”

  Gathelaus considered that. “Could be. And that was near Finnsburg?”

  “So they said.”

  “Then I hope that was on another path, we have enough troubles of our own to attend to without fighting another lost cause.”

  Niels laughed, despite himself. “You were the one to personally take care of the warring wizards in Aldreth, slay the basilisk, defeat the demon of the Silent Island, throw down the anti-gods of Tultecacan, and destroy the Pipe of Mahmackrah; and now you wish to avoid this mere dragon Fiendal?”

  Gathelaus grimaced. He had no wish to meet a dragon again, the other had been difficult enough to kill, and he had needed sorcery and his companion of old, Ole, to do it. “If the gods set that path before me, then I will do what heroes do.”

  “And that is?” prodded Niels.

  Gathelaus breathed heavily. “The hero does the right thing regardless of it being a lost cause. I will slay a dragon, if we find ourselves on that road.”

  “We are at a crossroads. Which way?”

  “I don’t know. Roll the bones to decide.”

  Niels reached into his belt and withdrew a large die. “Better than ten, we go left.” He tossed it in the air and caught it. He frowned.

  “What is it?”

  “One. We go right.”

  “Bad luck. You should have let it hit the ground.”

  “And get off my horse?”

  Gathelaus shrugged.

  Niels frowned at him but dismounted and threw the die in the air. It hit the ground and tumbled, rolling over itself numerous times before coming to a stop on one once again.

  “Damnit. I should throw this one away.”

  Gathelaus laughed, saying, “Do what you like, but it won’t change that you rolled it twice. Seems we are meant to go to the right once more.”

  “All right but the next time, if there is a choice, we take the left-hand path.”

  Gathelaus laughed again. “Whatever you think is easier.”

  “Whatever, I think? You give the illusion of choice.”

  They rode on in silence for some time, going further into the cap rock tablelands. Here and there spots of dark red rock would stand up amidst towering buttes. Trees dotted the land thicker where water might pool at the base of canyons, though few grew to any real height.

  Niels lamented, “Crossroads are rumored to be evil places.”

  Gathelaus shrugged in the saddle. “Most cities are built upon crossroads.”

  “What did I say,” said Niels with a laugh. “Evil places.”

  Grey clouds formed above them and even with the early afternoon’s light, the sky grew darker.

  Niels said, “Once we get back, I have an idea where YonGee and our other confederates may be hiding, but it will take time to marshal your forces and bring the revolution to Vikarskeid.”

  “I wonder that I shouldn’t just come upon him like a thief in the night and slay him and throw his corpse to the dogs,” growled Gathelaus.

  “He has many men who side with the old class of nobles. He has hired many mercenaries and such like Tarbona to watch for you. Not to mention Hawkwood.”

  Gathelaus nodded as he ran a hand over his stubbled chin. “Perhaps, but his gold must run out sometime. He cannot tax his way to covering his own ass forever.”

  “He would certainly try.”

  Gathelaus laughed.

  The rain fell again in driving sheets and the road was turned into a muddy track. Lightning clapped overhead and Gathelaus wondered if the gods were smacking their own tankards together at the great sound.

  “We should find shelter again,” suggested Niels.

  “Aye, but there are few enough safe places in a landscape like this. We must avoid the canyons where flashfloods could come flowing through, and even caves here could fill if they are in the wrong shelter.”

  “Then, where?”

  “I see a light on those far hills, could be a village or fortress.”

  “That’s at least ten miles.”

  “There is nowhere else to go in this rain,” lamented Gathelaus.

  “Just once I would like to stay in a tavern with a pretty lady and not have to rush out the door.”

  Gathelaus leaned over in the saddle and slapped him on the back. “I saw her, too; we’ll go back someday.”

  They rode on through the hard-falling rain, the trees whipping and waving.

  Niels leaned in the saddle closer so that he might whisper to Gathelaus, “Just behind us and to my right, I thought I saw the wolfshead watching.”

  Gathelaus turned and looked but saw nothing. “Your instincts are probably right. But he sees we are moving and not lingering to cause harm in his wood, if he still considers this his domain. I don’t believe he shall cause us trouble.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “Monstrous as he may be, I did not get the feeling of evil from him,” answered Gathelaus with a shrug.

  “Hard to believe that thing wouldn’t be a danger.”

  Gathelaus chuckled, “I didn’t say it wasn’t dangerous, just not evil. Course if I’m wrong, keep your blades high and sharp.”

  5. The Night Stalker

  As twilight approached the rain ceased, but a thick mist rose off the marsh and the road was soon hidden beyond a score of paces ahead of themselves. They crossed by numerous pools of water surrounded by cattails and small trees.

  “There is something off the side of the road ahead,” said Niels.

  “Keep your blades ready,” cautioned Gathelaus. He watched the trees on either side of the road for any hint of movement and watched his horse too to see if it should smell or hear something beyond his own senses. The horse snorted and stamped its foot, but he could smell a putrid odor, too, that did not denote an ambush, at least not one for himself.

  A wagon lay on its side, pushed to the side of the road.

  “A tinker’s wagon. Looks like it is still full of his wares,” said Niels as he rode around the backside of it.

  “I don’t think this is a trap for us,” said Gathelaus, though he remained mounted and watched all about them. Somewhere far off a raven cried warning.

  “The cargo has been rifled through, but I still see silver and copper accruements here. Here is a box of knives and a fine stewpot. This was not a robbery.”

  “What then?” teased Gathelaus, letting Niels answer his own questions.

  “Even if the wagon wrecked and overturned in the mud, a good driver could have re-hitched his team and pulled it back up. And who would leave all their goods and livelihood lying beside the road for anyone passing by to claim? Why has no one taken it?”

  “Why?” goaded Gathelaus.

  “Where is the tinker and his team?”

  “I think I found him.” Gathelaus pointed not mo
re than a dozen paces away.

  Niels strode to where Gathelaus directed.

  In a pile, mixed with wretched offal and hooves, was a leering broken skull and unhinged jaw.

  “What the devil!” shouted Niels, holding his mouth over his nose.

  Gathelaus now held his hand over his nose and mouth, too. His horse stamped, anxious to be away from this place.

  “What could do such a thing?”

  “What indeed but a dragon that could swallow a man’s head whole, digest and excrete it?”

  “Along with the hooves from his team?” marveled Niels.

  Gathelaus glanced over the area. “His team lies over there. I see the oxen’s head and horns. Too wide for the monster, so he spit them out. Judging the pile, I’d say this occurred no more than three days ago.”

  “That recent?”

  Gathelaus grimly nodded.

  “Let us be away from this place and hurrying on to where we saw those lights, for shelter.”

  “Aye, I think the rain will return soon,” said Gathelaus, as he urged his all too eager horse forward.

  They trotted on at a good clip, keeping a wary eye out among the marsh and trees. Ravens circled in the twilight not far ahead and Gathelaus couldn’t help but wonder if they waited beside another victim of the dragon’s wrath, or perhaps beside the monster, waiting for their own leftover scraps. But as the rain began again, as well as the encroaching darkness, the carrion birds went and roosted farther away into the woods.

  “I can’t see that light anymore,” said Niels.

  “Nor I, but it was a few miles farther ahead on this road, I am sure.”

  They trotted on, none too fast as the mud went deep for the flowing rain and they didn’t wish to race their horses into a bog for fear of the twisting serpentine path in the gathering gloom.

  Thunder rolled over the land and slammed heavily. Crashing arcs of lightning illuminated weird swaths of the grotesque landscape and strange things swirled in the pooled waters at their elbows.

  “I like not this place nor the storm,” said Niels. “Let us hurry on and find that shelter we saw earlier.”

  Gathelaus grimly nodded and they hurried their tired mounts along the muddy track.

  Thunder boomed again, but this time, though it was farther away, they felt its power nearer, penetrating the ground beneath their feet as if it had been pounded like a kettle drum.

  “Something is out there,” said Niels. “The wolf?”

  Gathelaus shook his head. “Arm yourself but let us make haste.”

  They rode on at a greater pace and the ground rocked underfoot as if the beating of their hearts was matched by earth itself. The fog curled and lifted in the storm winds only to dive again and slither over them.

  The terrible sound of a momentous growl came from the mist ahead and blackness revealed nothing but the continued tramp of doom drawing near.

  Their horses reared in terror and Niels was thrown to the mud. Gathelaus hardly managed control of his own as it stamped and panicked, nearly trampling the fallen Niels.

  “Get up!” cried Gathelaus.

  Niels moaned and rolled over to his hands and knees as he found his breath. Splattered and covered with mud, he laughed. “I almost thought that thunder was something else.”

  “It was,” said Gathelaus, giving him a hand and swinging his friend up on the saddle behind himself.

  Not far ahead of them on the road, they heard Niels’s horse scream in horror as a terrible roar rocked the night. The snapping of bones and great slabs of torn flesh slapped wet in the night. An invisible gullet was jammed with meat and they heard gluttonous swallowing not more than a hundred paces in the darkness from themselves.

  The foul scent of opened bowels and blood maddened Gathelaus’s horse. Rearing in a crazed panic, the horse threw Gathelaus, he landed in the mud beside Niels who was thrown a second time.

  Hulking steps lunged after the direction of the fleeing horse in the dark, and the mist concealed great feet that trod upright, bipedal, walking at a hideous pace, beating like the slave drum on a pirate galley.

  They each heard the thing pass by them less than a dozen strides away. The mist and darkness so thick it concealed the thing and they saw only a great black shadow race by, tall as a house.

  The steady beat of its feet, slamming in pursuit of the mad horse. It roared again, and the horse screamed in terror and agony.

  “That must have been twelve feet tall,” said Niels.

  “Not a wolf.”

  “That ran on two legs,” said Niels.

  “Lets us do the same, at least until we must face it,” suggested Gathelaus. They ran as fast as they could in the opposite direction, slipping and sliding in the mud.

  A short time later they came across the carcass of Niels’s horse, or at least what was left of it. Some of the head and rear legs sprawled on the ground. The saddle and saddle bags had fallen a short way away, but the ribs, forelegs and guts were gone. The thick copper smell of blood wafted from across the road.

  “I never saw the like,” murmured Niels, as he took up the saddle bags.

  “That reminds me,” said Gathelaus. “Everything I own but what I’m wearing was on that horse.”

  “Better to be alive, let’s go,” urged Niels.

  Gathelaus agreed and they hurried on down the misty path.

  Far away they heard the shadowy monster roar, and the snapping of bones echoed over the moor.

  They hurried as fast as their bruised legs could carry them, slipping and sliding in the mud on the ribbon of road.

  The sliver of moon came from behind the clouds and they saw ahead of them a glade with a farmhouse crouched on a slight uplift.

  “Shelter?”

  Gathelaus shrugged. “Perhaps. I don’t see a light anywhere. It might not be the light we saw earlier.”

  “Looks deserted. But shelter is shelter.”

  They hurried on, reaching the farmstead as cold beams of moonlight washed over the stucco surface. It was a simple affair, thatch roof and small windows set in thick walls. The door was smashed off its hinges and a good portion of the threshold destroyed. They couldn’t help but imagine that the monster had broken inside and devoured any who were unfortunate enough to remain.

  Niels glanced at the door and the snapped bar that should have held it firm. “It’s like a battering ram hit this. That plank should have withstood any roadside bandit. This monster’s strength is incredible.”

  “You said it was a dragon,” reminded Gathelaus.

  “Dragons don’t walk on two feet, do they? They crawl on four and have wings and breathe fire.”

  “Does it matter?”

  Examining the broken threshold and scanty living area that had been rooted through as if hogs had found it, Niels agreed, “I suppose not. It looks like whatever it is reached in and tore everything apart. There is no one here.”

  “Judging by the horses, it would have swallowed man, woman, and child whole without a problem.”

  As if in answer to their query, the terrible roar of the beast echoed through the night, its tramping steps heading in their direction.

  “What now?”

  “We make a stand, what else is there to do?”

  The footsteps of doom drew nearer.

  6. The Rabbits Den

  The terrible throbbing beat of the approaching gait drew ever closer. Gathelaus guessed with the clearing of the mist in the glade before the broken homestead, he would see the monster when it was within two dozen paces. Still far too close for comfort, but he was tired of running, and there was nothing left to do but face the fear.

  “Over here, you fools!” urged an emphatic voice.

  A man peeked at them from beneath a large oaken hatch.

  They hurried to his hiding place where they saw him standing fully erect down in the ground, holding a lantern.

  “Speak quickly, who are you? Why should I let you in to my retreat?”

  “I am Gate, this is
Niels. We are Blade Wardens.”

  “Fools!” he spat at them. “We have dealt with Fiendal now two moons and the king finally sends two imbeciles to die on their first day.”

  “It’s night,” said Niels.

  The thundering tramp of the dragon drew nearer. The steady tramp of its two legs beat in primal rhythm.

  “I should leave you to die, but I won’t. Climb in. Hurry now, I can’t have the monster smelling us out.”

  The man moved back from the hatch and Niels and Gathelaus dropped inside. The man hurriedly picked up a bucket of some foul-smelling substance and splashed it outside the hatch, then shut it tight and barred it closed with a stout plank.

  The hole, which Gathelaus guessed to be a root cellar, smelled as foul as any war campaign hospital he had ever been to. The sour scent of sulphur permeated the space.

  “The stink is on account of living like this, but the sulphur also dissuades the dragon,” explained the man.

  There was a small pile of potatoes and other food items stored at the far end of the wall. A woman and two small children also huddled inside.

  “I’ll thank you not to bother my wife and little ones. They’ve been through enough,” said the man.

  “Who are you?” asked Gathelaus.

  The man sniffed. “I’m Knut Hrakkison. I farm the southern fields of Hoskuld. Or I did.”

  “The dragon?” asked Niels, pointing back at the hatch.

  “Silence now!” urged Knut.

  The heavy tread of the dragon approached. The mother held a hand over each of the children’s mouths as she shut her eyes. Tears welled there and ran across her cheeks, so terrible was her fear.

  A strong snort blasted air just outside the hatch, sending dust flying away from the sill. A force pressed against the oaken slab, and then a long, shearing scrape sounded as Fiendal surely ran a talon over the wood. The hatch flexed with the pressure, but it did not give.

  It snorted once more, then they heard the familiar thump of its stride as it left the farmstead.