Gateway to Nifleheim (24 page)

Moments later, when Gabriel's eyes opened, they glowed a brilliant gold instead of their natural blue. Claradon immediately surmised what that meant. He cried out for aid, but the din of the general melee drowned him out. Those terrible orbs were not Sir Gabriel's eyes at all; they were the eyes of the Son of Azathoth, the Prince of Demons and Lord of Nifleheim—he whose purpose was to herald in our doom. Claradon was so stunned that he couldn't move.

Gabriel's mouth opened and it spewed out a gory glob of blood. The wound on his chest glowed for a moment and then rapidly closed of its own accord, and defying all natural laws, healed itself. After but a few moments, all signs of his wounds were gone. The creature grinned an evil, unholy grin, picked up Korrgonn's sword as it stood up, turned, and fled the building.

XVIII

YOUR TIME HAS COME AND GONE

The enormous monstrosity at the breach—its aspect too horrific to describe, save to say that it had massive claws, curved horns, and cloven hooves—lashed out at the gateway, pounding the sides of the opening over and again, seeking entry. It could not hope to fit through the breach, large though it was, so it fought to make the opening the larger. Its blows struck like thunder and stone shards flew in all directions as the ancient masonry slowly succumbed to its fury. Dissatisfied with its progress, the thing rammed its body against the gateway, filling the entirety of the hole with its bulk, and strained against the stone, which bulged and cracked from the force. At last, the breach widened enough, just enough, and it forced its way through. It was here. On Midgaard. With us.

As it stepped through, its bestial form shrank and transformed into the likeness of a huge knight that held a crimson sword. That manly shape may have been naught but an illusion—some alien sorcery conjured up to deceive the gullible eyes of men—or perhaps, some force of nature prevented its transformation until it stood upon Midgaard’s soil. Real or illusioned, no one could mistake its dark, unholy visage—so alike was it to the blasphemous idols and paintings that all had seen at one time or another. Its face was handsome and its frame, broad and muscled. Its armor, the envy of kings and emperors alike. Its name was Bhaal. It was known as the lord of death and chaos—one of the greatest and most feared of the legendary archdukes of Nifleheim.

However its transformation came about, Bhaal now held the shape it wanted as it walked among us. A shape pleasing in its way. A shape men would look upon in awe rather than horror. An aspect and a booming voice that some men would follow. That some men would bow down to and worship. That some men would call god.

Bhaal paused at the hell-mouth for several moments and surveyed the carnage taking place in the ancient temple.

It laughed.

Not a laugh of mirth; not the laugh of a man. It was a maniacal, inhuman cackling such as had not been inflicted on the ears of man or the air of Midgaard for untold epochs. The beast was here now, on our world—its long held desire at last fulfilled; its exile, at an end. It would make Midgaard his again. It had won.

As a multitude of smaller fiends leaped through the gateway, scurried past Bhaal, and moved to engage Theta who barred the path ahead, Dolan, Artol, and Sirs Glimron, Talbot, and Dalken closed with the transformed fiend from its flanks. With blinding speed, Bhaal struck a brutal overhand blow at Artol, who swiftly raised his battle-axe to parry, but the powerful hack sheared the axe haft in two. Bhaal's red sword rotated with the impact and the flat of the blade struck Artol squarely atop his helm and rebounded. Artol’s eyes rolled back in his head and he crumpled to the floor. As quick as that, one of Midgaard’s greatest soldiers was out of the fight.

Dolan charged Bhaal from the opposite side. He sprang into the air, his glowing dagger outstretched before him—that leap, beyond the skills of the most famed acrobats of the bizarre. Bhaal somehow sensed him and pivoted toward him, but its parry was too slow to stave off the dagger, which Dolan buried deep in Bhaal’s sternum. Dolan crashed against Bhaal and landed at its feet.

Bhaal roared, grabbed Dolan by the throat, and lifted him high. As Talbot charged, Bhaal threw Dolan into him, which sent them both cascading across the ebony slab. Bhaal gripped the glowing dagger’s hilt and pulled the blade from its chest, howling with pain. Smoke rose from its hand for its flesh burned on contact with the dagger. It threw the blade to the floor.

Glimron and Dalken simultaneously struck at Bhaal's legs. Their steel blades loudly clanged and sparked when they struck the Nifleheim-wrought armor, but did no damage, for that otherworldly metal was too thick and too strong for common steel to breach.

Bhaal's next cut entered Glimron's right shoulder. The massive blow cleaved clean through him and came out his left side. His body tumbled to the ground, twitching and spouting blood. Then Bhaal grabbed Dalken by the throat and lifted him up. The fiend opened its mouth, wide like a serpent, and a two-pronged, pincer-like object darted out and plunged into Dalken's eyes. The pincers retracted, and ripped the knight's eyes from their sockets.

Bhaal held Dalken aloft for several seconds, staring at him, seemingly admiring his handiwork while the knight screamed in agony. Then Bhaal tightened its grip and crushed Dalken's throat. It flung the corpse away as if it weighed nary a pound.

Nearby, Lord Theta's whirling blade sliced off fiendish arms and legs with abandon. No fiend could stand against him for more than moments. Even the press of numbers could not turn the tide against him. The demon corpses piled high about him in gruesome heaps. He was an unstoppable juggernaut. He was death incarnate. The last thing each of his foes heard was his booming mantra, “Doom”. Ichor covered him and dripped from his blade. He finished off the last of the demons and leaped over the pile of corpses to engage Bhaal.

“You have slain my minions, mortal,” said Bhaal (his voice a rich baritone) to the bloody knight that stood before him. “Impressive. But against a Lord of Nifleheim you cannot stand.”

Theta sheathed his sword and picked up his lance, which still lay at the base of the altar, and brandished it as a spear. That weapon was of stout oak and tempered steel, filigreed in silver and bronze and inscribed with esoteric runes of a style seldom remembered. It was old and gouged and battered, and it was thick and heavy—weighing more than three common spears—yet Theta hefted it with ease. Its runes bespoke of Odin and the Aesir, Asgard and the Bifrost, Yggdrasill and the Nine Worlds. And if you drew close enough, you could hear it hum—not a tune, but a dull, low vibration, its origin, unknown.

“Do you not know me, Bhaal?” said Theta as he pointed the lance's tip at the fiend. “Has it been so long?”

Bhaal studied Theta for a moment and then its mouth dropped open. “You?” it shouted. “You will not thwart us again, traitor. Not again. We will have this world back. We will cleanse it of traitors, unbelievers, and blasphemers by fire and sword and you will not stop us. Never again will you stop us. What once was ours will be ours again.”

“This be no place for you, Bhaal,” shouted Theta. “Not anymore. You don't belong here. Your time has come and gone. Crawl back to Nifleheim and writhe in everlasting flames.” Theta cautiously stalked toward the beast and looked for an opening to use his lance.

“Fool,” shouted Bhaal. “Nifleheim is paradise—more so even than Vaedon ever was. You misguided fool.”

Theta shook his head, a look of disgust on his face. “I will put you down as I have your brethren. You will sleep with them in the void.”

Bhaal sneered. “It is you who are doomed, deceiver. At long last I will slay you and feast on your black soul. I will lay your severed head at the feet of the lord’s altar as an offering. Bhaal advanced, and as he did so, a large, glowing, floating mace suddenly materialized in front of it, and struck it.

The mace pummeled Bhaal about the head and chest and forced it backward, each blow striking with a dull thud and eliciting a groan or roar of pain. Bhaal wildly swung its sword as it attempted to dodge the mace, but its strikes met no resistance, for there was no foe for it to smite. The sword passed through the spectral mace and did it no harm. One wild swing caught the edge of the stone altar and sheared off a large chunk, though the impact barely slowed the mammoth blade. No swords of bronze, iron, or even the hardest steel could ever hope to cleave through a block of stone, yet Bhaal’s Nifleheim blade not only did, but survived the blow intact. What strange metal it was made of was beyond the ken of men.

As he mouthed ancient words of power, Theta pointed the tip of his lance at Bhaal and the lance’s hum grew louder. A sparkling arc of electricity, blue and white and blinding, rocketed from the lance, crashed into the beast's chest, and pushed it back. Where the arc struck, Bhaal’s breastplate blackened, charred, crackled and sizzled, and fell off, which exposed the reddish leather-like flesh beneath. The armor shattered when it hit the floor, as if the attack somehow embrittled it. The beast roared in pain but continued to frantically swing its sword, though each blow cleaved nothing but air.

Par Tanch's magical orbs roared by Theta, humming as they went, and blasted into Bhaal—each one exploding upon impact. One struck its exposed chest, tore into the beast, and caused some damage, but the others struck Bhaal's Nifleheim-wrought armor and were completely ineffective. Bhaal’s black blood dripped from its chest wound and sizzled and smoked when it stuck the stone floor; a pungent, sulfurous odor wafted in its wake.

The enchanted mace, also controlled by Par Tanch's arcane arts, continued to pummel Bhaal and caused him to stagger farther backward—toward the breach—one hand clutching at its wounded chest.

Dolan skulked on hands and knees behind Bhaal who was oblivious of his presence. Dolan saw Theta advancing, lance in hand, and carefully positioned himself just in front of the breach, and directly behind Bhaal. Distracted by the array of magical attacks that assailed it, Bhaal did not react in time to counter Theta's lance. Theta lunged forward and buried its sharpened tip deep into the breast of the Nifleheim lord. Thick black blood sprayed from the wound, and some of it splashed across Theta’s breastplate; the vile stuff smoked and burned gouges into the ancient metal. A look of shock and agony formed on Bhaal's face as the lance sunk in and pushed it backward.

Bhaal dropped its sword and roared in anger, as it struggled against Theta, who used the lance to push it inexorably backward.

“Give my regards to Arioch,” shouted Theta. “Tell him, I haven't forgotten his black deeds, and I will yet have my revenge.”

Bhaal stared down at the lance that protruded from its chest. “Curse you, traitor,” spat Bhaal. “You will pay for this threefold; three evils to you I promise. So do I curse you.”

As Theta pushed the beast back, it tripped over Dolan, just as Dolan had planned, and tumbled backward through the gateway, whence it came. As it fell, it grabbed Theta’s lance— gripping it with all its strength—and somehow wrenched it from Theta’s grasp.

Theta lunged through the air, grasping for the lance. He got a hold of it just as the lance passed through the gateway. Theta’s grip was iron, but Bhaal’s momentum was too much. Theta slid partway through the breach, but managed to hook his foot on the temple's crumbling back wall. Dolan dove onto Theta's other leg to stay his slide but his weight was far too little to matter. Theta had no choice but to let go of the lance or fall through the breach himself, and like as not, Dolan with him.

Bhaal fell out of sight, into the utter blackness beyond the breach and roared more curses at Theta as it fell—the lance still buried in its chest.

“Dagnabbit,” yelled Theta, his hand still outstretched toward the lance that rapidly fell from his sight. And so that relic passed from the world, never to be seen in Midgaard again.

xiX

THE LORD OF THE LAND

Soon only the moans and wails of the wounded filled the air.

“We killed them all, boss,” said Dolan. “All except the skull-faced one what came out first. But we lost a lot of the shiny men, we did.”

“It is not over yet. We must close the gateway or all of Nifleheim will come through. If that happens, Midgaard will be lost.”

“Let them come,” said Artol as he pulled himself to his feet beside the altar. A thin stream of blood trickled down the side of his head. He looked confused and unsteady. “We can take them.”

Ignoring the overconfident sergeant, Theta scanned the floor around the altar. “Find the shards of the black orb; they must be holding the gateway open.”

“Black stone chips against a black stone floor: in the dark?” said Dolan, shaking his head.

Theta spied Bhaal’s sword where it laid and reached for it. When his hand grasped the hilt, the sword flashed white hot for a moment and then disintegrated before his eyes.

Roars, howls, and maddening gibbering began anew from somewhere beyond the breach, although no new fiends could yet be seen.

“Another wave comes,” Theta shouted to whoever could hear him over the increasing din. “I will hold fast the portal. You must find and destroy the shards. Shatter them. But if you value your souls, don't touch them with your flesh.”

“There’s not going to be enough time,” shouted Dolan. “Wait—here it is; a big piece,” he said, pointing to a faintly glowing chunk of obsidian on the floor.

Claradon stepped up next to Dolan, a battle hammer held over his head. “For my father,” he shouted. Dolan sprang out of the way just as Claradon slammed the hammer onto the shard, smashing it to bits. The gateway instantly disappeared and the chaotic din abruptly stopped. Where the gateway once was, now remained only the crumbled back wall of the temple. The hole in the wall opened to the outside air; the circle and forest beyond were both visible—the fog, gone.

Before the men rejoiced in their victory, a loud rumbling began. Within moments, the ground beneath their feet began to shake. They heard roaring and rumbling sounds like those produced by a herd of large beasts, and then chunks of stone fell from the ceiling.