In The Shadow Of The Beast (22 page)

A blood red sky churned high above Sigourd
as clouds that were black with malice swirled like dervishes, and
from some distant hilltop he could hear the far away braying of
wolves, their cries carried on fetid winds that whipped this way
and that.

Sigourd was in his nightmare, trapped again
in the rush of madness that had so preoccupied his sleep of late.
But somehow he was aware he was in the dream in a way he had not
been before. He was conscious of his delusion, and was stunned to
see that even here, the landscape his mind had conjured to ensnare
him was as real as any other he’d experienced in his life.

Running, Sigourd was always running and this
time was no different. Pursued by the faceless thing beneath the
deep hood through an ancient forest of gnarled trees so huge they
almost pierced the belly of that blood sky.

He must fight, turn and face his pursuer for
there was no outrunning it. As he had done before, he slowed,
allowing whatever it was that chased him down to gain on him.
Steadily closer until the thing was in range, and when it appeared
that there was no longer any chance of escape, Sigourd turned and
pounced!

He battered the hooded thing to the ground,
‘What do you want!”’ he screamed at the thing that lay prone
beneath him. Sigourd pulled back that deeply shadowed hood to
reveal...the old man, who looked up at Sigourd with a cold fire
burning in his eyes.

‘
You!’ he snarled through
sneering, withered lips. Sigourd stumbled back in shock. How could
he be here, in Sigourd’s dream?

‘
Who are you!?’ cried
Sigourd.

‘
You know me young Lord
Fellhammer. I am the one you seek.’

With that the old man threw off his cloak in
a flash of sickly radiance so bright Sigourd was forced to turn
away. When finally the brilliance subsided, and Sigourd looked back
to see what had become of the old man he was stunned to see a
towering monstrosity. In place of the elder there stood a lumbering
knight with flesh the color of rotten meat and sheathed in corroded
armor that glinted dully like the rising sun peeking meekly through
dawn mists. In one hand the creature held a halberd easily twice
the size of Sigourd, the keen edge of its long blade seeming to
glow with the same sickly light that Sigourd had seen in the lake.
The other hand reached out to grab at Sigourd, who recoiled in
horror at the abhorrent creature before him.

He opened his mouth to shout his defiance,
but the howling winds of the seething skies suddenly rushed in to
choke him, the sound of his horror lost in the gale as he staggered
back gagging on the rush of air.

It was as if the nightmare had decided to
turn on him, betraying him to whatever cruel machinations fate had
conspired to lay at his feet.

The knight reared up to its full terrifying
height, over a head greater than the tallest members of Sigourds
household guard, and twice as thick across the back and shoulders
as any man, even a cruel and grotesque parody of man, had the right
to be.

The sheer scale of the thing beggared
belief. It was so thickly corded with slabs of brawny muscle that
the amour adorning it seemed hardly enough to contain the swollen
mass beneath.

When the creature spoke, there was no trace
of the frail and elderly note that lingered in the throat of the
old man. This thing’s voice rumbled like the pillars of heaven
shaking before a great storm. The sound heavy with malignant
energies that pulsed through every syllable it uttered, ‘I am
Brodus Klay, guardsman in the service of The Baron Vicenzo
Mortaron, and protector of the realm. And you...,’ it said,
pointing a massive armored finger at Sigourd, ‘...are an
abomination.’

The arrival of the dragon boat had been
unsettling in itself, but Jonn Grumble’s attempts at communicating
with the boatman had been even more so. After the boat had reached
the shore, the boatman stood there silently, seemingly waiting for
something to happen while he had made a few belligerent attempts to
communicate. When that had failed, Jonn decided that taking the
initiative was the only way forward, and so he’d cautiously
clambered aboard the boat and allowed the silent boatman to do
whatever it was he was supposed to.

Now, sitting here in the dragon as the
boatman steered them quietly toward that black skull, Jonn Grumble
could not help but wonder at the nature of the wickedness he’d
found himself in.

As they neared the shore of the atoll, it
occurred to him that he would probably find out sooner rather than
later.

The massive halberd swept in an arc again,
missing Sigourd by inches as he dived for cover. The blade sailed
over his head and thundered into an outcropping of rock. Sparks
flew from the impact, dancing over the surface of the land as the
monster deftly swung the blade around, ready to strike again.

‘
Why are you doing this!?’
shouted Sigourd above the howling winds.

‘
Because out here, on the
fringes of creation, I have seen your destiny loosed upon the
world, and I will not suffer it to pass!’

As he spoke, Brodus Klay brought the halberd
around again, swinging it hard and fast in his attempt to take
Sigourd’s head clean from his shoulders.

‘
You are the progeny of
wolves, your blood sire is the the purestrain that has hunted the
race of man since the dawn of creation,’ he continued.

‘
What madness are you
speaking!?’ said Sigourd again, as he scrambled in desperation,
trying to put some distance between himself and that deadly
blade.

‘
Madness?’ thundered Klay,
‘Yes, perhaps I have been driven mad. Out here on the edge of
creation, hunting your forebears in the name of my baron. I have
learned many things in these mountains. They have revealed their
sorcery to me and I will harness that power to bring ruin upon the
race of wulfen.’

The monster swung the blade again, and again
Sigourd ducked, throwing himself to the ground as the heavy steel
of the halberd flickered above his head, this time felling an
arthritically twisted tree near the line of the forest. The tree
crashed to the ground with a dry splintering. As Sigourd rolled to
his feet, he heard again the howling of distant wolves as if from a
mountain top some leagues distant, the sound simultaneously
chilling his blood and stirring some secret desire deep within
him.

The churning sky was lit with flashes of
coruscating lighting that lanced from the heavens, preceding a
great thunderous booming, the sound of the skies splitting.

Sigourd was driven back by the lumbering
knight, to the edge of a cliff that overlooked a roiling sea far
below. Black waters crashed unendingly against a jagged shore, the
noise almost as shockingly loud as the sound of the sky tearing
itself asunder.

Before long Sigourd had reached the edge of
the cliff, his back to the open skies and a punishing drop into
those black waters. Brodus Klay loomed before him, a mad glee upon
his face.

Reaching the landing at the top of the stone
stairwell, Jonn Grumble could see the flickering glow of the cold
blue fire beyond a narrow portal. Moving cautiously he strained to
hear what might lay waiting for him, but all he could detect was
the hammering of his own heart and the pulsing of the blood in his
ears. He was dismayed by the cold he felt in this place, it
insinuated itself into his skin and crept into his marrow to chill
the very core of him in a way that Jonn knew was the result of fell
sorcery than any influence of nature.

As he peered around the lip of the portal,
Jonn Grumble struggled to make sense of the dizzying array of light
that seemed to swirl within the volcanic glass, like a kaleidoscope
they were more than mere reflections of the strange blue fire at
the center of the room. It seemed as if the light was within the
very walls themselves.

And there, crouched over the prone form of
Sigourd, cast in stark relief against the light of the fire was the
old man. His eyes were closed and he appeared feverish as he
mumbled incoherently to himself, his hand resting lightly upon
Sigourd’s brow.

Jonn slipped into the chamber as quietly as
he could, moving like a whisper amongst the swirling light of the
walls, he came to stand near the old man, his sword staff in his
hand.

‘
You’re trickstering won’t
get you out of this one you old bastard,’ said the wild man as he
emerged from the shadows, a murderous gleam in his eye.

The old man looked up suddenly, his eyes
flickering open. There was a beat before a wry smile crept over his
face. Without warning the old man swept his steel cup full of sweet
tea from the floor where he’d lain it, and cast the thing at Jonn
Grumble. The wild man quickly sidestepped as the object sailed past
him and into the fire pit. The contents of the cup were ignited in
the cold fire, which whooshed over the lip of the pit in a
blossoming ball of blue flame. That magical fires caught with the
swirling light within the walls, and instantly the conical room was
engulfed in a maelstrom of seething spirit fire. As the room went
up, the old man threw himself screaming at Jonn Grumble, all trace
of his previous infirmity vanished in an instant.

Brodus Klay raised his halberd high
overhead, ready to deliver the killing blow. Sigourd had reached
the limits of his route of escape, and there was now nowhere left
to run. All he could do was crouch before the towering madman and
accept his fate with the good grace of his royal breeding. Sigourd
watched the gleaming edge of the halberd’s blade as it hovered
above his head, ready to descend and bring about the demise of the
heir to the throne of Atos.

Although Sigourd knew that he was trapped in
a dreamscape, he was instinctively aware that to die here in this
realm would mean his end in the real world. It was a certainty that
came to Sigourd as surely as he could recall the face of Isolde.
And so, with her name upon his lips, he prepared himself to meet
the gods.

But the deathblow never came. Sigourd looked
up to see that Brodus Klay had lowered his weapon, and was turning
slowly to look back in the direction of the forest which was ablaze
with an ethereal blue fire.

All around the blue fire raged. It climbed
the sheer walls of the chamber ravenously. It seemed impossible
that fire could so readily engulf a structure made of volcanic
rock, yet all around Jonn Grumble and the old man the chamber
burned like tinder, roiling black smoke coming out of the fire to
fill the air beneath that strange conical ceiling.

Jonn danced back out of range of the old
man’s frenzied attack, the latter’s clawed fingers scraping empty
space instead of the flesh of Jonn’s face.

He was astonished at the transformation that
had overtaken the old bastard. In the space of a heartbeat he’d
turned from a benign old father figure into a ravening, screeching
monster.

Putting enough space between him and the old
man to bring his sword staff to bear, Jonn Grumble wheeled the
blade in a death arc that only narrowly missed severing his
attacker’s head entirely.

Snatching up his gnarled wooden staff, the
old man used it to expertly deflect Jonn’s follow up attack, and
spun his own weapon into a two handed grip as he ducked back out of
range of another fervid attack.

The two men stood apart, each daring the the
other to make the next move.

‘
You have no idea what this
boy is do you wild man?’ said the elder.

‘
Whatever he is, it can’t
be worse than whatever you are, you old freak.’

‘
Oh but it is,’ crowed the
old man, ‘much worse.’

There was a quiet ‘snick’ as the old man
drew his staff apart into two separate parts, revealing a wicked
looking blade that had been concealed inside the core of the
weapon.

Once more he flew at Jonn Grumble who
brought his sword staff up to deflect the downward strike of the
old man’s secret sword. The two weapons rung off each other again
and again as the old man threw every savage blow he could at the
wild man. Jonn Grumble held his ground, parrying what blows he
could catch and sidestepping those that he was not fast enough to
deflect.

And so it went, both men dancing to avoid
each others blades as well as the gathering blue flames that soon
enough would consume them both just as it was consuming the
interior of the skull. But of course, they would all succumb to the
choking black smoke before the fire ever got near enough to singe a
hair on their heads.

Jonn Grumble knew he had to bring the
encounter to an immediate conclusion before that happened. The old
man’s attack was furious, but in the whirlwind of his flashing
blade, Jonn Grumble was able to see intermittent openings in his
opponent’s defense that would allow him just the rapid conclusion
he was looking for.

Timing was everything in just such a gambit.
One mis-step, one inch out of position, one heartbeat too soon or
too slow and it would be the wild mans immediate end.

He waited until the old man thrust again,
over extending his reach for a fraction of a second, and in that
instant he lunged forward and drove the tip of his blade up into
the old man’s neck, just below his chin. The effect was as sudden
as Jonn had hoped, the old man pinned to the end of the sword staff
blinked in surprise, hardly able to comprehend his situation. An
instant later he gagged on a mouthful of blood that welled up from
inside his neck, spilling out of his mouth dark and red like old
wine.

As Brodus Klay turned back to face Sigourd,
there was something like fear in his eyes. It had momentarily
subsumed the madness that burned there, and Sigourd could but guess
at what would give a madman cause to be afraid.