9.2 – Vidofnir

Posted on 2019-10-17 by allene

The order was given, and Arring tossed a rope across to the rowboat. Einarr lashed the boats together and pulled himself up onto the old, familiar deck. Grinning broadly, he clasped arms with Arring before turning around to offer a hand up to those who wished for one.

“Where’s Father?” He asked as soon as the last of them was aboard, still grinning at everyone around him. His companions were all looking around, some more bemused than others.

Arring pointed towards the bow, where Stigander stood waiting in a cleared area just ahead of the mast, his arms crossed but looking just as pleased to see Einarr. Next to him was Reki, and he felt as much as saw Eydri tense. Now was not the time for that conversation, though. He straightened the hem of his tunic and strode forward.

Stigander appeared to be listening to something Reki was muttering. The albino woman never once took her eyes from Einarr’s group. What had happened between her and Eydri? Surely there must have been something. Still, Stigander nodded, and as Einarr drew up with the mast a grin split his thick yellow beard.

“At last, my troublemaker returns to us!” Stigander laughed and reached out his arms.

Einarr met the gesture in kind, taking his father in a manly embrace for just a moment.

“Welcome back, son,” Stigander said more quietly.

“Thank you, Father.” He clapped his father on the shoulder once more before turning. “And now I’m afraid there are introductions to be made and common cause to be made.” He ran through the introductions a second time, this time starting with Bea, followed by Liupold, and then the others in order of their respective rank. He did not fail to notice that Eydri and Reki both seemed to avoid looking at one another.

“And that’s where we stand, Father,” he finished.

“I see. Welcome aboard, I suppose.” Stigander watched Bea quietly, the way a cat watches a hunting dog.

“The honor is mine,” Bea said smoothly, extending her hand. “I understand one of my ships gave you some trouble last spring: for that, you have my apologies.”

Stigander hummed and turned his attention to Liupold. “Captain Liupold of the Arkona. My Mate informs me that your ship is apparently not to blame for the sacking of my friend’s land?”

“That is correct, Captain. The Arkona arrived earlier today bearing your son and the others following a service they performed in Imperial waters.”

That got a raised eyebrow from Stigander, and Einarr knew they would have a great deal to discuss later.

Liupold was still speaking. “We arrived to find the town already in flames and sent a boat ashore to determine what had occurred here. We were still determining that when your two ships arrived and opened fire on us.”

“An unfortunate misunderstanding.”

“And, under the circumstances, an understandable one. But we had not yet learned the identity of the raiders when we had to break off to secure this cease-fire.”

Stigander turned to Einarr. “The Hall?”

Einarr shook his head. “Also hit. Also burning, I think, but the harbormaster didn’t know how bad, and everyone else was too busy putting out fires. And we do know one thing, actually. The ship responsible had a wolf’s head on the prow.”

Stigander looked stricken. “We have to get to Kjell Hall.”

“You know that ship, Father?”

“In my time, I have known three ships to bear that animal. Two of them are long since broken, but all three of them were terrors of the sea. Bardr! My horn.”

“Sir!”

“In the meantime… Captain Liupold, your Highness. Do you intend to see this through? Or, having delivered your cargo, will you return south to safer waters?” He did not say flee, but all among them heard it.

Bea straightened, as haughty as ever a princess could be. “We shall see it through, shan’t we, Captain? The Cursebreaker is of great interest to me.”

Einarr rolled his eyes, fairly certain she couldn’t see, and groaned internally. She would complicate matters greatly.

“I was just about to say the same, your Highness,” Liupold was saying.

“Very good. Then if you would kindly return to your ship, so no-one decides I have made hostages of you, we should be underway.”

The three ships slipped from the harbor almost without further incident. However, where the Vidofnir and the Eikthyrnir could simply reverse course, the Arkona had to be turned about. While this was not a difficult maneuver, it did slow their progress. Einarr wondered idly if the harbormaster had paid any attention to what was going on out on the waves.

Just a few hours later, the two longboats and an Imperial rowboat beached themselves just up the river from the narrow bay near the Hall. The forest appeared untouched, which was a mercy. Whatever they had done, there would be survivors even out here.

Still, only a relatively small party was sent up the forest trail. Einarr and Stigander, Reki, Captain Kormund, Bea, Rambert, and Jorir – who had been just as pleased to see him, in his way, as Stigander. “We’ve much to discuss, you and I – once we’ve confirmed the safety of your Lady, of course,” he’d said.

“You’re right, we do. Glad to see you well.”

That had been the end of it, for the time being. Now the seven of them hurried up the bay trail toward Kjell Hall. Einarr spotted chop marks in the forest around the trail, although he could not discern their purpose.

When the Hall came into view in its clearing in the trees, it was a burnt-out ruin. Men still moved within the confines of its walls, searching among the ashes for who-knew-what. Stigander took off at a run for the walls, and the rest of the party followed after.

“Trabbi? Trabbi, is that you?”

The old retainer rose from the pile of ash he sifted through to look, numb, at the man who addressed him. “You’re too late.”

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9.1 – Burn

Posted on 2019-10-15 by allene

With Hrist’s ominous parting words ringing in his ears, it would have been an understatement to call Einarr impatient to return to Kjell. Where before he marveled at the Arkona’s speed, especially for a ship of her size and draft, now it would not have been enough had she been able to fly.

He shared his encounter with Hrist only with Eydri, Naudrek, and Hrug, and while they, too, were now anxious to return that word, too, was insufficient. He spent his days pacing the deck, cursing under his breath the alfs and their High Roads for keeping him from his place on the Vidofnir.

His relentless pacing meant he was among the first to notice the unnatural light on the horizon as they approached Kjell. His throat went dry: had the whole island burned, in some dark reflection of their purification of Hohenwerth? He shook his head. No, that couldn’t be. Whatever it was, though, was bad. He tried everything to make himself sleep, but even under the effects of Eydri’s Lullaby he was subjected to terrible nightmares and fitful slumber.

The next day Kjell came into view and he saw smoke before he saw anything else – great inky clouds of it. The largest of these rose from what was obviously Kjellvic, and Einarr could soon see large swaths of untouched forest. That meant, though, that the other two merging pillars of smoke rose from the Hall and the Chapel, respectively.

Liupold could not coax any more speed out of his ship at this stage: he had done all he could in that regard in the days after Einarr’s encounter with the Valkyrie had led to a shift in his mood. He did, however, keep the Arkona at speed for far longer than he otherwise would have dared.

The Arkona sailed into Kjell harbor far faster than anyone considered safe, for this reason. The people on shore seemed on the verge of panic, held in check only by the keen memory of the harbormaster, who recognized them. When a landing craft was put down, Einarr practically flew to its deck. His companions were close behind, followed by Bea, Rambert and Liupold, and every one of them save Eydri manned an oar.

Eydri sang. Even with the boost she lent them, though, Einarr wanted to tear his hear out for how long it was taking. Threads can be cut, Cursebreaker, Hrist had warned. He did not see the Vidofnir in port: that could only mean it had been Runa under threat.

After minutes that felt like hours, the rowboat sidled up to the dock and Einarr leapt out in front of the harbormaster. “What has happened?” He demanded without preamble or introduction.

The harbormaster studied him for a long and wary moment before he answered. “Ah. You are the Lady Runa’s betrothed, are you not?”

“Yes!” It was an effort not to snap at the man, although that he remembered at all could be counted a small miracle.

For his part, the harbormaster was visibly relieved. “Three days ago, Kjell was hit by a raiding ship with a wolf’s head on the prow. They seemed to be looking for something, or someone. I’m afraid no-one seems to know what. Apparently they didn’t find it, because after they sailed off refugees started arriving from the Hall. They had been asking the same questions there, and stealing everything that was not nailed down in the process. The town is still burning, as you can see, but I think we’ve finally got it contained…”

“Good, good,” Einarr broke in at the first convenient moment. “Horses. We need horses. Are there any available?”

The harbormaster gave him a look as though he’d made a particularly bad joke. “With the town still in flames?”

Einarr shook his head. “No. No, of course you’re right. It’s just… I need to get to the Hall.”

“I understand, my lord, but unless you’re wiling to walk, or take that Conehead ship there back around the island, there just isn’t anything.”

Bea spluttered a little. Einarr heard her whisper “C-conehead?” as though she had never heard the insult applied to them before.

“Oh, wonderful.” The harbormaster sounded genuinely pleased about something. He was staring over Einarr’s shoulder. When he turned to look, he saw what would ordinarily have been the sweetest sight imaginable: the Vidofnir and the Ekthyrnir sailed into port together, both of them under full sail.

“Oh, no.” Einarr’s face dropped. “Back in the boat! Everyone, get back in the boat. I have to talk to my Father, immediately.”

In spite of their best efforts, arrows flew between the two longships and the Arkona before Einarr could get between them in their rowboat. He stood in the middle of the rowboat and shouted. “This is Einarr, son of Stigander. Do not fire! Repeat, do not fire!”

Arrow fire tapered off from the Vidofnir first, then from the Arkona as Walter realized that not only had the other ship relented, his Captain was in the line of fire.

A very familiar face peered over the bulwark at their small boat.

“Bardr! By the gods, it feels like forever. Permission to come aboard?”

“For you? Always. Who are those people?”

“Eydri is a Singer. Naudrek and Hrug are friends who helped me out last fall,” he began the introductions with their own people. “Liupold here is Captain of that vessel you’ve been firing on, and Rambert is from his crew. And this–” he gestured. “Is Her Imperial Highness Beatrix Maria Gundahar, Admiral of the Hrist Brigade and recent captive of that damn kraken the Grendel let loose.”

Bardr stared for a long moment, and Einarr could see him doing the mental gymnastics required to accept this. In the end, though, Einarr’s tenure as a Cursebreaker had subjected them all to far stranger circumstances than those.

“Come aboard, then,” he finally answered, after some guffaws and jeering from further back in the boat. “I look forward to hearing just what the hel happened out there.”

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8.26 – Inferno

Posted on 2019-10-13 by allene

Hi, Everyone! Allene here. We’re going to try something special with book 8, assuming I don’t exhaust myself in the process. In an effort to get my rankings higher on TWF and RRL, I’m aiming to post two chapters/day for the next two weeks (so, 28 chapters in 2 weeks, or what will probably be most of the book), and then go straight into book 9 when it’s done. Wish me luck!

So far as Einarr was aware, they had only one piece of business left on Hohenwerth. It seemed a shame, to Einarr’s way of thinking, that such a fertile piece of land should be put to flame – but the alternative meant leaving a pocket of corruption to fester like an open wound. It was bad enough that the svartalfr fortress in Clan waters still existed: for something like that to spring up in Imperial territory would be a disaster.

After roasting the black kraken alive, the Arkona’s stores of sea fire were no more. They still had more mundane means of setting things alight, however, and these they applied. The landing crew that had taken the bodies of the fallen to shore moved inland had one other task, and after the bodies were prepared they loaded packs of torches on their backs and moved inland.

When offered, Einarr refused the chance to go along on this task as he promised he would, and instructed his companions to do the same. “It’s not that we don’t trust you,” he told Liupold. “It’s that I don’t trust your higher-ups.” Most especially Hrist, but he wasn’t going to say that. “I agreed to assist you for my own reasons, as you well know. I will not give some ambitious functionary the chance to claim it was raiders at fault for Hohenwerth.”

Liupold took this with better grace than Einarr had really expected, even considering that he had been warned. But Liupold had more than once acted with better sense than Einarr typically expected of the Coneheads, so perhaps there was something to Walter’s accusation after all. Perhaps, as the Mate said, Liupold was half “barbarian.”

Two hours past dawn, the first column of smoke rose above the center of the island. New columns appeared at regular intervals after, in various places around the island. Three hours after they fanned out, the men of the Order climbed back in their landing boat and rowed back towards the Arkona. Behind them, Einarr could see flames licking up towards the sky.

Before they came back aboard, they tethered themselves to the Arkona and were towed around to the south side of the island. There was one more fire to light, one area shielded by a mass of stone from the rest of the blaze: the docks and the castle at Southwaite. Arguably the most crucial area to burn, given what happened there.

There were no more flesh-puppets to deal with, now that the black kraken had been destroyed, but flesh-puppets were not all that had been created on the island – the jailer was proof enough of that. As the castle dock came into view against the steep shale coast of the island, Einarr could see movement against the fiery backdrop. There were still living creatures on the island. Some of whom had once been men. And all of whom could potentially be able to escape into the sea.

Rambert was calling cadence on the rowboat, and when they loosed themselves from the main ship they closed the distance to the docks swiftly. Some few of the kraken’s monstrosities were already approaching the steep steps that led to the dock. Einarr did not doubt that they would find their way down, whether or not they were still able to walk down stairs.

Movement from the smaller boat again caught his eye. Rambert (at least, he thought that’s who it was) had drawn back his bow. Flame flickered at the tip of the arrow he had nocked. Then the first flame arrow flew. It landed at the very edge of the docks, right in front of the stair.

“Good shot,” Einarr muttered under his breath as the fire licked at the wood.

Moments later, a volley of flaming arrows flew across the gap to land in the bridge or in the forerunners of the island abominations – and they were all, he could see even from this distance – abominations.

One of them, vaguely humanoid but with the snout of a dog and moving on squid-like tentacles, braved the kindling fire ahead and sort of slid down onto the dock.

More fire arrows flew, whether intended as a second volley for the dock or with the intention of stopping the creature, it was hard to say. Whatever the intention, several burning arrows found their mark on the abomination and it slumped to the ground.

So they’re not all as strong as the jailer, are they? That’s good to know.

The bridge was burning merrily, now, and the creatures that had fled to the shore milled about between the fire and the water. Einarr frowned and moved forward, toward where Liupold stood watching with a similar frown on his face.

“Captain, might I suggest a volley of our own? Sooner or later, those things will end up jumping to escape the flames…”

“You’re quite right.” He frowned. “Walter! Do we still have the emergency cask held back?”

Walter glared at his captain and spoke through gritted teeth. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Sir.”

“Walter. Would you rather ensure that nothing gets off this island, or preserve the most obvious of secrets from men who have acted as our allies? Load the cask.”

The Mate looked like he wanted to argue further, but then he looked towards the shore. Already some of the abominations were testing their courage and the edge of the cliff. “Yes, sir.”

While Walter disappeared belowdecks to do as his Captain commanded, Liupold ordered the ship brought in closer to shore.

The Arkona was far closer to shore than anyone really liked when Walter reappeared. “Ready, sir.”

“Very good. Fire on my mark.”

“Sir!”

Liupold stared towards the shore for a long moment. He appeared to be counting. “Ready… mark!”

A gush of sea fire spouted from a nozzle in the prow of the boat with a sound like rushing wind through a chimney. The abominations on shore shrieked in a voice like the kraken’s, although Einarr doubted most of them ever realized the water, too, was now ablaze. They were too busy trying to put out the flames that now burned them directly.

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8.25 – Fire Ship

Posted on 2019-10-13 by allene

“Launch!” Liupold’s order echoed over the surface of the water.

Hrug willed the wind to life in the fire ship’s sails, and as it sailed past Einarr turned to watch Burkhart. The man stalked the deck of the ship, lighting the carefully placed torches. For just a moment, Einarr saw his face clearly. The man’s expression was one of pure hatred.

Keep your head. Don’t try anything stupid. Just ram the thing and abandon ship. Einarr could well imagine someone in Burkhart’s shoes doing something stupid in the name of vengeance and glory. The man had no family left, after all, and in times such as those men tend to wonder what they have to lose. Only, in this instance, there was a high probability of a fate worse than death.

Einarr could see Burkhart’s figure move to take the tiller just as his form became indistinct. The boat veered just slightly starboard even as it picked up inhuman speed.

The fire ship shot across the sea like a meteor through the sky, the fire spreading slowly to the bulwarks and the deck. Burkhart kept her steady, though, aimed directly for the center of the horror’s baleful red eye.

The fire ship hit the swell caused by one of the horror’s tentacles grabbing for the unfortunate ship and skipped off the surface of the water. Even still, Burkhart held her steady in spite of the bouncing and the heat.

Einarr found he could not draw his eyes away. He only barely knew the man, for all that they had fought together in Southwaite, and yet right now his charge was the only thing that mattered on the field.

Two more times the fire ship skipped across the water, but Burkhart was as good as he swore: always the prow remained aimed at the horror’s eye.

At the last possible instant, the black silhouette of a man’s shape dove from the back of the boat into the churned waters below. Burkhart had sworn he was an excellent swimmer: now he would have a chance to prove it.

The fire ship launched out of the water once more as the black kraken reached a tentacle for the capsized harpoon boat and the horror of the deep let out an ear-splitting, high-pitched chitter. The prow of the fire ship embedded itself in the horror’s eye.

Einarr plugged his ears. He had never known an ordinary squid to make noise, but this one apparently could when it was in pain and the sound set his teeth on edge.

Then the fire on the decks caught the cask of sea-fire that had been loaded on board and Einarr was doubly glad he had his ears covered. The sound was painful even then, and the shockwave from the fireball could be felt even as far back as the Arkona yet remained.

Liupold ordered the Arkona forward into firing range as the horror shrieked a second time. As the fireball cleared, the black kraken continued to burn.

The harpoon boats that had not yet caught hold of their target threw once more at the thrashing, burning beast, while the ones that had loosed their first volley of fire arrows.

They could not yet afford to stop, but as they sailed in close Einarr spotted several figures moving in the water. Good. At least some of them can swim. He turned his attention back to the black kraken, who seemed to be recovering somewhat. The remains of the ship still protruded from its eye, which leaked black blood into the water, but it seemed to have given up on getting it loose. Instead, it was sending far too many tentacles out after the harpoon boats, but almost without fail those were being caught up. Then the harpoon boats began to spray sea fire from small, hand-held flamethrowers.

Hrug activated the spell he had been laying on the island and the abomination stiffened.

“Fire!”

Sea fire flared out in concert from the harpoon boats and from the Arkona herself. Soon it would all be over.

When the kraken floated on the surface, a charred, lifeless husk, one of the harpoon boats went around to collect any survivors there might still be in the water. To a man, the survivors felt ill once they were recovered from the water: Einarr commisserated, remembering the same feeling from when he had fought the creature in close combat last year, and recommended they find themselves a priest or a healer. The corruption in the blood, after all, was a powerful thing, and it had bled copiously in the water.

Burkhart, unfortunately, was not among the survivors. Einarr had lost track of the man once he dove free of the fire ship, but of the other survivors not one remembered seeing him swimming free. They did, eventually, find him, as the boats combed the water into the evening. He had died with a grin on his face, as well he should have.

“Thus ends the line of Eichel,” Liupold intoned as the body was laid out on the deck of the Arkona.

“He was it?”

The Order captain nodded.

“He died well.”

Other words were said, by those among the crew who knew him better. Rambert stood silent, staring at the body as though to better remember the details. Einarr did not disturb him.

Burkhart was not the only casualty, although he was the only one Einarr had known. The bodies of the dead were laid out across the deck, and those among the crew who wished were allowed to stand vigil over night. As dawn broke, though, the bodies were loaded once more into one of the landing boats and rowed to shore. There, they were laid out on the shore on wooden biers close to the tree line.

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8.21 – Under Seige

Posted on 2019-10-11 by allene

“Do it.”

At Einarr’s word, Liupold and Naudrek tossed the bar out of the way and scrambled back over the makeshift palisade.

No sooner had they righted themselves, javelins in hand, than the press of bodies forced open the door to reveal a writhing mass of the kraken’s flesh-puppets.

They surged into the armory, arms and weapons flailing clumsily. Each time one was struck by arrow or javelin they crumpled to the ground, inert, only to rise again moments later. The killing field slowly filled with the bodies of the puppet master’s servants.

Eydri sang even as she drew her bow, but no illusions fell from Einarr’s eyes this time. They were not monsters wearing human skin, but tools manipulated by the monster directly. He fired another arrow: this one took its target in the eye. It did not rise again.

“The eyes!” He called across the room. “Shoot the eyes!”

The point was momentarily mooted as Hrug lit off one of his fire runes in the center of a mass of the flesh-puppets. With a whoosh like the Arkona’s sea-fire cannon a fireball engulfed them and spread. More of the flesh puppets fell and did not rise again.

It wasn’t much, but Einarr would take it. Good shooting and the occasional ball of fire would get them out of here, and then they could turn this island into an ash heap. He drew back his bow.

Another eye shot, another fallen puppet. But so long as Hrug could keep cleaning them out with the occasional fireball, they could escape this without dousing themselves in corruption.

Einarr just hoped his hand would hold out. It had been a very long time since he had done this much shooting.

Hrug was exhausted. Out of all the arrows and javelins they had started with, a bare handful remained both unshot and unburnt. Rambert had a nasty looking gash on his arm from a lucky shot by one of the flesh-pupppet’s pitchforks… but that was the worst of the damage they had taken.

The armor racks they had used as a palisade were well-nigh destroyed, of course, as was the armor they had left on the racks in question. But the flesh puppets no longer surged into the armory like a tide of hungry death and for that, at least, they could be glad. Einarr wanted little so much as to collapse onto the floor and sleep for a week. Hrug must be feeling it even more, with as much rune work as they had required of him.

Liupold groaned and levered himself back up to his feet, slowly. “We should go before the puppet master decides he wants to try us again.”

“Can everyone move?” Einarr asked as he, too, staggered to his feet.

“I think so,” Rambert answered. Eydri had bandaged the gash on his arm. Einarr hoped that meant it wasn’t bad enough to Sing over, and not that it would require specialized ointments she hadn’t brought ashore.

“Then let’s get out of here. Job’s not done yet.”

With groans and mutters, the eight of them took up the last of the ammunition and moved out of the armory and back into the halls, the fatigue all but forgotten as they jogged once more for the front entrance.

What flesh puppets remained in the hallway seemed uninterested, as though, having tried their skill, the kraken was content to leave them alone. The beast was a horror of the deeps, but did it think like an animal? Had they, in fact, asserted their dominance over it sufficiently that it would show its belly?

Einarr shook his head, chuckling to himself as they moved. What did it matter, if the black, corrupted kraken acted like a submissive dog the next time they saw it? That just made its belly easier to open.

As the front gates closed with a resounding thud behind them, Einarr felt like he could breathe a little easier. According to Naudrek, Hrug had managed to lay more pieces of the array while they were in the citadel, which meant that it should nearly be complete. How he intended to complete the array, Einarr had no idea, but that was why Hrug was Melja’s best student.

They hurried back mostly the way they had come, avoiding what few flesh-puppets they saw and detouring towards the northern coast. If the Coneheads wondered why, they did not ask, and Einarr was not inclined to explain.

Striding down one of the island’s many narrow roads, Bea hustled up beside him. “Your father – he is one of your northern lords? A… chieftan?”

Einarr smirked bitterly. “By birthright, he is a Thane, yes.”

“By birthright only? Not in actuality?”

“That is… complicated.”

Bea nodded, a small frown on her almost otherworldly face. “It would be a shame to waste a talent such as yours on a raiding ship.”

Einarr gave her a sharp look, but she wasn’t done.

“My father, I’m sure, will wish to reward those responsible for my rescue. There could be any number of powerful positions available.” She seemed to see his expression now, and the shadow of refusal in his eyes. “Just think on it. We can talk more later.” The princess Beatrix dropped back to walk with Liupold again.

Einarr shook his head and picked up the pace. What did she think she was suggesting? Easy enough, though, to turn her down when they spoke next.

Finally the burnt husk of Kettleness rose into view over the desolate fields. Nothing now stood between them and the relative safety of the Arkona save a mile or so of ocean. The eight of them hurried down the path to their waiting boat.

The boat was not all that waited them in the inlet. Leaning casually against its side stood a tall, statuesque woman with black hair even longer and more lustrous than Bea’s, wearing a gleaming golden breastplate. Beside her rested her winged helmet and spear.

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8.20 – Armory

Posted on 2019-10-10 by allene

The trick with the runes gave them a chance to get out of the dungeon, but they could only do it once. There simply wasn’t time, while dodging the flesh-puppets of a creature whose attention was only now coming to focus on them. Even if there had been time, Einarr was not at all certain it would work against the full attention of the undersea horror.

Liupold led them down corridor after corridor, more than once making a hasty turn when something shambled into their path. By the time they reached the top of the second set of stairs, each and every one of them was out of breath.

“Where to now?” Einarr asked.

With a quick glance around, Liupold pointed, but they had hardly started down that hallway when a pack of the flesh-puppets appeared ahead of them.

Three turns later, when they were once again facing the exit, it happened again.

And again.

“I think it knows where we’re trying to go,” Naudrek offered.

“I think you’re right. Well, I guess that means we have to do this the hard way.”

Liupold nodded again and took off down the corridor to their left. Whatever the puppet master had expected, this wasn’t it. Once again, the shambling horde was reduced to chasing the much-faster living humans.

It couldn’t last forever. The puppetmaster had enough eyes to see through that it was only a matter of time until he could redirect his flesh-puppets to block the way to the armory. Liupold picked up the pace, and everyone else stayed with him.

Another flight of stairs. Rambert hurled a javelin at one of the puppets that was getting a little too close behind them. Einarr could hear more closing in from the sides.

“Up there!” Liupold pointed forward at a large, heavy door just as a pair of the flesh-puppets shambled in front of it. Only two, though. Einarr and Naudrek brought up their bows, aimed, and fired. Two puppets sprouted arrows and fell forward, inert. Moments later, Liupold led them in hurdling over the bodies.

Einarr turned his shoulder to ram the door open without stopping. Naudrek, Hrug, and the oarsmen followed suit as Liupold and the women scrambled out of the way.

Already the kraken was beginning to reassert control over the fallen peasants, but the door creaked open on its hinges under the combined force of five charging warriors.

Moments later, they had all scrambled inside. With that same drawn-out creak, they shoved the door closed behind them, and then Bea dropped the heavy wooden bar with a bang.

Einarr, the first to recover his breath, took in the room with a glance. If the door could be barred, there were probably other entrances from higher up in the citadel. “Bea, Hrug, Rambert. Go check for other ways out of here. Bar them if you can.”

The princess gave him a long, appraising look but did not object.

“Burkhart, gather up all of the arrows and javelins you can find. All of them. Liupold, Naudrek, let’s see if we can’t make this room a little more defensible. I bet we can pile up some of those racks into a nice, defensible wall we can shoot through.”

Liupold, too, gave him a long look, although his seemed oddly more annoyed than Bea’s had. Still, he didn’t seem inclined to dispute the call, so while the others were making sure they had weapons and didn’t get attacked from behind, the three of them set up a wall inside the armory, outside the sweep of the door but curving around to meet the walls of the room on either side. The closest thing to a killing field they could come up with.

The flesh puppets were trying to force the door, but it seemed they could afford a moment’s rest. Einarr flopped down on the floor and began inspecting his bow. It would very shortly be seeing heavy use.

“You’re a natural at this, aren’t you,” Liupold said, sitting next to him. It wasn’t a question.

“What, taking charge?” Einarr shrugged. “I wouldn’t say that. My grandfather was Thane over the clans of Breidelstein. Father knows he never will be, not with as long as its taken us to reclaim our throne. My whole life he’s been preparing me, first for captaincy, then for thanehood.”

Liupold nodded. “He’s taught you well, but I think he had a good student. Even the princess didn’t hesitate when you took charge.”

Einarr shrugged again. “Just because she’s not likely to ever inherit doesn’t mean she’s got soup for brains. It needed to be done, and it was better if we did the grunt-work.”

“I’ll not deny it.” Liupold exhaled a deep breath and stood again. “We should get the ammunition racks set. We’re going to have to unbar that door if we ever want to get out of here.”

Einarr heaved a breath himself, then followed suit. The sooner they could bust free of this castle, the sooner they could torch the island and turn their full attention to the kraken.

Einarr was reluctantly impressed: the bar had started to crack. They all gathered around the outside of the wall, bows in hand and plenty of javelins and arrows in easy reach. Even Eydri had a bow.

Bea stood by the pulley that would raise the bar and let the flesh-puppets surge forward. Hrug had also prepared a number of fire runes as a last defense. The idea of setting the castle on fire around their ears did not appeal, but neither did the idea of a never-ending surge of flesh-puppets. The arrows that had taken down the ones in the hall, before, had not hit anything vital. That suggested to Einarr that the kraken’s control over its puppets was tenuous. But by the same token, he didn’t think reasserting control had taken much effort, either.

“Are we ready?” Bea called.

A series of affirmations came from around their perimeter. “Do it,” Einarr answered after everyone else had called in.

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8.19 – Imperial Princess

Posted on 2019-10-10 by allene

The woman who stepped out of the cell Liupold opened was tall, lithe, and buxom, with black hair falling to her knees in a thick braid. She wore snug trousers and a swordfighter’s tunic, tied at the sleeves and waist, and if it weren’t for the hay clinging to hair and clothes, the smears of dirt on her face, and some new-looking tears in her clothes Einarr would not have believed her to be so recently a captive. She didn’t even have dark circles under her eyes!

“My lady,” Liupold intoned with a bow. “Let me present the Cursebreaker, Einarr son of Stigander of the longship Vidofnir; Eydri, a Singer of his acquaintance and no small skill; Naudrek, his man-at-arms; and Hrug, a sorcerer trained in the use of runes. Lord Einarr, this is her Imperial Highness, the fourth Princess Beatrix Maria Gundahar.”

Einarr had never met an Imperial princess before, although he had met a landed Thane or two in his time on the Vidofnir. He bowed, much as he would have for one of their offspring. Eydri curtsied. Naudrek bowed deeply enough to hide the blush Einarr glimpsed on his cheek, even as Hrug took a knee.

The princess gave a dismissive upward motion, which Einarr chose to interpret as haste to be out of here – a sentiment which he shared. “We can worry about formal introductions later. First we need to… was one of your men a Painter?”

The princess had noticed the charred corpse of her jailer, and she stared at it as though trying to divine who he had been before.

“No, my lady. I have received something of an education, today: runes are good for more than fortune-telling.”

“But useless in combat,” Einarr cut him off. The last thing he needed was the Empire trying to figure out a way to use rune magic in battle. It could be done, of course, given sufficient rune sorcerers with sufficient runestones, but that was not a discussion he intended to have with any Conehead, let alone one of their royals. “We should go, before that kraken can get reinforcements down her to replace its pet dog.”

She nodded. “Quite right. Have you found my things?”

Liupold shook his head. “Haven’t yet looked.”

“Well then, let’s get to it! Father will be quite cross if he has to fit me for armor again, and the spear is an heirloom.”

It took far longer than anyone among their party liked to find the princess’ – Bea’s, she finally directed them to call her – breastplate and spear. By the time Bea had asked (instructed) Eydri to help her put it on, they could all hear the sounds of the kraken’s flesh-puppets shambling above. It was only a matter of time before they found their way down.

“What can the runes do?” Liupold asked. “Can they get us out? Or even just destroy the flesh-puppets, like your little lightning setup did for the jailer?”

Einarr and Hrug shared a look. Einarr envied the other man a little for not having to explain this. “Rune magic is fundamentally an act of will. The greater the change, the larger the expenditure of will. We could probably catch several of them on fire – but not enough. And there’s no way we have enough arrows and javelins to fend them all off down here.”

“No, I suppose we don’t.”

“Is there a place we could get more? Bows, arrows, javelins, I mean.”

“Yes, there will be an armory. I think I even know where.”

“Good. Then what Hrug and I can probably do is lay runes to keep them away from the staircase long enough for us to get past them. Then all we have to do is evade the flesh-puppets long enough to reach the armory – or the exit, either one. Now that we’ve got the Princess out, there’s no reason not to burn the island, right?”

Bea answered for him when he hesitated. “None.”

“Wonderful. In that case, I have a slight preference for racing back across the island for the ship, but I will leave that to your discretion. In the meantime, Hrug, we have some runes to lay.”

While it did require some syntax, this was one of the easiest and earliest ‘spells’ Elder Melja had taught them. In the village, they used it to keep pests away from their crops. The Elder had always been cagey about whether or not it was also used to keep humans away from the village. Whether or not that was the case, it should be more than sufficient to keep the kraken’s victims from descending on their heads. While they worked, Naudrek and the oarsmen took up positions to either side of the stair, weapons ready.

After what felt like another eternity, Eydri finished buckling on Bea’s breastplate and had it adjusted to her satisfaction. Bea grabbed up her fancy metal-plated spear.

“Are we ready? I feel like the puppeteer has started to notice something amiss.”

Bea, much to Einarr’s surprise, was self-aware enough to apologize for the delay. “Let’s go,” she added, gesturing for Liupold to lead the way.

Up the stairs they raced. Those who had bows had them limbered and arrows nocked as a precaution. Those who did not prayed for room to throw a javelin should the need arise.

The flesh-puppets milled about on the floor above – none of them in the straight line leading up away from the stairs, and most of them not seeming to even realize there was a gap there. Liupold dashed down the hallway and across that intersection like a shot, the rest of the group hard on his heels.

The group of intruders had made it past three more intersections and around a bend before the kraken realized what was going on. Then there was a dull groaning from its puppets as they shambled off after their prey, as rapidly as their rotting legs could carry them.

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8.18 – Jailbreak

Posted on 2019-10-09 by allene

The jailer stood in the center of the guard room like a bulldog, as though at any minute he expected intruders to burst in. He also looked significantly healthier than the flesh-puppets they had seen elsewhere in the citadel. He was still alive, plainly, although probably not, Einarr thought, the first to succumb.

Not that he could still be mistaken for human anymore, either, though. His eyes were pupil-less red orbs, and his skin was darker than a human’s should be. He had hands, still, and stood with his thumbs tucked into the belt of his trousers… but where one expects to see fingers, there were octopus-like tentacles.

The Kraken evidently doesn’t do subtle. “I think we’ve been noticed,” Einarr whispered. “Eydri, if we stop our ears, do you think a lullaby would work on him?”

Her face was pale as she stared at the abomination. “How should I know?” she spluttered. “I’ve never dealt with this before!”

Einarr hummed. “And the cult didn’t use Singers at all – who knows why. Fine. If we can’t knock him out, we’ll have to kill him.”

His hand traveled to Sinmora’s hilt, but then he thought better of it. The last thing he wanted was to be doused in the black blood again. “Hrug, give me a hand, will you?”

The sorceror grunted his acknowledgement and stepped forward, trading places with Liupold.

“Lightning, or fire?” Fire was still tricky, although the outright prohibition had been lifted since the destruction of the Muspel Shroud, and Lightning was also Sun, which could be advantageous.

Hrug apparently agreed, pumping his fist to simulate a lightning strike.

“Lightning it is, then. Rambert, Burkhart, open the door and stand clear when I give the word. Naudrek, Liupold, watch our backs. Leave this to us.”

It took them a good five minutes before they were satisfied, but when they were finished three ranks of lightning runes were inscribed on the floor, from wall to wall. “There. That should do it. Everyone ready?”

“Just waiting on you,” Burkhart answered.

“Good.” Einarr looked over his shoulder. “Stand clear, everyone. This is going to be bright. …And, now.”

The two oarsmen opened the doors and scrambled back. As soon as the way was clear, just as the jailer’s lips curled up in a snarl, Einarr and Hrug lit off the first pair of lightning runes. The second pair followed immediately on the first, so that it almost looked like four at once.

When the flash cleared, the abomination was shaking its head. It looked singed, and a little stunned, but Einarr hadn’t expected it to go down easily. Four more lightning bolts flashed, and the smell of ozone and burning hair assaulted their noses. Four more followed before the smoke had cleared, and then four more hard on the heels of that.

They paused again at the end of the first row of runes on the floor to let the smoke clear. It was important to know if their target had moved, after all.

The abomination was on its hands and knees, swinging its head back and forth as it tried to come to its feet. Einarr did not spare the attention to see how the rest of his party was taking this, but Hrug looked a little surprised. An ordinary man, after all, would be hard pressed to have lived through even half of that.

Einarr remembered fighting the horrors, and the cultists who had unmasked themselves, too well. After having confirmed that their enemy still lived, he called “Again!”

It was brutal. At the end of the third rank of runes, when their enemy was nothing more than a charred husk on the floor, Einarr felt sick. It was good that runecraft was not suited to open battle, for that was not a death he would wish on his worst enemy. That was an execution of a rabid dog, in the only safe way they could think to do it. Fire might have been kinder – maybe, if they could have contained it – by being quicker. Better by far to die cleanly, by the sword. Once he had collected himself, he looked down to ensure there were no traces of their runes left behind.

“Someone grab the keys,” he said, striding forward, trying not to look at the corpse.

Liupold seemed less disturbed. It took Einarr a moment to remember why, but then it was obvious. The Empire had developed Painting. No few Clan ships had been destroyed by balls of fire or lightning from clear skies – just as he had done to that creature. The Captain of the Arkona stooped to gingerly unhook the ring of keys from the former jailer’s belt. His voice was calm when he asked “Are you sure the third rank wasn’t overkill? You might have melted these.”

Einarr just shook his head. “We should free the captives and get out of here. Assuming they’re still captives, and not puppets.”

Liupold blanched now and stepped forward into the hall of doors, tossing the keys a little in an attempt to cool them. “My lady? Are you here? Are you unharmed?”

He had looked through the barred windows of three doors before he got an answer. “Yes, I’m here. Who’s there?”

“Liupold of the Arkona, Lady. I’ll have you out momentarily.” He rushed to the door her voice issued from. “Are there any others?”

“I’ve not heard anyone else for more than a week now. I think it’s just me.”

“Impressive that you could track days so well down here, Lady,” Eydri said.

“Who is that?” The voice asked, just as her door swung open.

The woman who stepped forth from the cell was dirty, and her clothes torn, but that could not mask their obvious quality. Her long black hair was still lustrous in spite of the bits of hay sticking out of the thick braid. If Einarr hadn’t known better, he might have believed her to be a Valkyrie herself.

“My lady, allow me to present to you the Cursebreaker, Einarr son of Stigander of the longship Vidofnir, and his companions. Eydri, a Singer of some skill. Naudrek, a swordsman, and the rune sorcerer Hrug.”

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8.16 – Rescue Party

Posted on 2019-10-08 by allene

An entire afternoon and evening, and more than one cask of beer (although only one of eisbock: it was rather heady) went into planning their expedition, but in the end the map was the only reliable information they had. For where the corrupted men might be, to where they might be keeping their captives, they had only extrapolations based on Einarr’s experience at the much more thoroughly developed fortress.

The next morning, after they had downed some water and some weak ale to banish their hangovers, they set back off in the expedition craft. Burkhart and Rambert actually volunteered to row for them. Einarr shook his head, understanding tinged with melancholy, as Liupold granted them the chance they sought.

No one spoke as they rowed away from the Arkona. What was there to say? Einarr stared forward, studying the island, trying to divine why here from currents of wind and water and the shape of the land. Eventually, he blew out his moustaches and shook his head. Elder Melja might be able to learn something that way, maybe, but Einarr was far too inexperienced.

Hrug, too, stared towards the island, although he suspected the other man’s thoughts were rather more focused on his own task. Eydri trailed her fingers in the water, apparently absentmindedly, although Einarr suspected she, too was lost in her own plans. He still wasn’t entirely happy about having her along. On the other hand, the battle fury reliably showed those who had succumbed to the corruption.

Finally the enforced stillness of the boat ride was at an end and the hull of the landing boat scraped against the sand of the inlet. The time for planning was over: now, there would only be action.

Rambert took the lead once they were on land, leading them up the well-worn trail to the burnt-out husk of Kettleness. That was actually rather impressive, especially since Einarr was not aware of any special preparations. The fire hardly seemed to spread at all from the confines of the village.

He paused. Was that impressive, or was that sinister? He had seen the results of enough raids to know it wasn’t normal. “Eydri? Tell me there’s some natural reason the fire didn’t spread.”

She shook her head, though. “If we were looking at a particularly dense, wet forest, or if the land was sodden with recent rain, maybe, but there didn’t seem to be any trouble lighting the pyre.”

And the first was obviously untrue. That’s what he’d been afraid of. “So the ground itself is tainted.”

“Most likely.”

“Do you hear that, Liupold?”

“Aye.” The man’s voice was as grim as the news. “Any idea how to purify it?”

“Not yet.” Vague ideas, of the sorts of things that usually would purify: fire, water, time. Blood was likely the cause and so could not be a cure. “We should avoid combat as much as we can.”

“Because of the black blood?”

“…Yes.” Einarr didn’t know that uncorrupted blood would feed the blackness, but based on what he saw when he rescued Runa… “And because I can only see two reasons they would want captives. Turning them, or as sacrifices.”

A shudder rippled through his companions. Good: they should have some idea, at least, of the horror they were about to put themselves through.

Rambert stopped at the interior edge of Kettleness. Behind them, everything that remained was black with char, and piles of ash littered the ground where the wind had blown them. Ahead of them, what had once been farmland stood, empty of animals and wild.

“What are you waiting for?” Liupold demanded.

“Sorry sir. It’s just, well… look.”

Liupold furrowed his brow and was just about to order his man forward when Einarr spotted what he had seen.

“Wait.”

A faint shimmer hung in the air ahead of them – not white or gold, as he would expect of a mirage, but purple like a bruise and gray like the smoke from burning tar. He frowned, focusing on it: what would happen if one of them just walked into that?

A faint rasp sounded as he drew Sinmora from her sheath.

“What are you doing?”

“Dealing with the problem.” Einarr focused his will and Sinmora began to thrum in the familiar way. He had practiced, over the winter, but this would be a little different. I really hope you can just destroy this magic…

When the thrum felt right, he raised his sword overhead and cut down as though he were fighting a man. The shimmering dissipated and a whirling darkness moved over Sinmora’s blade.

Einarr swallowed hard: his throat felt thick. But, in the end, the darkness found no purchase on Sinmora’s blade and the metal returned to its usual color. He let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.

Liupold blinked. “What just happened?”

At almost the same moment, Burkhart exclaimed “That was amazing!”

In his relief, Einarr found a smile. “Good eye, Rambert.”

The oarsman grinned, perhaps also overly impressed by the sword’s performance.

Einarr sheathed his blade again. “You have no idea how surprised I was the first time this sword did that.”

The three who had joined him on Eskiborg nodded agreement. The Arkonites all looked at him expectantly, and Einarr sighed.

“I don’t know why, and I don’t really understand how, but under the right circumstances Sinmora eats magic.”

Rambert and Burkhart looked even more impressed, for some reason. Liupold, though, drew down his brows. “And there was some sort of magic hanging in the air ahead of us? Is it really all right that your sword ate magic from this island?”

“It seems to be. Wouldn’t want to test it too often, though.” All he was basing that on was the way the blade refused to change color, though, and he didn’t really want to try explaining that to Liupold. “We should get moving. The longer we tarry, the worse it is for the captives.”

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8.14 – Kettleness

Posted on 2019-10-07 by allene

Hohenwerth island looked like the island of the cult in miniature in many ways, although for the moment it lacked the blackness of that bigger, more northerly island. Steep shale slopes rose from the surface of the water, topped by the green of good farmland and orchards. A sinister silence hung over the area, though, and it didn’t take Einarr long to realize why. There were no fishing boats out on the water, despite the time and the weather.

All eyes on deck were glued to the shore as an inlet came into view and, behind it, a village.

Even from here it was plain the village was a husk. Deserted, Einarr would have said, if not for Liupold’s story. Dead.

“That,” Captain Liupold confirmed, “is all that remains of Kettleness.”

Einarr hated to have to ask it, but: “Have the dead been properly buried?”

“The priests were arriving to deal with them when we left.”

“I do not know Imperial burial practices. But if so much as one body remains in the village, you will do for them as we did for Langavik. Eydri, would you be willing to assist in this?”

“Of course.”

“What happened at Langavik?” Liupold asked.

“While we were tracking the ship that kidnapped Runa, we put into port there. Hoping for information. Well, we got some… although not exactly the way we hoped. The entire city was painted with blood. Men hung from meat hooks. Some of them were disemboweled…”

“Survivors?”

“None. The city became their pyre, and we sailed on. Then we picked up the storm they rode and it led us to the island where all of this started.” The horror remained, although not so visceral as at the time. Still his eyes remained glued to the husk of a village he could see on shore. Had the priests done their job, or had they been corrupted in turn?

“Drop anchor,” Liupold ordered. “Ready the landing boat: I’ll be taking our guests ashore.”

His Mate protested, but the Captain was having none of it. “We’ve both been ashore here already. You have the Arkona, I have responsibility for what happens here.”

An almost eerie feeling of oppression hung heavy over the landing party as they stepped ashore. Liupold was the only one who had been here before, but Einarr was certain he knew what he was about to see. Naudrek, Hrug, Eydri, and Burkhart and Rambert from the Arkona followed. The two Arkonites tried to put on a brave face for the outsiders in their midst, but the four from the Clans merely plunged grimly ahead.

Einarr had thought, based on relative sizes and that someone had already come through here, that Kettleness couldn’t possibly be as disturbing as Langavik had been. And, in a way, he was right.

It was worse.

As soon as they entered the circle of huts the smell of rotting flesh assailed his nose. Blood stained the ground dark and painted the walls of the huts, and though it appeared black Einarr suspected that was due to time, not corruption. After all, he had not known the cultists to murder their own like this.

Bodies hung by the neck from tree branches, although they may not have died from the hanging. Flies buzzed about their bloated faces that still showed evidence of brutal beatings. Some of them also showed open wounds in their sides. Einarr wanted to retch.

Liupold, too, had turned a sickly shade of green. He motioned for them to leave the ruined village, and their companions gladly followed.

Once they had caught their breath, back on the beach by their landing boat, Einarr turned an angry look on the Order Captain. “What became of your vaunted priests, eh, knight? The gods need no intercessors: that could have been avoided if you and your crew had simply given them rites yourself.”

Burkhart looked especially shaken. “There were priests… among the bodies.”

“Aye,” Liupold agreed. “But not all of them. So where are the rest?”

“My guess? Southwaite. I could be wrong, they could be using Langtoft as their stronghold, but I suspect they want some distance from the open ocean to prepare.” Einarr did not try to keep the venom from his voice. “We will perform rites for the villagers in the way of our people, so that this will not become an isle of the dead, but you must light the pyre yourselves.”

Liupold hesitated a moment, but eventually nodded. “Yes, that is fair. Funeral pyres are not our way… but I do not expect the survivors will allow us time to dig proper graves here.”

Inwardly, Einarr breathed a sigh of relief. That the village, at least, and probably the entire island must be put to flame was unquestioned. But if Einarr or any of his companions lit the fire, the Empire could later twist that to their own ends to make war on the north, and that he could not allow.

Eydri took over from here, setting Einarr and Naudrek to preparing the ground while Hrug, with a nod of approval from Einarr, began inscribing runes on the beach.

Finally it was ready. Liupold stood in front of Eydri, lit torches in hand, while Einarr and Naudrek formed an honor guard behind her. Then she opened her mouth to sing the dirge.

It ranked among the most beautiful tunes Einarr had ever heard. He had known, from hearing her perform in Eskiborg, that she was a skilled Singer. He had not imagined, however, that a funeral dirge could transport the living as well as the dead.

As the flames consumed the village, licking the afternoon sky and traveling up the village trees, Einarr imagined he could see the spirits of the dead within the purifying white smoke of the pyre.

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