Knight Eternal (A Novel of Epic Fantasy) (Harbinger of Doom Volume 3) (14 page)

“
Ob’s a good man,” said
Claradon. “I appreciate your tolerating his words. I need him with
us in this.”

Theta nodded, looking down at the main deck.
“Even an old dog barks to defend its master,” said Theta. “That’s
its nature. To kick it, and expect it to stop, does as much good as
kicking the wind.”

Claradon chuckled and sat down beside
Theta.

“
Impressive work against
that creature,” said Claradon. “I wouldn’t have believed a man your
size, in full plate, could move that fast. It never even touched
you.”

“
That was the point. One
touch from those things turns a man to dust, as we’ve just seen.
I’ve no interest in that. It reminds me of stone trolls—they can
dissolve a man’s bones. Terrible way to die.”

“
Stone trolls? Are such
things real?”

“
Most of the creatures of
myth and legend are real, or at least, were real. Not many left.
Magic is leaving the world, it wanes more every year, and that’s a
good thing.”

“
Are you saying that as
magic leaves the world, the creatures die out?”

“
The other way around,”
said Theta. “If I were to ask an average man in Lomion City about
magic, about wizards, what would he tell me?”

“
He would say that it’s
not real, just trickery, sleight of hand and such for
entertainment’s sake. Just old superstitions, kept alive to keep
children in line or just out of ignorance. Nothing more to it than
that, he’d say.”

“
Yet every fortress and
city in Lomion has at least one real wizard, isn’t that what you
told me? Each one can cast spells and perform magics, though all in
secret, except for extreme cases like with Tanch today.”

“
What you’re telling me is
that just because I haven’t seen monsters, trolls, dragons, and
such in my life, doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”

Theta nodded. “There is
more to the world than you know. On this trip, I expect you will
see more of the weird than you ever dreamed existed.”

“
I already have. By the
way, I’m sorry about that blow; I should never have struck it. I’m
just glad your armor held. I don’t know what I was thinking. I saw
the other weapons pass through; I should’ve known mine would do the
same. I guess I did know, but just didn’t think.”

“
You went on instinct, not
thought. That sometimes serves a man well when fighting other men,
but not against magic or creatures such as these. With them, you
must use your brain, more than your sword, or you’ll not last
long.”

“
As for the armor, don’t
worry about it.” Theta pulled his tabard open where it was slashed
through, and showed Claradon the shining steel breastplate beneath.
“Not a scratch from your sword. The flaming splatter from whatever
it coughed up did some damage, though,” he said, pointing to some
burns and gouges scattered along the breastplate and shoulder
piece. “You owe me a new tabard.”

“
I will gladly buy you one
of the best in Lomion.”

“
Your sword didn’t fare as
well as my armor.”

Claradon looked to the tip
of his blade. The edge was chipped and bent, as if he had slammed
it into a stone wall.

Theta took a closer look. “Don’t worry, it’s
still serviceable, and not beyond repair.”

Claradon stared at the sword in surprise and
then looked again at Theta’s breastplate. “How can this be?”

“
Some steels are stronger
than others, simple as that.”

They sat quietly for a time, watching the
men on the deck below.

“
That’s your edge isn’t
it?” said Claradon. “Back during the miniatures game in Dor Lomion,
you told us to use every edge that we had in battle. Your weapons
and your armor, they are your edge, aren’t they?”

“
You’re learning, boy,”
said Theta. “Better arms do give a warrior an edge, and it’s often
enough to keep him alive, if his courage holds. Training,
knowledge, magic, loyalty, and especially luck—all these can give
you an edge too. And you can never have too many edges, this battle
proved that. We owe a debt to Pipkorn, for his arrows, and for
Wotan Dal. The battle would have gone harder without
them.”

“
But you would have found
a way to bring those creatures down, even without them, wouldn’t
you?”

“
There’s always a way,
Eotrus, if a man has the will, and the courage, and never gives
up.”

“
Another lesson, Lord
Theta?” said Claradon.

“
Another lesson, Lord
Eotrus.”

***

Theta pulled Wotan Dal and Dargus Dal from a
bucket of water, inspected them each in turn, dried and buffed them
with a cloth before replacing them in their sheaths.

Ob and Dolan descended from the bridge deck
and approached Theta. Dolan held Theta’s gauntlets and Ob carried
his ruined falchion.

“
I cleaned them up as best
I could,” said Dolan. He handed the gauntlets to Theta who
inspected them. The metal was slightly warped and gouged where the
Einheriar’s ichor had touched them, but both were intact and
serviceable.

Ob offered Theta the
falchion. “This one is done for.”

Theta reached out and took hold of the
blade. He held it up and studied the surface, melted, twisted, and
bent almost completely in half. The fine engravings that covered
both sides of the blade from hilt to tip, geometric symbols and a
strange script, were ruined over much of the sword’s length.

“
A shame,” said Ob. “A
fine blade it was. How do you figure your sword and daggers stopped
the creature’s blows where every other blade did not? Are they
magiced up or something?”

“
They’re made of a special
alloy, similar to the arrows that Pipkorn gave to Dolan. The sword
didn’t have enough of the right materials, so it was damaged where
the daggers were not.”

“
You had that sword a long
time, didn’t you?” said Ob.

“
A very long
time.”

“
Are you gonna keep it,
for remembrance?”

“
Dolan and I will repair
it. We need only find a forge with the right tools and material and
we can restore it.”

Ob looked skeptical. “You’d need as much
skill with a hammer as you have with the blade to fix that
ruin.”

“
We can do it,” said
Dolan.

“
What of the
engravings?”

“
If we had enough time,”
said Dolan. “Fix them, we could.”

“
What did it say?” said
Ob. “The writings on the sword.”

“
That’s a story for
another time.” Theta looked over at the remains of the Einheriar
some feet away.

Dolan squatted down and
fished through the ashy remains. His arrowheads survived, but the
creature’s ichor had dissolved the shafts.

“
What were these things?”
said Dolan.

“
Your boss named them,”
said Ob. “Something familiar. What did you call them?”

“
They were
Einheriar.”

“
I know that name from the
old legends,” said Ob. “Aren’t they Odin’s chosen warriors? Those
ones what will stand with him at the end of days.”

“
That battle has long come
and gone,” said Theta.

“
What? Anyway, they’re
supposed to be the good guys,” said Ob. “Heroes, every
one.”

“
Once they were. Then
Azathoth corrupted them.”

“
Where did they come from?
The Fens? You think there’s an army of them in there?”

“
If there were an army of
them, Lomion would be in dire trouble. No, those two were brought
from Nifleheim, of that I’m certain. Conjured up by some fool
wizard, probably the same ones that opened the gateway in your
forest.”

“
If that’s right,” said
Ob, “that means they know we’re following, and they left those
creatures to slow us down or stop us dead. Which they would only
bother doing if—”

“
They were afraid of us,”
said Dolan.

“
Not us, boy,” said Ob.
“They’re afraid of Theta.”

Done examining the remains, Theta stood and
surveyed the deck. Guards stood all about the rail. Others
patrolled up and down the deck. The scent of brimstone nearly gone,
the ice melted. If not for the warped and scarred floorboards, the
deck looked almost normal.

“
How many dead?” said
Theta.

“
Five of Slaayde’s crew
got turned to dust and one of the Seran’s men too,” said Ob. “Two
others of Slaayde’s are missing.”

“
How many injured?” said
Theta.

“
By the creatures, only
Slaayde himself. Every man what was touched was dusted, except
Slaayde. He’s a sight—his hair all turned white, root to tip, and
his strength is sapped. His mates stand vigil, though they say he
will live. Besides him, one of the crewmen was gutshot with an
arrow; he will not live a day. A few others were hurt when the
railing came down on them, but not serious.”

“
Luck was with us then,”
said Theta. “It could’ve been much worse.”

Artol climbed down the
ladder from the bridge deck and joined the others. “No trace of
dust up there.”

Theta nodded. “That means Slaayde’s missing
men are not missing. They turned into the Einheriar.”

“
What? How could that be?”
said Ob.

“
Perhaps they wore the
guise of men only, and last night revealed their true nature. Or
perhaps they were taken over somehow. The one that called the alarm
and ran up the ladder past us. His was the dust Artol searched for.
As I suspected, there was none. He became that Einheriar. That’s
how it got behind us.”

“
That makes four of
Slaayde’s crew that was Leaguers or worse,” said Ob.

“
How many more?” said
Theta. “We can’t have traitors waiting to strike us down at every
turn.”

“
Maybe they’re all
Leaguers,” said Dolan.

“
They’re not,” said Artol.
“At least three of the crew died fighting the monsters. These were
brave men. Had their weapons worked against them, the whole crew
would’ve been at them. Not many seamen would do that, especially
not with soldiers and knights aboard. Most would hide behind us,
but not these, they’re made of sturdy stuff.”

“
I agree,” said Ob. “They
might be scum, but they’ve got heart and they’re not Leaguers—at
least not most of them.”

“
But some were,” said
Theta. “And some more may be. We need to root them out. I want no
daggers in my back.”

***

Par Tanch Trinagal turned fitfully in his
sleep. His hands stung from the sorcery he had called upon in the
recent battle; recurrent nightmares burned his brain. Nightmares of
one hellish night deep in the Vermion Forest when he and his
comrades faced outré horrors from beyond the world of man.

Through a deep,
bone-chilling fog, Tanch saw a demon of nightmare come alive, a
thing more reptilian than animal. A thing that had no place or
right to exist on Midgaard. A creature that should be naught but
myth and legend. The thing pounced on Ob, already wounded and
bleeding.

Tanch called up words of power known only to
true wizards, “By the Shards of Pythagorus, gek paipcm ficcg.”
Spheres of blue fire erupted from Tanch’s fingers and sped toward
the demon. On impact they detonated, blasted huge chunks from it,
and killed it where it stood. Several knights moved protectively
around Ob.

Tanch turned and saw the big foreign knight,
Lord Angle Theta, surrounded by many fiends akin to but different
from the one he had just felled. The fiends stopped for a moment
and looks of fear etched their inhuman faces. One even fell to its
knees.

Tanch had been plagued by this dream on many
a night. Each time, one and then another of the fiends opened their
mouths as if to speak, but through the din of battle, Tanch could
not hope to hear their words, if words they were at all.

But this night, unlike all the others, the
dream was different. This time, the sounds of the battle grew dim
and his vision narrowed upon the scene before him. This time, he
heard the demons’ words.

“
No,” cried one fiend. “It
be the ancient enemy, the traitor. The Harbinger of
Doom.”

A second demon dropped to its knees. “Spare
us Lord and we shall serve thee, forevermore.”

Theta’s sword slashed by faster than Tanch’s
eyes could follow, and cut the fiends to shreds.

Tanch awoke with a start,
nightshirt soaked, head pounding. The demon’s words, “Harbinger of
Doom. Harbinger of Doom,” echoed in his head. The morning sun shone
in through the porthole and anchored the wizard back to
reality.

They knew him. They knew
him. They feared him. They named him Lord and traitor. What could
that mean? Dead gods, was that naught but a nightmare, or something
more?

***

Theta, Claradon, and Ob stood in Slaayde’s
private chambers, at the foot of his sickbed. Tug and two burly
seamen stood guard by the door. Slaayde was sitting up, though he
looked half dead. His cheeks were sunken and of ghostly pallor, his
hair white, his eyes dim and unfocused.

Claradon had spent several
minutes explaining that the missing crewmen turned into the
Nifleheim warriors and that other crewmen could be suspect. Slaayde
remained unconvinced. Raised voices caused a number of crewmen to
gather in the hallway outside, to listen.