The gathered army of Wymount had marched onto the plains of Horvorr.
There were twenty score men in all, though they had split into two groups. Roaldr led over half of them, the fisherfolk of Wymount, Salvik, Longhook, and Skarshaw; and he took them on a slow march towards the southern gate, not aware that Fenkirk’s Militia had been backed against the lake’s embankments, where they now made a desperate effort to hold out, making best use of dozens of discarded rafts.
Bragi had led the four score men of Redstone on a much quicker pursuit of Dalpho. They had kept a demanding pace, but slowed slightly when Dalpho abandoned his former position. Kollkleif also accompanied Redstone, those folk having sworn themselves to follow Bragi until such a time that they could appoint a new Representative.
Gorm had been found shrivelled to a husk in a tent that had been covered in hoarfrost. Those with spirit knowledge took it as the act of a vengeful ghost, and those with knowledge of Kollkleif knew well enough the rumors that Gorm had poisoned his father; so it came as little surprise, for some as considerable relief, that the boy’s father had taken his revenge on a cowardly son.
Bragi raised his hand to stop the men of Redstone and Kollkleif, most of them armoured in padded wool, leather, and armed with heirloom swords and shields, or simple spears made for war or for fishing.
He was about to order a turnaround when a shrill horn sounded out from the towering forest to his left. Balluk watched from the shadow of those trees, having confused the shaggy red-haired leader with the reputed Fire Giant.
“Enemies West!” Bragi bellowed, gripping a cruel two-handed axe. “Get together and ready yourselves!”
The lean men of Kollkleif and the burly men of Redstone put their backs to the lake and readied their spears, shields and swords. They stared into the shadowed trees across the plain. Balluk snarled out his command for a charge and horns blared from the forest. He ran with them as they started forward, despite his own clan having no real advantage in numbers. Balluk tightened his bony grip around his great club of mangled iron, meaning to sacrifice as many of his clan as needed to bring an end to the Fire Giant.
Bragi understood the feeble numbers of the scrawny clan charging his people, so he gripped his axe and rushed towards them. “These lot are not worth the effort of standing still. Let’s bring an end to these monsters! For Brikorhaan!”
He glanced at the rag-wrapped man charging beside him, worried by how skinny he was and how out of breath he seemed.
Bragi had little time to consider it further when stones were hurled at heads.
Wretched goblins clashed with spear-wielding fisherman, most skewering their green-skinned foes with ease. The goblins nearer to Balluk were his Chiefs, bulkier and braver than the rest; they bulled into or over the men closest to Bragi.
The shaggy man cleaved clean through a thick neck, then shifted his weight to rip it free and swing into a green shoulder. He had to leap back now a mangled iron club slammed down in the ground.
Balluk shifted the weight of his weapon easily, swinging it rightways into Bragi, who leapt over it. Balluk laughed, drawing his club back and stepping forward. He pretended to swing, then leapt at the manling and kicked him over instead. Bragi tried to roll, but Balluk pressed down on his chest with a bony foot.
Balluk stomped on him twice, not falling for the trick played on Ragadin. “Time to die, Fire—”
Wood snapped and agony reverberated through his chest.
Balluk saw grey ground pooling with dark blood. He didn’t understand, then the pain came clearer, and the view. He scowled down at his own bony body, skewered by a spear, bleeding. Balluk scrambled up as a sword sliced at his arm. He managed to run.
Another spear struck his shoulder and he staggered, but he bit down on his own tongue and kept running, not looking back, never looking back.
Balluk the Burnt would not lose his name and life here for no sake at all.
Sybille snarled now the monstrous goblin ran off, trailing black blood back into the shadowed forest. She lifted off her leather cap, and pulled away the rags that weren’t needed for her bandage. “Are you all right, Bragi?”
Bragi smiled a bloody smile, barely shaking his head. “Ribs… broken. Nice work with—” He choked out a laugh, grimaced, and contented himself with wheezing breaths as he grinned. “Quick. He was… quick. More—”
“Try not to speak.” Sybille crouched down, holding him by the wrist. “We’ll find someone to help you.”
Bragi furrowed his unruly brows, blinking up at her. “Lady.”
Sybille smiled, tears welling in her blue eyes. She stroked his shaggy red hair. “I’m not… Bragi?” She shook him by his shoulder, seeing no life in his eyes. “Bragi?”
“He is dead,” declared a gruff, sorrowed voice from above. “That clan has scattered. Which way should we go, Sybille?”
Sybille looked up to see the burly, bearded men of Redstone all around her, waiting in expectation.
***
Hjorvarth, Bjorn, and Asgeir had crossed between the twin plateaus of the Northern Pass without drawing notice. They came with two carts that had both been reinforced with wood for defensive walls, one led by an oxen, the other led by mining men, both rolling between four score hardy folk, who gripped the antique weaponry that Asgeir had once meant to deliver to Brolli.
They followed the main road to the northern gate of Horvorr, which had now been broken open. Green figures swarmed over the distant horizon, but they headed around the wall instead of inside the town.
Dalpho would have already met the miners, and crushed them, had he not decided to finally settle an old score. He stomped down the field with the remnants of the Western Clans behind him. He strode with all the losses of his life burning inside of him, his beady eyes trembling with hate as his great weight shook the barren plains of Horvorr.
The mining folk made no mention of the enormous goblin, both because they wanted to believe it was some trick of the distance, and because they had enemies closer to hand.
Brugg had finally joined the battle, sighting well enough with one eye foes he could easily defeat. He had a clan numbered near to two hundred, comprised mostly of stout pig-faced goblins that often bore many scars and occasionally used weaponry. They rushed out from the trees, under the shadow of mountains, and towards the miners and fighters who followed the road.
Hjorvarth could tell that they were outnumbered. That they would be overrun despite the carts or any attempt at defense. Men and women looked to him for guidance, but he truly had nothing of worth to suggest. “You all,” he began loudly, “abandon the carts and run for the forests or Horvorr! I will stay here and delay the attackers!” He worried that they might argue or fail to heed his words, but sure enough one man ran, then a woman, and soon they were all in flight.
He stood between the two carts with Bjorn beside him. Asgeir and all his fighting band had also held their ground.
“Asgeir,” Hjorvarth said. “You ought—”
“Horvorr’s broken,” he cut in. “Look around, Hjorvarth.” He swept his arms to encompass the thousands of figures swarming among all along the plain and near the forests. “We’re all dead. So I’m going to stand here and fight and die with the folk that I happen to respect. By the looks of it, so are all my men.” He smiled wryly as they answered with communal affirmation. He then turned to the dark-haired son of Jorund. “Don’t suppose you can challenge this one to a duel as well?”
Brugg and his hundreds had grown so close that the ground shook underfoot and their shared snarling and cheering could be heard.
“There’s no harm in trying.” Bjorn swept past the carts and onto the barren plain. “I am the son of Jorund of the Hill!” he boomed, uncertain of the gargantuan goblin leader who now stomped towards him. “By right of strength, I challenge the Chief among you to a duel! I challenge you! I challenge—” He gave up when their leader slowed his pace to let his clan charge without him. “Does this goblin have no honour?”
“We run towards them,” Hjorvarth decided, marching forth. “Fight through until we can kill that monstrosity.” He took heart in the footfalls that followed after him, and soon enough they were all running to catch up. Brugg led his own clan from nearer the back, so when the gathered masses collided he was far from harm.
Manling and goblin alike smashed into one another.
Fists, clubs, and heads thumped into flesh, splitting skin and crunching bone. Blades buried into arms and legs and heads, hewed through limbs as goblins tried to bludgeon manlings to death. Men bellowed and screamed. Goblins snarled and roared, wrestling manlings onto the stony ground, where they scratched and bit and ripped at eyes and throats, staining the plain with dark red rather than ash grey.
Hjorvarth and the fighting men had pierced well enough into the porcine goblins. The wings had folded though, leaving Hjorvarth, Bjorn, and Asgeir to wade forward with a dozen other wounded men, awash in a mass of jeering green flesh.
Bjorn shattered bones and broke skulls with his war hammer, struggling with the length of it with men enclosing him on one side and goblins attacking from the other. Hjorvarth hacked forward with both runic axes still to hand, his wrists slick with dark blood, which made an extra effort just of gripping the handles. Asgeir slashed and thrust with his men shouting and dying beside him, trying to fight their way towards the mountain so that they had something solid at their backs.
Hjorvarth suffered a stone club to the shoulder.
He buried his axe into his attacker, only to see that he was now surrounded on all sides by chubby goblins. They watched with eager eyes, tusked teeth bared in ugly smiles.
Bjorn stood much the same, though the goblins around him then parted ways. Brugg approached and his clan thought he had decided to crush the violent manlings who slew so many of his clan, but instead the one-eyed Great Chief avoided the conflict and headed towards the abandoned cart, hoping to eat some of the fleeing manlings before his clan reached them. “Coward!” Bjorn shouted.
Brugg turned back in outrage but Hjorvarth had thrown his axe after the Great Chief. The blade tore through the soft meat of the Great Chief’s remaining eye.
Brugg raised his hand, tearing free the weapon. He could not see. He had lost both his eyes.
Green flesh bulged now he shook his head. “No!” he roared, low voice trembling with rage and sorrow. “No! No! No! Stop! Stop it!”
Brugg’s clan understood his words but not his intent. The porcine goblins backed clear of the fighting men, even while they lunged for the goblins. Brugg screeched wordless misery, throwing out his arms and stomping down, crushing his own kin in a maddened frenzy.
“Brugg?” a goblin voice ventured. “We flee?”
“Kill!” Brugg ordered. “Kill all the manlings! Kill them all! Bite out their eyes! Bite out all of their eyes!”
Asgeir and half a dozen men had made their way to the mountain during the confusion. They paused to gather themselves, seeing Hjorvarth amid the mass of green, hacking like a man possessed at all the foes around him. Bjorn stood on his own as well, swinging his great hammer around in tired sweeps while he heaved in breaths.
“Fight forward!” Asgeir ordered, leaping towards a goblin. He side-stepped a club, then drove his sword into a green throat. A blow to the head borrowed Asgeir’s sight, then he found himself staring at the blood pouring down a goblin’s belly.
“Get up!” an old man growled, hauling him to his feet.
Asgeir blinked as warmth poured down his head. He pushed the dying goblin over, then waded in to gut the rest.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Hjorvarth had only one axe, his hand slick and aching. He staggered forward from another blow to the back, then shouldered into the crowded goblins, hoping to come out onto clear ground where he could turn to fight them. Instead, another porcine goblin stood to meet him, wary and reluctant, but still ready to fight.
Hjorvarth feinted then slammed his axe into a green head. The goblin toppled, ripping the handle from his slick grip. Hjorvarth wanted the weapon back, but had to twist clear of a spear, then a heavy kick sent him stumbling forward. The chubby goblins then began to play with him, laughing and spitting, meaning to save the Fire Giant for Brugg to make the Great Chief less angry of whatever troubled him.
“Fight me!” Hjorvarth demanded in a tired slur. He would not die like the white bear, trapped, hissed at, and baited.
“No.” A goblin scowled, shaking his head. “We are not Chief.”
Hjorvarth gritted his teeth, and thought to wait while their massive leader did come to fight. At least then he would have a chance to kill the monstrous thing, and maybe that would go some way to saving Horvorr.
A dozen feet away, Bjorn lost grip on his hammer, scrambling for it as it dropped, stopped when a spear skewered his shoulder.
Hjorvarth heard the cry of pain and his stony face twisted with hate. He stepped forward, deciding he would have to pummel the goblins to death. Hjorvarth had an urging instead to grip down on the air. He strode forward, lifting his hands as if around an unwieldy axe, then swept the imaginary weapon in an arc that would cleave through the goblins who watched him in confusion.
The World Splitter appeared in his hands, weightless, runes glimmering amongst ancient metal. Huge blades hewed through throats and stomachs with effortless fluidity. It seemed to move of its own accord, bringing the huge red-and-black cloaked wielder around in a full circle, forcing him into an endless spinning rhythm that sent dozens of goblins screaming in terror now they were cleaved into halves, thirds and quarters.
Brugg could not see his clans, only hear the panicked and terrified screaming.
They cried for help, for mercy, for it all to stop. It was a fear that infected those still living of the clan, one that infected Brugg himself, who worried so much on the coming terror that he was not outraged by his blindness but only made to feel more fearful and helpless because of it.
Hjorvarth stood amid a dark sea of glistening flesh and innards, of dead and wounded goblins. He had killed dozens in moments, obliterated them so bloodily that he was covered in the entrails, so that he appeared entirely black, his hair, his cloak, and his huge frame.
The World Splitter remained grey, gleaming and runic even amongst that carnage. Hjorvarth lifted the weightless axe aloft, which seemed to glimmer and shrink to a weapon meant for throwing. He hurled it through the air so that it spun off towards the Great Chief of the East. The World Splitter struck with an earth shaking impact that utterly destroyed the goblin and showered gore across the bleak plain.
Blood falling like rain, Hjorvarth searched the field to find himself standing alone. He managed a drunken step, fell to his knees, and started to retch.
***
Horvorr had become a place of screams, smoke and death. Scattered families abandoned their homes now goblins broke through shutters and smashed down doors.
Hungry creatures gave chase to folks in group or alone, jeering after them, clawing and dragging on their clothes until they tripped. They would hiss, and spit, breaking skulls underfoot, ripping out necks and thighs to suckle on the blood. Clans had begun to fight with other clans, and amongst themselves. They savaged each other over the broken corpses of manlings, with no regard for the calls of order from scattered Chiefs.
Trugg had been slain by an old manling claiming to be Isleif the Bard.
The manling had hurled an axe into the goblin’s massive head, not fast enough to avoid being smashed back into the carved doors of the Ritual House; where the manling had crouched bowed and bloodied, too unmoving for any to count him as a threat, too ominous for any goblin to gather the courage to face him.
That left no Great Chiefs in the town, which made for good chaos as goblins who considered themselves strong enough fought to bend others Chiefs under their will.
Of those of Horvorr, there were three main groups, one led by back streets and between houses by Eirik, who had a bleeding head and a broken arm; another led by Arfast, who was as untouched and bald as his maddened group were bloodied; and a third larger group led by Anna and Linden and Lovrin, who had begun to open the southern gate, with the fear of hundreds of goblins soon to find them and no clear view of what awaited them outside the walls.
Arfast and Eirik were both on their way to Gudmund’s Hall, as was Lazarus, who had since leapt over the ditches surrounding Brolli’s place, climbed up the walls, and brought an end to Odi and his two old friends, along with a dozen men and women who had broken the stairs to loose arrows from the shutters of the second floor.
Arfast was the first to reach the towering and ornate hall, which had been staked, fenced, and stacked with crates, so that the entry yard was both unoccupied and well bolstered for defense. He supported the weight of Ralf, who had been bludgeoned across the head with a stone, stabbed in his arm and his leg, but still managed to have his wits about him. Arfast and Ralf led their groups into the hall, finding it open and empty.
“There’s no one here,” Arfast muttered, though he smiled at his wounded dozen, who were all hurting and fearful. “It looks like we’re all going to die. So we might as well wait inside.” Despite his words a few folk took positions by the entryway, taking the spare bows laid there, and a share of the stored arrows.
“Arfast!” called a high voice.
Arfast let go of Ralf, and swept his gaze towards Horvorr’s broken gate. He could see nothing but corpses, smoke, and wretched figures scampering through clouds of dust, over churned mud, and amongst huddled houses.
“Over here!” Eirik waved his people out from amongst a courtyard of clustered homes. The group were covered in blood and dirt, having had to cut through the bottom floor of the barracks and crawl through the encasing mud. He had only five men with him, three women, and one lanky leather-capped bartender. “Where’s everyone else?”
“Dead.” Arfast fixed the blond man with a hard stare. “Gudmund?”
Eirik and his people hurried forward into the barricaded yard, offering their thanks to the blond man, then spoke of their horror and fear to Arfast’s group. “Last I saw he was jumping out of a window.”
Arfast cursed, and shook his head. “Knew he’d get himself killed.”
“Says the draugr,” Gudmund snapped, wandering towards them. “And I was jumping on a goblin, not out of a window. Happened to work as well, I’ll have you know.” He rubbed at his hairy black-lacquered chest. “I did have to take off my armour.”
Eirik laughed, and tried to hug him.
Gudmund stepped out of reach. “I expected you both to keep your groups alive, not throw away half and keep a quarter.” He scratched at his inky beard. “Where’s Odi?”
“Dead,” Arfast answered. “Almost all the goblins that landed went to Brolli’s.”
Gudmund grunted. “Hopefully those at the Ritual House had better luck.”
Arfast met his words with a slow nod. “I’m sure Anna’s fine.”
Gudmund frowned. “We don’t have enough people to hold the yard or the hall. So we might as well go in and close the doors.”
They walked towards the hazy half-light of the abandoned hall, feeling the ground shake beneath their feet.
Eirik regarded the men with hesitant eyes, his young face half-dark with dried blood. “Shouldn’t we wait for others—”
“Dalpho challenges Braguk!” declared a distant bellow that rolled for miles, followed by a blow that sounded out like a thunderclap.
***
Braguk Moonbear staggered back into the log wall of Horvorr, causing the whole of it to shudder with the impact.
Dalpho and the prodigious shaman loomed above goblins and manling alike with their shared enormity, casting down massive shadows, crushing clans underfoot. Roaldr and the gathered folk of Wymount watched in fear while the two unearthly goblins stared at one another, both standing as tall as the huge log wall.
Dalpho’s roundness matched his height; his belly, arms and legs bulged with flesh. His chubby head appeared too small atop his blubbery shoulders, as did beady eyes above his many chins.
Braguk Moonbear wore his great patchwork cloak of bear furs, poised like a crone with bony hands clasped on a tree-trunk staff. “You swore me peace!”
“You murdered Mubrogg the Spirit Weaver!” Dalpho countered. “And you have been challenged!”
The Militia of Fenkirk turned their haggard gazes towards the prodigious shaman and the elephantine goblin. All the Chiefs and their clans forgot their conflict as well, and stepped away from the bruised and wounded mass of hunters and fighters huddled behind a makeshift defense of soaked rafts.
“Charge!” Roaldr distantly ordered, his men approaching Horvorr, and ran towards the spectating sea of goblins. Aerindis kept step, her fur cloak sweeping behind her, and the noble pair were soon followed by the over two hundred fisher folk of Wymount, Skarshaw, Salvik, and Longhook. They sounded off with a collective war cry, which was then eclipsed by Dalpho’s huge fist thumping into Braguk Moonbear’s belly.
Braguk stumbled, sliding across the wall, dragging his staff through dozens of helpless goblins. He steadied into a back step now his enormous foe charged forward.
He then swept up his cloak and shifted his weight so that the staff sliced through the air and crashed into his foe’s knee.
Dalpho’s leg shattered under him. He roared his agony and lurched for the prodigious shaman. He caught a hold, dragging Braguk over, and slammed him into the barren plain, flattening dozens beneath the gargantuan pair, while hundreds of others were brought down and trampled.
The Great Chiefs grappled with one another, spitting and cursing, rolling one way then the other, crushing scores more of their kin.
Braguk Moonbear had his hood back, baring his ugly face, crooked nose and grimy fangs. Dalpho struggled atop of him, breaking ribs with his fists, so labored by his own weight that he had no real way to push up, or put full force behind his blows. Braguk Moonbear struggled to throw the elephantine goblin from him, but had no strength left in his bony limbs. He snapped his ugly head forward instead, and sank his grimy teeth into Dalpho’s trunk nose, tearing it off and sucking it into his gullet.
Dalpho watched in horror while dark blood fell from his nose in torrents, splashing and staining Braguk’s ugly face. The grimy fangs sank in again. He tried to roll off his unwieldy belly, or kick, or swing, but he was floundered, and could do nothing now Braguk chewed through his rounded face, blinding him, killing him, eating him.
Dalpho tried one more desperate effort to roll himself free, helped onto his back with the aid of the shaman under him. But he only had life left in his blubbery body to realise that he was about to die having failed all those he had ever sworn loyalty to.
Amid the chaotic crowd of fleeing, shoving, desperate goblins, Sam held his footing long enough to hurl a spear that struck the prodigious shaman in the head. He felt somewhat disappointed when the blow caused no real harm, even more regretful when he was shouldered into by a pair of bulky goblins and thrown to the ground.
Braguk Moonbear clawed at the earth, and hauled himself onto his huge knees. He reached for the tree-trunk staff and used it to push up to his feet. He had view of the maddened mass below him, so many goblins panicked and broken. “Hold ground!”
He turned to a din of cries and metal and flesh, realizing then that another manling army had joined the battle.
“Hold ground!” Braguk ordered, sweeping his green gaze across the plain, seeing no sign of Brugg or his boar-faced clan, only a sea of carnage and entrails and two armoured carts. “Destroy Horvorr!”
The prodigious shaman swept up his great bear fur cloak, now poked with bones, torn, and stained with gore. He stomped off at a mad panic towards the forests.
The discordant host of goblins that was once the Eastern Clans stood to witness the flight of their last Great Chief. Those Chiefs with their wits about them ordered a retreat. Shrill horns blared out at an erratic and frightened chorus; and, as Roaldr and Wymount finally joined the battle, the wave of enemies he faced washed away of their own accord.
***
Gudmund’s Hall had succumb to a vengeful dormancy.
Screeching, crying, screaming, crunching, breaking, and the roar of war came muffled through the blackened walls. The dark-and-silver banners loomed from sturdy rafters, lending a majestic appearance to the haggard folk stood staring at the ornate doors, waiting for them to burst open to hazy noon light and endless wretched enemies.
There were no longer any feasting tables, only a single chair for furnishing that had been wrought wider than any man had need for, with a backing carved in the likeness of a wolf howling at the moon. Furs covered the seat and the remnants of torn cushions littered the floor.
Muradoon’s Altar stood behind the line of wary fighters, dark wood engraved with a scene of spirits, daggers and sacrifice.
“Do we have to wait like this?” Arfast asked, glancing at the folk arrayed at either side of him. He stood the only man there not wounded. “Wouldn’t it be better to make a stand in one of the rooms?”
“Goblins appreciate dramatics,” Gudmund explained, now garbed in his tattered fur cloak. “They’ll break open the door, and be too scared to approach, and then I’ll wait for a Chief to come, and I’ll say… I challenge you!”
“Accepted,” Lazarus hissed.
The lithe goblin leapt down from the altar, rolling forward, ripping out the legs of a woman with his sleek claws, twisting his body, slicing open the stomach of a man that tried to charge. He leapt clear of a thrown axe, and brought a quick end, dancing through and lacerating flesh, to half the folk in the hall before Gudmund, Arfast and Eirik had even drawn close.
A woman loosed an arrow and the lithe goblin struck it from the air.
Lazarus sprinted past, ducking under and leaping over weapon swings, bringing an end to the archer. He opened the throat of an old man who backed towards the blackened wall, then ran straight for Gudmund of Horvorr, sliding around his legs, and hissed laughter. “Look at you, Young Wolf!”
Lazarus sidestepped a hurled iron-hafted axe. “You’re helpless! Old and slow!”
He made a quicker effort of finishing all those in the corners of the hall, sparing only a young girl, who sat within reach of a bow.
“Stop prancing about, coward!” Gudmund demanded. “You challenged me! Leave the others be!”
“You are surrounded!” Lazarus hissed. “These people will find far worse deaths if I don’t kill them here. And I’ve left you your friends, haven’t I? Three to one, Gahr’rul offered you, Young Wolf turned Old. Now I offer you four. And still you’ll die here.”
Arfast, Eirik, and Ralf gathered together by their fur-cloaked Chief.
“Corner it,” Arfast whispered, waiting while the lithe goblin ambled in a circuit around them. “Once it crosses by the altar, force it into the right corner. Ralf and I left. You and Gudmund right.”
“I heard of the Black Heart’s death.” Lazarus laughed sadly, strolling by the altar. “Did you know that the One Swing is dead as well?”
Gudmund stood stunned now Arfast, Ralf, and Eirik rushed to corner the lithe goblin. He charged moments later, only able to watch as Lazarus ducked under an axe swing, lashed out and ripped open Eirik’s stomach, as Ralf lurched forward only to be sidestepped by the goblin and have his back slashed.
Arfast thrust a spear that buried into the floorboards, let go of the shaft and reached for his dagger, leaping over one claw, shredded across the shins by the other.
Gudmund roared his anger, slashing out, kicking and rushing, missing every strike. He then slowed, feinting, biding his time, using his father’s sword to his every advantage. Only to realise that the ugly, skinny goblin was simply playing with him.
Lazarus’s slanted gaze held a disappointment that lent severity to his ghoulish face. “I should have killed you myself outside of your walls, Gudmund the Betrayer. Spared your people the destruction that you were so eager to put upon the goblins. Now look at you… old and useless. All the harm you’ve caused, and I see no regret in your eyes. Is it anger? Are you angry that you have so failed?” He laughed in disgust. “Do you truly think that you even deserve to live, Old Wolf? After all that you have done!”
Gudmund bared his bloody teeth in a smile. He gripped his father’s sword.
“All the savagery of an animal without the nobility,” Lazarus hissed. “Then let me put an end—”
Lazarus flinched at the thrum of a bowstring.
He smashed back into the floorboards. A great ache flooded into his head.
Then a shadow stood above him, staring down with cruel and terrible eyes.
Lazarus tried desperately to rise but his limbs denied him. He suffered cold terror and raw disappointment. “Black Heart?”