Fell Winter

  “The Ulfr died out long ago,” said Brand.

  “This one still remains,” answered the bandit leader. “She keeps the Idol of the Great Mother in her den on Haunted Hill.

  “What is the Idol of the Great Mother?” asked Brand. “It sounds familiar. I might have heard about it at the Skalds’ College.”

  “You probably have,” the bandit leader said. “The Ulfr did not revere the gods or the Green Dragon; they worshipped the Great Mother, a demon. They made a golden idol of her and, when the Ulfr began to die out, the Great Mother was trapped inside her likeness. The idol holds great power. King Sven would kill to get it. As a talisman, it could grant him unthinkable power.”

  “And what is your name?” said Gunnar.

  “People call me Morrie of High Crag,” the man said.

  “May we sleep here?” asked Gunnar.

  “You may,” said Morrie. “But beware the setting sun; nighttime is when the witch calls up the spirits of the dead to torture us. She ate the souls of our children and I wonder if we’re next.”

  Gunnar awoke in the middle of the night. The air was cold—this far north, the air was often cold, but this felt unusual. Sickness settled into his stomach and he retched twice. He couldn’t breathe. It felt like something was sitting on his chest, something very heavy. In a daze, he saw a face above him. It was blurry… he thought it might be green in color.

  He retched again. He was paralyzed. He couldn’t hear anything, just the sound of his pounding heart. What sorcery was this?

  The face hung above him for several agonizing seconds. Then, suddenly, all the tension released. The blurriness dissipated. It was Brand’s face he was looking at. Sound returned to his ears.

  “Are you okay?” Brand said. “Are you all right, master? Hello? Please, answer me!”

  “I’m fine,” said Gunnar. He was cold and covered in gooseflesh. Outside, the rosy light of dawn glowed over the eastern hills. The moon still lingered in the morning sky.

  Morrie sat at a rekindled fire, boiling something sweet in a pot, perhaps morning tea.

  Gunnar breathed in and out slowly. He tried to relax all his muscles, but doing so was difficult. “I just had a scare, Brand. I just had a scare. I thought I was going to die…”

  “But you didn’t. Would you like to hear a song to relax yourself? Or a well-told story to soothe your nerves?”

  “That’s all right,” said Gunnar. “I will get well soon enough.”

  “Anything happen last night, Morrie?” asked Gunnar.

  “No.” Morrie took the pot off the fire and set it into the cold, hard dirt. “We think perhaps the witch has left us.”

  “Well, I think Brand and I might have a look around Blackfold and see what we can find.”

  “Why? There are wolves… spirits of the dead…”

  Brand knew that Gunnar wanted the idol for himself.

  “I know that the dead walk this land,” said Gunnar. He extended his axe. “But I have this.”

  “The dead cannot be defeated by steel. Only by magic or fervent prayer.”

  “I think we’ll put that to the test. Right, Brand?”

  “Right,” Brand answered.

  “There was one thing I forgot to tell you,” said Morrie. “These hills… did you notice how small they are?”

  “Yes,” said Gunnar. “Of course.”

  “They are not hills,” said Morrie. “All of Blackfold is a burial ground. These are barrows where the dead Ulfr rest. That is why the witch’s magic is so powerful. She is a necromancer and the ghosts of the dead are everywhere here…”

  “We’ll be all right,” Gunnar said. He left for the barrows and motioned Brand to follow.

  “Aren’t you a little scared?” Brand said. “The dead are watching us.”

  “The dead cannot fight,” said Gunnar. “The dead lie in graves and rot ’til they become bare bones. The dead cannot harm the living.”

  “Then what do you intend to do?”

  “I intend to find this witch… kill her, take the idol, and give it to King Sven. Then this land will be haunted no more. If one of the Ulfr remains here alive after three hundred years, then she hasn’t learned her lesson. She hasn’t learned that her people are conquered.”

  “Badelgard for the Badelgarders?”

  “Aye,” said Gunnar. “Now they said the witch has a den on a place called Haunted Hill. Let’s find it.”

  Blackfold wasn’t an especially large region, but after spending a day searching for a large hill, they found no such thing.

  “We’ll have to ask Morrie where it is,” said Gunnar.

  The sun began setting over the western horizon and a pair of wolves howled nearby. Still, Brand felt safe; Gunnar was a mighty enough warrior to deserve a skald, and a mangy pack of wolves would not stand a chance against his tempered-steel axe. They continued walking until well after the sun set and the cold air settled among the barrows, and the sky grew black. At last the sight of the pine forest and the camp appeared in their horizon.

  When they found the tents they saw the fire was smoldering with gray ash. The tents were empty. The treasure chests were still there, but everyone was gone. Gunnar searched around, looking for any trace of where they had left to, but he found no clues. Then he heard Brand’s voice.

  “Found something!” the skald said.

  “What is it?” Gunnar asked.

  Brand was holding a clump of stone. Gunnar walked over and took it in his hands. A series of runes was etched onto it.

  It was not Badelgard script. “What is it?” Gunnar asked.

  “This is Ulfr writing,” Brand said. “I learned it at the Skalds’ College.”

  “What does it say?”

  “It says, ‘Return from whence you came, occupiers.’ Maybe we should follow the advice.”

  “No. Sven will imprison us.”

  “The witch has been here,” said Brand. “The witch from the hills. The barrow witch.” He looked pale. “I don’t like this. I don’t like this one bit. Where could they have gone? They just disappeared. They left their clothing, their treasure, their stores of food…”

  “Maybe they ran away,” Gunnar said. “Maybe they’re cowards… but I am Gunnar son of Magnus. I am not a coward like they are.”

  “Then what are we to do?”

  “We sleep tonight.”

  “Here? Where all these people disappeared?”

  “Aye. Do not worry, skald. I will protect you.”

  Gunnar had a bad dream that night. He dreamed his entire family back in Blackhelm Keep was murdered. He dreamed the foundations of the earth had been shaken by a dark magic. He dreamed a foul hag of the night had been elected Queen of Badelgard. He dreamed of an age-long winter, of a wolf age. Then he woke up to a gray-skied morning.

  Brand was awake.

  “Why are you awake?” Gunnar asked.

  “I couldn’t sleep last night. I managed to sleep for an hour or two, but that’s it. I kept hearing sounds in the wood.”

  “It’s just your imagination,” Gunnar said. “You skalds have great imaginations; that’s why you think of stories and songs.”

  “Most skalds don’t have much imagination, these days,” Brand said. “But let’s get out of here, Gunnar. Let’s get out of here before this land eats our souls.”

  “Nothing can eat our souls.”

  “The dead can.”

  “The dead are skeletons.”

  They left the campsite and searched again for Haunted Hill. They searched through the northeastern scrub pine forest. The Dragonteeth Mountains loomed proudly in the distance with their snowcapped peaks and purplish rock. Still they did not find Haunted Hill. All they found was a land of barrows, barren, where only crows and deer lived.

  They ate from the stores of food they had taken, and fell asleep.

  When they awoke, there was a great hill right in front of them. It towered above them and at the top was a spacious den of wattle and daub.

  Was th
is Haunted Hill? Brand thought. It had to be.

  “Did this hill come to us?” Gunnar said.

  “That’s impossible,” said Brand. “We must not have seen it in the darkness.”

  “And what is this?” Gunnar pointed to a large stone tablet, etched with Ulfr writing. “The witch has left us another message.”

  Brand picked up the stone. “It says, ‘You have found my home, defilers of the land, killers of the Ulfr. You have murdered almost all our people and now you want to murder me. Go ahead; slay me like a sacrificial goat. Kill the last of us and I will not stop you.’”

  “She’s trying to make us pity her,” Gunnar said. “She’s trying to manipulate us. But we can’t listen.”

  “Do we really want to kill the last of the Ulfr?” Brand said. “Haven’t we spilled enough of their blood?”

  “You’re listening to her lies!” Gunnar shouted. “You are a son of Badelgard like I. You are my skald. And you will listen to me.”

  “Aye, master.”

  “Don’t let her work her speechcraft on you, friend.”

  “I won’t, master.”

  Despite its average size, scaling Haunted Hill was among the most tiring exercises Gunnar had ever undertaken. It was like in his youth, when he climbed Hrungar Hill with his stepfather. But at last they got to the witch’s den, made of wattle and daub and sticks and thick tree-branches. Now, even Gunnar could feel the chill, the evil energy, which this home exuded.

  What would he find here? Gunnar wondered. He held Brand’s hand just so that he wouldn’t run off. Brand did not have great courage like Gunnar did.

  As they got to the doorway Gunnar hesitated. He tried to put a foot inside the wicked haunt but his muscles froze up, his conscious mind held him back. His heart pounded so hard he wondered if it would explode out of his chest. His stomach fluttered. He called out, “For the glory of the Green Dragon!” and forced himself to walk in.

  A wire stretched across the room and strips of human flesh hung from it, etched with Ulfr runes. Gunnar wondered if it was Morrie and the other bandits’ flesh and shivered. A feathered wand sat on the floor, doubtlessly used in the witch’s rituals. A child-sized straw doll, covered in runes, sat up against the stick-and-clay wall. Next to that was a wooden table with an open book of Ulfr writing. Three skulls surrounded it, peering at Gunnar with hollow eyes.

  Brand hesitantly walked up to the book and began reading. “The humans have invaded the land… they have made inroads into the south and defiled the altars of the Great Mother, bringing on her Evil Eye. They come with swords stronger than bronze, and armor that covers their bodies; despite their weapons they are ignorant and unknowledgeable. They are strong but they are dumb.

  “A dark age is upon us. The Great Mother wails in her temple on the Ice Plane. The idol has been forged… we will not let harm come to our blessed mother. She will rest within the idol and never be harmed by the unclean hands of the humans. Her pink eyes will always be watching, and her Evil Eye will always be on them.”

  “Stop!” Gunnar shouted. “Just stop reading, right now!”

  There was another doorway. A dark emanation flowed out of it: malice, anger, bitterness. It was like a bad wind, a wind you could only feel in your mind. Gooseflesh formed on Gunnar’s skin and a deep chill saturated his sinews. He couldn’t go in there. Not even Gunnar, son of Magnus, could enter that room.

  “I have to go in!” he told himself.

  There was a loud crack of thunder. Gunnar swallowed his fear and charged in.

  A golden idol, shaped into the likeness of a hideous hag, sat on a table. That was the source of the anger, the evil will. Yet it was the only thing that could exonerate Gunnar of his crimes. He reached for it.

  “Touch me,” it said. “Touch me and free me from this prison. I promise I won’t harm your soul.”

  “Lies!” Gunnar said. “You are just a statue, a piece of gold. You can’t harm my soul.”

  “What makes you so sure?” it said.

  The aura pulsing from the statuette almost formed a tangible wall of force. Gunnar stumbled back a step. His heart felt like it was going to rupture. He couldn’t touch the idol. He couldn’t take it with him. He was no match for the Idol of the Great Mother, the barrow witch’s most prized possession. The Ulfr would continue on. The land of Blackfold would remain cursed until the end of time. The evil here was too great, too ancient. It would never lift, and even the gods could not lift it. No force in the universe, let alone Gunnar or Brand, could remove the curse from Blackfold.

  No. It was forcing him to think like this. Gunnar peeled off his kirtle and threw the thick blue cloth around the golden idol. With the covering, some of the negativity dissipated. Then he fled out of the witch’s den with Brand close behind, and ran straight south as a storm began.

  They slept in the pouring rain, in the thunder and lightning. Gunnar kept the idol wrapped up in his kirtle and tried to ignore its constant emanations. He had a nightmare—and one he did not remember upon waking—but he grabbed the cloth-wrapped idol and ran on. His freedom was worth it. High King Sven could deal with this evil talisman; the king’s heart was dark enough to deal with it, anyway. It was his problem. It would be his problem. And Gunnar would be free.

  They exited the land from where they had entered, crossing the Black River with its dark silty waters. The storm continued in Blackfold as if the land were angry that the idol had gone. It would make a great gift to Sven, but Gunnar had no doubt that the added power would come at a steep price. He wondered what would happen to the barrow witch without her idol. He was glad she wouldn’t have it.

  He remembered that he had left a great treasure there, sitting in the bandit camp, but then he realized that all the treasure in the world could not get him to go back there and face the barrow witch of Blackfold.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The ride back to Oskir filled Brand’s heart with trepidation. He wasn’t sure whether Sven would accept the idol as atonement; he only knew that, in the eyes of the law, they were wolves to be hunted. They rode slightly easier through the forests of the great firs. Soon, snow would lie on their boughs, but for now, the land was green.

  Oskir’s proud walls appeared in the distance, as did the lights of King’s Hill. Brand and Gunnar had not yet reached Golden Gate when a group of soldiers—king’s men, all—rode up to them, their chainmail glinting and their swords flashing in the sunlight.

  “In the name of the High King, lay down your arms!” demanded their captain, who rode in front. “You are the murderers of the king’s cupbearer, Bjarni, and—by the Green Dragon—you will pay with your lives.”

  If these soldiers did not listen, torture and execution awaited Brand and Gunnar, who were both lowborn. “Men of great honor, I salute you,” Brand said, choosing his words carefully. “Please do not arrest me; I have brought a gift of atonement for the king—something he will not pass up lightly.”

  “There can be no atonement for what you have done,” the captain said.

  “We have brought the High King a gift beyond price,” Gunnar said, “an idol of Ulfr gold and a talisman of great power.”

  “You mean…” The captain’s eyes widened.

  “The Idol of the Great Mother,” Brand said.

  “The king’s lore-masters have said much about it,” the captain said. “So, too, have many ancient runestones told of its power. The wielder of the idol possesses vast strength… and Sven believes it can solidify the realm under his rule, so that none may rebel.” For a moment his eyes reflected unbelief. “Show it to me.”

  Gunnar unraveled the idol from his cloak. The golden object, forged in the shape of an old crone, was carved with eerie realism.

  The captain’s eyes widened further, as did those of his men. “Very well, boy. I do not know if Sven Oster can ever forgive you for what you’ve done. But I will see if he wishes to grant audience with you. If he cannot find it in his heart to forgive, it’s off to the torturer for you.”
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  In the end, Sven did grant audience with them. The king’s Golden House was richly furnished: there were purple drapes over all the windows, beeswax layering the wooden floors, and paintings of brilliant color hanging on the walls.

  The High King himself sat on a great oaken throne which itself was hemmed with gold. He had a thick, reddish-brown beard and dark eyebrows. On his head was a crown of purple velvet and jewel-studded gold.

  “You are wolves, murdering wolves,” Sven said. “You killed my cupbearer.”

  Brand fell to his knees. Gunnar unraveled the idol from his cloak and threw it onto the floor.

  Suddenly Sven’s eyes glinted with wonder, and a little bit of greed. “Oh, my. You have done well,” he muttered, eyeing the ornate object with wide eyes. “Bring it to me.”

  There was no mercifulness or compassion in his dark green eyes—and, had they offered anything of lesser value than the Idol of the Great Mother, there would be no forgiveness in them either.

  “Here it is, my king.” Gunnar picked up the idol, walked over to the king, and placed it into his grasp. “It is my great privilege to deliver it into such worthy hands.”

  “It is hard for a king to forgive, and some may say, unfitting,” Sven said, rubbing the cold metal of the idol. “But you have done me a great service. Now that I have it, I will have great power.” A slight smile crept over his features as he continued to stroke the idol.

  “Are we free of our crimes?” Brand asked.

  “My dear friend Henrik is the lord of the Frostfall marches. Do you read?”