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Pagan heeled the gelding into a run, grinning with delight as the wind blew into his face. The cloying embrace of city life set him on edge, and his frequent excursions into the surrounding countryside provided welcome relief.
A legacy of his upbringing in the wide-open spaces of his homeland, Pagan loved the feel of the wind in his face and the smell and sounds of nature.
“This is the life, eh, boy!” he yelled. Ripper, loping alongside the gelding, barked in apparent agreement. Pagan on a whim, had decided to bring the hound along. Every now and again, the dog would veer off to chase down a rabbit. The little creatures were always too canny and swift to be caught by the great lumbering dog, but that didn’t seem to deter him.
Approaching the remains of a low wall, Pagan could see the outlines of the ruins of Tor-Arnath to the west. The gelding soared over the wall with ease, and not to be outdone, Ripper followed suit. “Show off!” Pagan yelled. Ripper looked up at him, great tongue lolling, and let out two self-congratulatory barks.
As they approached the ruins, Pagan slowed the gelding to a walk, studying the vista ahead. Tor-Arnath was set on a hill dominating the surrounding countryside. Compared to the lush vegetation, teeming life, and birdsong to the east, the area was arid and lifeless. The ground was rocky and hard, and here and there, scrawny looking hardy trees with spine-like leaves had managed to eke out a semblance of life.
In times past, a great wall must have girded Tor-Arnath to protect it against invaders. All that remained were huge blocks rearing high and standing as silent sentinels. Some were etched with curious looking symbols, worn smooth by sand, wind, and the ravages of time. Other blocks, smaller, but still of appreciable size – some blackened and fused together by what must have been an unimaginable heat, lay flung about, as if by beings of incalculable size and power.
Beyond the silent sentinels and fused rock, lay the city-proper comprised of what seemed like hundreds of low buildings all interconnected as if to serve some curious communal life. It was difficult to ascertain their exact nature and architectural style, as there were few standing walls. Only their foundations gave Pagan an inkling of their design.
Seven towers dominated this blighted landscape, or more accurately the remnants of seven towers. Constructed with what looked like a greenish stone, they leaned drunkenly in various states of disrepair. Pagan couldn’t tell how high they might have been in their pomp, but judging by the number of heat-blasted blocks at their bases, he judged they must have near-reached into the heavens. On previous visits, he had mused at the impossibility of such structures, and wondered what sort of beings could have built them. He had sought to draw Casca on the matter on numerous occasions, but his friend always feigned disinterest.
Pagan nudged the gelding forward, but the horse refused to move. He stroked its neck, whispering encouraging words in its ear, but it remained steadfast. Ears flat against its skull, a tremor began in its flank. A growl came from Ripper. Pagan glanced down at the dog. Eyes wide, the mastiff-wolf cross, clearly terrified of something, was slowly backing away.
Pagan looked around, but nothing seemed amiss. The surroundings were desolate and grim, but no more so than usual. Perhaps the animals had scented one of the giant bears that laired in these western highlands. Pagan ran his hand over his shaven sweat-sheened skull, reached down, took a drink of water from a leather-bound flask, and shook his head in bewilderment.
He was tempted to tether the gelding, leave Ripper to his devices, and continue his exploration of the ruins. But his heritage whispered the folly of that course. Pagan knew there was much in the world beyond human ken, and the heightened awareness of animals was better tuned to such, than humankind's blunted senses. With one last look around, he wheeled his mount and called to Ripper. Neither needed further encouragement to depart the blighted area.
The Desolate Peaks
The man called Moon was dying, though none would have guessed so by regarding him. A giant, his outlandish size – almost preternatural breadth of shoulder and swell of chest, allied with tree trunks masquerading as legs, threatened to block out the sun.
He looked the picture of enduring vitality. Indestructible as the snow-capped Northir mountains of his homeland. Unlike most of his Northland kin who favoured long unkempt hair, Moon chose to keep his head clean-shaved. His allowance to the hirsute nature of his kind being the heavy black beard he wore.
The shaven head and beard, allied with the leather patch he wore over the empty socket that once housed his left eye, lent him a most fearsome aspect.
He had lost the orb when as a mere stripling of sixteen winters, he single-handedly slew a great snow-bear that attacked his lone camp high in the mountains. A callow boy, he had foolishly taken refuge in the bear's cave. The aggrieved beast had attacked without warning. A huge white furry mass hurtling out of the snowstorm in a fury of slashing claws.
With no chance to flee, young Moon had stood his ground, ramming his dagger deep into the behemoth’s belly as slashing claws laid open his face, ripping out his left eye. The great monarch of the snow-capped mountains had wrapped him in an awful embrace, claws ripping great gouges in his back, but Moon doggedly held onto his dagger, ripping it upward, gutting the bear and eventually sundering its heart.
A lesser man would have died of the grievous wounds, but the young mountain man survived. Stuffing snow into his empty eye-socket, he fashioned a rough bandage to hold it in place, and made his way back to the kraals of his people sporting a new thick white bearskin cloak.
Moon’s legend grew over the ensuing years. He fought many blood feuds, and when war came against other clans, he was always in the front ranks.
Moon was a man of awesome strength and vitality. None could stand before him in single combat. The people of the north spoke in awe of his axe and the trail of loped off heads, crushed skulls and sundered limbs left in its wake. Widowmaker they called it. Moon was the ten-year undefeated fist-fighting and wrestling champion of the summer games. The games were held once a year over a three-day period when the usually feuding clans of the Northlands called a truce and put aside ages-old enmities.
The games were a time of laughter, drinking, eating, dancing and whoring. The Axeman had a voracious appetite for ale, food, and women. After knocking men senseless with his giant fists, the night-time festivities would see him devour huge platters of meat and imbibe copious amounts of ale, before staggering off into the night with two or three willing women in tow.
But Moon was not popular among his fellows. He was surly and bad tempered, and given to bursts of sudden rage. Men only sought his company in times of strife and war. But that didn’t bother him, for he was a solitary man who preferred his own company.
Then the blinding headaches began. He ignored them at first, then in desperation decided to seek the counsel of the old witch-woman.
Moon didn’t fear man or beast but something about the ancient hag sent shivers down his spine. She always gave him the evil eye whenever he came across her in the settlement, like she was staring into his very soul. He always had the strangest notion she knew things about him that even he didn’t.
Known as the Ancient One or the Old Woman, she performed the role of healer, midwife and oracle to the clan. She lived in a solitary cabin on a tiny island on a wide stream flowing just north of the settlement. Unlike other rivers and streams, these waters didn’t freeze over in winter. Bubbling and steaming with mysterious heat, the only way across was via a small ferry manned by an evil looking hunchbacked dwarf. The ferryman’s price was a single silver piece. Those who sought another way across died horribly. Boiled alive as their boats sank, leaving them floundering in the cursed waters, as skin slowly sloughed from flesh, and eyeballs stewed in sockets.
Moon paid the hunchback his due, and stood silently with folded arms as the dwarf hauled on the ferry rope gruntin
g and muttering to himself. Every now and then, he favoured the Axeman with a baleful glare, but Moon paid no heed.
Upon reaching the other side, Moon leaped off the ferry and approached the Old Woman’s cabin. The door swung open on creaking hinges and a voice came from within. “Come in Moon, we’ve been expecting you.”
Moon stepped over the threshold and the door swung shut behind him. The interior of the cabin was dark and shadowed, the only light coming from a curtained small window on the far wall.
The cabin smelled of dead things. Various-sized bottles and jars filled with curious looking roots, herbs, plants and other objects stood on shelves lining the walls. To Moon’s horror, one or two appeared to contain still-born babies – umbilical cords trailing – in a cloudy liquid.
“Come sit, Moon.” The Old Woman bade the Axeman to sit opposite her.
As he sat, Moon scrutinized the figure opposite him in the dim light.
A tattered long-sleeved linen dress of nondescript colour covered her bony frame, with what looked suspiciously like a shawl of human skin draped over her shoulders. The Ancient One stared back at Moon with rheumy eyes. She was almost completely bald, save a few strands of hair that clung stubbornly to her liver-spotted skull. She had no nose to speak of, her breath wheezing noisily through two holes in her face.
By the Horned god, she is ugly, the thought passed through Moon’s mind.
“Ah yes, I am Axeman,” she said in a voice as dry as the fluttering of dead eyelashes.
Moon half jumped from his seat, for it appeared the old hag could read his mind.
A dry strangled sound, Moon assumed was laughter, rattled deep in her bony chest. “No, Moon, I cannot read your mind,” she wheezed. “But it was easy to divine your thoughts from your expression. And yes, I am ugly, as would you, if you’ve lived as long as I have. I was old when the people of the Nordir settled in these mountains hundreds of years ago, after they fled through the great gates to escape their dreadful enemy, the Nissir.” She coughed – a dry clacking sound, then hawked, turned her head and spat. The globule of spittle resounded with a wet thump on the bottom of the copper bowl at the foot of her chair.
Wiping her mouth with the back of a bony hand, she continued. “The Nordir were a great people then. They could have swept through this world with iron and fire and bent it to their will. But consumed by their petty squabbles, they split into clans. I tried to offer them wise counsel, but their leaders, small men with little vision dismissed me as a foolish old woman.”
She glared at Moon with ill-disguised malice. “But you wouldn’t know nowt about such matters, Moon. You are merely a half-blood nithing!”
Moon’s brow wrinkled in confusion. What was she raving on about? What gates, and who in the six hells are the Nissir? He began to question his wisdom in coming here.
Hjotra – that was the Old Woman’s name, one not uttered by man in over a hundred years, smiled at Moon, her tone softening. “But, come child, I prattle too much. Come kneel before me so I can see what ails you.”
Moon cowered. The baring of black gums and the stump of a single tooth in what passed for a smile almost unmanned him. Such was the miasma of malice emanating from her, he was within a heartbeat of bolting from the cabin into the pure whiteness of the ice and snow outside.
Steeling himself, he did as bid. Leaning forward, Hjotra placed her hands on Moon’s head and closed her eyes.
Moon felt a heat within his skull. It wasn’t unpleasant so he relaxed. After a short time, Hjotra removed her hands and sat back in her chair.
Moon returned to his seat and stared at the Old Woman. She regarded him silently for what seemed an eternity, then she finally spoke. “You have a growth within your skull, Axeman and it will be the death of you.”
Struck dumb by the revelation, Moon continued to stare at her.
Hjotra cocked her head, eyebrows raised in mock surprise. “Nothing to say child? You are not going to rage at me, accuse old Hjotra of being an evil old crone bent on frightening you with lies?”
“No,” Moon croaked. The headaches had got worse recently. It felt like the minions of Sutr, the lord of the six hells were making merry with steel hammers within his skull. He had experienced blinding pain, and flashing lights before his eyes. At times, he felt like disgorging the contents of his stomach, as the ground seemed to move beneath him.
Air wheezed noisily through the Old Woman’s nostrils as she studied Moon intently. “Are you afraid of dying, Axeman?”
Moon suddenly noticed the wart on the side of her face. It was an ugly thing, with strands of wiry hair protruding from its flat mushroom-like tip. The idea of dying scared him. He had seen death before, bloated gas-distended bellies, and lifeless wide-staring eyes before they were plucked out by crows and other carrion birds.
“No,” he blustered. “But can you cure me of these Sutr damned headaches? There are times when I feel like ripping my own head off just to stop the pain.”
Hjotra’s dry, strangled, humourless laughter rang out again before it was curtailed by a hacking cough. She spoke after regaining her breath. “You come to me seeking a cure for your headaches, but there is much more at work here. I have watched the Norns weave, and walked the paths of many lives. I have seen them merge and have great effect on events that are, and to be. I have watched you for years, Moon. You are strong, and I don’t mean the strength of your overgrown oafish body. There is great strength within you, strength that comes from your tainted blood. But what have you done with this great gift? Wasted it on debauchery, whoring, and useless bloodletting.
Moon shook his head. Not a man known for his patience, he was growing tired of the old hag’s riddles. “Who or what in the six hells are Norns?” he asked.
Hjotra ignored his question. “There is still much that I haven’t seen, but I can give you some herbs to ease your pain. I will walk the paths again and have more answers for you in seven days.”
She pointed to a bottle containing what looked like dried herbs and roots. “My knees are not what they once were. Fetch me that bottle, boy.”
Moon got to his feet and did as requested.
Hjotra weighed the bottle in her hands, before handing it back to Moon. “The herbs and roots are called brainwort. Put a pinch in water, stir it till it dissolves, and drink it once a day, preferably in the morning before you break your fast. When the herbs are finished, pound the root into a fine powder and use it as you did the herbs.” She stared at Moon. “You are a wilful man, so a word of warning. Do not use more than a pinch each day. If you do, it will drive you mad, and the minions of Sutr will invade your mind.”
The Axeman shuddered before nodding in acquiescence.
“Now leave me, Moon. I have much to think upon, and little time left. Remember, be back here in seven days. A lot depends on it.”