The Wolf Hammer, page 5
part #1 of Odin's Bastard Series
He could give it to Reignhelm, or he could hold it in secret, claiming to be the new Son of Odin, even if he dared not touch it. No matter how many women of the eastern nobles he enslaved, or men terrified, this weapon would make him the chosen of Odin.
Unless Odin, which he would eventually, stopped this madness.
Where was the god?
Fang smiled. “See? I think you do. Imagine our position. War is lost, and we trickle in here to find we cannot stay.”
Ajax nodded. “For the good of the people, the captains agree.”
“And Fang here,” I said, “is a captain to all you captains.”
“Shian was standard-bearer’s guard,” said Ajax, “and Fang was senior to the rest of us. Borin was just scum. Captain now, after the officers died. Did well in battle. We have all changed, I suppose. Borin used to be happy, Shian afraid, but now, we must all be decisive. I agree with them.”
He flashed Borin a smile, and Borin nodded gratefully.
Fang shook his shoulders as he kept aiming the weapon. “Be quiet, you two. The hammer, boy. We’ve never seen it used. We have seen it plenty in parades and such noble shit but never used. Stories claim he purged creatures of darkness and even a jotun or two with it. But we do know,” he said dryly, “that one does not simply touch it.”
“You could use a glove?” said Borin to Ajax, nudging him. “Pick it up, my foppish friend.”
“You could sit on it, Borin,” Ajax answered. “Your arse could use losing a few pounds.”
Borin snorted dryly and then nodded at the hammer. “Listen to Captain Fang. We’ll need you to help us a wee bit. You could pick it up and put it in a sack for us. We will not touch it,” said the bastard, nodding at the corpse. “We never will again. If the hammer objects to a sack too, then we are properly fucked. We might need you to carry it, eh? You could carry it for us.”
“Indeed,” I said. “I could also serve your meals, perhaps? Shall I wipe your arse too?”
Borin snorted. “That’s an idea, though you go nowhere near my arse. Don’t trust you, see? As for the meals? Yes. Never been served by a blue-blooded boy before, though there is a problem. We don’t have any food. I came in today and found Shian had not eaten in two days. Ajax came here three days ago and had a feast of a half a rat.”
I watched Fang. “You, no doubt, have had dinner and breakfast both.”
“Adeling Hardhand, the third son of king-sized thieves,” said Fang, and he stepped closer. The crossbow never wavered. He eyed the hammer. “Not another word, boy, or I’ll feed you to an animal.”
“To Borin, no doubt,” Ajax murmured.
Fang spoke quietly. “Will you pick it up? We will try to pry it with a spear, but I think it would be painful too.”
I shook my head.
“They say it is magical,” he added. “That you can find all evil beings and smite them down if you touch them with the hammer. It is an opportunity for you as well, see?”
I stared at it. “That’s the tale. Father never told me. I am, as you said, the third son.”
“Right,” he spoke softly. “A slayer of monsters you could be. Perhaps you could serve Lon Graymoor. Silently, far from eyes, at his bidding.”
Even his companions stared at him, stunned. Borin snorted.
There was an uncomfortable silence. I listened to the sounds of the gulls. There was a scent of burning wood, wafting up from the window. There was the stench of roasted man-fat, and of dying things elsewhere.
It was no more extended home.
But was I still a Hardhand?
Was it now my turn?
Now, when all seemed lost?
The thought was strong in my head. Like someone had whispered it to my ear.
I watched the broken doorway. I took a step for the window, pushing past the fox-faced Ajax and took another, and found myself looking over the excellent harbor that now was a pit of destruction. Hardhand’s home was a ruin. The walls had been breached, and Graymoor would sit in the hall soon. “Shits.”
Breathe.
I tried.
There were ships in the harbor. Dozens.
“Tarl Vittar, and his family,” said Ajax softly. “Rikas and Gilad Vittar. His daughters. They are still down there, looting and burning in revenge. Aten’s princes, Yggra and a whelp called Elgin. They scattered the nation, but they seek to hire mercenaries, thinking they can get them cheap. Ring-givers, they will be, for warriors. We are probably going to hire out to the enemy. It will save men. For now.”
“Did the gods take part?” I asked with spite. “Do gods approve of this?”
“No god took part,” said Borin tiredly. “You are what, twenty or so? You saw only this war? Yes? Gods have their great games, and we play ours. Never saw a god on a battlefield. Don’t feel insulted, boy. It’s just land. There are new ones.”
Ajax looked unhappy at that, finally insulted. “It was home.”
I had hated my position in the land. I had loved the land and the glory of Odin.
Now, when I would get to rule, I would have no nation to rule over, and plenty of danger, and still, perhaps that was why I had been spared.
So I could show Odin I was able to.
This was not his doing, but he might expect me to punish our foes for him.
“Right, you robber,” Borin laughed. “Let the child decide.”
“The child is an adeling. And you are not that old,” Ajax said. “Ugly as a wart, but not old.”
“Ugly?” he said. “Borin is ugly. See this one’s forehead? That’s wicked odd.” He winked at me. “Old Fang will soon let go of his hopes for the hammer, and he’ll take your corpse. Will you sell the hammer, if not yourself? Eh?”
Elves, the Exiles. Graymoor. Vittar. Aten, and High King.
Bastards. Damned bastards.
My land was gone. Mother murdered. Father and brothers killed. Wife and Alarik’s boy taken.
It only had me. Odin counted on me.
I watched the city in shock and turned to see the throne hall, the Throne of the East, the Harsh Stone set before the throne, where petitioners kneeled. I wondered at the destroyed and ransacked home.
I knew it was home, but it also felt…distant.
And yet, honor was all.
“My family is dead,” I snarled. “And I do not trust Graymoor. He would not let me serve him, anyway. Your plan is one for a fool. I’m not your man.”
They watched me uncertainly.
“Your wife might live still,” Shian sighed. “Come. You have to risk it. You could find her, if you ask Graymoor to help. Imagine. You could have your revenge, your life back. Your nephew. You—”
“Shh! I am out of time,” Fang said. “Give the hammer to us. Put it in a bag of leather,” he said and threw one on the ground, long and thick with a strap to carry it, meant to cover a longsword from the weather. “Then Shian here will try to carry it. If she has an accident,” he said, as Shian looked down, terrified, “then you carry it for us, and we spare your life for now. Mind you, we are not too bothered by your anger and indignant words. We don’t take well to nobles. One is as bad as the other.”
I turned to look at the hammer and felt sick. Borin was muttering, and Ajax was shifting through rubble with his boot, looking down. I stared at the floor and the woman, who peered back at me, afraid.
“This is not right, he—” she began, but Fang shook his head. She went quiet.
“Choose,” said Fang harshly. “Do well for us, and get to live on as—"
I stumbled into the great hall and saw a broken mirror.
“Hey!” Fang roared.
I went to the broken thing, kneeled, and picked up a shard. I found a festering wound in my forehead, framed by my long, thick dark curls, and saw a large tattoo of an elaborate eye inside a burning flame and throne inside puss and blood. Bone showed in the crude wound. It bled, constantly. I scrutinized what was likely the mark of Reignhelm or of Malignborg, perhaps a mark of Naergoth and knew I was cursed forever, in pain constantly.
Aye, revenge.
I had to have revenge.
And I needed help.
“They,” Shian spoke softly, “they marked all the noble corpses like this, as a warning. They branded all the doors they could find in the east with it. Perhaps you weren’t dead and escaped after and took the hammer with you, terribly hurt. Still, you made your way here, for your wife.”
I glanced at her and nodded.
It was likely so. She was right.
“It is not your fault, none of it,” she whispered. “I can help, advise and keep you on the trail. You will have to avenge them. Survive.”
I wept, but no tears came.
I cursed the lot under my breath.
“Come, adeling,” Fang laughed, standing at the doorway. “Your father was a mad dog. You are the sane one. Here.”
He kicked the bag.
I cursed and spat and roared in rage, until, exhausted, I picked up the sack and tottered to the room, with Fang stepping back to give me room. They stood still, eyeing me with suspicion, and I looked at the hammer near the corpse.
The people of Hati’s Valley had fled.
Men had most all died or been scattered.
The nation was no more.
The hammer remained. And I did. I could rebuild it all.
I kneeled next to it. It looked as it always had. Odd, so sturdy, ancient, not made by hands of men, with the intricate, superb details everywhere. The wolf’s head was heavy, threatening, massive.
Father had carried it, and I had desired it.
My name was his.
It was mine, and Odin would be proud.
I finally put my hand over the shaft.
“Good boy,” Fang laughed as he moved before me. “Shian, get ready to try it.”
I put my hand around it.
I had dreamt of it. Father had carried it with ease.
My fingers curled around the shaft.
The fingers seemed to tighten around it, like the flesh and the metal was one.
It was nothing like I had imagined.
The power of the weapon infused my body immediately. The energy crackled into my hand, deep into my bones, and filled me with power and purpose.
It purged away fear and simplified all my choices by doing so.
I knew right away it was made for the gods, and gods themselves had chosen us to carry it. Only gods, or those Odin decided, could touch it.
It hated beings of greed, things of dark evil.
Aye, I felt it disapproved my small flaws as well.
The evil it detected and hated also suddenly seemed to suffocate me.
It felt thick in my mouth, that evil, like an oily drink you couldn’t spit out.
And then something strange happened.
The hammer’s head burst into flames.
It was excruciating to hold the weapon, and it felt like hot fire running in my veins. Indeed, fire ran along the shaft now. I screamed as I tried to drop it, but I was not able to. The flames spread to my hand and was hot as coals, but somehow, didn’t burn my skin. They darkened it.
It just hurt, terribly.
It had never done this with Father.
He had never held a flaming hammer, and if he had been in such pain, he had not said a word, nor did he ever shed tears holding it.
Never.
I struggled upright and found I could lift it easily. The hammer gave me strength, and I felt twice as powerful as I had been. I was divided between feelings of awe, and the stabs of pain, and the taste of dread and filth made me sick. I felt its horrible power, as intoxicating as the most potent mead. I felt faster than a wolf, but my muscles were on fire. Indeed, fire was dripping between my fingers, but I could, for some time, hold it.
I saw Fang aiming a crossbow at my face now. His eyes were on the hammer, and the flames that flickered along its length, and on my eyes, full of horrifying pain, mixed with intoxicating power. “Bag,” he whispered.
I laughed.
Fears I had felt. I had swum in a sea of confusion.
Now?
Not so much. Odin called me, and I would purge the evil from Midgard.
Finally.
“You have men?” I asked the evil man before me, barely coherent with the pain. “Four hundred Swans, you said?”
He nodded, and the flames made him nervous. “Two thousand, nearly. Good men. The core of the criminal shits are four hundred strong, and stragglers of the other companies make up the rest. Why?”
“And if you were to hire out to someone, who would it be?” I asked him harshly, my bones on fire. “Speak, man!”
He frowned. “Why, I asked. Fine. I suppose Yggra, son of the king of Aten,” he said. “He has been ordered to gather his own mercenary company for the ongoing and possibly coming wars. They do not hate us as much as Tarl Vittar does. We burned Vittar’s home, see? Or your father did. Yeah, you were there. I see you remember that.” His eyes hardened. “But we are going to go to Graymoor, aren’t we?”
“Honor,” I said as I staggered forward a step, “has guided my family.”
He laughed. “Once. No longer. Not after Aeginhamn. And you are all dead.”
“Honor,” I said, my voice shivering with pain. “dictates I try to finish what my father started. He gave oaths, and we swore to keep them. I will seek answers, and I will restore Odin’s will on Midgard. I have nothing but the hammer. I’ll keep it.”
Ajax flinched. “Looks like you can barely keep it. The fires…”
“Sounds like you wish to die right here,” Fang snarled. “So, you won’t give me the hammer, and you will not go to the Graymoor? Not alive, that is.”
“That is correct,” I said and suddenly felt I knew exactly what to do, like a shadow was whispering wisdom into my ears. “I shall tell you what we will do. We will not meet Lon Graymoor. We shall travel into the shadows. We will serve our enemies. We shall find a way to get near them, to gut-ripping distance, and in the end, the last, and the least likely of all the Hardhands, I shall find a way to regain our honor, our land, and I shall see my wife after I eat the heart-flesh of my foes. Will you be one?”
“Your wife?” Borin asked, confused.
“No,” Shian whispered. “We could help.”
“What?” Fang laughed nervously. “Shut it, girl.” He stepped closer to me. The crossbow was quivering. “You think the war is not over?”
“The war is not over,” I whispered. “Never. Odin himself was betrayed. I offer you a chance to serve me.”
“Service?” Fang asked. “Odin’s balls, you offer us to service! Thank you!”
Ajax stepped closer too. “What possibly could you offer us?”
They stared at me.
Then, Borin grinned.
“Treasure?” Borin suggested. “See. We know about your father’s book. We tried to find it here. Found nothing. Possibly one of the kings or some bastard soldier has it. They looted him clean. Now, tell us. Did he take it with him to war? You were saying he had it in his pocket? It would be valuable. Or is it here? Is there a hideout here we can check? Some place he might have stashed it?”
I said nothing to him.
Ajax tilted his head. “Nobility? Riches and nobility? We could use those. And perhaps, a new land for the people? I could fight for that, highwayman or not. The answer, man.”
“What are you two saying?” Fang hissed. “Enough.”
I grimaced as the flames danced in my skin, darkening it to the elbow now. It felt like the bone itself was on fire under the muscles. “All that. Position. And part of the treasure. New lands. It will all be possible, if we surprise the enemy. They will be going to war, no? To this White Tower? Sounds like we will have plenty of opportunities there. And I do not know the hideouts of the castle. But there is a journal, and…” I thought back and remembered father reading it, in the war, “he had it with him.”
“Damn,” Borin said softly. “Damn it.”
I nodded. “But you heard right. A ledger. The Black Tales, it is called. A summary of my father’s adventures, it is.” I grimaced and felt odd, stabbing heat in my mouth and eyes now. “We shall find the ledger, something only a Hardhand might open. You’ll serve me, and you will have all of that you asked for, including nobility.” I looked at Fang maliciously. “But first, it has to be earned. You will follow me. And still, I feel I cannot abide by this one. You will have to kill Fang here.”
I felt odd, pure pleasure at the fear in Fang’s eyes.
It felt natural, like skin.
The cruelty.
The others twitched with uncertainty.
They were quiet.
Fang’s eyes hardened. He pulled the trigger of his heavy crossbow.
It should have impaled my skull. It passed my cheek.
Borin’s sword had moved fast as lightning, out of the sheath and up to Fang’s hand, and it had struck it aside. Fang’s face was a mask of shock as blood was trickling from the cut fingers.
“You kill him,” Ajax said. “That’s your job.”
I didn’t hesitate.
I jumped forward and struck the flaming hammer through the man’s skull.
I had killed in battle, slaying men in Loria.
This was different. Their deaths had been hard-bought struggles, and it had taken them a long time to die. Now, the man fell in a bloody heap of legs and broken torso, and partway to the new cracks on the floor the hammer had just made.
I hoisted the hammer, struggling to free it from the vice of rock, but I managed it.
I watched the man’s broken body as it lay slumped in the hall of my former home. I put the flaming hammer on the mess that had been his chest, and it started burning. Shian whimpered.
I turned to Ajax.
He flinched and lifted his hands. “So. I helped you.”
Borin shook his head. “The eyes. Are they on fire? There’s ash on his face.”
“Let go of it,” Shian whispered.
I noticed my arm and part of the chest was in flames now, the strange fires hot as embers, and the pain was unbearable.
I struggled mightily.
The hammer fought as I tried to let go of it, and I fought it back. Shian stepped forward and bravely touched my face. I felt soothed by the touch. I gasped and found my fingers working. I dropped the hammer and collapsed, whimpering as I watched my darkened hand, the skin smoking, slowly turning pink again. I rubbed my eyes where ashes hampered my sight.
