Blood of Asaheim

Chapter Two



Hafloí ran.

He churned through the snow, throwing up sprays of crystal-white behind him. His hot breath condensed in the freezing air in plumes. His hearts hammered, his lungs burned. He felt the motive systems in his armour hum and boost, operating in perfect sync with his blood-flooded muscles.

The arc of the sky swung high above him, clear and vivid. Ahead of him lay a long sweep of fresh snow running down to the black line of the river. Tight clumps of ekka pines clustered over to his left, getting thicker towards the steep edges of cliffs beyond. This was hard country, traversed by gorges and broken rockfields, all hidden under glistening swathes of bridge-ice and powder snow. It was treacherous, frigid, lethal, exposed to flesh-scouring winds that screamed across the plains and scythed through shivering chasms.

Hafloí grinned savagely. All of Asaheim was hard country. That was the point of it. That was why he loved it.

He pushed himself harder, sprinting down the long incline towards the hard blue shadow-edge under the encircling peaks. His armour made minute adjustments as his boots crashed against the scree, compensating for ankle-turning crevasses, absorbing the shock of the uneven terrain beneath the pristine blanket of snow.

He ran like a hunted skriekre, pushing his enhanced body to the limit. He leapt clean over obstacles, crashed through waist-high drifts. His limbs pumped, his arms swung, his shoulders rolled.

For a few seconds more he was alone in the valley, charging down towards the rushing water, a lone speck of movement amid the glacial indifference of Asaheim.

Then the gunship crested the sawtooth ridge behind him, growling up into the air on a column of oily smoke. It lurched up, around, swinging over the lip of the rise and out over the valley floor.

Set against the majesty of the high plateau, the gunship was an aberration. It was heavy, blunt, crude, expending staggering amounts of energy just to stay aloft. Its engines roared with a thrashing, hungry growl, and it stank of burning promethium. Its wedged nose hung low as it surged forwards on a dirty bloom of heat-haze.

Hafloí heard it coming and kept grinning. He never slowed, just carried on racing. Already going at full tilt, he swerved and veered closer towards the riverbed, zigzagging wildly along the tumbling slope.

The gunship came after him, dipping its cockpit and plunging low across the snowfield. As it roared closer its heavy bolters keyed up, clanking as gigantic magazines were shunted into cavernous chambers. A second later and the linked barrels slammed into life, hurling twin lines of shells at the fleeing figure below.

The rolling barrage crashed into the ground in hissing furrows of exploding rock and vaporising snow. Hafloí bucked and darted left, dancing clear of danger, jerking round suddenly and haring off towards the rapidly approaching tree line. Splatters of blackened slush streaked down his armour as he rode out the onslaught before breaking free.

The gunship roared past him. It climbed quickly, banked hard and came around for another pass, trailing its filthy curtain of smog behind it.

Too slow, thought Hafloí with satisfaction, vaulting over a cracked ledge before powering down a slope of jagged rocks and ice towards the first of the pines.

He covered the ground quickly, hearing the grind of the gunship’s engines grow louder with every stride he took. Just as he sensed the bolters click into firing positions he crashed into cover, shouldering through the dense, dark foliage as if plunging into water.

The trunks of the pines soared away above him like the pillars of some immense, shadowy cathedral. For the first time, Hafloí had cover. He ducked down low and slowed his pace, weaving through the snowy drifts piled high at the roots. The branches above him swayed in the wind, twisting back and forth and hissing at him.

Hafloí halted briefly, catching his breath, looking up into the branches. He could still hear the thudding whine of the gunship close by, but couldn’t see it through the thick cover. He concentrated, filtering out extraneous factors, letting his superlative senses do their work.

‘Oh, Hel…’ he spat, suddenly realising where it was.

The trees around him blasted apart in a hurricane of splinters. Hafloí ducked and leapt, exploding back into action as the forest destroyed itself. He heard a crack, and another, as the massive trunks were brought down. One swayed towards him, toppling directly into his path as its base was blasted away by a flurry of bolter-rounds.

He pounced out of its path, hearing the heavy whoosh of the trunk collapsing to earth behind him. More came down in a rain of severed branches and whirling needles. Gaps opened up in the canopy above, exposing the shadow of the hovering gunship and its juddering weapons.

Hafloí picked up full pace again, careering through the disintegrating forest. He vaulted over shattering stumps and ducked under collapsing beams. The air was choked with flying snow, rock shards and pulverised wood. He saw bolts impact on the earth around him and leapt out of their path.

He couldn’t outrun the gunship, and with every passing second his residual shelter was being blasted away. As he ran, he swung his head frantically from right to left, searching for an alternative strategy.

‘That’ll do,’ he muttered, spotting what he was after.

He skidded to a halt, throwing up a wave of scree and slush, then darted off to his right. The gunship adjusted course instantly, sending clattering bolt-rounds biting at his heels. Hafloí squeezed a few extra grammes of effort from his tortured limbs, sprinting hard down a steep bank as the remainder of his tree cover was ripped apart.

Then the land ended.

A dizzying precipice shot straight down, sheer and bald. Hafloí catapulted over the edge and out into the open. For a moment he was suspended in mid-air over a wide ravine, his legs and arms still pumping, wet debris showering over him from the exploding forest above.

He plummeted fast, dragged down by his heavy plate. Twenty metres below was a tangle of boulders, ice-plates and scrub. They all swept up to meet him with pitiless speed.

The gunship followed him over the edge, picking up altitude to break clear of the remaining pines before lowering its head again and resuming fire. Projectiles whistled past Hafloí’s tumbling body, missing him by a hand’s width.

Then he was down, crunching between two huge rocks the size of Rhino transporters. The impact was sharp, sending painful shudders up through his battered body.

He staggered, righting himself, and scrambled onwards, skidding and stumbling down narrow icy paths between the boulders, ducking into their cover as the fire from above fizzed and cracked around him.

The further he went the larger the rocks became. He’d entered a maze of overlapping stone slabs, the remnants of some massive earthquake or landslip. The boulders loomed up above him, capped with messy crowns of snow. The fissures between them were treacherous, clogged with glassy patches of ice.

Hafloí barged his way further down, scraping his shoulder guards against the walls of rock that surrounded him. He was soon enclosed on either side by bulwarks of stone. The sky above him shrank to a narrow strip of white.

The gunship thundered overhead, and the fire from its gun guttered out.

Hafloí allowed himself a smile. This was better cover – the granite boulders would take some shattering. He pressed on, going as quickly as he could in the labyrinth between the rocks.

The noise of the gunship faded into the distance, then grew in volume again as it came back around. Hafloí paused, listening carefully. He heard the telltale whine of a hatch door lowering while in mid-air, and the dull crunch of ceramite against stone as one of its occupants leapt to earth.

Hafloí drew his bolt pistol from its holster and kept moving. The icy corridors between the rocks ran like cracks across an ice-sheet – joining up, splitting apart, opening into open clearings or drying up altogether. He exchanged speed for stealth. He could hear dull footfalls running across the ravine floor: ceramite boots, crunching against gravel and frost, coming closer.

Too noisy, Hunter.

Ahead of him, Hafloí saw a narrow crevasse running in from the left and joining up with the one he currently occupied. Where the two fissures met was a small opening, no more than five metres across and overlooked by towering crags on all sides. The sounds of footfalls came down the left fork, getting louder.

Hafloí pressed himself into the shadow of the nearside boulder and aimed the pistol. A second later a huge grey-armoured warrior burst into view. He went helm-less, exposing a shaven pate and black-streaked beard. He seemed to sense Hafloí’s presence and turned to face him, lowering a boltgun.

Too late.

Hafloí fired, and watched the mass-reactive round spiral towards its target. The bolt hit the warrior square in the breastplate, sending him crashing into the far boulder.

‘Hjá!’ Hafloí crowed, drawing the sword at his belt and preparing to leap after him.

‘Careful, now,’ came a low voice at his ear.

Hafloí froze.

Gingerly, he looked down. A naked blade rested against his throat, barely touching the skin. If he’d have pounced, he’d have cut his throat open.

‘And that makes you dead, whelp.’

His hearts still beating hard, he slowly let his hands fall to his sides. The blade was withdrawn.

The warrior he’d downed pushed himself away from the stone, moving stiffly. His big, ugly, snub-nosed faced was creased with laughter.

The second warrior stepped away from Hafloí, coming round from where he’d crept up behind him. The three of them – two Grey Hunters, one Blood Claw – faced one another. From some distance, the growl of the gunship could still be heard. The lower pitch of its engines indicated that it was coming down to land.

‘Skítja.’

Hafloí spat on the ground. He slammed his pistol back into its holster.

Olgeir, the big one he’d managed to hit with his neutered bolt-round, the one they called Heavy-hand, came over to punch him on the shoulder. The gesture was possibly intended to be affectionate; it felt like a slug from a lascannon.

‘Careless, lad,’ said Olgeir.

Olgeir’s gnarled face was encrusted in an impossibly dense mix of scar tissue, tattoos, ironwork piercings and curls of dark, stray hair. His streaked beard was full and unruly, cascading in snarls and braided twists over his full breastplate. For the exercise he’d reluctantly left his heavy bolter, the beloved sigrún, behind, and he looked strangely massive without it.

Olgeir’s companion shot Hafloí a dry smile.

‘You did well to outrun Jorundur,’ he said, stowing his blade. ‘He won’t be happy about that.’

Baldr Fjolnir was easier to look at than his larger battle-brother. His beard was less ragged, his skin less tortured by burns and scores. He was lean, compact, with a mouth that tended to smiles and clear amber eyes. He wore his hair long, and it still bore traces of the sandy blondness it had had when he’d been in the Claws himself.

‘You were waiting down here?’ asked Hafloí, rubbing his neck ruefully. ‘I only heard one of you land.’

Olgeir laughed again. His ugly face seemed made for it – a low, rumbling, throaty sound that rolled up from the curved barrel of his chest.

‘Not too bright,’ he observed.

Baldr was still smiling. There was no malice in the expression. The fair-haired warrior hardly looked capable of the extreme violence that his profession demanded, though Hafloí wasn’t stupid enough to doubt that he was perfectly capable of it.

‘We jumped together,’ Baldr said. ‘Make a note: that’s something an enemy might try. They’re unfair like that.’

Hafloí wasn’t in the mood to be baited. As his body recovered, his pride slumped further into a low, surly frustration.

‘Morkai,’ he swore, letting his head fall back and rolling it around. As the adrenaline stopped pumping, he could feel a whole cluster of aches and pains gathering to assail him. He’d pushed himself hard that time – harder than ever. ‘This is a joke. A joke. It’s not possible.’

Olgeir raised an eyebrow. ‘You think?’ he said. ‘So little faith – I think you’ll do it.’

Hafloí rounded on him then. He was exhausted, driven to the edge by the endless drills, the ceaseless challenges, the days he’d already spent being tested by members of a pack he’d never even wanted to join. He hadn’t done any proper fighting for weeks. He hadn’t fired a proper gun, or run at a real enemy with a real blade.

‘Fight me here, then,’ he snapped. ‘One on one – I’ll break your fat neck.’

Olgeir chuckled approvingly. Baldr shook his head.

‘No, you won’t,’ he said calmly. In the distance, Hafloí heard a muffled crunch as the Thunderhawk landed. ‘You’ll come with us, and I’ll show you what you did wrong.’

The Grey Hunter looked at Hafloí, and his expression was serious. As he returned the gaze, Hafloí realised, as he had done a dozen times already, that he had no choice.

‘Then we’ll do this again,’ said Baldr. ‘And again. Right until you find a way to kill us, just like we asked you to.’

The air was hot, sweltering in a haze of seamy darkness. Clangs boomed through it, rhythmic beats like the drums on an ancient slave galley. Sparks showered, bounced and died on the stone floor, hurled from the glowing, gaping jaws of a thousand foundries.

Gunnlaugur looked up, away from the magma-light of the forge floor and up towards the distant roof. He couldn’t see it. Thick columns of smoke swam up into the heights, pooling and drifting before being filtered up through hidden vents. The cacophony of the forging went with them – a discordant, overlapping strain of heat-softened metal being beaten into shape by ranks of vast, tilting hammers.

Molten steel ran down gullies like river water, spitting and frothing as it slopped over the sides. Bloated calderas tipped up, sending fresh gushes into waiting moulds. Conveyer belts of segmented adamantium rolled endlessly, shunting metal from bulbous cooling vats, to anvils, back to the furnace, on and on in a round of hammering, shaping, folding, tapering and tempering until the proto-weapons emerged, carried off reverently by dull-eyed servitors for the benediction and finishing of tech-priests and Iron Priests.

Above it all hung the silent images of the ancient forge gods, picked out in beaten bronze and mounted on pillars of stone. As the army of semi-human artificers laboured, those bronze images flickered and glowed in the sullen light of eternal fires, staring calmly and inscrutably across the shifting gloom of the Hammerhold.

Gunnlaugur looked away from them and strode past the ranks of machines. He had not been down into the depths for a very long time, but it looked much the same as it had on every previous occasion. The smell of it was oppressive – a sharp, acrid cocktail of smog, steam and sweat that lodged in his nostrils and wouldn’t budge. There was barely room to swing an axe; none to run. It was claustrophobic, a vision of the underworld dragged up into the realm of the living.

Few Sky Warriors came to the Hammerhold without good reason. Gunnlaugur was no exception. It took him over an hour to find the one he was looking for, and it led him far away from the clamour of the main halls. Eventually retracing the routes he had taken last time, he slipped into side vaults and down cargo ramps, dodging the heavy crawlers that ground their way up from the deep-bore ore silos.

The booming clangs receded into a low murmur. A more modest vault awaited him – less than twenty metres in height, less than thirty wide. No icons of gods hung from the blackened ceiling, just bare stone worked into gothic arches. A single anvil rested in the centre of the chamber, black and heavy-set, shiny in the darkness. A furnace the height of two mortal men stood beside it, lit with shimmering coals that made the narrow opening shake with heat. A few other items stood beside the furnace – a rack hung with dozens of metalworking tools, a cauldron of water, iron caskets full of ingots – but otherwise the space was almost bare.

No servitors droned around that place; no conveyer belts brought raw materials to the hammer’s bite. Less than one weapon a year left that anvil, and many more were destroyed by their maker before they reached the Iron Priest for blessing.

Few ironworkers would have had their painstaking energies so indulged by the Jarls. Arjac, though, the one they called Rockfist, was a special case.

The man-mountain stood over the anvil like a frost giant bearing down on a prone victim. His thick armour-plate shone blood-red in the light of the furnace, picking out the battered runes that ran down the length of his arms. His bald head hung low over his work, streaked with dirty sweat.

A blade lay on the anvil-top, shining with ruddy heat. Arjac worked it skilfully, using a light hammer to hone the edge down to a bite point. The image was incongruous – Arjac’s immense body, bulked out further by thick sweeps of ceramite armour, tapping delicately at the sliver of metal before him.

Gunnlaugur said nothing. He remained in the shadows, watching respectfully. Arjac never looked up. The hammer rose and fell, glistening from the firelight, chipping out sparks as the impurities in the metal were beaten out.

Eventually Arjac snatched the blade away and plunged it into the cauldron. A swollen bloom of steam hissed up around it. He withdrew it and brought it into the light of the furnace. He turned it over and over, scrutinising what he had done.

The blade was the length of his forearm, ideal for a duelling gladius. Gunnlaugur looked at it appreciatively. His was no trained eye, but he knew how to use a sword, and it looked like he could use that one.

‘Fancy it, stripling?’ asked Arjac, never lifting his head.

Gunnlaugur smiled. ‘For me?’ he said.

Arjac let the metal fall back on the anvil.

‘For no one,’ he sighed. ‘It’ll be melted down, just like the others.’

‘Seems a waste.’

‘A waste? Of what – metal? There’s more down here than we could use in a thousand years.’

Arjac straightened out of his stoop. Fully extended, his bulk was even more intimidating. Gunnlaugur, whose own physical presence was immense, seemed almost slight in comparison.

‘A waste is sending a warrior out with a defective blade,’ Arjac growled, rolling his great shoulders in slow circles. ‘In any case, only an idiot goes into battle with a sword.’

Arjac’s huge thunder hammer, fomadurhamar, hung from an immense iron frame at the rear of the chamber. Even powered-down, it exuded a quiet air of implacable solidity – much like its master.

‘Agreed.’

Gunnlaugur’s preferred weapon was also a thunder hammer, one that shared his moniker – skulbrotsjór – safely stowed over the war-altar in his personal Jarlheim chamber. The two warriors shared a similar view of much in life, including which was the proper tool to break heads with.

Arjac came around from the far side of the anvil and approached Gunnlaugur. The furnace-light exposed a brawler’s face, broad from tight bands of muscle, lodged deep amid stocky neck-sinew and his armour’s fibre-bundles.

For a moment, Arjac looked straight at Gunnlaugur, appraising him as he would a newly-worked slab of metal. Gunnlaugur wouldn’t have let many look at him like that – since being elevated to Wolf Guard, only Jarl Blackmane, the Priests and Grimnar himself had the authority to subject him to any kind of scrutiny.

Arjac, however, was different. Arjac was exceptional in every respect. His blood was that of an Iron Priest’s, as was his temperament. Only his peerless skill at close range combat had kept him away from the lava forges where he longed to be. Gunnlaugur knew, just as everyone else knew, how much Arjac yearned to settle back among the true weaponsmiths, crafting artificer axe-heads and lightning claws among the silent, brooding anvil-masters.

But Arjac never complained. That generated a respect in the halls of the Fang. It had made him the first mentor Gunnlaugur had ever sought during his centuries of service in the Rout. To his surprise, Arjac had been receptive. Perhaps the Anvil of Fenris had seen something of himself in the raw Gunnlaugur. Perhaps, since he was rarely approached for serious counsel, he welcomed the chance to pass on some of his accumulated battle-lore.

Whatever the reason, the two of them always met on the rare occasions when both were present on the home world at the same time. Gunnlaugur had benefitted much from the exchanges. He hoped, perhaps optimistically, that Arjac had as well.

‘You look bad,’ said Arjac.

‘As would you, if you’d been where we’ve been.’

‘No doubt. How runs the pack?’

‘Blooded,’ Gunnlaugur said, truthfully enough. ‘We’re down to five. Losing Tínd caused us problems, but we did what we were sent to do, and most of us got back home.’

Arjac grunted. The big warrior seldom spoke much, and when he did he was curt.

‘Glad you did,’ he said. ‘Now, why are you here?’

Gunnlaugur took a deep breath. His eyes flickered over to the anvil again, over to where the discarded blade lay cooling.

‘We’ll leave again soon,’ he said. ‘Blackmane wants us to take on a Blood Claw. He may want us to take Ingvar Eversson back too.’

Arjac raised a charred, stubbly eyebrow.

‘The Gyrfalkon? He’ll come back,’ he said. ‘Why pretend otherwise?’

Gunnlaugur shrugged. ‘Because I do not know how to handle him,’ he said. Anything less than full honesty was a waste with Arjac. ‘Not any more.’

Arjac looked at Gunnlaugur steadily. His golden eyes were unwavering, the same eyes that could detect minute flaws in steel while it lay under the hammer.

‘You really want my counsel?’ asked Arjac. ‘I’m not a Jarl, nor a Priest. You could speak to Blackmane yourself.’

‘I could.’

‘But you won’t.’

Gunnlaugur shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘You’re a fool. One day you’ll see why Grimnar thinks so highly of him.’

Gunnlaugur felt his heart sink. He didn’t know what he wanted from Arjac. He didn’t even know why the issue with Ingvar was exercising him so much. In the fifty-seven years since Hjortur had died he had never felt the burden of command weigh heavily at all; now, suddenly, it seemed like one of Arjac’s anvils, shackled to his ankles and dragging him down into the abyss.

‘I’ve built the pack around me,’ he said, speaking half to Arjac, half to himself. ‘Váltyr’s my sword-arm – I’ve learned to use him, and time has only made him deadlier. Baldr and Olgeir are as dependable as Freki. Jorundur is a sour old hound, but he’s got his uses and flies a gunship like it’s an ice-skiff. I’m proud of all this. I would not see it broken.’

Gunnlaugur shook his head.

‘There’s no room for him,’ he said. ‘Not now. He made his choice.’

Arjac’s expression remained static – not judging, not scornful, not sympathetic. Like the rock that gave him his moniker, he was unmoveable.

‘Then you must defy Ragnar,’ Arjac said. ‘But tell me truly, stripling: is that really what disturbs you?’

Gunnlaugur looked up. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You are Járnhamar’s vaerangi. If your pack is your concern, then stand up to the Jarl over it – he may not bend, but he will respect you. But if you are the problem, if your weakness is the issue, then he will laugh in your face and cast you from his presence like a churl. I have heard the Young King likes to laugh – he will not need a good excuse for you.’

Gunnlaugur felt a flash of anger, a stab of the pride that always lurked just beneath the surface with him. Instinctively his right hand curled into a fist.

Arjac was quicker. The huge warrior shoved Gunnlaugur away from the anvil, pushing him hard in the chest. His expression flickered into something harder: contempt, spiced with the first spikes of combat-fury.

Off balance, Gunnlaugur stumbled backwards. He hit something as he staggered – a weapons-rack – and metal blades and hilt-pieces clattered to the stone around him.

‘What is it, Wolf Guard?’ mocked Arjac, striding after him, his enormous fists poised to strike. ‘Afraid of the Gyrfalkon? Has your blood run cold since you last sparred with him as an equal?’

Gunnlaugur kicked back, thrusting himself at Arjac. The two of them crashed together, grappling like two old bears in a cave.

‘I fear nothing!’ Gunnlaugur roared. His arms clasped around Arjac’s torso, and he pushed back violently. ‘You know this!’

Arjac took the strain, and a strange sound burst from his mouth. Half blinded by rage, Gunnlaugur nearly missed it, already pulling his fist back ready for the punch.

Then he recognised the grating chortle, the closest Arjac’s forge-dried throat ever got to genuine laughter.

Gunnlaugur halted, the momentum suddenly gone from his furious assault. He broke clear of Arjac, his cheeks flushed crimson, and spun away from the embrace.

Arjac regarded him tolerantly, smiling all the while.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Good. For a moment I thought you’d lost it.’

Gunnlaugur caught his breath, his anger replaced, just as quickly as it had arrived, by shame.

Why am I so quick to wrath? he thought. Why am I so easily goaded?

Arjac returned to the anvil, still chuckling.

‘You’re letting this get to you, stripling,’ he said, picking up the blade and looking at it again. ‘Hjortur would have named you pack-leader if he’d lived long enough to choose. Blood of Russ, I would have done – you can hit hard enough when you want to.’

Gunnlaugur let his arms fall to his sides. He felt strung-out. One mission after the other, year after year; it would take its toll eventually.

‘So what would you do?’ he asked.

‘With Eversson? I’d welcome him as a brother. I’d want a blade of his pedigree in the pack. If he challenged me, I’d beat him down. If he challenged the others, I’d foster it.’

Arjac ran his gauntlet along the edge of the anvil.

‘A pack is a sacred thing,’ he said. ‘It has a life of its own, greater than ours. You cannot control that life, you can only guide it a little. If fate brings you and Ingvar back together, the pack will shape itself around both of you, one way or another.’

Gunnlaugur listened.

‘Pride makes you strong, stripling,’ said Arjac. ‘Let it make you stronger – you deserve to be where you are – but do not let it blind you. None of us is greater than the pack. In the final reckoning, the pack is what must survive.’

Arjac’s eyes lost their focus. It was as if he were addressing himself as much as Gunnlaugur.

‘Remember this,’ he said. ‘You, me, Ingvar, the Old Wolf himself, we are nothing in isolation. We only live for the pack: that is what makes us deadly, what makes us eternal. Nothing else matters.’

Gunnlaugur bowed. He had his answer. He had what he had come for.

‘I understand,’ he said.

Arjac nodded.

‘Good. Then you can leave me to work.’ ‘I can. My thanks, lord.’

Arjac scowled. ‘Do not call me that. We are the same rank.’

Gunnlaugur smiled to himself. For a moment, he had genuinely forgotten.

‘Of course,’ he said.

Wolf Guard. Vaerangi.

Arjac took up a hammer again. That was the cue to leave, and Gunnlaugur turned back towards the distant roar of the Hammerhold. He walked slowly, turning Arjac’s words over in his mind.

We only live for the pack.

They were familiar words, but it felt strange to be reminded of them.

That is what makes us deadly, what makes us eternal.

With every step he took, he felt a little stronger.

Nothing else matters.