Chapter Eighteen Ruhlin #3
“But did Ulthnir not decree that even the most worthless soul may yet be redeemed in the eyes of the Altvar?” he asked with portentous dignity.
“‘Let none be condemned while the chance of reclaimed honour remains.’ Thus spake Ulthnir and I am bound to follow his stricture. And so shall these cravens be spared the ignominy of the noose. Let them die fighting my most favoured children, among them the reborn soul of mighty Amundyr himself. Mayhap, if truly they can scrape the cowardice from their souls, the gods will see fit to grant them victory this day. If not, they will at least grant the boon of throwing wide the doors to the Halls of Aevnir, there to welcome those who prove themselves worthy.”
This was the signal for the whip-men to begin undoing the manacles of their captives.
Ruhlin saw how they continued to crouch as their chains were removed, no longer in fear, but preparation.
It provoked a stirring from the monster, as did the manner in which these soon-to-be foes twirled and swung their weapons with familiar ease.
Cowards they may have been dubbed, but Ruhlin had seen enough veteran warriors to know he looked upon them now.
“There’s a lot of them,” Ohtera observed. Her voice had acquired a wet rasp due to her lengthening teeth. “I can’t take so many on my own. Can you?”
“I’m not sure,” Ruhlin replied honestly, gaze tracking over the array of hardened, desperate faces.
The monster had slain perhaps this many at the Sahlrak, but that had been a rampage through a surprised and panicked camp.
Also, he had been alone. In the fury of what was to come, he could offer no surety of preserving Ohtera’s life.
Turning to Delryk, Ruhlin found the youth had recovered enough of his wits to goggle in unabashed fear at their enemies. “You steal memories from the minds of others,” Ruhlin said. “Can you steal anything else?”
“What…” Delryk choked on bile, coughed and spoke again. “What do you mean?”
“The bravest and the smartest of this lot. Can you find them?”
The youth grimaced, feet scraping the sand as he fought the urge to flee, his jerky, fearful gaze roving over the phalanx of supposed cowards.
“Her.” He extended a trembling finger to a lean, lank-haired woman on the far left of the group.
“Her ship ran out of food on the voyage back to Nihlvar. She killed and ate two of her crew mates. I sense great cunning.” His finger moved on, halting at the largest figure among the captives.
Broad of shoulder and thick of arm, he stood a head taller than his comrades, exhibiting none of their fear.
Instead, his face was set in a frown of shrewd calculation.
“He was a captain of a warship,” Delryk said, brows creased in concentration.
“It sank in some smoke-shrouded battle far away, leaving him the only survivor. When another ship hauled him from the water, he led it back into the fray. Only when all hope of victory was lost did he permit them to sail away.” Ruhlin perceived a glimmer of admiration beneath the lad’s intense focus.
“He has a wife and three daughters, and greatly desires to live.”
“Then he’ll be disappointed,” Ohtera said, her teeth rendering her words barely intelligible.
“Of the rest, I can sense only terror,” Delryk went on. “A deep hunger to live. They will do anything to escape their fate.”
The Vortigurn raised his arms as the last manacle came free and the whip-men fled the arena.
This time, the king’s words were not for the crowd, but his Kelven.
Levelling a steady gaze upon Ruhlin he spoke softly, but Ruhlin found he could discern his meaning from the shape of his lips.
“I do not wish to be disappointed today.” With that, he swept his arms down, crying out: “BEGIN!”
“I’ll take the cannibal, you take the big one,” Ohtera rasped.
Her transformation was fully underway now, drool covering her chin and muscles thickening along her neck and shoulders.
She lowered herself into a crouch, her spine rising along her back as her limbs extended. “The rest we’ll divide between us, eh?”
The company of cravens spent a few moments dithering before about twenty spurred into a ragged charge, voices and weapons raised. The tall ship’s captain and the lank-haired woman were not among them.
“Once it starts,” Ruhlin said, turning to Delryk. “Run.”
“What…?” the youngster began, then faltered, backing away, his pale features covered by a red haze as the monster woke from its slumber and Ruhlin felt his body swell.
“Run fast!” he grunted at Delryk before his mind slipped into the vague dreamlike state that signified the monster was now fully in control.
Later, he would feel grateful for his lack of awareness throughout what followed.
It wasn’t like the battle with Deyna’s doomed army.
Whatever presence he had retained then was gone now, making the carnage wrought by the monster a dimly recalled parade of horrors glimpsed through a thick, scarlet curtain.
He did feel a new joy from the being he shared this body with, a sense of unbridled liberation as it swatted men and women aside like rag dolls.
He heard it in the roar that came from his distorted throat as its feet pounded skulls and ribcages.
And there was laughter, though to any human ear it must have resembled more the baying of some maddened beast from the depths of a nightmare.
It laughed as the flailing, frenzied blows delivered by the cravens rebounded from its hide.
Laughed as he tore their weapons away and stuffed them down their throats.
Laughed when he caught the tall ship’s captain and plucked his head from his shoulders like a ripe berry from a branch.
Awareness began to return when the monster launched the head into the air, describing a high graceful arc before plummeting down at the Vortigurn’s feet.
With the scarlet curtain parted, Ruhlin looked around at a scene of slaughter.
Everywhere the sand was red, dotted with torn limbs and bodies.
A growl snapped his gaze to Ohtera, finding her still in her cat-like form, perched atop the corpse of the lank-haired woman, tongue lapping over her gore-covered claw.
The clang of steel on steel drew Ruhlin’s notice to the far end of the arena where Delryk was backed up against the wall.
He had secured a fallen sword and was desperately fending off the blows of a stocky man with an axe.
Letting out a hungry yowl, Ohtera sprang into motion, raising a fan of sand as she sped towards the battling pair.
Thinking it unlikely she would reach them in time, Ruhlin stooped to retrieve a fallen sword.
While his body was rapidly resuming its normal dimensions, he retained enough of the monster’s strength and inhuman reflex for an accurate throw.
The blade slammed into the centre of the axe man’s back at a distance of perhaps sixty feet. He was dead before he fell.
“Amundyr!” The cry erupted from all corners of the wuhltra, Ruhlin looking up at a seething, joyous mass of humanity, all drunk on the blood he had spilled. “Amundyr! Amundyr! Amundyr!” They chanted with what he felt to be an unnatural concordance, the name sounding from every throat, save one.
Turning to the Vortigurn’s platform, Ruhlin saw the king standing in silent regard of the head the monster had cast at his feet.
As if sensing Ruhlin’s scrutiny, the Vortigurn looked up, revealing an expression of deep satisfaction.
Pausing, he kicked the head away, sending it tumbling to the sand.
The only escape you can win here is in death.
Moyirn’s words rang loud in Ruhlin’s head as the king turned and walked into the shadows.
This time, Ruhlin couldn’t escape the sense that they held a truthful edge.