Chapter Thirty-Eight Ruhlin
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Ruhlin
The door to the wuhltra slammed shut behind them with a clang that was lost amid the crowd’s exultant welcome. “Amundyr!” they chanted in a recurrent, hungry roar. “Amundyr! Amundyr!”
At Ruhlin’s side, Fernhyld staggered under the weight of the noise.
Her face had been a sickly shade of white ever since waking that morning.
Ruhlin had feared she would faint during the journey to the wuhltra, but she managed to maintain a steady if occasionally faltering step, her hand clammy in Ruhlin’s grasp.
He wanted to whisper assurances to her but couldn’t compete with the ongoing torrent of the audience’s adulation.
Once again every tier was packed, every spectator on their feet and punching the air in concert with their chanted exhortation for more slaughter to be wrought by Amundyr’s mighty hands.
So, when the Vortigurn emerged from the shadowed recesses of his platform, the subsequent silence fell like a blow.
Ruhlin expected the king to make a speech, proclaim another spectacle in honour of his loyal subjects, no doubt weaving in some allusions to the Altvar.
But he didn’t. Instead, the Vortigurn moved to the edge of the platform to fix Ruhlin with a commanding stare, calling out just one simple command: “Show me your heart, Ruhlin ehs Kestryg!”
With that, he hefted a long, shiny object and threw it into the arena. Ruhlin was grudgingly impressed by the king’s strength, the object describing a high arc before impacting the sand a few paces away.
“What was that?” Fernhyld whimpered, flinching at the thud.
“Nothing to fear,” Ruhlin said, tugging her along as he strode forward to claim the object.
“Just a gift from the Vortigurn. Something I was captured with.” As he knelt to grip the maul’s haft, he found the feel of it comfortably familiar, though he had never quite accustomed himself to the weight of its twin hammer-head.
Rising with the weapon in his grasp, he wondered why the Vortigurn should choose to arm him this time.
The crowd’s silence ebbed into expectant murmuring as the iron gates lining the opposite wall slid open.
Ruhlin had no true notion of what to expect.
More beasts, or cravens from the Vortigurn’s war?
Perhaps a mixture of both. When their opponents began to emerge, he was surprised at their number.
There were only a dozen in all, four women and eight men, moving with a mix of confidence and cautious awareness Ruhlin had seen before.
They bore a variety of weapons, but only sparse armour, revealing well-honed muscle rich in scars, some recently stitched.
“Sweat,” Fernhyld said, nose raised to sniff the air. “From people, not beasts. Who are they?”
“I would guess, the victors of the Meidvang,” Ruhlin replied. “We are to be their final battle.”
She lowered her head, both hands now clutching his, her slight form jerking as she sobbed. “Stay low and try to keep close to me,” Ruhlin told her as gently as he could. “This won’t take long.”
“No.” Fernhyld shook her head. “These are not tears born of fear. I weep for them, and you.”
He began to ask her what she meant, but his words ended in a guttural choke when his stagna flared to life.
It was not the usual brief jolt of pain, but a prolonged, icy ache.
Fernhyld’s hands slipped from his and he was forced to plant the maul in the sand to keep himself upright.
Hearing a rapid exchange of voices, he looked up with pain dimmed eyes to see the twelve fighters tensing for a charge.
Clearly, they had been quick to spot an opportunity to end this death match with the fearsome Amundyr before it began.
As they started forward, Ruhlin heard a dim, distant growl from the monster, but no accompanying swelling of muscle or limb.
A glance at the rim of the arena’s wall revealed a long procession of Ventra all staring at him, or rather, his stagna.
As long as they maintained its effect, the monster would be caged.
Show me your heart. Ruhlin surprised himself with the capacity to voice a short, bitter laugh. He wants to see me fight, he told the monster with a note of apology. Not you.
“Ruhlin.” Fernhyld’s voice, strained but now free of any sob, drew his gaze to the sight of her undoing the straps of her blindfold. “Get behind me.”
Unable to speak, Ruhlin expended a brief moment to regard the advancing fighters.
The ache from the stagna made his movements stiff, though he found the pain less acute the more he moved.
Still, the prospects of facing a dozen veteran champions of the Meidvang in such a state were poor.
Grunting with the effort, he placed himself at her back, filled with the shame of being reduced to the status of a child sheltering behind its mother.
“Whatever happens, do not look at my eyes,” Fernhyld told him as she undid the final strap and dropped her blindfold to the sand.
Ruhlin saw a few of the fighters exchange puzzled glances, but their approach didn’t slow.
When they had closed to within ten paces, a man in the centre of their line raised his axe to shoulder height.
“I’ll make it quick, girl,” he promised Fernhyld.
In response, she lowered her head, Ruhlin hearing her murmur, “I’m sorry.” Then she looked up.
The axe wielder skidded to a halt, the determined aggression on his face abruptly replaced by a mingling of pain and surprise.
Ruhlin could see no obvious cause for the man’s distress, then noticed the grey wisps of smoke rising from his sparse armour.
He began to scream when flames blossomed from his torso, quickly spreading to his neck and face.
The stench of seared flesh wafted across the arena as the fighter’s screams choked to silence, his throat eaten away by fire.
He flailed, describing a mad dance across the sand, scattering his fellow fighters before he collapsed, his entire body now a burning, blackened husk.
The shocked confusion of the other fighters lasted only as long as it took Fernhyld to alter the line of her gaze, whereupon the man closest to the axe wielder let out a piercing scream.
A hulking brute with deep scars criss-crossing his broad features, he coughed out a thick cloud of smoke as he sank to his knees.
Within seconds, fire had bubbled up from within his mouth to consume his face.
Fernhyld shifted her gaze once again and flames erupted from the scalp of a tall woman bearing a long spear.
The fire that assailed her seemed to spread less quickly, enabling her to dive to the ground, covering her head with sand to extinguish the blaze.
Ruhlin heard another pained shout, this time from Fernhyld as she tracked her gaze across the other fighters, each suffering an outburst of fire somewhere on their person, though not intense enough to consume them entirely.
“Now!” Fernhyld didn’t turn, but Ruhlin knew her command was meant for him. “I can’t do this for long. You have to act now!”
As Ruhlin forced himself into motion, the stagna sent fresh spasms of pain coursing through him.
The monster continued to voice its faint growl, but it was Ruhlin who dragged the maul from the sand and raised it above his head.
The first fighter he killed paid him no heed at all.
A tall man bearing identical curved swords, he stood batting scalded hands at the small inferno on his thigh as Ruhlin brought the maul down on his head.
One blow wasn’t enough to finish him, Ruhlin shouting with the effort of raising the maul once again before smashing it onto the swordsman’s already bloodied head.
It was a poorly aimed blow, striking the nape of his neck rather than his skull.
However, it succeeded in shattering his spine, leaving him a twitching, smoking wreck as Ruhlin stumbled towards his next victim.
This is murder, he knew as he killed, shattering the chest of the spear-bearer as she rose, sand sticking to the raw, scorched flesh of her scalp.
Yet he found he had no room for guilt in his heart.
If he and Fernhyld were to live, they all had to die.
Half the fighters had fled Fernhyld’s gaze so he struck down those too injured to follow their example.
Each one proved harder to kill than the last, though he benefitted greatly from their lingering panic and the burns that slowed them.
“Fucking coward!” a man spat at Ruhlin after the maul had smashed his legs.
He twisted upon the ground, trying to avoid the lethal blow while lashing out with a hatchet until Ruhlin swatted it from his grasp.
Half his face had been burned down to the bone and he stared at his killer with one hate-filled eye, managing a final curse before the maul spilled his brains.
“May the Altvar deny you the Halls, craven!”
Straightening from the body, Ruhlin surveyed the three surviving fighters.
They were spread about the arena, crouched to smother their smoking burns with sand.
None seemed keen to close the distance to Fernhyld, but he saw a predatory determination overcoming the pain on their faces.
Although made wary by her warning about looking at her eyes, Ruhlin risked a glance in her direction.
She was on all fours now, chest heaving and a fresh patch of vomit discolouring the sand beneath.
Clearly, her ability exacted a considerable toll.
Seeing his chance, a lithe, fleet-footed man sprinted towards Fernhyld, whirling a spiked ball on a chain.
Ruhlin had accustomed himself to the constant pain now, enabling him to intercept the charging fighter.
He struck him in the side, sending them into an untidy tangle.
Ruhlin felt the sharp spikes of the ball scrape his arm, but it was a dull thing compared to the stagna.
The lithe man was on his feet first, abandoning his flail to draw a dagger from his belt and turning to renew his attack on Fernhyld, then falling with a shout when Ruhlin swung the maul, catching the fighter’s ankle.
Lurching towards him, Ruhlin slammed the maul into the smaller man’s chest, provoking a gush of blood from his mouth.
Filled with the fury of survival, Ruhlin brought the maul down again, this time on his foe’s neck, crushing the flesh down to the spine.
A scuff of sand to his right snapped his gaze up.
An impressively muscled woman reared above him, sword poised for a thrust, then screamed as her eyes exploded in flame.
Whirling away, she clutched at the smoking sockets, letting out a series of animalistic shrieks until a thick, dark liquid began to gush from her ears and she fell face first to the sand.
Ruhlin looked to Fernhyld again. She was now slumped face down, features slack and body limp with utter exhaustion.
Only a dozen yards away, a tall man with livid burns across his chest hurtled towards her with war hammer raised, face livid with enraged, murderous intent.
Beset by the stagna’s ache, Ruhlin knew he wouldn’t reach the hammer wielder in time.
I need you, he implored the monster, reaching deep inside himself, feeding it all the rage and pain he could summon. Please…
The answering growl was louder than before, but still small, though Ruhlin felt the familiar heat kindle in his core.
Usually, the transformation would begin in his chest, but this time the heat spread to his arm.
The change was small compared to the monster’s previous visitations, increasing the definition of bicep and forearm despite an increased pitch of agony from the stagna.
The pain of hefting the maul once more brought forth a scream from Ruhlin’s lips, dimming his vision into a red mist, though he could still make out the hammer wielder now closing on Fernhyld’s unmoving form.
Had it been cast by the monster at full strength, the maul would have transformed the fighter’s head into a cloud of red powder.
Nevertheless, Ruhlin’s throw succeeded in slamming into the man’s skull from a distance of twenty paces.
He tottered forward a few steps, lips squirming and brows knitted into a confused frown, before collapsing.
Ruhlin shuddered in relief at seeing Fernhyld flinch when the fighter’s sundered head cast blood onto her face.
Struggling to his feet, Ruhlin groaned as the watching Ventra released the stagna.
The moment of blissful relief was short-lived, replaced by the injuries he had suffered over the course of the past few minutes.
Stumbling to Fernhyld’s side, he was only vaguely aware of the crowd’s uproarious acclaim.
As he cradled her head in his lap, tears continued to escape her eyes though she kept them closed tight.
“I hoped I would never do it again,” she wept.
Looking up at the Vortigurn’s platform, Ruhlin found the king standing once again at its edge.
The distance was too great to make out his face, but Ruhlin was sure he was smiling.
Looking again at Fernhyld’s face, streaked with tears and soot, he had to fight the impulse to raise her up and force her to visit her blessing upon the Vortigurn.
But that would have been too cruel. Later, he would have cause to reflect on the occasional necessity of cruelty.