The Grim Company

The Ultimate Lesson

Yllandris had thought she understood what it was to endure the deepest cold. The last couple of days had taught her otherwise.

She squinted, trying to make out the town a scant few hundred yards ahead of the war party. The blizzard that had buffeted them for the last few hours persisted stubbornly, slowing their advance and piling on the misery that had blighted the march since it began.

‘Fucking spirits be damned,’ Krazka spat, wiping frost from his beard with the back of his hand. His dead eye had frozen over and gleamed malevolently from his cruel face.

Standing beside the bloodthirsty chieftain of the Lake Reaching was Orgrim Foehammer. The grizzled old campaigner hefted his infamous great maul and scowled at the small army of Highlanders bustling behind them.

The war party numbered around five hundred men. The two Reachings provided the bulk of the force, with a further century of Heartstone’s finest warriors supplied courtesy of King Magnar. Somewhere in the swirling snow up ahead the menagerie of beasts that was the Brethren lay in wait. They would swarm out of the mist the moment hostilities with Frosthold began, a deadly whirlwind of claw and fang rending all before them.

The war party had lost seven men on the trek northwards. A mountain bear had burst out from an unseen hollow and killed the first, shaking him like a leaf until his arm tore away at the shoulder. The huge predator had begun disembowelling the screaming warrior before the first of half a dozen spears had buried themselves in its hide.

Two more Highlanders had plummeted to their deaths after a gust of wind stole them from the side of a ridge. Another three died of hypothermia.

The last man simply disappeared overnight. None of his fellows could recall his departure. That incident was the most troubling of all, as Wulgreth had originally hailed from the North Reaching before swearing loyalty to King Magnar. If he had deserted to warn Frosthold of their coming, the invasion of the town would prove all the more difficult.

And difficult it was likely to be. The capital of the North Reaching was home to almost three thousand Highlanders, a full quarter of them men of fighting age. However, that wasn’t what bothered Yllandris most. Frosthold’s circle was both large and powerful. Even with her sisters and the circles of the two Reachings beside her, the young sorceress felt a hint of trepidation.

Fifteen sorceresses against eight. The High Fangs will not have witnessed such a contest in many years.

‘Pay attention, sister,’ snapped Shranree. The woman’s plump red cheeks were accentuated by the freezing cold so that she resembled an oversized apple buried within a bundle of furs. Yllandris only just suppressed a snort of amusement. Old Agatha shot her a withering glance, a bead of frozen snot hanging from the end of her ridiculous nose.

Yllandris couldn’t stand either of the two sorceresses, but they were the most senior members of her circle and she was bound to obey them. Not for long, she thought. A queen acquiesces to no one. Then she remembered the Shaman and the way Magnar had kowtowed before him, and her momentary satisfaction wilted and died.

‘We will accompany the warriors at the head of the force,’ Shranree announced, her voice muffled by her hood. ‘Our allies from the Lake and East Reachings will focus their power on nullifying the threat from the enemy circle. We,’ she added, looking at each of the six women in turn, ‘will rain fire down upon the town. Our task is to force the men, women and children from their huts so our warriors may cut them down.’

Yllandris felt a moment of unease. ‘I don’t see how the murder of children accomplishes anything. What part do they have in the rebellion?’

Old Agatha tutted softly. ‘Do you know nothing of our history, girl? Bad seed must be culled lest it corrupt the entire herd.’

Shranree nodded, her flabby jowls wobbling. ‘The children of traitors inevitably grow to adulthood with the same poison festering in their hearts. They must die.’

‘You were too young and inexperienced to play a part in the razing of Beregund,’ added Old Agatha. ‘Now you have the opportunity to prove yourself. Failure could cost the entire circle.’

Yllandris glared at the old crone. ‘I won’t let you down.’

Shranree gave her a patronizing smile. ‘I trust you won’t. Now, the men are preparing to advance. We should join them.’

Yllandris wiped snowflakes from her face, pulled her wolfskin cloak tighter around her body, and followed her sisters as they made their way over to the warriors.

The light was dying. The snow continued to fall.

Like Heartstone, Frosthold perched on the edge of a great lake. However, unlike the capital and the surrounding Reachings that made up the region known as the Heartlands, this far north spring had yet to gain any kind of foothold. The North Reaching was frozen and would remain that way for all but a couple of months of summer.

Yllandris watched her breath mist in the frigid night air as she and the other sorceresses approached the high wooden gates. She saw no sentries on duty, but a couple of shapeless bundles gathered snow near the gatepost to the left of her. It seemed the Brethren had already begun their silent work.

Krazka glared at the gates with his good eye. He turned to Shranree, who was waddling along beside him and Orgrim Foehammer at the head of the war party. ‘Blow the fucking gates off,’ he barked. ‘Let them know we’re here.’

‘I reckon they already know,’ Orgrim replied. There was a flicker of light behind the gate, and then the sounds of boots crunching on snow.

Everyone readied their weapons. Yllandris reached down deep inside, evoking the power that throbbed within her veins and teasing it to the tips of her fingers. She saw her sisters doing the same.

There was the sound of a bar being raised. Very slowly, the gates creaked open…

To reveal four ragged figures: a man, a woman and two girls. Yllandris narrowed her eyes. She seemed to recall seeing the man before.

Mehmon.

It was indeed the chieftain of the North Reaching — but he was no longer the imposing figure she remembered from his audiences with the King in months gone by. He had been a proud warrior then, his long beard streaked with grey but his back broad and unbowed.

Now he was a broken old man. He hobbled towards them, his beard turned to white and his frail body robbed of the girth that had made him such a feared warrior even in his twilight years.

After a moment of confusion had passed, Krazka held up a gloved hand. ‘Mehmon? Is that you? You look like something my hounds shat out.’

The chieftain of the North Reaching halted. He stared across at his counterpart, his expression empty of hope. ‘Krazka… I didn’t expect you here.’

The Butcher of Beregund grinned, a predator’s smile completely devoid of humour. ‘This is quite the little reunion. I’d like to say you’re looking well, but that would be a barefaced lie, wouldn’t it? These your wife and girls?’ He nodded at the women shivering behind Mehmon. Each held a torch, revealing them to be emaciated.

Krazka gave a dramatic tut. ‘The poor lambs shouldn’t be out here. A girl could catch her death on a night like this.’

Orgrim frowned. ‘I ain’t got no quarrel with you, Mehmon. Fought alongside you in many a battle. Got a lot of respect for the warrior you once was, back in the day. But you know why we’re here.’

Mehmon turned to the leader of the East Reaching and raised his hands in a pleading gesture. ‘Foehammer, I ain’t doing this by choice. You got to believe me. We ain’t got a scrap of food between us. Our larders have been empty the past six months. My people are starving.’

The big chieftain looked uncomfortable. ‘These ain’t easy times for any of us, Mehmon. We got demons and all sorts pouring down from the Spine. More with every passing season. My own Reaching has taken the brunt of it. That doesn’t excuse our obligations to Heartstone. It never has.’

Mehmon shook his head. ‘Listen to me, Foehammer! I taxed my villages until they had nothing left to give me but their blood. Even that’s turned to dust. Frosthold’s about the only settlement left for a hundred miles. And we’re on the brink. We’re fucked.’

Orgrim stared at the ground and then squinted up at the sky. He seemed about to speak, but the sound of scraping steel drew everyone’s attention.

‘You bleat like a sheep, old man. You call yourself a chieftain? You’ve grown weak with age, and that’s the fact of it. Just like the Sword of the North, who was too damn proud to step down when the fire went out.’

Krazka had his sword in his hand, a wide, single-edged blade that was said to have cut more throats than an executioner’s axe. His dead, frozen eye glinted evilly in the quivering torchlight. ‘You know something, Mehmon? I fucked his wife and now I’m gonna fuck you. Except this time I’ll do it with steel.’

Mehmon’s wife and daughters were trembling, sending shadows dancing all over the snow. Yllandris felt her breath quicken and then her own body began to shake. She bit down on her lip, silently cursing her weakness. This hadn’t happened in years, not since she was a child, when her father used to come home and she had smelled the mead on his breath and knew her mother would be searching around for lost teeth on the morrow.

You’re not that girl any more. You are Yllandris, a sorceress of the Heartstone circle. Soon you will be Queen of the High Fangs.

Those thoughts calmed her. She felt her breathing slow and her body relax.

Mehmon looked at Orgrim in desperation. The Foehammer’s jaw was clenched and his teeth ground together, but he said nothing.

Krazka spat on the snow. ‘Draw your sword, Mehmon. Show some backbone before your wife and girls, at least. You wouldn’t want them to die knowing their old man was a coward.’

In reply, the haggard chieftain of the North Reaching snarled and pulled his broadsword free from the scabbard at his side.

Yllandris watched, transfixed. Mehmon had been a warrior of great renown back in his day, but that day had long passed. Krazka, on the other hand, was possibly the most infamous killer in the High Fangs, a warrior with nerves of ice who had climbed a mountain of skulls to claim his position as chieftain of the nation’s most powerful Reaching. Unlike Orgrim Foehammer, whose muscle had turned to fat over the years, the Butcher of Beregund carried not a pound of excess weight on his athletic frame. This was only going to end one way.

Mehmon lunged forwards, but he slipped and his charge became a stumble. Krazka sidestepped him effortlessly, then spun around and planted a boot on his arse to send him crashing face-first into the snow.

‘On your feet, Mehmon,’ Krazka said. ‘I ain’t done with you yet.’

The rebel chieftain of the North Reaching tried to push himself up, but his arms gave way and he collapsed again.

Yllandris glanced across at Orgrim Foehammer, who was staring off into the distance. Contempt filled her. Coward, she thought.

Krazka placed one hand on his chin and assumed a position of mock consideration as Mehmon struggled to rise. ‘I reckon you need a bit of encouragement,’ he said. He stalked over to Mehmon’s wife, yanked her head back and ran his sword along her neck before she had time to gasp. A bloody smile blossomed on her throat and she sank to the ground with a soft gurgle. The two girls began screaming.

Mehmon made a noise like a strangled animal. This time, full of maddened fury, he managed to scrabble to his feet. Krazka dodged his first wild swing, caught the second on his own blade and then turned it aside. With frightening speed, his cleaver-like sword came whistling down and severed his opponent’s hand.

Krazka stepped back, a satisfied smile on his face. ‘Well now, looks like you’re just about done-’ he began, but then he stopped and rocked forwards suddenly. There was a slight tearing sound.

One of Mehmon’s daughters clutched a small wood knife in her trembling hand. Yllandris could see the hole in Krazka’s magnificent white cloak where the knife had ripped the pelt. Apart from the damage to his prized mantle, the Butcher of Beregund appeared unhurt. He was, however, incredibly angry.

‘You bitch,’ he growled. ‘I’ve had this cloak for years. Killed a Highland cat for it with nothing but a hunting knife. It was that beast what took my eye. And now you’ve put a hole in it.’

‘Run,’ Mehmon croaked. He was on his knees, staring dully at the bloody stump at the end of his arm. His daughters heard him and made a break for it. Krazka watched them flee. Then he turned back to the fallen chieftain.

‘I might have been persuaded to grant you a swift death,’ he said. ‘That ain’t happening now. You’re coming back to Heartstone. It’s the flames for you.’

Sudden screams filled the air from the direction in which the girls had fled. The grunts and roars of savage animals punctuated the obscene sounds of tearing flesh. Yllandris felt sick.

‘Looks like the Brethren caught up with your girls, Mehmon. That’s that.’

Krazka turned and faced the war party. Most of the warriors had watched the confrontation unfold in silence. He raised his bloody sword high in the air and then pointed it at the gates.

‘The show’s over. We attack now and kill every last man, woman and child within these stinking walls. No mercy.’

No mercy. Yllandris took a deep breath, glanced at her sisters, and prepared to bring the King’s justice to Frosthold.

The sounds of clashing steel rang out ahead of her. Snow continued to fall, obscuring her view of the fighting, but it was clear that Frosthold’s defenders were offering scant resistance. Mehmon had not been lying. Famine had brought the town to its knees.

A shape loomed out of the darkness up ahead. It was a cart, overflowing with snow from which frozen limbs jutted out at odd angles.

A corpse wagon, Yllandris realized. They had piled the dead on the back of the cart but lacked the strength or will to carry them away.

They passed a cooking pit. She glanced down and saw the bones of various animals, most of them oddly sized. It took a moment before Yllandris realized they were the remains of the town’s dogs. She half expected to see a human thighbone or skull among the grisly remains, but it appeared things hadn’t quite become that grim. Not yet.

To her left, Shranree was breathing heavily. The woman was winded already by the short walk from the town gates. Flanking their circle to either side were the sorceresses from the two Reachings. They were a motley collection of the young, the old and the ancient: soothsayers and healers and wise women from numerous backwater villages and towns hastily assembled for the war party. In Heartstone, sorceresses lived alongside one another and formed a permanent circle out in the Reachings, they were permitted to gather only for specific occasions.

Sorcery was tolerated and occasionally even honoured, but it was not liked, and it certainly was not trusted.

A grunt ahead drew her attention. One of the town’s defenders was running towards them. The filthy furs he wore engulfed his wasted body, but there was fury in his eyes and he had an ugly club raised and ready to strike.

Old Agatha raised her walking staff, mumbled a quick incantation under her breath, and then pointed at the man with a bony finger. Fire leaped out from her extended digit and wreathed him in red flame. He screamed once and then toppled to the snow with a loud hiss. The flames sizzled out almost immediately, leaving a charred mess of bone and roasted flesh.

One of the sorceresses from the East Reaching retched. Yllandris narrowed her eyes. He had been coming straight at her. Had Old Agatha not acted…

I would have done what was necessary. The future Queen of the High Fangs will not perish here in this forsaken place.

‘Stop!’ Shranree hissed suddenly. The group halted abruptly. ‘Magic is being worked ahead of us,’ she explained. ‘I can sense it. Sorceresses from the Reachings, now is the time.’

Yllandris felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. The tang of magic was in the air. There was a flickering in the distance, and phosphorescent green globes of energy suddenly appeared in the black sky, moving closer at terrifying speed. She held her breath.

A translucent blue barrier sprang into existence above the heads of the sorceresses. Yllandris watched the women from the Reachings straining with effort as they maintained the magical shield above them.

It was not a moment too soon. The globes splattered down and struck the barricade, where they exploded into bubbling ooze that hissed and popped. One of the women from the Lake Reaching slid on a patch of ice, causing the section of barrier above her to wink out of existence. Green slime rained down, covering her head and shoulders, which began to steam. She uttered a high-pitched shriek and clawed madly at the corrosive material, but it had already eaten through her flesh and was now dissolving bone and sinew.

Yllandris tore her gaze away from the terrible sight. There was a glimmering in the sky up ahead, and then more globes were rising in the air to arc towards them.

‘Sisters, lend me your power!’ shrieked Shranree. In response, Yllandris drew upon all her magic, felt it shoot down her veins and make her skin prickle with energy. It begged to be unleashed. Instead she held it there, until she felt Shranree’s gentle probing. With a shudder, she surrendered the magic.

Shranree’s head tilted back in exultation. She raised her arms high into the air, fire dancing around her hands. Euphoric with the accumulated power of her sisters, she thrust her arms in the direction of the enemy circle ahead.

Motes of orange streamed skywards and then disappeared. All was silent. Nothing seemed to happen. Yllandris glanced at the round little woman and felt her lip curl.

You exhausted us for that? A pretty display of dancing lights? You aren’t fit to lead this circle, you useless lump of-

Glowing spheres of golden fire suddenly appeared in the sky. There were thirteen of them, forming a pattern hundreds of feet above the town. The central sphere floated directly above the spot where the green globes had appeared. It vibrated violently, seemed to shrink down on itself-

A towering pillar of flame roared down from the sky. They were bathed in a warm glow as superheated flame incinerated everything it touched.

The other spheres began to vibrate and then they, too, transformed into columns of raging death. The entire northern half of Frosthold had become a furnace. Yllandris’s breath caught at the sight of the devastation before her.

Shranree clapped her hands together happily. She wore a self-satisfied smile on her glistening face. ‘Wonderful,’ she said. ‘It’s a shame we had to lose a member of the Lake Reaching circle. Such are the perils of carelessness.’

Yllandris stared again at the unfortunate sorceress who had slipped on the ice. The body had stopped twitching and now the corpse lay huddled up on the snow like a child. She had barely been more than a girl — a couple of years younger than Yllandris herself. Fortunately, the look of hatred she shot Shranree at that moment went unseen by the senior sister.

‘We should begin cleansing the rest of the town-’ Shranree began, but she was interrupted by shouting. Fleeing the carnage to the north, a mob of Frosthold’s defenders appeared, rushing furiously towards them.

Bestial shapes suddenly emerged from the shadows and several of the shouts turns to shrieks, but even the intervention of the Brethren couldn’t stop some of the mob from reaching the sorceresses.

Starving men and women fell, torn apart by magic. A warrior managed to bury his axe in the head of one of the East Reaching sorceresses. Two more grabbed Old Agatha and dragged her away from her sisters. They beat her into the snow with their spiked clubs even as magical flame stripped the flesh from their bones.

Madness, Yllandris thought. They have gone mad. A woman lunged at her, a long gutting knife in her hands. She evoked enough power to thrust her attacker away from her, but her reserves were nearly empty and the effort almost made her scream. Her attacker hit the ground. There was a blur, and suddenly a snow leopard had its jaws locked around the woman’s skull.

‘Retreat,’ Shranree cried, and they fell back. The bulk of their own warriors had caught up with them by now. They met the desperate men and women of Frosthold head on, cutting them down without mercy.

The sorceresses retreated until they were almost at the gates. They were safe now, shielded by lines of their own warriors. With the town’s circle burned to a crisp and their chieftain already captured by the invading force, Frosthold’s defenders were lambs to the slaughter, caught between the fires raging in the north of the town and the warriors under the command of Krazka and Orgrim to the south. Desperate and weakened from lack of food, they fell like wheat before the scythe.

Yllandris tried to catch her breath. The sheer carnage had shocked her. Breathing deeply, she examined the smattering of structures nearby. The taverns, longhouses and other important buildings were all in the centre of town where the remnants of the fighting were taking place. There was nothing here but modest homes and hovels. She saw a small face peek out from behind the door of one and then dart back inside.

Shranree hadn’t missed it. ‘The worst is over,’ she said. ‘We are victorious. Now we flush these rats out of their holes and snuff the life from them. Spare no one.’

The senior sister turned and launched a ball of flame at a nearby cabin, where it exploded in a storm of fire. Screams echoed from within and then slowly died. Shranree clapped her hands together again and waddled off in search of more targets. The other sorceresses followed her for a time before breaking away to hunt their own prey.

Yllandris looked around. There, over near the wall: a small hut with a faint wisp of smoke curling from its roof. Someone had been foolish enough to forget to extinguish their hearth. Foolish… or so desperate for warmth they kept the fire going even with a murderous army on their doorstep.

The young sorceress felt increasingly uneasy. Highlanders followed the Code, a set of rules meant to uphold the martial tradition that had made the warriors of the High Fangs feared throughout the known world. That way of life had existed for centuries. And then the Shaman had come, and though he had created the Brethren to defend them and ensured their freedom from the tyranny of other Magelords, he had altered the Code.

The Shaman had decreed that strength was the only true virtue. By its nature, weakness invited the imposition of will from the strong. The weak deserved neither sympathy nor mercy, as their very existence was akin to that of a deer providing sustenance for the hunter. The weak became strong or they perished. That was the natural order of things.

Yllandris was strong. She had refused to be weak, had broken the insidious shackles of a troubled childhood to achieve true greatness. Was she not a living demonstration of the Shaman’s ideology? She smiled to herself. One day I will be the Shaman’s ultimate lesson. The last he ever learns. I wonder if he will appreciate the irony.

Her power burgeoned, the magic sufficiently recovered from her earlier exertions. Blue flame flickered around her hands as she approached the hut. Let Shranree and the others deal death from afar. Yllandris would deliver this particular lesson personally.

She struck the door with such power that it tore away from its hinges. Then she stepped inside the hovel and raised her glowing fists.

She lowered them again when she saw the terrified eyes staring up at her. There were three of them: two girls and a boy, none older than eight winters.

Their mother lay next to the hearth. The woman knew she was there, but she was too weak even to raise her head. The entire family looked near starved. The children shrank away from Yllandris to huddle closer to their dying mother as if she could protect them. The boy was too afraid even to look at her.

The ultimate lesson…

Yllandris felt her body begin to tremble. She turned away and stumbled out of the hut. A warrior emerged from the home opposite, his sword bloody and a wide grin on his gap-toothed face.

‘More in there?’ he asked jovially. ‘I’ll deal with them.’ He nodded respectfully and made to walk past her into the building.

Her force-shove sent him flying forty feet through the air to crash into the side of the town wall. Bones cracked. His lifeless body slid to the ground.

Yllandris pulled her cloak tighter about her and before she knew it she was running, tears streaming down her face and turning to ice on her cheeks. She reached the gates, ducked outside them and then sank down onto the snow, silent sobs racking her body while inside the city blood continued to flow and fire consumed everything it touched.

Sudden motion caught her attention far above, and she looked up with wet eyes to catch the dark shadow of something huge and inhuman. It circled once, moving at terrifying speed, and then whirled away eastwards.

Its passing left her shivering uncontrollably, and not from the numbing cold.