Northern Oracle

The clangor of battle softened from an unearthly din to a subdued rumbling mutter across the bloody snowfield. Torn standards whipped wildly in the wind, frosty blue lions clutched to lifeless breasts. The corpses of the armored dead were strewn in heaps of iron and flesh. Bannerless men in fur and leather lay slain as well, though they numbered far fewer. Shattered hauberks and discarded swords littered the ground as thick as blades of grass. A few bands of living men roamed the carnage, bloodlust not yet sated, searching for any morsel of violence.

The Yornish reavers had driven Varia's crushed and crippled company to the edge of a frozen ravine. The sun flashed with icy brightness overhead, nearly blinding the weary mercenaries perched on the precipice of the icicle-tinged depths. Brutish forms, half hidden in snow shadow, stalked them purposefully, promising a brutal end.

Varia gritted her teeth and clenched white knuckles around the leather-wrapped hilt of her slender sword. The cold sliced through her scale mail corselet and cotton breaches. Her leather boots were damp with snow, the wetness from the ankle-deep frost soaking into their tops. She had lost her battered helmet an hour ago, and now only her raven hair, drawn up in a tight bun, protected her scalp from axe and arrow.

Little remained of the Maruban host which had ridden forth from Hearthkeep. The axe-rent corpses of blue lions in plate and greaves lay piled five to one against blood-painted Yornish reavers brought down by scores of stabs and cuts. Prince Lennart's overburdened cavalry, unused to galloping in the knee-deep snowdrifts of the far north, had been slaughtered by the Yornish. Northern axes had chopped down the prince in the first doomed charge, leaving his mercenary army to warlord Norden's swift and cruel disposition.

For Varia everything that followed was chaos. Reavers had seemed to rise up out of the snow in countless numbers. The wind had whirled the snow into great white clouds that obscured all but a narrow field that stretched the length of her swordpoint, no further. The snowstorm gained ferocity as if summoned and fueled by the violence.

She'd struggled bitterly against her foes, cutting and stabbing and hacking at the reavers in a frenzy as her comrades died screaming beside her. Commander Ornet had been buried by a sea of Yornish berserkers, leaving their troop leaderless. Erabus had hacked his way to her side with a sword in either hand, his shaggy blonde hair soaked with blood, and informed her that they were the last two captains of the Sure Blades mercenary company still alive.

They'd taken command then and rallied their surviving men into a tight throng that hacked a blind path across the snowy earth. Blundering away from the core of battle, they nearly toppled over the edge of a sharp, icy canyon, and now there was no place left to go but the afterlife.

"We've had it," sighed Erabus with a grim smirk. "Fuck the gods for putting us here. At least we'll go out fighting."

"We'll give the men a good death," she replied. "It's not the payment they signed on for, but it's something."

The captains laughed darkly, the inevitable mirth of the approaching grave, and the mood galvanized the weary men to defiance against the hopeless annihilation bearing down on them. Old Gait was there, veteran of more pitched battles than anyone in the company, and he'd lost an eye someplace along the way. Forlan had survived as well, but his cocky and irreverent bravado had dulled with the tide of battle. The rest she didn't know. Here, so close to death, she wished she'd taken the time to know them better.

Varia had argued against Commander Ornet's decision to throw the Sure Blades in with Lennart, but the prince had seduced him with chests of heavy gold coins and fat, glimmering sapphires. Now that both commander and prince lay dead on the field, payment seemed out of the question. Too bad, Varia thought, but that's where greed gets you.

Looking to Erabus, tall and resolute at her side, Varia was filled with a different kind of regret. Her fellow captain was tall and athletic, clean of face and sharp of eye. His glib demeanor and lightness of speech belied two lethal sword hands and a fierce survival instinct. She'd often thought of clenching his unkempt blonde hair between her hands, the two stripped of armor and clothes as he strained above her, cotton sheets tangled around them. But she'd seen sex lead to conflict too many times in years spent soldiering, so she'd pushed those thoughts from her head. Now blood from a head wound darkened his yellow hair, and resignation lay behind his characteristic humor. Too late for regrets now, thought Varia.

"I wish I could see the future," said Varia, the thought jumping into her mind unbidden. "I wish I could see the way out of this for us."

"Are you joking?" replied Erabus, smiling grimly. "I wish I could see the past. I don't remember the important moments half as well as I should." He paused, sensing that Varia was in no mood for flippant comments. "Look, if we survive..." he offered.

"We won't," she said curtly, looking away. No time for sentiment.

Varia sucked in frigid, gasping breaths as she surveyed the motley survivors of the slaughter. Only nine of her troops remained. Two hundred of their brothers and sisters lay dead on the snow, hacked apart by Yornish axes. Soon we'll join them, she thought. With cleft skulls or run through by the icicles below, it makes no difference.

Without warning Erabus leaned over and grabbed the back of her head, bringing his cracked and bloody lips down to her own. He tasted like sweat and iron. She let it go on, pursing her mouth to meet him, enjoying the warmth of his breath. Why did we wait so long to do this?

Forlan gave a whoop and shouted, "Careful lads, Cap'n Erabus has got a third blade stashed in his trousers!"

When Erabus pulled back his characteristic grin had softened to a forlorn half-smile. "Couldn't resist," he explained. "Probably won't get another chance."

"No," Varia agreed. "Probably won't. But you'd best quit thinking with your cock, cause Norden's bastards will be on us soon enough. And I don't know about you, but I plan to send as many of them to hell as I can."

Her words brought an enthusiastic murmur from the dejected band. Even Old Gait, ever taciturn, gave an appreciative grunt.

"Old death's hanging over our shoulders," shouted Varia, addressing the whole company now. "But that's nothing new for killers like us. Look there, through the curtain of snow." She pointed with her blade. "Those shadows are reavers coming to carve out our hearts. You could just jump off this cliff and let the icicles kill you. But I know you lot better than that. You're hard bastards. Mean bastards. The kind who won't go beyond the veil without a fight. So what if we die? Everyone dies! I don't give two shits if Norden sacks Hearthkeep and hacks off the King's head. That ain't our business. Our business is blood and battle. So fuck the King, fuck Norden, and fuck the gods! It's time for our last fight! With me, now!"

The survivors shouted as one, rising and gripping their weapons with frozen hands, blood throbbing heavily in their veins. Talking ceased, and they formed a tight line, cozying up to their comrades, instinct taking over. The shadows in the snow stalked closer, almost leisurely, knowing their prey had nowhere to run. Features clarified through the snowfall, and Varia saw Norden himself walking at the head of the group. Twelve men strode behind him, killers with murder in their eyes, come to bring them their deaths.

The reaver-king was a head taller than his men, with long ebon hair that whipped behind him and chilly yellow eyes that glinted with predatory excitement. He wore only leather breeches and a fur vest that left his arms bare, revealing thick cords of muscle that rippled beneath his skin. Norden moved with the easy grace of a snow leopard, agile and poised to strike. In his meaty palms he clutched an immense battle axe, its edge red and wet with the blood of Prince Lennart's cavalry. At fifty paces he held up a hand to halt his men and cast an appraising look over the mercenaries, lingering hungrily on Varia.

"I heard that a woman walked the field, leaving carnage in her wake like death's messenger," said Norden, his confident basso voice booming across the snow, his sharp accent giving a malicious edge to his words. "And here she is! Beautiful, deadly, and still ready for battle. She fights like a Yornish, eh?" The reavers nodded and voiced their assent, "You belong with us, battle-maiden, not with these soft southerners. Come with me. Join my circle of wives."

It wasn't the first time an enemy had made such an offer. Varia knew how she appeared to men. She was slim, shorter than her comrades, fair of face with sharply angled eyebrows and soft gray eyes. A slight swell in her scale mail hauberk betrayed her breasts to leering eyes, and more than one comrade had called her backside distracting in the thick of a fight. Be they northern or southern, men all thought the same way when it came to fucking.

"Wife?" she called back, pouring scorn into her voice. "Fuck being a wife. Especially the wife of a stinking, shit-eating savage like you," she called back.

"Such spirit!" said Norden with a dark laugh that rippled through the other reavers. "It only makes me want you more. Should I tell you what I'll do? I'll kill your comrades. Then I'll beat you senseless. Then I'll drag you to my tent and break you, slowly, until you beg for my cock. I promise you that."

Varia wondered how many others Norden had taken to "wife" before her. She'd heard how the Yornish treated women taken as prizes: like property, to be used and bred and cast aside. From the enraged snarl on Erabus' face, he knew it as well.

"One of us will be dead before you get the chance," returned Varia. "Is all you Yornish do talk about your tiny cocks? Or can you fight?"

Norden roared savagely, enflamed by Varia's taunting, and charged. His reavers fell upon the mercenaries like hungry dogs on a piece of fresh meat. The howl of battle rose again around them and blotted out all else, leaving only the pure, raw struggle at the knife's edge of life and death.

Varia danced nimbly away from the first axe aimed at her skull and returned a cut that opened the neck of her attacker, spilling his warm blood in a fountain onto the snow. Even as the reaver fell another took his place, attacking before she could avoid him. The axe crashed into her buckler and split it in two, leaving a deep gash in her forearm. Her arm went numb and she stumbled back. Another blow like that will kill me. She rolled underneath the next hacking swing, inside the man's guard, and thrust upward into his unarmored gut. The Yornishman groaned and took a step backwards, looking in disbelief at his ruined belly.

She stumbled to her feet, taking a moment to observe the whirling chaos around her. Old Gait lay motionless on the ground, his head split open. Forlan was swinging blindly with one arm, the other hanging bloody and limp at his side. Erabus was on his feet, yelling a battle cry as he turned aside an axe with one blade and ran its owner through with the other.

One by one her men died, some valiantly with reaver corpses about them, others too tired and wounded to resist. Soon only Varia and Erabus, side by side, remained standing against Norden and a half dozen reavers. Her breast swelled with each panting breath, the strength in her arms fading fast. Erabus fared no better, with a new deep gash in his side to add to the cut on his head. He spared her a glance and an affectionate smile that seemed to halt time, conveying in an instant a lifetime of feeling.

The Yornish stood down as Norden advanced alone on the wounded pair. The reaver-king appeared implacable and tireless, possessed by otherworldly strength and stamina, a dark god of battle bearing down on them.

"Yield to me now," ordered Norden. "I'll spare you both. A pretty man is nearly as much fun to break as much as a spirited woman. What do you say, pretty man? Ever been fucked by a reaver?"

Shouting defiantly, Erabus rushed the reaver-king, lashing out with twin swords like the fangs of a viper. For an instant it seemed they would find their mark, but Norden twisted through the ankle-deep snow with inhuman speed, laughing disdainfully as the blades sliced the air where his throat had been. The red-stained iron axe was a blur as it swung around to bite deeply into Erabus' chest. The swords slipped from the captain's numb fingers and plunged into the cold ground below. With a brutal kick, Norden dislodged Erabus from his weapon and sent the dying mercenary toppling back.

Varia screamed, blinded by anguish and anger, as Norden turned his attention to her. Her slim blade became a flashing needle, glinting with falling snow as she struck out again and again at the reaver-king. He deflected each cut and jab with deft, precise movements, driving her back through sheer force of size and power. She found herself easily overmatched, and a doomed realization cut through the rage: her foe was merely toying with her.

A mighty stroke glanced off the scales of Varia's hauberk and sent her reeling. The heel of her boot slipped over the edge of the ravine, and for an instant she teetered precariously, weightless. Then gravity pulled her back inexorably and she drifted like falling snow over the precipice.

"No!" Norden raged. "Southern bitch! You can't escape me!"

She smiled, spinning as she fell to look down at the canyon poised to swallow her like a colossal primordial beast, its gaping maw stuffed with icy fangs. The ground rushed up to meet her, a sea of blue ice and white snow. Her body crashed through a dense cluster of icicles, their razor points biting into her flesh, and the world went black.

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Varia awoke in a realm of frigid pain, a strained gasp sucking frosty air into her lungs. Her head spun drunkenly as she fought to comprehend her surroundings. Images flashed before her of the relentless snow, of her sword poised to thrust, of Erabus' cracked lips, of the reaver-king's inky black hair whipping in the wind, of the blades of ice lashing out as she fell.

For a moment she thought she was dead. The world around her seemed to reel weirdly, bright and dark at the same time. The snowfall had ceased abruptly and an eerie silence had fallen over the canyon. High above, the clouds had cleared, like a curtain drawn back to reveal the undulating purple ribbon of the aurora borealis. It was framed by talons of ice jutting from the canyon walls which girded the sky like a portal to the unknown.

Pain intimated the truth: she lived. Her left arm was slick with blood from where the reaver's axe had split her buckler. A thin frozen spike had pierced her corselet during the fall and buried itself in her chest, just missing her heart. It jutted upward now like a flagpole as she lay on her back. Shards of ice had peppered her face with cuts. The deep snow on the canyon floor had broken her fall, but left her body bruised and battered from the impact all the same. It would've gone easier if the fall killed me. With her injuries it seemed likely that this frozen gorge would be her grave.

Clasping the icicle piercing her midsection in two hands, Varia yanked. Her numb fingers slipped on the spar of ice and it refused to budge. Digging her nails in, she twisted, feeling a sharp pain in her chest. Varia cried out once, shocked by the sudden stabbing sensation. Her injured left arm throbbed as she flexed her muscles and gritted her teeth. Gradually the frozen splinter slid free, and a trickle of blood streamed from the unplugged wound.

With great effort Varia sat up, ignoring the pained protests from her flesh. From this new vantage point she saw for the first time an aperture in the canyon wall which pulsed with a faint red glow. The stone archway had been hewn by human hands, and faded runes stood out from its carved surface. In the frozen stillness of blue ice and purple sky, the flickering crimson light emanating from the cavern was the only movement, and it mesmerized her. Hidden from above by the icicles surrounding it and the snow which had fallen in sheets until minutes before, the revealed entryway promised fire and warmth and safety from Norden. For all I know that randy fucker might still be after me, she thought.

Varia gritted her teeth in determination, latching onto this new scrap of hope, and struggled to wobbly feet. Her sword had slipped from her hand in the fall and now lay buried invisibly under the blanket of snow. There was no point in searching for it. She took for a makeshift weapon the nearest thing at hand: the icicle which had nearly ended her life, still stained red from the blood that even now leaked out over her scaled corselet.

She approached the archway, and as she grew closer the characters inscribed in the stonework stood out clearly, framed by powdery snow that clung to the rock. She recognized them as Elder Glyphs, and a memory of childhood floated up unbidden. In it Varia sat on her father's lap at a wooden table in a dark room, lit only by a cluster of wax candles nearby. A book lay open before them, its text broken by illuminated Elder Glyphs. He told her the story of each one, his fingers tracing the shapes on the ancient yellowed page. The illustrations brought to life a world of invisible leylines that coursed beneath the ground, forming places of power where they intersected. In those places lay warlock's castles, or dragon's nests, or covens of witches. The pictures and his soothing voice transported her from their modest house to the realm of the fantastic.

The names and meanings of most of the runes had vanished from Varia's memory like wisps of smoke lost in a windstorm, but the two carved into the keystone she knew: "Northern Oracle." It was a story her father had often repeated. Of all the soothsayers and fortunetellers throughout Angrael, the one in the north was the cruelest and loneliest, a spirit cursed to dwell forever in a prison of ice. Its augur came at a heavy price to those desperate enough to seek it out, but no prophet saw the future as clearly.

Just a fairytale, she thought. Some idiot carved 'Northern Oracle' on the arch to be clever. But she found it hard to resist going inside to find out for sure. The air around the archway was noticeably warmer than the frigid air outside, and she hoped against hope that this cave, obscured from above, was unknown to Norden's reavers. Varia felt drawn forward, sore legs moving unbidden through the portal. Her boots echoed against the bare stone inside, startling her with its contrast to the silent snow bed in the canyon she had left behind. The red glow came from a brightly flaming brazier a little further in. The sconce of blazing coals stood in the center of a circular antechamber. A stone staircase led up to a passage leading further in, flanked on either side by twin statues of winged humans kneeling in repose.

Varia stumbled over to the brazier, relishing a moment to warm her hands and face over its flames. Her icicle began to weep from the heat, and Varia pulled back before the chilly spar melted away entirely.

A sound floated down to her from further in. What sounded at first like the rumble of rock tumbling down a mountain settled into a single bass note, low and deep and pure, resounding until the whole cavern vibrated. A voice, thought Varia, though unlike any human sound I've ever heard. A second joined the first, a hearty baritone that reverberated along with its lower partner. The two unearthly voices proceeded through a phrase of six notes, holding each part of the wordless chant for long echoing moments, before lapsing into silence as suddenly as they had begun. In the void left behind the only sounds were the crackle of fire and Varia's own heavy breathing. She had listened transfixed during the bizarre song, struggling to comprehend its meaning. It was like an invocation, or a summons. But to what?